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Yep, even a 1+ Save doesn't mean much when there's copious amounts of AP-4 and AP-3 to go around and rather cheap to field as well.

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
Yep, even a 1+ Save doesn't mean much when there's copious amounts of AP-4 and AP-3 to go around and rather cheap to field as well.

For all 8th did well, it never did fix special and heavy weapons being too cheap.

Once again this thread is a great example of why no single version of 40k will cater equally to all players. For me Index 3rd was the most bland and uninspiring version of the game, rivaling only Apocalypse. To the point where I rage quit 40k for a long time. On top of that, any version of the game in which models are removed in droves before they get to do anything is a bad game design for my taste. It is perfectly clear, that JohnHwangDD and I will never both enjoy 40k at the same time.

As to fixing lethality by increasing durability vs reducing amount of shots/dice - why not both? My group uses a system with just two dice for 'to hit' of all weapons of a unit. Two. That is enough random number generation to resolve any interaction. On top of that we use AP=Sv=>Sv halving and units are still punished by dumb placement. The context is key here - the fundamental goal of the game is to outperform the opponent by utilising all tools that are at your disposal. If the opponent can outperform you by using cover efficiently with his units, you must either do the same or find a way to strip him of cover advantage, otherwise you loose. It doesn’t matter how many SMs your opponent is removing from the board in absolute numbers, what does matter is that he is removing more SMs than you do.

As I’ve tried to show earlier in the thread, you can’t have an IGOUGO game in which you remove models in droves and expect it to not end in tabling turn 3 and leave one player with a bad aftertaste. That is simple math.

You have to also contend with one of the core pillars of Games Workshop design for their games.

Faster. Faster! FASTER!!!!

Games need to be as fast as possible so you can get as many games in an afternoon as you can.

This caters to the tournament scene, getting in more games and being able to finish those games in the time allocated, and to the pickup scene where players often head to the store and are looking for 2-3 games in an afternoon.

The lethality of the game is a direct response to FASTER FASTER FASTER.

and yet GW games take longer and longer with every tweak they try to get them faster

is not like 3rd was so much slower than 9th and all the changes were needed to make it faster

but more like the games were already fast so they got bigger and more detailed, with more dice rolling and more interaction and now the 2 hour games takes 4 hours

 auticus wrote:
You have to also contend with one of the core pillars of Games Workshop design for their games.

Faster. Faster! FASTER!!!!

Games need to be as fast as possible so you can get as many games in an afternoon as you can.

This caters to the tournament scene, getting in more games and being able to finish those games in the time allocated, and to the pickup scene where players often head to the store and are looking for 2-3 games in an afternoon.

The lethality of the game is a direct response to FASTER FASTER FASTER.

Funny thing is a 2k game in 3rd was a 3 hour game and in 9th it's a 3 hour game. Only change is more models on the table.

 auticus wrote:
You have to also contend with one of the core pillars of Games Workshop design for their games.

Faster. Faster! FASTER!!!!

Games need to be as fast as possible so you can get as many games in an afternoon as you can.

This caters to the tournament scene, getting in more games and being able to finish those games in the time allocated, and to the pickup scene where players often head to the store and are looking for 2-3 games in an afternoon.

The lethality of the game is a direct response to FASTER FASTER FASTER.

Which would be fine were it not for the fact I find the game has got progressively slower over time. Whereas previous editions had lots of fiddly little rules involving templates and scatter and deep strike and so on, the sheer number of dice being rolled in 40k nowadays just leads to everything taking forever.

40k definitely needs a streamlining. Reducing volume of fire (with each die representing a group of shots instead of needing a die for every shot) would help a lot.

I think if we reduced the number of shots and melee attacks (but not the damage characteristic) the game wouldn't feel like it's trying to rush to end at turn 3 while still offering enough firepower to let people leverage weapons at the appropiate targets for maximum damage.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
40k definitely needs a streamlining. Reducing volume of fire (with each die representing a group of shots instead of needing a die for every shot) would help a lot.

I think if we reduced the number of shots and melee attacks (but not the damage characteristic) the game wouldn't feel like it's trying to rush to end at turn 3 while still offering enough firepower to let people leverage weapons at the appropiate targets for maximum damage.

Reduce :

Ranges
Number of shots
Number of stratagems
amount of AP

Raise :

Wounds on Tanks
Armor saves and Tanks

would be a start to getting a better game thats less killy

Speaking of ranges, night fighting should return as a mechanic.

That or we could crib from WFB and bring back "short, long, extra long" ranges and bring back uncapped to-hit modifers but remove them from being unit rules.

Or you could crib from AoS and bring "Realm Rules" in...

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Funny thing is a 2k game in 3rd was a 3 hour game and in 9th it's a 3 hour game. Only change is more models on the table.

Cynically, given how players have varied the number of points used over the 20+ years, and could vary them now, - I'd say the playerbase on average just seem to like games being about 2.5-3 hours long.

 auticus wrote:
You have to also contend with one of the core pillars of Games Workshop design for their games.

Faster. Faster! FASTER!!!!

Games need to be as fast as possible so you can get as many games in an afternoon as you can.

This caters to the tournament scene, getting in more games and being able to finish those games in the time allocated, and to the pickup scene where players often head to the store and are looking for 2-3 games in an afternoon.

The lethality of the game is a direct response to FASTER FASTER FASTER.

That's what rolling only two dice for any resolution step and getting entirely rid of rerolls and FNP takes care of. GW would drastically speed up the game if they changed the horrid dice rolling sequence, not only amount of dice rolled. Up to 8 rolls for a single resolution is absurd. They started with 4 in 2nd, reduced it to 2-3 in 3rd, then gradually increased it to the modern insanity.

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
Yep, even a 1+ Save doesn't mean much when there's copious amounts of AP-4 and AP-3 to go around and rather cheap to field as well.

It matters if the weapon matches the wounds and the quantity of shots matches the quantity of models. T'au probably have the most heavy AP in their lists right now, but they also have a ton of low AP weapons and that plink adds up especially with reroll full wounds.

Custodes aren't exactly bristling with AP and do considerably well right now.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Witness the entire nonsense that is "Prohammer", where the designer thinks adding more house rules against the underlying design somehow fixes things instead of just bloating and slowing the game even further. A good designer has a clear concept of how to do more with less, building off a foundation that drives clarity over complexity.

"ProHammer" "Designer" here.

I should ignore this comment, as we clearly have a philosophical difference of opinion regarding what we want from 40K, but...

I don't appreciate ProHammer being disparaged as "nonsense" and the resulting insinuation that the designer (aka me) is a bad designer. I'm all for criticism - but I'd appreciate that criticism to be remotely constructive and within the spirit of what ProHammer is trying to achieve.

FWIW, 95% of ProHammer is just reworking mechanics that already existed across the classic (3rd-7th edition) era core rules. It's really not adding a lot to the rules overhead. And, moreover, in comparison to the bloat and overly complex layering of codex-level rules like we have in 9th, ProHammer feels remarkably clean and easy to process to me. But to each their own.

 auticus wrote:
You have to also contend with one of the core pillars of Games Workshop design for their games.

Faster. Faster! FASTER!!!!

Games need to be as fast as possible so you can get as many games in an afternoon as you can.

This caters to the tournament scene, getting in more games and being able to finish those games in the time allocated, and to the pickup scene where players often head to the store and are looking for 2-3 games in an afternoon.

The lethality of the game is a direct response to FASTER FASTER FASTER.

Wow, I'm impressed anyone can get in 2-3 pickup games of 40k in a single afternoon. 2000pt games typically run 3 hours at our shop and 1000pt games are usually 90 minutes, but sometimes as short at 45min when one side gets off an Alpha strike.

 auticus wrote:
You have to also contend with one of the core pillars of Games Workshop design for their games.

Faster. Faster! FASTER!!!!

Games need to be as fast as possible so you can get as many games in an afternoon as you can.

This caters to the tournament scene, getting in more games and being able to finish those games in the time allocated, and to the pickup scene where players often head to the store and are looking for 2-3 games in an afternoon.

The lethality of the game is a direct response to FASTER FASTER FASTER.

Whats funny though, is faster faster faster, has resulted with the issues we have now. The game was TO fast and TO lethal. No one likes setting models on the table that they spent hours building and painting only to pick them back up 2 min later after the first round of shooting is done.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Or you could crib from AoS and bring "Realm Rules" in...

Not going to lie with how varied worlds are in 40k that would be nice. Like imagine rules for high (or low) grav planets, deathworlds, ice worlds, ect.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 auticus wrote:
You have to also contend with one of the core pillars of Games Workshop design for their games.

Faster. Faster! FASTER!!!!

Games need to be as fast as possible so you can get as many games in an afternoon as you can.

This caters to the tournament scene, getting in more games and being able to finish those games in the time allocated, and to the pickup scene where players often head to the store and are looking for 2-3 games in an afternoon.

The lethality of the game is a direct response to FASTER FASTER FASTER.

Funny thing is a 2k game in 3rd was a 3 hour game and in 9th it's a 3 hour game. Only change is more models on the table.

Points went up. There are fewer models on the table. On average there might be more with fewer Castellans or Centurions roaming around and more bias towards multi-model units to hold objectives and do actions.

Those already exist though with the Warzone and Battlezone rules. There are quite a few but they're spread out all over the campaign books and White Dwarf. Vigilus Ablaze, for example, has 6 Battlezones reflecting environments and 5 Warzones for recreating specific locations within the Vigilus campaign that can easily be used in a general manner.

 The Red Hobbit wrote:

 auticus wrote:
You have to also contend with one of the core pillars of Games Workshop design for their games.

Faster. Faster! FASTER!!!!

Games need to be as fast as possible so you can get as many games in an afternoon as you can.

This caters to the tournament scene, getting in more games and being able to finish those games in the time allocated, and to the pickup scene where players often head to the store and are looking for 2-3 games in an afternoon.

The lethality of the game is a direct response to FASTER FASTER FASTER.

Wow, I'm impressed anyone can get in 2-3 pickup games of 40k in a single afternoon. 2000pt games typically run 3 hours at our shop and 1000pt games are usually 90 minutes, but sometimes as short at 45min when one side gets off an Alpha strike.

i swapped to OnePageRules, takes about 1h/1000pts, so theoretically you could play 3 games of it in an afternoon.

Its much more enjoyable, especially since its 2h per game with full player participation (theres no "wait around with a thumb up your ass while your opponent balsts you" phase)

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 auticus wrote:
You have to also contend with one of the core pillars of Games Workshop design for their games.

Faster. Faster! FASTER!!!!

Games need to be as fast as possible so you can get as many games in an afternoon as you can.

This caters to the tournament scene, getting in more games and being able to finish those games in the time allocated, and to the pickup scene where players often head to the store and are looking for 2-3 games in an afternoon.

The lethality of the game is a direct response to FASTER FASTER FASTER.

Funny thing is a 2k game in 3rd was a 3 hour game and in 9th it's a 3 hour game. Only change is more models on the table.

Points went up. There are fewer models on the table. On average there might be more with fewer Castellans or Centurions roaming around and more bias towards multi-model units to hold objectives and do actions.

Points went up relative to 8th, but they are still way down from 3rd where a Tactical Marine (who could have a bolter OR a bolt pistol/chainsword) ran 18 points if you took the grenades he now gets for free.

And Marines have dropped the least in terms of points over the years. Some armies have basically doubled in size due to massive points drops.

I tend to follow r/warhammercompetitive as I enjoy the tourney scene, and I have to admit that the setting is feeling rather precarious at this moment. A lot of armies are slowly going under the 45% winrate(45-55% is optimal) and the last MFM and FAQ more or less obliterated mid-tier armies into the sub-40% winrates(Death Guard sits at 37% and Deathwing at 38%).

All while Custodes and Tau appear to be taking top place as the reigning champions after a year of consecutive nerfs to Drukhari.

So with a game that is running full speed off the tracks, and increasing prices, GW really needs to up their game in many ways. The sad part is that I fear they won't do anything about it and will continue to sell people MFM books that are almost a year too late along with expensive models.

I enjoy the setup of 9th edition and the Matched Play system, but the slow and nonsensical updates are killing what I like.

The points costs need to be around 20-30% higher for pretty much everything in the game.

Controversial but there needs to be fewer things on the table.

What clockwork said.
Points in 9th are way below what points in 3rd was, the games just run the same time because it takes longer to move all those models and deal with all the results, all be it faster now in 9th on a per model bases.
The rules might have gotten simpler but when you have to apply them to 3x the model count, you are jsut exchanging one delay for another.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Racerguy180 wrote:
The points costs need to be around 20-30% higher for pretty much everything in the game.

Controversial but there needs to be fewer things on the table.

But then you just get back to the same issue, people will just make the standard game be a higher point cost until the game length averages out about 3 hours.

Same thing happened in 6th and 7th when a standard game was 1850.

this has to do with the GW business model, by selling more models to the same people, those want to play with all of them

hence points per model need to go down and army points need to go up
GW got you into buying 3 Predators, 3 Vindicators and 9 Rhinos, you now want all of them on the table in a standard sized game because otherwise it would be wasted money and you feel cheated by GW

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Or you could crib from AoS and bring "Realm Rules" in...

Not going to lie with how varied worlds are in 40k that would be nice. Like imagine rules for high (or low) grav planets, deathworlds, ice worlds, ect.

They're called Theatre of War rules. There were 20 or so in PA and they are all still applicable (Pariah is the best book in the set for ToW rules- it collects many if not all of them from the series); there's been at least one in every White Dwarf since the first Flashpoint article (September 2020 I think?) and they're also in the campaign booklet with every vs. box.

Some are pretty over the top- not gonna lie. Others are bland. But many hit the sweet spot.

They can really change up the game, so of course, some people avoid them for balance reasons. But given some of the comments that have been made in this thread celebrating some of the weird whackiness and unpredictability of previous iterations, I'm surprised that those who remember those aspects of the game fondly don't lean more heavily into Theatres of War.

Lemme be clearer, individual model points cost can remain the same, but weapons, upgrades etc should cost way more than currently.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
What clockwork said.
Points in 9th are way below what points in 3rd was, the games just run the same time because it takes longer to move all those models and deal with all the results, all be it faster now in 9th on a per model bases.
The rules might have gotten simpler but when you have to apply them to 3x the model count, you are jsut exchanging one delay for another.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Racerguy180 wrote:
The points costs need to be around 20-30% higher for pretty much everything in the game.

Controversial but there needs to be fewer things on the table.

But then you just get back to the same issue, people will just make the standard game be a higher point cost until the game length averages out about 3 hours.

Same thing happened in 6th and 7th when a standard game was 1850.

Looking at Space Marines, most units cost more in 9th edition than they did in 3rd edition. As someone stated upthread, Tactical Marines were 15 points each at the start of 3rd Ed. They were 30 points each in 2nd Ed. The shift from 2nd to 3rd was the most dramatic points drop to basically double the model count. I took a real quick look at Astra Militarum: Infantry were 5 points per model at the start of 3rd and a Leman Russ costed a little less than an equivalently equipped tank in 9th.

GTs in 2nd Ed that I was tracking/attended were at 1500 points. Games at a GW store were usually 1000 points in 2nd Ed. For the first bit of 3rd Ed the game nights shifted to 500 points, but then crept up. People seem to like having more of their models on the table, and it would seem that GW is happy to oblige!

Well of course they are, more moneys.