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 DarkHound wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I like how it went from "best version ever" to "utter garbage fire" in twelve posts, and the intermediate posts are almost perfectly sorted between the two extremes.

I'm a little impressed but, honestly, I'm not surprised. I love to complain about GW, even now. It's just a shame it was 3 steps forward, 2 steps back. It's great that GW finally opted for more timely updates, but I should have anticipated those rules would often be broken on arrival.

I'm left with this conundrum: I have an LGS, but this seems like an awful game to play pick-up matches. Alternatively, if I were to introduce some of my friends casually, it seems like an awful narrative game.

There's probably a sweet spot where your friend group plays armies that are intentionally competitive with each other, and you house rule out all the bad stuff.

I would like to let you know that the game is good; but it most certainly has become bloated recently. That complexity is a real barrier for entry. At the start of 8th, the barrier was like a turnstile - pay a small fee for the indexes, then come on in and have fun. Now it's like waiting in line at the DMV. Once you get through, it's fine... but man, that is a challenge.

My recommendation as someone re-entering the game at this point is to start with a 1500 point game, no stratagems, no warlord traits, and no relics. Definitely go to your LGS and tell people that you're getting back into the game and this is what you'd like to do - a lot of people are sure to take you up on that offer! Battlescribe is an excellent tool as well, and people there likely have it so can quickly (and accurately) refine their lists. WARNING: 40k is a lot BIGGER than it used to be, and very powerful things regularly walk the streets. You're going to get a red behind these first few games. Take it in stride, and after the first game start asking how you can do better. It's not just about killing - there's a lot of tricks to the game that if you can remember them can have a huge impact.

Here's an example of that. The Genestealer Cult have a psychic power called Mind Control. Really strong power that just gets better as you target something more and more powerful with it - like an Imperial Knight. If you have something with really good shooting in your army, this power might become very frustrating to deal with. However, there's an easy trick to avoiding it! You can put 1 model from another squad within 1" of that big model. Since Mind Control is worded in a way that says it fires as if it were a part of your army, that means it has to obey shooting and targeting restrictions as if it were in your army too, and you can't shoot if you're within 1" of an enemy model (you're locked in close combat, effectively). Congrats! Your big powerful thing can now shoot on your turn, but is impossible to shoot with for your opponent! Easy trick, but you need to be mindful of it, and doing it might restrict your movements in some other ways (maybe you really need that model to be somewhere else) - but wow, is it effective.

(So effective, in fact, that I think GW needs to fix Mind Control to allow you to shoot even if locked in combat, or allow the model to make all its attacks in close combat and not just a single attack - because this interaction makes Mind Control totally unusable.)

 DarkHound wrote:
The parts that felt bad were basically anything involving moving infantry.

5th was when I was most active in this game, so I know the pain that moving models was. I didn't exactly make it easy on myself. I played Guard, I wasn't that fond of mech, and I hated gunline. So my strategy often came down to forlorn charges of power blobs, backed up by tanks. It was a lot of fun but the movement phase could destroy a man's will to live.

Now, I loved 5th. But I feel that 8th is so much more enjoyable. Just the removal of templates alone takes out such a massive amount of headache nonsense that it instantly makes the game ten times more enjoyable. Did you ever try to resolve multiple barrages? Those rules were so horrible. Now using mortar squads takes a few seconds, and you don't have to worry about unit spacing to the insane degree that templates forced.

Other improvements make the game feel way better too. Thinks like complex wound allocation in 5th were nightmarish. Diverse paladin units almost killed my enjoyment of 5th, because they just felt so wrong. I don't think anything in 8th comes close to that sort of nonsense.

I know that who you play with makes a big difference to your enjoyment of the game. But assuming that you played every edition against the same sort of reasonable, friendly, and fun opponent, I think that you would have the best time playing 8th. Sure there still loads of problems, but it is better than it was.

 Galas wrote:

TBH have you tought that maybe... thats just a different way of writting a game? I mean. Is obviously not perfect. Is obviously not even pretty good. Mediocre is the best way of describing it. But theres nothing wrong in the theory of making a simple game at his core and then adding expansions and content that make it depper, but many people here is saying like theres a problem with that.

But that only works if the core rules are solid to begin with. And 8th's core rules are made of breadsticks and hope.


That aside, though, my issue has been more with those who complain about the bloat whilst also praising the core rules.

Again, one of the biggest issues is that the core rules have no mechanics that can be used or expanded on, hence why every army basically has to have an entirely different set of mechanics.

 Galas wrote:

Stratagems are fun

By what measure? I think they're an ugly and superfluous addition to the game.

IMO 40k should have gone the route of AoS when it comes to Command Points and Command Abilities. This would tie Stratagem-type abilities to specific HQs (so they they have a role in the army, rather than every Stratagem being delivered from nowhere), whilst also allowing most or all Aura abilities to be cut from the army (dealing with the issue of everyone and his dog having barrels of rerolls).

 Galas wrote:
new rules for your armies are fun, and even if I don't like when they release a codex to release a book 4 months after with new rules, stratagems, etc... they always add new and fun things to try. For example with Psychic Awakening, the Tau Book, has a ton of rules for a PROPER Farsight's Enclaves army, and just reading those rules, warlord traits, stratagems, etc... gave me a ton of ideas for lists to try on the table.

I absolutely agree that new rules for your army can be fun.

What isn't fun, though, is watching every other army get fun and interesting rules whilst your own army is handed a wet dog turd.

(I'll freely grant that this one isn't an issue with the Core Rules. Just with GW's increasingly tiresome habit of simply not putting the slightest bit of effort into releases for certain factions.)

 Galas wrote:

And I mean... when hasn't that been the paradigm of 40K?

But then what's the point of changing editions when they aren't prepared to learn any lessons from mistakes in previous editions?

Again, if this was the 1st edition of a ruleset by a new company I'd be a lot more forgiving. Or if GW's rules were free.

But instead this is the 8th edition of a game that charges premium prices for its rules. And the quality of the rules fails to live up to either of those things.

Collect a different army?

You seem obsessed with rules yet aren't prepared to chase them? If this is your main focus do something about it.

 Ishagu wrote:
Collect a different army?

Man, you're really earning your money today, aren't you?

 Ishagu wrote:

You seem obsessed with rules yet aren't prepared to chase them?

What.

 Ishagu wrote:
If this is your main focus do something about it.

If GW wishes to hire me to design 9th edition for them I'd be more than happy to offer my services.

I won't hold my breath.

You do realise that today's best army is tomorrow's average army and next week's worst army, right?

This is the cycle books go through. Why are you complaining about faction rules in a topic that has nothing to do with them?

 Ishagu wrote:
You do realise that today's best army is tomorrow's average army and next week's worst army, right?

So why were you advising me to get a different army?

 Ishagu wrote:
Why are you complaining about faction rules in a topic that has nothing to do with them?

If you are seriously claiming that faction rules are somehow entirely separate from how the game feels to play then either you are being deliberately obtuse or else you are completely delusional.

Either way, there is demonstrably no point even trying to continue a conversation with you. Farewell.

GW's base rules usually seem reasonable until the codices start dropping.

@vipoid

The topic creator did not ask about balance between factions, did he?

He outlined what he didn't like about past editions. 8th edition has done away with his complaints. Finding it hard to stay on topic?

 Ishagu wrote:
People who complain about the balance a lot are clearly lacking long term experience with 40k. It's a lot better than it has been in past editions, including 5th.

That's not true at all. The current SM Codex is probably the most imbalanced set of rules GW has put out since the WHFB 7th edition Daemons. The problem isn't that you can make broken lists using the Codex, it's that the power level of it is so far beyond other books it's almost impossible to make a soft list without trying really, really hard. As an example, we have an Eldar player in my group. Eldar are undoubtedly a very powerful army in the right hands but you actually have to try to build such a powerful list. He has a "typical" Eldar army from a background perspective: some Wave Serpents, Guardians, some Wraith units, some War Walkers and a smattering of Aspect Warriors and characters. It's a fairly fluffy list...and it gets annihilated by just about any SM army it comes up against because that book is so overpowered it takes a real effort to not end up with a broken army. So no, the balance isn't a lot better than previous editions, and that's saying something given GW's track record. Even in the dark days of 7th edition it was pretty obvious the Formation system was broken so the fix to having more balanced games was pretty easy to identify. Nowadays, just having a typical SM army can lead to some miserable games for some opponents.

To reiterate for the OP: I think 40k works fine if you have a group of like-minded players who communicate their intentions before a game and are able to build armies to match those intentions. If that describes your group then you're probably going to be fine, but you need to be aware you'll need to continually moderate your group to stop things getting out of control. However, if you play in a more open, pick-up game environment you might encounter some problems because the imbalance between factions can lead to some seriously lopsided games.

Okey, but is faction dependand. What your faction is good, you have a ton of options to have fun. you can play big tournaments, play localy, what ever. if army works it works. But if you have an army that has only one good build, then your more limited in your fun. If the build is only good for hardcore top tables of large tournaments, people at the local store may not like it. But the worse situation is when your army is just plain bad. Then it doesn't matter, if the opponets are store opponents or tournament people. Your amount of fun is always going to be the same.

Slipspace wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
People who complain about the balance a lot are clearly lacking long term experience with 40k. It's a lot better than it has been in past editions, including 5th.

That's not true at all. The current SM Codex is probably the most imbalanced set of rules GW has put out since the WHFB 7th edition Daemons. The problem isn't that you can make broken lists using the Codex, it's that the power level of it is so far beyond other books it's almost impossible to make a soft list without trying really, really hard. As an example, we have an Eldar player in my group. Eldar are undoubtedly a very powerful army in the right hands but you actually have to try to build such a powerful list. He has a "typical" Eldar army from a background perspective: some Wave Serpents, Guardians, some Wraith units, some War Walkers and a smattering of Aspect Warriors and characters. It's a fairly fluffy list...and it gets annihilated by just about any SM army it comes up against because that book is so overpowered it takes a real effort to not end up with a broken army. So no, the balance isn't a lot better than previous editions, and that's saying something given GW's track record. Even in the dark days of 7th edition it was pretty obvious the Formation system was broken so the fix to having more balanced games was pretty easy to identify. Nowadays, just having a typical SM army can lead to some miserable games for some opponents.

To reiterate for the OP: I think 40k works fine if you have a group of like-minded players who communicate their intentions before a game and are able to build armies to match those intentions. If that describes your group then you're probably going to be fine, but you need to be aware you'll need to continually moderate your group to stop things getting out of control. However, if you play in a more open, pick-up game environment you might encounter some problems because the imbalance between factions can lead to some seriously lopsided games.

That is absolute rubbish lol.

Eldar's 2nd codex in 7th was on a level unlike anything in 8th, and this is just one example.

 Ishagu wrote:
Collect a different army?

You seem obsessed with rules yet aren't prepared to chase them? If this is your main focus do something about it.

yeah, as soon as I get a second confirmation money, oh wait you only get that once per life. Bumer I guess I need to wait till I go to work or find money on the street.

I don't know about that. Shooty marines are pretty nuts right now.

Karol wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
Collect a different army?

You seem obsessed with rules yet aren't prepared to chase them? If this is your main focus do something about it.

yeah, as soon as I get a second confirmation money, oh wait you only get that once per life. Bumer I guess I need to wait till I go to work or find money on the street.

This hobby is not a necessity. If you feel you can't afford it I would suggest you don't involve yourself with it.

You can play smaller games or Kill Team if finances don't agree with collection large armies.

Karol wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
Collect a different army?

You seem obsessed with rules yet aren't prepared to chase them? If this is your main focus do something about it.

yeah, as soon as I get a second confirmation money, oh wait you only get that once per life. Bumer I guess I need to wait till I go to work or find money on the street.

confir what now?

You got money for saying "I'm a catholic". I feel ripped off i never got that.

and you realize there are more sources of income that religious events and streets?

Not currently playing, but my local players seem to like it

Could do with a bit more joined up design rather than sections given their pet projects and for the lub of bod bring back USR's (as there's currently a bucket of FNPish all with slightly different names)

 DarkHound wrote:
How is the game now?

Compared to 5th you roll a lot more dice for a lot less effect. At the extreme end you've got something like a marine repulsor tank armed with twin lascannon, onslaught gatling cannon, 2 fragstorm launchers, 2 krakstorm launchers, 3 stormbolters and a heavy onslaught cannon... and when you've finished rolling all of that you'll also be re-rolling all of it, and possibly adding to it with stratagems, chapter rules, psychic powers, and so on. And all that to sandblast something off the board a wound at a time.

Movement is much faster with less emphasis on positioning - bunch your troops up, fly your tank backwards towards the enemy. Either way stuff will either be butting heads turn 2 or tied up trying to grind through screens.

The core rules are fairly straightforward, but the unique factional rules are getting increasingly difficult to keep track of - especially as GW have moved away from USRs to have 50 differently named indentical instances of a given rule included in the unit profiles.

The mission cards aren't half bad if you use the improved rules from white dwarf (which gives you a more controlled hand to work with, rather than death by poor luck). Certainly a change from the somewhat wonky 5e win conditions.


Overall i'd say they slimlined the wrong parts of the game, and seem to mix their balance attempts up with their sales pushes, but as others have said it's better than 7th. But be prepared to invest time in learning all the faction unit rules, army rules, stratagems, etc and be buried under a wall of dice and unique special abilities you've never heard of until you do.

 SeanDavid1991 wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
Collect a different army?

You seem obsessed with rules yet aren't prepared to chase them? If this is your main focus do something about it.

yeah, as soon as I get a second confirmation money, oh wait you only get that once per life. Bumer I guess I need to wait till I go to work or find money on the street.

confir what now?

You got money for saying "I'm a catholic". I feel ripped off i never got that.

and you realize there are more sources of income that religious events and streets?

Sure there are, but if you know poland you'd realize that those are pretty rare for a student.

Having played since 2nd edition:

The good:

- The core rules are the most streamlined they've ever been. This does come with some oddities (how Line of Sight is handled, for example) but it does mean the game mechanics are very easily picked up.

- Blast markers, templates, vehicle-specific rules, range guessing etc are all gone. These were thing that added a lot of minutiae to the game, and frankly I'm glad to see them go.

- Stratagems can add extra interest and subtlety to the game, especially where they're a limited amount of risk mitigation (e.g. command re-rolls and insane bravery).

- Having each character be it's own unit, often with an aura buffing nearby units, feels a lot better to me than having characters join units.

The bad:

- The aforementioned oddities that come with the streamlined rules. Line of Sight, the lack of quality terrain rules, and the overwatch mechanism are... not the best.

- The game leans far too heavily on re-rolls, which can slow things down and make it feel like things have a forgone conclusion.

- The psychic rules are pretty shoddy to be honest, way too simple and with a tendency to be a bit all-or-nothing. They also scale very badly.

- Some combos can be a bit ridiculous, especially when they involve stacking relics on traits on auras on stratagems on sub-faction rules.

The ugly:

- Super heavies. I just don't like them.

- Way too many rules and benefits on way too many pages. There's too much flicking back and forth mid-gme, and this can be overwhelming.

- New rules are coming out all the time, so it can be hard to stay on top of everything.

- The balance is not great, especially when playing against highly competitive armies.


Overall:

I think that 8th edition can be great fun, when playing with like-minded people. Personally, it's probably my favourite edition (with 5th being the other candidate), and I'm generally a fan of how they finally got rid of some 0f the sacred cows that were holding the system back.

I would recommend trying it out in smaller games (1000 points, no super-heavies) to begin with, and would also suggest leaving out stratagems, warlord traits, sub-faction rules, and so forth - start off playing with just the rules on the data sheets themselves.

I'd also recommend taking the most rabid opinions in this thread (looking mainly, but not entirely, at vipoid here) with a hefty pinch of salt. The best way to tell how it feels is just to give it a shot. Maybe ask if your local store/ group has someone who can show you the ropes.

 SeanDavid1991 wrote:


confir what now?

You got money for saying "I'm a catholic". I feel ripped off i never got that.

and you realize there are more sources of income that religious events and streets?

I don't in a rural area, so can't gather stuff. I go to sports school, so even if I somehow got permit to work as under 18, I wouldn't have the time to do it. And even then people here don't hire people with problems, well maybe outside of alcoholism. I do get money per month, but I spend it on supplements to keep up with others and on a play time at the store.
I don't get money from grandparents, because they are dead. I get to see my dad only durning summer, and I don't get stuff like birthdays etc because my step dad is against them. So yeah confirmation was my only big money. And if I had the choice, I would have never let myself be convinced to buy a w40k army, never. Stupidest thing I ever did. My sister got a tablet for hers, she has been happy with it for 2 years. I am kind of a okey with GK now, that is if my store gets the book, so I can use the new rules.

And by streets, I ment stuff like stealing, gathering metal to sell it etc. I don't do stuff like that.

vipoid wrote:

 SeanDavid1991 wrote:

You guys actively push away members of the hobby you claim to love so much.

No, GW is doing that with their awful rules.

Oh NO! NO! NO! The ITC and Nova players have created this issue.

 oni wrote:

vipoid wrote:

 SeanDavid1991 wrote:

You guys actively push away members of the hobby you claim to love so much.

No, GW is doing that with their awful rules.

Oh NO! NO! NO! The ITC and Nova players have created this issue.

No they are just a further symptome of gws failure, one that is potentially dangerous

Remember These rulesets would not have become relevant if gw didn't mess up so Hard.

Karol wrote:
And if I had the choice, I would have never let myself be convinced to buy a w40k army, never. Stupidest thing I ever did. My sister got a tablet for hers, she has been happy with it for 2 years. I am kind of a okey with GK now, that is if my store gets the book, so I can use the new rules.

If you're OK, then OK. But you've always sounded so unhappy for so long.

Remember, 40K is not a permanent life decision. You don't have to live with it forever now you've decided to play. If it starts making you that unhappy again, you may be better off just selling your army.

Take some decent photos, write a detailed description, find out how much international postage would cost, and stick it up on ebay. Give your army a reserve price of what you paid for it at least, I'm sure someone will buy it. Hell, if I was in the market for a new 40K army at the moment I'd consider it myself - always liked Grey Knights.

I don't get how people mentaly separate the idea of a GW rule set from rule set made by GW playtesters.

But then again I am doing a sport where a bunch of specific trainers from specific parts of the world decide what rules should be used, and what is okey and what is not. So, it is not like it aint GW rule set specific.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Crispy78 785592 10720556 wrote:

If you're OK, then OK. But you've always sounded so unhappy for so long.

Remember, 40K is not a permanent life decision. You don't have to live with it forever now you've decided to play. If it starts making you that unhappy again, you may be better off just selling your army.

Take some decent photos, write a detailed description, find out how much international postage would cost, and stick it up on ebay. Give your army a reserve price of what you paid for it at least, I'm sure someone will buy it. Hell, if I was in the market for a new 40K army at the moment I'd consider it myself - always liked Grey Knights.

ph trust me, the GK rule set combined with the models I have made for a horrible game expiriance. aint afraid to say that. I wouldn't really sell the army either, put too much in to it, to get maybe 75$ for it all, and probably still be left with stuff people won't buy. PA4 made GK, even as unoptimised as my a lot more fun. now if this means they are fun to play, am not sure, for that one has to be smarter or play for longer. The rules do look fun.

Just sell your army. If this hobby isn't making you happy don't imprison yourself in it.

Happens with everything - jobs, mmos, tv shows, etc

 Ishagu wrote:
Just sell your army. If this hobby isn't making you happy don't imprison yourself in it.

Happens with everything - jobs, mmos, tv shows, etc

this, I've long maintained you can't have fun wrong, but if its no longer fun for you then just stop

40k currently isn't my cup of tea but having lots of fun with other games

 Ishagu wrote:
Just sell your army. If this hobby isn't making you happy don't imprison yourself in it.

this is not always easy, specially if you don't have the current meta army and/or your stuff is not up to date (not talking about that you will never get your money back, but to find someone who will take it at all)

I find it is best at 500 points with restrictions to make 'fair' armies. Stuff that removes models that are hard to kill or lots of damage glasshammer. Terrain and movement and other issues become important then.

Then the bigger it gets and the fewer restrictions you have the more important 'alpha strike' and surviving it becomes.

As the edition has progressed the more games I am seeing won in the first turn, with stratagems typically buffing alpha strike stuff.

So then don't sell it. Pack it away and maybe in 10 years Karol will be back asking the same question as OP amd he can be told that 11th Edition is literally the worst edition ever and everything is an unbalanced mess, as is tradition on Dakka.