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 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
If I'm a new player, and let's say I'm playing Necrons, if someone pulls a -1 to hit, then it's a gotcha. If they pull a transhuman when I shoot them with a melta, it's a gotcha. Here's the funny thing, it can be a gotcha, even if I know they have it, because it's not something intrinsic to the unit, and they can pull out of their ass whenever they want. It's annoying as hell.

So you're saying the units should just have a -1 to hit against, built into the profile, so that you can't be gotcha'd again?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
If I'm a new player, and let's say I'm playing Necrons, if someone pulls a -1 to hit, then it's a gotcha. If they pull a transhuman when I shoot them with a melta, it's a gotcha. Here's the funny thing, it can be a gotcha, even if I know they have it, because it's not something intrinsic to the unit, and they can pull out of their ass whenever they want. It's annoying as hell.

So you're saying the units should just have a -1 to hit against, built into the profile, so that you can't be gotcha'd again?

yes, like ranger cameleonine cloaks

Infinity has units that give a -6 for all ranged attacks, which is harsher than the -1 for 40k, despite Infinity using a d20 system, because a d20 has less than 6 times the sides than a d6. A native -1 for certain units, or certain armies at a range, did used to be a thing. Why can't it be on things that should have it, and not on things that shouldn't?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
If I'm a new player, and let's say I'm playing Necrons, if someone pulls a -1 to hit, then it's a gotcha. If they pull a transhuman when I shoot them with a melta, it's a gotcha. Here's the funny thing, it can be a gotcha, even if I know they have it, because it's not something intrinsic to the unit, and they can pull out of their ass whenever they want. It's annoying as hell.

So you're saying the units should just have a -1 to hit against, built into the profile, so that you can't be gotcha'd again?

Yes? Isn't that how it used to be? Isn't that how most games do it?
Well, games that aren't Yu-Gi-Oh that is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Toofast wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Toofast wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Well if you're completely off guard by someone using a Strat to lower your LD or some garbage like that, I dunno what to tell you.

Again you're cherry picking strats to pretend gotcha moments don't exist. If they don't exist for you, congrats on having the time to sit down and learn 700 stratagems and special rules. For the other 99.9% of the playerbase, they both exist and feel bad when they happen.

Citation needed for the 99% of the playerbase that hadn't memorized Transhuman Physiology and Agents of Vect after they became rules.

Or the real Gotcha special rules like Salamanders rerolling a hit roll! Man that catches me off guard every time!

You're one hell of a player if your opponent has never used a stratagem you didn't know about.

This is the age of the internet. None of this information is hidden. It might be one thing to struggle against an army you haven't faced before, but you shouldn't be surprised by anything.

This would be true if GW put their codices online instead of getting mad if you do try to get the rules online. Not many people are going to be willing to buy every codex just to know some stratagems in the game, which may be rendered obsolete in a couple of years anyway.
Similarly, not many people are going to know or find forum posts about stratagems.
Also, you know there are a lot of stratagems in the game, right? Do you know every stratagem for every army, right down to the CP cost and exact wording?

Not many people are going to not know how to use the internet to find out general info about Strats? Are the people playing 40k in their 60s?

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Not many people are going to not know how to use the internet to find out general info about Strats? Are the people playing 40k in their 60s?

Define "general info"
Because stratagems are not "general", they are specific. They have specific CP costs, names and conditions.
Searching "stratagems 40k" isn't going to tell you much. You really have to start digging if you start with vague search terms.

Well it's probably because I am an unwashed casual, but in the games I play, the expectation is that the opponent tries to make their opponent aware of strats that cause -1 to hit, transhuman, auspex scan or similar. And if an action was done and the player wants to use said strat after the fact, an invocation of 'take-backsies' can be done. This done largely out of sportsmanship, but also has the practical application of not have both players with figurative knives to each others' throat asking probing questions of what kind of things can their opponent do or skimming through each others' codex every 2 minutes. Because 40k is a perfect information game, and at my level of play it is thoroughly understood neither player want to waste kind sussing out these 'gotchas'.

I don't know, but I suppose at a 'competitive' level, players could be assumed to memorize important strats, if not all strats. I mean, a good portion of 40k's skill is quiz-show level memorization anyway. Current edition(s) just have more of it. I suppose if players want to make the game a competition, having the better players know more about the game is certainly a way to do it. Especial when 'competitive' players seem adamant at deciding as little as possible at the actual table. It's still perfect information, just not necessarily perfect knowledge.

My issue with stratagems is that they feel extremely gamey, and make no sense to me, as I'm not quite sure why "Transhuman Physiology" can only be used on one Transhuman Space Marine at a time, and why does it cost resources to do so?

How does that work in practice. Someone plants a unit on an objective to hold it. You move a chunk of your army to destroy it, then shooting or melee phase happens and transhuman gets poped and because this is a gatcha, you roll back the entire turn back to the movment phase so you can move two additional units in range, so on avarge you can destroy the unit with trans? Plus such a way of playing would mean that anyone who could make an error could just claim that it wasn't one, but rather a gatcha and that they now invoke the rule of taking back moves.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

This is the age of the internet. None of this information is hidden. It might be one thing to struggle against an army you haven't faced before, but you shouldn't be surprised by anything.

The internet also allows you to learn every language known to man, but I shouldn't be expected to understand someone speaking Mayan. Just because every stratagem is available on Waha doesn't mean the average player should be expected to know them all. How many are there, 700 something now? If every faction had 1 per phase and then 8-10 in the core rulebook, then I would know them all. When the amount of information is equivalent to becoming conversational in a foreign language, that's bloat and very few players will know all the rules. Learning a wargame should not be like trying to learn a dead language from pieced together scrolls and cave paintings, which is what GW games have become. At this point, there isn't a GW game or army where you can find all the rules in 1 book. If you don't think bloat is a problem, I genuinely envy the amount of time you have to sit around reading 25 codexes and memorizing all the stratagems in them. I'm learning a new language, managing properties in 2 different countries, going to work every day, taking care of a small zoo worth of animals, keeping my cars maintained, I don't have time to devote to learn 700 stratagems and a game that has that kind of bloat just makes me not want to play it. It would be different if those made it a great tactical game but a lot of them are just bloat for the sake of bloat and don't add anything to the army or game. I don't mind complexity, I mind bloat and splitting rules up into 7 different sources, making it damn near impossible for anyone to actually know all of them. I overheard a GW manager telling a newer player yesterday "don't worry about knowing every single rule right away because I don't think a single human on Earth actually knows them all". Someone else chimed in with "yea, even the guys writing them" and we all had a good laugh. That tells you a lot about the amount of bloat in the game. There are people who know every idiom in 7 languages but nobody knows every 40k stratagem...

Are you really comparing learning a new language to memorizing some strats? Jesus, it's no wonder some of you forget to use entire units during your games.

Also if you want to learn a new language, there's new excuse either. There's tons of websites and apps if that's your desire.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Are you really comparing learning a new language to memorizing some strats? Jesus, it's no wonder some of you forget to use entire units during your games.

Also if you want to learn a new language, there's new excuse either. There's tons of websites and apps if that's your desire.

Yes I am, because in the last year I both learned conversational Spanish and got back into 40k with 9th after taking a break since 7th. I know a lot more Spanish words than 40k stratagems but whoever is in charge of rules for GW definitely took some cues from Spanish conjugations.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Are you really comparing learning a new language to memorizing some strats? Jesus, it's no wonder some of you forget to use entire units during your games.

Also if you want to learn a new language, there's new excuse either. There's tons of websites and apps if that's your desire.

i don't want to need to study to play casual games of 40k . Its a game, not school

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Are you really comparing learning a new language to memorizing some strats? Jesus, it's no wonder some of you forget to use entire units during your games.

Also if you want to learn a new language, there's new excuse either. There's tons of websites and apps if that's your desire.

i don't want to need to study to play casual games of 40k . Its a game, not school

Then don't. Learn your own & just trust that your opponent isn't cheating you. You'll become familiar with the major strats of the armies you face quick enough. And assuming you know how to do a Google search you can look up anything else you wonder about.

Has anyone said that gotchas are cheating? They're just unfun for me, and I imagine the other people here who dislike them, in addition to feeling gamey. I don't care if I learn about the strats. I don't like stratagems, and I want a game with either severely reduced strats that make sense, or no stratagems at all.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Are you really comparing learning a new language to memorizing some strats? Jesus, it's no wonder some of you forget to use entire units during your games.

Also if you want to learn a new language, there's new excuse either. There's tons of websites and apps if that's your desire.

i don't want to need to study to play casual games of 40k . Its a game, not school

Pfft stop being a filthy casual, don't you own every codex and spend an hour a day on wahapedia revising all the rules and strars for the game?!

Can attest I've forgotten to use a unit in some phases, usually because I'm having a chat or a drink or whatever with my opponent the same time as playing, enjoying myself rather than being some strat knowledge hustler.

Toofast wrote:
I know a lot more Spanish words than 40k stratagems

Which shouldn't surprise you, since even at the highest levels you don't need to memorize more than 20-30 stratagems to avoid real gotchas.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Not many people are going to not know how to use the internet to find out general info about Strats? Are the people playing 40k in their 60s?

Define "general info"
Because stratagems are not "general", they are specific. They have specific CP costs, names and conditions.
Searching "stratagems 40k" isn't going to tell you much. You really have to start digging if you start with vague search terms.

Open up the unit you are shooting at on wahapedia, scroll down to see all stratagems that can affect them.

Or you could just ask your opponent/ask to see their codex if finding stuff on the internet is rokkit science to you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
My issue with stratagems is that they feel extremely gamey, and make no sense to me, as I'm not quite sure why "Transhuman Physiology" can only be used on one Transhuman Space Marine at a time, and why does it cost resources to do so?

It's a game mechanic that has been given a flavorful name, not a representation of the lore that has been given game rules.

40k has stopped being a WARgame a long time ago and (d)evolved into a warGAME.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Are you really comparing learning a new language to memorizing some strats? Jesus, it's no wonder some of you forget to use entire units during your games.

Also if you want to learn a new language, there's new excuse either. There's tons of websites and apps if that's your desire.

i don't want to need to study to play casual games of 40k . Its a game, not school

That's why most of us dirty casuals play the way Saturmorn Carvilli outlined above. Agree with your opponent to not ruin each other's games with gotchas and allow takebacks when someone runs into a gotcha anyways.

 Jidmah wrote:
Open up the unit you are shooting at on wahapedia, scroll down to see all stratagems that can affect them.

So the death of 40k will be when the current political situation will go that far that access to russian servers won't be possible any more

how ironic
people play 40k simply because the can get all rules for free and have access to cheap minis
would be interesting to see what happens if everyone has to pay the full retail price for everything

Wahapedia going down would definitely cast ripples across 40k. You can't really play the game as intended without it.

 Jidmah wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Not many people are going to not know how to use the internet to find out general info about Strats? Are the people playing 40k in their 60s?

Define "general info"
Because stratagems are not "general", they are specific. They have specific CP costs, names and conditions.
Searching "stratagems 40k" isn't going to tell you much. You really have to start digging if you start with vague search terms.

Open up the unit you are shooting at on wahapedia, scroll down to see all stratagems that can affect them.

Or you could just ask your opponent/ask to see their codex if finding stuff on the internet is rokkit science to you.

Cool. I'll just pause the game the first time I shoot at every single unit in my opponent's army while I consult an outside source for info on what they may or may not do. Then I'll do the same once I charge into combat. Or I can search through 40 stratagems without any clue what I'm looking for all while my opponent sits there waiting for me to finally roll dice. Or they could tell me what strats they have, but they may not even know, given how many there are and if they don't give me an exhaustive list they look like TFG when they do remember about a niche strat that swings the game in their favour.

If strats are to be kept in 40k (and I'm pretty convinced they shouldn't be) at the very least they need to be abilities on a unit's datasheet. If you did that, combined with maybe 6-8 army-wide strats, it would be easy for both players to keep track of. The current implementation is insane.

 Jidmah wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Not many people are going to not know how to use the internet to find out general info about Strats? Are the people playing 40k in their 60s?

Define "general info"
Because stratagems are not "general", they are specific. They have specific CP costs, names and conditions.
Searching "stratagems 40k" isn't going to tell you much. You really have to start digging if you start with vague search terms.

Open up the unit you are shooting at on wahapedia, scroll down to see all stratagems that can affect them.

That's assuming I have a smart phone or a computer on hand.
Having to pause the game just to look information up on a website of dubious legality isn't what I would call proper game design either, especially when there's no pause button.
You bet that GW's lawyers are trying to find a way to shut waha down just to sell more books.

Slipspace wrote:
If strats are to be kept in 40k (and I'm pretty convinced they shouldn't be) at the very least they need to be abilities on a unit's datasheet.

Wait, so you are expecting me to pause the game the first time I shoot at every single unit in my opponent's army while I consult an outside source for info on what they may or may not do? Then I'll do the same once I charge into combat?

Or I can search through 40 stratagems without any clue what I'm looking for all while my opponent sits there waiting for me to finally roll dice.

If, after five years of playing with stratagems, you refuse to use technology, don't ask your opponent and still have no clue how to quickly identify which bolded words you need to look for, I don't know what to tell you.

Or they could tell me what strats they have, but they may not even know, given how many there are and if they don't give me an exhaustive list they look like TFG when they do remember about a niche strat that swings the game in their favour.

Sounds quite fabricated to me. In most situations only a hand full of stratagems apply and if your opponent doesn't tell you about a stratagem and then suddenly remembers and gotcha's you with it, chances are that you are not having the friendly game you agreed on.

You can now put those strawmen away. There are absolutely too many stratagems and most of them clearly add little to the game.

It doesn't change the fact that the information is readily available and easily obtainable for anyone who has basic information gathering skills.

If, after five years of playing with stratagems, you refuse to use technology, don't ask your opponent and still have no clue how to quickly identify which bolded words you need to look for, I don't know what to tell you.

Or you play at a store, and the store wants you to use printed material only, preferably bought at the store. An opponent juggling his codex, FAQs, his campagin book takes some time. But AoS seems to have the same problem, at some points there is too many units with special actions, and their rules overlap over multiple phases, similar units get treated different just because they are a character on a dragon instead of a "regular dude on a dragon". W40k has this too with character tanks and wierd interaction of core rules with codex specific rules about which someone clearly did not think while testing or writing down.

 Jidmah wrote:


You can now put those strawmen away. There are absolutely too many stratagems and most of them clearly add little to the game.

It doesn't change the fact that the information is readily available and easily obtainable for anyone who has basic information gathering skills.

This is all true but I would add a dead/low battery on a phone radically changes this from personal experience, it takes the grease off the wheels so to speak.

you refuse to use technology

Expecting people to buy a ~200 dollar smart phone to play a game where you have to buy 55 dollar books on a regularly basis with expensive models is a bit much, don't you think?

Talk about price of entry.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dudeface wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


You can now put those strawmen away. There are absolutely too many stratagems and most of them clearly add little to the game.

It doesn't change the fact that the information is readily available and easily obtainable for anyone who has basic information gathering skills.

This is all true but I would add a dead/low battery on a phone radically changes this from personal experience, it takes the grease off the wheels so to speak.

That too. Or the phone just being broken, or there not being internet access or poor signal.
Tech is not infallible.

There does need to be a cull of stratagems, and some of the stratagems are just silly.
Why do Orks need a stratagem to put on heavier armour? Or for units to use melta bombs and smoke, which should really just be basic abilities?

Stratagems should really be treated more like Command and Conquer's support powers, powerful support abilities that affect the entire army, not just one specific unit in a specific point of time.
So stuff like Orbital Bombardment or Airstrikes, not units suddenly remembering that they have special ammunition and then never using it again because they don't have strategic bucks.

A 200$ phone is still cheaper, then expect that someone should buy a flat or a house to play w40k.

If one doesn't have a place to call shelter, then playing 40k would be the least of one's worries.
Smart phones are really not a necessity.

Not everyone who can't play at home, is automatically homeless. try explaining to your mother at 17, why you are brining a 34y old dude home, because you need to play the next round of a store event, and his wife said no.

Karol wrote:
Not everyone who can't play at home, is automatically homeless. try explaining to your mother at 17, why you are brining a 34y old dude home, because you need to play the next round of a store event, and his wife said no.

Fair enough. I suppose there are FLGS but then again, that's not always the case.