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Toofast wrote:

Cyel wrote:
In comparison, in my preferred Warmachine, models can, apart from killing, surviving and offering a plethora of standard buffs or debuffs to every stat:

This is why I like Necromunda, Infinity, Warmachine, Adeptus Titanicus, basically anything that isn't 40k, better than 40k as an actual ruleset. 40k has the coolest models and full battles on a painted table look amazing, but the game itself is just bland. I've had more memorable moments in my current Necro campaign than I have in 25 years of playing 40k. We were talking about this at my local Warhammer store last week because guys were playing Necromunda, Titanicus, Warcry, Underworlds, AoS and 30k but nobody was even thinking of playing 40k at the moment. We're all waiting for 10th and ready to just play specialist games if it's as bad as 7th-9th have been.

To be fair, Necromunda, infinity and adeptus titanicus are all skirmish scale, so giving your models more special stuff is feasible, never played warmachine so i can't judge that one.

I'm not saying its impossible to achieve, just that its harder in a game with the scale of 40k

artific3r wrote:To expand on Tsagualsa's response, the wackier you get with your mechanics, the more difficult the game becomes to balance. It increases the risk of units feeling broken or gimmicky. This is less of an issue with less popular games because people don't play them enough to really expose the flaws.

AnomanderRake wrote:I think the answer is much simpler: when Warhammer became popular it was trying very hard to be a WWII game, and in a WWII game you don't have a wide range of things doing weird cinematic video-game-y things, and despite all the bloat that's been piled on top of it since it is really still the skeleton of a WWII game underneath.

All the things the OP wants were in the game, he just has to go back and find a group playing an older edition of his choosing.

The attitude towards the game is much different today than it was then. it was much less about balance and far more about epic battles of unique factions that behaved in the manner they were portrayed in the lore. this carried over to an extent from 2nd ed when it went from a skirmish game system to 3rd when it became squad or army level battles. GW has expanded the factions and model lines to such an extent that the elusive balance that tournament minded players are after is nigh impossible to reach.

IMHO it was a much better game when it was just epic battles in the 41st millennium. instead of now where i see charts and tables reflecting the effectiveness of points/performance of dice averages between unit A and unit B as to which one is better to take. instead of-this faction would use unit B because that is how they fight-, and then your job on the table as the general commanding the force is how to work that to your advantage using terrain and tactics.

VladimirHerzog wrote:

Toofast wrote:

Cyel wrote:
In comparison, in my preferred Warmachine, models can, apart from killing, surviving and offering a plethora of standard buffs or debuffs to every stat:

This is why I like Necromunda, Infinity, Warmachine, Adeptus Titanicus, basically anything that isn't 40k, better than 40k as an actual ruleset. 40k has the coolest models and full battles on a painted table look amazing, but the game itself is just bland. I've had more memorable moments in my current Necro campaign than I have in 25 years of playing 40k. We were talking about this at my local Warhammer store last week because guys were playing Necromunda, Titanicus, Warcry, Underworlds, AoS and 30k but nobody was even thinking of playing 40k at the moment. We're all waiting for 10th and ready to just play specialist games if it's as bad as 7th-9th have been.

To be fair, Necromunda, infinity and adeptus titanicus are all skirmish scale, so giving your models more special stuff is feasible, never played warmachine so i can't judge that one.

I'm not saying its impossible to achieve, just that its harder in a game with the scale of 40k

Yeah, I think you can see some of the scale pains by looking at some of the mechancis that were dropped in recent editions. We had Challenges for a bit and mechanics like Jain Zar being able to disarm a specific model nearby. So in theory, it was neat to have Jain knock aside an enemy's power sword to bully him with impunity. But in practice, zooming in to resolve challenges slowed the game down and got a bit annoying when you had the rest of the fight phase to resolve. Similarly, the vehicle damage chart was a cool bit of detail that added to the "narrative" of the game, but tracking 12+ shaken/stunned/immobilized/weapon destroyed results across an entire parking lot of tanks could result in a lot of bookkeeping.

I really feel like 40k is better off at smaller game sizes where you just have 2 or 3 vehicles and a healthy mix of non-vehicles on each side and there's enough empty space on the table for units to maneuver. My mandrakes fading into the shadows and popping up to attack you from behind is pretty cool, but in practice there's rarely a decent place to land them behind enemy lines because the board is so choked with bodies. Plus, at smaller game sizes you could introduce things like crossfire, terrain manipulation, etc. without having all your brain power used up by the 1000 extra points of rules you brought to the table.

AnomanderRake wrote:
IMHO it was a much better game when it was just epic battles in the 41st millennium. instead of now where i see charts and tables reflecting the effectiveness of points/performance of dice averages between unit A and unit B as to which one is better to take. instead of-this faction would use unit B because that is how they fight-, and then your job on the table as the general commanding the force is how to work that to your advantage using terrain and tactics.

Kind of agree, but to some extent this is just what happens with any game that "rewards" some form of game mastery, right? My first multiplayer game of Star Craft was us goofing off, exploring the options, and making some inefficient-but-memorable plays. My hundredth multiplayer game of Star Craft is just trying to rush out my build of choice as quickly as possible while barely looking at the battlefield. My first few days playing a fighting game, I'm having fun stumbling into cool moves and enjoying the pretty colors. Then eventually you know your moves too well to have much fun against the computer, and matches against humans requires you know how to reliably execute the ultimate 20 step super combo where the other guy barely gets a chance to fight back.

As much as we discuss wanting tactical depth in 40k on this forum, some days I wish the game rules focused on making matches more even regardless of list building so you and your opponent could just bash models together and have fun seeing how it turns out.

 aphyon wrote:

IMHO it was a much better game when it was just epic battles in the 41st millennium. instead of now where i see charts and tables reflecting the effectiveness of points/performance of dice averages between unit A and unit B as to which one is better to take. instead of-this faction would use unit B because that is how they fight-, and then your job on the table as the general commanding the force is how to work that to your advantage using terrain and tactics.

The rose tinted glasses are strong in this post

More model to model interactions in 40k would be nice. But it would require GW to make 10th into a much smaller game as people have mentioned skirmish ruleset vs army ruleset. Personally I reckon 30k v2 does large scale army fantastically. 3K points is pretty standard for a lotta people and that lets you have tank formations, infantry formations and a couple specialists and big models stomping around. I dunno how but it manages to make things feel powerful, things feel tough and other things feel fancy while not having the table wiped by turn 3. (more missions would be nice though)

40K being somewhere between the small 6 model skirmish games and the big cinematic conflicts of 30k would be good.

But yes, the question is, how do you stop fancy rules becoming busted in the right hands.

A lot of it just comes down to age. 40k comes from an era where "roll and see what happens" was a perfectly acceptable game design. The 40k turn sequence is really about execution more than decision making. Its a checklist of things that need to be done to get to where you roll to see what happens.

8th added a lot of strategic layers to the system. A resource to manage and objectives more clearly designed around making movement matter. It just struggles because the core turn sequence and dice mechanics just aren't particularly well suited to modification. It's very hard to define locations when a unit may move somewhere between 5-15+ inches a turn, and a single d6 really only functions off the 4+/-1 values before weird things happen to the curve.

I think there's room to make things work though. There's definitely room for strategems to be moved to the unit datasheet rather than being their own thing. I suspect this is more of a codex issue than anything. I think there's probably ways to do more. Certainly mid game deployment has been worked on extensively between all the drop rules and more recently Genestealers. It's just hard and GW seems very unmotivated to change that core dice off system that defines the game.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

IMHO it was a much better game when it was just epic battles in the 41st millennium. instead of now where i see charts and tables reflecting the effectiveness of points/performance of dice averages between unit A and unit B as to which one is better to take. instead of-this faction would use unit B because that is how they fight-, and then your job on the table as the general commanding the force is how to work that to your advantage using terrain and tactics.

The rose tinted glasses are strong in this post

Perhaps you could say that if you are far removed from the editions by years of lack of first hand experience. for my part my FLGS has a strong active community of oldhammer players and we still regularly (nearly every weekend) get in games of primarily mixed 3rd-5th ed.

Hands down i can say without reservation that it is a far better game to play than current 40K. there is no churn there is no chasing codex creep, there is no meta, there are no balance passes or seasons, GW will never mess with it again. Above all it is epic 40K battles and it is fun for all involved. In about the last month we have had the following games-
.7th ed admech VS 4th ed DIY marines
.7th ed admech VS 3rd ed IG armored company
.3rd ed IG armored company VS 5th ed IG
.5th ed dark eldar VS 5th ed IG.

One of the problems with 40k is that it's a game that doesn't know what scale it wants to be. On one hand, it clearly wants to be a mass battle game where you have serious numbers of troops running around that range from tiny grots to superheavies and knights. At the same time, it tries to track the individual differences between differently shaped melee weapons and almost every shot fired (while not doing much in the way of truly special abilities because they get out of hand very quickly and take up even more time and mental space).

So they basically have to make a choice. Do they want 40k to be a skirmish game or a mass battle game? If it's meant to be a skirmish game, they should drastically cut the size of the game which gives the space for more unique effects than inflicting mortal wounds. If they want a mass battle game they should standardise and get rid of a lot of the irrelevant little details that only take up time and mental space without a significant effect on the game. Both however come with their downsides so they instead keep going with a mixture of both approaches.

 Dolnikan wrote:
One of the problems with 40k is that it's a game that doesn't know what scale it wants to be. On one hand, it clearly wants to be a mass battle game where you have serious numbers of troops running around that range from tiny grots to superheavies and knights. At the same time, it tries to track the individual differences between differently shaped melee weapons and almost every shot fired (while not doing much in the way of truly special abilities because they get out of hand very quickly and take up even more time and mental space).

So they basically have to make a choice. Do they want 40k to be a skirmish game or a mass battle game? If it's meant to be a skirmish game, they should drastically cut the size of the game which gives the space for more unique effects than inflicting mortal wounds. If they want a mass battle game they should standardise and get rid of a lot of the irrelevant little details that only take up time and mental space without a significant effect on the game. Both however come with their downsides so they instead keep going with a mixture of both approaches.

False dilemma, GW already has Kill Team as a skirmish game and Apocalypse as a mass battle game, WH40k sits in the middle as it should and shouldn't be either Kill Team or Apocalypse, if you want to play a 40k skirmish game go play Kill Team, if you want to play a 40k mass battle game go play Apocalypse.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Dolnikan wrote:
One of the problems with 40k is that it's a game that doesn't know what scale it wants to be. On one hand, it clearly wants to be a mass battle game where you have serious numbers of troops running around that range from tiny grots to superheavies and knights. At the same time, it tries to track the individual differences between differently shaped melee weapons and almost every shot fired (while not doing much in the way of truly special abilities because they get out of hand very quickly and take up even more time and mental space).

So they basically have to make a choice. Do they want 40k to be a skirmish game or a mass battle game? If it's meant to be a skirmish game, they should drastically cut the size of the game which gives the space for more unique effects than inflicting mortal wounds. If they want a mass battle game they should standardise and get rid of a lot of the irrelevant little details that only take up time and mental space without a significant effect on the game. Both however come with their downsides so they instead keep going with a mixture of both approaches.

False dilemma, GW already has Kill Team as a skirmish game and Apocalypse as a mass battle game, WH40k sits in the middle as it should and shouldn't be either Kill Team or Apocalypse, if you want to play a 40k skirmish game go play Kill Team, if you want to play a 40k mass battle game go play Apocalypse.

... if you want to play a good game play something else

I think it does come down to the scale of the game.

40K is designed for larger scale scraps. As such, its basic rules are fairly straight forward. You don’t need to overly worry about facings, turning, manoeuvring etc.

Compare to AT, where manoeuvring and movement are key to victory. As well as guns for stripping shields and guns for killing Big Stuff? You have more tactical stuff to choose from. For instance, the Macro Cannon has a reasonable chance to alter its targets facing. That ability alone can change the shape of a battle, should the target be thrown out of LoS / LoF for its intended target. If you’re clever, you can work that chance in to your overall plan, and potentially keep that model off-kilter, contributing far less than your opponent hoped for.

Necromunda? You need to wield your Gang as a squad, but also keep an eye out for individual opportunities. This might involve getting two relatively disposable Gangers in the right place to drop Smoke Grenades, messing with your opponent’s LoS. And you really need to make good use of terrain and cover, as getting that right drastically improves your survival chances. And in a campaign, it can be risky to focus on levelling up just a handful, as if I job just one or two on a permanent basis, down the rankings your Gang will tumble. If you spec into your Gang’s archetype, you may find an opposing Gang becoming your Achilles heel, so whilst such Speccing can bring a lot of useful skills, there’s a lot to be said for a more balanced approach.

40K no longer has those concerns. And I’m not especially convinced it should just for the sake of having them.

 aphyon wrote:


for my part my FLGS has a strong active community of oldhammer players and we still regularly (nearly every weekend) get in games of primarily mixed 3rd-5th ed.

This is awesome. I am glad to hear that you've got an FLGS that supports your hobby your way and it's awesome that you found a like minded group. Never let that go. I had a lot of fun with 3-5, for all the frustrations I had about my armies being somewhat ignored, or in the case of GSC, being completely excluded. I also found the integration of smaller games into the main system a bit more problematic... But none of that means the games wasn't fun.

I absolutely understand why people prefer this era to the current version, even though I personally do not.

 aphyon wrote:

Hands down i can say without reservation that it is a far better game to play than current 40K.

You can't actually. Since what is bad, good, better or best is entirely subjective, what you CAN say without reservation is that you and your group like that game better. If you want to get specific and define objectively observable and measurable game elements and compare them, as others have done, you will certainly be able to point out some areas where the editions of the 3-5 era score better, just as those who prefer the more recent editions will be able to find other game elements in which the current game scores higher. Whether either version is "good" or "bad" depends entirely upon whether a given player prioritizes the elements in which the version scores high.

 aphyon wrote:

there is no churn there is no chasing codex creep, there is no meta, there are no balance passes or seasons, GW will never mess with it again.

Fair, and true. But these are the qualities associated with an unsupported game, not a superior one. If rumours are true, in another 6-10 months, we'll be able to say all of this about 9th, and we can already say it about 8th, despite the fact that I still used a lot of 8th ed source material in 9th ed.

 aphyon wrote:

Above all it is epic 40K battles and it is fun for all involved.

I cannot deny this- 3-5 was fun, and I have plenty of epic stories of my own from that era.

 aphyon wrote:

In about the last month we have had the following games-

.7th ed admech VS 4th ed DIY marines
.7th ed admech VS 3rd ed IG armored company
.3rd ed IG armored company VS 5th ed IG
.5th ed dark eldar VS 5th ed IG.

Cool. Now go back through not just the past month, but through the entire time you've been playing Oldhammer. How many games has your group played with SoB, SoS (or even Talons as a whole), GSC, or Deathwatch? For me, a game that doesn't include support for these factions is currently not as fun as a version that does... But again, that's for me, and I don't expect others to share my preferences and priorities.

Note: I do know that SoB at least could be played during 3-5: I did it. The Witch Hunter dex worked in that era, and it does remain one of my personal favourite GW books of all time, though I do prefer the current version of SoB. Also: I didn't mention the BSF oddities like the Negavolts, Beastment, etc. even though I used them in 8th and continue to do so in 9th. I didn't mention the Votann, because I personally don't play them- I like them well enough, and in a perfect world, I'd have a small force, but these days one must prioritize hobby spending.

 Dolnikan wrote:
One of the problems with 40k is that it's a game that doesn't know what scale it wants to be. On one hand, it clearly wants to be a mass battle game where you have serious numbers of troops running around that range from tiny grots to superheavies and knights. At the same time, it tries to track the individual differences between differently shaped melee weapons and almost every shot fired (while not doing much in the way of truly special abilities because they get out of hand very quickly and take up even more time and mental space).

So they basically have to make a choice. Do they want 40k to be a skirmish game or a mass battle game? If it's meant to be a skirmish game, they should drastically cut the size of the game which gives the space for more unique effects than inflicting mortal wounds. If they want a mass battle game they should standardise and get rid of a lot of the irrelevant little details that only take up time and mental space without a significant effect on the game. Both however come with their downsides so they instead keep going with a mixture of both approaches.

Well, since the scale of the game has been pretty much the same for decades....
And they've generally kept the differentiation between the small stuff....
I'd say GWs made a clear choice.

Because 40k has no way to interact with opposing forces other than killing them.

With the exception of a couple of psychic powers, everything else present in the game is just a way to kill enemies. Even leadership modifiers are merely ‘kill moar’ with an extra step. While this kind of depth makes sense for a kids board game like risk, in an actual wargame it leads to an incredibly shallow gameplay experience.

The solution is, fortunately, as simple as it is unlikely to happen: Give 40k some actual depth via meaningful gameplay and non-fatal means of interaction. Preferably while also cutting the bloated complexity which 40k uses to give the illusion of actual depth.

 morganfreeman wrote:
Because 40k has no way to interact with opposing forces other than killing them.

With the exception of a couple of psychic powers, everything else present in the game is just a way to kill enemies. Even leadership modifiers are merely ‘kill moar’ with an extra step. While this kind of depth makes sense for a kids board game like risk, in an actual wargame it leads to an incredibly shallow gameplay experience.

The solution is, fortunately, as simple as it is unlikely to happen: Give 40k some actual depth via meaningful gameplay and non-fatal means of interaction. Preferably while also cutting the bloated complexity which 40k uses to give the illusion of actual depth.

Technically, there is one other chief way in which units can interact- some variation on holding ground/objectives.

I think actions as a concept are one of the best additions to modern 40k. Unfortunately, they have frequently been implemented in a way that does not provide much interaction with the opposing player. It would be really neat if pinning could interrupt actions, for example. Unfortunately pinning is no more...

vict0988 wrote:

 Dolnikan wrote:
One of the problems with 40k is that it's a game that doesn't know what scale it wants to be. On one hand, it clearly wants to be a mass battle game where you have serious numbers of troops running around that range from tiny grots to superheavies and knights. At the same time, it tries to track the individual differences between differently shaped melee weapons and almost every shot fired (while not doing much in the way of truly special abilities because they get out of hand very quickly and take up even more time and mental space).

So they basically have to make a choice. Do they want 40k to be a skirmish game or a mass battle game? If it's meant to be a skirmish game, they should drastically cut the size of the game which gives the space for more unique effects than inflicting mortal wounds. If they want a mass battle game they should standardise and get rid of a lot of the irrelevant little details that only take up time and mental space without a significant effect on the game. Both however come with their downsides so they instead keep going with a mixture of both approaches.

False dilemma, GW already has Kill Team as a skirmish game and Apocalypse as a mass battle game, WH40k sits in the middle as it should and shouldn't be either Kill Team or Apocalypse, if you want to play a 40k skirmish game go play Kill Team, if you want to play a 40k mass battle game go play Apocalypse.

I agree with you, but if you tell 40K players that they are no longer getting special rules for different shapes of sword or that their intercontinental ballistic missile will no longer be fieldable in a company-sized engagement, they lose their gak.

morganfreeman wrote:Because 40k has no way to interact with opposing forces other than killing them.

With the exception of a couple of psychic powers, everything else present in the game is just a way to kill enemies. Even leadership modifiers are merely ‘kill moar’ with an extra step. While this kind of depth makes sense for a kids board game like risk, in an actual wargame it leads to an incredibly shallow gameplay experience.

The solution is, fortunately, as simple as it is unlikely to happen: Give 40k some actual depth via meaningful gameplay and non-fatal means of interaction. Preferably while also cutting the bloated complexity which 40k uses to give the illusion of actual depth.

It's doubly annoying because even mechanics that boil down to 'kill more/kill less' can still be interesting if they give you choices to make on the tabletop. Crossfire rewards positioning, reduced firepower on the move forces you to consider giving up killing now for better positioning, going to ground in response to fire is giving up fire in return for durability, and so on.

Without all that, and particularly in a game where most units can shoot across the board and move/shoot at full effectiveness, armies tend to slug it out at spreadsheet efficiency.

I think pinning was too random, go to ground would be neat, the only downside was having to ask whether the enemy would go to ground every time. Make "pinning" weapons ignore cover saves (which I think should be brought back) to incentivise units to go ground, but still ultimately leave the decision to the players. I know my desire for player agency is beyond the norm and I don't really want to go debate agency and randomness in this thread.

 morganfreeman wrote:
Because 40k has no way to interact with opposing forces other than killing them.

With the exception of a couple of psychic powers, everything else present in the game is just a way to kill enemies. Even leadership modifiers are merely ‘kill moar’ with an extra step. While this kind of depth makes sense for a kids board game like risk, in an actual wargame it leads to an incredibly shallow gameplay experience.

The solution is, fortunately, as simple as it is unlikely to happen: Give 40k some actual depth via meaningful gameplay and non-fatal means of interaction. Preferably while also cutting the bloated complexity which 40k uses to give the illusion of actual depth.

I would say move-blocking, zoning out deep strikes and tagging units in melee to prevent them from shooting are ways to non-lethally prevent optimal usage of enemy units. Then there is staying out of enemy threat ranges, which is pretty obvious, but harder than ever if you play on GW's tiny boards. I really like the lack of randomness with melee in modern editions, now it is more tactical than simply hoping melee has the desired result but having few ways to impact that result, making shooting equally tactical would be great for the game I think. Since most 40k units are ranged and since 9th is ridiculously lethal, you do see a lot of games in 9th edition devolve to shooting kills the enemy, end of story.

PenitentJake wrote:


Cool. Now go back through not just the past month, but through the entire time you've been playing Oldhammer. How many games has your group played with SoB, SoS (or even Talons as a whole), GSC, or Deathwatch? For me, a game that doesn't include support for these factions is currently not as fun as a version that does... But again, that's for me, and I don't expect others to share my preferences and priorities.

Note: I do know that SoB at least could be played during 3-5: I did it. The Witch Hunter dex worked in that era, and it does remain one of my personal favourite GW books of all time, though I do prefer the current version of SoB. Also: I didn't mention the BSF oddities like the Negavolts, Beastment, etc. even though I used them in 8th and continue to do so in 9th. I didn't mention the Votann, because I personally don't play them- I like them well enough, and in a perfect world, I'd have a small force, but these days one must prioritize hobby spending.

GSCs had a Citadel journal Army list, and Deathwatch do exist as a unit regular marines can take, I don't think it's a 0-1 option either, so the only thing that doesn't really transfer over is the Corvus Blackstar. Talons is really the only outlier there.

Cyel wrote:
I was also thinking about the scale, but really it's not that much of a difference for most of these effects - instead of blinding a single model, you blind a unit, instead of setting a single model on fire, you set the entire unit on fire etc. It also shouldn't be more of a lengthy process than just performing attacks - with GW's long and tedious resolution it can actually be quicker.

You are talking about status effects from video or tabletop skirmish games. The majority of 40K players don´t like to keep track of those which is a shame imo.

 aphyon wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

IMHO it was a much better game when it was just epic battles in the 41st millennium. instead of now where i see charts and tables reflecting the effectiveness of points/performance of dice averages between unit A and unit B as to which one is better to take. instead of-this faction would use unit B because that is how they fight-, and then your job on the table as the general commanding the force is how to work that to your advantage using terrain and tactics.

The rose tinted glasses are strong in this post

Perhaps you could say that if you are far removed from the editions by years of lack of first hand experience. for my part my FLGS has a strong active community of oldhammer players and we still regularly (nearly every weekend) get in games of primarily mixed 3rd-5th ed.

Hands down i can say without reservation that it is a far better game to play than current 40K. there is no churn there is no chasing codex creep, there is no meta, there are no balance passes or seasons, GW will never mess with it again. Above all it is epic 40K battles and it is fun for all involved. In about the last month we have had the following games-
.7th ed admech VS 4th ed DIY marines
.7th ed admech VS 3rd ed IG armored company
.3rd ed IG armored company VS 5th ed IG
.5th ed dark eldar VS 5th ed IG.

I started in late 3rd/early 4th. I was that era, thanks.

And those games sound absolutely awful and more unbalanced than current 40k, which is pretty impressive.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

IMHO it was a much better game when it was just epic battles in the 41st millennium. instead of now where i see charts and tables reflecting the effectiveness of points/performance of dice averages between unit A and unit B as to which one is better to take. instead of-this faction would use unit B because that is how they fight-, and then your job on the table as the general commanding the force is how to work that to your advantage using terrain and tactics.

The rose tinted glasses are strong in this post

Perhaps you could say that if you are far removed from the editions by years of lack of first hand experience. for my part my FLGS has a strong active community of oldhammer players and we still regularly (nearly every weekend) get in games of primarily mixed 3rd-5th ed.

Hands down i can say without reservation that it is a far better game to play than current 40K. there is no churn there is no chasing codex creep, there is no meta, there are no balance passes or seasons, GW will never mess with it again. Above all it is epic 40K battles and it is fun for all involved. In about the last month we have had the following games-
.7th ed admech VS 4th ed DIY marines
.7th ed admech VS 3rd ed IG armored company
.3rd ed IG armored company VS 5th ed IG
.5th ed dark eldar VS 5th ed IG.

I started in late 3rd/early 4th. I was that era, thanks.

And those games sound absolutely awful and more unbalanced than current 40k, which is pretty impressive.

Accusing somebody of having their perception clouded by time and then coming back with essentially 'I remember how that era was, I don't need to have played it recently' is kinda hypocritical. Just saying.

 catbarf wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

IMHO it was a much better game when it was just epic battles in the 41st millennium. instead of now where i see charts and tables reflecting the effectiveness of points/performance of dice averages between unit A and unit B as to which one is better to take. instead of-this faction would use unit B because that is how they fight-, and then your job on the table as the general commanding the force is how to work that to your advantage using terrain and tactics.

The rose tinted glasses are strong in this post

Perhaps you could say that if you are far removed from the editions by years of lack of first hand experience. for my part my FLGS has a strong active community of oldhammer players and we still regularly (nearly every weekend) get in games of primarily mixed 3rd-5th ed.

Hands down i can say without reservation that it is a far better game to play than current 40K. there is no churn there is no chasing codex creep, there is no meta, there are no balance passes or seasons, GW will never mess with it again. Above all it is epic 40K battles and it is fun for all involved. In about the last month we have had the following games-
.7th ed admech VS 4th ed DIY marines
.7th ed admech VS 3rd ed IG armored company
.3rd ed IG armored company VS 5th ed IG
.5th ed dark eldar VS 5th ed IG.

I started in late 3rd/early 4th. I was that era, thanks.

And those games sound absolutely awful and more unbalanced than current 40k, which is pretty impressive.

Accusing somebody of having their perception clouded by time and then coming back with essentially 'I remember how that era was, I don't need to have played it recently' is kinda hypocritical. Just saying.

It's not hypocritical. I don't need to play 7th Edition AdMech vs 4th edition Marines to know it's a bad game.

The fewer separate group type of rules GW gets to write the lower chance of them doing something wrong. Would it be nice and fun, if units did something more then hit stuff or stand on objectives? Sure. But then reality kicks in and the GK demon slayer warlord trait first doesn't work on demons from the demon codex for a few months, then gets "fixed" and now it doesn't work on demons from outside of the demon codex. Too often GW "cool" is not really that, but either something game breaking or something you wish your army didn't have.

I believe these sorts of mechanics are largely missing due to the Games Workshop's decision to streamline the game with third edition. There was clearly a desire to scale the game up from platoon level games to company level games which necessitated cutting out a lot of the in depth (and perhaps overly detailed) rules as a concession to making games playable in a reasonable amount of time. I'm sure to some extent this was driven by a desire to sell more models to existing players and to make the game more approachable to new players.

Some stuff has come back over the years, but the scale 'issue' really makes it difficult to add these sorts of things without making games drag on way too long. Fundamentally they just take too long to resolve in the scale of game that GW intends people to play at.

It's not hypocritical. I don't need to play 7th Edition AdMech vs 4th edition Marines to know it's a bad game.

Pretty authoritative statement from somebody who wasn't there.

And those games sound absolutely awful and more unbalanced than current 40k, which is pretty impressive

They were actually all quite fun and very close games. the only time admech actually won was the previous month against 3.5 chaos in a kill points game. my 3.5 dark angels fared quite a bit better with a general list.

The fact that your focus on "unbalanced" is your key concern tells me that classic 40K just isn't the game for you. it is meant to be epic and thematic and fun. your skill as a general on the table is how you balance things as far as how likely you are to win....dice rolls aside. Winning itself isn't even the most important thing. having a close fun game were both players have a good time is. winning is just a little "icing on the cake".

The entire point of this was that Cyel's original post was a desire for things that already existed and were removed from the game that he perhaps did not know existed.

How many games has your group played with SoB, SoS (or even Talons as a whole), GSC, or Deathwatch? For me, a game that doesn't include support for these factions is currently not as fun as a version that does... But again, that's for me, and I don't expect others to share my preferences and priorities.

I have not had a full SOB army since 4th, however i do have units from both demon hunter and witch hunter codexes i use as allies for my other imperial forces. and one of the guys is actually currently building an inquisitorial strike force around the demon hunter codex. That aside considering we allow all codexes from 3rd-7th to be played in our games. GSCs, deathwatch, SOB, custodes/SOS and even imperial knights all had 7th ed codexes that are compatible and allowed. the problem is that most of those armies are not very popular among our players. most people want to play nids instead of GSCs and only one player actually has an imperial knight army.

 aphyon wrote:

It's not hypocritical. I don't need to play 7th Edition AdMech vs 4th edition Marines to know it's a bad game.

Pretty authoritative statement from somebody who wasn't there.

And those games sound absolutely awful and more unbalanced than current 40k, which is pretty impressive

They were actually all quite fun and very close games. the only time admech actually won was the previous month against 3.5 chaos in a kill points game. my 3.5 dark angels fared quite a bit better with a general list.

The fact that your focus on "unbalanced" is your key concern tells me that classic 40K just isn't the game for you. it is meant to be epic and thematic and fun. your skill as a general on the table is how you balance things as far as how likely you are to win....dice rolls aside. Winning itself isn't even the most important thing. having a close fun game were both players have a good time is. winning is just a little "icing on the cake".

The entire point of this was that Cyel's original post was a desire for things that already existed and were removed from the game that he perhaps did not know existed.

If those were "close games", some of you are just bad players, simple as that. It reeks of the attitude of people that will do a charge that they shouldn't, because of how fluff bunnies operate.

Your games are not any more skillful than current games. If anything, they're less skillful.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

IMHO it was a much better game when it was just epic battles in the 41st millennium. instead of now where i see charts and tables reflecting the effectiveness of points/performance of dice averages between unit A and unit B as to which one is better to take. instead of-this faction would use unit B because that is how they fight-, and then your job on the table as the general commanding the force is how to work that to your advantage using terrain and tactics.

The rose tinted glasses are strong in this post

Perhaps you could say that if you are far removed from the editions by years of lack of first hand experience. for my part my FLGS has a strong active community of oldhammer players and we still regularly (nearly every weekend) get in games of primarily mixed 3rd-5th ed.

Hands down i can say without reservation that it is a far better game to play than current 40K. there is no churn there is no chasing codex creep, there is no meta, there are no balance passes or seasons, GW will never mess with it again. Above all it is epic 40K battles and it is fun for all involved. In about the last month we have had the following games-
.7th ed admech VS 4th ed DIY marines
.7th ed admech VS 3rd ed IG armored company
.3rd ed IG armored company VS 5th ed IG
.5th ed dark eldar VS 5th ed IG.

I started in late 3rd/early 4th. I was that era, thanks.

And those games sound absolutely awful and more unbalanced than current 40k, which is pretty impressive.

You did not just seriously say this. At least throw out the "anecdotal" card but don't try to pretend you have a better memory of how an edition you last played 20 years ago plays compared to someone who played it last week.

 catbarf wrote:
(Truncated for brevity)...OP is using an overtly gameplay-first fantasy game as comparison so it's easy to dismiss it as 'things a realistic game wouldn't let you do', but the core observation that units in 40K tend to be pretty one-dimensional is spot on. Units just don't have any interaction besides shooting or punching each other.

Oh, sure, but I think there's a spectrum of games where historical wargames are on one end, with gameplay complexity created largely by the core rules and units having limited unique shiny/video-game-y shenanigans, and something like Warmachine or Malifaux on the other end, with relatively bare-bones core rules and a tremendous wealth of weird and interesting unit rules to worry about. Even if you look at better-designed historical wargames where things like suppression do come into play individual unit rules tend to still be very bare-bones. Warhammer is trying to cram both ends of the design spectrum together without really parsing how they interact.

That said I also think a big part of their issue with units not really doing anything is that GW decided somewhere along the line that they need to let anyone play whatever combination of minis they want all the time without really thinking about the consequences. If you can't count on players having a mix of different unit types, because you can let them spam whatever they want, then it becomes really hard to design a game in which a variety of roles other than just kill people are relevant and useful. Other game companies have gotten around this in a variety of ways but off the top of my head every game I can think of has either hard or soft list-building restrictions to control edge-case spam lists (Infinity has SWC, X-Wing has ship minimums and maximums, Warmachine has warjack points and warcaster Focus/Fury limits...), because they want to be able to build the game assuming that players will be taking a range of tools, not just spamming the most efficient thing. GW, alone amongst all people making minis games, seems to be slowly drifting towards "no, just spamming the most efficient thing is fine" and they're removing more and more list-building restrictions over time. If you're trying to make a game in which one player could be doing, I don't know, termagaunt-spam and the other player could be playing a single Warlord Titan and that's a desirable game state to the writers (because then one player bought a bajillion termagaunts and the other player bought a Warlord Titan...), then trying to design the game around units having roles on the table other than straight damage output is sort of futile, because all lists are so wildly different you can't plan for players having the stuff to fill the roles.

tl;dr: GW thinks making gameplay interesting is too much of a barrier to people buying models.

(Disclaimer: I have no evidence for this, but it is an explanation that fits the facts.)

I really wish actions had more use.

If those were "close games", some of you are just bad players, simple as that. It reeks of the attitude of people that will do a charge that they shouldn't, because of how fluff bunnies operate.

Your games are not any more skillful than current games. If anything, they're less skillful.

Yet another claim about something you know nothing about, you did not know the objectives, the army makeups, the terrain and most importantly

don't try to pretend you have a better memory of how an edition you last played 20 years ago plays compared to someone who played it last week.

Your fluff bunny comment also says loads about what kind of gamer you are. if i wanted to play-

"no, just spamming the most efficient thing is fine"

Then i do not need 40K, i do not need the universe, the immersion or any of the reasons what keeps me interested in the game/universe i could go buy a cheap set of green army men and just play that.

I do NOT play just to win, i play for social activity, to have fun with friends, roll dice and move models. the lore of the universe is what drives and keeps me playing many game systems including oldhammer.

From your comments, it appears this is not the game for you, you dislike it, and you prefer something more tournament minded. that's fine, you do you. it is just the complete opposite of why i love to play miniature war games and why i have been actively playing for over 20 years. perhaps Cyel is after something similar to what i enjoy, after all he is the one who started this topic about 40K.