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 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Which is why we need more mission variety, so you can't plan for the mission. They've already done a good job mixing up how different factions are resilient to different weapon profiles so you can't just spam a certain type of weapon, now they need to write more missions which require different methods to score the most VP.

But there is the problem. If you add variety then you end up with the same issue but favouring different armies instead. GW are already tackling the balance issues - they’re making everyone buy Space Marines

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Which is why we need more mission variety, so you can't plan for the mission. They've already done a good job mixing up how different factions are resilient to different weapon profiles so you can't just spam a certain type of weapon, now they need to write more missions which require different methods to score the most VP.

There will still be a subset of armies that are the best fit more missions and you'll get a new meta around that. The only thing you'll change is that more matches at tournaments will be lost due to the mission rather than the skill and army lists of both opponents. Your suggestion is akin to making some games of baseball score points for getting on base instead of for runs batted in just to let teams that play small ball compete with teams that have power hitters. This is a terrible design and something that 40k doesn't need.

Which goes back to when you play 40k you are not really interacting with the other player. You don't play against their decisions. There is no tactical back and forth. You place down your strategy with your units and your tailored secondaries and you play to the mission.

Which then goes back to the simplistic nature of the game. What is the most direct path to the most points in the few turns you have? How do you deplete your opponents resources while you keep your own?

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Which is why we need more mission variety, so you can't plan for the mission. They've already done a good job mixing up how different factions are resilient to different weapon profiles so you can't just spam a certain type of weapon, now they need to write more missions which require different methods to score the most VP.

There will still be a subset of armies that are the best fit more missions and you'll get a new meta around that. The only thing you'll change is that more matches at tournaments will be lost due to the mission rather than the skill and army lists of both opponents. Your suggestion is akin to making some games of baseball score points for getting on base instead of for runs batted in just to let teams that play small ball compete with teams that have power hitters. This is a terrible design and something that 40k doesn't need.

TOs can keep all of the missions in their tournaments roughly the same if that's a concern. More variety in missions means more variety in games. Playing what is basically the same mission every game can get boring, but if that's preferable to tournament players, fine, do that for tournaments. But everything doesn't have to be done just for tournament play.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
TOs can keep all of the missions in their tournaments roughly the same if that's a concern. More variety in missions means more variety in games. Playing what is basically the same mission every game can get boring, but if that's preferable to tournament players, fine, do that for tournaments. But everything doesn't have to be done just for tournament play.

Casuals already have Matched Play, Maelstrom, Crusades, and Narrative missions what more do you need to be happy?

 Mezmorki wrote:
@Lance

I think one reason why people are reacting so strongly to what you are saying is, to an extent the manner you are phrasing your points.

You say that it isn't devoid of tactical decisions, but then say it's solvable, still simplistic, and interaction nearly null.

I think most people would agree with you that the game isn't that tactically deep. But there is a difference between "not deep" and being "solvable, simplistic, etc.". You seem to be saying both at once which doesn't come across as that genuine.

I understand that I can come across that way. It's difficult in a written medium where people can apply their own cadence to my words.

But the 2 things you bring up are not mutually exclusive. The game IS simplistic. it is solvable. It's not tactically deep. People want to feel like they are making deep tactical decisions that win them games because it's a war game and thats pretty much what we all want out of a competition that relies more on our mind then our body. It sucks to hear someone tell you it's not happening. But what else are you going to do? It's NOT happening. I divorce my ego from these discussions. This isn't about me. I suggest everyone else does the same. I am not talking about YOU. I am talking about the game. No reason to take offense when you are not even the subject.

 Lance845 wrote:
You don't play against their decisions.

You do. It just isn't at the level or kind that you desire.

I've dropped two convergence of dominion into my opponent's backfield within range of their unit holding an objective and part way to a dreadnought. Their shooting is decent enough that left alone they will wipe the unit on the objective. Either my opponent redirects the dreadnought to deal with them ( as the Eradicators are dead ) or he pushes further in to the previous goal. Ideally he must melee them to remove them. Which is the right choice? Either way he must respond to what I have done.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I've dropped two convergence of dominion into my opponent's backfield within range of their unit holding an objective and part way to a dreadnought. Their shooting is decent enough that left alone they will wipe the unit on the objective. Either my opponent redirects the dreadnought to deal with them ( as the Eradicators are dead ) or he pushes further in to the previous goal. Ideally he must melee them to remove them. Which is the right choice? Either way he must respond to what I have done.

I drop my deepstriking/outflanking units behind you and make it a moot point. Your dilemmas mostly only handicap poorly constructed lists that aren't brimming with answers. When tactics can be solved by simply building to the meta and packing answers you have very little depth.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
TOs can keep all of the missions in their tournaments roughly the same if that's a concern. More variety in missions means more variety in games. Playing what is basically the same mission every game can get boring, but if that's preferable to tournament players, fine, do that for tournaments. But everything doesn't have to be done just for tournament play.

Casuals already have Matched Play, Maelstrom, Crusades, and Narrative missions what more do you need to be happy?

A greater variety of Matched Play missions, none of which TOs have to use for their tournaments. Tournaments can even have their own mission packs, as they used to, if they wish. How would a greater variety of Matched Play missions hurt tournament play if tournaments can use whatever missions they want?

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
A greater variety of Matched Play missions, none of which TOs have to use for their tournaments. Tournaments can even have their own mission packs, as they used to, if they wish. How would a greater variety of Matched Play missions hurt tournament play if tournaments can use whatever missions they want?

Given that the ditched building their own tournament packs in favour of GW's rules why would you want to drive a wedge in there just to add extra randomness to the game? You can literally make your own mission pack as easily as a TO can so why do YOU do that instead?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
You don't play against their decisions.

You do. It just isn't at the level or kind that you desire.

I've dropped two convergence of dominion into my opponent's backfield within range of their unit holding an objective and part way to a dreadnought. Their shooting is decent enough that left alone they will wipe the unit on the objective. Either my opponent redirects the dreadnought to deal with them ( as the Eradicators are dead ) or he pushes further in to the previous goal. Ideally he must melee them to remove them. Which is the right choice? Either way he must respond to what I have done.

Yes. He does have to deal wit the current game state. But he will have his entire army to do it with on turn x of 6 tops. And your ability to respond to what he does is to sit and wait until he is done. There is no point in this where you are unsure of your opponent. The only way he can pull a trick on you is some kind of "gotcha!" bull because you don't know the details of his army. An when it's your turn you will make all of your moves against a static board of pieces in response. Thats why it's not a move against the other player. It's a move against his pieces.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
A greater variety of Matched Play missions, none of which TOs have to use for their tournaments. Tournaments can even have their own mission packs, as they used to, if they wish. How would a greater variety of Matched Play missions hurt tournament play if tournaments can use whatever missions they want?

Given that the ditched building their own tournament packs in favour of GW's rules why would you want to drive a wedge in there just to add extra randomness to the game? You can literally make your own mission pack as easily as a TO can so why do YOU do that instead?

I wouldn't, I was just pointing out that it was an option. They don't have to use any missions they don't want to though. They can use the ones they want, and ignore the others. I could attempt to rewrite the whole game too, but I doubt it would be very good, and I don't really have the time. That's kind of what we pay gw for.

I'm not asking for tournaments to be forced to use any missions they don't want to. I just want a greater variety for those of us who want that.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
I drop my deepstriking/outflanking units behind you and make it a moot point. Your dilemmas mostly only handicap poorly constructed lists that aren't brimming with answers. When tactics can be solved by simply building to the meta and packing answers you have very little depth.

Most marine lists have no deepstriking right now, but that's a moot point. That was a legitimate and real situation that had to be addressed. We can pretend there are lists with "lots of answers", but that isn't how it works in reality.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Most marine lists have no deepstriking right now, but that's a moot point. That was a legitimate and real situation that had to be addressed. We can pretend there are lists with "lots of answers", but that isn't how it works in reality.

Are you suggesting that bad lists and players making mistakes on the tables counts as the game having tactics now? If you win a foot race because your fellow racer tripped does that make you a tactical genius or does this only count in 40k where you could, to continue the analogy, throw the race by choosing to stop running?

I thought the same but it seems a single pod with a unit of devs or two may actually be meta. Plus there are DA Terminator lists that may hold back a unit of shooty LC/SB termies with a Cyclone launcher just to make you worry about screening from all angles. That and bike heavy lists aren't going to have many places they can't go.

If your opponent brought an immobile list, and a dread suggests he did, then he brought a list lacking answers.

 Lance845 wrote:
Yes. He does have to deal wit the current game state. But he will have his entire army to do it with on turn x of 6 tops. And your ability to respond to what he does is to sit and wait until he is done. There is no point in this where you are unsure of your opponent. The only way he can pull a trick on you is some kind of "gotcha!" bull because you don't know the details of his army. An when it's your turn you will make all of your moves against a static board of pieces in response. Thats why it's not a move against the other player. It's a move against his pieces.

Well...5 turns. While he responds I take advantage of the opening.

Like I mentioned with Root - the game is extremely asymmetrical. I love it, but it becomes a practice in gotcha mechanics, because people just don't always know how scoring plays out. Gotcha mechanics are pretty limited in 40K - especially if you bother to ask questions.

One thing I really enjoyed in Fantasy was the charge response. I liked putting fast cav in the way and then fleeing with the hopes of them failing to allow me a counter charge. That was fun, but it quickly came to a point where other armies were far more capable at that than I was, because the rest of their stuff moved faster by default and I would wind up in list losses more than tactical losses.

@lance @candadian 5th

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Regarding choices & tactics

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

I think we can all agree that decisions made in list-building can help you win or hurt your chances of winning. Perhaps we can all agree that decisions made in the planning phase after you receive the mission and before the die-roll for going first will impact your chances of winning. Contrary to some, though, I find that there are plenty of decisions that I have to make during the execution phase that impact my chances of winning.

I think this is exactly right.

I can pick any of my recent games and name plenty of cases and moments where I had multiple different directions I could take (that all appeared to be "good moves") and I had to make a "tactical-level" decision about what to do.

Conceptually, you can boil any tactical challenge down into a solvable puzzle if given sufficient time. There are frequently moments of needing to decide what the best course of action is with imperfect information and without knowing your opponent's exact intentions/plans. So a "theoretically solvable" situation is nevertheless one where a player faces a tough choice. Perhaps your experience of the game is different than mine, but I seem to encounter these choices often enough.

As a side note, I see AA system suggested as a way to increase the tactical depth of the game. While this creates a layer of decision making (what unit do I activate when), it's still broadly in the realm of tactical decisions really just becoming logistical optimization moves. It's not really any more or less deep, it's just more complicated and obscured.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding interactivity

In regards to "interactivity" - I don't buy the arguments that this is a lot interactive game between the players. I'm constantly thinking about what my opponent is likely to, and making my choices in return. And there are moments in every game when my opponent does something I didn't expect, which causes me to re-evaluate my plans on the fly and make different choices than I would have.

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Regarding missions

I've argued with Canadian 5th in other threads about this - but I think think that the lack of diversity in the mission pool is a major contributor to the game not having the tactical depth that it might. I'll link this post again:

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/114883/chaos-and-control-balancing-strategy-and-narrative

I agree that for any set of missions, there is always a likely meta that will evolve. But, I think a meta list optimized for one type of mission versus a meta list optimized for 6 different types of missions are going to look different. And specifically, the 6-mission list is going to be less well-optimized for any one individual mission. As a consequence of this, how you use your list to make up for it's less optimized nature puts more emphasis on the tactics and execution stage, because there is only so far the planning will take you, and only so much optimization you can squeeze out from any given list.

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Regarding pre-measuring (or not)

When I first mentioned it, I said being able to guess ranges accurately was a skill, and not something directly added depth to the decision making. That said...

First, there is a question of how much overall "skill" is desired in the game, and recognition that like many good games, many different skills are tested. Spatial planning (including measurement estimation) is a skill. Risk management is a risk. Math Hammer is a skill. Logistical optimization is a skill. Opponent psychology / move deduction is a skill. I like games that test multiple skills, and I find it fun to play against people that bring different skills to the table.

Second, the hallmark of making choices that feel interesting and build tension is uncertainty. Whether it's the roll of the dice, guessing a range, or the unexpected moves of your opponent, uncertainty is critical to what 40K is and it's critical to build drama and forcing the player to adapt and deal with unexpected situations. No premeasuring reinforces this notion and puts the player into the mode of having to make some gut-level judgements and decisions without knowing precisely whether they action will even work. I think this is a better model for a battle game than one that has chess-like precision.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Like I mentioned with Root - the game is extremely asymmetrical. I love it, but it becomes a practice in gotcha mechanics, because people just don't always know how scoring plays out.

Do you only ever play with randoms or does your gaming group just not bother to read the rules or think about the game when they aren't playing it? In either case, I bet that would also lead to frustrating slow games and/or unsatisfyingly easy wins all due to the group and not the game.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Like I mentioned with Root - the game is extremely asymmetrical. I love it, but it becomes a practice in gotcha mechanics, because people just don't always know how scoring plays out.

Do you only ever play with randoms or does your gaming group just not bother to read the rules or think about the game when they aren't playing it? In either case, I bet that would also lead to frustrating slow games and/or unsatisfyingly easy wins all due to the group and not the game.

Less randoms than lately ( COVID ), but it takes a couple games ( ~2 hours a game ) to learn the ropes and more to get a good grasp - are you keeping those people engaged that whole time? Not usually unless they're hardcore or they're really enthralled by the setting.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
There's a world of difference of the cost of those games + the level of white khighting y'all do for GW

I'm not sure what cost has to do with it since there's a hobby aspect to Warhammer and the miniatures in this games are well beyond most board games. X-Wing isn't exactly cheap. It just uses less models. 40K is supported to be played at 1K. How many people are clamoring to do that?

Aside from that have I said something that was not correct that constitutes white knighting?

X-Wing is still cheaper as you HAVE less models for a typical game + models being ready to go. That also equates less time too. Also you're not seriously implying X-Wing has the same lack of depth as 40k are you?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also no wonder we have people thinking 40k has depth. We have posters here that admit they regularly forget to use entire units.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Also you're not seriously implying X-Wing has the same lack of depth as 40k are you?

No, not at all. Just taking everything in context. I enjoy X-Wing, but I didn't really care to ride the edge on it. It became a better casual game with Star Wars enthusiasts rather than a competitive leader around here.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
We have posters here that admit they regularly forget to use entire units.

I admit to forgetting units I have in deepstrike from time to time...because I am pretty mentally engaged. Whether or not that is because I'm an imbecile or not has yet to be measured.

 Mezmorki wrote:
I can pick any of my recent games and name plenty of cases and moments where I had multiple different directions I could take (that all appeared to be "good moves") and I had to make a "tactical-level" decision about what to do.

If you have many moves that all seem good you're either crushing your foe or unskilled at the game. You should only really be choosing between one or two things at the start of a turn and then adjusting for hot/cold dice.

As a side note, I see AA system suggested as a way to increase the tactical depth of the game. While this creates a layer of decision making (what unit do I activate when), it's still broadly in the realm of tactical decisions really just becoming logistical optimization moves. It's not really any more or less deep, it's just more complicated and obscured.

Wrong. With AA you have to literally go deeper into a tree of possible moves each turn to solve any given game state. It is literally a deeper system.

In regards to "interactivity" - I don't buy the arguments that this is a lot interactive game between the players. I'm constantly thinking about what my opponent is likely to, and making my choices in return. And there are moments in every game when my opponent does something I didn't expect, which causes me to re-evaluate my plans on the fly and make different choices than I would have.

If you took a snapshot of the gameboard, walked away, and relied on a neutral party to roll your saves for you when you came back you'd have the same information as you would if you watched your opponent's entire turn. Thus your interactivity is due to you reading too much into your opponent's moves and seeking to find brilliance in what are like as not to be mistakes. Do you feel like a skilled tournament player would see the game the same way that you do and see as much 'depth' in your opponent's play?

I agree that for any set of missions, there is always a likely meta that will evolve. But, I think a meta list optimized for one type of mission versus a meta list optimized for 6 different types of missions are going to look different. And specifically, the 6-mission list is going to be less well-optimized for any one individual mission. As a consequence of this, how you use your list to make up for it's less optimized nature puts more emphasis on the tactics and execution stage, because there is only so far the planning will take you, and only so much optimization you can squeeze out from any given list.

All you do with added diversity is make luck an even greater factor than it already is. If you plan around being good at say 8 of 12 missions and your first four rounds are the 4 missions you're bad at that could be your tournament over right there and you had no way to do anything about it. Conversely, another player could get only missions they planned around and face only opponents getting their worst missons. This does nothing for tactics or balance.

If you give each player a veto of missions you can reduce these odds slightly as each player removes their worst mission but that only reduces the role of luck rather than solving anything.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Less randoms than lately ( COVID ), but it takes a couple games ( ~2 hours a game ) to learn the ropes and more to get a good grasp - are you keeping those people engaged that whole time? Not usually unless they're hardcore or they're really enthralled by the setting.

Our group actively talks about the kinds of games we like so we can do our best to only purchase and play games that have at least 3 of our usual 4 players actively enjoying the game and the 4th no worse than neutral. It avoids games that always sit on the shelf or a player grumbling whenever a certain box comes down.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Also no wonder we have people thinking 40k has depth. We have posters here that admit they regularly forget to use entire units.

They also say that thinking while standing is somehow harder than thinking while sitting... I guess they've never seen programmers or engineers using standing desks before.

 Mezmorki wrote:
@lance @candadian 5th

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Regarding choices & tactics

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

I think we can all agree that decisions made in list-building can help you win or hurt your chances of winning. Perhaps we can all agree that decisions made in the planning phase after you receive the mission and before the die-roll for going first will impact your chances of winning. Contrary to some, though, I find that there are plenty of decisions that I have to make during the execution phase that impact my chances of winning.

I think this is exactly right.

Well for starters, Tango began his post by saying lets ditch the words that mean the things hes talking about and then came up with new words to talk about the same things. But sure. Lets refer to it as phases. You do make decisions during the execution phase that impact your chances of winning. We never said you didn't. What we said was the decisions you make can be solved with simple math and a flow chart because 1) The game state is static and the opponent is incapable of responding in 99.9% of cases and 2) The goals of a game of 40k are simplistic. So you have a lot of points where you make decisions that increase your chances of winning and those choices are about optimization of your logistics.

I can pick any of my recent games and name plenty of cases and moments where I had multiple different directions I could take (that all appeared to be "good moves") and I had to make a "tactical-level" decision about what to do.

Yup. See above. Also the rest of the thread.

Conceptually, you can boil any tactical challenge down into a solvable puzzle if given sufficient time. There are frequently moments of needing to decide what the best course of action is with imperfect information and without knowing your opponent's exact intentions/plans. So a "theoretically solvable" situation is nevertheless one where a player faces a tough choice. Perhaps your experience of the game is different than mine, but I seem to encounter these choices often enough.

As I said before you are making this out to be way more complex then it is. And you don't have imperfect information. You have, in fact, perfect information besides knowing what your dice roll will be. There is nothing that the opponent can do to stop you from moving into position and shooting your guns. Whatever their intentions or plans for the next turn may be, they inherently have to change based on the game state when you hand the game back to them. If you wipe a unit off the board by focus firing then he cannot incorporate that unit into next turns decisions. But when he gets around to making his next turns decisions it's not a factor of trying to guess what you are going to do next. Because what you are going to do next is going to be based on the game state when he hands it back to you.

As a side note, I see AA system suggested as a way to increase the tactical depth of the game. While this creates a layer of decision making (what unit do I activate when), it's still broadly in the realm of tactical decisions really just becoming logistical optimization moves. It's not really any more or less deep, it's just more complicated and obscured.

The obscured part is what opens them up to be deeply tactical and what makes it moves against the opponent instead of their pieces. When you don't know what I am going to do with my next activation you have to make your moves trying to anticipate and head me off. Throw wrenches in the works. And I get to try to anticipate the same. The back and forth between PLAYERS is where the tactical depth comes from. You CAN'T optimize in even remotely the same way when you can't move your entire army to focus fire single units into the dirt. IGOUGO is nothing BUT optimization. AA is a deep rich game of cat and mouse where each decision can only be optimized in accordance with how the opponent responds.

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Regarding interactivity

In regards to "interactivity" - I don't buy the arguments that this is a lot interactive game between the players. I'm constantly thinking about what my opponent is likely to, and making my choices in return. And there are moments in every game when my opponent does something I didn't expect, which causes me to re-evaluate my plans on the fly and make different choices than I would have.

Any amount of time you spend studying your opponents moves during the move, psychic, or shooting phases is a complete waste of time with a couple of exceptions. 1) When he casts a power can you do anything about it? If no, go back to looking at your phone. 2) Do you have a stratagem that can interrupt their turn for an advantage AND is that stratagem worth the points? No? Go back to looking at your phone. 3) Which model are you assigning the wounds to? Not often a difficult choice.

Then the charge phases rolls around and you will fire the over watches you can fire because those are the rules. Then the fight phase comes and you will watch all of his guys who charged fight and roll your saves. Maybe if for some reason there are on going fights you will get to pick a unit to fight when your turn comes around. Otherwise you will do all your fights when it's your turn to do them all with whatever survived his fights.

The only game state that matters to you to make any decisions is the game state when it's your movement phase.

This isn't a disrespect for the opponent thing, though I am sure some of you will take it that way. It LITERALLY doesn't matter where any of your units are until they stop moving. It LITERALLY doesn't matter what my models are going to do until I see the end result and know what models I have to do stuff with. I can't make those decisions until I have the information so it doesn't matter until you are done and I have all my variables. Then it's on to the math and flow charts.

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Regarding missions

I've argued with Canadian 5th in other threads about this - but I think think that the lack of diversity in the mission pool is a major contributor to the game not having the tactical depth that it might. I'll link this post again:

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/114883/chaos-and-control-balancing-strategy-and-narrative

I agree that for any set of missions, there is always a likely meta that will evolve. But, I think a meta list optimized for one type of mission versus a meta list optimized for 6 different types of missions are going to look different. And specifically, the 6-mission list is going to be less well-optimized for any one individual mission. As a consequence of this, how you use your list to make up for it's less optimized nature puts more emphasis on the tactics and execution stage, because there is only so far the planning will take you, and only so much optimization you can squeeze out from any given list.

I think the missions are a different issue. First, the game itself has to inherently work. THEN we can worry about how the missions impact the core rules. The core rules are already a issue. Anything the missions do is a band aid on a symptom. It can help relieve the symptoms a bit but the disease isn't cured. Cure the disease.

This is also known as a root cause analysis. The root cause of much of 40ks issues are baked into the turn structure. Including first turn advantage, the lack of tactical depth, and the difficulty in mission mix, and the lack of player interactivity... the long periods of down time. Etc etc... Root Cause. It's not actually that hard to find it.

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Regarding pre-measuring (or not)

When I first mentioned it, I said being able to guess ranges accurately was a skill, and not something directly added depth to the decision making. That said...

First, there is a question of how much overall "skill" is desired in the game, and recognition that like many good games, many different skills are tested. Spatial planning (including measurement estimation) is a skill. Risk management is a risk. Math Hammer is a skill. Logistical optimization is a skill. Opponent psychology / move deduction is a skill. I like games that test multiple skills, and I find it fun to play against people that bring different skills to the table.

Second, the hallmark of making choices that feel interesting and build tension is uncertainty. Whether it's the roll of the dice, guessing a range, or the unexpected moves of your opponent, uncertainty is critical to what 40K is and it's critical to build drama and forcing the player to adapt and deal with unexpected situations. No premeasuring reinforces this notion and puts the player into the mode of having to make some gut-level judgements and decisions without knowing precisely whether they action will even work. I think this is a better model for a battle game than one that has chess-like precision.

Being able to accurately judge distances by eye is a skill and a talent. But it's also not one that should make any difference in the game. Allowing people to pre measure doesn't make the game anything less in my opinion. It just puts more focus on the actual mechanics of the game. Too bad those mechanics suck.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Spoiler:

 jeff white wrote:
Premeasuring... you mean removing it, disallowing it? Because guessing ranges would seem to be a skill, as written above.

Guessing was a skill of who was better at cheating the system in various ways. No that's just my arm on the table - I'm not measuring with my hand!

And then you were better or worse at charging depending on your models since that was simply a double move.

Over watch at all is better than what passes for over watch now, imho.

Not sure I agree as most people wouldn't forfeit shooting now over no move and a -1 penalty to shoot later. And again is an easily solvable item. Eradicators overwatching? Ok I'll just move everything they don't want to shoot and shoot them and force casualties before I move what they want to shoot.

It was fun and thematic when I was young. Perhaps it is better for that edition, because scoring = killing. Oh? I go first ( because I'm marines, literally ) and I deployed everything out in the open and you didn't? Everything in overwatch!

These rules existed in a time before people took the game more seriously ( as much as one might ). I don't think they would hold up very well. I could be wrong, but I don't think it would rise to the level of "deeper" in any case.

Less seriously, huh? I guess that is one way to say it.
I am sorry that your experience was so bad apparently due to the people who you gamed with and who cheated you.
That does sound serious...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Lance845 wrote:
Yes. He does have to deal wit the current game state. But he will have his entire army to do it with on turn x of 6 tops. And your ability to respond to what he does is to sit and wait until he is done. There is no point in this where you are unsure of your opponent. The only way he can pull a trick on you is some kind of "gotcha!" bull because you don't know the details of his army. An when it's your turn you will make all of your moves against a static board of pieces in response. Thats why it's not a move against the other player. It's a move against his pieces.

Well...5 turns. While he responds I take advantage of the opening.

Like I mentioned with Root - the game is extremely asymmetrical. I love it, but it becomes a practice in gotcha mechanics, because people just don't always know how scoring plays out. Gotcha mechanics are pretty limited in 40K - especially if you bother to ask questions.

Spoiler:

One thing I really enjoyed in Fantasy was the charge response. I liked putting fast cav in the way and then fleeing with the hopes of them failing to allow me a counter charge. That was fun, but it quickly came to a point where other armies were far more capable at that than I was, because the rest of their stuff moved faster by default and I would wind up in list losses more than tactical losses

.

Yeah, now I get a better idea of the people that you hang out with... and I think that you have met with a main point here, that knowing the scoring and how to abuse the rules becomes the point of the game, and the level of player interaction, when what we are after is ideally a different experience.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Spoiler:

 Mezmorki wrote:
I can pick any of my recent games and name plenty of cases and moments where I had multiple different directions I could take (that all appeared to be "good moves") and I had to make a "tactical-level" decision about what to do.

If you have many moves that all seem good you're either crushing your foe or unskilled at the game. You should only really be choosing between one or two things at the start of a turn and then adjusting for hot/cold dice.

As a side note, I see AA system suggested as a way to increase the tactical depth of the game. While this creates a layer of decision making (what unit do I activate when), it's still broadly in the realm of tactical decisions really just becoming logistical optimization moves. It's not really any more or less deep, it's just more complicated and obscured.

Wrong. With AA you have to literally go deeper into a tree of possible moves each turn to solve any given game state. It is literally a deeper system.

In regards to "interactivity" - I don't buy the arguments that this is a lot interactive game between the players. I'm constantly thinking about what my opponent is likely to, and making my choices in return. And there are moments in every game when my opponent does something I didn't expect, which causes me to re-evaluate my plans on the fly and make different choices than I would have.

If you took a snapshot of the gameboard, walked away, and relied on a neutral party to roll your saves for you when you came back you'd have the same information as you would if you watched your opponent's entire turn. Thus your interactivity is due to you reading too much into your opponent's moves and seeking to find brilliance in what are like as not to be mistakes. Do you feel like a skilled tournament player would see the game the same way that you do and see as much 'depth' in your opponent's play?

I agree that for any set of missions, there is always a likely meta that will evolve. But, I think a meta list optimized for one type of mission versus a meta list optimized for 6 different types of missions are going to look different. And specifically, the 6-mission list is going to be less well-optimized for any one individual mission. As a consequence of this, how you use your list to make up for it's less optimized nature puts more emphasis on the tactics and execution stage, because there is only so far the planning will take you, and only so much optimization you can squeeze out from any given list.

All you do with added diversity is make luck an even greater factor than it already is. If you plan around being good at say 8 of 12 missions and your first four rounds are the 4 missions you're bad at that could be your tournament over right there and you had no way to do anything about it. Conversely, another player could get only missions they planned around and face only opponents getting their worst missons. This does nothing for tactics or balance.

If you give each player a veto of missions you can reduce these odds slightly as each player removes their worst mission but that only reduces the role of luck rather than solving anything.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Less randoms than lately ( COVID ), but it takes a couple games ( ~2 hours a game ) to learn the ropes and more to get a good grasp - are you keeping those people engaged that whole time? Not usually unless they're hardcore or they're really enthralled by the setting.

Our group actively talks about the kinds of games we like so we can do our best to only purchase and play games that have at least 3 of our usual 4 players actively enjoying the game and the 4th no worse than neutral. It avoids games that always sit on the shelf or a player grumbling whenever a certain box comes down.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Also no wonder we have people thinking 40k has depth. We have posters here that admit they regularly forget to use entire units.

They also say that thinking while standing is somehow harder than thinking while sitting... I guess they've never seen programmers or engineers using standing desks before.

First, your group got it right.
Second, I stand and sit. Standing burns a lot more calories and has helped keep my weight down during the lockdowns of global martial law during this so called “great” reset. It is harder, actually, to think as you say simply by energy expenditure. I do sit when I need to clarify very complex things for final presentation and publication, for instance, routinely, though I will stand for most mundane activities which take up most of working time...

I get the most done with my most complex tasks by literally working my way through scenarios with scratch paper or by building paper prototypes.

I am pretty good at preplanning for most variables, but you often don't see pieces of the plan until you start building a working model. And then, sometimes, I over plan and develop systems and redundancies for things that just are not issues.

Luckily paper prototypes are cheap.

It always helps me to create something even somewhat physical so I can see what gaps I left in the plan and what not.

 Lance845 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Mezmorki wrote:
@lance @candadian 5th

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Regarding choices & tactics

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

I think we can all agree that decisions made in list-building can help you win or hurt your chances of winning. Perhaps we can all agree that decisions made in the planning phase after you receive the mission and before the die-roll for going first will impact your chances of winning. Contrary to some, though, I find that there are plenty of decisions that I have to make during the execution phase that impact my chances of winning.

I think this is exactly right.

Well for starters, Tango began his post by saying lets ditch the words that mean the things hes talking about and then came up with new words to talk about the same things. But sure. Lets refer to it as phases. You do make decisions during the execution phase that impact your chances of winning. We never said you didn't. What we said was the decisions you make can be solved with simple math and a flow chart because 1) The game state is static and the opponent is incapable of responding in 99.9% of cases and 2) The goals of a game of 40k are simplistic. So you have a lot of points where you make decisions that increase your chances of winning and those choices are about optimization of your logistics.

I can pick any of my recent games and name plenty of cases and moments where I had multiple different directions I could take (that all appeared to be "good moves") and I had to make a "tactical-level" decision about what to do.

Yup. See above. Also the rest of the thread.

Conceptually, you can boil any tactical challenge down into a solvable puzzle if given sufficient time. There are frequently moments of needing to decide what the best course of action is with imperfect information and without knowing your opponent's exact intentions/plans. So a "theoretically solvable" situation is nevertheless one where a player faces a tough choice. Perhaps your experience of the game is different than mine, but I seem to encounter these choices often enough.

As I said before you are making this out to be way more complex then it is. And you don't have imperfect information. You have, in fact, perfect information besides knowing what your dice roll will be. There is nothing that the opponent can do to stop you from moving into position and shooting your guns. Whatever their intentions or plans for the next turn may be, they inherently have to change based on the game state when you hand the game back to them. If you wipe a unit off the board by focus firing then he cannot incorporate that unit into next turns decisions. But when he gets around to making his next turns decisions it's not a factor of trying to guess what you are going to do next. Because what you are going to do next is going to be based on the game state when he hands it back to you.

As a side note, I see AA system suggested as a way to increase the tactical depth of the game. While this creates a layer of decision making (what unit do I activate when), it's still broadly in the realm of tactical decisions really just becoming logistical optimization moves. It's not really any more or less deep, it's just more complicated and obscured.

The obscured part is what opens them up to be deeply tactical and what makes it moves against the opponent instead of their pieces. When you don't know what I am going to do with my next activation you have to make your moves trying to anticipate and head me off. Throw wrenches in the works. And I get to try to anticipate the same. The back and forth between PLAYERS is where the tactical depth comes from. You CAN'T optimize in even remotely the same way when you can't move your entire army to focus fire single units into the dirt. IGOUGO is nothing BUT optimization. AA is a deep rich game of cat and mouse where each decision can only be optimized in accordance with how the opponent responds.

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Regarding interactivity

In regards to "interactivity" - I don't buy the arguments that this is a lot interactive game between the players. I'm constantly thinking about what my opponent is likely to, and making my choices in return. And there are moments in every game when my opponent does something I didn't expect, which causes me to re-evaluate my plans on the fly and make different choices than I would have.

Any amount of time you spend studying your opponents moves during the move, psychic, or shooting phases is a complete waste of time with a couple of exceptions. 1) When he casts a power can you do anything about it? If no, go back to looking at your phone. 2) Do you have a stratagem that can interrupt their turn for an advantage AND is that stratagem worth the points? No? Go back to looking at your phone. 3) Which model are you assigning the wounds to? Not often a difficult choice.

Then the charge phases rolls around and you will fire the over watches you can fire because those are the rules. Then the fight phase comes and you will watch all of his guys who charged fight and roll your saves. Maybe if for some reason there are on going fights you will get to pick a unit to fight when your turn comes around. Otherwise you will do all your fights when it's your turn to do them all with whatever survived his fights.

The only game state that matters to you to make any decisions is the game state when it's your movement phase.

This isn't a disrespect for the opponent thing, though I am sure some of you will take it that way. It LITERALLY doesn't matter where any of your units are until they stop moving. It LITERALLY doesn't matter what my models are going to do until I see the end result and know what models I have to do stuff with. I can't make those decisions until I have the information so it doesn't matter until you are done and I have all my variables. Then it's on to the math and flow charts.

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Regarding missions

I've argued with Canadian 5th in other threads about this - but I think think that the lack of diversity in the mission pool is a major contributor to the game not having the tactical depth that it might. I'll link this post again:

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/114883/chaos-and-control-balancing-strategy-and-narrative

I agree that for any set of missions, there is always a likely meta that will evolve. But, I think a meta list optimized for one type of mission versus a meta list optimized for 6 different types of missions are going to look different. And specifically, the 6-mission list is going to be less well-optimized for any one individual mission. As a consequence of this, how you use your list to make up for it's less optimized nature puts more emphasis on the tactics and execution stage, because there is only so far the planning will take you, and only so much optimization you can squeeze out from any given list.

I think the missions are a different issue. First, the game itself has to inherently work. THEN we can worry about how the missions impact the core rules. The core rules are already a issue. Anything the missions do is a band aid on a symptom. It can help relieve the symptoms a bit but the disease isn't cured. Cure the disease.

This is also known as a root cause analysis. The root cause of much of 40ks issues are baked into the turn structure. Including first turn advantage, the lack of tactical depth, and the difficulty in mission mix, and the lack of player interactivity... the long periods of down time. Etc etc... Root Cause. It's not actually that hard to find it.

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Regarding pre-measuring (or not)

When I first mentioned it, I said being able to guess ranges accurately was a skill, and not something directly added depth to the decision making. That said...

First, there is a question of how much overall "skill" is desired in the game, and recognition that like many good games, many different skills are tested. Spatial planning (including measurement estimation) is a skill. Risk management is a risk. Math Hammer is a skill. Logistical optimization is a skill. Opponent psychology / move deduction is a skill. I like games that test multiple skills, and I find it fun to play against people that bring different skills to the table.

Second, the hallmark of making choices that feel interesting and build tension is uncertainty. Whether it's the roll of the dice, guessing a range, or the unexpected moves of your opponent, uncertainty is critical to what 40K is and it's critical to build drama and forcing the player to adapt and deal with unexpected situations. No premeasuring reinforces this notion and puts the player into the mode of having to make some gut-level judgements and decisions without knowing precisely whether they action will even work. I think this is a better model for a battle game than one that has chess-like precision.

Being able to accurately judge distances by eye is a skill and a talent. But it's also not one that should make any difference in the game. Allowing people to pre measure doesn't make the game anything less in my opinion. It just puts more focus on the actual mechanics of the game. Too bad those mechanics suck.

I don’t like premeasuring, as peeps just lay the ruler out to use to choose what units will shoot at, rather than declaring targets then checking to be sure that they are in range. Subtle difference but one that does add to tension imho... and though a seemingly simple skill, it is one that will sometimes fail e.g when the chosen unit really must be shot at and ends up a half inch out of range...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lance845 wrote:
I get the most done with my most complex tasks by literally working my way through scenarios with scratch paper or by building paper prototypes.

I am pretty good at preplanning for most variables, but you often don't see pieces of the plan until you start building a working model. And then, sometimes, I over plan and develop systems and redundancies for things that just are not issues.

Luckily paper prototypes are cheap.

It always helps me to create something even somewhat physical so I can see what gaps I left in the plan and what not.

Check out “ manipulative abduction” - essentially coming to solutions by manipulating models, thinking through interacting with things.

Models are cool.

My offering of phases of decision-making is an attempt to boil away loaded terminology and allow the dialogue to keep going. I also think I missed a phase: the post battle reflection. The post battle reflection can lead to changes in our list building, planning and execution. Or not.

I do think that there is merit in having articles/posts on the site that offer perspectives on decision-making based on actual tabletop experience in the current edition under conditions. Not everyone would enjoy them (or need them), but that's OK.

I think a lot of heat is in the word "depth".

I made this analogy before - but 40k is arguably a simple game, because you are swinging a big hammer 5 times (6 if we consider deployment a turn).

There isn't therefore room for a lot of interplay - this idea of you move there, I counter with a flank there, you go for an envelopment, I withdraw, you attack, I parry, you riposte, I parry again.

I'm not actually sure though that this happens in many *other* games, or at least not often. I can understand the spirit though, since it often comes up when discussing all sorts of games (from card games to RTS to duels in World of Warcraft). People like the idea of a theoretically endless chain of counters rather than I do A, you do B and one of us falls over.

But this seems to lead to this idea that what you should do in your turns is obvious to the point where there is no serious discussion. Which I just don't think is true. You could go with Xeno's list if you want - and it will probably okay. Certainly you are likely to beat people who aren't even at that level - i.e. they can't even work out what is likely to do more damage to what. But the key thing is knowing when to depart from these flowcharts. There is a difference for instance between going all in *because you always go all in* - or because the game's going against you, and its now or never. Knowing the difference with things like this is a skill, even if you can argue it isn't evidence of "depth".

Tyel wrote:
I made this analogy before - but 40k is arguably a simple game, because you are swinging a big hammer 5 times (6 if we consider deployment a turn).

There isn't therefore room for a lot of interplay - this idea of you move there, I counter with a flank there, you go for an envelopment, I withdraw, you attack, I parry, you riposte, I parry again.

I'm not actually sure though that this happens in many *other* games, or at least not often. I can understand the spirit though, since it often comes up when discussing all sorts of games (from card games to RTS to duels in World of Warcraft). People like the idea of a theoretically endless chain of counters rather than I do A, you do B and one of us falls over.

I completely agree with this assessment. Although I disagree that it's not common.
Games I'm familiar with all have lots more interplay. Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Titanicus, Band of Brothers, Blood Red Skies, Legion, all have far more interactions between players than 40k. I really can't think of any games that have players interacting less than 40k does.

This isn't an AA game.
In an AA game you fight your battles bit by bit. I do something, you do something. I know the outcome of my previous bit and your last bit before deciding my next bit.

In an AA game the "skill" of the player is based on taking into account the opponent's reactions to your bits.

The bad player in an AA game is the one that loses because he was taken by surprise by the opponent's reaction and didn't have a plan for it.

40K is an IGOUGO game.
In a IGOUGO game the bits are packaged together in big chunks of actions. The opponent doesn't have the chance (or has limited chance) to impede your plans until the end of your package of bits. There is surely less "skill" involved in interacting with your opponent compared to an AA game.

The real difficulty in an IGOUGO game is represented by the fact that you have to plan your bits without knowing the outcome of the previous bit. You can't charge a unit if your shooter went cold and didn't clear the screen. You can't shoot at unit if it was already destroyed by the other unit which spiked on its dices. Compared to an AA game where the moment you decide an action, you also know the conditions around that action, in an IGOUGO that isn't true. Between your first action and the last action of the package, there is a vast amount of random scenarios that can develop.

Due to this, the IGOUGO games test a completely different set of "skills" compared to an AA. Being able to put together on the fly a good package of actions that accounts for random spikes, is what defines a good player.
Risk management is the most important skill of a 40K player.

The bad 40K player is the one that loses because a certain scenario that on average should have developed in a certain direction, didn't turn out like expected.

That isn't to say that there isn't risk managament in an AA game or that there isn't interaction between players in an IGOUGO. It just means that those are minor aspects in what decide a match.

You can be the best player of 40K and totally suck at Infinity because you are not used at constantly changing your actions based on your opponent's reactions.

You can be the best Infinity player and suck at 40K because you are used to think in averages instead of probability distributions.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I completely agree with this assessment. Although I disagree that it's not common.
Games I'm familiar with all have lots more interplay. Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Titanicus, Band of Brothers, Blood Red Skies, Legion, all have far more interactions between players than 40k. I really can't think of any games that have players interacting less than 40k does.

Hmmm.

Thinking about Bloodbowl. I'd say there is more interplay due to tackle zones. By moving a unit next to yours, I'm having an explicit impact on you, theoretically effecting your chances to block, dodge, pass, whatever. Which in turn will make different "turns" more or less likely to succeed. Whereas in 40k, its often more concealed - i.e. I've positioned such that if you move on to an objective (which you probably want to so as to score/deny points), I'll have an optimal turn of shooting and an easy charge in my next turn.

Undoubtedly Bloodbowl has more turns - so to a degree you have more time to do things without needing an instant pay off. If I move a player reasonably deep into your half (lets assume not a gutter runner etc) then there is always a chance I could hand off/pass to him and score. So my opponent has a dilemma of whether they do something about that - or take advantage that any cage I have round the ball must be weaker because one player is a long way off. Or they just focus on bashing my team to bits in the hope that while I may score, I'll be down 3 players in the second half (or carrying a lot of injuries for the rest of the campaign).