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Racerguy180 wrote:
6x4 is a tad undersized for the ranges & # of models on the board.

8x4 is really good(if you have room) but need a pretty healthy amount of terrain(differing types) to not be too advantageous to either side.

For a while we had one of those foldable ping pong tables (9x5) and it was awesome. Lots of room for a good game plus plenty of space for books/dice/casualties etc. Takes a big space though!

People strongly liked progressive scoring

This one is a head scratcher. i mean 9th edition just flat out takes longer with players constantly digging through strats and re-rolls, relics auras etc.. so maybe speed play plays a part in this point of view.

But the idea the game can be over basically on turn 3 with no reason to play to the end is at odds with what i consider good game design. both the loss of a secondary win condition (destroying the enemy army and controlling the field) that basically every other single war game has in some way. and the removal of scoring at the end that encourages players to both play till the end with the victory being a good close thing that could swing either way especially with added random extra turns.

I just had a 5th ed game of crimson fist VS my salamanders at it came down to the wire with a lucky bit of last minute maneuvering to give me a narrow win on turn 7.

As for mission design, both 3rd and 4th had excellent mission sets,

The 4th ed main rulebook has the best collection of interesting mission layouts for my vote. including kill team, combat patrol etc...

nobody forced you to use something else

at least this is was people told me back than on the original release, that no one will use the new size just because it is the "minimum" in the rules

9th missions design is dull.

A collection of maps with 4-8 objective markers in various configurations and you just get points for holding them as the game goes on.

The "variety" comes from the Secondary Objectives, things that have become so important that their title of "Secondary" is a complete misnomer.

8th had fun missions. Tempest of War/Open War makes for interesting missions.

... Tempest of War is a 9th edition mission system.

 Insectum7 wrote:
^Well . . . There was the C'tan blades, Necrodermis, and the Pariah weapon. Very limited though.

Also Warscythes. Which now don't... and this gets to.

 Tyran wrote:
... Tempest of War is a 9th edition mission system.

It's an alternate missions system that is far more interesting than the one from the rulebook.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
9th missions design is dull.

A collection of maps with 4-8 objective markers in various configurations and you just get points for holding them as the game goes on.

The "variety" comes from the Secondary Objectives, things that have become so important that their title of "Secondary" is a complete misnomer.

8th had fun missions. Tempest of War/Open War makes for interesting missions.

Yup. And those "choose your own" secondaries just push the emphasis of the game even further towards the list building stage. Now people build towards the secondaries that they intend to use, instead of building an army that can deal with multiple possible mission types and goals. Dull is the correct word.

Yup. And those "choose your own" secondaries just push the emphasis of the game even further towards the list building stage. Now people build towards the secondaries that they intend to use, instead of building an army that can deal with multiple possible mission types and goals. Dull is the correct word.

Have you seen tournament lists recently? Compare them to 5th edition and they look completely fluffy, between players often taking 1-2 of a datasheet and the lack of spamming vehicles or overwhelmingly large hordes.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
... Tempest of War is a 9th edition mission system.

It's an alternate missions system that is far more interesting than the one from the rulebook.

Are you talking about the open play or narrative play missions in the rulebook? /sarcasm. Nephilim missions are not in the rulebook, what are you getting mad for? The trial version of Tempest in 9th was garbage as far as I've been told, shouldn't you be happy that they left it to simmer in the pot until you got Tempest which I believe you are happy with instead of the half-cooked garbage missions printed in the core rules because GW wanted to ship 9th ASAP so they could print another SM codex?

 vict0988 wrote:
Are you talking about the open play or narrative play missions in the rulebook? /sarcasm.

Neither.

 vict0988 wrote:
Nephilim missions are not in the rulebook...

I never even mentioned the word "Nephilim".

 vict0988 wrote:
... what are you getting mad for?

Who's mad, exactly?

So far all you've done is babble incoherently about things none of us are talking about.

 vict0988 wrote:
The trial version of Tempest in 9th was garbage as far as I've been told, shouldn't you be happy that they left it to simmer in the pot until you got Tempest which I believe you are happy with instead of the half-cooked garbage missions printed in the core rules because GW wanted to ship 9th ASAP so they could print another SM codex?

I'm not talking about a "trail version" of anything either.

Do us a favour: When you have a point, get back to us, please.

There are no great missions in the core rules, whether you prefer Maelstrom-style, Nova-style or Eternal War, few are going to be satisfied with whatever GW includes in the core rules because it will have been unrefined, therefore it is largely irrelevant what is in the core rules. It is therefore pointless to point out that the Tempest mission set you are happy with isn't in the core rules while the matched play missions you are unhappy with are because if GW had attempted to include Tempest in the core rules it wouldn't have been the version that you actually like, it would have been something like the White Dwarf version of Maelstrom for 9th that nobody liked.

 vict0988 wrote:

Yup. And those "choose your own" secondaries just push the emphasis of the game even further towards the list building stage. Now people build towards the secondaries that they intend to use, instead of building an army that can deal with multiple possible mission types and goals. Dull is the correct word.

Have you seen tournament lists recently? Compare them to 5th edition and they look completely fluffy, between players often taking 1-2 of a datasheet and the lack of spamming vehicles or overwhelmingly large hordes.

No, I don't pay attention to tournament lists. And I didn't mention "fluff". So what do those lists being "fluffy", in your opinion, have to do with what I said?

Weren't 5th ed list limited by its own special FoC, and the fact that troops were often horrible? I saw 5th ed list. They were often 2x5 tacticals and then the rest in stuff like dreadnoughts, speeders, GK run 3-6 dreadnoughts, some GK list spamed razorbacks with inquisition in it, other took one gigant blob of paladins. I think every SW army I saw had two runpriests and maxed out rocket launcher long fangs and a ton of razorbacks.Chaos list consisted of minimal troops, demon princes and obliterators etc.

So the 5th ed list didn't seem that different from what is played nowadays.

Karol wrote:
Weren't 5th ed list limited by its own special FoC, and the fact that troops were often horrible? I saw 5th ed list. They were often 2x5 tacticals and then the rest in stuff like dreadnoughts, speeders, GK run 3-6 dreadnoughts, some GK list spamed razorbacks with inquisition in it, other took one gigant blob of paladins. I think every SW army I saw had two runpriests and maxed out rocket launcher long fangs and a ton of razorbacks.Chaos list consisted of minimal troops, demon princes and obliterators etc.

So the 5th ed list didn't seem that different from what is played nowadays.

really depends on the codex.

The core FOC for all armies in 5th was
1 HQ
2 troops required
max
2 HQs
6 troops
3 elite
3 fast
3 heavies

Certain codexes could move units around in the FOC to make them work a bit different most times to fit with established lore-

Blood angels for example could do a viable armored company list since all the rhino chassi's counted as "fast" vehicles and they could take baal predators as fast attack choices. leaving the heavy slots open for regular predators, vidicators and the like.

At the same time they could do an all jump list as assault marines counted as troops for them, or the sanguinary guard elite jump troops (artificer armor 2+ save, + power weapons and fancy wrist guns) could become troops if Dante was your HQ.

or a full death company list if Astorath was your HQ. death company could also take death company dreadnoughts as troops for every 3 death company tac marines in your list.

The same was true for many other factions, notable things like dark angels alternate terminator army (deathwing) and all bike army (ravenwing) as well as space wolves utilizing the wolf guard elites as troops if logan was your HQ and they were all kitted out individually and could be anything you wanted for the points-terminators, jump infantry, bikes, various combi weapons and CC weapons. they were hands down some of the best "troops" in the game.

You never really know what you will get with a 5th ed list as there were so many options and list builds.

When it comes to basic troops it really was up to you to decide what you wanted. tac marines were general all arounders who held up pretty good against most things. scouts tended to be good at the sneaking and sniping (and hugging cover) you go to other factions and the lowly fire warrior (espeicially with haywire grenades was pretty solid so long as they stayed clear of close combat.

Craftworld eldar were all over the place, you could take guardians if you wanted to go on the cheap, however they were general troops the craft worlds all specialized. dire avengers were shooting power houses, saim han was all about jet bikes and vehicles. altoc favored scouts, iyanden was the slow plodding super tough wraith army. and so on.

for GKs specifically (since i know that is what you play) the 5th ed codex (i prefer the 3rd ed demon hunters book myself) the basic troopers were high WS, carried various power weapon options and decent mid ranged guns the same as most of the elite and fast options in the list. the paladin terminators (a huge deal for being 2 wound terminators in 5th when everything save a character and a scant few non monstrous units ever had more than a single wound) along with the baby carrier were the tanky units.

to give you an idea of what some of those lists look like (since i still play 5th ed rules for 3rd-7th ed codexes) armies used in 5th ed-

My ravenwing



night lords



blood angels



completely different blood angel style list



A recent grey knights list from a brand new (to 40K) player-



That is just a few examples.

*squints*

Metal Gargoyle wings as Night Lord Rhino Chapter Icons?

That only kinda was true at the thematic list level. At competitive everything had to be in transports or died to templates.

Or alternatively wound allocation shenanigans.

I'm going to claim a certain level of vindication on the support for an "overwatch" mechanic.

That was a hotly-debated topic back in the day, and proponents of it got constant grief.

Mostly, I think, because people either didn't understand the rule or simply found Rhino rushes easier than actual tactics.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
I'm going to claim a certain level of vindication on the support for an "overwatch" mechanic.

That was a hotly-debated topic back in the day, and proponents of it got constant grief.

Mostly, I think, because people either didn't understand the rule or simply found Rhino rushes easier than actual tactics.

I'm also a fan of overwatch mechanics, but it really depends on the specifics.

IMO there's a world of difference between having to specifically put a unit on overwatch so that it can shoot later, versus getting bonus shooting at no cost every time an enemy charges you. One's a tactical tradeoff that involves sacrificing the ability to act now for the potential to act when it's more useful; the other is just a freebie that makes melee less fun to play.

Part of the danger with these sorts of polls- and why I answered a little less enthusiastically about certain mechanics than I might otherwise- is because the execution matters so much.

Same deal with subfaction traits. I like the 3rd/4th Ed system where subfactions could pay points to get special traits, or rearrange the FOC, or get additional options on their units. I don't like the 8th/9th Ed system where your whole army gets a bonus that encourages you to Flanderize your force and makes balancing a nightmare. But both are described as 'subfaction traits'.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
I'm going to claim a certain level of vindication on the support for an "overwatch" mechanic.

That was a hotly-debated topic back in the day, and proponents of it got constant grief.

Mostly, I think, because people either didn't understand the rule or simply found Rhino rushes easier than actual tactics.

Overwatch is fine, the problem is that there wasn't a melee equivalent when 8th introduced falling back.

 catbarf wrote:


I'm also a fan of overwatch mechanics, but it really depends on the specifics.

IMO there's a world of difference between having to specifically put a unit on overwatch so that it can shoot later, versus getting bonus shooting at no cost every time an enemy charges you. One's a tactical tradeoff that involves sacrificing the ability to act now for the potential to act when it's more useful; the other is just a freebie that makes melee less fun to play.

Part of the danger with these sorts of polls- and why I answered a little less enthusiastically about certain mechanics than I might otherwise- is because the execution matters so much.

Same deal with subfaction traits. I like the 3rd/4th Ed system where subfactions could pay points to get special traits, or rearrange the FOC, or get additional options on their units. I don't like the 8th/9th Ed system where your whole army gets a bonus that encourages you to Flanderize your force and makes balancing a nightmare. But both are described as 'subfaction traits'.

I agree. Allowing designated units to "hold their action" to cover other ones is a good tradeoff. I think the way it worked in 2nd was great - it gave you some opportunities to hit units in the open, but at a -1 penalty.

The "auto-firing" thing is a bad mechanic and I think it came about because there was a need to prevent units from dashing 18" or more into assault without the defenders being able to do a thing about it. Overwatch was the obvious solution, but a weird tic of the 3/4 editions was GW's determined effort to smear their older edition in order to get people away from it - and that included villifying mechanics like overwatch.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
The "auto-firing" thing is a bad mechanic and I think it came about because there was a need to prevent units from dashing 18" or more into assault without the defenders being able to do a thing about it. Overwatch was the obvious solution, but a weird tic of the 3/4 editions was GW's determined effort to smear their older edition in order to get people away from it - and that included villifying mechanics like overwatch.

This is where 6th edition sent 40k into a nosedive IMHO. It's a situation where one stupid design decision necessities the need for more stupid decisions.

In this case, having a random 2D6 charge is again a culprit in f'ing up the core rules. Because now you have the potential for crazy long distance charges that wreck the balance and can deny even a single window of shooting opportunity in certain situations, and so you allow the overwatch auto-fire system. Except that system wasn't very well implemented either (only hitting on snap fire was lame). So it ended up just dragging out the length of the game and adding more die rolling for no real tangible purpose. It got even more broken (aka pointless) in 8th, since casualties didn't automatically come from the front - and so it was mostly excised out of the core rule in 9th. Face palm.

Anyway, 2nd ed style overwatch was a great idea, but needed some refinement. But per usual, GW throws the baby out with bathwater.

 Mezmorki wrote:


In this case, having a random 2D6 charge is again a culprit in f'ing up the core rules. Because now you have the potential for crazy long distance charges that wreck the balance and can deny even a single window of shooting opportunity in certain situations, and so you allow the overwatch auto-fire system. Except that system wasn't very well implemented either (only hitting on snap fire was lame). So it ended up just dragging out the length of the game and adding more die rolling for no real tangible purpose. It got even more broken (aka pointless) in 8th, since casualties didn't automatically come from the front - and so it was mostly excised out of the core rule in 9th. Face palm.

Anyway, 2nd ed style overwatch was a great idea, but needed some refinement. But per usual, GW throws the baby out with bathwater.

GW consistently confuses "randomly distributed imbalance" with "balance." No, rolling a crap ton of dice does not make it far, it just makes it arbitrary.

In think 2nd ed Overwatch was generally misunderstood. It functioned in a vary narrow, specific way and when used in that way, added tension and realism without a great deal of complexity. A lot of people got it badly wrong, and that gave it something of a bad reputation.

 Mezmorki wrote:
Anyway, 2nd ed style overwatch was a great idea, but needed some refinement. But per usual, GW throws the baby out with bathwater.

I hated it. Brought games to a standstill.

The only time I ever thought it a good idea was in Necromunda, and only as a skill you had to get rather than a general rule.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Mezmorki wrote:
Anyway, 2nd ed style overwatch was a great idea, but needed some refinement. But per usual, GW throws the baby out with bathwater.

I hated it. Brought games to a standstill.

The only time I ever thought it a good idea was in Necromunda, and only as a skill you had to get rather than a general rule.

This is probably the biggest complaint I've heard about overwatch, and the issue wasn't the mechanic but the inability of the players to comprehend it.

Under the closest/easiest target rule, the moving player (you) can control what the other guy sees and therefore what he's allows to shoot at.

At the same time, you also can move units into covering positions. The upshot is that you can push a unit forward and dare the opponent to pop out of hiding and fire on overwatch. If he does, his positions are exposed, and the incoming fire from your support units will wreck him.

If he doesn't, your forward units will simply use area-effect weapons to burn him out anyway.

It was simple and realistic.

Except you also have to consider melee armies in this balancing equation.
All of that kinda becomes meaningless if you don't have guns, aside that you have to endure an additional shooting phase in your own turn.

 Tyran wrote:
Except you also have to consider melee armies in this balancing equation.
All of that kinda becomes meaningless if you don't have guns, aside that you have to endure an additional shooting phase in your own turn.

I think GW should probably be designing melee army’s better to interact with a game that’s rather focused on shooting honestly.
Things like pining, smoke and other things that GW have seem to spend a lot of effort to remove would go a long way.

Apple fox wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Except you also have to consider melee armies in this balancing equation.
All of that kinda becomes meaningless if you don't have guns, aside that you have to endure an additional shooting phase in your own turn.

I think GW should probably be designing melee army’s better to interact with a game that’s rather focused on shooting honestly.
Things like pining, smoke and other things that GW have seem to spend a lot of effort to remove would go a long way.

The strong concession GW made for close combat in the 3rd Ed paradigm was the resolution of CC, and the Sweeping Advance auto-wiping units. Assaulting was intended to be a challenging thing to do in universe populated with lots of firepower, but the result of actually winning an Assault was an abrupt slaughter. (GW notably f***ed the balance with the Blood Angels codex though). The Sweeping Advance mechanic killed so many models.

I agree that the ideal system would provide for some sort of cover-suppression play, right now the go-to is sorta just threat saturation. The two-and-fro between squads could be more interesting than it is, and it make smaller skirmishes more fun to play.

 Tyran wrote:
Except you also have to consider melee armies in this balancing equation.
All of that kinda becomes meaningless if you don't have guns, aside that you have to endure an additional shooting phase in your own turn.

On the other hand, anything that went on Overwatch wasn't shooting at you in your opponent's turn - less an additional shooting phase, as the number of shots didn't increase, more a shooting phase in two parts.

I think the trap people feel into was trying to avoid taking overwatch fire in order to entirely avoid taking shooting hits. At the same time, I think people put a lot of units into overwatch (instead of just moving and shooting normally) to try and squeeze out better opportunities from their shooting. The issue is that neither player got what they wanted really. One player risked missing out on shooting entirely, and the other risked not advancing into a better board position. When both players had this mentality, overwatch did cause fairly stagnant games.

As with much of 40K, I think a lot of it came down to the missions. I'm fuzzy on a lot of mission details from 2nd, but I think it was often the case of playing for VPs based on units killed in conjunction with each player having a primary mission that also awarded VPs. We wrote a lot of our own missions back in the day, which maybe helped, but if the mission relies too much on VPs from killing units then the overwatch gameplay described above is more incentivized.

Stagnant overwatch games have the same underlying issue as 9th ed alpha strikes- a mechanic that gives you the ability to do significant damage before the enemy can respond.

A lot of games have overwatch mechanics, but I usually see them balanced by penalties on the shooting unit's accuracy (since it is hasty fire), limiting what can trigger it (eg only on movement within a certain range), restricting it to a specific arc, and having status effects remove overwatch (like suppression). It also helps a lot if you have range modifiers and strong cover modifiers, so that taking overwatch fire from maximum range isn't the end of the world.

In a game that is trying to be any approximation of warfare, you shouldn't be forced to walk out in front of the 'overwatched' machine gun nest and get gunned down. Nor should you be free to stroll out at fifty yards and blast it off the face of the planet before it can shoot, either, which is what happens in IGOUGO. What it should do is force you to slow down and suppress it from a distance from a position that minimizes the number of casualties you take in the process- or better yet, approach from a covered angle and avoid defensive fire entirely. There are a number of mechanics that need to come together for that to work.

All that said, troops in prepared positions ought to have the advantage over ones making contact. Both sides sitting in cover and saying 'you first' is exactly what you would expect if neither has an objective that requires advancing on the enemy, and the expectation of higher casualties in the attack is why you typically wouldn't conduct such an attack without qualitative superiority. Give one side 50% higher points and an objective that forces them to walk into the enemy's guns and you won't see that sort of 'you first' stalemate.

Just food for thought.