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Thanks Insectum - and I do want to stress that I'm not suggesting these are ported directly into 9th edition as is.

However, you can see how a game where one side has "Guerrilla War" and the other "Dawn Raid", for example, is going to play out differently to one side having "Take and Hold" while the other has "The Assassins".

Tiberias wrote:
I think we all can agree that competitive 40k is a mess right now. Harlequins are just bonkers and Tau/Custodes have to be brought down in line also, I don't think there is going to be any argument about that. But I am genuinely curious as to how many people are actually affected by the current tournament metagame.

Now, if you are a frequent tournament player you are obviously affected quite directly by this state of unbalance in competitive 40k, because everyone is there to win and is therefore trying to play the best, most abusive combinations possible to get an edge. I would only argue that most people who engage in this hobby and are actually playing, are not in the hyper competitive crowd who visit tournaments every weekend.

So my question is for these more casual players: do you actually face 9 voidweavers on a regular basis? Do people you play with mostly bring tooled up meta lists?

I am not trying to sugarcoat the current state of 40k by posing these questions btw, a balance patch is necessary. But I am still of the opinion that in a casual game, where both parties are trying to have a fun game with fun lists....there is still a lot of fun to be had in current 9th edition. The main thing I feel is that you have to engage and talk to people to make the game fun for both players, which I hope is a more positive message than the constant doom and gloom of competitive 40k these last months.

This being the original question. I doesn't effect me much. None of my opponents play T'au, Custodes or Harlequins. Also no one jumps on any band wagons like 9 voidweavers. Opponents play T-sons, Necrons, Sisters, Guard, Orks, Marines, Tyranids, I play Eldar (Craftworlds, no silly clowns), Guard and Orks, looking into GSC. Next game will be 2 vs 2 with Tempest of War deck. Always a nice statement that 'everybody plays to win', yes and no. We make decisions on what's fun for everyone, not what can I do to increase my chances of winning.

And to be clear, I do play tournaments now and then, so not bashing any tournament players, everybody should play the way they like and hopefully have some like minded to play against .

Honestly haven't played much. 9th reminds me 7th. 7th came out shortly after 6th, making codex purchases worthless. Then there was formations, pay to win, rule bloat, etc.

8th was refreshing. 9th came out too soon and now is a mess. Rules updates coming out quarterly, have to purchase multiple books again...

I'm just taking a break until 10th. Hopefully they go back to 6th/8th edition style that was simpler.

Bloat, lack of balance, and frequent changes ruin the enjoyment of the game for me.

Frequent changes are good to prevent spammy OP lists to show up in casual metas; it makes much harder to chase to flavour of the month and that alone is a massive improvement compared to older editions.

 Blackie wrote:
Frequent changes are good to prevent spammy OP lists to show up in casual metas; it makes much harder to chase to flavour of the month and that alone is a massive improvement compared to older editions.

You know what else is good for that? Good balance in the first place.

Great discussion.

The mission set we've made for our 40k games is laid out below - and based on older 4th edition mission types. There are six overall "archetypes" for missions, and each one has a number of variable parameters to it. Here's the synopsis:

[1] BREAKTHROUGH Missions

Two sub-types:
"Ambush" missions are where one side sets up surrounded and other side has a partial force on the board as the ambushing force and can bring reserves. The ambushed force is trying to press of the board and break out. Needs durable mobility.
"Bypass" missions are similar, but less asymmetrical. One side is trying to break through their opponent's line and get off their table edge.

There are six different deployment arrangements and a few variations on scoring.

[2] RECONNAISSANCE Missions

Table is divided into quarters or sixths to form recon zones. Two sub-types exist that give each player points for taking a recon action in each zone (each player can only do it once), OR the other mission goal is actually have majority contorl of each zone at the end of the game. One is progressive scoring, one is end-game scoring essentially. Randomly has one of six different deployment layouts.

[3] INTERCEPT Missions

Includes three sub-types:
(a) Relic extraction (need to search through six objective markers to find the "relic" and then control it at the end of the game.
(b) Terminal Hack - gain points for performing a mission action, with more points awarded for doing more simultaneous hacks in a turn.
(c) Power siphon - gain points for the number of points exclusively held when at least one unit completes a mission action at a power station. Uses a "threshold" score where the first player to X-points wins.

These all have six different possible deployment layouts, and also variable arrangements for the number of terminals/stations that can be placed (and it's variable where they can go on the board)

[4] POINT CONTROL Missions

These all use familiar control points with a lot of variables governing the pacing the game. Three principal sub-types include "Hold The Line (only need to control points at the end of the game), "Press the Attack" (uses progressive scoring), and "Delay Action" (uses threshold for victory). Parameters/variation govern the number of points, placements in neutral versus deployment zones, value of differnent points, etc.

Essentially all of the basic missions types in 9th ed / ITC style missions are encompassed by this archetype.

[5] DESTROY / DEFEND

Siege and attacker/defender types missions. Two sub-types for "Bunker Assaults" and "Pipeline Raids" with one side being an attacker and the other the defender. Need to breach bunkers in order to secure/capture them at the end of the game. Pipelines need to be defended, etc. 12 different deployment zone arrangements, either symmetrical or asymmetric.

[6] CRITICAL TARGET

Two-main sub-types:
(a) Nexus - controlling a key point in the center of the battlefield at the end of the game.
(b) Supply Drop - center point/ scoring zone randomly scatters around the board, and the player controlling it at the end wins.

Again, deployment options and other parameters.

=============================================================================

We've found this set of missions really requires a diverse (e.g. non-skew) list to do well across the board. You need to have a bunch of "tools in the toolbox" and the skill comes in knowing when and how to use a given tool to try and secure the win.

Some of the subtler parameters like end game vs. progressive scoring makes a huge difference the pacing and tempo of a game and how different armies need to work to win. If you have a heavy, slower, kill everything list but your opponent can run around and hide and dash onto the objective at the end, you can't really sit back and just shoot away and optimize killing - it forces your army into unexpected places.

The deployment zone maps make a huge difference too, and having a wide vs. a narrow front needs to be considered as you balance our long-range and mobility considerations in your list. We're developing some additional "twists" to be used as well, for things that represent "escalating engagements" (i.e. majority of both players forces start in reserve) and other twists that shake things up.

==============================================================================

It says a lot about people's attitude when playing "competitively" with a diverse set of missions like this. The WAAC player that wants to optimize their way to winning at the list building stage is going take issue with diverse missions that force them out of their comfort zone.

When we sit down to play, based on my army list, I only have a general "plan of attack" on the assumption that I'm playing a straight up kill mission. Once we roll the mission details out and see the terrain layout, I really have to evaluate and think through each unique situation and how to use each unit to support victory. I have to come up with a new plan each time For us, this is great and is where the skill in the game comes through. AKA, having to devise a genuine strategy and contingency plans for when it all falls apart

 Blackie wrote:
Frequent changes are good to prevent spammy OP lists to show up in casual metas; it makes much harder to chase to flavour of the month and that alone is a massive improvement compared to older editions.

It is also super effective at making people not start the game at all. For example AoS , not for all armies, have fewer models, so unless you play stormcasts the chance of being totaly nerf nuked is low, after you buy an army. The army will still be just as expensive as a w40k one, but it will be much safter to start playing the faction. Smaller skimirsh games are even better. For the around 1000$ for a new w40k army, you can often play with 3-4 factions, or more. The way GW fixes w40k, is okeyish for veteran players with multiple armies or people who have everything for a faction, meaning nerfs mean little and if they play 20+ years, then a year of bad time is nothing. But if you are a new player, specially a kid or a teen, the idea of spending money and getting your army nerfed, before you aquire it , is not a good thing for the future. Of course what does a 40+ or 50+ designer care, what may happen in 10 or 20 years time? Probably as much as a samsung developer, when asked why a phone from 4 years ago stops working on its own.

Karol wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Frequent changes are good to prevent spammy OP lists to show up in casual metas; it makes much harder to chase to flavour of the month and that alone is a massive improvement compared to older editions.

It is also super effective at making people not start the game at all. For example AoS , not for all armies, have fewer models, so unless you play stormcasts the chance of being totaly nerf nuked is low, after you buy an army. The army will still be just as expensive as a w40k one, but it will be much safter to start playing the faction. Smaller skimirsh games are even better. For the around 1000$ for a new w40k army, you can often play with 3-4 factions, or more. The way GW fixes w40k, is okeyish for veteran players with multiple armies or people who have everything for a faction, meaning nerfs mean little and if they play 20+ years, then a year of bad time is nothing. But if you are a new player, specially a kid or a teen, the idea of spending money and getting your army nerfed, before you aquire it , is not a good thing for the future. Of course what does a 40+ or 50+ designer care, what may happen in 10 or 20 years time? Probably as much as a samsung developer, when asked why a phone from 4 years ago stops working on its own.

This, change for changes sake is never a good thing, ever.
If the "Frequent chages" where oh this unit was way to OP lets bring it in line, then sure, but its not that. Codex creep has become horribly obvious in 9th, worse then i have ever seen in my some decade + of playing warhammer. The only other time i saw it this bad was with Tsons at the end of 7th.
GW is not charging it for balance, they are changing it to push models.

Karol wrote:
Smaller skimirsh games are even better. For the around 1000$ for a new w40k army, you can often play with 3-4 factions, or more. wn.

Agree entirely- I am just loving KT.

But I wanted to point out that all of the games I have played in 9th so far have been 25PL Crusade games- so even 40k CAN BE that small skirmish game where you have four playable factions for $1000. I know that most people are going to insist that their local metas will not allow them to play anything other than 2k matched, and that's a valid point- but it doesn't change the fact that 40k was written to facilitate the potential to play the game in this way.

 Mezmorki wrote:
Great discussion.

The mission set we've made for our 40k games is laid out below - and based on older 4th edition mission types. There are six overall "archetypes" for missions, and each one has a number of variable parameters to it. Here's the synopsis:

<snip>
==============================================================================

It says a lot about people's attitude when playing "competitively" with a diverse set of missions like this. The WAAC player that wants to optimize their way to winning at the list building stage is going take issue with diverse missions that force them out of their comfort zone.

When we sit down to play, based on my army list, I only have a general "plan of attack" on the assumption that I'm playing a straight up kill mission. Once we roll the mission details out and see the terrain layout, I really have to evaluate and think through each unique situation and how to use each unit to support victory. I have to come up with a new plan each time For us, this is great and is where the skill in the game comes through. AKA, having to devise a genuine strategy and contingency plans for when it all falls apart

Thank you for sharing those, I exalted as it is a good contribution and sharing of ideas. I do agree that someone wanting to win in the listbuilding phase will usually not enjoy games where there are too many variables for them to plan for.

I personally love those because in war no plan goes unchallenged and no commander has absolute control over the battlefield or their forces and part of being good as a commander is being able to react to situations you weren't 100% prepared for.

Well some armies lose the game at the listbuilding phase, if you don't build them in one very specific way they can play well. And if that way of playing doesn't work in even 1/5th of the games, people are not going to like it. Lets say if we had a scenario where you needed to get a transport/non walker vehicle on to an objective and then zipp it to your deployment zone, some players may just as well not play the game if this scenario pops up, while others will swarm the objective turn one with 6+ skimmers and good luck killing them all.

Karol wrote:
Well some armies lose the game at the listbuilding phase, if you don't build them in one very specific way they can play well. And if that way of playing doesn't work in even 1/5th of the games, people are not going to like it. Lets say if we had a scenario where you needed to get a transport/non walker vehicle on to an objective and then zipp it to your deployment zone, some players may just as well not play the game if this scenario pops up, while others will swarm the objective turn one with 6+ skimmers and good luck killing them all.

While correct for the current iteration of 40k, I think for the purposes of this exercise we have to imagine an entirely different 40k where lethality is toned down, and a few other big changes.

The "diverse mission set" paradigm falls to the level of lethality we have right now.

 auticus wrote:


I personally love those because in war no plan goes unchallenged and no commander has absolute control over the battlefield or their forces and part of being good as a commander is being able to react to situations you weren't 100% prepared for.

There's a wonderful wee game from warlord called 'test of honour'. Samurai and ashigaru. Miniatures are kind of awful but we loved the rules. Very narrative and immersive.

It taught me a lot about myself and how I played games. Basically, it's an aa game and each turn you pull a token out of a bag (samurai or ashigaru) and that's what you get to activate. Samurai can activate multiple times, mooks only once.

And I was horrible at this game. And I'll always think fondly of toh for showing thos to me.

I really struggled with it, mechanically. Coming from a background of mainly wmh where I'm used to having ^total^ control of my army - what activates, when, where it goes - and where the game system is almost entirely ^ordered^ and ^predictable^, and being able to visualise a gane state 3-turns later and in our group I am probably the best at this 'kind of thing', but I really struggled with the inherent chaos of toh and ironically my buddies adapted swimmingly - it was how they'd been playing since the 80s more or less - they just instinctively understood it where i couldnt even get my plans off the ground and theyd be a mile ahead, effortlessly.
I learned very quickly my own limitations as a player where I was really good where I could pick my perfect army and have it work in a system where everything was known and predictable and within my control, but the second it was a scenario where I could not control my own army or how it acted and I was at sea. I learned very quickly anyone can be apparently 'good' in a system that xan be manipulated and where everything is ordered and it kind of holds your hand, to be 'great' you have to be able to deal with things out of your control and be able to improvise and adapt. It's one of the reasons now why I find these types of games where you're not fully in control, with well designed random elements or in-built chaos/lack of control far more interesting and intriguing now than the games I used to play. I'm genuinely glad I learned this lesson.

Karol wrote:
Well some armies lose the game at the listbuilding phase, if you don't build them in one very specific way they can play well. And if that way of playing doesn't work in even 1/5th of the games, people are not going to like it. Lets say if we had a scenario where you needed to get a transport/non walker vehicle on to an objective and then zipp it to your deployment zone, some players may just as well not play the game if this scenario pops up, while others will swarm the objective turn one with 6+ skimmers and good luck killing them all.

This is probably the best proof there is, that GW is in model making business first, game business second (bordering at "game is just an afterthought"). "Some factions simply cannot perform anyhow within some mission parameters, let alone on a viable level" comes from factions being developed/introduced around the "rule of cool (models)", without any consideration how they work within the system and then ham-fisted into the game. And mind you, this reaches far beyond the mere "badly balanced" aspect of factions interaction. See SfD when Ynnari were first introduced.

If any given scenario works fine for all but few factions, then it does not mean it's a bad scenario, it means that those factions have no place in the game. And to be crystal clear - I'm talking about broad aspect of game design, I do not intend to squat (pun intended) any faction from 40k, we have to live with the consequences of GW choosing to go against fundamentals of game design for the rest of our individual 40k lives. But the result of "models first, game second" is that the only aspect of mission design that factions have in common is killing stuff. Everything else will punish factions heavily skewed towards one of the fundamental areas of the game - mobility, offence or defence.

In a properly designed wargame, you design core system, including mission parameters in it. Then you design factions around the system and you only differentiate them enough for them to have flavour, but still function well within parameters of your core system. This is basically why early stages of Oldmunda campaigns and HH work well, while main 40k worked well last in 5th. But because the milk is spilled already, no "ground up restart" of 40K will solve the problem of faction bloat.

Deadnight wrote:
It's one of the reasons now why I find these types of games where you're not fully in control, with well designed random elements or in-built chaos/lack of control far more interesting and intriguing now than the games I used to play. I'm genuinely glad I learned this lesson.

<Cough... oldhammer... cough.... ahem> You were saying?

Deadnight wrote:

 auticus wrote:


I personally love those because in war no plan goes unchallenged and no commander has absolute control over the battlefield or their forces and part of being good as a commander is being able to react to situations you weren't 100% prepared for.

There's a wonderful wee game from warlord called 'test of honour'. Samurai and ashigaru. Miniatures are kind of awful but we loved the rules. Very narrative and immersive.

It taught me a lot about myself and how I played games. Basically, it's an aa game and each turn you pull a token out of a bag (samurai or ashigaru) and that's what you get to activate. Samurai can activate multiple times, mooks only once.

And I was horrible at this game. And I'll always think fondly of toh for showing thos to me.

I really struggled with it, mechanically. Coming from a background of mainly wmh where I'm used to having ^total^ control of my army - what activates, when, where it goes - and where the game system is almost entirely ^ordered^ and ^predictable^, and being able to visualise a gane state 3-turns later and in our group I am probably the best at this 'kind of thing', but I really struggled with the inherent chaos of toh and ironically my buddies adapted swimmingly - it was how they'd been playing since the 80s more or less - they just instinctively understood it where i couldnt even get my plans off the ground and theyd be a mile ahead, effortlessly.
I learned very quickly my own limitations as a player where I was really good where I could pick my perfect army and have it work in a system where everything was known and predictable and within my control, but the second it was a scenario where I could not control my own army or how it acted and I was at sea. I learned very quickly anyone can be apparently 'good' in a system that xan be manipulated and where everything is ordered and it kind of holds your hand, to be 'great' you have to be able to deal with things out of your control and be able to improvise and adapt. It's one of the reasons now why I find these types of games where you're not fully in control, with well designed random elements or in-built chaos/lack of control far more interesting and intriguing now than the games I used to play. I'm genuinely glad I learned this lesson.

The word you are looking for is "solvable". When I've returned to 40K in 7th I've played just a few Eternal War games, exactly because how fundamentally predictable the flow of the game was. I was then amazed how the overall community was focussed entirely on this small pool of solvable scenarios. Sure, Maelstrom had some fundamental flaws (which however were trivially fixable) and was not suitable for any kind of tournament setting, but it's unpredictability made for vastly more interesting flow of games.

On an entirely unrelated note. I just read today's Balance Dataslate and while I have nothing to say about the balance updates themselves, I'm utterly dreaded by the language of this Dataslate. Warhammer 40k is currently written with the all bad practices we know from the polish law - "change the first paragraph of xxx to read yyy", "substitute A with B", "add the following sentence to". We had a major "gate" kind of political crisis some years back exactly because of such approach to rules writing. And I already saw questions if those are incremental changes or they replace the changes from the last Dataslate. Any ruleset that is not a consolidated text will eventually drive players out of the game, as it may attract rule lawyers but the cognitive overhead and source spread turns an activity that was meant to be a fun pass time into a headache inducing nightmare.

I really don't know why the update can't be
[rule X]
[full text of the new rule]
it is not like they are printing those things, it is a pdf.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou 804379 11345944 wrote:

This is probably the best proof there is, that GW is in model making business first, game business second (bordering at "game is just an afterthought"). "Some factions simply cannot perform anyhow within some mission parameters, let alone on a viable level" comes from factions being developed/introduced around the "rule of cool (models)", without any consideration how they work within the system and then ham-fisted into the game. And mind you, this reaches far beyond the mere "badly balanced" aspect of factions interaction. See SfD when Ynnari were first introduced.

I said this before, but I think the whole objective/scenarios we have right now or which people propose are great for games with 20-30 models. If w40k was like infnity a grab objective X on turn 1, then relocate to perform an action on turn 2, while trying to kill his designated survive target, it could make for fun games. But when the game is, I move my 9 gun boats of doom after blowing up 1000pts of your army, and now doing a "cool" objective which boil down to"if you can't destroy 9 gunboats in a single turn after losing 1000pts, I will score it" the "cool" is not so cool, and people would rather play the same stale type of games.

The best thing for w40k would be, if a group of real game designer founded a company and wrote a rule set that either works with mass model use and mass combat, and has scenarios and objectives for that kind of a games. Or make Warhammer 40000 2ed 2.0 classic edition, with update factions and points costs, maybe some smoothed out rules, but generaly a game system where 2000pts mean you have maybe 1 void weaver and 2 stars in an army, or when puting 2 NDKs in to a single army is huge point investment. I don't think GW can fix their rules systems, meaning people have to accept the way they are. Or ,and I trust mr Atticus on that, GW may not even want to fix or balance their games at all, because it isn't their goal, not even a secondary one.

The best thing for w40k would be, if a group of real game designer founded a company and wrote a rule set that either works with mass model use and mass combat, and has scenarios and objectives for that kind of a games.

I know a guy Actually my game studio is working on a fantasy game set in a heavy metal realms world based on heavy metal music and imagery which does incorporate fantasy and sci fi pieces... but its designed to be a narrative experience that caters to story telling as well as wargame tropes like command & control and things players can't control - like real battles. Its not being designed as a tournament game, its more in the same vein as like a battletech with story type narrative hooks from games like kingdom death, and old school mighty empires.

I doubt it will even stand up to 40k or even get a half of a half of a percentage of its players but I'm doing it more to enjoy the models again and selling the models we come up with as STL files you can print as many as you want.

 auticus wrote:

The best thing for w40k would be, if a group of real game designer founded a company and wrote a rule set that either works with mass model use and mass combat, and has scenarios and objectives for that kind of a games.

I know a guy Actually my game studio is working on a fantasy game set in a heavy metal realms world based on heavy metal music and imagery which does incorporate fantasy and sci fi pieces... but its designed to be a narrative experience that caters to story telling as well as wargame tropes like command & control and things players can't control - like real battles. Its not being designed as a tournament game, its more in the same vein as like a battletech with story type narrative hooks from games like kingdom death, and old school mighty empires.

I doubt it will even stand up to 40k or even get a half of a half of a percentage of its players but I'm doing it more to enjoy the models again and selling the models we come up with as STL files you can print as many as you want.

Tbh it sounds pretty neat, is there any public info out about it or a name I can listen for on the vox echoes?

Karol wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Frequent changes are good to prevent spammy OP lists to show up in casual metas; it makes much harder to chase to flavour of the month and that alone is a massive improvement compared to older editions.

It is also super effective at making people not start the game at all.

Nah, it simply discourages WAAC players to join the game, which is excellent news. Someone that starts shouldn't worry at all about listbuilding and competitive gaming. I certainly didn't do when I was a kid, started playing "competitive" after 4-5 years, and I'm now almost 25 years into this hobby.

Toxic environments are still toxic even if they are less gatekeeping. In fact they might be even more toxic if WAACs can chase the flavour of the month much easier.

Ah yeah, because when a new player starts and goes the "play what you want" way he is always suffering from the same conditions as I do and it makes him unable to quit, no matter how bad unfun the game is for him.

And I don't want to go in to again, how different avarge incomes affact the buying and army composition. So allow me to disagree

and the whole toxic vibe thing. If my place is toxic and everyone else is having fun playing their open narrative games and painting 99% of the hobby time, then why do so many people have problems with too good and too bad army books? I mean surely if the majority is not toxic and plays for fun, as if those playing to win didn't have fun, then such threads wouldn't be posted in forums all around the world.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:

 auticus wrote:

The best thing for w40k would be, if a group of real game designer founded a company and wrote a rule set that either works with mass model use and mass combat, and has scenarios and objectives for that kind of a games.

I know a guy Actually my game studio is working on a fantasy game set in a heavy metal realms world based on heavy metal music and imagery which does incorporate fantasy and sci fi pieces... but its designed to be a narrative experience that caters to story telling as well as wargame tropes like command & control and things players can't control - like real battles. Its not being designed as a tournament game, its more in the same vein as like a battletech with story type narrative hooks from games like kingdom death, and old school mighty empires.

I doubt it will even stand up to 40k or even get a half of a half of a percentage of its players but I'm doing it more to enjoy the models again and selling the models we come up with as STL files you can print as many as you want.

Tbh it sounds pretty neat, is there any public info out about it or a name I can listen for on the vox echoes?

The first rulebook (the warband scale - so 40k scale basically) is about 75% done and art work is being produced through the summer. We are hoping to have a playtest run while that is happening using sigmar models or whatever (ultimately its models agnostic with our own that you can use if you feel like it). When that happens, we will be broadcasting on the studio facebook and discord and sites like this

Tbh I've never been more inclined to start my own company aimed at making an alternative ruleset than now.

Karol wrote:
Ah yeah, because when a new player starts and goes the "play what you want" way he is always suffering from the same conditions as I do and it makes him unable to quit, no matter how bad unfun the game is for him.

And I don't want to go in to again, how different avarge incomes affact the buying and army composition. So allow me to disagree

and the whole toxic vibe thing. If my place is toxic and everyone else is having fun playing their open narrative games and painting 99% of the hobby time, then why do so many people have problems with too good and too bad army books? I mean surely if the majority is not toxic and plays for fun, as if those playing to win didn't have fun, then such threads wouldn't be posted in forums all around the world.

Many players here maybe, an irrelevant fraction of the playerbase. And most of the posters here don't even play.

Also, GW seems to be pretty healthy. Regardless of the "too frequent changes2. But maybe those too frequent changes are among the major reasons why GW is still so popular instead.

Good for company is not always good for the players. And yeah GW is practicaly a monopoly that can print its own money and the ways to set its worth. Of course it is going to do well.

And even if it is true, that most posters on dakka do not play, it ain't true for all the forums cross the world. And there is talk about stuff almost every codex that comes out. Specially since DE dropped. And saying that people don't quit, because of rules or because they army becomes bad or illegal, or that they are somehow the minority is just, how do you know that? The churn over of new players, and not speaking about my area here, is huge. People last less then an edition. And you want to tell me that they just quit from reasons unrelated to the game, or maybe because GW doesn't make models they want to paint? Why are all the pictures from clubs and stores full of older dudes, where are the teens and kids playing the game ?

auticus wrote:

The best thing for w40k would be, if a group of real game designer founded a company and wrote a rule set that either works with mass model use and mass combat, and has scenarios and objectives for that kind of a games.

I know a guy Actually my game studio is working on a fantasy game set in a heavy metal realms world based on heavy metal music and imagery which does incorporate fantasy and sci fi pieces... but its designed to be a narrative experience that caters to story telling as well as wargame tropes like command & control and things players can't control - like real battles. Its not being designed as a tournament game, its more in the same vein as like a battletech with story type narrative hooks from games like kingdom death, and old school mighty empires.

I doubt it will even stand up to 40k or even get a half of a half of a percentage of its players but I'm doing it more to enjoy the models again and selling the models we come up with as STL files you can print as many as you want.

Insectum7 wrote:Tbh I've never been more inclined to start my own company aimed at making an alternative ruleset than now.

After 8th hit the shelves, my group deviated from "the official" 40K. Since then, we have been playing what basically was an ever morphing ruleset, a constant WIP. But in the last year or so it finally took a current shape and we are no longer morphing it, only fine tuning it. It is a completely different game in all regards (d12+dX resolution I'm especially proud of, simultaneous damage resolution, AA of large chunks (3-6 per side) etc) and plays really well, so well there isn't really any point in comparing it to 40k disaster. I'm in the process of formatting the core rules to a decent publication standard ATM "for fun" (I'm graphic designer by trade). It won't probably be ever (?) published, because core rules is one thing - factions take A LOT of time even porting from 40k - translating stats, rewriting rules, tweaking performance etc. But we're having a blast and I think some of the more narrative oriented folks would appreciate how this game feels.

Karol wrote:

Why are all the pictures from clubs and stores full of older dudes, where are the teens and kids playing the game ?

When I was a teen I was always playing at my or my friends' homes with people my age. Definitely not in stores against guys that were practicing for tournaments.

There was an article I read that said the vast majority of card games aren't played at the stores but at homes, maybe it's true also for miniature wargames.


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Karol wrote:
People last less then an edition. And you want to tell me that they just quit from reasons unrelated to the game, or maybe because GW doesn't make models they want to paint?

I quit two times, during end of 3rd, returning at the beginning of 5th, and near end of 5th, returning in 7h, always because I had other priorities or other interests during that period. Never for something related to the game.

I have quit and taken long breaks twice specifically because of the state of the game. When 7th got really bad, all of a sudden you had WMH and Xwing tournaments getting 30+ players and nobody playing 40k. It's disingenuous to pretend that nobody quits because of the state of the game. There's a local group meeting up to play Infinity for the first time since the pandemic started, again specifically because of the state of 40k.

Toofast wrote:
I have quit and taken long breaks twice specifically because of the state of the game. When 7th got really bad, all of a sudden you had WMH and Xwing tournaments getting 30+ players and nobody playing 40k. It's disingenuous to pretend that nobody quits because of the state of the game. There's a local group meeting up to play Infinity for the first time since the pandemic started, again specifically because of the state of 40k.

We may differ deeply otherwise, but I agree, that rage quits are not all that uncommon. I quit after 3rd ed Craftworld codex have not brought any flavour of the faction back, returned in 7th and then after 8th hit I just couldn't be bothered by official rules anymore. I know players that jumped on the hype train when 8th hit, only to switch to SW Legion relatively soon after, because of how modern 40k is not a wargame anymore. People I know who left "because of life reasons" did that not because those reasons "prevented them from playing the game they loved", but because 40k was not worth all that much for them anymore, exactly because they were already downed by the constant gakshow of rules and the toxicity of the community.

It plays much more like a card game with wombo combos and gotcha mechanics. Not a great direction for a wargame IMO. There's other wargames that operate like cardgames with much better/tighter rulesets and better balance already.