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 NinthMusketeer wrote:
People are missing the point that it shouldn't even be possible to lose half an army in one turn, mistakes or no.

So there should be no player agency? I should be able to just push everything forward and not expect to suffer for it? Sounds kind of dull.

It's pretty damned difficult to lose half your army as it stands right now and it's why Arbiter has had to walk his comment back.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
People are missing the point that it shouldn't even be possible to lose half an army in one turn, mistakes or no.

I think that could be a nice rule of thumb. However, I think to accomplish that goal RAW, people also would have to understand it might be very possible to do absolutely no damage Turn 1. And I don't just mean the players that have an all/mostly melee army or everything was hidden. I mean, your shooting/attacks just bounce off for an entire Turn. And this phenomena could happen all game long.

Because to meet the criteria of not possible to lose half army, that does mean on Planet Bowling Ball, both armies line up as close as possible, with the most offensively powerful gets to lay into the most fragile one and still be under 50% casualties.

In no way would 9th meet that. Heck, I don't know if Bolt Action could meet that criteria, and they at least have decent suppression mechanics to allow the player to feel like they accomplished something even if they didn't remove a model. So, is that what we really want with 40k? Or is just an exaggeration of how lethal 9th is?

I don't dislike the idea of losing half my models if I'm being stupid. I don't even mind losing all my models turn 1 if I'm being an idiot. There just need to be mechanics in place so you can actually maintain most of your army if you're not playing stupid, or so you can actually react to what the enemy is doing. Make both turns active turns. While one person is moving and shooting, allow the player who can't do much to react to the enemy. Allow them to bunker up, allow them to retreat when charged. Lots of little things you can do to both up player engagement and reduce lethality.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
People are missing the point that it shouldn't even be possible to lose half an army in one turn, mistakes or no.

I think if you gak the bed to an epic degree then yes it should be possible. But it should require a blistering degree of incompetence (like using beginning of game moves to advance into charge range of a melee-focused army like an idiot when they have the first turn) or an actual desire to lose.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
People are missing the point that it shouldn't even be possible to lose half an army in one turn, mistakes or no.

...yes...yes it should. I think a lot of the game needs durability boosts to a large extent, the problem as we can see from AoC, is that GW doesn't know how to apply them equally and durability boosts across the board will feth over the low dmg armies pretty badly.

But getting back to losing half your army, yes you should lose half your army if you deploy like a muppet and leave expensive "Soft" targets exposed. If I park 3 blobs of Lootas and 3 blobs of tankbustas in the open turn 1, I should lose all of them without much effort from my opponent because I deployed like an idiot.

At a recent GT, the table next to me had a very similar scenario where one guy parked really expensive glass cannons up front in the open, well turn 1 his opponent killed them all. Guy surrendered turn 1 and was so pissed off he left the tournament afterwards.

 Tyran wrote:
I disagree, there must be possible to lose half an army if you do particulalry dumb stuff, e.g. placing glasshammer units withing charging distance of a melee units.

What shouldn't be possible is losing half an army if you are playing defensively.

To be honest, I can't think of a single miniatures game where standing in the middle of a field on the midboard with your wang in your hand, you won't lose the bulk of your force.

*sigh* if I meant -literally- impossible to lose half your army in a turn I would have said that. Obviously if someone goes out of their way to be vulnerable or if dice or really crazy unusual stuff can happen. Everyone knows that, bringing it up is a straw man, not a counterargument.

I mean, you literally said:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
People are missing the point that it shouldn't even be possible to lose half an army in one turn, mistakes or no.

So yeah you said that.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
People are missing the point that it shouldn't even be possible to lose half an army in one turn, mistakes or no.

So there should be no player agency? I should be able to just push everything forward and not expect to suffer for it? Sounds kind of dull.

It's pretty damned difficult to lose half your army as it stands right now and it's why Arbiter has had to walk his comment back.

I'm sorry but where exactly have I walked back my comments? It is like people read into post what they want to rather than what is actually said. For example Ninth stated "Half an army in one turn" and took it as first turn. That is not what he said but it sure is easier for people to argue against.

That and it is exhausting with how pedantic this argument is getting because it is a bunch of people going, "Well TECHNICALLY...." which yes, we all understand that things that are said in context of opinions are not 100% fact. That is why I am spending time to explain how the game makes me feel, which is entirely subjective, but everyone is so adamant that their opinions are fact.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
*sigh* if I meant -literally- impossible to lose half your army in a turn I would have said that. Obviously if someone goes out of their way to be vulnerable or if dice or really crazy unusual stuff can happen. Everyone knows that, bringing it up is a straw man, not a counterargument.

Against some armies you can do nothing or do a lot, and they still could or still can kill half your army in a turn. Liquifire spam DE, void weavers eldar, the new tyranids. And then there is armies like knights or custodes, where if they play vs something that can kill them can lose half an army easily, what ever they try to lose it or not. Knights especially don't really have the option was fast moving armies that can blow up their big vehicles.

 Tyran wrote:
I mean, you literally said:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
People are missing the point that it shouldn't even be possible to lose half an army in one turn, mistakes or no.

So yeah you said that.

It was followed by examples of people intentionally making themselves vulnerable or standing in the middle of the board with no terrain. For reasonable discussion there is a baseline assumption that people are making a good faith effort to actually play the game and not set up some obscure circumstance that doesn't occur in regular play.

And even that aside, you know what I mean. Everyone here knows what I mean. If my sentiment was really that unreasonable there would be no need to turn to extreme skew situations to form a counterpoint.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
I'm sorry but where exactly have I walked back my comments? It is like people read into post what they want to rather than what is actually said. For example Ninth stated "Half an army in one turn" and took it as first turn. That is not what he said but it sure is easier for people to argue against.

That and it is exhausting with how pedantic this argument is getting because it is a bunch of people going, "Well TECHNICALLY...." which yes, we all understand that things that are said in context of opinions are not 100% fact. That is why I am spending time to explain how the game makes me feel, which is entirely subjective, but everyone is so adamant that their opinions are fact.

It's pretty irrelevant whatever turn it might be, but it was clearly referenced and replied to - moving the goalposts doesn't change that. If you're playing poorly the risk goes up. But if you're trading then their capability to do so goes down. People like to pretend that your army is just a sitting duck and you have no agency to create this narrative that people can run with, and, I'll give you that against Harlies ( and now Nids ), but against the vast majority of the remaining armies it was not - not even Custodes.

Creating a game where "half the armies are on the table turn 5", in this mission set, where the army with the most durable obsec wins by just not dying is not interesting.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
I'm sorry but where exactly have I walked back my comments? It is like people read into post what they want to rather than what is actually said. For example Ninth stated "Half an army in one turn" and took it as first turn. That is not what he said but it sure is easier for people to argue against.

That and it is exhausting with how pedantic this argument is getting because it is a bunch of people going, "Well TECHNICALLY...." which yes, we all understand that things that are said in context of opinions are not 100% fact. That is why I am spending time to explain how the game makes me feel, which is entirely subjective, but everyone is so adamant that their opinions are fact.

It's pretty irrelevant whatever turn it might be, but it was clearly referenced and replied to - moving the goalposts doesn't change that. If you're playing poorly the risk goes up. But if you're trading then their capability to do so goes down. People like to pretend that your army is just a sitting duck and you have no agency to create this narrative that people can run with, and, I'll give you that against Harlies ( and now Nids ), but against the vast majority of the remaining armies it was not - not even Custodes.

Creating a game where "half the armies are on the table turn 5", in this mission set, where the army with the most durable obsec wins by just not dying is not interesting.

What on earth are you even saying here? Yes, people referenced and replied to a comment I did not make. That is not moving the goalpost and you are still inferring that I played poorly in order to take a swipe at me for no reason other than you disagree with my opinions on a game. Your army is absolutely without agency once your opponents turn begins. Your army is static once your turn is over with very few exceptions so your opponent isn't playing against you, they are playing against the board state. I can not move my units once they I end my turn and no matter how hard I want to keep them out of sight it doesn't really make a difference when so many armies can move 10"+ to get an angle on you.

I've been on the other end where I am crushing an opponent and remove most of their army turn 2, it happens and no amount of pseudo-sage advice like "git gud" or "play smarter" is going to change that. I do not play with the extremely sterile tournament tables but generally I play on tables where there are few if any lanes or fire that can reach deployment to deployment. But again, when your opponent can move things first turn it is a trivial thing to get the toenail or a monster or just the barest hint of a track from a tank to get full uninhibited shooting at it.

I can go over every single thing I have done and can do to prevent this from happening and how those things can be counter by an opponent who is reasonably competent but I feel that no matter where this conversation goes it will have no purpose because you are always going to find something to nit pick or generalize away. I wanted to express my frustration with 9th edition and I did. Not a single person here is a lone authority on all things 40k so stop acting like your opinions are any more relevant or important than anyone else's. For a lot of people 9th feels like the death of the game, myself included. I didn't even stop when 7th was at its worse because I still felt like I could get some good games in with people who had the same expectations of the game. I do not feel that way about 9th, the game is so lethal that even if you want a balanced match up one bad turn can remove so much of your army that you can't recover.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
I mean, you literally said:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
People are missing the point that it shouldn't even be possible to lose half an army in one turn, mistakes or no.

So yeah you said that.

It was followed by examples of people intentionally making themselves vulnerable or standing in the middle of the board with no terrain. For reasonable discussion there is a baseline assumption that people are making a good faith effort to actually play the game and not set up some obscure circumstance that doesn't occur in regular play.

And even that aside, you know what I mean. Everyone here knows what I mean. If my sentiment was really that unreasonable there would be no need to turn to extreme skew situations to form a counterpoint.

I didn't know what you meant. That's why created the example I did. I wouldn't put it pass someone, even you, that they want a game that could commonly have only half and army removed at its completion. I'm pretty sure I played some older historicals that had those levels of casualties. So, it wasn't completely far-fetched.

I have encountered just enough players that put their army on the deployment zone line and when they lose initiative got all upset they lost by a single die roll. They didn't and, they knew what they were doing setting up that Alpha Strike. Just like the players that went with all in with glass hammer/cannon units then got angry, they evaporated like Las Vegas rain. Those aren't even mistakes, that's just extreme risk to reward blowing up in one's face.

I occasionally place my stuff out in the open on the line, knowing full well those units aren't going to make it. Units are going to be destroyed, I'm trying to influence my opponent's opinion on which ones. I generally play a more durable faction. Even in 9th, I can generally keep it to a little over a 1/3 my army lost Turn 1.

As Daedalus81 pointed out, it's like we are pretending the players don't have any agency over how much is lost. To some extent we don't, but a lot of times we do. Yeah, 9th is a little too lethal (like a little too much AP and Damage), but at the same time a player really needs to put their army's butt out in the wind (and/or not have enough terrain) to suffer greater than 50% losses in my experience. Especially versus me, I had games where Turn 1 I only removed 3-5 MEQ pointed models. My current armies don't hit very hard, I tend to hold them back expecting losing initiative, and I use Turn 1 more for maneuver than combat. Given most of my games have been with the lower tier 8th ed codices, I think winning only about 1/3 of my games is pretty good. Never once did I table my opponent, though; in many of my games, both sides were certainly on the ropes with only a handful of models left. But yeah, tablings of my army have been common in 9th. Even with Armor of Contempt, my CSM didn't see Turn 5 this past weekend.

I generally don't play on the smaller table sizes, as I see minimum recommended size equal to: any smaller of table and the game starts to break down. However, if players want to shrink the battlefield down, they do have to be aware they are creating a meat grinder unto itself. This, like a number of other aspects, are all well in control of the player base. If they chose to not use them, then they reap what they sow. The game still favors offensive to defense (so I understand why players go for glass units), but at least it is generally less concentrated on a 6'x4' or larger table.

 Tyran wrote:
I disagree, there must be possible to lose half an army if you do particulalry dumb stuff, e.g. placing glasshammer units withing charging distance of a melee units.

What shouldn't be possible is losing half an army if you are playing defensively.

Except sometimes your just on the wrong end of the probability curve no matter what your doing.....
Like tonight. Statistics & probability said one thing. Odds were in my favor.
Yet every time I picked up the dice to make any sort of defensive roll? Reality laughed at all 3 of them.
I definitely lost 1/2 an army in one turn.
And then I lost the rest the next.

I lost a whole army top of turn one without having any kind of significant positioning mistakes once, but that was a squishy Eldar army fighting against indirect-fire heavy Guard in 8th and it took some pretty extreme rolling to make it happen.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
People are missing the point that it shouldn't even be possible to lose half an army in one turn, mistakes or no.

Like it or not it's still a dice game in which players skills, other than listbuilding, do matter, my friend.

Take Chess, it's possible to win in just two moves. It's called Fool's Mate. Being possible doesn't mean it actually happens. Too many people here make their arguments by theory and math hammering with no links to how the game in real life works.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I lost a whole army top of turn one without having any kind of significant positioning mistakes once, but that was a squishy Eldar army fighting against indirect-fire heavy Guard in 8th and it took some pretty extreme rolling to make it happen.

Well i lost a revenant titan for my iyanden craftwork in turn one of a game of epic 40K, but it took the entire DKOK artillery battery and tanks to do it. but it was more of a big shiny distraction since i had 3 vampire hunter heavy fighters with titan class weapons on them as well.



Sometimes weird losses happen or as we like to say-dice happen

Seeing all the crying about the cluster Feth 9th has become and GWs inability get their gak together (or their just plain incompetence). it makes me very happy i walked away after 8th and went back to playing 5th ed style thematic games.

I can proudly say i have not bought a single new GW model since the Aeronautica valkyries came out new ,that i bought for my epic elysian force 2 years ago. And for 28mm even longer

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
People are missing the point that it shouldn't even be possible to lose half an army in one turn, mistakes or no.

I agree on principle, but that is not true for Warhammer 40k and hasn't been true for a long time now.

To make it true there needs to be a change the core rules which massively changes how the game works.

Not convinced it would require core rule changes, just the relative probability behind damage.

I mean you can offer examples of people putting "soft" units out in the open and being crushed - but I'm sure most people here - and plenty of quasi-professional players - have seen their army just disappear when they were at least trying to keep it alive. The issue is opponents surge across the table, shoot and charge things.

And I think this is just rooted in numbers. If a unit expected to do about 25% of its points worth of damage by shooting, the odds of it doing 50% are low. If however the expectation (after all bonuses etc) is near 60-70%, then you are going to do 50% most of the time - and may hit 100% some times. Which you can then sort of contribute to the other units that didn't/couldn't do as well that turn to get these turns where half an army dies.

I think the second turn (or sometimes the bottom of turn 1) is often especially lethal because you (usually) have to contest objectives and so get into the table. There was some suggestion the Nachmund objectives would make the primary less important (I think due to giving more variety, reducing the odds of 15-0 turns etc) - but I don't think there is much evidence for that. I think the numbers suggested the player who wins on primary is overwhelmingly likely to win the game. With that said, the fact everyone has to fight rather than just castle up in the corner isn't a bad thing. The issue is just how lethal it is, because offensive stats and bonuses are stacked up compared with most armies defensive options.

But equally I think everyone hates having a turn where everything bounces (which minuses to hit, transhuman, AoC, invuls and FNPs + rerolls etc make likely) - so you don't want the probability of that happening being too high either.

I liked 8th, and I like 9th even more, but in order to indulge the folks who aren't happy with the current game, I do occasionally talk about things that could be improved- nothing is perfect after all.

People have written a lot about some of the limitations that used to exist which no longer do- limitations on rapid fire and heavy weapons for example. I actually prefer the game without those limitations- I found them to be too restrictive; I never seemed to be able to actually do most of the things the army was supposed to be able to do.

But one thing that a lot of folks don't write about is target splitting. If I remember correctly, in days gone by, you picked a unit to shoot, and your unit fired ALL of its shots on that one unit. This is a restriction I never minded- in fact it always made sense to me.

As with everything, its a nuanced argument. Fire splitting in the modern era is one of the places where there is still something that feels closer to a conventional, table-top wargaming strategy that doesn't come from a card. And it's something that has the potential to blow back on you when you get it wrong- failing to allocate enough shots to kill the first unit can really mess you up in some situations.

Because of that, I'm not sure it's something that should or even could be changed. But as far as limitations go, I'd rather see that than move or fire heavies and the rapid fire rules being dialed back to one shot at max range or two at half but only when stationary.

These days, most players are MSU anyway, so I'm not sure how much the elimination of fire splitting would even impact the game.

I think the fire splitting is something that increased damage, but taking it away won't solve the problem. Many units like aspect warriors, ork specialists and primaris have weaponry focused to one task anyways, so it really only hurts jack of all trades units which tend to be on weak side of the "killyness" spectrum.

Personally, I would love much more hindering terrain rules. Playing kill team 2.0 a couple of times really was an eye opener in that regard - essentially stuff is super hard to kill unless you put it out in the open or your opponent flanks or sneaks up on you.

 Jidmah wrote:
...but taking it away won't solve the problem. Many units like aspect warriors, ork specialists and primaris have weaponry focused to one task anyways, so it really only hurts jack of all trades units which tend to be on weak side of the "killyness" spectrum...

This, and it also meant that generalist units never ended up getting taken as generalists anyways - no point in adding a Lascannon to your Infantry Squad if it's either vaporizing grots or so awing the rest of the squad with it's firepower that they forget to shoot things for a turn.

 Blackie wrote:
dice game in which players skills, other than listbuilding, do matter, my friend.

Take Chess, it's possible to win in just two moves. It's called Fool's Mate. Being possible doesn't mean it actually happens. Too many people here make their arguments by theory and math hammering with no links to how the game in real life works.

DE Liquifires and harlequins were killing 1/3 or more of an opposing army end of turn 2, no matter who started. And if they didn't, it ment the opponent castled up, which again ment that unless they were tau, they may have not lost as many models, but they just lost the game, because they haven't been scoring for 2 turns and their opponent did.

The new nids are the same or even worse then harlequins are. It would be interesting to hear people from the design team explain to us all non designer types why monsters with t8, and multiple defences cost less then 200pts. It is one of the things I miss from w40k new army releases, there is a ton of talk about, awesome models, painting them and almost never someone explain what they were thinking designing the rules. And when they do it is something wierd like "we designed them, so people would have fun", only to change the core rule sets in 3 to 6 months .

 waefre_1 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
...but taking it away won't solve the problem. Many units like aspect warriors, ork specialists and primaris have weaponry focused to one task anyways, so it really only hurts jack of all trades units which tend to be on weak side of the "killyness" spectrum...

This, and it also meant that generalist units never ended up getting taken as generalists anyways - no point in adding a Lascannon to your Infantry Squad if it's either vaporizing grots or so awing the rest of the squad with it's firepower that they forget to shoot things for a turn.

Yeah, I have a lot of issues with the latest couple editions, but I sure don't miss the choices around sticking an anti-tank weapon in an infantry squad, tactical squad, etc.

Restricting it significantly, even to only one model splitting fire off, might work, but wholly back to single-target will definitely make some units/builds really boring to field again, even those that perform okay.

Killing 1/3 or more at the end of turn 2 is very different from killing 1/2 in turn 1.

Karol wrote:
It would be interesting to hear people from the design team explain to us all non designer types why monsters with t8, and multiple defences cost less then 200pts.

It's simple : monsters (and vehicles) arent tough enough.

Their resilience isnt the problem, its their damage output combined with the resilience that is. We need more Monsters and Vehicles to be T8 with a 2+

 Jidmah wrote:
I think the fire splitting is something that increased damage, but taking it away won't solve the problem.

No split fire is just one example of a constraint on firepower. Older editions had lots of those constraints, 9th doesn't.

In, say, 4th Ed:
-You couldn't shoot most weapon types if you wanted to assault.
-You couldn't move and shoot Heavy.
-You couldn't move a vehicle much and shoot all its guns.
-You couldn't shoot Ordnance as well as other weapon types.
-You couldn't shoot Rapid Fire at full range if you moved.
-You couldn't shoot if you wanted to use Fleet (Advance).
-And yes, you couldn't shoot all your weapons at different targets.

Without those restrictions, armies are able to output their full firepower every turn. There's no more having to give up a unit's shooting to get it onto an objective, or only firing some of a tank's guns because you need it to relocate away from meltabomb-carrying troops, or forgoing shooting because you intend to charge, or not getting to shoot at all because it's turn 1 and you only get 24" range if you're stationary.

And that's not even getting into increased ranges combined with decreased table size.

So not only has the maximum damage units can do crept upwards, but what percentage of that potential they're reliably able to achieve on any given turn has gone up too. There are a lot of games out there with higher theoretical lethality, but far lower practical lethality, because it's much harder to bring all that firepower to bear.

Wasn't 4th the edition where eldar had falcons taking shoting from 2000pts of opposing army without any substential damage, and harlequins killing marine units, only to consolidate in to another unit, and never be a valid target for shoting and similar crazy stuff?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Karol wrote:
It would be interesting to hear people from the design team explain to us all non designer types why monsters with t8, and multiple defences cost less then 200pts.

It's simple : monsters (and vehicles) arent tough enough.

Their resilience isnt the problem, its their damage output combined with the resilience that is. We need more Monsters and Vehicles to be T8 with a 2+

So true. The funny thing is, with the way the To-Wound chart is, T8 is ridiculously durable to S4 (Intercessor bolt rifle), but toilet paper to dedicated anti-tank (S8+), and cardboard to S5-7. So Guard pay a premium for T8 LRBTs, but still have no durability because of all the S5-8 weapons, and the sheer volume of fire of those weapons.

So, the big bugs get bonuses to durability to counter the S5-8 stuff, so the bugs are where they need to be in terms of durability, but the codex writers can't assign points values to save their lives.