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 Insectum7 wrote:

Morale USED to be a pretty effective thing in 40k. Many faction had ways to mitigate it, but even Space Marines could be run off the board in earlier editions. Leveraging morale was a very viable thing to do in a number of circumstances.

It still is for some factions. It's the reason why you never see squads of boyz or gretchins that are bigger than their min size, it's why you see only solo mek gunz instead of squadrons, etc...

 Insectum7 wrote:

Morale USED to be a pretty effective thing in 40k.

and 40k used to be a "unit vs unit" game were the individual models were less important, but 40k is different now

not only changed the background, also the rules changed, and moral was removed/changed in the core rules simply because all factions got special rules to ignore it (so because everyone became immune to moral, it changed to be just more damage as no one was running away anyway)

 catbarf wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Except we've already established that casualties doesn't mean death. Unless you explicitly decide for that to be the case, every single removed model could simply be made combat ineffective and retreated during or after the battle. It's also up to you to decide the time frame between your games.

Every single poor Guardsman who got eaten by the Haruspex when it wiped out their unit was merely wounded, played dead, and retreated once the big bug was gone? The desperate last stand of Marines on an objective, surrounded by a mob of Boyz, killed to a man, actually got teleported out at the last second? The irreplaceable centuries-old Baneblade variant, whose technology for manufacture is gone forever, that got blown off the board by a Volcano Cannon actually just popped a fuse, scooted off the battlefield unseen, and can be repaired just in time for the next battle?

I mean, yeah, you certainly don't need to convince me that most casualties in war aren't fatalities. But the implicit idea that none of your casualties represent actual losses, so that your Crusade force can come back next time exactly as it was (with new battle scars and abilities), is like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon.

This is 40k now, amirite?

 catbarf wrote:
Every single poor Guardsman who got eaten by the Haruspex when it wiped out their unit was merely wounded, played dead, and retreated once the big bug was gone? The desperate last stand of Marines on an objective, surrounded by a mob of Boyz, killed to a man, actually got teleported out at the last second? The irreplaceable centuries-old Baneblade variant, whose technology for manufacture is gone forever, that got blown off the board by a Volcano Cannon actually just popped a fuse, scooted off the battlefield unseen, and can be repaired just in time for the next battle?

I mean, yeah, you certainly don't need to convince me that most casualties in war aren't fatalities. But the implicit idea that none of your casualties represent actual losses, so that your Crusade force can come back next time exactly as it was (with new battle scars and abilities), is like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon.

Taken to its logical conclusion this just means you can't have stories in 40k with the same characters that last more than about 3 games?

I mean you can start nitpicking over 40k lore (i.e. back when they were no more than 1000 strong Marine Chapters are far too small in the context of the universe to A) do anything B) last more than 30 seconds on a battlefield). But that's kind of boring.

When we look at say formations in WW2 - you get stories. A brigade or regiment isn't necessary deleted from history just because it suffers heavy casualties. They get reinforcements etc. It might be a bit comic book that "Sergeant Geoff" always makes it through - but I'm unclear why that's a bad thing. Or why its proving some impossible thing to imagine.

 kodos wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Morale USED to be a pretty effective thing in 40k.

and 40k used to be a "unit vs unit" game were the individual models were less important, but 40k is different now

not only changed the background, also the rules changed, and moral was removed/changed in the core rules simply because all factions got special rules to ignore it (so because everyone became immune to moral, it changed to be just more damage as no one was running away anyway)

Not sure how 40k isn't a unit vs. Unit game anymore. Split fire I guess?

Morale was totally a thing up into 7th edition. Sure, there were ways to mitigate it buuut. . . That already means it's having an effect on your army construction and play. And "losing a turn" to morale was a hefty, but non lethal effect. Similarly, losing an entire squad to Sweeping Advance after failing a morale test in CC was devastating to several armies. All of these effects are good things for the game, as it helps diversify units without mereling resorting to Damage In/Out.

I hated how Sweeping Advance was done. WHFB has a similar thing, and my group all agreed to change it to auto hits for every model that catches up, with no retaliation. It still manages to be devastating, but it doesn't completely kill the enemy unit for losing one more guy than you.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Not sure how 40k isn't a unit vs. Unit game anymore. Split fire I guess?.

by doing 1 model attacks, roll to hit, roll to wound, chose target model, roll saves, remove casualty, repeat for the next model until all models in the unit have attacked in the core rules

Tyel wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
Every single poor Guardsman who got eaten by the Haruspex when it wiped out their unit was merely wounded, played dead, and retreated once the big bug was gone? The desperate last stand of Marines on an objective, surrounded by a mob of Boyz, killed to a man, actually got teleported out at the last second? The irreplaceable centuries-old Baneblade variant, whose technology for manufacture is gone forever, that got blown off the board by a Volcano Cannon actually just popped a fuse, scooted off the battlefield unseen, and can be repaired just in time for the next battle?

I mean, yeah, you certainly don't need to convince me that most casualties in war aren't fatalities. But the implicit idea that none of your casualties represent actual losses, so that your Crusade force can come back next time exactly as it was (with new battle scars and abilities), is like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon.

Taken to its logical conclusion this just means you can't have stories in 40k with the same characters that last more than about 3 games?

I mean you can start nitpicking over 40k lore (i.e. back when they were no more than 1000 strong Marine Chapters are far too small in the context of the universe to A) do anything B) last more than 30 seconds on a battlefield). But that's kind of boring.

When we look at say formations in WW2 - you get stories. A brigade or regiment isn't necessary deleted from history just because it suffers heavy casualties. They get reinforcements etc. It might be a bit comic book that "Sergeant Geoff" always makes it through - but I'm unclear why that's a bad thing. Or why its proving some impossible thing to imagine.

Lots of games provide some degree of plot armor for named characters, but otherwise units can take casualties (and fielded at reduced strength), be replenished, or be wiped out entirely. But you are touching on a related issue, which is that the current level of lethality gets in the way of trying to convey character narrative without extreme contrivance.

If you want to use WW2 formations as an analogy, what battalion or regiment repeatedly sustained near-total or total casualties but was always fully replenished to starting strength before the next battle? The ebb and flow of elements suffering attrition while gaining experience, with occasional influx of reinforcements to bolster the numbers but dilute the overall experience of the formation, equipment lost and equipment salvaged, plus the strategic context in which the battles were fought- that's an actual story. But sometimes the story ends with the unit actually wiped out and disbanded; so maybe you need to be telling the story of the operation as a whole, not just one element within it.

 catbarf wrote:
Every single poor Guardsman who got eaten by the Haruspex when it wiped out their unit was merely wounded, played dead, and retreated once the big bug was gone? The desperate last stand of Marines on an objective, surrounded by a mob of Boyz, killed to a man, actually got teleported out at the last second? The irreplaceable centuries-old Baneblade variant, whose technology for manufacture is gone forever, that got blown off the board by a Volcano Cannon actually just popped a fuse, scooted off the battlefield unseen, and can be repaired just in time for the next battle?

I mean, yeah, you certainly don't need to convince me that most casualties in war aren't fatalities. But the implicit idea that none of your casualties represent actual losses, so that your Crusade force can come back next time exactly as it was (with new battle scars and abilities), is like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon.

I never said that no casualties were deaths, I said you could do that if you wanted. But if you're just going to nitpick every single possible instance of casualty in 40k then you aren't worth my time.

 JEREMSTER wrote:
I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.

I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.

But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?

Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.

40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.

 kodos wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Not sure how 40k isn't a unit vs. Unit game anymore. Split fire I guess?.

by doing 1 model attacks, roll to hit, roll to wound, chose target model, roll saves, remove casualty, repeat for the next model until all models in the unit have attacked in the core rules

Eh, they all still move about and take actions as units though, and thankfully we dont have the "closest individual model tanks hits then gets removed" nonsense of 5th or 6th (?).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
I hated how Sweeping Advance was done. WHFB has a similar thing, and my group all agreed to change it to auto hits for every model that catches up, with no retaliation. It still manages to be devastating, but it doesn't completely kill the enemy unit for losing one more guy than you.

Fair enough, but your experience sure shows how much of an effect the morale rules could have.

And it really helped Marines play up to some of the bolterporn lore too. Marines could absolutely butcher guardsmen when you assaulted them, even with small units. It gave you the gleeful result of slaughter, but didn't require the seemingly endless boosting of stats that we have now.

Speaking of, morale is insanely important in WHFB 6th, as a failed Morale can spread across the whole army if you get particularly unlucky, so even with the nerf to sweeping advance, you can still get run off the board, get in a a state where you keep breaking because you keep losing the same combat, and we made it so you count as charging during a combat after a sweeping advance, so you fight first. I once won a battle off nothing besides Fear and outnumbering the opponent, getting just enough kills to cause people to auto break and flee off the board.

Personally im not a fan of how it works now. I hate that i can loose more models to moral checks then i do from getting shot at.

Backspacehacker wrote:

Spoiler:

 JEREMSTER wrote:
I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.

I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.

But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?

Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.

40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.

This sadly sums it up.

I feel like while not "The best" its ever been its definitely in a really good spot. The game developers for the first time ever are making an effort at balance, AND OFTEN! compared to the years of dead codexes (looking at you Dark Eldar) or obvious issues that sat unfixed for over a year (looking at you all of 7th edition). Its not perfect and some armies such as Guard are falling flat for the most part its very playable. Make sure you establish what kind of game you want to play because as in ANY edition you can take a tournament list against an opponent who is looking at playing a narrative army and it can be lopsided. Another thing to consider is that the game is no longer that of KILL KILL KILL!!!!! and that taking objectives and playing the missions is a huge part of what the game is. This has been a big shock to me, having played since 2000 where missions were often suggestions more than how you win the game. Learning how all this works has really changed how I look at army composition and even tactics. While taking the biggest guns can help it can be a matter of playing units that can accomplish a very particular goal, be it speed, stopping power, or the ability to weather fire. Try joining a local escalation league it can be a huge eye opener and learning experience, thats why I suck less with my Sisters now!

WRT withdrawing from battle:

There are many reasons a force might withdraw from battle. Morale is the most common in Earth's history, but wargames typically leverage the following options as well:
- Insufficient material. If you can't win the battle (or the win gains you less than you lose), you may as well withdraw. Of course, this is only possible if your losses actually matter, unlike a Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain

- irreplaceable men or material: something like a Terminator Suit (especially cataphractii for Chaos) or a Baneblade will be less likely to be applied in risky situations, and will be more likely to be withdrawn if things go south (rather than just letting it die)

Of course, these only matter if models actually die.

Plus, there are rules to model the outside force in a campaign. Take the aforementioned At The Sharp End:
Each campaign tracks 3 things:
1) men's morale beneath you (this isn't a measure of "willingness to fight" but more "willingness to follow your commander specifically" though they are related)
2) your commanding officer's opinion above you (how your direct superior and his superiors feel about you)
3) your morale: probably the least important but useful for narrative (e.g. your lieutenant/warlord could be under pressure from superiors and have the Stressed category, despite great success in the campaign so far)

These have the following ways in which they change:
1) men's morale is affected by casualties. The more men dead in the platoon, the less likely they are to follow your orders
2) commander's opinion is determined by how many wins you have. More winningness is greater commander satisfaction with you
3) your morale is the interaction between those two.

The in-game effects:
1) your Force Morale goes down (meaning your units are more likely to fail to be commanded, because they won't listen to a blood-soaked commander)
2) your Support Points go down (your Commanding Officer doesn't reinforce failure, so if you keep losing he moves his support assets elsewhere)
3) no effect but useful for narrative.

This means that a campaign commander must carefully balance the casualties he suffers with whether or not he can win. Winning with low casualties constantly is the key to victory... but is obviously very hard. The precise tipping point where "winning isn't worth it because I am losing too many men" must be weighed by the commander (you) carefully, as is withdrawing without winning because you are allocated less support.

 generalchaos34 wrote:
I feel like while not "The best" its ever been its definitely in a really good spot. The game developers for the first time ever are making an effort at balance, AND OFTEN! compared to the years of dead codexes (looking at you Dark Eldar) or obvious issues that sat unfixed for over a year (looking at you all of 7th edition). Its not perfect and some armies such as Guard are falling flat for the most part its very playable. Make sure you establish what kind of game you want to play because as in ANY edition you can take a tournament list against an opponent who is looking at playing a narrative army and it can be lopsided. Another thing to consider is that the game is no longer that of KILL KILL KILL!!!!! and that taking objectives and playing the missions is a huge part of what the game is. This has been a big shock to me, having played since 2000 where missions were often suggestions more than how you win the game. Learning how all this works has really changed how I look at army composition and even tactics. While taking the biggest guns can help it can be a matter of playing units that can accomplish a very particular goal, be it speed, stopping power, or the ability to weather fire. Try joining a local escalation league it can be a huge eye opener and learning experience, thats why I suck less with my Sisters now!

Im not sure what game you are playing but i dont think its current 40k. Becuase the balance of 40k is currently hands down, with out question the WORST its ever been.
"Balance" updates are some of the most blatantly obvious marketing tactics ever. With codex creep being the worst i have seen since i started playing back around the end of 5th ed. Codexs now are almost predictable in their power ranking of new codex will be top tier for like 2 months then go through a massive nerf after sales from the tournament crowd.
The balance changes that do go in, are just direct reflections of tournament issues. This is easily proved by the fact that you have armies like guard who have been bottom tier for pretty much all of 9th, and have not gotten touched outside of near joke levels of "buffs" why? because they are not making problems on the tournament scene.
GW manged to take the worst aspects of MtG the burn and churn marketing and brought it into 40k, where old metas get invalidated because the new metas basically are designed specifically to counter them.
This idea that the game is no longer "kill kill kill" once more im not sure what game you are playing but that's the vast majority of matches any more, with alpha striking now being about as bad as it was in late 7th, 9th ed missions have been the most boring they have ever been.

Like i said, i got no idea what game you are playing but from what you are discribing it sure as heck at 9th ed 40k. Unless you are playing in a garage group that does not interact with the average player.

Hell i forgot to even include the fact that 9th is also probably the farthest from the original intent of warhammer that i have seen. Warhammer 40k has always been about playing dramatic and thematic battles, with lots of things like challenges, death and glory, look out sirs ect ect, and 9th ed has none of that. The games dramatic rules and thematic play styles got ripped out in favor of "balanced" rules because "It cuased less arguments" but really it just made the game worse and a shadow of its former self. Its boring, its bland.
In a world of 32 flavors, 9th ed 40k is the ice cream scoop water.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 kodos wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Morale USED to be a pretty effective thing in 40k.

and 40k used to be a "unit vs unit" game were the individual models were less important, but 40k is different now

not only changed the background, also the rules changed, and moral was removed/changed in the core rules simply because all factions got special rules to ignore it (so because everyone became immune to moral, it changed to be just more damage as no one was running away anyway)

Not sure how 40k isn't a unit vs. Unit game anymore. Split fire I guess?

Morale was totally a thing up into 7th edition. Sure, there were ways to mitigate it buuut. . . That already means it's having an effect on your army construction and play. And "losing a turn" to morale was a hefty, but non lethal effect. Similarly, losing an entire squad to Sweeping Advance after failing a morale test in CC was devastating to several armies. All of these effects are good things for the game, as it helps diversify units without mereling resorting to Damage In/Out.

All of those effects you talked about amounted to damage in/damage out. Especially sweeping advance, which was one of the dumbest rules in the game in 7th (my 135pt Saint Celestine killed 1 Necron warrior out of your brick of 20, you fail moral, Celestine is I7 so she auto sweeps. You lose your entire brick of warriors with no resurrection protocols). Losing a turn to pinning or whatever was a death-sentence. Just about any unit became a free killpoint.

In terms of diversifying units, it did what current morale does. Diversifies 'does see play' from 'doesn't see play'.

 Gert wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
Every single poor Guardsman who got eaten by the Haruspex when it wiped out their unit was merely wounded, played dead, and retreated once the big bug was gone? The desperate last stand of Marines on an objective, surrounded by a mob of Boyz, killed to a man, actually got teleported out at the last second? The irreplaceable centuries-old Baneblade variant, whose technology for manufacture is gone forever, that got blown off the board by a Volcano Cannon actually just popped a fuse, scooted off the battlefield unseen, and can be repaired just in time for the next battle?

I mean, yeah, you certainly don't need to convince me that most casualties in war aren't fatalities. But the implicit idea that none of your casualties represent actual losses, so that your Crusade force can come back next time exactly as it was (with new battle scars and abilities), is like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon.

I never said that no casualties were deaths, I said you could do that if you wanted. But if you're just going to nitpick every single possible instance of casualty in 40k then you aren't worth my time.

You said 'every single removed model could simply be made combat ineffective and retreated during or after the battle'. How's it nitpicking to point out examples where that makes no sense and a unit really actually truly should be dead and gone, but the rules don't facilitate it?

It's the Crusade rules that tacitly say no casualties are deaths when every model comes back good as new after each battle, with at worst a battle scar. I guess I can narratively decide that my officer was killed- and then his replacement is identical. Long-lost twin brother taking up the mantle, I guess, but then why all the same battle honors and scars? The contortions needed to rationalize this are what makes it feel to me more like a fun progression system rather than any kind of narrative structure.

It would be perfect for representing that Ork warband that is continuously resurrected each day to fight and die again for Khorne's amusement, though.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 generalchaos34 wrote:
I feel like while not "The best" its ever been its definitely in a really good spot. The game developers for the first time ever are making an effort at balance, AND OFTEN! compared to the years of dead codexes (looking at you Dark Eldar) or obvious issues that sat unfixed for over a year (looking at you all of 7th edition). Its not perfect and some armies such as Guard are falling flat for the most part its very playable. Make sure you establish what kind of game you want to play because as in ANY edition you can take a tournament list against an opponent who is looking at playing a narrative army and it can be lopsided. Another thing to consider is that the game is no longer that of KILL KILL KILL!!!!! and that taking objectives and playing the missions is a huge part of what the game is. This has been a big shock to me, having played since 2000 where missions were often suggestions more than how you win the game. Learning how all this works has really changed how I look at army composition and even tactics. While taking the biggest guns can help it can be a matter of playing units that can accomplish a very particular goal, be it speed, stopping power, or the ability to weather fire. Try joining a local escalation league it can be a huge eye opener and learning experience, thats why I suck less with my Sisters now!

Im not sure what game you are playing but i dont think its current 40k. Becuase the balance of 40k is currently hands down, with out question the WORST its ever been.
"Balance" updates are some of the most blatantly obvious marketing tactics ever. With codex creep being the worst i have seen since i started playing back around the end of 5th ed. Codexs now are almost predictable in their power ranking of new codex will be top tier for like 2 months then go through a massive nerf after sales from the tournament crowd.
The balance changes that do go in, are just direct reflections of tournament issues. This is easily proved by the fact that you have armies like guard who have been bottom tier for pretty much all of 9th, and have not gotten touched outside of near joke levels of "buffs" why? because they are not making problems on the tournament scene.
GW manged to take the worst aspects of MtG the burn and churn marketing and brought it into 40k, where old metas get invalidated because the new metas basically are designed specifically to counter them.
This idea that the game is no longer "kill kill kill" once more im not sure what game you are playing but that's the vast majority of matches any more, with alpha striking now being about as bad as it was in late 7th, 9th ed missions have been the most boring they have ever been.

Like i said, i got no idea what game you are playing but from what you are discribing it sure as heck at 9th ed 40k. Unless you are playing in a garage group that does not interact with the average player.

Hell i forgot to even include the fact that 9th is also probably the farthest from the original intent of warhammer that i have seen. Warhammer 40k has always been about playing dramatic and thematic battles, with lots of things like challenges, death and glory, look out sirs ect ect, and 9th ed has none of that. The games dramatic rules and thematic play styles got ripped out in favor of "balanced" rules because "It cuased less arguments" but really it just made the game worse and a shadow of its former self. Its boring, its bland.
In a world of 32 flavors, 9th ed 40k is the ice cream scoop water.

7th was worse. No matter how bad you think the game is now, 7th was worse. 9th pre-nerf Harlequins were a joke compared to release 7th CWE.

The rest of that first screed only applies to Admech, Drukhari, Custodes, Tau, and Nids. Marines, SoB, Necrons, DA, DG, SW, BA, Tsons, GSC, GK, and BT were at or near the powerlevel of the rest of the field on release. The SoB book was actually a bit of a nerf on the 8th edition book.

People just remember The Admech to Nids route because it's recent and annoying. It's not really representative of the edition as a while.

As for the balance changes, you know guard players play tournaments too right? That Guard being garbage is ALSO bad? Why GW doesn't ever seem interested in fixing their worst factions is beyond me, but that doesn't make them 'not a problem' as far as tournaments go. It just makes them a problem GW chooses to ignore.

Alpha-striking is always going to be somewhat problematic with 40k's turn structure, but it's not particularly bad at the moment. Certainly not worse than the Skyhammer/Centurion Star days. Or even triple stormraven index.

...40k missions in past editions were almost entirely 'kill your opponent's models' with a 'turbo boost jetbikes onto points during turn 6' secondary. Eternal war was unplayable garbage until midway through 8th. The new missions might not be super inspired, but they're better than what they used to push out.

Those mechanics were stupid. They made the game worse. Challenges made sure you NEVER under ANY circumstances put upgrades on squad leaders(which seems pretty anti-40k to me), death and glory never happened because no one tank shocked and when they did tank shock, you just moved your models most of the time. Look out sir still happens, it just doesn't sacrifice your units for no good reason.

You seem to be confusing 'dramatic' with 'asinine'.

Saying those mechanics were stupid and made the game worse is nothing more then an opinion, a bad one at that.

So hard disagree on that, you seem to have a vision of what 40k should be that is inline with current ed, a tournybased game thats really just a board game thats warhammer themed.

What i want, is what warhammer 40k was, and what it should have remained, dramatic battles of the 41st melinia. Where armies were made for fluff not because this reddit netlist says its the best to use for them like current 40k is.

9th hands down is the more boring edition of this game to date, and this is why im glad we are seeing HH 2.0 taking up the mantle of what the games original spirit was. Its why i also push anyone who enjoyed that type of play to go to it as well.

So to the OP and anyone who feels the same, drop 9th ed like a sack of potatos, and just come play HH.

Racerguy180 wrote:

Backspacehacker wrote:

Spoiler:

 JEREMSTER wrote:
I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.

I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.

But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?

Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.

40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.

This sadly sums it up.

Sure, if your definition of 'playing out dramatic battles of the 41st millenia' is 'slog through stupid broken mechanics like challenges making my characters immune to combat despite being surrounded by 10000 Orkz because NARRATIVE!!!'

It sounds like you guys just want a game that's arse fething slowed. If that's the case, launch Age of Sigmar is still out there. You can have all the thematic 'whose mustache is longer than whose?' battles you want in that system.

ERJAK wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

Backspacehacker wrote:

Spoiler:

 JEREMSTER wrote:
I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.

I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.

But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?

Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.

40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.

This sadly sums it up.

Sure, if your definition of 'playing out dramatic battles of the 41st millenia' is 'slog through stupid broken mechanics like challenges making my characters immune to combat despite being surrounded by 10000 Orkz because NARRATIVE!!!'

It sounds like you guys just want a game that's arse fething slowed. If that's the case, launch Age of Sigmar is still out there. You can have all the thematic 'whose mustache is longer than whose?' battles you want in that system.

That's not how Challenges worked.

ERJAK wrote:
Sure, if your definition of 'playing out dramatic battles of the 41st millenia' is 'slog through stupid broken mechanics like challenges making my characters immune to combat despite being surrounded by 10000 Orkz because NARRATIVE!!!'

It sounds like you guys just want a game that's arse fething slowed. If that's the case, launch Age of Sigmar is still out there. You can have all the thematic 'whose mustache is longer than whose?' battles you want in that system.

'People who liked older editions of 40K probably like the original Age of Sigmar release' is certainly not a take I've seen before.

ERJAK wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

Backspacehacker wrote:

Spoiler:

 JEREMSTER wrote:
I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.

I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.

But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?

Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.

40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.

This sadly sums it up.

Sure, if your definition of 'playing out dramatic battles of the 41st millenia' is 'slog through stupid broken mechanics like challenges making my characters immune to combat despite being surrounded by 10000 Orkz because NARRATIVE!!!'

It sounds like you guys just want a game that's arse fething slowed. If that's the case, launch Age of Sigmar is still out there. You can have all the thematic 'whose mustache is longer than whose?' battles you want in that system.

ITT:
"4th edition is bad because of challenges, hull points, invisibility, the allies chart, and 22 pages of USRs"

Racerguy180 wrote:

Backspacehacker wrote:

Spoiler:

 JEREMSTER wrote:
I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.

I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.

But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?

Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.

40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.

This sadly sums it up.

Yeah nothing says a game about dramatic battles in the 41st Millennium than the IGOUGO turn structure LOL
Take off the rose tinted glasses goddamn

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

Backspacehacker wrote:

Spoiler:

 JEREMSTER wrote:
I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.

I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.

But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?

Modern 40k, is imo, the worst its ever been in terms of the spirit of the game. Even compared to the insanity of late 7th, 9th is worse.
9th ed is basically the most souless interpretation of Warhammer i have ever seen. There is no flavor to it, no thematic battles, no coming back from the brink in a match, its all very sterile.

40k went from a game where you played out dramatic battles of the 41st millennia to a sanitized board game that is warhammer themed.

This sadly sums it up.

Yeah nothing says a game about dramatic battles in the 41st Millennium than the IGOUGO turn structure LOL
Take off the rose tinted glasses goddamn

IGOUGO is a totally seprate take on the topic, if you wanna discuss about whats better that would be suited for another thread because its key component of the game.
IGOUGO does not make or break a thematic system, there are better versions of player interaction, there are worse.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
Sure, if your definition of 'playing out dramatic battles of the 41st millenia' is 'slog through stupid broken mechanics like challenges making my characters immune to combat despite being surrounded by 10000 Orkz because NARRATIVE!!!'

It sounds like you guys just want a game that's arse fething slowed. If that's the case, launch Age of Sigmar is still out there. You can have all the thematic 'whose mustache is longer than whose?' battles you want in that system.

'People who liked older editions of 40K probably like the original Age of Sigmar release' is certainly not a take I've seen before.

Was thinking the same thing.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
I hated how Sweeping Advance was done. WHFB has a similar thing, and my group all agreed to change it to auto hits for every model that catches up, with no retaliation. It still manages to be devastating, but it doesn't completely kill the enemy unit for losing one more guy than you.

Yeah I didn't like Sweeping Advance either. I found to it be a rather unfair mechanic, as there are entire armies that have low initiative, which means they will always get swept.

Its for a similar reason why I hated 8th ed magic in Fantasy, as there were several initiative test based spells in a game where plenty of units have low initiative values.

ERJAK wrote:

Spoiler:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 kodos wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Morale USED to be a pretty effective thing in 40k.

and 40k used to be a "unit vs unit" game were the individual models were less important, but 40k is different now

not only changed the background, also the rules changed, and moral was removed/changed in the core rules simply because all factions got special rules to ignore it (so because everyone became immune to moral, it changed to be just more damage as no one was running away anyway)

Not sure how 40k isn't a unit vs. Unit game anymore. Split fire I guess?

Morale was totally a thing up into 7th edition. Sure, there were ways to mitigate it buuut. . . That already means it's having an effect on your army construction and play. And "losing a turn" to morale was a hefty, but non lethal effect. Similarly, losing an entire squad to Sweeping Advance after failing a morale test in CC was devastating to several armies. All of these effects are good things for the game, as it helps diversify units without mereling resorting to Damage In/Out.

All of those effects you talked about amounted to damage in/damage out. Especially sweeping advance, which was one of the dumbest rules in the game in 7th (my 135pt Saint Celestine killed 1 Necron warrior out of your brick of 20, you fail moral, Celestine is I7 so she auto sweeps. You lose your entire brick of warriors with no resurrection protocols). Losing a turn to pinning or whatever was a death-sentence. Just about any unit became a free killpoint.

In terms of diversifying units, it did what current morale does. Diversifies 'does see play' from 'doesn't see play'.

Oh really? Did Necron Warriors not see tables in 7th because of Morale effects? Did Eldar and CSM not see tables because of Morale?

Losing a turn because of a failed Morale check is not Damage In/Out. It's effectively a suppression. Likewise pinning. Sweeping Advance resulting in a unit loss is damage, for sure, but it's an alternate route to get there in a way that gives different units different weaknesses, thus diversifying the available units in the game and also diversifying the tactics required to defeat them. All of which are good things.

Honestly sweeping advance rarely actually came into play in being over powered or under powered because of a lot of reasons
1. it was a lot harder to get into melee combat
2. you actually had to fail a moral check which was really hard to do considering the sheer amount of buffs to moral.
3. if you did some how fair, the unit that got swept was either already going to die, or was a throw away unit any way.

But as Insectum7 said, pretty much all of those things are good, it made for a more flavorful game