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 Sim-Life wrote:
No, that was me asking why you only present us with the option of what we have or something so simple the game is dead. Why do you not give us the option of a well written, decently balanced game? Something GW could absolutely make but choose not to.

That's just it, a 'broken' game can be patched, fixed, and all the problems fixed with a new edition. In the meantime all those flaws and imperfections keep it front of mind, and intersect with collecting widgets. A perfect, affordable game will be sold once and people will quickly lose interest when something new comes along.

Tyel wrote:
Matched play isn't the same as competitive play.

Exactly this and it saddens me a lot that there are people who can't understand that. In all my posts I've always had matched play games in mind. And that's basically the only kind of games I play myself.


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Vatsetis wrote:
Well I ment casual by ignoring most of the bloat and reduce the game to something manageble by agreement with your friends.

If you pretend to play "full" 40K its just dull homework as you described it... No matter the type of game mode you are own.

Well if you're only interested in overly competitive tournament games you really need to know like 5% of the rules considering all sources of rules, probably even less, as you'll only face the most effective combos available. And at that point just read a well written review about an army, keep note of the best combos they get and you're good to play. Other stuff shouldn't bother you if occasionally shows up as you'll be play a competitive list against a non competitive one.


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Slipspace wrote:

Do we really need separate rules for Flesh Tearers as well as Blood Angels? Or three different weapons that are all bolters except two have a single extra rule, necessitating yet another bolt weapon entry in the SM weapon list? What you need is flexibility in army building with core rules and core army rules allowing for expressions of various different styles of army.

We don't. But how is this related to gotcha moments?

Slipspace wrote:

To take another problem with the current GW approach, imagine you're a Word Bearers player. Playing CSM is bad enough, but the one sub-faction you're really hyped about has had crap rules ever since GW gave them sub-faction rules. That sucks. GW are really bad at balance and adding in even more combinations to worry about just make the problem worse. At least if CSM were at least somewhat balanced you could probably put together a Word Bearers army roughly following the background but now you're just making life infinteily harder for yourself and I'd argue the WB rules don't even really push you that far down a thematically accurate path to building the army anyway.

I'm an ork player. Not a goffs or bad moons one. I have no problem switching klans just to try different tactics and combinations. World Bearers player should do the same, he's a Chaos SM player actually and if he wants to be restricted to one minor subfaction it's his choice.

Slipspace wrote:

It all comes down to meaningful differences. You can create as many bespoke sub-faction rules as you want but what you should be striving for is distinctiveness on the tabletop. GW mostly fails at that. One Necron dynasty plays very similarly to the next, just as all Tau armies, except possibly Farsight, play almost exactly the same way. Quite often the only thing that distinguishes a sub-faction in 40k is how broken their unique WLT, strat or Relic is. That's hardly immersive.

I agree with you actually, there is rules bloat and some weapons/units are just the same thing with different names. But ork profiles are very different to SM or aeldari or tyranids ones. You won't have the same kind of variety across the different factions in many other games. And I can't really say about all other factions but ork klans are quite distinctive to each other in terms of optimized lists and gameplay.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

That argument is getting ahead of us a little since they've not had the 9th edition treatment. Slaanesh could see a lot of ways to get the enemy units to act against their own interests. Tyranids could find themselves with a greater sense of a instinctual hive minded army. Time will tell.

Case in point:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

That argument is getting ahead of us a little since they've not had the 9th edition treatment. Slaanesh could see a lot of ways to get the enemy units to act against their own interests. Tyranids could find themselves with a greater sense of a instinctual hive minded army. Time will tell.

Case in point:

That is kind of crazy that you posted this right before that preview... what else do you need to tell us, Daed?

This is a cool little ability, I look forward to learning about the other effects. I will say though, it's still unclear to me how this all works. First of all, in that example image, the Hive Tyrant base is partially outside the range of the synaptic link. Probably intentional (and reflecting that the ability is not a "wholly within" ability), but interesting nonetheless. Secondly, how does the buff actually work? The Neurothrope one being an aura makes it simple, but the Broodlord one seems to apply to a specific unit (and they actually mention Genestealers in the flavor text, even though the article says any unit can be affected.)

Hopefully the actual rules for the mechanic aren't too fiddly. It feels a little fiddly now but there's still lots to learn.

It's pretty clear that it chains through additional Synapse units.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
That is kind of crazy that you posted this right before that preview... what else do you need to tell us, Daed?

I wish I had more!

Though just based on the way new books have been going they definitely seem keen to hone in on what makes each faction special ( this is where marines suffer for their loyalty ).

This is a cool little ability, I look forward to learning about the other effects. I will say though, it's still unclear to me how this all works. First of all, in that example image, the Hive Tyrant base is partially outside the range of the synaptic link. Probably intentional (and reflecting that the ability is not a "wholly within" ability), but interesting nonetheless. Secondly, how does the buff actually work? The Neurothrope one being an aura makes it simple, but the Broodlord one seems to apply to a specific unit (and they actually mention Genestealers in the flavor text, even though the article says any unit can be affected.)

Hopefully the actual rules for the mechanic aren't too fiddly. It feels a little fiddly now but there's still lots to learn.

Given the diagram it seems all units in synapse will benefit from the ability. The little logistics chain you can make is pretty neat. You could have a couple effects on the board and then you suddenly "rewire" your army so that the distant battlefield is suddenly dealing with a new problem.

Tyranid Warriors are going to be pretty popular if these are good.

I just hope they don't phone in too much since this is a stop gap instead of a codex.

Aren't these things what makes it into the codex when the codex is eventually released? Presumably with a new model?

 kirotheavenger wrote:
It really is amazing how many different things 40k has that all feel exactly the same.

There really just isn't the depth of core rules to differentiate stuff properly.

I'd agree with this.

I also think there's a general problem in that so many of the rules that supposedly exist to differentiate units actually end up doing the opposite. If you want an example, just look at how many subfaction rules are "models reroll 1s to hit/wound/psychic/pick their noses" or get a single reroll or something else along those lines.

These rules add nothing because they make no fundamental difference to how a given unit plays. A SM Devastator unit that rerolls 1s to hit is not suddenly going to run across the field and try to beat the enemies to death in melee with their Lascannons. No, they'll sit in cover and fire their Lascannons every turn, which is exactly what they'd be doing if they didn't reroll 1s to hit.

There are also issues with subfactions getting rules that end up being counter-intuitive. For example, Poison Tongue get +1 to wound with Poison Weapons. Ignoring for now that (in spite of what their name might imply) they're supposed to be about more than just poison, this seems appropriate, right? And if I was to tell you that DE have some poison-specialist assassins, you might well think that these would be especially thematic in a Poison Tongue army. Nope. See, their weapons are already Poison 2+ and thus they gain no benefit whatsoever from being in a PT army. Nor do any other units/weapons with Poison 2+, which includes the relic unique to PT.

But even if we leave aside that sort of anti-synergy, how many subfaction (and other) rules actually alter the way an army/unit/model plays on the table? Because surely that should be the objective?

a_typical_hero wrote:

- No model no rules is gak. Give me back my options. I'll kitbash it myself.

Also, so much this.

I don't personally understand the idea that a faction rule should only exist if it fundamentally changes the way units are played, that seems to just completely misunderstand what they are? They're rules to reward taking units and a playstyle that fits the background of whatever subfaction you're playing, so you don't HAVE to just pretend that your steel legion are steel legion, you have rules that represent and reward that line of play. This isn't just a 40k thing either, I see a lot of people quote HH as being better than 9th but they have rules that run along this exact line. I play IH in HH, and when I take Company of Bitter Immortals it encourages and rewards me for taking Immortals, makes them a bit better at their job, but doesn't fundamentally change the unit at all, and it comes from rules that aren't on their datasheet. I also think it's really really strange to expect to do well at a game where you don't know your opponents rules, thats just not how any game works, if you're scared of gotchas just ask your opponent what they can do in X situation if you're worried about it. If you're in a beer and pretzels setting, then who cares if you lose? Isn't the game barely the point at all in that setting? This game is REALLY simple, it's not hard

 vipoid wrote:


But even if we leave aside that sort of anti-synergy, how many subfaction (and other) rules actually alter the way an army/unit/model plays on the table? Because surely that should be the objective?

If GW had any sense they'd use Faction rules as a way to alter how you build an army like by changing which units have the CORE keyword or how you build your detachments. That would be far more thematic and interesting than just copy/pasting every faction ability and calling it a day.


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Gores wrote:
If you're in a beer and pretzels setting, then who cares if you lose? Isn't the game barely the point at all in that setting?

Why even bother playing then? Just spend an hour or so setting up the game then roll dice to determine what order you pack your stuff in. I mean the game is basically that already but if it doesn't matter if you win or lose then why bother with objectives or anything? In fact I feel like a lot of the people who play Mathhammer on here would prefer it that way.

Yeah if you reduce anything down to its basest level, it does sound stupid, you're right! Every wargame in the entire world is spending X time setting up then rolling dice to determine what order you pick up your models in. Most super casual players I've met don't play with objectives and just play Kill Each Other as they hang out and talk gak, that seems to be what everyone here is advocating for.

Gores wrote:
Yeah if you reduce anything down to its basest level, it does sound stupid, you're right! Every wargame in the entire world is spending X time setting up then rolling dice to determine what order you pick up your models in. Most super casual players I've met don't play with objectives and just play Kill Each Other as they hang out and talk gak, that seems to be what everyone here is advocating for.

It was you saying that winning and losing doesn't matter. If it doesn't then why play a game at all? I don't feel like I should still be having to say this but here goes; the objective is to win, the aim is to have fun.

Also most people are advocating for a BETTER game, NOT a simpler one. I don't know why that is bad or difficult to understand.

 vipoid wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
It really is amazing how many different things 40k has that all feel exactly the same.

There really just isn't the depth of core rules to differentiate stuff properly.

I'd agree with this.

I also think there's a general problem in that so many of the rules that supposedly exist to differentiate units actually end up doing the opposite. If you want an example, just look at how many subfaction rules are "models reroll 1s to hit/wound/psychic/pick their noses" or get a single reroll or something else along those lines.

These rules add nothing because they make no fundamental difference to how a given unit plays. A SM Devastator unit that rerolls 1s to hit is not suddenly going to run across the field and try to beat the enemies to death in melee with their Lascannons. No, they'll sit in cover and fire their Lascannons every turn, which is exactly what they'd be doing if they didn't reroll 1s to hit.

There are also issues with subfactions getting rules that end up being counter-intuitive. For example, Poison Tongue get +1 to wound with Poison Weapons. Ignoring for now that (in spite of what their name might imply) they're supposed to be about more than just poison, this seems appropriate, right? And if I was to tell you that DE have some poison-specialist assassins, you might well think that these would be especially thematic in a Poison Tongue army. Nope. See, their weapons are already Poison 2+ and thus they gain no benefit whatsoever from being in a PT army. Nor do any other units/weapons with Poison 2+, which includes the relic unique to PT.

But even if we leave aside that sort of anti-synergy, how many subfaction (and other) rules actually alter the way an army/unit/model plays on the table? Because surely that should be the objective?

I fail to understand how core rules would change what you'd outlined here. If tanks have facings then how does that differentiate tanks?

To me a Forgefiend feels completely different from a Redemptor or a Predator. These are all things that shoot guns so stating that they feel the same, because they shoot things seems reductive. There's only so many combinations of shoot, melee, and psychic that you can have on models. A heavy flamer Baal Predator plays totally differently to a regular Predator. A FF's weapons are distinct enough from a Vindicator or Predator that you would specifically choose it over them for a purpose.

In the TS book both the Predator and the FF have a 5++. The FF has an extra wound and heals. The Predator moves a lot faster and can use Smoke and Gargoyles and is eligible to be healed by a psyker. Plasma FF has 6 S7 AP3 D3. Destructor has 4 S7 AP1 D3, 6 S5 AP1 D2, D6 S5 AP0, and 2/4 S4 AP2. Forgefiend will benefit from the use of Death Hex ( Twist of Fate ) with it's higher AP where the Predator produces a lot more variety of shots that don't care about invulnerable saves as much and can handle multiple different threats.

Either of these choices will have an impact on how you will interface with the opponent, choose targets, and allocate support.

What is it exactly that you want to happen to the Lascannon squad in your example? Do you want them to suddenly be able to be effective against infantry?

Poison Tongue is not counter intuitive. You just reject the notion of overbuffing things that don't need it to make PT useful. PT also affect combat attrition tests, which would be quite useful on some of the recently redone armies. And indeed PT isn't just about poison and it has the ability to redeploy units. There is even a secondary that scores points for models that flee, A perfect candidate for that type of army. gak Raiders with -2LD and poison weapons that wound most everything on 3s on top of an attrition mod that is activated by killing just a single model and lasts the turn so any other Kabal can do the remaining damage and force a hugely painful test.

Vatsetis wrote:

 Nurglitch wrote:

Vatsetis wrote:
Not true... Just look at any other tabletop wargame in the market.

You mean the ones that are created, last a couple of years, and end up in remainder bins while people move onto the next game?

Yes men, thats it... 40k is the only fish in the ocean.

It's not the only one, but it is the biggest one by an order of magnitude. Mind you, apparently there's a supply chain snafu occurring that's going to wipe out a lot of small game producers, so who knows how these things will look in a couple of years?

If you can only eat dog poop because its the only thing in the menu that dosent turn it into caviar.

Trying to defend 40k gameplay because its the "only game in town" is falling very hard into the sunk cost fallacy.

 Sim-Life wrote:

I don't feel like I should still be having to say this but here goes; the objective is to win, the aim is to have fun.

For most people, I'd say you're right.

I am a noted exception- often, one of my agendas lead to unlocking story events in the narrative campaign. I will be fighting to achieve that Agenda and advance the story, often at the expense of winning the battle.

The best success I ever had in a game was an Apocalypse battle that a group of us fought back in 2008- 3 players per side, 3k armies for each player. My team suffered a major defeat, but my Palatine managed to discover the Praesidium Protectiva buried beneath the Chapel of Saint Katherine's Aegis. Didn't matter that we lost the battle- Jahalla Athebraxis returned a priceless relic to the Imperial fold. It was the last time she was fielded as a palatine; the discovery earned her the title of Canoness.

I fully acknowledge that I don't play the game the way most people play it. Even for me, the likelihood of winning being my objective increases when I play a stand-alone game- I just don't play stand-alone games very often. A game without context is an empty thing to me- I might as well play chess. (Not to say chess is an empty game- I like it. But it is generic and abstract in nature, which is how stand-alone games feel to me).

 Sim-Life wrote:

Gores wrote:
Yeah if you reduce anything down to its basest level, it does sound stupid, you're right! Every wargame in the entire world is spending X time setting up then rolling dice to determine what order you pick up your models in. Most super casual players I've met don't play with objectives and just play Kill Each Other as they hang out and talk gak, that seems to be what everyone here is advocating for.

It was you saying that winning and losing doesn't matter. If it doesn't then why play a game at all? I don't feel like I should still be having to say this but here goes; the objective is to win, the aim is to have fun.

Also most people are advocating for a BETTER game, NOT a simpler one. I don't know why that is bad or difficult to understand.

I'm going to take the risk of going a step further with this one and try to define "fun," based on long experience of playing and arguing about a variety of games with a variety of people. "Fun" is not winning, losing, rolling dice and pushing models around. Fun is composed of three elements: 1) the sense that the game happening on the table lines up with the thing happening in your head in an immersive way. This is the roleplayer's fun, the narrative fun, the fun of seeing dice rolled and translating that into a movie in your head of pew-pew-explosions and epic music and cheesy dialogue. 2) The sense that your choices had an impact on what happened. This is the idea that you won because of something you did, not because you bought better stuff. 3) Close games. This is why we have weight classes in combat sports and leagues for team sports; we don't pay to watch professional teams beat up on college teams, we pay to watch college teams play college teams and professional teams play professional teams, because it's more exciting when you don't know the outcome.

These factors are of different importance to different people. People who don't care that much about #2 might play netlists/netdecks/whatever, people who don't care that much about #1 see nothing wrong with taking the most powerful things without paying much attention to story, people who don't care that much about #3 see one-sided games as a necessary consequence of bad play. Different proportions, however, don't change the fact that everyone I've ever played a game with or argued about games with has defined "fun" in terms of some combination of these three factors.

You might say "yes, Anomander, that's all well and good, but what's GW supposed to do about any of this, whether or not you have a sense of the narrative is up to you, your choices always matter, and whether or not you have close games depends on who you're playing with!", and those are all valid points. GW has no control over any of these, but they have influence over all of them, and I find their approach to writing army books often damages all three. They don't have a consistent sense of what stats mean, which means through their writing they don't communicate to us a consistent sense of what stats mean, so the numbers we're given and the results of those numbers on the table feel like they were chosen by dartboard rather than any attempt to make the game world feel alive. They pull big levers constantly without much forethought when writing new books and releasing/rebalancing units, which means often all your other choices are drowned under the overwhelming choice of "did you choose to like the right models?" And they try and set up their releases to encourage people to buy new armies while their old ones are languishing at the bottom of the heap by setting old books up to get steamrolled by new books, which makes one-sided games way more frequent than they would be otherwise.

I think this discussion gets so contentious for a few reasons; there are people for whom a simpler game is better than a more complex one, because of Fun Principle #2 (their decisions only matter if they understand what they mean), so asking for more complexity back is violating their principles of fun. There are people for whom the over-the-top cartooniness of Warhammer is Warhammer, so asking for a more grounded historical-y approach like in older editions violates their Fun Principle #1 (changing Warhammer like that would no longer be Warhammer to them).

There are things GW could do to make the game universally better for everyone; not in terms of pushing my specific priorities, but in terms of balancing the game such that the gulf between good models and bad models wasn't so vast, or in terms of balancing release schedules such that Xenos players weren't stuck with such a drought of new stuff and Marine players weren't constantly flooded with Slightly Different Primaris Unit #47, or in terms of giving everyone smaller updates more frequently so everyone got to participate in the game at the same pace rather than a rotating small section of the playerbase were dealing with huge changes while everyone else was playing the same matchups over and over again, but their marketing strategies and business model seem reliant on not making the game better, so I think we're sort of stuck with it.

I think if there's going to be any solution to these problems it has to be in the fragmenting of the community. If more of us break off and play other games, even other GW games (I've seen the suggestion that GW's going to try to position 30k with more support as a more advanced game for the more simulation-minded players who don't like 9th's card games, and I'd applaud that as a really good decision on their part), it gives the people who enjoy 9th the opportunity to play without grouchy people like me floating around the edges of the community whining about how it's not the game we'd like it to be, and it gives the grouchy people floating around the edges of the community the opportunity to break off and do something they do enjoy. 40k isn't for everyone. Trying to make it into a game for everyone is only going to break it, but as long as we're all sitting around assuming it's the game for everyone and needs to be hammered into a shape we like more GW has no incentive to change (because we're all hovering around 40k instead of doing something else, so they've won tabletop wargames) and we don't get to play games that we might like more (because everyone looks at something they might like better and says to themselves "nah, nobody plays that, I'll just play 40k").

TL;DR: Fun has universal properties. 40k can fulfill those properties for someone else while not fulfilling it for you, and it'd be better for all of us if we all tried to play games we did enjoy instead of trying to argue about which of us has a better theory about how to make 40k perfect for everyone, because at the end of the day they are all wrong.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I think this discussion gets so contentious for a few reasons; there are people for whom a simpler game is better than a more complex one, because of Fun Principle #2 (their decisions only matter if they understand what they mean), so asking for more complexity back is violating their principles of fun. There are people for whom the over-the-top cartooniness of Warhammer is Warhammer, so asking for a more grounded historical-y approach like in older editions violates their Fun Principle #1 (changing Warhammer like that would no longer be Warhammer to them).

I think people might misinterpret my position to be in this group where it is not. I want a complex game that isn't needlessly complex and I want what makes Warhammer it's own thing. Vehicle facings? Sure, as long as it doesn't cause confusion. Different morale? Sure, as long as it isn't overly punishing, because of AA.

But I largely think some systems won't bring a wildly better game. Most people here won't get the dynamic they're looking for unless 40K moves to AA. I get the sense that they want to feel like they've out maneuvered / out thought their opponent without having to employ additional rules, but all that stuff in older editions was something that permitted by the army you chose. T'au has JSJ and many couldn't really respond to it. Eldar were just simply faster than everyone. Orks just tried to survive to initiative step 1.

And the old editions were more about killing models than 8th was!

 Daedalus81 wrote:
...but all that stuff in older editions was something that permitted by the army you chose. T'au has JSJ and many couldn't really respond to it. Eldar were just simply faster than everyone. Orks just tried to survive to initiative step 1...

I do want to zero in on this for a moment; I've never objected to different factions having different mechanics, what I object to in 9th is the feeling that whether I won is down to the army I chose rather than any decisions I made after picking the right or the wrong army book.

Yeah, I think the objection I have to 9th is that my flowchart of "Use Keeper of Secrets yet: Y/N?" is basically entirely predetermined.

The game becomes "Can I successfully execute my flowchart, or does my opponent have a stratagem to break one of the links?"

You can say that position matters in 9th because it is more objective based, and I generally agree, but you just include needing or not needing an objective in the flowchart decision tree you build before the game.

There's no need to have tactical flexibility (unless you don't know what to expect from your opponent, i.e. don't know his rules).

This notion that the game is any more or less flowchart than any other game is terribly misleading, I think.

Mechanized infantry coming over a hedge against dug in and gone to ground MG/PZF? Whoops. Forgot to bring smoke for your tanks? Whoops.

When you have perfect knowledge of what is coming towards you before the unit would actually see it your decision is going to be based on that information. Only with AA or real time movement and fog would you get a sense of actual tactical choices, but even those are going to go to a flow chart. And in the case of tabletop your decisions will be further decided by the outcome of dice rolls.

To take it to the extreme - all of human thought can eventually be made a flow chart.

Imagine a scenario :

Duplicity
D3 Redeploy
Terminator Sorcerer
5 Rubrics
5 Rubrics
10 Rubrics
5 Scarabs
5 Scarabs
Mutalith
Heldrake
Heldrake
( and other stuff )

I have taken Linebreaker, Pierce, and Deploy Teleport Homers. I use the redeploy to shift my army to the weakest side of their table. I teleport the mutalith to block the center. The heldrakes clear a landing zone and move block reinforcements. Risen Rubricae are deployed close to where I need to go to provide additional removal if I need it. On turn 2 the Termie Sorc pierces, the Scarabs deploy, and together they do linebreaker. By turn 3 I will score 24 secondary points. If I need to I drop the second unit of Scarabs. You absolutely must move to deal with me, which reduces what you can send to my side of the table still giving me a way to grip on to primaries.

This is my "flow chart". Also known as a strategy with tactical choices to help achieve it.



Does it always work? No. Some opponent's have so much junk that I can't. Some maps don't afford the right cover or objective placement. That's why I have to actively make decisions about what will work best against my opponent and what happens if things go wrong. And if I can't be consistent I go back to the drawing board. If I get bored I switch to a new strategy.

The biggest problem with 40k is the number of designers over the years. I've been playing since 2nd edition. GW has ran off too many great game designers. The new designers then have to make a new system to prove they deserve to stick around. GW put model sales before making a great and balanced game. Now GW is too busy inflating prices and trying to dump as muchproduct on the market as possible because they have driven so many of their past customers away. GW needs to decide if they want to keep their current customer base or drive it away.

Pointer5 wrote:
The biggest problem with 40k is the number of designers over the years. I've been playing since 2nd edition. GW has ran off too many great game designers. The new designers then have to make a new system to prove they deserve to stick around. GW put model sales before making a great and balanced game. Now GW is too busy inflating prices and trying to dump as muchproduct on the market as possible because they have driven so many of their past customers away. GW needs to decide if they want to keep their current customer base or drive it away.

They've had more customers than ever and tournaments have never been so well attended, so not sure what you're driving at.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
This notion that the game is any more or less flowchart than any other game is terribly misleading, I think.

Mechanized infantry coming over a hedge against dug in and gone to ground MG/PZF? Whoops. Forgot to bring smoke for your tanks? Whoops.

When you have perfect knowledge of what is coming towards you before the unit would actually see it your decision is going to be based on that information. Only with AA or real time movement and fog would you get a sense of actual tactical choices, but even those are going to go to a flow chart. And in the case of tabletop your decisions will be further decided by the outcome of dice rolls.

I think you're wrong here. The key difference between a game like 40k and one like, say, Epic or X-Wing is that the non-IGOUGO nature of those games means any flowchart is operating with incomplete information. The problem with 40k is I know literally everything except dice rolls (and even then the way various auras and strats interact mean many dice rolls are pretty much pre-determined). I can measure any and all ranges at any time, I know how many CP I and my opponent have and I know which strats and psychic powers we both have access to. There are a small number of caveats to consider, like failing psychic powers or if your opponent uses some strat at a certain time, but all of those can easily be accounted for because they're all pass/fail scenarios and you still have complete control over your own forces at the point your flowchart branches.

In a game like Epic I need to consider that I don't know the order my opponent will activate their detachments. The order I take my activations likely affects their subsequent activations as well. I also need to consider that in Epic there's much more variance in outcomes related to dice because most attacks are at best 4+ to succeed and there are no rerolls available most of the time. In a game like X-Wing you're even more removed from any flowchart because you both secretly assign moves to each ship that are locked in once assigned and then activated in a specific order so you have very little confirmed information about your opponent's moves when plotting yours and no ability to react once ships start moving. The same is true when attacking and defending. Because you do that in a specific order you won't always know whether spending a token to modify offensively is better than saving it for a defensive mod. There's no flowchart for that, only statistical likelihoods, but even those are modified by the game state in non-linear ways.

You will very, very rarely be able to create a flowchart for these games that gives a definite "right" move. All you get is varying degrees of statistical improvement or reduction in your win chances.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Stuff

Great points!

That's basically what Daedalus81 said, but using a lot more words.

It reads like the two of you agree.

Vatsetis wrote:
If you can only eat dog poop because its the only thing in the menu that dosent turn it into caviar.

Trying to defend 40k gameplay because its the "only game in town" is falling very hard into the sunk cost fallacy.

Is that what I'm doing?

It certainly look like you where doing so.

Why if not would you mention the popularity of 40k in a debate about the quality of the ruleset... Or to be more specific, how clumpsy the ruleset actually is???

Vatsetis wrote:
It certainly look like you where doing so.

Why if not would you mention the popularity of 40k in a debate about the quality of the ruleset... Or to be more specific, how clumpsy the ruleset actually is???

Your point was about GWs customer retention or at least the end of your post was, which made it seem like that was the overall point, he was responding to that specifically.
You're both right in a way. 40k got a HUGE surge after 8th released and it's still coasting on that wave, but also I think more people are recognizing that GW is still pulling the abusive spouse act of "I've changed baby, I promise." and then continuing to act in the same way they always have. They're just better at hiding it now. Combine that with sunk cost and you get people who insist on continue to play a game they clearly don't enjoy because they've invested a lot of time and money into it already. GW's current boom will peak eventually, but I don't think it'll be for a while yet.

Vatsetis wrote:
It certainly look like you where doing so.

Why if not would you mention the popularity of 40k in a debate about the quality of the ruleset... Or to be more specific, how clumpsy the ruleset actually is???

Well, here's the thing. How is it that 40k sucks if it's so popular? Which is to assume, contrary to the usual assumption, that something being more popular means it is actually better. Me, I don't like 40k. I stopped playing in 8th. But I am absolutely fascinated by how it seems to get worse (from my perspective) as a game, and better as a commercial product (from the perspective of sales). It's something of a paradox how the game is virtually unplayable for so many, including myself, and the best version yet for so many others. Heck, even for myself getting back into the game after taking a hiatus in 3rd and back in the end of 4th, and each edition seeming to get better and better until near the end of 8th when I couldn't face playing another game. So when there's questions raised like 'Is Warhammer 40k too complex?' I distrust my own personal feelings about it, and I'm very curious about the apparent dichotomy.

And, if I can figure out the secret sauce, maybe I can apply it to my own game.