Is tournament play the biggest problem with 40k

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**EviscerationPlague**

catbarf wrote:
AnomanderRake wrote:
I'm going to be kind of reductionist here, but at a core level I don't think the things competitive players and casual players want are all that different. Sure, there are the "lol git gud n00b" folks and the "tournament players are scum and should face the guillotine" folks running about screaming on the Internet, but what reasonably people all want is to be able to put our armies on the table and have a reasonably close game.

We want this for different reasons, sure; competitive players are more concerned about how having a wider variety of lists on competitive tables makes for more interesting games and lowers the barrier to entry to give them more opponents, while casual players are more worried about having a robust framework to build narrative rules on and whether or not they can buy models they like without having to worry about whether they're "good", but the fact remains that the greater the divide between good and bad armies/models/options the worse the game is for everyone. In that sense I think that making the game more competitively balanced also makes it a better casual game; it is easier to make up narrative rules without worrying about what units are good or bad and how a narrative scenario that favors some units over others is going to send everything out of whack, and it is much easier for two new players to buy the models they like and have a good time when one army isn't going to steamroll over the other one because the writers liked it more.

I think the reason I'm rolling my eyes here is because the whole premise of the discussion is treating narrative/competitive like a zero-sum game when it really shouldn't be. If the core rules and army books were easy to use, well-balanced, and made for interesting tournament gameplay that doesn't stop GW or players from making more whimsical additions, like the Crusade rules, that exist for casual narrative play. The existence of whimsical rules anywhere doesn't force competitive players to use them, the people who want Warhammer to be a game about math and efficiency can have their game about math and efficiency without them preventing other people from doing funny voices and having "unbalanced" narrative rules/missions that aren't tournament-legal.

tl;dr: "Balanced for tournament play" doesn't make a lot of sense to me, a game that is more "balanced for tournament play" is more balanced for everyone, and you shouldn't need a rulebook that says "you are allowed to do a funny voice and get a stat buff for doing so" to do a funny voice.

The collateral damage along the way isn't funny voices. For one thing, it's flavorful options that may be detrimental to balance. Remember when Iron Warriors could take Basilisks, and Aspiring Champions had a two-page spread of upgrades to choose from? Remember when Tyranids could make up their own species, Guard could design their own regiments with combinations of traits, and Orks could assemble vehicles with weird and unique assortments of equipment?

I'm not buying what's being sold here.
1. With FW, Iron Warriors have access to artillery that other Legions should have access using to begin with. As well, "two pages of upgrades" means nothing when only a few get used. I remember people complaining flavor was lost when Marine Captains couldn't buy Artificer anymore. Ya know, the mandatory upgrade.
2. You can do that with Guard right now via mix and match rules with the regular Infantry squads + the Aspect Warrior designed ones, named characters that can basically be "your dude", etc. I'd concede on Tyranid creature design, but with the plethora of units they have now what creature do you think is missing?
3. Orks are a casualty of "no model no rules" to begin with.

**H.B.M.C.**

A named character, by its very definition, cannot be "your dude".

**Lord Damocles**

Ah yes, the old 'Well I always gave my Chaos character Daemonic Venom and an Ether Lance!' lie

**H.B.M.C.**

Who are you replying to?

**EviscerationPlague**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
A named character, by its very definition, cannot be "your dude".

Why not?

My first character I ever made for Marines was a Terminator Captain with a Combi-Flamer and a Power Fist I added spikes too. Lo and behold, rules for Huron work perfectly for that.

Was that never my dude to begin with? That you didn't purchase particular options doesn't make it not your dude. Or do you think nobody ever used their Jump Pack dudes as Dante?

**Daedalus81**

Pilum wrote:
I just wanted to reenact my childhood dreams and fly around making The Noises and saying all the quotes...

That's the 'Great Balance' for GW and part of why everything seems so helter skelter all the time. 9th introduced some super fluffy rules that were just simply fun, but there's so much of them it becomes a huge mess. They have largely wanted gak to be cool - including that Wraithknight boondoggle.

And so now we have 10th and people suddenly worry about losing the fun stuff they just got -- even though it was difficult to manage. And I feel that. Even as a heavy tournament player I still like 'The Noises'.

10th might be able to strike that balance where the fluffy stuff is on the sheet and easier to manage. The game might not be balanced, but it should be easier to play. The tournament rules will be how they actually try and balance things aside from points.

**Sgt. Cortez**

Daedalus81 wrote:
Pilum wrote:
I just wanted to reenact my childhood dreams and fly around making The Noises and saying all the quotes...

That's the 'Great Balance' for GW and part of why everything seems so helter skelter all the time. 9th introduced some super fluffy rules that were just simply fun, but there's so much of them it becomes a huge mess. They have largely wanted gak to be cool - including that Wraithknight boondoggle.

And so now we have 10th and people suddenly worry about losing the fun stuff they just got -- even though it was difficult to manage. And I feel that. Even as a heavy tournament player I still like 'The Noises'.

10th might be able to strike that balance where the fluffy stuff is on the sheet and easier to manage. The game might not be balanced, but it should be easier to play. The tournament rules will be how they actually try and balance things aside from points.

I feel like 9th' problems weren't all those added rules on top, but that they mostly came down to "kills you faster" stuff.

"So I have that warlord with an awesome kills-you-badly-axe, he's from the Shredder-Klan that makes him more killy, he profits from that mauler-spell that kills you and he also does a Warcry named "Gotta kill em all" this turn. Oh, and I also got a strat that..."
"Hold your breath, my unit was already dead from that axe."

**Daedalus81**

That's the consequence of all those layers. It becomes increasingly hard to make sure they don't get over applied. 9th did a better job at it, but then added more stuff.

**catbarf**

EviscerationPlague wrote:
I'm not buying what's being sold here.
1. With FW, Iron Warriors have access to artillery that other Legions should have access using to begin with. As well, "two pages of upgrades" means nothing when only a few get used. I remember people complaining flavor was lost when Marine Captains couldn't buy Artificer anymore. Ya know, the mandatory upgrade.
2. You can do that with Guard right now via mix and match rules with the regular Infantry squads + the Aspect Warrior designed ones, named characters that can basically be "your dude", etc. I'd concede on Tyranid creature design, but with the plethora of units they have now what creature do you think is missing?
3. Orks are a casualty of "no model no rules" to begin with.

Only a few Chaos upgrades were ever used if you were seeking maximum effectiveness for the points. Artificer armor was a mandatory upgrade if you wanted your troops to have maximum durability for the points by exploiting wound allocation rules. You're implicitly evaluating these through a competitive optimization lens- of course you're going to see so many of those upgrades as pointless or must-haves if you're evaluating them solely on gameplay utility.

To some players, that's two pages of near-infinite possibilities to create a general that isn't locked into the rigid constraints of what can counts-as an existing named character (made all the lamer by subfaction restrictions). To other players, that's two pages of worthless clutter of which there are maybe four useful upgrades and the rest are pointless, and the designer spent time creating those that would have been better put elsewhere. To Tyranid narrative players the create-your-own-species rules were the opportunity to create an all-flying army or an all-Warrior army or just create a signature unit for your fleet. To competitive players, it was an exploitable system with a few solved, optimal choices, and you'd take the least number of species possible to get the most mutants. I can think of a number of wargear items and unit upgrades that there are models for but don't have rules representation anymore, so it's not strictly about NMNR corporate policy either.

The desires of narrative and competitive players are often aligned, but they don't always share the same priorities. And it's not all about upgrades; there are other elements of the game where favoring maximum narrative flexibility versus a tight and consistent competitive experience shapes how the rules are written. Look at any discourse about either old editions or upcoming ones, and see the tension and disagreement stemming from different types of players valuing different things. Look at comments in this thread, like Overread's, lamenting the lack of narrative content to layer on top of that competitive core experience. Look at pretty much anything PenitentJake has posted about losing options, while other players argue that it's not that big a deal. GW is never going to be able to make everyone happy.

**EviscerationPlague**

catbarf wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
I'm not buying what's being sold here.
1. With FW, Iron Warriors have access to artillery that other Legions should have access using to begin with. As well, "two pages of upgrades" means nothing when only a few get used. I remember people complaining flavor was lost when Marine Captains couldn't buy Artificer anymore. Ya know, the mandatory upgrade.
2. You can do that with Guard right now via mix and match rules with the regular Infantry squads + the Aspect Warrior designed ones, named characters that can basically be "your dude", etc. I'd concede on Tyranid creature design, but with the plethora of units they have now what creature do you think is missing?
3. Orks are a casualty of "no model no rules" to begin with.

Only a few Chaos upgrades were ever used if you were seeking maximum effectiveness for the points. Artificer armor was a mandatory upgrade if you wanted your troops to have maximum durability for the points by exploiting wound allocation rules. You're implicitly evaluating these through a competitive optimization lens- of course you're going to see so many of those upgrades as pointless or must-haves if you're evaluating them solely on gameplay utility.

But some of the upgrades ARE pointless. There was "choice" when doing a generic Chaos Lord in you could purchase an Aura of Dark Glory vs Sigil of Corruption, yes or no? Not even a fluffbunny buys the former.

Infinite possibilities only matter when said possibilities have distinct roles and do unique things, but also actually matter in game.

**catbarf**

GW struggles with balance- also water is wet and the Pope is Catholic. I'm afraid I don't see your point.

A few of the upgrades were pointless, but most were just not worth the points if you're trying to min-max effectiveness rather than picking the wargear you've already modeled or choosing the ones relevant to your personal fluff for the character.

Is the argument that because a few of those options were redundant, having options was pointless altogether? That's a heck of a stretch.

**Karol**

It is always a matter of degree how much useless something is. A DE army in 9th based around venoms, instead of raiders is just less efficient. A non properly build harlequin army, lets say zero transport, would be so unfun, that it would border on unplayable. Real problems with a codex or faction start, when the bad options are really bad and at the same time are both the core of the army and what people want to play with. Bad crissis suits or bad csm in a csm army, is a lot more impactful then lets say predator anihilators being bad in RG.

**Wayniac**

Biggest problem? No. A problem due to the plethora of boring-ass missions, terrain, and secondaries? Yes. Tournament play tends to suck all the variety out of everything as people clamor for "balance" and "fair". Look no further than the "ideal" terrain layout is 100% mirrored like a fething MOBA rather than a wargame, and people defend it by saying if it's not that way it "ruins" tournament play, instead of maybe thinking that the problem is the design of the game itself if you need to have completely mirrored terrain or someone is going to auto-lose. That's almost completely a problem created by the tournament crowd, who also came up with an incredibly boring solution to fix the problem they created in the first place.

40k has a similar issue to most other games, in that the majority of content creators, who also tend to do the most videos/talking, tend to also be the "top" players, so have a louder-than-normal voice when it comes to influencing design, and the fact a a lot of similar people tend to just shout down anyone saying the direction is bad doesn't help either. I've seen this same stuff in World of Warcraft; the loudest minority are generally the ones doing the hardest content, and because they like to drown out people pointing out why that design is bad by saying "No it's good, you just suck" and using that to dismiss any criticism or dissidence, it means it LOOKS like the majority want everything hard. Most egregious of all lIMHO is ITC/FLG who acted like the "spokesmen" for 40k, and got everyone to accept their way of doing stuff, finally having it infest base 40k with 9th edition.

**vict0988**

Wayniac wrote:
Biggest problem? No. A problem due to the plethora of boring-ass missions, terrain, and secondaries? Yes. Tournament play tends to suck all the variety out of everything as people clamor for "balance" and "fair". Look no further than the "ideal" terrain layout is 100% mirrored like a fething MOBA rather than a wargame, and people defend it by saying if it's not that way it "ruins" tournament play, instead of maybe thinking that the problem is the design of the game itself if you need to have completely mirrored terrain or someone is going to auto-lose. That's almost completely a problem created by the tournament crowd, who also came up with an incredibly boring solution to fix the problem they created in the first place.

40k has a similar issue to most other games, in that the majority of content creators, who also tend to do the most videos/talking, tend to also be the "top" players, so have a louder-than-normal voice when it comes to influencing design, and the fact a a lot of similar people tend to just shout down anyone saying the direction is bad doesn't help either. I've seen this same stuff in World of Warcraft; the loudest minority are generally the ones doing the hardest content, and because they like to drown out people pointing out why that design is bad by saying "No it's good, you just suck" and using that to dismiss any criticism or dissidence, it means it LOOKS like the majority want everything hard. Most egregious of all lIMHO is ITC/FLG who acted like the "spokesmen" for 40k, and got everyone to accept their way of doing stuff, finally having it infest base 40k with 9th edition.

Have you seen the number of unbalanced, unmirrored and random missions GW have produced in 8th/9th that are still usable? Is keeping one balanced-ish competitive mission set updated a crime? Who is forcing you to play with mirrored terrain in every game? I don't even think mirrored terrain is right for tournaments, it's not what GW says to do in terms of terrain either, but in casual you can do whatever you want.

Casual 40k is so much more popular on Youtube than competitive 40k that competitive 40k channels branch out to also create casual and even narrative content, the most I've seen going the other way is interviews with competitive players. Look at the effects that competitive 40k playtesters have had on the game, they scream and shout at GW and get ignored and shoved down while the casual knife-ear podcasters are happy with their involvement in producing new Eldar rules.

**Wayniac**

The issues people who think that the mirrored terrain is the only balanced way so insist on doing it all the time and because there's enough misinformation that keeps peddling the horsegak that competitive is better for everyone because "muh balance" means that it stays a constant thing whether or not it should be, for casual and competitive alike.

Any time I bring up how sides should matter, not be irrelevant by having them identical like a MOBA (instead each side should have similar but not identical advantages. Eg. One side should have more cover but the other has more woods etc), it gets shouted down by cries that would ruin the game and let whoever picks the "better" side automatically win, with not one person thinking that being a thing illustrates critical flaws with the game design rather than being perfectly fine just requiring mirrored terrain.

**H.B.M.C.**

Wayniac wrote:
... Look no further than the "ideal" terrain layout is 100% mirrored like a fething MOBA rather than a wargame, and people defend it by saying if it's not that way it "ruins" tournament play, instead of maybe thinking that the problem is the design of the game itself if you need to have completely mirrored terrain or someone is going to auto-lose. That's almost completely a problem created by the tournament crowd, who also came up with an incredibly boring solution to fix the problem they created in the first place.

I had forgotten all about that...

As someone who adores terrain, loves building interesting boards with character, flare and theme, I hereby change my answer:

Tournament play is the worst, if only because of the absolute bull gak surrounding smaller table sizes and symmetrical terrain.

**Wayniac**

Everything else I can kinda forgive (not secondaries, I loathe those even more than terrain rules) but thinking that mirrored terrain is a feature, not a bug, is horrendous. I've literally never played a game other than 40k where having the board laid out like a MOBA is a good thing. Even Warmachine specifically called out mirrored terrain as being bad, and instead stated that each side should have a benefit so choosing your deployment side became a choice that mattered.

**Daedalus81**

Wayniac wrote:
The issues people who think that the mirrored terrain is the only balanced way so insist on doing it all the time and because there's enough misinformation that keeps peddling the horsegak that competitive is better for everyone because "muh balance" means that it stays a constant thing whether or not it should be, for casual and competitive alike.

Any time I bring up how sides should matter, not be irrelevant by having them identical like a MOBA (instead each side should have similar but not identical advantages. Eg. One side should have more cover but the other has more woods etc), it gets shouted down by cries that would ruin the game and let whoever picks the "better" side automatically win, with not one person thinking that being a thing illustrates critical flaws with the game design rather than being perfectly fine just requiring mirrored terrain.

FLG still uses player placed terrain and it's absolutely horrible for providing a consistent experience. Both players being able to experience the same conditions is integral to determining where issues occur. Just giving a more gun-line army wider lanes of shooting both reduces the tactical movement and planning as well as the conditions under which going first is an advantage or not.

Every single eSport uses mirrored ( or damn near ) environments. This isn't to say that 40K should be an eSport, but that mirroring is important to a balanced game.

**Wayniac**

i would still argue that's a flaw of the game, since I'm not aware of any other competitive miniatures games that do mirrored terrain. I don't think Bolt action or SW legion does it, do they? And they do have tournaments/big events.

**Daedalus81**

Wayniac wrote:
Everything else I can kinda forgive (not secondaries, I loathe those even more than terrain rules) but thinking that mirrored terrain is a feature, not a bug, is horrendous. I've literally never played a game other than 40k where having the board laid out like a MOBA is a good thing. Even Warmachine specifically called out mirrored terrain as being bad, and instead stated that each side should have a benefit so choosing your deployment side became a choice that mattered.

WM/H doesn't have shooting or the model count like 40K. You're looking at 20 to 30 models from what I remember.

**VladimirHerzog**

Daedalus81 wrote:

Every single eSport uses mirrored ( or damn near ) environments. This isn't to say that 40K should be an eSport, but that mirroring is important to a balanced game.

Quake
Counter-strike
CoD
Unreal Tournament
Halo
Overwatch
TF2
Rainbow6siege
Valorant
PUBG

Theres more than MOBAs that are esports...

**Daedalus81**

Wayniac wrote:
i would still argue that's a flaw of the game, since I'm not aware of any other competitive miniatures games that do mirrored terrain. I don't think Bolt action or SW legion does it, do they? And they do have tournaments/big events.

Tournaments in Bolt Action is nowhere as serious. 90% of the dudes are sticklers for details there. It's like Horus Heresy. Couldn't say much about SW Legion, but that's smaller model count, too where a single piece of terrain can hide most of the army.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

VladimirHerzog wrote:
Daedalus81 wrote:

Every single eSport uses mirrored ( or damn near ) environments. This isn't to say that 40K should be an eSport, but that mirroring is important to a balanced game.

Quake
Counter-strike
CoD
Unreal Tournament
Halo
Overwatch
TF2
Rainbow6siege
Valorant
PUBG

Theres more than MOBAs that are esports...

Those are all shooters.

Starcraft and Company of Heroes both use symmetrical maps.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Honestly I do HOPE for terrain that allows for more flexibility and hopefully with reduced lethality it will produce less swings with "bad" terrain. I just don't know what all those details will be yet.

**VladimirHerzog**

Wayniac wrote:
i would still argue that's a flaw of the game, since I'm not aware of any other competitive miniatures games that do mirrored terrain. I don't think Bolt action or SW legion does it, do they? And they do have tournaments/big events.

Infinity is a big one where Asymetrical terrain is actually encouraged, and picking your deployment is actually a skill needed to win the game instead of simply being "well, i'll deploy on that side because my carry case happens to be here".

40k's main problem is its ridiculous lethality, if basic units *could* survive a round of shooting, players wouldnt feel like they need the most even board with a density higher than New Dehli just to have a semi-enjoyable game.

The worst thing i see on 40k table are those huge "L"s with no windows that fill boards. I get that they allow models that don't benefit from obscuring (please be gone in 10th holy gak is that a terrible rule) but they shouldnt be required. And give me tables like what StrikingScorpion88 or WintersSEO make over anything the comp scene seems to have a hardon for.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Daedalus81 wrote:

Those are all shooters.

Starcraft and Company of Heroes both use symmetrical maps.

fair enough on them all being shooters. And yes Starcraft has symmetrical maps but can't you spawn in spots that aren't mirrored? (Been a whiiiiile i played it)

**Karol**

Wayniac wrote:
Biggest problem? No. A problem due to the plethora of boring-ass missions, terrain, and secondaries? Yes. Tournament play tends to suck all the variety out of everything as people clamor for "balance" and "fair". Look no further than the "ideal" terrain layout is 100% mirrored like a fething MOBA rather than a wargame, and people defend it by saying if it's not that way it "ruins" tournament play, instead of maybe thinking that the problem is the design of the game itself if you need to have completely mirrored terrain or someone is going to auto-lose. That's almost completely a problem created by the tournament crowd, who also came up with an incredibly boring solution to fix the problem they created in the first place.

40k has a similar issue to most other games, in that the majority of content creators, who also tend to do the most videos/talking, tend to also be the "top" players, so have a louder-than-normal voice when it comes to influencing design, and the fact a a lot of similar people tend to just shout down anyone saying the direction is bad doesn't help either. I've seen this same stuff in World of Warcraft; the loudest minority are generally the ones doing the hardest content, and because they like to drown out people pointing out why that design is bad by saying "No it's good, you just suck" and using that to dismiss any criticism or dissidence, it means it LOOKS like the majority want everything hard. Most egregious of all lIMHO is ITC/FLG who acted like the "spokesmen" for 40k, and got everyone to accept their way of doing stuff, finally having it infest base 40k with 9th edition.

But it is not the player that design the game . GW does, and it they do or did that properly, they would know after a few decades of working that, if they write a codex in a certain way it will be played in just that one specific way an no other way, because playing it different leaves your bare ass at the mercy of other people. I think the wow example is a bad one. Can you play the wrong class or spec ? yes, and then you are making it unfun not just for you, but other ways around, and depending on how hard the difficulity is the chance of you sneaking in a bad spec/bad geared character drops significantly.
With WoW most people don't raid end game mythic raids though. So taking someone to a normal or LFR doesn't really matter, because the bosses can be killed with half the people. With GW w40k the problem is that they make armies locked in to a specific build at the matched played level.
Want to play a kroot tau army, GK terminators list etc tough luck, you will not have fun in the game. That is the problem. The hyper optimisation of WoW mythic raids, is on the level of basic games in w40k. That is a HUGE problems. Because it creates a situation where someone coming from the outside and trusting the "play what you like" hype find out that it isn't really true after spending a couple a hundreds of dollars. If to raid normal or heroic a WoW player would have to spend 700-1000$ minimum , not counting time to paint in money here, there wouldn't be many people playing WoW at all.

**Some_Call_Me_Tim**

I personally think that 40k should first appeal to just having direct, mostly balanced fun. Stuff like the old rules for the shokk attack gun is basically impossible to balance but it has that type of fun to it that really gives 40k its flavor. Taking that away just makes it a kinda average gun. 40k can benefit from balance but it benefits greater from interesting rules like special issue ammo on deathwatch, which was basically removed due to worry about perfect balance.

**Karol**

VladimirHerzog wrote:

Infinity is a big one where Asymetrical terrain is actually encouraged, and picking your deployment is actually a skill needed to win the game instead of simply being "well, i'll deploy on that side because my carry case happens to be here".

40k's main problem is its ridiculous lethality, if basic units *could* survive a round of shooting, players wouldnt feel like they need the most even board with a density higher than New Dehli just to have a semi-enjoyable game.

The worst thing i see on 40k table are those huge "L"s with no windows that fill boards. I get that they allow models that don't benefit from obscuring (please be gone in 10th holy gak is that a terrible rule) but they shouldnt be required. And give me tables like what StrikingScorpion88 or WintersSEO make over anything the comp scene seems to have a hardon for.

But GW does try to limit the offensive power of armies at the start of an edition. And it always the same way. Marines and 1-2 new edition books come out. They are limited in their leathality. Then the first non limited damage codex for new edition comes out and suddenly all prior books are being blown off the table. And GW scrambles to fix stuff, which they can't, because the new powerful book is balanced vs other new powerful books. So around half the edition GW just gives up on the early edition armies, fixing stuff and they just go with the flow. New army comes out, it is broken GW does something and then at the end of every edition marines get something to play with, because they are so underpowered at the end of an edition they need free transports, extra 1-2 army rules or free gear, to come even close to the new armies. And for a lot of marine armies even that doesn't help, which shows how big the gap between armies are.

It is an unfixable situation though as GW is not going to release new rules for all armies on a 3-6 month basis. I fully expect the tyranid codex to be "broken" on release, and then 3-4 months later bein overshadowed by real 10th books, with detachment that will blow our minds with rules that let them ignore core rules, give detachments double or triple the number of rules regular detachments have etc. Only thing we don't know is which army is going to be that army with that kind of a rules. Will the mellow 10th non marine armies, be 2ed Votan and Tyranids, and then we get the 10th regulars or will it be something else. And who will play index till half+ of 10th.

**Tittliewinks22**

Tournament mindset is not a problem for 40k as a hobby. It is a problem for 40k as a narrative/role play/reenactment game.

I'm a firm believer that it is impossible to have a balanced tournament ruleset that overlaps with a narrative ruleset. This goes as far down as core fundamental stat lines and turn phases. 9th tried to just slap more rules on top of the matched play ruleset and call it a fix, but this didn't alleviate the underlying issue of banal core.

In a perfect world we would have two rules teams. The GW Matched play team, and the GW narrative team. They would be two distinct sets of rules that do not require any overlap.

For example:
Vehicles with AV and facing arcs for weapons would be supported in the narrative ruleset.
Vehicles with toughness/wounds as they currently are would be in the matched ruleset.

By trying to appease both the matched play crowd and the narrative crowd with the same core rules you will inevitably make a system that both have issues with.

**Overread**

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
Tournament mindset is not a problem for 40k as a hobby. It is a problem for 40k as a narrative/role play/reenactment game.

I'm a firm believer that it is impossible to have a balanced tournament ruleset that overlaps with a narrative ruleset. This goes as far down as core fundamental stat lines and turn phases. 9th tried to just slap more rules on top of the matched play ruleset and call it a fix, but this didn't alleviate the underlying issue of banal core.

In a perfect world we would have two rules teams. The GW Matched play team, and the GW narrative team. They would be two distinct sets of rules that do not require any overlap.

For example:
Vehicles with AV and facing arcs for weapons would be supported in the narrative ruleset.
Vehicles with toughness/wounds as they currently are would be in the matched ruleset.

By trying to appease both the matched play crowd and the narrative crowd with the same core rules you will inevitably make a system that both have issues with.

I don't really agree, I think a rules set it a rules set. Matched play is just competing whilst Narrative is just storytelling with a competing system.
A solid set of rules balanced out would work for either use. Narrative would just require another layer of rules and modifications, if at all and might only require pre and post game elements.

What it sounds more like is that you're comparing a wargame scale game set of mechanics ot a skirmish scale set of mechanics. Which I agree do require different setups and GW has started providing them; we've got Killteam and Warcry running on their own rules systems.

**Karol**

Funny thing about different systems is that it doesn't matter if you are playing a Dire Foes special mission, or recreating the attack of guerillas on KGB strong point or try to recreated the multi battle of Pskow, the forces maybe "historical" locked in etc, but the rule set generaly stays the same. minus some special rules like "it was raining day one" or missed shot can decompress the bulkhead etc With GW systems, whole extra books have to be writen and "social" aspects of gaming have to be used for the game to end up not very enjoyable anyway.
And out of all GW games w40k is the most striking example of that happening.

**VladimirHerzog**

Karol wrote:
Funny thing about different systems is that it doesn't matter if you are playing a Dire Foes special mission, or recreating the attack of guerillas on KGB strong point or try to recreated the multi battle of Pskow, the forces maybe "historical" locked in etc, but the rule set generaly stays the same. minus some special rules like "it was raining day one" or missed shot can decompress the bulkhead etc With GW systems, whole extra books have to be writen and "social" aspects of gaming have to be used for the game to end up not very enjoyable anyway.
And out of all GW games w40k is the most striking example of that happening.

yeah, because 40k's core rules are anemic.