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In my defense, the thread isn't clear on which it wants to focus on.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I like many aspects of Infinity but one immersion breaking thing for me is the idea you can spend all your actions on a single unit. You can wind up with units sacrificing their actions to make a super ninja for a turn. It's a little goofy, imo.

It's called "Rambo-ing" and I find it's nowhere near as present in the game or as effective as people who grumble about it after reading the rules seem to think. You can do it but going back to the realism angle if one guy tries to run into the covering fire of a whole enemy team he'll discover quite quickly that he's still just one guy with no more than three hitpoints (in extreme cases) and get shot full of holes. (It does work really well on new players who don't know how to counter it but complaining about it is kind of like hearing a 40k player complain that all superheavies are busted because they're so much bigger than anything he can take; yes, a Spartan is a big scary tank, but it's wildly inefficient and easily countered.)

For the point of the thread Superheavies aren't exactly immersion breaking while one model supercharging at the expense of his pals being able to do anything is. It's a strange occurence provided by for the core mechanics. It's more akin to the Fall Back and tri-cornering in terms of gamey manipulation.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
But in a rules sense: why can a Valdor shoot whole being locked up but a Malcador can't? What is fundamentally different about those vehicles? Etc.

Valdor has 20 wounds which brings it into GW's understanding of what a "TITANIC" unit is, because it is TITANIC it gets the Astra Militarum TITANIC ability that lets it shoot while in melee. Malcador does not. Maybe they should both be 18/20 wounds, maybe the roles should be reversed, but the why is pretty simple. You have to put your definitions somewhere, a line that separates the good from the great, the Elites from the Troops and that distinction will fail to make perfect sense sometimes.

Gitdakka wrote:
Its just that every game I played in 8th my marines take like 80 casualties. Spread that over three years and ive lost like 1000s of black templars. All of these battles were cannon to me. But the lore saying that there is only some 1000 dudes in my chapter at any given time, while there are also 100s of other black templar players out there participating in the galactic conflict that is 40k. There has to be alot more marines than the lore says for it to make sense.

This is the disconnect between game and the lore that I mean.

I like how a table top classic marine army is organized with light tanks, drop pods, rhinos, dreadnoughs, marines in their tac, dev and assult variants. I's just weird that the lore does not match this in any way that makes sense

Removed from play does not always mean KIA.

They say that, but it's another immersion breaking issue. My marines that got shot point blank in the face with plasma are probably dead.

It is interesting that Squad Leader was considered more "abstract" by some at the time, which is pretty hilarious. I think its a bit of a false dichotomy to think in terms of "realism vs abstraction" in game design. The games are all abstracted. As a player you have virtual omniscience. In my reconnaissance squadron commander back in "reality" I was happy when I had a general idea where my Troops were and a rough idea where the enemy might be. I was happy when my Troops followed my intent and certainly did not control their movements with the fidelity of a tabletop wargamer. As a Lieutenant I was happy when I wasn't completely lost, never mind trying to achieve the coordination required for what some call tabletop "tactics." I think that we could ask for some level of realistic "effect" in our wargames but that's about it. Details or "chrome" can be fun and add flavour but be careful calling that "realism."

Miniatures games are in a tough spot for those obsessed with "realism" when we look at scale. There is no realistic ground scale, never mind time scale. Some games like Flames of War explicitly state that they have a "sliding ground scale" to accommodate divisional artillery and squad level weapons on the same 8x6 table. Epic did something like that as well. For the record I think that the final version of Epic was the best GW game. Too bad virtually nobody played it.

I think that elegance in game design happens when you have fairly simple mechanics that portray quite complex ideas and problems. I think that DBA was elegant in that it distilled a deep understanding of ancient warfare into a simple but not simplistic game system. In terms of playability it was easy to learn yet hard to master. The design of 8th Ed is clearly leaning towards streamlining to increase playability/design elegance. Is it actually elegant? Maybe,maybe not - its certainly more elegant than 7th Ed! I can have games with a host of different types of units yet I do not have to have my head in the rule book.

Some are sad about the streamlining and that is to be expected. Wargamers are difficult to please. Some folks want more detail and are at their happiest arguing rules subsections during a game like a divorce court lawyer. Others complain about "bloat." I do feel bad for people that like a game and then get left-behind by Edition change. I've been that guy. Sometimes you gotta either suck it up and play or move the heck on.

Martel732 wrote:
They say that, but it's another immersion breaking issue. My marines that got shot point blank in the face with plasma are probably dead.

Heh, slap a bionic face on them & they'll be fine.

Besides, doesn't matter. How many games have you played throughout your 40k career? Whatever the #, there's been 10k+ years since the Heresy. You're games (and their casualties) are merely random samples along that timeline.
And that's assuming they're even "real" battles. Some of them might simply be Holodeck style simulations. In-fact I think that's a pretty good way to look at all this as it'd certainly explain the rules shifts & oddities.

ccs wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
They say that, but it's another immersion breaking issue. My marines that got shot point blank in the face with plasma are probably dead.

Heh, slap a bionic face on them & they'll be fine.

I know thats a joke, but bionics are another immersion breaker for me, to be honest, at least as 40k does it. For marines and orks, bionics are a downgrade from their transhuman and absurd fungus biology. The idea they get benefits from cyberlimbs is rather silly. I can see them as useful for normal humans, but not for transhumans derived from the flesh of warp-touched demigods.

Iron Hands should be the weakest marine chapter by a big margin, and Ghaz an utter clod, just a weaker dread that other orks point in the direction of the enemy and let rampage.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
But in a rules sense: why can a Valdor shoot whole being locked up but a Malcador can't? What is fundamentally different about those vehicles? Etc.

Valdor has 20 wounds which brings it into GW's understanding of what a "TITANIC" unit is, because it is TITANIC it gets the Astra Militarum TITANIC ability that lets it shoot while in melee. Malcador does not. Maybe they should both be 18/20 wounds, maybe the roles should be reversed, but the why is pretty simple. You have to put your definitions somewhere, a line that separates the good from the great, the Elites from the Troops and that distinction will fail to make perfect sense sometimes.

Yes you've explained the mechanical difference, but that doesn't make sense.

Why do TITANIC vehicles get to shoot while in Melee and not regular vehicles? Why only AM TITANIC vehicles can do that and not other titanic ones? Why does a Malcador have 18 wounds and a Valdor 20? What does TITANIC even mean? The distinction is entirely arbitrary and doesn't seem to have any relevance to the "reality" of the game.

fundamentally, what is different about these vehicles in "reality" (of the setting) to make them behave so differently on the battlefield?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
But in a rules sense: why can a Valdor shoot whole being locked up but a Malcador can't? What is fundamentally different about those vehicles? Etc.

Valdor has 20 wounds which brings it into GW's understanding of what a "TITANIC" unit is, because it is TITANIC it gets the Astra Militarum TITANIC ability that lets it shoot while in melee. Malcador does not. Maybe they should both be 18/20 wounds, maybe the roles should be reversed, but the why is pretty simple. You have to put your definitions somewhere, a line that separates the good from the great, the Elites from the Troops and that distinction will fail to make perfect sense sometimes.

Yes you've explained the mechanical difference, but that doesn't make sense.

Why do TITANIC vehicles get to shoot while in Melee and not regular vehicles? Why only AM TITANIC vehicles can do that and not other titanic ones? Why does a Malcador have 18 wounds and a Valdor 20? What does TITANIC even mean? The distinction is entirely arbitrary and doesn't seem to have any relevance to the "reality" of the game.

fundamentally, what is different about these vehicles in "reality" (of the setting) to make them behave so differently on the battlefield?

Rules have to set arbitrary limits. Why is the speed limit in Danish cities 50 km/h instead of 40 or 60? Was there an equation done on how it would affect traffic, GDP, public safety etc? Sometimes those equations are done before and sometimes after and things are changed, but additional people do get killed because the speed limit isn't lower and GDP might be higher if the speed limit was higher. Losing 500 pts worth of shooting from a single model tagging your Titanic model is a lot different than losing 150 pts worth of shooting from a single tag. You lose too much shooting too easily if Titanic vehicles can be tagged and put out of commission for a turn that easily.

Voss wrote:

ccs wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
They say that, but it's another immersion breaking issue. My marines that got shot point blank in the face with plasma are probably dead.

Heh, slap a bionic face on them & they'll be fine.

I know thats a joke, but bionics are another immersion breaker for me, to be honest, at least as 40k does it. For marines and orks, bionics are a downgrade from their transhuman and absurd fungus biology. The idea they get benefits from cyberlimbs is rather silly. I can see them as useful for normal humans, but not for transhumans derived from the flesh of warp-touched demigods.

Iron Hands should be the weakest marine chapter by a big margin, and Ghaz an utter clod, just a weaker dread that other orks point in the direction of the enemy and let rampage.

How are they a downgrade? I'm not really sure it matters whether or not it's better in a lot of cases anyway as they're replacements for missing limbs. Metal limb > no limb.

Voss wrote:

ccs wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
They say that, but it's another immersion breaking issue. My marines that got shot point blank in the face with plasma are probably dead.

Heh, slap a bionic face on them & they'll be fine.

I know thats a joke, but bionics are another immersion breaker for me, to be honest, at least as 40k does it. For marines and orks, bionics are a downgrade from their transhuman and absurd fungus biology. The idea they get benefits from cyberlimbs is rather silly. I can see them as useful for normal humans, but not for transhumans derived from the flesh of warp-touched demigods.

Iron Hands should be the weakest marine chapter by a big margin, and Ghaz an utter clod, just a weaker dread that other orks point in the direction of the enemy and let rampage.

Why would bionics be inferior? They use technological wargear to improve their abilities, bionics would/could do the same thing. A Space Marine doesn't ditch his Power Sword because his meat-fists are superior.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
But in a rules sense: why can a Valdor shoot whole being locked up but a Malcador can't? What is fundamentally different about those vehicles? Etc.

Valdor has 20 wounds which brings it into GW's understanding of what a "TITANIC" unit is, because it is TITANIC it gets the Astra Militarum TITANIC ability that lets it shoot while in melee. Malcador does not. Maybe they should both be 18/20 wounds, maybe the roles should be reversed, but the why is pretty simple. You have to put your definitions somewhere, a line that separates the good from the great, the Elites from the Troops and that distinction will fail to make perfect sense sometimes.

Yes you've explained the mechanical difference, but that doesn't make sense.

Why do TITANIC vehicles get to shoot while in Melee and not regular vehicles? Why only AM TITANIC vehicles can do that and not other titanic ones? Why does a Malcador have 18 wounds and a Valdor 20? What does TITANIC even mean? The distinction is entirely arbitrary and doesn't seem to have any relevance to the "reality" of the game.

fundamentally, what is different about these vehicles in "reality" (of the setting) to make them behave so differently on the battlefield?

It isn't just AM titanics, the hellforged and relic super heavys have the same rule. As for why they can do this in "reality", seeing as all are some form of super heavy tank, perhaps the reasoning is that their sheer mass and size allows them to be both stable enough while swamped with bodies as well as resistant enough to boarding actions that they can continue firing unabated. A walker, even a super heavy one, could be tripped up by bodies, a tracked vehicle weighing a couple hundred tons, not so much.

vict0988 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
But in a rules sense: why can a Valdor shoot whole being locked up but a Malcador can't? What is fundamentally different about those vehicles? Etc.

Valdor has 20 wounds which brings it into GW's understanding of what a "TITANIC" unit is, because it is TITANIC it gets the Astra Militarum TITANIC ability that lets it shoot while in melee. Malcador does not. Maybe they should both be 18/20 wounds, maybe the roles should be reversed, but the why is pretty simple. You have to put your definitions somewhere, a line that separates the good from the great, the Elites from the Troops and that distinction will fail to make perfect sense sometimes.

Yes you've explained the mechanical difference, but that doesn't make sense.

Why do TITANIC vehicles get to shoot while in Melee and not regular vehicles? Why only AM TITANIC vehicles can do that and not other titanic ones? Why does a Malcador have 18 wounds and a Valdor 20? What does TITANIC even mean? The distinction is entirely arbitrary and doesn't seem to have any relevance to the "reality" of the game.

fundamentally, what is different about these vehicles in "reality" (of the setting) to make them behave so differently on the battlefield?

Rules have to set arbitrary limits. Why is the speed limit in Danish cities 50 km/h instead of 40 or 60? Was there an equation done on how it would affect traffic, GDP, public safety etc? Sometimes those equations are done before and sometimes after and things are changed, but additional people do get killed because the speed limit isn't lower and GDP might be higher if the speed limit was higher. Losing 500 pts worth of shooting from a single model tagging your Titanic model is a lot different than losing 150 pts worth of shooting from a single tag. You lose too much shooting too easily if Titanic vehicles can be tagged and put out of commission for a turn that easily.

But points costs don't inform whether or not a model is TITANIC, you said wounds do. So that's obviously not the consideration. Plus, some units put out more firepower and cost more points than Titanic units but don't have Titanic themselves (e.g. Malcador Infernus). So that's obviously not the reason.

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
But in a rules sense: why can a Valdor shoot whole being locked up but a Malcador can't? What is fundamentally different about those vehicles? Etc.

Valdor has 20 wounds which brings it into GW's understanding of what a "TITANIC" unit is, because it is TITANIC it gets the Astra Militarum TITANIC ability that lets it shoot while in melee. Malcador does not. Maybe they should both be 18/20 wounds, maybe the roles should be reversed, but the why is pretty simple. You have to put your definitions somewhere, a line that separates the good from the great, the Elites from the Troops and that distinction will fail to make perfect sense sometimes.

Yes you've explained the mechanical difference, but that doesn't make sense.

Why do TITANIC vehicles get to shoot while in Melee and not regular vehicles? Why only AM TITANIC vehicles can do that and not other titanic ones? Why does a Malcador have 18 wounds and a Valdor 20? What does TITANIC even mean? The distinction is entirely arbitrary and doesn't seem to have any relevance to the "reality" of the game.

fundamentally, what is different about these vehicles in "reality" (of the setting) to make them behave so differently on the battlefield?

It isn't just AM titanics, the hellforged and relic super heavys have the same rule. As for why they can do this in "reality", seeing as all are some form of super heavy tank, perhaps the reasoning is that their sheer mass and size allows them to be both stable enough while swamped with bodies as well as resistant enough to boarding actions that they can continue firing unabated. A walker, even a super heavy one, could be tripped up by bodies, a tracked vehicle weighing a couple hundred tons, not so much.

So why, then, to return to the example, does a Malcador tank not have the shoot-out-of-combat rule while a Valdor does? The Valdor is literally just a different type of Malcador - it's even the same model in the way that the Vanquisher is the same as a Leman Russ Demolisher. Same hull, different weapon mount.

These rules make no sense, and nothing you guys have told me makes them make more sense.

Valdor Tank Hunters cost more pts than Malcador Infernus does. Units having rules that don't fit the fluff has nothing to do with this I don't think. As I said it might be the Valdor should have 18 wounds and not be titanic, but it does have 20 wounds, that means it is titanic and because it is titanic it is grouped with other more expensive vehicles and gets put into a class that get rules that remove the off-button for all the guns which normal tanks have. Some classes are arbitrary, why can you vote when you are 18 years old but not 17,9 years old? If your birth certificate is wrong and says you are 17,9 even though in the objective universe you are 18 you won't be able to vote if it says you are 17,9, that's not a fault of the system, that's a fault of whoever did your birth certificate.

 vict0988 wrote:
Valdor Tank Hunters cost more pts than Malcador Infernus does. Units having rules that don't fit the fluff has nothing to do with this I don't think. As I said it might be the Valdor should have 18 wounds and not be titanic, but it does have 20 wounds, that means it is titanic and because it is titanic it is grouped with other more expensive vehicles and gets put into a class that get rules that remove the off-button for all the guns which normal tanks have. Some classes are arbitrary, why can you vote when you are 18 years old but not 17,9 years old? If your birth certificate is wrong and says you are 17,9 even though in the objective universe you are 18 you won't be able to vote if it says you are 17,9, that's not a fault of the system, that's a fault of whoever did your birth certificate.

Agreed, wounds seem to be the cutoff for whether a unit is titanic or not, and this affects abilities.

To use walkers as an example, Wraithknights, knights, and Stompas can fall back over infantry. Gorkanaughts and Morkanaughts however, cannot, as they have 18 wounds and are not LOW.

LOW get extra rules at the expense of requiring a special detachment. Malcadors, Gorkanaughts, and other such units do not have that drawback.

Voss wrote:

ccs wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
They say that, but it's another immersion breaking issue. My marines that got shot point blank in the face with plasma are probably dead.

Heh, slap a bionic face on them & they'll be fine.

I know thats a joke, but bionics are another immersion breaker for me, to be honest, at least as 40k does it. For marines and orks, bionics are a downgrade from their transhuman and absurd fungus biology. The idea they get benefits from cyberlimbs is rather silly. I can see them as useful for normal humans, but not for transhumans derived from the flesh of warp-touched demigods.

Iron Hands should be the weakest marine chapter by a big margin, and Ghaz an utter clod, just a weaker dread that other orks point in the direction of the enemy and let rampage.

Metal is still stronger than marine body parts. I'd still take a T-800 over a marine any day in terms of ease of construction, expendability, and neutrality towards planetary conditions.

 vict0988 wrote:
Valdor Tank Hunters cost more pts than Malcador Infernus does. Units having rules that don't fit the fluff has nothing to do with this I don't think. As I said it might be the Valdor should have 18 wounds and not be titanic, but it does have 20 wounds, that means it is titanic and because it is titanic it is grouped with other more expensive vehicles and gets put into a class that get rules that remove the off-button for all the guns which normal tanks have. Some classes are arbitrary, why can you vote when you are 18 years old but not 17,9 years old? If your birth certificate is wrong and says you are 17,9 even though in the objective universe you are 18 you won't be able to vote if it says you are 17,9, that's not a fault of the system, that's a fault of whoever did your birth certificate.

A malcador infernus costs more than a Minotaur, though, while a Minotaur has Steel Behemoth. So yes, the Malcador Infernus is more expensive pointswise than some tanks that cannot be locked up.

A false equivalency for 2 reasons:
1) Obviously, children can't vote, so you indeed must draw a cutoff at which point someone can vote. A tank, however, doesn't have to be locked in combat (you wrote that rule), so the idea that you have to make a cutoff where a tank is suddenly not locked in combat is your own fault.

2) If I asked why 18 was the voting age, I would be given several answers which generally live around maturity and age. So, for example, someone might say "18 is the age of maturity" or "18 is the age at which you're your own person" or "18 is the age at which people are mature enough to vote."

Having asked why "20 wounds" is the cutoff for tanks suddenly acting differently compared to a 19-wound tank... well, there's not really been a good answer given. Except that "we just picked it, and there has to be a cutoff!" (which I disagree with. There doesn't have to be a cutoff. They wrote the original rule in the first place.)

The cutoff is whether a unit is a LOW or not. So either the Malcador Infurnus needs to become a LOW and gain the ability to fire while in combat, or the Valdor would have to become a hs option and lose it to make them equal.

Tanks should be able to drive through guys and fire out of cc anyways. The idea of a Land Raider or Leman Russ being unable to fire when Guardsmen are banging on it is ridiculous.

It's the only thing they gave melee and it's dumb as hell and flying tanks ignore it.

And all primaris tanks have the fly keyword. Shocking isn't it.

Yeah. Shocking I tell you.

It's almost as though flying units falling back should suffer a decent BS penalty if they shoot, and NOBODY caught this at GW for some reason.

Gadzilla666 wrote:
The cutoff is whether a unit is a LOW or not. So either the Malcador Infurnus needs to become a LOW and gain the ability to fire while in combat, or the Valdor would have to become a hs option and lose it to make them equal.

Yeah but to draw this back to the thread...

...why? And I mean from a lore / "reality of the setting" perspective, not a rules one. Because, y'know, that's the topic of the thread. Not points costs, battlefield roles, wounds, or powerlevels - those are all "crunch". We're talking about the fluff, about how well the game meets the fluff. I am giving an example of a disconnect between the fluff in the rules, and saying more rules (e.g. bringing up battlefield roles) doesn't actually solve the disconnect.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
It's almost as though flying units falling back should suffer a decent BS penalty if they shoot, and NOBODY caught this at GW for some reason.

Or not be able to shoot at all.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
It's almost as though flying units falling back should suffer a decent BS penalty if they shoot, and NOBODY caught this at GW for some reason.

Probably the same reason they gave all primaris tanks the fly keyword.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:
The cutoff is whether a unit is a LOW or not. So either the Malcador Infurnus needs to become a LOW and gain the ability to fire while in combat, or the Valdor would have to become a hs option and lose it to make them equal.

Yeah but to draw this back to the thread...

...why? And I mean from a lore / "reality of the setting" perspective, not a rules one. Because, y'know, that's the topic of the thread. Not points costs, battlefield roles, wounds, or powerlevels - those are all "crunch". We're talking about the fluff, about how well the game meets the fluff. I am giving an example of a disconnect between the fluff in the rules, and saying more rules (e.g. bringing up battlefield roles) doesn't actually solve the disconnect.

BA spend two editions not being able to accomplish a single feat described in the codex on the tabletop. DA spent like 5 editions with the same problem. The lore and game basically have nothing to do with each other.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:
The cutoff is whether a unit is a LOW or not. So either the Malcador Infurnus needs to become a LOW and gain the ability to fire while in combat, or the Valdor would have to become a hs option and lose it to make them equal.

Yeah but to draw this back to the thread...

...why? And I mean from a lore / "reality of the setting" perspective, not a rules one. Because, y'know, that's the topic of the thread. Not points costs, battlefield roles, wounds, or powerlevels - those are all "crunch". We're talking about the fluff, about how well the game meets the fluff. I am giving an example of a disconnect between the fluff in the rules, and saying more rules (e.g. bringing up battlefield roles) doesn't actually solve the disconnect.

Ad I stated earlier, I think the concept is that a tank of a certain size is immune to being affected by infantry attempting to gain access from outside.

Does that concept make sense? In most cases no. If the infantry trying to get inside of a tank don't have some kind of anti tank explosives then they shouldn't even be a distraction in cc.

The most they could do is clog up the road wheels with their bodies.

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:
The cutoff is whether a unit is a LOW or not. So either the Malcador Infurnus needs to become a LOW and gain the ability to fire while in combat, or the Valdor would have to become a hs option and lose it to make them equal.

Yeah but to draw this back to the thread...

...why? And I mean from a lore / "reality of the setting" perspective, not a rules one. Because, y'know, that's the topic of the thread. Not points costs, battlefield roles, wounds, or powerlevels - those are all "crunch". We're talking about the fluff, about how well the game meets the fluff. I am giving an example of a disconnect between the fluff in the rules, and saying more rules (e.g. bringing up battlefield roles) doesn't actually solve the disconnect.

Ad I stated earlier, I think the concept is that a tank of a certain size is immune to being affected by infantry attempting to gain access from outside.

Does that concept make sense? In most cases no. If the infantry trying to get inside of a tank don't have some kind of anti tank explosives then they shouldn't even be a distraction in cc.

The most they could do is clog up the road wheels with their bodies.

The problem is that the Steel Behemoth rule has nothing to do with size (as I've illustrated before, two tanks of identical size and only difference in armament where one has Steel Behemoth and the other does not). So your explanation doesn't explain anything.

So we're back to my original assertion: this game doesn't make any damn sense and the designers don't even understand their own abstractions and how they relate to "reality".