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I have been wanting to post this for a while, but two recent threads here really made it clear to me my issues.

Let me preface this by saying that I know I am not, or at least am no longer, the target market for GW. I am an old wargamer; grew up with Avalon Hill and original D&D; moved on to Johnny Reb, Warhammer Ancient Battles, Hail Caesar, Infinity and Kings of War. I am not a GW hater, though there are things I do not like about them - the abandonment of WAB, the insistence that the GW world is the entirety of the hobby, etc, but also things I like about them - the original stories of WHFB and 40k; many of the miniatures, etc.

Here's the thing. I WANT to like 40k. I want to play it. Sisters of Battle is my go to painting army; for the last 15-20 years when I was in a painting lull I would pull out SOB miniatures I had picked up at various flea markets, ebay, stores etc and paint them. They are a joy to paint, and they were guaranteed to get me out of my painting lull. I will also paint the new ones (slowly), once I decide on a separate color scheme from all my metals.

But - as one thread said; anymore its just NOT a wargame. This has nothing to do with levels of abstraction; its a matter of "feel" or suspension of disbelief. Its not complexity and simulation. As I get older, I want my miniatures larger and my rules sets smaller. WAB had some silly things (pirouetting units with no real line of battle often) but I still felt like it was a wargame. KoW is an exercise in geometry, yet it is still for the most part a battle of fantasy armies - maybe its window dressing of morale, flanks, etc. but its trying to model things that make sense, in a way that I can nod my head and say ok. Armies in these games looked and felt like armies.
Infinity, some will say being able to activate the same soldier multiple times breaks the realism, but I get it. It still feels like a skirmish battle. On the other hand, for ME, SAGA doesn't. Its too stylized, too much emphasis on resource management.

40k just doesnt do it. What level is it? Does it want to be a skirmish game, a company level game, an army game? It tries to be all of them. Reroll auras abound, multiple kinds of saves; what are we really trying to do here - what are we trying to model? There really is no modelling of real life issues, just excuses to create what they think are cool combos. It seems like my tactics are not battlefield manuevers, attrition, etc - its looking for the right combos, like MAGIC and the other card games - maybe its telling that I feel the same about them. They may be good games; hell 40k may be a good game at times, but to me its not a wargame. (I repeat, I know that I am not the target audience). I want my army (platoon, company, battalion) to look and feel like what it is supposed to be.

I wont talk about balance, but my other issue is that the game is always changing. Its too much. I dont want many multiples of books just to have all of the rules, I dont want new codecii every few months (remember, get older - larger minis, smaller rules!). I paint slowly enough; how many edition changes and rule changes will happen between when I start an army and finish it? (Ok I admit, I am only doing SOB because have I mentioned they are a joy to paint?). I know not all like it, but Mantic to me does it right with KoW. New edition, all the armies are out. Follow the tournaments, the game. Put out small tweaks as you watch. Most units in an army are useful - you won't really gimp yourself by taking the units you like.

Anyway, where am I going? I want to like this game. Mostly, I want to put my Sisters of Battle on the table (not kill team) in a real wargame.

Please, no white knighting (or bashing) of GW. They do good things and bad. WAB was fun as hell (good) and they killed it for whatever reason, destroying a great community (bad). But tell me where I am wrong. Tell me where I can find what I am looking for. If you are in Northern Virginia, feel free (after COVID) to teach me narrative 40k and show me I am wrong - I would be happy to be wrong.

APOC rules do a real good job of portraying the game at the Army level. Few drawbacks & a ton of pluses. Wounding is different and resolved at end of turn and weapons have different profiles for infantry vs vehicles.

40k does an acceptable job of portraying the game at the Company level. Many Drawbacks (Strats/wombo combos).

Kill Team does an excellent job of portraying the game at the Squad level. They feel like your dudes and each action is meaningful.

pick the style of army you want to get out of your miniatures and then pick the game style/size you wanna play.

I disagree with the first point and would go so far as to say that for me 40K is coming closer to being a fun wargame than before, but I agree with your second point. 40K changes too often. After all these years one should think the guys are able to write a rulebook that lasts longer than 3 years.

If larger armies and simpiler rules are what you are after, then Apocalypse is probably what you are after.

Sadly, I believe its been discontinued...

Piano Man wrote:

Anyway, where am I going? I want to like this game. Mostly, I want to put my Sisters of Battle on the table (not kill team) in a real wargame.

Well, if 9th is not to your taste, there's 8 previous editions that are now "complete" & won't be changing except for house rules.

I'm also and old time wargamer and still have most of the Avalon Hill games

 Grimoir wrote:
I'm also and old time wargamer and still have most of the Avalon Hill games

Yup. Maybe not most, but I got some!

With re to 8th, I agree.

I’ve mostly moved on to historicals, but still play WAB. I have a shelf full of rules that I haven’t played, because I can’t decide on an era or an army, let alone put paint to it. I love Battlegroup (Kursk, etc). Now that clearly feels like a war game to me.

I’ve also had the advantage of playing with like minded gamers, not at the LGS, but in basements and homes, and a lot of the OTT stuff hasn’t found its way into our games. We play more asymmetrical games, we play more campaigns. I am moving toward using 5th edition for 40k with some of the other stuff tacked on judiciously. When I do play 40k 8th, its with Indexes only. With AoS, I play my Brettonians with the original release warscrolls.

I hopped off the merry go round with 8th after the codexes started dropping, and I was just rolling dice and removing casualties. 9th has done more to push me further away. Maybe now I can paint my DKoK, or play that Badab War campaign with an older edition of the game. I’ve been selling off the unopened, unassembled parts of multiple armies, and refocusing on my 5 or 6 40k armies, 3 or 4 WHFB armies, my 4 LOTR armies, my 3 Battlegroup/FoW armies, and my 10+ different era historical armies/war bands. Not to mention all the Specialist Games stuff I have (Old Necromunda, Mordheim, Gothic, Old BBowl, Space Hulk), oh, and Adeptus Titanicus - GW’s most ‘war game’ game of them all

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I disagree with the first point and would go so far as to say that for me 40K is coming closer to being a fun wargame than before, but I agree with your second point. 40K changes too often. After all these years one should think the guys are able to write a rulebook that lasts longer than 3 years.

This is a bit of a design issue, From interveiws and such it often seems like even the people writing the rules dont know whats coming and where they may need to take things.

But i agree with it, for a lot of my army the systems and design feel quite hollow. Like they get rules just so they have them, but the design is basic and without any really thought to flavor or providing a interesting base to play. And good rules would go a long way to letting some factions play nice even without model updates.

Piano man

This is why my group at the FLG has gone back to playing 5th ed core rules with some house ruled in rules form other editions to give 5th that final tweek to make it the best edition that should have been. with a heavy nod to in universe lore related game play and less about unit power ups VIA systems like formations/stratagems/CP

While i agree there has to be some level of abstraction for things like area terrain to represent forests or the like. i require some aspect of simulation in my TT wargame like armor value/class, facings etc...

I am also a huge fan of DUST 1947 for many of the same things you are looking for
.tight rules set that is not overly complicated
.defined unit roles
.good mix of sim/abstract rules
.balanced rules in the form of hard counters for every unit/special skill.
.reaction system
.alternating activation
.model count that can go from small skirmish to full company level game, while still not requiring to many minis (the minis looking fantastic and being of high quality is also a +)

But then i come from the background of a classic battletech player so my interest in more sim and less gamey collectible card game/board game style of rules sets that GW seems to be moving 40K into.

The problem for those of us playing DUST, victory at sea, battletech, infinity, warmachine, B5 wars, flames of war, kings of war or any other host of good games out there is being overpowered by the promotion and accessibility of GW games generally and 40K specifically.

The only counter i have to this is promotion on a local level. i have multiple armies/fleets/squads for a variety of games so that i can promote them to players who have never given them a try.

That is sadly a huge issue, we have had people turn up over the years. Got a 40k army only to find that almost no one is playing regularly here. Spent all the time online and no one ever really says, you should see what local games are being played.
Its not really right to try and sell them on other games, and even kill team is a real bummer if most of your 40k army is going to collect dust. :(

Apple fox wrote:
That is sadly a huge issue, we have had people turn up over the years. Got a 40k army only to find that almost no one is playing regularly here. Spent all the time online and no one ever really says, you should see what local games are being played.
Its not really right to try and sell them on other games, and even kill team is a real bummer if most of your 40k army is going to collect dust. :(

I do volunteer work at my FLGS running the game area side for the last decade +, so i have lots of different games because they appeal to different people(as well as myself for some needed variety).
My focus is on miniature war games, we have other volunteers and regulars who focus on other types of gaming like magic the gathering and RPGs.

Under normal circumstances it works pretty well at promoting and sustaining the local community especially when we have a high turnover of players every few years thanks to being in close proximity to the local military bases.

It helps avoid the problem you mentioned by working to maintain an active community with a good variety of game systems.

2020 has been a rough year to keep things going, 8 months in with almost 4 of them being totally shut down and the last 2 under limited hours. i expect things to bounce back more in the next couple months, i know players are eager to get back.

Piano Man wrote:

But - as one thread said; anymore its just NOT a wargame. This has nothing to do with levels of abstraction; its a matter of "feel" or suspension of disbelief. Its not complexity and simulation. As I get older, I want my miniatures larger and my rules sets smaller. WAB had some silly things (pirouetting units with no real line of battle often) but I still felt like it was a wargame. KoW is an exercise in geometry, yet it is still for the most part a battle of fantasy armies - maybe its window dressing of morale, flanks, etc. but its trying to model things that make sense, in a way that I can nod my head and say ok. Armies in these games looked and felt like armies.
Infinity, some will say being able to activate the same soldier multiple times breaks the realism, but I get it. It still feels like a skirmish battle. On the other hand, for ME, SAGA doesn't. Its too stylized, too much emphasis on resource management.

40k just doesnt do it. What level is it? Does it want to be a skirmish game, a company level game, an army game? It tries to be all of them. Reroll auras abound, multiple kinds of saves; what are we really trying to do here - what are we trying to model? There really is no modelling of real life issues, just excuses to create what they think are cool combos. It seems like my tactics are not battlefield manuevers, attrition, etc - its looking for the right combos, like MAGIC and the other card games - maybe its telling that I feel the same about them. They may be good games; hell 40k may be a good game at times, but to me its not a wargame. (I repeat, I know that I am not the target audience). I want my army (platoon, company, battalion) to look and feel like what it is supposed to be.

I hear you man. For me, some level of realism is important, and even though Warhammer is fiction, I want that fiction represented on the tabletop. I want the rules to reflect how this or that unit or faction is supposed to work on the battlefield. 8th and 9th edition 40k no longer does that. It feels like I am playing, as you say, a card game, or sometimes a really bad RTS.

I want to see soldiers run in terror, gak blow up and leave wrecks and craters where survivors desperately take cover, and so on. For me, it's the level of abstraction specifically. It is of course always a problem with wargames and already in 6th and 7th edition there were issues, but nowadays it has got way too high. Experience of playing 40k is that I put models on the table, some math happens somewhere far away, and then I remove the models. That's it. It's just so BORING.

My question for experienced players, based on comments I see on this forum, is how much room does 40K allow for skill and tactical ability. Some people seem to be able to read a codex or supplement and decide wether an army is worth playing. If there no room for being able to use different armies skilfully then that really just means there is only one way to play the game for repeatable success, we’ve all seen computer games like that.

If that’s true I would say this isn’t a way game. A war game should be pro games to be subject to a combination of tactical superiority, skill and luck, regardless of the resources of the army in question

mrFickle wrote:
My question for experienced players, based on comments I see on this forum, is how much room does 40K allow for skill and tactical ability. Some people seem to be able to read a codex or supplement and decide wether an army is worth playing. If there no room for being able to use different armies skilfully then that really just means there is only one way to play the game for repeatable success, we’ve all seen computer games like that.

If that’s true I would say this isn’t a way game. A war game should be pro games to be subject to a combination of tactical superiority, skill and luck, regardless of the resources of the army in question

See,i play since early fourth. (but also did the occaisonal 3.0 match just for giggles.) I also on occaision play BA and am allways willing to try out other systems.

Some issues come from GW themselves not beeing good at rulewriting. In earlier editions they still had the names of the author on dexes. By extension you can imagine that alot of Gak got thrown their way , often unnecessairly harsh but still.
H.B.M.C had a nice post on one of the core designers of CSM dex 4.0 which got a lot of flak due to the nature of CSM 4.0 dex. (it's in the why is the csm 3.5 codex so loved thread i believe.)

Basically you have the issue that the writers seemingly do not cooperate with each other in regards to design and vision, which means that certain armies can feel extremely janky comparatively to the core rules or previous iterations.
Then there is the lackluster ruleswriting, see, Stratagems f.e. there are multiple ones that allow you to double your damage out put, one is melee only, the other one is shooting only. The core mechanics, which make it more difficult for the melee one to be used, should technically dictate, that it would be cheaper ressource wise in regards to CP, shouldn't it? Yet that isn't the case.

Further on that: GW (well probably more the writer at hand) seems to be fixated on how certain armies and subarchetypes are supposed to look. And you see this then lead to discussions because it then infiltrates into balance. Because gw and the writer at hand will then attempt to use a sledge to make some choices happen instead of understanding that for some choices to be considered they need to fit the picture (the envirnoment designed by gw by the core rules and the other factions).
F.e. An archetype GW seems to want to push is daemonengines. They shall be durable and daemonic (therefore a regen and invul are baseline to all of them)
That has a price, they are also daemons so their BS and WS is worse (except to the decimator) this lowers their output. GW often overprices their durability (which they do in general quite often) and grant them support charachters that fail at their job, cue warpsmith and lord discordant, one fails miserably and the other is beatstick with an aura for a castle build... However the real kicker is, due to factions like knights and renegade knights existing, dealing with a lot tougher units on the regular impacts army building, by extension mech guard and Daemonengines can not leverage their supposed advantage and therefore have no place in the picture unless you start pricing them downwards, and you see that well in 8th with the prices of defielers and other daemonengines knowing only one direction., down.

Vice versa, cultists were too often picked in GW's eyes over CSM, meaning that they nerfed them to hell and back to the point where there is nigh 0 synergy to them and yet still they get picked over CSM, because 1 W sv 3 + infantry that can easily be turned into 4+ or 5 + for that price is a lot more significant a loss then say 5 pts on a model you expected to die anyways and only picked because you needed ressoureces (CP.)

Of course theres also size issues, the uneneding creep of bigger and meaner (unless you are an ork and you play a stompa, in which case it's bigger and a laughing matter....) have started a multitude of other effects, crippling archetypes, etc because they don't fall within the scale of usefull anymore. Why play an AM mech guard, when you anyways get your teeth kicked in by lists that have to deal with knights (and other superheavies) on the regular. The size issue severly limited the scope of terrain granularity for exemple.


then there is the streamlining and the effect that had on certain unit types. All over 8th, in general until SM 2.0 , light infantry dominated, because mechanics that should hinder them, like morale, surpression, terrain, blasts, etc have either been outright removed or reduced to nothingness or made to be easily (and underpricedly) bypassable. 40 k started out as a skirmish / platton game, it now resembles closer to apocalypse, granted 9th lowers that back down again by pricehiking units (regardless of the quality of the hikes and the luggage carried over from 8th in form of PA etc.) . but from 5th onwards the game and armies grew massively.

Stratagems are also a whole slew of issues, as are traits, both of which have , let's say questionable trackrecord and put you for issues in regards to balance, because are you pricing an obliterator as if he has constantly votwl and slaaneshi double shooting or not is a massive difference. If not then the max power output skyrockets and the unit is underpriced and devastating for any sort of competitive meta, if you do, then anyone not fielding that specific combination of traits and stratagems pays too much and is hindering himself . It's basically an unbalanceable system, so long there is no price (beyond oppurtunity cost) attached to traits.

I sold many of my hex and counter wargames years ago, but kept my favorites, the old Gamers Civil War Brigade series (still the best ACW games I have played at a not too complex level), and the GMT Great Battles etc. Always wanted to play "Here I Stand" for a different experience, but it needs too many players for too long a time.

I think I just want my soldiers to look and act like an army. I want things to make sense. Someone in another thread compared running through a solid wall, to soldiers kneeling when they were modelled standing up. For me, those two things ARE different. Its a matter of experiential expectations (no other games allow me to run through solid walls, so if I was playing 40k this would be a gotcha) but also practicality - no one will have doubles of all their soldiers in various poses.

True LOS to me, at least the way it is implemented, breaks the immersion. It is silly, in my eyes. Other games like KOW, WAB, etc handled terrain easily. Infinity does it well.

Like I said, I am not the target audience. 40k seems to put a lot of complexity into their games; for me it is the wrong complexity. Too many multiples of almost the same gun; worrying about what each soldier carries in a game with aircraft and huge knights. Complexity at a detailed minutae level. I would rather see the complexity used to model the fiction, and the reality of the lore and of actuality what could happen.

I remember when I first discovered WHFB - I couldnt afford the minis at the time and knew no one who played miniature games. But they put out these leaflets that discussed each army; strengths and weaknesses. I read and reread these so many times, thinking about which army I would play if I could. I wanted the army that fit the lore. I don't think I have ever grown up from that.

Piano Man wrote:
Reroll auras abound, multiple kinds of saves; what are we really trying to do here - what are we trying to model? There really is no modelling of real life issues, just excuses to create what they think are cool combos.

Seeing they are mostly outputted by HQ units, they are supposed to model units working better under the direct supervision of competent leader. Is command bonus not a thing in other wargames you play? Of all the 40K simulation issues, HQ buffing units is one of the smallest, I'd say.

And as others say, it looks like you want the Apocalypse ruleset. You can still use your sister minis, but the rules are streamlined and at larger overall level, less rolling, rules for armies are all in the book with no updates or changes, really, seem to tick all the checkboxes you want?

 Irbis wrote:
Seeing they are mostly outputted by HQ units, they are supposed to model units working better under the direct supervision of competent leader. Is command bonus not a thing in other wargames you play? Of all the 40K simulation issues, HQ buffing units is one of the smallest, I'd say.

Leaders making all units around them shoot significantly more accurately and be less affected by obscuration, movement penalties, or hazards of their own weapons is not a common thing in wargames, no.

Better reactions and coordination, better rallying and resistance to morale damage, bonuses to an activation system (eg activating units out of sequence), or a minute combat bonus in games that abstract combat ability out to a single numerical value- sure.

Leaders making all units around them shoot significantly more accurately and be less affected by obscuration, movement penalties, or hazards of their own weapons is not a common thing in wargames, no.

Better reactions and coordination, better rallying and resistance to morale damage, bonuses to an activation system (eg activating units out of sequence), or a minute combat bonus in games that abstract combat ability out to a single numerical value- sure.

Agreed, and I think this is a major reason why GW needs to fix the morale phase. It was essentially meaningless in 8th, and is generally meaningless in 9th as well (although more time consuming) so they have to find other things for the commanders to do. If Morale is meaningless, then a character who only improves morale will also be, generally, pretty meaningless. Which is why we have all these other weird aura abilities instead ...

There are many aspects of 40k you can enjoy apart from playing the actual game; collecting/painting/converting/lore to name a few.

Your post suggest that you trend to like apocalypse battles whereas standard 40k is more of a skirmish; that said you can look at aeronautica and other specialized games for 40k miniatures that are smaller than 28mm standard model scale and game with that.

I feel like this thread demonstrates a pretty large cultural shift in wargaming. From my view, wargaming and 40k are larger than ever. People my age and younger are getting into tabletop games like I've never seen, with 40k and D&D leading the charge. Lately, it seems like every online personality in the nerd-sphere is either interested in or starting 40k. This has a compounding effect as more people encourage more people to play. I can't believe there are LGS where 40k isn't played, because it seems like that's what all the new blood is playing.

9th edition feels way more like a competitive online game, with regular balance updates and rotations. There's a freedom and fun in list building in 8th and 9th that I haven't had in any other edition or wargame. There's more room for custom factions and backgrounds, more room for self expression and skill expression.

40k is extremely gamey, with plenty of abstraction and complexity that doesn't model anything realistic. However, that's a benefit to both extremes: the casuals get plenty of abstraction and flashy moments, while the competitive players get complexity and depth that can be rebalanced without being tied to realism.

I appreciate all that can be off-putting to a certain demographic, but there are other options. Apoc, 30k, and Titanicus are much closer to traditional wargames, and if you already have a like-minded group then earlier editions are available.

You're gonna need sympathetic pgaming buddies for all of these...

Play your minis with a more realistic org chart. Troops should be the bulk of your forces. This does help considerably with many of the issues in the game.

Play your minis with an older edition of of the game. You avoid the constant churn, and units with a ridiculous amount of firepower and armour saves.

2nd edition stripped of a lot of the wilder wargear and stratagems (and overpowered "flash" in the game), or rulebook-only 3rd, actually feel more like proper wargames.

They're still somewhat lacking in command and control mechanics, suppression and morale.

Play an actual science fiction wargame with your minis. Stargrunt II is well-regarded for the "realistic" feel of its battles, thrives on scenarios and is free.

Two Hour Wargames use a great reaction mechanism, and make a real effort to model different alien psychology.

Although a 15mm game, Gruntz is a build-your-own system that works well with combined-arns forces.

Victory Decision: Future Combat on Wargame Vault is based on the old Starship Troopers engine. It mixes tech levels well and allows a lot of troop customisation

Tomorrow's War is almost unreadable, but has a good core infantry combat system and good chrome for vehicles, robots, the net, airstrikes and artillery. It's also OOP.

Plenty of free systems out there to play. Fast and Dirty 4 is good, so is No Limits. You will find mods for 40k armies, or make your own.

Or make your own! Beyond the Gates of Antares is another Rick Priestly game. The minis split opinions, but the core game is solid. There are enough examples to make your own troop stats, bet someone has done it already!

Or take a good, solid game for moderns - or even WWII - and modify the game stats to suit.

The problem with all that is there's fundamentally fewer games.

For someone who wants to play weekly warhammer, it's 40k or bust in most places in my experience. Furthermore, for someone who wants a variety of opponents and a shaken up meta, rather than the same six people or whatever, there's basically 40k.

40k is a unique social experience, even if the rules are crap. It is possible to want the social experience and also want better rules. "Try another game and don't let the door hit you on the way out" isn't the solution some of us are looking for.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
"Try another game and don't let the door hit you on the way out" isn't the solution some of us are looking for.

You know, GW is not going to revoke your Warhammer Card because you played a different game.

I'm suggesting that the OP and some friends spend maybe $10 at most, one evening reading some rules (WAY fewer pages than GW) and a couple of sessions trying a new game.

You could play an older version of 40k, and in any case you don't need to buy or paint a single new model.

I can see that a FLGS doesn't want you to play games they don't sell, or dead games, but you make it sound like banishment from the kingdom. Yeah, there will be fewer games out there, or even none. It may be up to you to learn the rules, and cultivate new acquaintances. So?

So it's possible to do that and continue to fight for a 40k that more neatly aligns with our desires on an internet forum.

I'm doing exactly that with 30k, Bolt Action, and LOTR, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't also hope 40k itself improves (and try to post about it on message boards).

Games companies have been putting out broken or unappealing new editions since forever - there are people who say that adding thief skills to D&D was a mistake.

I'd say that Magic the Gathering gave gaming companies a lot of moneymaking ideas that are not necessarily great ideas in games themselves. Doubly so when you have to buy, assemble and paint models that will rotate in and out of utility. A mini you chose the weapon options on, then spend hours painting, is not the same as a small packet of cards.

Every gamer has to make an active decision when these things happen - play this version, sit it out, play another game.

I do appreciate that getting to play a game is important, unless every session makes you more unhappy. It may be my age, or that I started with RPGs, but I see the game rules as a starting point for having fun with friends, not the one and only way of doing things.

I expect GW to do what makes it popular, and prosper as a business. I have no expectation that they make me, personally, happy.

Hey,

So i'm an older war gamer as well have played is Rogue trader days and pretty much ever edition in between and i'll be honest you see this in every wargame its not something that is unique to 40k or GW for that matter.

9th is far more simplified then the games every really been, compared to 7th for example its miles different and a lot of people didn't like that it was more simplified. unfortunately this is a case of personal preference and everyone varies.

for you, you don't want regular change, where as a lot of people love it. it keeps the game fresh and consistently growing and with a lore that is constantly expanding its inevitable.

I don't think your views are wrong but this is what 40k is, a consistently changing and forward moving game.

You have two choices really accept what the game is and give feedback where you can, or if the game has to much you dislike don't.
personally id prefer it wasn't the later as regardless of the changes 40k is a great experience but no one would ever force you to play something that is not to your taste.

either way I hope you find the answer you are looking for.

I do think that comparing 40k to a video game is a wrong approach. Just because video games have weekly balance patches doesn't mean a miniatures game should.

I didn't take anything in this thread as condemnation or criticism. I DO play other games. Right now I concentrate on Kings of War, and am trying to learn Carnevale. I have multiple Ancients armies and would always play Hail Caesar.

They are all different.

KoW is a great hobbyist game; I build my army how I want generally - searching for the miniatures I like and that fit the theme of my army. I love the freedom, and knowing that my army will be competitive. That, although games can be lost in list building, generally games will not be won in list building. Plus, the community here in the Mid Atlantic is the best I have found.

Carnevale looks fun. The main reason I got into it is that I love Venice and Venetian history, and I am making buildings, terrain boards, and want to be able to teach it. This is my COVID project - I have four small bands from three factions that I am in the midst of painting. It looks fun, but in any case the terrain and minis are great.

Hail Caesar is fun, and ancient/medieval wargaming has always been my biggest thing. HC feels right, at least with my Late Romans. And its easy to get a big game in, in a short amount of time.

I am also not disputing that card games are the popular thing. But I will argue that most of the games I play do not change weekly or monthly. The constant churn turned me off of Malifaux; Infinity seems to be doing some of that. (I understand it from a business perspective, but I don't have to play it). The games above dont seem to have that churn (maybe Carnevale will, but the setting is what I love here). I already mentioned in a previous post the Mantic KoW model of tweaking their game, and I like that.

About other games; sure I would love to play either other games, Apoc, or older editions with my SoB. The problem is finding opponents.

For KoW, there is a local community. We had a very small group that was trying to play weekly at Huzzah pre Covid.

For Carnevale; we'll see. I am building enough to teach it and provide minis, so that can hopefully make it easier.

Hail Caesar, I only play at conventions and only sometimes, due to lack of opponents. I have a number of historical armies (Late Roman, Ancient Greek, Medieval Hungarian and ECW) pretty much sitting alone.

Let me be clear; I am not complaining or expecting GW to conform to my desires. I wanted to promote discussion and find ways to get my SoB on the table in a game I enjoy!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I do think that comparing 40k to a video game is a wrong approach. Just because video games have weekly balance patches doesn't mean a miniatures game should.

Especially since said video games usually aren't attempting to gouge your wallet for balance patches

9th is far more simplified then the games every really been, compared to 7th for example its miles different and a lot of people didn't like that it was more simplified. unfortunately this is a case of personal preference and everyone varies.

I've seen this come up a few times lately and I don't get it. "9th is simpler", "9th is a more streamlined version of 8th" etc etc (those are direct quotes) and I don't get it. It absolutely is more simple than 7th, but it's more complicated and LESS streamlined than 8th.

9th has more rules than 8th so it's NOT in any way "more streamlined", and most of the individual rules themselves have become more complicated. Even a simple morale check has more steps now than in 8th.

Where for you, is 9th even more simple than 8th? Is it an interactions thing where you feel game play has been cleaned up? Genuinely curious.