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Yes, that's part of what I am talking about, though I am assuming the fluff goes out of its way to preserve the verisimilitude as a middle step.
I can conceive of (really bad admittedly) fluff that permits all those rules interactions you say aren't realistic - voila, they're "realistic" within the fluff. Since it's entirely fictional, anything is possible. So I think we're saying the same thing, but I'm taking an extra step and assuming the fluff is written to have some connection to our understanding of the world as humans - just like how the scene with Legolas climbing up the bricks was jarring precisely because it didn't have any connection to our understanding.
Tycho wrote:
I am suggesting that the way the battle plays out in the narrative (e.g. what happens when a Wave Serpent attacks a Bloodthirster) should be consistent in at least some degree with what happens on the tabletop game (when a wave serpent attacks a bloodthirster). I don't believe in 8th edition that this is as tight as it has been in the past, and I believe this is because it is now being seen as a "game" rather than a genuine attempt to fight battles in the 41st millennium, abstracted using minis.
I gotcha. This makes sense. I definitely misunderstood your original point. Thank you for the follow up. I'd agree that in a lot of cases 8th doesn't capture it quite right, but I'm ok with that too. For me, I just want to see that I can play my army "to the fluff" and have them be competitive. Take 7th edition's Gladius formation for Space Marines for example. Admittedly, it was too strong, and I'm NOT advocating for that, but it did represent how Marines have traditionally been portrayed in the fluff. It was a really good example of a rule that rewarded you for playing a "fluffy" list. BUT, once that army hits the table top, I'm fine if some things don't quite pan out like in the fluff. That's too hard to manage imo.
I think part of the issue is that the tournament scene is huge now and they need to decide how best to support that. I think you're right in that the game has moved far beyond its roots as a system that allowed you to recreate battles in a certain setting, and is now more game oriented, but I don't how to manage that effectively. I've found that, players who prefer that approach are happy to tinker with rules on their own, and since that tends to happen in a small social group, everyone is typically ok with the results, whereas you haveto try as best you can to make sure the tournament rules are balanced (even if it means an outcome unlikely to happen in the fluff). I'm ok with this too. Since I play tournaments and narrative, I can see both sides. I could go on all day as I do find this a really interesting topic.
I'd love you to go on. The part that bothers me in general about how "gamey" it is is that I don't want to have to rewrite the entire rulesset to make it more narrative. In earlier editions, I could write a narrative mission about rescuing an immobilized tank with a small force of infantry without also rewriting the rules for how armor penetration works so the enemy didn't just blast the tank with small arms until it died (for example). So even though narrative players are willing to "tweak" the rules, that's not an excuse for making the rules as narratively-disconnected (if you forgive the turn of phrase) as possible and then just expecting them to fix it, lol. IMHO.
I think if you want balance in tournaments, find balance in the fluff, and then write to that fluff. For example, if a Tau army stops an Imperial army in a story, look at why and how it did so, and then try to replicate that in the rules for the game and respective armies - and then look at an example of how the Imperium defeated the Tau in another battle, and the same. This of course requires consistency in the fluff, but that's something to be encouraged, IMO.
AnomanderRake wrote:
Unit1126PLL wrote: ...The question then is what game is that, lol. I want to get my group into it; otherwise, I'm interested in designing one (possibly) or at least giving it an evening of thought. You think the learning curve is it? Some armies are easy to parse and understand, while other ones are difficult? That could be it, I can see your point...
Games I could pick out that are comparable to 40k in learning curve tend to have less nice minis, and the question of scale/theme does come up as well. The closest thing to Warhammer that isn't Warhammer is probably Bolt Action; it's a purely historical WWII game written by ex-Warhammer designers, and has a weird-WWII sci-fi mod (Konflikt '47) and a sci-fi version (Beyond the Gates of Antares) as well.
I've looked into them and come away kind of ambivalent, to be honest. We can talk about why here, but this is a good point and thank you for bringing it up.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/08/18 19:29:07
Unit1126PLL wrote: ...The question then is what game is that, lol. I want to get my group into it; otherwise, I'm interested in designing one (possibly) or at least giving it an evening of thought. You think the learning curve is it? Some armies are easy to parse and understand, while other ones are difficult? That could be it, I can see your point...
Games I could pick out that are comparable to 40k in learning curve tend to have less nice minis, and the question of scale/theme does come up as well. The closest thing to Warhammer that isn't Warhammer is probably Bolt Action; it's a purely historical WWII game written by ex-Warhammer designers, and has a weird-WWII sci-fi mod (Konflikt '47) and a sci-fi version (Beyond the Gates of Antares) as well.
I've looked into them and come away kind of ambivalent, to be honest. We can talk about why here, but this is a good point and thank you for bringing it up.
On dakka I've read a lot of things about past editions that sounded like interesting mechanics (like guessing ranges, only firing at the closest targets, primary and secondary weapons on tanks, tanks not having hull points etc.) that make me wonder if pre 6th Edition actually felt more "realistic ". But I started in 6th and there I can say what was left of these rules only bogged down the game without feeling realistic or necessary at all.
Nearly all the tank rules only made tanks bad the moment they got hull points and because of those died faster than a Space Marine. I don't know if it's more realistic bringing a tank down by hitting it with your giant fist or by letting a troop of 10k year old veterans of the long war fire their Lascannons on it.
Yes, 8th Edition has strange, gamey moments, but prior editions did too.
And since the OP also raised the question about what's more fun, definitely 8th. Many rules in 6th and 7th slowed the game down without actual purpose or feeling more realistic. Take tank shock as an example. Step 1: read the rulebook again because the rule came up very rarely and was worded terrible.
Step 2 realize you announced your tank shock too late, but ask your opponent to do it anyway because it's fun
Step 3 resolve the tank shock and realize that nothing actually happens if your opponent doesn't want to sacrifice his Sgt.
8th Edition? Move your tank into CC as usual and laugh if it actually rolls over 2 enemys.
I find that many things in the game that were ruled fiddly in prior editions are now more elegant. Sometimes that might seem bland (I saw complains about Daemons now falling to morale and losing their instability when they actually work exactly the same as before), but it's just streamlined.
What I'm missing is more impact of morale, but again, morale was totally irrelevant in 6th and 7th already because just like today 70% of the units ignored it. Suppression and fear could be interesting and they were in older editions, but only filled pages in the rulebook without having really an effect on the game.
Other things to mention that I don't miss and didn't make the game any more realistic were Initiative and weapon skill tables. These are also much more elegant now and account for the larger scale of the game.
Unit1126PLL wrote: ...The question then is what game is that, lol. I want to get my group into it; otherwise, I'm interested in designing one (possibly) or at least giving it an evening of thought. You think the learning curve is it? Some armies are easy to parse and understand, while other ones are difficult? That could be it, I can see your point...
Games I could pick out that are comparable to 40k in learning curve tend to have less nice minis, and the question of scale/theme does come up as well. The closest thing to Warhammer that isn't Warhammer is probably Bolt Action; it's a purely historical WWII game written by ex-Warhammer designers, and has a weird-WWII sci-fi mod (Konflikt '47) and a sci-fi version (Beyond the Gates of Antares) as well.
I've looked into them and come away kind of ambivalent, to be honest. We can talk about why here, but this is a good point and thank you for bringing it up.
What sort of game are you looking for?
I don't mean to mislead that I'm looking for a specific game (my game group is wild and free and will try anything once). Just trying to find the essence of what makes 40k so accessible, even when it was more simulationist. I think so far I've got "learning curve" (as in easy to get into, your point) and "accessible" (as in very common to play/see being played, easy to get the models). I would also like to add "creative" or "narrative" to that list, personally, as your dudes can become Your Dudes much more easily than, say, the 21st Panzer dudes can. But that last one is the one being damaged so badly by the unwillingness of the designers to engage with the setting - I've had a few different "Your Dudes" now, all of them completely identical in composition and lore but wildly variant in how they live in the world. The latest iteration is they can't see through terrain but can be seen through the same terrain.
Spoletta wrote: 8th made some big steps forward when it comes to armies feeling like armies, but took some steps backwards in a few rule interactions, abstracting them to the point that they feel gamey. Reroll auras surely qualify in that.
Also, stratagems were nice for the "war" part, but only some of them. Those are mostly the stratagems which expand the army horizontally, and allow models to cover alternative roles. There are instead the stratagems which just make "x" into "x+1" like for example Veterans of the long war, which instead are fully on the "game" side. They don't feel like "Stratagems".
Stratagems aren't even something I considered when I wrote the OP, but you're right, they're not altogether a terrible idea, I suppose, though as always with GW I disagree with their overall implementation.
and if you agree that it's moved (somewhat abruptly with 8th edition) from a war(game) to a (war)game.
I definitely don't agree its abrupt. They've been peeling layers off since the transition from 1st to 2nd. Elminating stats, successive knocks to morale (before kicking it out completely), the various horrible redesigns to vehicle systems (not that I miss acceleration and deceleration, or the wacky grid charts).
I don't think its a good simulation of war, but I don't think it ever was. That doesn't make it any less a wargame though.
The 'pinnacle' of simulation wargames are the old Avalon Hill style games with hex maps, chits with NATO unit symbols, and piles and piles of look-up charts for cross-reference resolution. Those scratch an itch, but its always been a different one than the Warhammers. Especially 40k, which is Fantasy in Space! ridonkulus skirmishes.
I think it's abrupt in the sense that they've transition from (badly) simulating war in the 41st millennium to not even trying - in other words, I think the game is no longer tied to the reality which it once sought to replicate, however well. It's gone from "we suck at emulating 'reality'" to "we don't even try to emulate reality." Or do you think they are still trying / never tried in the first place? Keep in mind when I say reality I mean "the fictional universe of 40k" not literal Real Life™.
I disagree with your assertion about the "pinnacle" of simulation wargames; DOD is doing some great work now (though they typically involve computers). But even that aside, I think those games are in a whole different domain from 40k. 40k is a 'miniatures' game, which investigates a level of war far below the old Avalon Hill operational-level hex games. I think it is still possible for miniatures games to at least attempt to reflect 'reality', no?
40k was never about simulating war in the 41st millenium. Even in the older editions. Maybe rogue trader might of been but certainly not 3rd through 7th.
Back then 40k was trying (somewhat) to simulate modern convential warfare but with everything having a goofy name.
Honestly, no offence intended, but if you thought ANY edition was actually even a little bit representative of the frankly insane scale of warfare in the 41st millenia, I put that down to you transposing modern warfare film/books/experience onto what you were reading to better contextualize the raw insanity that battles in 40k are on.
And in that vein, I honestly think the more 'gamey' nature of 8th and 9th does a far better job of giving the player a window into what warfare would be like in the 41st millenium. Complete and utter nonsensical insanity. Crazy space vikings on somehow bullet proof wolves charging impossible eldritch abominations underneath the legs of city sized monstrosities duking it out with both incredibly sophisticated futuristic weapons that rend the fabric of space time through oscillating flux waves in concordance with natural resonance frequencies and also a giant fething chainsaw hand. Crazy nonsense happening out of nowhere that defies convential understanding is sort of the hallmark of the 40k universe. Why shouldn't a building somehow block a small tank from seeing a huge tank, but not the other way around?
Worrying about whether or not that bush will get caught in my tank treads, or any of the other stuff that seems like 'simulationism' to a lot of the so called 'war(game)rs, always felt stupid and, for lack of a better term, 'unrealistic' to 40k for me.
40k is and has always been a crazy Heavy Metal album cover, and the prior rulesets always put themselves at odds with that fact by pretending they were trying to 'simulate' warfare in the 41st millenium, when really it was just a(n admittedly very slipshod) rehash of rommel's north africa campaign with a sci-fi veneer.
Irkjoe wrote:Games are easier, people don't want to get bogged down in arcs, facings, etc. Most just want to slam their models together in the center of the board. Warhammer is not a simulation it's a cinematic representation of the setting, it just gives you something to do with your miniatures. The ones who prioritize realism are playing other games. Imo it has swung way too far in the game direction and would be improved by finding a middle ground between the two.
This is exactly how the game started(albeit w more RPG elements). This is exactly the appeal for me, the game is something cool to do with my incredibly detailed & well painted miniatures rather than just sitting there collecting dust.
If they're expecting something else, I don't really know what to tell them.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: On dakka I've read a lot of things about past editions that sounded like interesting mechanics (like guessing ranges, only firing at the closest targets, primary and secondary weapons on tanks, tanks not having hull points etc.) that make me wonder if pre 6th Edition actually felt more "realistic ". But I started in 6th and there I can say what was left of these rules only bogged down the game without feeling realistic or necessary at all. Nearly all the tank rules only made tanks bad the moment they got hull points and because of those died faster than a Space Marine. I don't know if it's more realistic bringing a tank down by hitting it with your giant fist or by letting a troop of 10k year old veterans of the long war fire their Lascannons on it. Yes, 8th Edition has strange, gamey moments, but prior editions did too. And since the OP also raised the question about what's more fun, definitely 8th. Many rules in 6th and 7th slowed the game down without actual purpose or feeling more realistic. Take tank shock as an example. Step 1: read the rulebook again because the rule came up very rarely and was worded terrible. Step 2 realize you announced your tank shock too late, but ask your opponent to do it anyway because it's fun Step 3 resolve the tank shock and realize that nothing actually happens if your opponent doesn't want to sacrifice his Sgt. 8th Edition? Move your tank into CC as usual and laugh if it actually rolls over 2 enemys. I find that many things in the game that were ruled fiddly in prior editions are now more elegant. Sometimes that might seem bland (I saw complains about Daemons now falling to morale and losing their instability when they actually work exactly the same as before), but it's just streamlined. What I'm missing is more impact of morale, but again, morale was totally irrelevant in 6th and 7th already because just like today 70% of the units ignored it. Suppression and fear could be interesting and they were in older editions, but only filled pages in the rulebook without having really an effect on the game. Other things to mention that I don't miss and didn't make the game any more realistic were Initiative and weapon skill tables. These are also much more elegant now and account for the larger scale of the game.
Awesome, so you do think 8th edition is more "realistic" than the earlier series, though your primary argument centers around gameyness being more fun (because it's simpler and faster). That's generally in line with what I've heard, except the first part. Popularity defined in terms of ease-of-use (though personally I think 8th is really hard to use because it's counter-intuitive in so many places, but that's subjective I'll grant).
Racerguy180 wrote: If they're expecting something else, I don't really know what to tell them.
The problem is that it sells itself as "fight the battles of the 41st millennium!", which it isn't. I also disagree that a 'cinematic representation' is an excuse; even cinema has to obey verisimilitude (just look at the Legolas-brickrunning example mentioned earlier). And those RPG elements you mention in your post? That's realism.
Think about if you read the Drizz't series or another DND book where longswords impaled people with the pointy bit, and then bought into DND, made a character with swords, and then found out that their best and most effective game-mechanic employment was being thrown like a dart. I think you'd be forgiven for being confused and disappointed, even if it's "for cinematicness". It'd feel gamey and unnecessary. That's kind of what I mean by 40k not fitting it's background - the most effective employment for a Land Raider, for example, isn't to deliver Terminators. In fact, the most effective employment for a Land Raider is to sit on the shelf unused so you can buy the Next Big Thing! which is what apparently the game is supposed to prevent in the first place
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/08/18 19:43:57
Sgt. Cortez wrote: On dakka I've read a lot of things about past editions that sounded like interesting mechanics (like guessing ranges, only firing at the closest targets, primary and secondary weapons on tanks, tanks not having hull points etc.) that make me wonder if pre 6th Edition actually felt more "realistic ". But I started in 6th and there I can say what was left of these rules only bogged down the game without feeling realistic or necessary at all...
I went back through a bunch of old rulebooks recently and found that very little in the core rulebook actually changed between 4e and 7e; I think the thing that made the game so unnecessarily complicated by the time 7e rolled around was that the Codexes didn't really pay attention to how they interacted with the rules. To pick on Hull Points as an example, for instance, 40k converted a lot of things to HP badly in 6e so that you ended up with people grumbling about how monstrous creatures were just better than vehicles; go to 30k, though, and you'll find higher AV, more hull points, and vastly weaker MCs (compare a 185pt T6/5W/2+ ion-Riptide with an AP2 large blast and the 3++ off the nova reactor to a 175pt T7/W4/3+ Domitar with a 5++ that only works at range, no jet pack, and one missile launcher).
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Unit1126PLL wrote: ...I don't mean to mislead that I'm looking for a specific game (my game group is wild and free and will try anything once). Just trying to find the essence of what makes 40k so accessible, even when it was more simulationist. I think so far I've got "learning curve" (as in easy to get into, your point) and "accessible" (as in very common to play/see being played, easy to get the models). I would also like to add "creative" or "narrative" to that list, personally, as your dudes can become Your Dudes much more easily than, say, the 21st Panzer dudes can. But that last one is the one being damaged so badly by the unwillingness of the designers to engage with the setting - I've had a few different "Your Dudes" now, all of them completely identical in composition and lore but wildly variant in how they live in the world. The latest iteration is they can't see through terrain but can be seen through the same terrain.
Ah. I sort of waffle on how much the Your Dudes thing really matters; nobody's that bothered by the writers pushing special characters more and more aggressively every edition, and I find it's still pretty rare to find armies not painted as one of the stock paint schemes in the book. That said it is true that most games don't have the wide-open setting with a bunch of variations on the "same army" that Warhammer does.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/08/18 19:52:35
Unit1126PLL wrote: Can you identify why they'd be so much less simulationist than before? Because I agree, obviously, that they were. What changed, philosophically, and what are they doing now?
It's hard to boil it down to just one thing because it's not just a GW thing, it's market-wide. The old Avalon Hill style of wargame is very much a rarity now, replaced with faster-playing, less simulationist games as a market trend.
A big part of that is definitely demographics. Grognards with an interest in military history are, and always have been, a pretty niche audience. Videogames and TCGs, on the other hand, have become extremely popular, and so board games (and wargames by extension) have tapped into those markets by leveraging familiar concepts and mechanics. You also have to consider design intent, and what game designers are looking to as inspiration- a game that is designed to evoke the look and feel of a WW2 war movie is going to be built very differently from one designed to replicate how WW2 actually was fought, and so you get Bolt Action versus Advanced Squad Leader. The former is exciting, easy to get into for casual players, and has imagery and ideas that are appealing to a broad audience. The latter, well, not so much. D&D is another great example; plenty of MMORPGs have copied from D&D, and then in turn D&D has copied from MMOs.
As well, videogames in particular have largely displaced the niche of complex board games. I mean, if I want to play a detailed historical simulation of the politics of medieval Europe, I could take the time to learn a complex, simulationist, nitty-gritty wargame... or I could fire up Crusader Kings and let the computer do the work. Wargames have, in that respect, done a hard pivot towards social experiences and ease of play. If you want to simulate flying a biplane, you boot up Rise of Flight. If you want to play out a fun dogfight against your best friend on the kitchen table while drinking beer, you break out Wings of War. There are still games like The Burning Blue out there, but they're a rarity.
I've noticed a tendency in some circles to shake one's fist and lament how kids these days have too-short attention spans and demand instant gratification, but I would wager that the kids who are interested in military history and willing to dive into an Avalon Hill game to get that fix have always been the rarity. It's more that the popularity of videogames provides a much more mainstream inlet into tabletop gaming, so just as tabletop RPGs pivot to embrace MMORPG gamers, so too have tabletop wargames pivoted to embrace RTS gamers. When the overwhelming majority of videogames use their setting more as window dressing for fun mechanics than as the core inspiration for the experience, tabletop games follow suit.
Going back to 40K, I think it's important to remember that 40K has more or less always been 'something to do with your cool models', which means that from a design perspective it has always been about fun rather than simulation. In that context, it makes perfect sense that when miniature wargaming was a pastime for military history nerds, it borrowed ideas from historical wargames, because that's what the largest demographic found fun. Now that it's pivoted more towards a pastime for videogamers, it borrows ideas from videogames, to match what they expect from a game.
It is what it is. As someone who appreciates the more simulationist style I've been starting to get into HH, but I've also toyed with the idea of rewriting 40K as a pet project. I expect 40K to stick around, but not as a wargame in the traditional sense; that demographic will always still exist but not as the primary market share.
Racerguy180 wrote: If they're expecting something else, I don't really know what to tell them.
The problem is that it sells itself as "fight the battles of the 41st millennium!", which it isn't. I also disagree that a 'cinematic representation' is an excuse; even cinema has to obey verisimilitude (just look at the Legolas-brickrunning example mentioned earlier). And those RPG elements you mention in your post? That's realism.
RT is my favorite game(next to Super Mario 3)ever, so in totally down with them reincorporating a GM back into the game, but kinda hard to have a pickup game with one tho. everytime I field my Salamanders, I'm visualizing all of the dice rolls, movement, etc as a big fething movie and its plenty cinematic for me.
Think about if you read the Drizz't series or another DND book where longswords impaled people with the pointy bit, and then bought into DND, made a character with swords, and then found out that their best and most effective game-mechanic employment was being thrown like a dart. I think you'd be forgiven for being confused and disappointed, even if it's "for cinematicness". It'd feel gamey and unnecessary. That's kind of what I mean by 40k not fitting it's background - the most effective employment for a Land Raider, for example, isn't to deliver Terminators. In fact, the most effective employment for a Land Raider is to sit on the shelf unused so you can buy the Next Big Thing! which is what apparently the game is supposed to prevent in the first place
My Helios will continue to used for the foreseeable future. Its also kinda hard to play a game in m38 with the next big thing.
FWIW - I get the point raised. Mainly because I felt it during the rather sad demise of WHFB. Back in idk, 4th and 5th it felt like "this is how armies of elves, and orcs, and wizards and dragons would actually fight in a medieval or classical era". It then slowly turned into "I've managed to dodge 3 millimetres out of your charge arc so your useless haha victory is mine". Partly though that might have been the evolving... mentality of the playerbase.
I'm afraid going all the way back to 2nd I've always found 40k fundamentally *Gamey* rather than trying to portray what faction X or Y would "actually" be like if they fought each other. So... idk, through the editions, I've never really been that bothered with abstraction on abstraction. Its just about whether the game runs smoothly and is fun. I felt the 5th->6th->7th evolution resulted in an incredibly clunky mess, and didn't represent... anything really. Its just rules on rules.
I agree that 40k has been moving more and more to the gamey side over the editions (I started at the end of 2nd). Some examples:
Blast weapons only ever hitting squad A, even though the models removed are in base to base contact with squad B.
Tank facing no longer being important and removal of the vehicle damage charts for hull points / wounds& degradation
Morale no longer doing anything. We used to be able to pin and rout units!
The addition of reroll auras
The addition of stratagems with no downsides and no counterplay; strats that do not promote any type of decision making in game (not all of them)
The general upping of movement speed/mobility further lessening the value of fast units
Not all of these are bad imo, and some of them are necessary to facilitate increasingly large armies (whether that is desirable is another question). But I do miss actually having fast units maneuvre to get at side armor and having weapons dedicated to glancing tanks or pinning units. These changes have definitely made the game simpler and more gamey, which also made it more accessible and successful. However, it was already plenty accessible to me, and I generally liked the extra depth of the old days
I think modern wargames are only now trying to use the innovative design ideas that fueled the modern boardgame revolution just like boardgames learned about those ideas from video games (which are easiest to study for player experience due to the availability of data). I'd say token&hex wargames are probably the most anachronist of them all, relying on very outdated - but apparently sanctified by wargamer geezer tradition - concepts
Buzzword concepts like "elegant rules", "player agency", "depth vs complexity", "streamlined resolution", "interesting choices", "decision-driven mechanics" "meaningful counterplay", "catch-up mechanisms" etc. are probably going to be implemented more and more in innovative wargame designs, despite the opposition of the "roll dice and then more dice and see what happens" old guard. I think wargames will keep moving from their decision-light, RNG-heavy era, just like modern boardgames left Monopoly and Snakes&Ladders behind.
shortymcnostrill wrote: I agree that 40k has been moving more and more to the gamey side over the editions (I started at the end of 2nd). Some examples:
Blast weapons only ever hitting squad A, even though the models removed are in base to base contact with squad B.
Tank facing no longer being important and removal of the vehicle damage charts for hull points / wounds& degradation
Morale no longer doing anything. We used to be able to pin and rout units!
The addition of reroll auras
The addition of stratagems with no downsides and no counterplay; strats that do not promote any type of decision making in game (not all of them)
The general upping of movement speed/mobility further lessening the value of fast units
Not all of these are bad imo, and some of them are necessary to facilitate increasingly large armies (whether that is desirable is another question). But I do miss actually having fast units maneuvre to get at side armor and having weapons dedicated to glancing tanks or pinning units. These changes have definitely made the game simpler and more gamey, which also made it more accessible and successful. However, it was already plenty accessible to me, and I generally liked the extra depth of the old days
Blast being able to be targeted anywhere near where friendly troop positions are is already pretty gamey, especially for Sisters, Marines, and Eldar, who wouldn't just throw their own units away. Theoretically a whirlwind shouldn't be fireable on the same table as another marine unit.
The vehicle charts were gamey nonsense. Why is a meltagun more likely to make a vehicle immobile than a lascannon? They also just served to make vehicles universally useless. The new degradation chart is an abstraction but it's also just a far superior system. Also, I seem to recall there being a period where putting an extra gun on a land raider was essentially adding an extra hull point. And don't even get me started on fish of fury.
I could talk about the game-y ness of old morale too, but honestly between ATSKNF and Fearless, 99% of the usable units in the game were immune to morale anyway. Setting wise, morale SHOULDN'T matter for anyone except guard and Orkz because everyone else is some sort of thousands years old supersoldier, or mind wiped slave warrior, or billion year old automaton, or a hive mind drone. The fact that Morale was a bigger deal before is...wait for it...super gamey for 40k.
The rest of it is either revisionist history or comes from much earlier editions because in the editions I played vehicles facings never mattered because you'd just walk a meltagun up to the front of a tank and pop it instantly. No one ever bothered to hit side armor because it was a negligible benefit the vast majority of the time. No one bothered to try and pin anything because everything was immune or close enough.
None of that stuff created extra depth either, it just created extra pages in the rule book. Nothing was lost when vehicle facings or templates left the game other than tedium and arguments about where exactly the front of a wave serpent ends.
ERJAK wrote: Blast being able to be targeted anywhere near where friendly troop positions are is already pretty gamey, especially for Sisters, Marines, and Eldar, who wouldn't just throw their own units away. Theoretically a whirlwind shouldn't be fireable on the same table as another marine unit.
8th edition doesn't fix this, and as pointed out, makes it worse.
Plus, it's plausible that targeting systems or doctrines have changed in the future.
ERJAK wrote: The vehicle charts were gamey nonsense. Why is a meltagun more likely to make a vehicle immobile than a lascannon? They also just served to make vehicles universally useless. The new degradation chart is an abstraction but it's also just a far superior system. Also, I seem to recall there being a period where putting an extra gun on a land raider was essentially adding an extra hull point. And don't even get me started on fish of fury.
A meltagun isn't more likely to make a vehicle immobile than a lascannon; this is a flat-out lie. They're both 16.7 percent after a penetrating hit. One is a 4, the other a 5 to do so, but in both cases the next higher number (5+ and 6+ respectively) outright makes the vehicle explode, which is plausible. In fact, certain weapons making vehicles more likely to be one-shot than other weapons is a virtue, not a vice. The rest of your stuff is just complaints about the codex, not about the rules; the number of hull points could be tweaked, for example. Do you really think the current degradation is a far superior system? A literally unstoppable Twin Heavy Flamer Chimera is a-go, then; after all, it doesn't degrade in any meaningful way, because the abstraction doesn't make sense. (Track Guards + autohit weapons means the Chimera ignores the entire degradation chart, something that was never accomplished by anything except the superheavy vehicles during earlier editions, and superheavies suffered from the explodes result). I have no idea where the "meltagun is +1 hullpoint" thing comes from, but the number of outright lies in here it isn't surprising you'd throw in one more.
ERJAK wrote: I could talk about the game-y ness of old morale too, but honestly between ATSKNF and Fearless, 99% of the usable units in the game were immune to morale anyway. Setting wise, morale SHOULDN'T matter for anyone except guard and Orkz because everyone else is some sort of thousands years old supersoldier, or mind wiped slave warrior, or billion year old automaton, or a hive mind drone. The fact that Morale was a bigger deal before is...wait for it...super gamey for 40k.
Morale has always been a bit crap in 40k, this is true. 8th edition doesn't fix this.
ERJAK wrote: The rest of it is either revisionist history or comes from much earlier editions because in the editions I played vehicles facings never mattered because you'd just walk a meltagun up to the front of a tank and pop it instantly. No one ever bothered to hit side armor because it was a negligible benefit the vast majority of the time. No one bothered to try and pin anything because everything was immune or close enough.
Earlier editions, methinks, or you had a playgroup that didn't actually execute tactics, which is a valid way to play (but isn't an excuse to remove the ability to use tactics from anyone else).
ERJAK wrote: None of that stuff created extra depth either, it just created extra pages in the rule book. Nothing was lost when vehicle facings or templates left the game other than tedium and arguments about where exactly the front of a wave serpent ends.
It's a bit about depth but the argument here is about narrative "realism" within the setting - and simulating that "realism" on the tabletop.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/08/18 21:31:34
I think modern wargames are only now trying to use the innovative design ideas that fueled the modern boardgame revolution just like boardgames learned about those ideas from video games (which are easiest to study for player experience due to the availability of data). I'd say token&hex wargames are probably the most anachronist of them all, relying on very outdated - but apparently sanctified by wargamer geezer tradition - concepts
I grew up on Air-Cav and Western Front Tank Leader. Really good fun for their time, but yeah - can't imagine rolling that out today - here's a hexmap and 6000 flat pieces of cardboard. There are no pictures. What do you mean you can't do basic algebra? Well how to you expect to calculate your shooting?! It really was a different time ....
I'd love you to go on. The part that bothers me in general about how "gamey" it is is that I don't want to have to rewrite the entire rulesset to make it more narrative. In earlier editions, I could write a narrative mission about rescuing an immobilized tank with a small force of infantry without also rewriting the rules for how armor penetration works so the enemy didn't just blast the tank with small arms until it died (for example). So even though narrative players are willing to "tweak" the rules, that's not an excuse for making the rules as narratively-disconnected (if you forgive the turn of phrase) as possible and then just expecting them to fix it, lol. IMHO.
Well, you asked for it ...
I completely understand where you're coming from with that example, and it's a really good example of exactly what I'm talking about as well. The narrative gamer ends up (unintentionally) getting punished since that style of gaming tends to have that implied social contract whereas this isn't possible for a tournament so rules are written in that vein. I for one hate that small arms can whittle down a tank, but I also remember the days when you could have things (a surprising amount of things) that were immune to too many weapon profiles.
I don't disagree with you either, but it becomes a problem of nuance, and nuance appears difficult for the GW team. If 40k is a game where 2-5 squads and MAYBE a vehicle fight against same, then ok - let's have real armor (where your auto-pistol can't hurt my tank no matter how many 6's you roll). But if 40k is to be a game where Titanic units are just a part of everyday life, um, I don't know where to go with that. I've often thought that, if they want things to represent the fluff better, they would do well to add one additional restriction to army building - that of "you can only have so many of these at this points level".
From there, I would even suggest three levels of rule sets (because as much as they want Kill Team to be a gateway, it isn't). Each set gets increasingly more complex and adjusts with the points to represent the level of granularity you would want at those sizes. So in the tank example, you wouldn't have to adjust how armor works because, ideally, it would already work correctly for that level. Anti-tank in particular is an interesting one because there was a time when anti-tank worked closer to what you would expect - great against armor but kind of a waste in most other spots. It feels like the previously "mid-range" weapons have suddenly become good enough at everything that the weapons on the ends of the spectrum got pushed out. Since nearly every infantry squad can take things like Plasma, and since rolling a "1" while over-charging is a lot less of a concern than it used to be, you end up with even more ways that tanks need help.
I don't mean to imply that armor is the sole thing "wrong" with the game in this regard but it's an easy example to use to support the point. Personally, like I said, I'm ok with a lot of it as long as, if I play my army to the fluff, it works. The 6th ed Chaos book is a great example because it punished the player for even picking it up. Then, the most powerful units often ended being the least fluffy units. Just a mess. I skipped two whole editions with my CSM because of that.
The other place that gets me is morale. I don't want to go back to the days when your unit actually ran away and you just kept rolling dice to see how far they move until they either got to cover, ran off the table, or actually made a successful check, but as it stands now it's also meaningless. There are plenty of examples of Space Marine armies executing tactical retreats, of IG units fleeing in panic (or performing a tactical retreat ), Dark Eldar deciding the raid isn't worth the cost and leaving, etc etc. Morale right now is still completely meaningless. I'd love to see something more done with that.
I played a different game many moons ago where, if you shot at a unit and missed, you still effected them in their turn. The idea being "fine, you didn't hit them, but they know they're getting shot at so they're not going to just stand up and run 14" across the board now". I forget how it worked but the morale system worked such that maybe they have a turn of slower movement etc. I think this would work well for those times your Catachan squad is creeping through the jungle being stalked by a squad of sneaky Eldar, etc.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/08/18 21:45:11
Edit: I just googled ablutions and apparently it does not including dropping a duece. I should have looked it up early sorry for any confusion. - Baldsmug
Psiensis on the "good old days":
"Kids these days...
... I invented the 6th Ed meta back in 3rd ed.
Wait, what were we talking about again? Did I ever tell you about the time I gave you five bees for a quarter? That's what you'd say in those days, "give me five bees for a quarter", is what you'd say in those days. And you'd go down to the D&D shop, with an onion in your belt, 'cause that was the style of the time. So there I was in the D&D shop..."
^In 6th and 7th AP values lower than 2 (1 and 0) modified the result on the damage table, which could get you a result of 7, which did extra Hull Points of damage, iirc.
. . .
Overall I like this conversation. I always felt that the more 'realistic/simulationist' versions of the game were 4th Ed and Prior. I loved 4th Ed Target Priority rules, terrain sizes, etc.
Gadzilla666 wrote: ^^^ I particularly miss the target priority rules. It was a far better way to differentiate elite armies rather than "Let's give em lots of rerolls!".
And a better way to show the leadership of a SM Captain. The Rites of Battle was a default ability of Captains, and it gave every SM on the table a higher Ld, which meant they could target priority better. It made 1000 times more sense as a way of directing fire as a commander that has all the benefits of helmet comms.
I abuse the ***t out of rerolls but god I hate them.
Agreed. Though I preferred playing an army where almost everything was either L9 or L10 on its own, as befit an army comprised of ancient Veterans of The Long War.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Conversely, Cruentus, do you think it is impossible for a more realistic ruleset (such as the historicals you mention, which are indeed somewhat difficult to get groups into) to be as popular as 40k?
EDIT:
Also everyone be warned, I'm taking notes on other games to try, so don't think those comments go unnoticed.
I would never say impossible, but for the same reasons as mentioned upthread, it would be an uphill battle. Those interested in the more "simulationist" side of things/e.g. the more complicated ruleset, would be the niche within the niche. It might end up popular in some garage groups, or conventions, but not have the mass appeal that 40k currently enjoys.
@AdmiralHalsey the comment about "Games" Workshop was tongue in cheek.
With re: to older editions. I can remember deciding whether to include lascannon or other heavy anti-tank in my lists (would I need it? What if my opponent didn't bring armor), or being able to equip sarges with Krak (in case it was needed as a last resort), or equipping flamers for hordes, etc. Sure, it was crunchy, and most of the choices were useless, but I would outfit "my dudes" how I wanted. And it at least gave the appearance of having a role on the battlefield - AT was used against tanks, flamers and HBs against hordes. I remember when the Assault Cannon went to 4 shots, or was it 6, and my mind was blown. So much firepower! Now, its just a matter of how many of the most effective gun can I get on my dudes, who are all armed the same, with all the same basic equipment. They went from "my dudes" to "these dudes". Again, I know some of the wargear would be considered gamey, and they never did get the usefulness of armor/transports using Hull Points or the charts, but they felt like vehicles. Not monsters (which is the opposite argument at the time - why can't they be like monsters? LoL)
I enjoyed the crunch of the game, without all the freebie rules tacked on to entire armies, and certainly more than 8th/9th.
There was one ruleset that was leaked as a 6th edition 40k set, that had everyone abuzz, which turned out to be a fake. But at the time, I remember thinking, man, I wish this was what they were doing, it read great. LoL.
"There is rational thought here. It's just swimming through a sea of stupid and is often concealed from view by the waves of irrational conclusions." - Railguns
Spoletta wrote: 8th made some big steps forward when it comes to armies feeling like armies, but took some steps backwards in a few rule interactions, abstracting them to the point that they feel gamey. Reroll auras surely qualify in that.
Also, stratagems were nice for the "war" part, but only some of them. Those are mostly the stratagems which expand the army horizontally, and allow models to cover alternative roles. There are instead the stratagems which just make "x" into "x+1" like for example Veterans of the long war, which instead are fully on the "game" side. They don't feel like "Stratagems".
Stratagems aren't even something I considered when I wrote the OP, but you're right, they're not altogether a terrible idea, I suppose, though as always with GW I disagree with their overall implementation.
and if you agree that it's moved (somewhat abruptly with 8th edition) from a war(game) to a (war)game.
I definitely don't agree its abrupt. They've been peeling layers off since the transition from 1st to 2nd. Elminating stats, successive knocks to morale (before kicking it out completely), the various horrible redesigns to vehicle systems (not that I miss acceleration and deceleration, or the wacky grid charts).
I don't think its a good simulation of war, but I don't think it ever was. That doesn't make it any less a wargame though.
The 'pinnacle' of simulation wargames are the old Avalon Hill style games with hex maps, chits with NATO unit symbols, and piles and piles of look-up charts for cross-reference resolution. Those scratch an itch, but its always been a different one than the Warhammers. Especially 40k, which is Fantasy in Space! ridonkulus skirmishes.
I think it's abrupt in the sense that they've transition from (badly) simulating war in the 41st millennium to not even trying - in other words, I think the game is no longer tied to the reality which it once sought to replicate, however well. It's gone from "we suck at emulating 'reality'" to "we don't even try to emulate reality." Or do you think they are still trying / never tried in the first place? Keep in mind when I say reality I mean "the fictional universe of 40k" not literal Real Life™.
I disagree with your assertion about the "pinnacle" of simulation wargames; DOD is doing some great work now (though they typically involve computers). But even that aside, I think those games are in a whole different domain from 40k. 40k is a 'miniatures' game, which investigates a level of war far below the old Avalon Hill operational-level hex games. I think it is still possible for miniatures games to at least attempt to reflect 'reality', no?
40k was never about simulating war in the 41st millenium. Even in the older editions. Maybe rogue trader might of been but certainly not 3rd through 7th.
Back then 40k was trying (somewhat) to simulate modern convential warfare but with everything having a goofy name.
Honestly, no offence intended, but if you thought ANY edition was actually even a little bit representative of the frankly insane scale of warfare in the 41st millenia, I put that down to you transposing modern warfare film/books/experience onto what you were reading to better contextualize the raw insanity that battles in 40k are on.
And in that vein, I honestly think the more 'gamey' nature of 8th and 9th does a far better job of giving the player a window into what warfare would be like in the 41st millenium. Complete and utter nonsensical insanity. Crazy space vikings on somehow bullet proof wolves charging impossible eldritch abominations underneath the legs of city sized monstrosities duking it out with both incredibly sophisticated futuristic weapons that rend the fabric of space time through oscillating flux waves in concordance with natural resonance frequencies and also a giant fething chainsaw hand. Crazy nonsense happening out of nowhere that defies convential understanding is sort of the hallmark of the 40k universe. Why shouldn't a building somehow block a small tank from seeing a huge tank, but not the other way around?
Worrying about whether or not that bush will get caught in my tank treads, or any of the other stuff that seems like 'simulationism' to a lot of the so called 'war(game)rs, always felt stupid and, for lack of a better term, 'unrealistic' to 40k for me.
40k is and has always been a crazy Heavy Metal album cover, and the prior rulesets always put themselves at odds with that fact by pretending they were trying to 'simulate' warfare in the 41st millenium, when really it was just a(n admittedly very slipshod) rehash of rommel's north africa campaign with a sci-fi veneer.
Irkjoe wrote:Games are easier, people don't want to get bogged down in arcs, facings, etc. Most just want to slam their models together in the center of the board. Warhammer is not a simulation it's a cinematic representation of the setting, it just gives you something to do with your miniatures. The ones who prioritize realism are playing other games. Imo it has swung way too far in the game direction and would be improved by finding a middle ground between the two.
This is exactly how the game started(albeit w more RPG elements). This is exactly the appeal for me, the game is something cool to do with my incredibly detailed & well painted miniatures rather than just sitting there collecting dust.
If they're expecting something else, I don't really know what to tell them.
I collected the minis to do the table top battle simulation.
I came from RPGs and chess.
I did not begin as a toy collector who got bored looking at his toys.
Anyone who lives that way, we’ll, I don’t know what to tell them except I and the people that I came into the hobby with are not motivated by a plastic fetish and a needy imagination.
We wanted and found realism in the playing out of fictional battles in a fictional universe.
Indeed, for those who fall back on the ridiculous position that 40k cannot be realistic, ask yourselves why the miniatures have guns, stand upright, why walls should block LoS and so on... all realism imported from common everyday experience without which the game would be impossible to play.
Moreover, ask yourselves when the game would stop making sense, as 8th had stopped making sense to me.
Remove gravity?
Remove LoS restrictions?
Remove morale?
When we take away too much realism, the game stops making sense and loses appeal.
Without some realism, the game is unplayable at least because without common intuitions reflected in rules and game dynamics, players can not communicate easily and so many expectations are denied that the interactions become gamey in the sense of the OP.
40k was a tabletop battle sim.
Some abstractions are necessary, else it would be real war with real people, but by representing crucial aspects realistically, expectations from common intuitions are reinforced and the sense that a battle is being lived out on a tabletop (4x8 being the proper size for 1500pt games btw) is realized in the minds of both players, I.e. it is immersive.
8th’s excessive card gaminess plus flying tanks running contrary to deeply established background, and ridiculous marines with autocannons in jet packs (Srsly OMG stupid) completely spat in the face of the fictional reality constructed over years and years of the buildup of common expectations about what counts as reasonable in this fictional universe, and made the game unplayable for me and the hobby mostly unpalatable since.
9th at least gives us walls that mostly work like walls again, at least in some important ways. Now if the most of the card based bs and rando immersion breaking idiocy like snipers that don’t need LoS can disappear, we will have the war back in this game in a proper way.
Short story, it is a war (game) first.
It became more gamey with the rise of CCG fanatics and their video game addicted cousins, alongside the distancing of rpg enthusiasts likely due at least in part to the ccg and video addicted attitude about what counts as a good game or a reason to play 40k, e.g. collect cards/toys, look for some way to stack the deck, then look for a game system that lets them do something with this so called list of collected toys.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Insectum7 wrote: ^In 6th and 7th AP values lower than 2 (1 and 0) modified the result on the damage table, which could get you a result of 7, which did extra Hull Points of damage, iirc.
. . .
Overall I like this conversation. I always felt that the more 'realistic/simulationist' versions of the game were 4th Ed and Prior. I loved 4th Ed Target Priority rules, terrain sizes, etc.
Absolutely.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/08/19 06:17:52
Spoletta wrote: 8th made some big steps forward when it comes to armies feeling like armies, but took some steps backwards in a few rule interactions, abstracting them to the point that they feel gamey. Reroll auras surely qualify in that.
Also, stratagems were nice for the "war" part, but only some of them. Those are mostly the stratagems which expand the army horizontally, and allow models to cover alternative roles. There are instead the stratagems which just make "x" into "x+1" like for example Veterans of the long war, which instead are fully on the "game" side. They don't feel like "Stratagems".
Stratagems aren't even something I considered when I wrote the OP, but you're right, they're not altogether a terrible idea, I suppose, though as always with GW I disagree with their overall implementation.
and if you agree that it's moved (somewhat abruptly with 8th edition) from a war(game) to a (war)game.
I definitely don't agree its abrupt. They've been peeling layers off since the transition from 1st to 2nd. Elminating stats, successive knocks to morale (before kicking it out completely), the various horrible redesigns to vehicle systems (not that I miss acceleration and deceleration, or the wacky grid charts).
I don't think its a good simulation of war, but I don't think it ever was. That doesn't make it any less a wargame though.
The 'pinnacle' of simulation wargames are the old Avalon Hill style games with hex maps, chits with NATO unit symbols, and piles and piles of look-up charts for cross-reference resolution. Those scratch an itch, but its always been a different one than the Warhammers. Especially 40k, which is Fantasy in Space! ridonkulus skirmishes.
I think it's abrupt in the sense that they've transition from (badly) simulating war in the 41st millennium to not even trying - in other words, I think the game is no longer tied to the reality which it once sought to replicate, however well. It's gone from "we suck at emulating 'reality'" to "we don't even try to emulate reality." Or do you think they are still trying / never tried in the first place? Keep in mind when I say reality I mean "the fictional universe of 40k" not literal Real Life™.
I disagree with your assertion about the "pinnacle" of simulation wargames; DOD is doing some great work now (though they typically involve computers). But even that aside, I think those games are in a whole different domain from 40k. 40k is a 'miniatures' game, which investigates a level of war far below the old Avalon Hill operational-level hex games. I think it is still possible for miniatures games to at least attempt to reflect 'reality', no?
40k was never about simulating war in the 41st millenium. Even in the older editions. Maybe rogue trader might of been but certainly not 3rd through 7th.
Back then 40k was trying (somewhat) to simulate modern convential warfare but with everything having a goofy name.
Honestly, no offence intended, but if you thought ANY edition was actually even a little bit representative of the frankly insane scale of warfare in the 41st millenia, I put that down to you transposing modern warfare film/books/experience onto what you were reading to better contextualize the raw insanity that battles in 40k are on.
And in that vein, I honestly think the more 'gamey' nature of 8th and 9th does a far better job of giving the player a window into what warfare would be like in the 41st millenium. Complete and utter nonsensical insanity. Crazy space vikings on somehow bullet proof wolves charging impossible eldritch abominations underneath the legs of city sized monstrosities duking it out with both incredibly sophisticated futuristic weapons that rend the fabric of space time through oscillating flux waves in concordance with natural resonance frequencies and also a giant fething chainsaw hand. Crazy nonsense happening out of nowhere that defies convential understanding is sort of the hallmark of the 40k universe. Why shouldn't a building somehow block a small tank from seeing a huge tank, but not the other way around?
Worrying about whether or not that bush will get caught in my tank treads, or any of the other stuff that seems like 'simulationism' to a lot of the so called 'war(game)rs, always felt stupid and, for lack of a better term, 'unrealistic' to 40k for me.
40k is and has always been a crazy Heavy Metal album cover, and the prior rulesets always put themselves at odds with that fact by pretending they were trying to 'simulate' warfare in the 41st millenium, when really it was just a(n admittedly very slipshod) rehash of rommel's north africa campaign with a sci-fi veneer.
Irkjoe wrote:Games are easier, people don't want to get bogged down in arcs, facings, etc. Most just want to slam their models together in the center of the board. Warhammer is not a simulation it's a cinematic representation of the setting, it just gives you something to do with your miniatures. The ones who prioritize realism are playing other games. Imo it has swung way too far in the game direction and would be improved by finding a middle ground between the two.
This is exactly how the game started(albeit w more RPG elements). This is exactly the appeal for me, the game is something cool to do with my incredibly detailed & well painted miniatures rather than just sitting there collecting dust.
If they're expecting something else, I don't really know what to tell them.
I collected the minis to do the table top battle simulation.
I came from RPGs and chess.
I did not begin as a toy collector who got bored looking at his toys.
Anyone who lives that way, we’ll, I don’t know what to tell them except I and the people that I came into the hobby with are not motivated by a plastic fetish and a needy imagination.
We wanted and found realism in the playing out of fictional battles in a fictional universe.
Indeed, for those who fall back on the ridiculous position that 40k cannot be realistic, ask yourselves why the miniatures have guns, stand upright, why walls should block LoS and so on... all realism imported from common everyday experience without which the game would be impossible to play.
Moreover, ask yourselves when the game would stop making sense, as 8th had stopped making sense to me.
Remove gravity?
Remove LoS restrictions?
Remove morale?
When we take away too much realism, the game stops making sense and loses appeal.
Without some realism, the game is unplayable at least because without common intuitions reflected in rules and game dynamics, players can not communicate easily and so many expectations are denied that the interactions become gamey in the sense of the OP.
40k was a tabletop battle sim.
Some abstractions are necessary, else it would be real war with real people, but by representing crucial aspects realistically, expectations from common intuitions are reinforced and the sense that a battle is being lived out on a tabletop (4x8 being the proper size for 1500pt games btw) is realized in the minds of both players, I.e. it is immersive.
8th’s excessive card gaminess plus flying tanks running contrary to deeply established background, and ridiculous marines with autocannons in jet packs (Srsly OMG stupid) completely spat in the face of the fictional reality constructed over years and years of the buildup of common expectations about what counts as reasonable in this fictional universe, and made the game unplayable for me and the hobby mostly unpalatable since.
9th at least gives us walls that mostly work like walls again, at least in some important ways. Now if the most of the card based bs and rando immersion breaking idiocy like snipers that don’t need LoS can disappear, we will have the war back in this game in a proper way.
Short story, it is a war (game) first.
It became more gamey with the rise of CCG fanatics and their video game addicted cousins, alongside the distancing of rpg enthusiasts likely due at least in part to the ccg and video addicted attitude about what counts as a good game or a reason to play 40k, e.g. collect cards/toys, look for some way to stack the deck, then look for a game system that lets them do something with this so called list of collected toys.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Insectum7 wrote: ^In 6th and 7th AP values lower than 2 (1 and 0) modified the result on the damage table, which could get you a result of 7, which did extra Hull Points of damage, iirc.
. . .
Overall I like this conversation. I always felt that the more 'realistic/simulationist' versions of the game were 4th Ed and Prior. I loved 4th Ed Target Priority rules, terrain sizes, etc.
Absolutely.
ok, I have a question for you, would you still play 40k w cardboard chits for units & 2d terrain?
I will totally agree that CCG & current video game influences are the worst thing to happen to 40k.
Unit1126PLL wrote: That sounds freaking awesome, if a bit tangential to the point.
Do you think modern 8th Edition's move away from the 3rd-7th model represents that?
Yes, I think it's what they were trying to achieve. Both failing and succeeding at it from my point of view
While they definitely tried to streamline the game's core rules, they didn't really achieve much depth (which WH40K never really had much of IMO). And quite soon, the relentless churn of new rules made the system clogged with miniutae, interpretations, exceptions and untested interactions. So from this point of view the move towards "less complication, more depth" was failed on both fronts. The game still has poor player agency and the ratio of time spent on playing to that spent operating the engine is still abysmal.
But...
...apparently just the well-marketed idea that the game had become more accessible, with less of a memorisation burden and more of unbridled fun made it a great success financially and popularity-wise. So a success for the company nonetheless.
I have read here recently, that WH40K only has a pool of ~20 playtesters. To be honest I am not suprised that the rules produced are more centered around randomness and not player choices. I can imagine the design team thinking about a new unit
"Let's give the player a choice of 3 interesting options when they activate this unit! It will improve player agency and emotional engagement as a result!"
"Aaaand...you want to playtest those options so that all are balanced and fair and one of them isn't an obvious choice every time?"
"Well, no, I don't have time to do this..."
"Ok, so instead of choosing anything let's make the player roll a D3 and then we don't have to balance those options at all. The dice will make this decision for our players. Please remind the marketing team to put some articles on WHCommunity and in WD describing how rolling more dice is so much fun and making decisions is boring. Thanks for the meeting, team!"
For comparison, here's the list of playtesters responsible for Spirit Island (13rd place on BGG, 1st among solo games, so, arguably, a well designed game)
And let's not forget a board game is a much more limited environment with fewer elements and interactions than a full blown wargame. 20 playtesters for a game the size of 40k (and a company the size of GW) is a joke tbh.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/08/19 11:01:09
If 40K was more of a campaign-club game than a series of pick-up battles, I think it would have grown more as a war(game) than the (war)game it has been developed as.
Battles in this game are fought as one shots, with no mechanics that affect the construction or organization of your army in-between fights. There's no logistics, reinforcements or the like - except as optional rules in one-off products like Urban Combat.
That doesn't make things bad, but it has an affect on how people approach 40K - both to build their armies and play at the table.
I would certainly like to see GW put more effort into providing stronger campaign arcs and tools - like the Planetary Empires of old - to create a strong base for those who aren't satisfied with one-off pickup tournament games. Psychic Awakening does NOT fit that bill, though if it had been approached properly, it could have. Something more akin to the old Eye of Terror campaign, but a bit more fleshed out.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/08/19 09:36:39
Unit1126PLL wrote: That sounds freaking awesome, if a bit tangential to the point.
Do you think modern 8th Edition's move away from the 3rd-7th model represents that?
Very much so. Table top games need to play to their advantages versus computer games to 'work'.
Resolving n+1 stages to determine if a shot hurt a target is bad. Modelling interplay between a bunch of reactive abilities (stuff like kill team tactics and 40k stratagems) is, by comparison better. Forcing both players to be engaged the whole of both turns is ideal, either by giving reactive choices, or by having alternating units in a single 'turn'.
My issue is that in many ways, Horus Heresy/7th is one of the worst examples of a 'game' - beautiful armies, especially the superheavi I know you love, but setting up 2-3000 points takes a huge amount of time and then one player spends the next twenty minutes removing casualties with no decision-making involvement whatsoever...
I'm not opposed to more simulationist and 'crunchy' games, but you can capture the 'feel' without ridiculous detail. Adeptus Titanicus is great, and - old and OOP as it may be - I love battlefleet gothic too.
I really think both kill team and apocalypse are really good games, and in many ways better than 'normal' 40k - I'd much rather see elements of them (or the old epic Armageddon, much of which formed the basis of bolt action) as the basis of the game.
And, yes. Stratagems to add choices are great. But I'd much rather have only 4-5 per army than a couple of dozen but only two that matter.... I like apocalypse's strategem-deck-building approach for that reason.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/08/19 10:58:23
Interesting comments indeed + especially about modern game design.
I would generally disagree that 8th is "modern" in that sense. Dice are the prime determinator of things still. When a model dies, there is no player agency. In 9th, even when a model *moves*, there are so many restrictions on coherency (for greater than 5 model units) that you don't even have that much agency in moving the model, in my humble opinion.
Could Locarno or Cyel, if you have the time, show me what 8th/9th does that is more "modern" and de-emphasizes randomness and complexity in favor of elegance and player decision making?
Right now, to me (and admittedly I am biased), it seems like most of the decisions are made at listbuilding, and really only Stratagems are the choices you make - everything else is just executing a combo developed in listbuilding. Even a Stratagem sometimes.
For example, my Slaanesh Daemons have exactly one way to play, and my Sororitas, etc.
unit
you are touching on many of the things that in relation to 40K specifically has driven me back to playing 5th edition core rules with a splash of house rules form other editions.
With games there has to be some level of abstract to make the game work-area terrain for example. a tree template can represent a forest or a small grove of trees as such you can use it to represent something that effects movements while also being so dense it blocks LOS like 3rd/4th ed 40K or DUST uses- unless you are in it and within a certain distance of the edge, or like 5th-7th 40K where it still has an effect on movement, does not block LOS, but does provide cover.
the big break is immersion, referenced here many times as "simulation" Internally we know how certain things function-lets take vehicles in 40K as a glaring example. outflanking vehicles used to be an important tactic because as in real life the front of an AFV always has the best armor to face incoming fire since the entire vehicle could not generally function with all armor facings being equal. next we have vehicle movement, one of my favorite set of rules from 4th that we still use in 5th was hitting vehicles in close combat based on if they moved and how far/fast they moved. this was another on table tactical trade off for the vehicle player as it directly impacted the effective shooting of the vehicle.
The next thing is of course LOS from the weapon mounts. it totally breaks me when i look at 8th/9th vehicles like the repulsor where the fixed guns point in ever direction and somehow if any part of the repulsor can draw LOS to something it wants to shoot at it can fire every single weapon at the target as if it is some kind of spinning top. weapon and armor facings are an immersive part of the game that can be ignored on larger battlefields in micro scale like epic for sake of simplicity, but it hardly fits in a larger scale setting like normal 40K in 28mm.
the final example is something that set 40K apart-vehicles are not monsterous creatures. they had a different mechanic in the damage table to better represent how vehicles behave as we understand them. giving them hull points and then just full conversion to MCs is another thing that breaks in game immersion.
DUST manages a better incarnation of a vehicle wound system, while maintaining weapon mount facing restrictions, but this is mostly due to the fact that MCs are really not much of a thing in the game. there are only 3 in one of the 4 faction blocks in the entire game. the game is also built from the ground up on a wound system mechanic unlike how 40K began.
I enjoy the lore driven rules in my games, but i also enjoy a certain level of simulated realism/immersion over simple gameyness for comp players. it is the reason why things like formations, CP, stratagems, card decks of objectives all worked to turn me off of NU-40K as it feels more like a CCG than a TT combat game where what you do with what you have on the table is more important that what super-combo gotcha you can set up.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/08/19 14:19:52
GAMES-DUST1947/infinity/B5 wars/epic 40K/5th ed 40K/victory at sea/warmachine/battle tactics/monpoc/battletech/battlefleet gothic/castles in the sky,/heavy gear/MCP
Good input, Aphyon, but I think we should brace ourselves for more CCG-like experiences; it's modern wargame design, apparently.
And I mean that seriously - it's more popular and fun, I think. Even if it ruins things for people like you and me, who want to tell a plausible story on the tabletop.
It really was a different time ....
Legio Suturvora 2000 points (painted)
Daemonhunters 1000 points (painted)
Flesh Tearers 2000+ points (painted) - Balt GT '02 52nd; Balt GT '05 16th
Kabal of the Tortured Soul 2000+ points (painted) - Balt GT '08 85th; Mechanicon '09 12th
Greenwing 1000 points (painted) - Adepticon Team Tourny 2013
