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Hello dakkanaughts, tis been a long time, years since I've looked back into this game, and with that new found wisdom, just had a few questions.

1.) How is the state of the game, I played toward the mid of 7th---> beginning of the 8th edition and haven't touched any 9th edition. I remember back then the game was all about saturation of ap2 goodness with vehicles of high str 6+ weaponry, let alone your marsh pit melee, and poison blobbs of ranged corsairs. I think D weapons were just starting to make an introduction into the game alongside grav weapons. How has the time been to these types of army?

2.) Are the rules more complex or dummed down since I was playing? I have no idea what 8th edition rules are let alone 9th, was there a good service to them?

3.) How are gk fairing in the light of things. THAT'S RIGHT! I was a gk player but not 6th edition terminator and paladin shove, but more rather Interceptor and purifier Heavy, I was actually shocked, to see that I had made about 20 interceptors, which gave me a moment of pride and glee recognizing that I could make a pretty good composition list. How would such a list fare now adays?

4.) Is there still a lot of allied nonsense in the game?

5.) Finally, How's the game looking heading into the future? any promising additions on the horizon?

Well, I had a dream about 40k last night, for some strange reason, and chose to just act on my intuition and check in to see how things are going? Hope everything has fared well since then.

1) Corsairs are gone, D weapons are gone. Currently, the greatest boogeymen of 7th edition the scatterbiks and wraithknights and centurions have been serving a solid edition and a half long time-out in 'super terrible really unviable hell' for their sins.

2) I would say equally complex in different ways? If you're talking 'height of formation nonsense seventh ed' vs 'right now 9th ed' I'd say the core game rules are simpler, but the stratagem and subfaction systems make the actual gameplay more complex.

3) Currently they're not doing amazingly in competitive play, but they are currently behind the newest marine change of adding +1W to everything Space Marine. GK and all of CSM except for Death Guard is waiting for that change to come thru.

4) Allied nonsense was rife in 8th but now that it has an actual cost during army construction it is less prevalent in 9th.

5) We have been in a gigantic avalance of loyalist marine garbage since the launch of 9th had some nice new necrons. Currently there's nothing major previewed - just an upcoming character for the Drukhari codex and a new character for Sisters I believe, alongside leftover necron and marine stuff from the launch of 9th. Corona has very much slowed down the release schedule.

It has been speculated that to avoid releasing things into a covid locked-down world, GW moved up all the codexes that didn't have major model releases to the front of the pack. We've had space marines and necrons with the edition launch with tons of new stuff, but then blood angels, space wolves, deathwatch, death guard, and upcoming dark angels and drukhari with 1 or 0 models coming out with them.

 Dezstiny wrote:
...1.) How is the state of the game, I played toward the mid of 7th---> beginning of the 8th edition and haven't touched any 9th edition. I remember back then the game was all about saturation of ap2 goodness with vehicles of high str 6+ weaponry, let alone your marsh pit melee, and poison blobbs of ranged corsairs. I think D weapons were just starting to make an introduction into the game alongside grav weapons. How has the time been to these types of army?

The general numerical balance is about as far out as it was in 7th, just in different directions. Mid-power spam is still better AT than dedicated AT, heavy infantry is still sitting at a stat intersection that makes it very easily countered (the bump to 2W for all Marines in 9th doesn't help a lot when D2 or Dd3 was the stuff killing HI already), vehicles are still too squishy (though it's now stingy allocation of T/W/Sv than stingy allocation of AV/HP), and AP is still too generously distributed.

...2.) Are the rules more complex or dummed down since I was playing? I have no idea what 8th edition rules are let alone 9th, was there a good service to them?...

The "core rules" have been made simpler, largely by taking the unit types and USRs from 7th and off-loading that onto unique special rules on datasheets. Gameplay is more complicated since you need to be aware of a lot more cross-datasheet buff stacks than you did in 7th, and slower because you're rolling more dice and re-rolling more dice. There are fewer core rules to remember but the amount of stuff you need to remember to actually play the game is greater.

3.) How are gk fairing in the light of things. THAT'S RIGHT! I was a gk player but not 6th edition terminator and paladin shove, but more rather Interceptor and purifier Heavy, I was actually shocked, to see that I had made about 20 interceptors, which gave me a moment of pride and glee recognizing that I could make a pretty good composition list. How would such a list fare now adays?

GK have one viable tournament build (Paladin deathstar) and efficiently counter a few Chaos deathstar builds. Their fundamental statline holes haven't been fixed (PAGK are still paying for expensive melee weapons and the full psyker type on 1W/1A bodies); the storm bolter buff to four shots at 12", the reliability buff to Deep Strike (Reserves can come in automatically on turn two and don't risk mishaps), and the shrunken tables/king-of-the-hill scenarios for 9th have helped, but they're still expensive, fragile, and difficult to use.

...4.) Is there still a lot of allied nonsense in the game?...

Allied nonsense dominated mid-8th, it's been nerfed a lot going into 9th by removing the Command Point advantage and giving some people powerful mono-Codex bonuses. In practice, like most GW "fixes", the mono-Codex bonuses seem to have largely turned the game from soup-dominated to mono-Codexes-with-the-bonus-dominated.

...5.) Finally, How's the game looking heading into the future? any promising additions on the horizon?...

The usual. There are three Codexes right now (SM + supplements, Death Guard, Necrons) that have been updated to the 9th standard with more damage creep and bigger/more complicated buff stacks, the well-performing armies are either those or builds that specifically hard-counter them (Harlequins are doing surprisingly well simply by virtue of being efficient SM killers). Whole unit types are still getting punished for being good last edition (9th seems entirely uninterested in making vehicles in general useful). Forge World content has been taken over by the main rules team, who don't like it very much and are busy trying to make people stop using it without directly telling them they can't use it. Looking forward we'll see more power creep, worse internal balance, worse support for older minis/minis that were good last edition, and less customizability, all in the name of competitive balance.

If you want to hop back into 9th I'd strongly suggest starting a different army. Nobody on the design team has cared about GK since Matt Ward left and their updates since the 5e book have been low-effort maintenance patches that haven't really fixed any of the fundamental problems with the army, and that's unlikely to change anytime soon.

If you liked the details and blast and templates and so on, then skip this edition or play for fun using crusade rules...
I will not be converting anything to fit 9th Ed limitations. I will not be adding the new hotness units etc.
I started with 2nd, read RT and was active through 4th... since end 7th I have been disappointed by the CCG gimmicky IP copyright ridiculousness from GW.

Hmm... so it's pretty dark still in the grim dark future ehh?

Any real positives all- round that have made the game more enjoyable in a sense of bringing the games closer or is it still pretty alpha strike focused?

It seems They haven't put in any rules to mitigate how many points of damage you can take on a first turn. but that was my problem before. Just catastrophic losses taken from a single turns shooting by a full force and then being left with 2/3rds to half your forces left going up against a totally unscathed force.

In addition what's the point value of most games now adays? before it was like 1500- 1750.

2k is the usual standard, but due to points rescaling the number of minis is going to be pretty similar to a 1,750 in 7th. Alpha strike is still pretty dominant, more forgiving Reserves has helped a bit and they've finally figured out that defining LOS-blocking area terrain helps, but 9th is really no better on that front.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dezstiny wrote:
...Any real positives all- round that have made the game more enjoyable...

Not many. They've fixed the walker/MC divide by making all vehicles function as MCs, but both are too squishy now. They've copy-pasted ideas from a third-party mission pack in 8th to make for some of the best tournament missions GW's ever written, but the missions are also heavily biased towards tough melee armies. Cover does more for Sv2+/3+ than it used to, but the end result makes 2+ saves too easy to come by and weapons with no AP are pretty useless. Super-heavies don't have any extra special rules on top of normal vehicles anymore, but except for Knights they've pretty much all ended up terrible.

A few other important things:

For the first time in GW history, missions for 500 point, 1000 point and 3000 point games exist in addition to missions for 2000 point games.

My personal favourite thing about 9th is also something that has never existed in GW history; it's called the Crusade System. 8th broke the game into 3 different ways to play- Open, Narrative and Competitive. Trouble was, other than mission choices, there weren't a lot of differences between the three ways to play.

9th upped that ante, and Crusade is the new Narrative way to play. It created an ongoing experience system, and added an additional resource in the form of Requisition Points. Your Crusade is designed to start small and generic; the army grows as you gain Requisition Points and your characters and units become more specialized and unique as they gain experience.

8th saw some new factions get dexes, and integrated models from minigames like Blackstone Fortress and Kill Team into the 40k game. This allowed them to introduce obscure models like Rogue Traders, Zoats, Men of Iron and others; these tend to appeal to long-beards like myself who have been playing since the 80's. They aren't exactly competitive, so you never see them in armies that are designed to win, but they are great for Crusade because they can grow.

Crusade content is now being included in every new codex, because each army has different avenues for growth.

All factions now get subfaction rules- some people, like me love this. I was always angry that there were different feels to Blood Angels vs Ultramarines, but never for the Order of Our Martyred Lady vs Order of the Argent Shroud. Some of the competitive players who worship at the twin altars of Balance and Streamlined Simplicity see these rules as unnecessary bloat that complicates the game. Those of us who prefer imaginative content that helps further the narrative eat this stuff up, and finally feel like our factions are as detailed as space marines have been since 2nd ed.

There is a nice DE vs Sisters box on the way. And there might be a new 40k minigame on the way. There's a video preview on GW's Twitch channel tomorrow; five game systems are being previewed for sure (40K and its little Brother Kill Team among them). A sixth mystery item is also being previewed- it's the thing that COULD be a new minigame, but GW isn't letting that cat out of the bag until tomorrow.

Many here will provide very useful feedback for you, and while I am likely to feel that almost all of it is valid from a particular point of view, I would also suggest asking the same question in other 40k forums. Dakka's General Discussion is probably the most active 40k forum I've seen, which is what keeps me coming back, but it does tend to skew to competitive or tournament players, who do have legitimate concerns about the state of the game, but can overlook positive elements that appeal to people who play casually.

PenitentJake wrote:
...My personal favourite thing about 9th is also something that has never existed in GW history; it's called the Crusade System. 8th broke the game into 3 different ways to play- Open, Narrative and Competitive. Trouble was, other than mission choices, there weren't a lot of differences between the three ways to play.

9th upped that ante, and Crusade is the new Narrative way to play. It created an ongoing experience system, and added an additional resource in the form of Requisition Points. Your Crusade is designed to start small and generic; the army grows as you gain Requisition Points and your characters and units become more specialized and unique as they gain experience...

Do be aware that Crusade is fundamentally limited by being stuck to the same set of Codexes that the tournament game runs on. It isn't as straightforward as saying "if you don't want to play competitively you can just play Crusade, throw down whatever models you like, and have fun!", gameplay is still way more complicated than it needs to be, the game is still really alpha-strike-heavy, and both internal and external balance is frequently awful. If you have a group of players with the large collections and the expertise to figure out lists that are balanced against each other, it works great. If you have new players with collections that are too strong/weak for the group it presents all the same problems "competitive play" does.

(As to "never existed in GW history" 4e had a very similar XP-based campaign system, though it didn't have all the faction-specific special advance tables.)

 AnomanderRake wrote:


Do be aware that Crusade is fundamentally limited by being stuck to the same set of Codexes that the tournament game runs on. It isn't as straightforward as saying "if you don't want to play competitively you can just play Crusade, throw down whatever models you like, and have fun!", gameplay is still way more complicated than it needs to be, the game is still really alpha-strike-heavy, and both internal and external balance is frequently awful. If you have a group of players with the large collections and the expertise to figure out lists that are balanced against each other, it works great. If you have new players with collections that are too strong/weak for the group it presents all the same problems "competitive play" does.

(As to "never existed in GW history" 4e had a very similar XP-based campaign system, though it didn't have all the faction-specific special advance tables.)

So the newest set of updates changed last turn scoring so the the player who goes second has advantage in the last turn, which helps offset some of the alpha strike.

In terms of balance, the only legitimate dexes that can be fairly compared are Necrons, SM + SW supplement + BA Supplement + DW Supplement. Much of Deathguard has been leaked and it'll be here soon, but not many of us have had a chance to read it cover to cover. You can also compare all the old 8th + their respective PA books to each other. But comparisons between those two groups are only valid for the present moment and aren't really fair.

And while yes, we all use the same dexes when we play Crusade, each dex contains content that only Crusade players use, so that the "limitation" you speak of is offset by additional customization. For us a codex isn't a limitation- it's a recipe for dozens of new ways to grow.

Finally, many of the concerns competitive players have around balance are a result of inherent susceptibility to secondary objectives or inherent difficulty achieving others. In Crusade, this is irrelevant as we use agendas which reward units who achieve them with XP instead of rewarding the army with Victory points. When armies of disproportionate XP or size fight, the lesser force gains bonus Command Points.

It's true though; there are imbalances as I said in my first, and these do affect competitive players quite a bit, as their goal is to win the game. Like I said, these complaints are valid, and I am not denying any of them. But Crusade players don't care so much about winning; our goal is to grow and customize our armies. I'd play opponents who focused on achieving VP at the expense of allowing me to achieve my agendas any day of the week. Those players might beat me in the requisition point race, but I might beat them to Legendary level with all of my favourite units without ever winning a game.

Seriously. In Crusade, winning doesn't really matter, and when that's the case, balance is far less of an issue. It takes awhile to get the hand of Crusade not being about a single game. When you think of some of the things that have happened in the lore, the HUGE defeats are often full of character, and that's what Crusade can do- take those losses and turn them into stories like the fall of Cadia. Like maybe your commander gets so wounded over a series of battles in a particular war that he has to be interred in a dreadnaught or cross the rubicon to survive. The loss no longer matters; it's just a piece of history. You might get crushed in a game, but find a key relic that inspires the survivors in the next battle.

If you've got group of people who are willing to try something other than smashing each other's faces with 2k points at a tournament for bragging rights, seriously, play the 3 500 point missions from the BRB using 25 PL combat patrols. The games will only take an hour with so few units. My Deathwatch Crusade is 12 Infantry models. At that size, you could play two or even three games in a night. Even if you lose, that could mean leveling a unit, gaining a warlord trait, finding a relic... Anything.

Check out this month's White Dwarf; the Tale of Four gamers is beginning a Crusade Campaign. I think it's going to be the most enteraining installment of the series ever. I'm hoping the players vary their approaches to army growth. We're so conditioned to 2k games that folks often burn their RP on new units rather than using it for upgrades; if all four players pursue this method, the series will be dull. That 25PL DW team I mentioned? I burned 5 RP to give my Watch Master 2 Warlord traits, upgrade a member of my Proteus Kill Team to a Blackshield and gave the Sergeant of my Fortis Kill Team a Bolt Cache so he can use special ammunition. Another player might opt to burn all 5 of their starting RP on additional units and start with a 50 PL army without any WL traits, Relics or Upgrades. That's an interesting story.

PenitentJake wrote:
...In terms of balance, the only legitimate dexes that be fairly compared are Necrons, SM + SW supplement + BA Supplement + DW Supplement. Much of Deathguard has been leaked and it'll be here soon, but not many of us have had a chance to read it cover to cover. You can also compare all the old 8th + their respective PA books to each other. But comparisons between those two groups are only valid for the present moment and aren't really fair...

See, I don't think telling people "wait a year or two for your Codex, then you can stop getting curbstomped by people with newer books!" is a good mark of a balanced game. To me there's no difference between "oh, your book just isn't balanced against the new edition!" and abysmal power creep/awful balance.

...Finally, many of the concerns competitive players have around balance are a result of inherent susceptibility to secondary objectives or inherent difficulty achieving others. In Crusade, this is irrelevant as we use agendas which reward units who achieve them with XP instead of rewarding the army with Victory points. When armies of disproportionate XP or size fight, the lesser force gains bonus Command Points...

My concern is not "who gets more points in tournament missions?". I'm not a tournament player, I don't give a crap. I do care about situations where someone asks to play a soft/narrative Crusade game, and then gets tabled in two or three turns because their opponent tried in good faith to build a soft list and was entirely unprepared for just how bad the first player's Codex was (I've been on both ends of that story).

...It's true though; there are imbalances as a said, and these do affect competitive players quite a bit, as their goal is to win the game. Like I said, these complaints are valid, and I am not deny any of them. But Crusade players don't care so much about winning; our goal is to grow and customize our armies...

Again. I'm not a competitive player. I don't like games where I get tabled without having a chance to do anything and then get told I bought the wrong minis. If you have a narrative game construct where you feel like you got to participate in the game and get to make progress if you're getting tabled in two turns every game I question why you need the 40k game, the campaign system sounds like it'd be more interesting on its own.

...Seriously. In Crusade, winning doesn't really matter, and when that's the case, balance is far less of an issue. It takes awhile to get the hand of Crusade not being about a single game. When you think of some of the things that have happened in the lore, the HUGE defeats are often full of character, and that's what Crusade can do- take those losses and turn them into stories like the fall of Cadia. Like maybe your commander gets so wounded over a series of battles in a particular war that he has to be interred in a dreadnaught or cross the rubicon to survive. The loss no longer matters; it's just a piece of history. You might get crushed in a game, but find a key relic that inspires the survivors in the next battle...

I play Mordheim. I understand how campaign games work. I don't find campaigns entertaining if I get wiped every game because I bought the wrong miniatures.

...If you've got group of people who are willing to try something other than smashing each other's faces with 2k points at a tournament for bragging rights, seriously, play the 3 500 point missions from the BRB using 25 PL combat patrols. The games will only take an hour with so few units. My Deathwatch Crusade is 12 Infantry models. At that size, you could play two or even three games in a night. Even if you lose, that could mean leveling a unit, gaining a warlord trait, finding a relic... Anything...

I mean, sure, it's a suggestion, but 9th has been such a bad experience for me I've started to miss 7th. If I've got people who aren't trying to play for tournament bragging rights these days we're playing 30k/oldhammer rules or non-GW games.

The big thing about all of this is that the core rules of 9th is largely based off of 8th (aka bare bones) so it doesn't have the complexity of mechanics and depth that the previous evolution of core rules has (the 4th through 7th style BRB). If you enjoy a more simplistic/streamlined...ish experience then the current edition of 40k can be fun. If you like more complexity and depth of mechanics with some niche utility rules (some call it bloated) then 9th isn't going to be much better than 8th.

Personally I cannot get into the new generation of 40k due to what I feel is a very shallow game experience. A whole lot of move, shoot/stab, remove models, repeat until done that can be fairly simple to figure out. They can dress the game up all they want with missions and the like but the core gameplay loop is overly simplistic to the point of boredom. A lot of people might like the game which is good for them but somebody who was super excited to play 6th and 7th, despite playing Orks a 3rd of the time, 8th zapped all the fun from the game and it became extremely boring to play. 9th didn't address the main concerns I had with 8th outside of making terrain matter but that isn't enough to overcome the tedium of new 40k.

PenitentJake wrote:
...Check out this month's White Dwarf; the Tale of Four gamers is beginning a Crusade Campaign. I think it's going to be the most enteraining installment of the series ever. I'm hoping the players vary their approaches to army growth. We're so conditioned to 2k games that folks often burn their RP on new units rather than using it for upgrades; if all four players pursue this method, the series will be dull. That 25PL DW team I mentioned? I burned 5 RP to give my Watch Master 2 Warlord traits, upgrade a member of my Proteus Kill Team to a Blackshield and gave the Sergeant of my Fortis Kill Team a Bolt Cache so he can use special ammunition. Another player might opt to burn all 5 of their starting RP on additional units and start with a 50 PL army without any WL traits, Relics or Upgrades. That's an interesting story.

I'm going to stress here because I feel I haven't come across clearly: Crusade CAN WORK JUST FINE. What I don't believe is the "If you don't like tournament 9th you might like Crusade!" narrative. You can explain the difference between them until you're blue in the face, you can tell me about all the great fun you and people you know have had playing Crusade with all these lists that would be crap in a tournament. In my experience things that are unplayably bad in tournament games are unplayable because of badly-assigned stats/costs or inadequate access to stratagems, which is independent of what format you're playing, and it's going to remain unplayably bad in Crusade. In my experience playing Crusade is slightly detuned tournament 9th, and makes for a great narrative game if you've got the system expertise and minis collection to play tournament 9th. If you want to play the stuff that's actually bad in 9th Crusade is barely an improvement over tournament 9th.

 Dezstiny wrote:
Hmm... so it's pretty dark still in the grim dark future ehh?

Any real positives all- round that have made the game more enjoyable in a sense of bringing the games closer or is it still pretty alpha strike focused?

It seems They haven't put in any rules to mitigate how many points of damage you can take on a first turn. but that was my problem before. Just catastrophic losses taken from a single turns shooting by a full force and then being left with 2/3rds to half your forces left going up against a totally unscathed force.

In addition what's the point value of most games now adays? before it was like 1500- 1750.

You're coming to negative central. Get on battlescribe and tinker. Play a few games and decide for yourself.

Games revolve around objectives. Terrain makes it easier to hide. Alpha strikes aren't really a thing these days. There are also tons of high quality youtube channels where you can watch games and get an idea of what is going on. I recommend these guys:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-3TjY277uBsBl8VU8C4nqw

GK faired pretty well until recently, but I think COVID makes things a little tough to see where GK stand. Paladins are pretty meta, but then you also need to counter bodies.

Allies are nothing like 6th/7th and rules are leaning to disincentivize them.

I'd say the game is looking well. The rare recent tournaments have varied top armies with varied lists.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
...You're coming to negative central...

Quick point about negative central: I'm a very negative person, yes. I don't like 9th and have had a bad time playing it. My experience and my judgements are relevant if you've got similar concerns about games to me (customizability, flexibility, ease of throwing together a game quickly without having to do lots of prep-work/study the tournament meta, being able to use the FW minis I like that GW's busy slowly squatting/soft-squatting).

There are plenty of people who do like 9th, and who think it's the greatest version of 40k ever or the greatest wargame ever. In my experience they're almost universally tournament players who enjoy the competitive scene and cite tournament results as evidence that their opinion is objectively correct. There are occasional outliers like PenitentJake who sound like they're reading GW brochures about Crusade at me (I don't want to make assumptions about PenitentJake, but I've found other people who sound like that who were literally reading GW brochures at me and haven't actually played Crusade). From that I've come to the conclusion that 9th is a better tournament game than previous editions of 40k, and it's a great time to come back to 40k if that's the scene you enjoy.

I'm not trying to discount your experiences at all and you may be correct about tournament players enjoying it more. Crusade seems fun, but I don't have any time in it given my COVID bubble is too small anyway.

I don't think tournament results indicate a fun game. I look at them to see if we're making progress toward the shared ideal of "reasonably" balanced.

It definitely isn't the greatest wargame ever, but it is engaging. I dove into Necrons recently - I've always wanted to and the box was a good excuse. I enjoy that I'm not able to quickly master the army. My first two games were pretty fumbly.

What makes a good wargame?

A way to beat the opponent without needing to destroy them. Achievable through good board control and a list that can exploit secondaries. We've made a pretty big departure from the killing of 8th. Also, people were pretty down about melee and hordes and both of those outlooks seem to be completely off base.

Movement should be important. 40K is not at the level of wargame where pincers or flanking makes sense. Nevertheless it provides choice and consequences for your foul ups. And as terrain has become more imposing it has become important to choose between hiding a unit for counter attack the next turn or making a push to engage in a slightly more remote piece of territory. Are you close enough to trap them? Is there an opportunity if he wipes your other unit that he can consolidate away from you? Can you reposition so that his unit is forced to come in at an angle that is more advantageous?

I know some people want to hit the rear armor of a tank or flank a unit and route them, but I don't think that stuff works on this scale and especially not in the asymmetrical world that these armies exist in. Many have fond memories of deepstriking a unit, hoping for an advantageous roll, and then arguing where the corner of the tank was.

Strategy I plan to attempt to disrupt my opponent by bringing a Nightscythe across the table and beaming in some very difficult to kill units and making a play for the objective while also forcing him away from my half of the board.

Tactics My opponent isn't just going to let me drop a unit into his backfield. First, I am constrained on the first turn - beaming isn't allowed then. So I need to deploy the NS in a place where he is unlikely to be able to shoot at it enough. It will need to fly parallel to my board edge for that turn, waiting. Then I need to apply enough force to an area that I think I can produce a big enough hole. Infantry is often the problem so I have tesla cannons and arcing and well as other anti-infantry, and I can strip cover. Do I need redundancy? What is my crisis plan when things inevitably go wrong?

Resource management Lots of people hate CP. I like it, because it forces extra decisions on me. The gambit above can be a small handful of CP depending on supporting relics, etc. As I dwindle I need forward thinking to know what the best application of CP is going to be. Do I sacrifice durability on Skorpekh to get a damage reroll in that has a 2/3 chance to pop a problem unit? Can I spend 2CP to ignore morale and maintain objective control, but still have enough for other needs later on?

PenitentJake had some great info in his post, exalted - I am seconding.

@Daedalus81: All of those points you've just mentioned about the quality of the game are very dependent on whether you've got a Codex that's written to let you do that. Custodians, even with FW content, are incredibly one-dimensional; you run at the enemy and hope there are still some of you left once you've killed everything (if you're playing an objective-based mission you also take six Sentinel Guard to leave standing slightly further back than everyone else). There's almost nothing else you can do with the army. Fragile armies have an incredibly difficult time with the positioning question; you're either find the millimeter-perfect spot where you can contribute to the game without getting shot, or you die. All those metrics are great if you're playing Death Guard, or Primaris, or Necrons, but if you happened to think different minis are cool your experience may be wildly different.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
@Daedalus81: All of those points you've just mentioned about the quality of the game are very dependent on whether you've got a Codex that's written to let you do that. Custodians, even with FW content, are incredibly one-dimensional; you run at the enemy and hope there are still some of you left once you've killed everything (if you're playing an objective-based mission you also take six Sentinel Guard to leave standing slightly further back than everyone else). There's almost nothing else you can do with the army. Fragile armies have an incredibly difficult time with the positioning question; you're either find the millimeter-perfect spot where you can contribute to the game without getting shot, or you die. All those metrics are great if you're playing Death Guard, or Primaris, or Necrons, but if you happened to think different minis are cool your experience may be wildly different.

Orks are fragile and take millimeter precision to play or are they in the boring stand there and take hits camp? How about Sisters of Battle are they boring, unfun, and too difficult to play? Are forces, such as Dark Angels, who can run a lot of Old Marines invalid? How about Daemons?

When you actually look at things the list of fun playable armies is pretty large this edition and while you might need to change your list to adapt to the new edition or your local meta most factions are pretty playable.

 AnomanderRake wrote:


I'm going to stress here because I feel I haven't come across clearly: Crusade CAN WORK JUST FINE. What I don't believe is the "If you don't like tournament 9th you might like Crusade!" narrative. You can explain the difference between them until you're blue in the face, you can tell me about all the great fun you and people you know have had playing Crusade with all these lists that would be crap in a tournament. In my experience things that are unplayably bad in tournament games are unplayable because of badly-assigned stats/costs or inadequate access to stratagems, which is independent of what format you're playing, and it's going to remain unplayably bad in Crusade. In my experience playing Crusade is slightly detuned tournament 9th, and makes for a great narrative game if you've got the system expertise and minis collection to play tournament 9th. If you want to play the stuff that's actually bad in 9th Crusade is barely an improvement over tournament 9th.

That's fair enough; even your response where you broke my post down and responded a piece at a time totally made sense to me and I do agree with much of what you say. Your concerns are all totally legit- even in Crusade because the game is certainly lethal enough that tabling is a distinct possibility in a match between a crusade and a top tier competitive build. And tabling early doesn't leave the loser a lot of time to rack up XP on agendas.

It also sounds like you've given it a reasonable shot and found it not to your liking, which is valid. I've only played a few proxy games at 25 PL to test drive it, and at that level, you don't have a lot of units or models, so it's hard to have a situation as unbalanced as those you describe. By the time you're up to 50 points or so, that might be different; I'm not there yet.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
@Daedalus81: All of those points you've just mentioned about the quality of the game are very dependent on whether you've got a Codex that's written to let you do that. Custodians, even with FW content, are incredibly one-dimensional; you run at the enemy and hope there are still some of you left once you've killed everything (if you're playing an objective-based mission you also take six Sentinel Guard to leave standing slightly further back than everyone else). There's almost nothing else you can do with the army. Fragile armies have an incredibly difficult time with the positioning question; you're either find the millimeter-perfect spot where you can contribute to the game without getting shot, or you die. All those metrics are great if you're playing Death Guard, or Primaris, or Necrons, but if you happened to think different minis are cool your experience may be wildly different.

Yea there are some configurations that net you no strategy. Taken the the extreme a titan is utterly one dimensional.

Custodes have some neat tricks in Tanglewood and stooping dive that can be quite difficult to counter though I think fighting them is more challenging than playing them.