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 Darnok wrote:

 kodos wrote:
so expect the problems of 10th Edition books to be solved with 11th Edition core rules, but than again having the same problems with 11th Edition books

Either this, or "nah, we just do something new instead".

3rd to 7th editions are (sort of) cross-compatible, in the sense that the basic rules frameworks and each units stats share the same system. From 3rd to 4th one could see a clear and deliberate attempt to actually evolve the rules instead of "change for changes sake". There were even early versions of rules printed in White Dwarf to gather actual player feedback!
There were also introductions of completely unnecessary "innovations" though, especially during 6th and 7th. Those edition changes felt more like "new ruleset is the bestest ever... also necessary to play the new hotness!" (flyers and superheavies). Which... they were.

Maybe the "lesson learned" for GW from the crashing and burning of 7th edition was just "evolving ruleset = bad". Which would be a shame, but at the same time very on brand for GW.

Looking back at 3rd to 7th rules as you say, this is really the impression i'm under.

While I started in 6th, I own previous rulebooks because I love them, and read them all through, and really, rather than a change, it feels like attempts at refining, really adding more and more to the mechanics of the game to widen its possibilities and gradually deepen the gameplay, or tweaking things. Whether it was successful is another kettle of fish - while I never had enough time on my hands to try 4th LoS, it feels as if ture LoS wasn't a great change, new stuff added in the end such as duels or detachments were a great idea but poorly thought out or implemented... etc.

However, as new codices appeared, as per 4chan over the top but ture at heart list of 40k cheese for exemple, it is obvious that whatever the rules are, in the end, codices were always problematic in balance. Reading through dakka in 8th edition as I wondered whether I should jump in, I remember how the game's appreciation seemed to shift from fairly good in the indices phase to dumpster fire in the codices stage.

As ever, people who played in those periods, feel free to correct me.

6th was already a bad one and had the "change for the sake of change" going for

specially as the old faction rules were not updated for the new core rules with an Errata but only with the Codizes

7th was a soft re-boot of 6th, but the changes were on the level of an Errata and but people were happy to buy because it solved a lot of problems 6th had and they bought into the promise that "this time" it will be better

the same that sold 8th

I would say the process already started with 6th/7th rather than with 8th

Yeah 6th and 7th were sidegrades at best, but mostly just putting more bloat onto an engine that was already at maximum capacity.

I also think kodos might be onto something with this "burn it down on purpose so people are happy for a fresh start". A bit cynical, but not at all unreasonable.

I think its ok to accept that things like the old force organisation chart needed serious updates to account for the fact that GW had increased army sizes in model range and number of models on the table; by a lot more than the chart was built to play with.

That kind of evolution is where you can do a big edition change because there is a big clear problem that requires a fundamental adjustment to the game.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And then every now and again someone comes along to show off the 'great boards' they saw at a recent event, and every single one is a symmetrical swarm if identical L-shaped buildings, just paintee differently from table to table. Some even use city street mats and put buildings in the streets.

Cancerous.

Remember one event the club put on. Organiser set up a bunch of boards and club members set up some others. Horror ensued as we were informed the thematic boards we had set up wouldn't be fair to some of the armies coming and they wouldn't have practiced or known to expect those sorts of layouts.

 kodos wrote:
6th was already a bad one and had the "change for the sake of change" going for

specially as the old faction rules were not updated for the new core rules with an Errata but only with the Codizes

7th was a soft re-boot of 6th, but the changes were on the level of an Errata and but people were happy to buy because it solved a lot of problems 6th had and they bought into the promise that "this time" it will be better

the same that sold 8th

I would say the process already started with 6th/7th rather than with 8th

Agreed, they came to a moment when it became too much and they broke the camel's back.

I feel there is nuance though because 7th was still in the end a bad attempt at fixing and upgrading the same core rules. 8th in a way needed to happen because the 3rd edition chassis couldn't survive the bloat bolted onto it.

However, that 8th core rules lasted only 2 editions is when it gets weird and, again, from my pov as someone playing older editions, discouraging. We can't know for how long 10th core rules will last, maybe they'll be there for ever and more, but the trend set by GW lets us me worry that they may reboot it anytime and that it's not worth coming back to buying newer GW rules. Uncertainty of sorts.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
The churn has gobbled up not just sane army construction and points but seemingly most players willingness to care even 1% about world building or the boards they play on.

I'm part of a 40k terrain group on Facebook and there's always tons of great stuff.

And then every now and again someone comes along to show off the 'great boards' they saw at a recent event, and every single one is a symmetrical swarm if identical L-shaped buildings, just paintee differently from table to table. Some even use city street mats and put buildings in the streets.

Cancerous.

This is what I can't for the life of me understand, the tables would at least be baseline acceptable if the building at least conformed to the roads, having giant L's that cross two lane roads is just baffling.

 kodos wrote:
6th was already a bad one and had the "change for the sake of change" going for

specially as the old faction rules were not updated for the new core rules with an Errata but only with the Codizes

7th was a soft re-boot of 6th, but the changes were on the level of an Errata and but people were happy to buy because it solved a lot of problems 6th had and they bought into the promise that "this time" it will be better

the same that sold 8th

I would say the process already started with 6th/7th rather than with 8th

In my place and my part of Poland, 8th when it came out was huge. I don't know how 7th looked like, but people HATED it to a point where there was talk about playing something else. Infinity Kurva meta, 9th Age etc existed to a large degree because someone did something really bad with 7th. 9th was wierd. Ton of people droped out, not many new came. There was a slop drop off and covid didn't help with stores being closed and people being unable to play or get models etc. The main problems was no new people, and as I said before 8th had a ton, new new players and new returning players of prior editions. 9th slowly grinded those people down. 10th was expected and waited on. Then the leaks dropped from Telegram and of course some people went "not real" etc but then GW showed the rules without points and the leaks were like almost all true. What worse is the true ones was the stuff that is making the game unfun. eldar rules and point costs, very aggresive pointed necron and knights. GSC insanity etc. Right now most of the people playing the game right now are tournament players, people who were lucky to win the lottery and have a 50% win rate army and few noobs who fall for the "play what you want meme". I for example saw the first other real GK player last weekend. Young dude, a bit older then me when I started with GK, getting blown off the table by a necron army. It was not fun to watch, I talked about with him after his game. Non of the you have to play X, Y and Z, but hearing him talk what he wants to buy and play just made me feel bad inside and think "what are you doing to yourself dude". On top of that he is worried about the -10VP for an unpainted army. I tried to explain to him that for GK it doesn't really matter, but he was adamant on finding out how to paint his army fast and cheap. I just felt bad after that, and I didn't even play a game of w40k that day.

similar situation here, although those that still played 7th and defended it as a good system really hated 8th to the bone and even ignored 9th and now coming back with praising 10th the same way as they did 7th back than (hence why I am not sure were the game is going)

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
However, that 8th core rules lasted only 2 editions is when it gets weird and, again, from my pov as someone playing older editions, discouraging. We can't know for how long 10th core rules will last, maybe they'll be there for ever and more, but the trend set by GW lets us me worry that they may reboot it anytime and that it's not worth coming back to buying newer GW rules. Uncertainty of sorts.

technically, the "same" core was 3rd and 4th, minor changes with 5th (LOS, Terrain & Cover, but this changes the gameplay a lot), 6th and 7th again was a different core (flyers/AA, how characters work, Tank Armour)

so not that special that the core sees major changes after 2 Editions, and the decision of there are updates or a full reset is not based on the amount of changes that happens at all (as you can use the 8th Indices with 3rd core rules without a big problem by assigning the special rules from the RB to the units mainly because AP was a direct translation instead of an adjusted value, old AP5 became new AP1)

Darnok wrote:Yeah 6th and 7th were sidegrades at best, but mostly just putting more bloat onto an engine that was already at maximum capacity.

I also think kodos might be onto something with this "burn it down on purpose so people are happy for a fresh start". A bit cynical, but not at all unreasonable.

might not make it bad on purpose but just "don't do anything to fix it"

Overread wrote:I think its ok to accept that things like the old force organisation chart needed serious updates to account for the fact that GW had increased army sizes in model range and number of models on the table; by a lot more than the chart was built to play with.
That kind of evolution is where you can do a big edition change because there is a big clear problem that requires a fundamental adjustment to the game.

this is another problem as the old game was written with 1000-1500 points in mind and filling up the FOC was never really indented while for bigger games, taking a 2nd one was somehow suggested
but increasing the game size not only showed the limits of the FOC but also the limits of the core mechanics as they were not meant to handle that amount of models in 2-3 hours
and the gameplay length GW gives for 2k points is a joke

Yeah doublling up on FOCs is when we got that crazy edition where everyone started running allies or two or three subarmies and we got those daft "Your models must use the official rules if you paint in an official scheme" because you had (esp for marines) perhaps 2 or 3 different subfactions all with the same paint scheme.

Because all people were doing was taking the subfaction for close combat and putting the CC models in that and then putting their ranged ones in the ranged bonus army etc...


Another issue was that some armies suffered - Tyranids had a lot of utility models in Elites, but the number of elite slots was so few for the army that you often couldn't take many utility models in your force before you hit that limit.

I think the concept was good, it just needed a massive overhaul for a larger game; or splitting into the regular FOC for 1K or less and then a different system for larger games.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Which ultimately comes down to even WAACers realizing that for the game to function it needs pieces that block LOS without blocking movement, ie. the area terrain that GW in their infinite wisdom removed from the game in 2008. We could have still had nice tables if GW hadn't forced players to improvise their own solutions for missing essential mechanics.

What kind of bad take is that? People play with a lot of terrain because if they don't, they get shot off the board and even casual players usually enjoy actually playing their army past turn 1

The_Real_Chris wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And then every now and again someone comes along to show off the 'great boards' they saw at a recent event, and every single one is a symmetrical swarm if identical L-shaped buildings, just paintee differently from table to table. Some even use city street mats and put buildings in the streets.

Cancerous.

Remember one event the club put on. Organiser set up a bunch of boards and club members set up some others. Horror ensued as we were informed the thematic boards we had set up wouldn't be fair to some of the armies coming and they wouldn't have practiced or known to expect those sorts of layouts.

This is where GW really fails with their terrain rules, as well as presenting different environments for play.

You can do a lot of awesome board layouts that are good for tournament’s and events, if players know even to expect them and can actively build fun army’s that can play on them.
But there terrain rules are just so uninspired, and they don’t even seem to want to make terrain that is good for the game. Or fix factions that have skew issues, and lack of rosters.

Even the tournament terrain packs could be improved without huge jump in costs, as tournament terrain can be basic if it supports good gameplay. And much better looking for players that like it.

The focus on balanced competitive play for real-world prizes will inevitably and invariably produce a race to the bottom for terrain layouts in the interest of predictability and repeatability. If you don't want players clamoring for boring, fixed board layouts, terrain layout needs to be part of the game- having either a set of prescriptive layouts (see: maps in competitive videogames) or having players place terrain as a mechanic.

It's not really about how good the terrain rules are. Different layouts will always affect different armies differently and that sort of inconsistency- particularly when it's at the whims of a tournament organizer- is antithesis to 40K's tournament community.

But as far as the rules themselves, my issue with 40K's terrain rules is that the game is too big for it to work. You need a ton of LOS-blocking terrain to have interesting maneuver rather than raw target prioritization, but then trying to move a tank (let alone a superheavy) around becomes nigh-impossible. A 2000pt army takes up too much space to comfortably exist on a 60x44" board.

As for the OP: I was excited about a lot of things in 10th. On the whole, I like it better than 9th. But I think my group is getting weary of churn, and there hasn't been much enthusiasm; the way 10th handles points and army-building is the straw that broke the camel's back. Still having a great time with Alpha Strike and Grimdark Future.

3rd edition rulebook had random terrain generation tables for like 6 different types of planet

 kodos wrote:
similar situation here, although those that still played 7th and defended it as a good system really hated 8th to the bone and even ignored 9th and now coming back with praising 10th the same way as they did 7th back than (hence why I am not sure were the game is going)

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
However, that 8th core rules lasted only 2 editions is when it gets weird and, again, from my pov as someone playing older editions, discouraging. We can't know for how long 10th core rules will last, maybe they'll be there for ever and more, but the trend set by GW lets us me worry that they may reboot it anytime and that it's not worth coming back to buying newer GW rules. Uncertainty of sorts.

technically, the "same" core was 3rd and 4th, minor changes with 5th (LOS, Terrain & Cover, but this changes the gameplay a lot), 6th and 7th again was a different core (flyers/AA, how characters work, Tank Armour)

Feel like it is piled or bolted onto rather than being another core: stats, all other types of infantry, most vehicules (except that they had now HP), missions looked more or less like 5th... Maybe 7th more than 6th because formation and randomised mission objectives etc really made the articulation of the game completly go off. That's as much an opinion as it is trying an analysis, rather than asserting something wholesale.

However, there is absolutly no denying that what they bolted on in those times really seems to have messed up the game. Then the process we discuss now started with 7th being 6.5th to try to fix it instead of FAQs... and for some reason deciding that throwing totally new stuff would not create new issues...

 lord_blackfang wrote:
3rd edition rulebook had random terrain generation tables for like 6 different types of planet

Which is another tick in the column for why I stick with 3rd.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

 Darnok wrote:

 kodos wrote:
so expect the problems of 10th Edition books to be solved with 11th Edition core rules, but than again having the same problems with 11th Edition books

Either this, or "nah, we just do something new instead".

3rd to 7th editions are (sort of) cross-compatible, in the sense that the basic rules frameworks and each units stats share the same system. From 3rd to 4th one could see a clear and deliberate attempt to actually evolve the rules instead of "change for changes sake". There were even early versions of rules printed in White Dwarf to gather actual player feedback!
There were also introductions of completely unnecessary "innovations" though, especially during 6th and 7th. Those edition changes felt more like "new ruleset is the bestest ever... also necessary to play the new hotness!" (flyers and superheavies). Which... they were.

Maybe the "lesson learned" for GW from the crashing and burning of 7th edition was just "evolving ruleset = bad". Which would be a shame, but at the same time very on brand for GW.

Looking back at 3rd to 7th rules as you say, this is really the impression i'm under.

While I started in 6th, I own previous rulebooks because I love them, and read them all through, and really, rather than a change, it feels like attempts at refining, really adding more and more to the mechanics of the game to widen its possibilities and gradually deepen the gameplay, or tweaking things. Whether it was successful is another kettle of fish - while I never had enough time on my hands to try 4th LoS, it feels as if ture LoS wasn't a great change, new stuff added in the end such as duels or detachments were a great idea but poorly thought out or implemented... etc.

However, as new codices appeared, as per 4chan over the top but ture at heart list of 40k cheese for exemple, it is obvious that whatever the rules are, in the end, codices were always problematic in balance. Reading through dakka in 8th edition as I wondered whether I should jump in, I remember how the game's appreciation seemed to shift from fairly good in the indices phase to dumpster fire in the codices stage.

As ever, people who played in those periods, feel free to correct me.

As somebody who played through those editions, yes 3rd-5th seemed like a natural progression to improve the game with a few huge hiccups where they threw out some good rules for the sake of change.

Core rules wise 5th was mostly the finished fixed edition that Andy was shooting for before he left while working on it. but at the same time they ruined the wound allocation rules and vehicle assault rules as an example(4th was better in those areas). 6th was an absolute disaster and its short lifespan proves the point. 7th ed started out really well in most cases with a soft re-boot but by the end it was an even worse trainwreck. about the only things that work well in 5th that 6th/7th added were versions of older rules they brought back-snap fire/overwatch/grenade throwing and a few other minor tweaks.

That's why our homebrew rules set based around 5th can use the better version of certain rules from 4th or 6th/7th to fix the few flaws in 5th as they are all effectively cross compatible.

GW also really shifted it's focus on gaming and hobby to model sales. you grab some of the older books circa 3rd ed-5th ed including WD and chapter approved. with VDR and kitbashing with non-GW bits was not only not prohibited it was actually encouraged.

 aphyon wrote:


GW also really shifted it's focus on gaming and hobby to model sales. you grab some of the older books circa 3rd ed-5th ed including WD and chapter approved. with VDR and kitbashing with non-GW bits was not only not prohibited it was actually encouraged.

Beyond the rules, owning most older codicies, this is what it looks like and what really bugs me. That shift you talk about. It must have been a blast to play in those times where at least they hinted at being a bunch of passionate nerds... But unfortunatly I wasn't there and came in the raging dumpster fire that 6th/7th was

 Overread wrote:
I think its ok to accept that things like the old force organisation chart needed serious updates to account for the fact that GW had increased army sizes in model range and number of models on the table; by a lot more than the chart was built to play with.

That kind of evolution is where you can do a big edition change because there is a big clear problem that requires a fundamental adjustment to the game.

Unfortunately, while some tweaks may have been necessary, the changes to the FoC have only served to remove any meaningful limitations to army-building.

Hence why GW have had to try and bolt on extra limitations like the 'Rule of 3' for non-troops, the 'Rule of 2' for Fliers, the 'Rule of 1' for Flyrants etc.

This is further compounded by the puddle of sick that is dataslates. So where once a model might have just had a pile of wargear options, now it has a dozen different dataslates for different loadouts, all of which count as separate units for the purposes of the aforementioned 'Rule of X' rules. Hence why people can have entire armies comprised of about two dozen Marine Captains.

 vipoid wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I think its ok to accept that things like the old force organisation chart needed serious updates to account for the fact that GW had increased army sizes in model range and number of models on the table; by a lot more than the chart was built to play with.

That kind of evolution is where you can do a big edition change because there is a big clear problem that requires a fundamental adjustment to the game.

Unfortunately, while some tweaks may have been necessary, the changes to the FoC have only served to remove any meaningful limitations to army-building.

Hence why GW have had to try and bolt on extra limitations like the 'Rule of 3' for non-troops, the 'Rule of 2' for Fliers, the 'Rule of 1' for Flyrants etc.

This is further compounded by the puddle of sick that is dataslates. So where once a model might have just had a pile of wargear options, now it has a dozen different dataslates for different loadouts, all of which count as separate units for the purposes of the aforementioned 'Rule of X' rules. Hence why people can have entire armies comprised of about two dozen Marine Captains.

Yeah I think that's another core issue, foc's and unit types used to matter. But it just feels like any limitation now has someone in marketing saying "but that might limit sales". It just feels like post 7th the rules design was handed off to like someone who thinks a casino and magic the gathering are two of the greatest inventions of mankind but worse, somehow have lessons that can be applied to combined arms military sci-fi skirmish.

To your point about having entirely different unit listings based on different wargear for essentially the same model/unit, it just one more reason 10th feels a card game with models.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

 aphyon wrote:


GW also really shifted it's focus on gaming and hobby to model sales. you grab some of the older books circa 3rd ed-5th ed including WD and chapter approved. with VDR and kitbashing with non-GW bits was not only not prohibited it was actually encouraged.

Beyond the rules, owning most older codicies, this is what it looks like and what really bugs me. That shift you talk about. It must have been a blast to play in those times where at least they hinted at being a bunch of passionate nerds... But unfortunatly I wasn't there and came in the raging dumpster fire that 6th/7th was

I feel like 8th was the real dumpster fire, firing from tank aerials and flyers assaulting bastions... it was remarkably worse than past editions and it seems like that trend has just continued, especially with 10th just flat out forcing people to play with power levels by any other name. I'm starting to see parallels with 40k and stuff like star citizen, it feels like people almost want something that will never be remotely complete that is always in an endless state of churn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:
The focus on balanced competitive play for real-world prizes will inevitably and invariably produce a race to the bottom for terrain layouts in the interest of predictability and repeatability. If you don't want players clamoring for boring, fixed board layouts, terrain layout needs to be part of the game- having either a set of prescriptive layouts (see: maps in competitive videogames) or having players place terrain as a mechanic.

It's not really about how good the terrain rules are. Different layouts will always affect different armies differently and that sort of inconsistency- particularly when it's at the whims of a tournament organizer- is antithesis to 40K's tournament community.

But as far as the rules themselves, my issue with 40K's terrain rules is that the game is too big for it to work. You need a ton of LOS-blocking terrain to have interesting maneuver rather than raw target prioritization, but then trying to move a tank (let alone a superheavy) around becomes nigh-impossible. A 2000pt army takes up too much space to comfortably exist on a 60x44" board.

Competitive 40k from like 5-7 somehow managed without much standardization in layout.


It is about how good terrain rules are, in concert with sane design choices on the part of the game makers. I agree with you it's difficult to have a one size fits all level of los blocking terrain without it limiting large units. but lets start there, part of what made 40k function well and what reduced that was the forcing of more and larger unit types into what was a skirmish game. Having to cater an entire board design to the existence of silly nonsense like super heavies in 1500pts games or knights was the start of the downfall. I remember in 5th flat out telling prospective ork players who wanted to attend the tournament we were running that like, as cool as battlewagon based off baneblades were, we really couldn't cater board setup so that every big los blocker was exactly 14 inches apart. It's very much like GW axing a bunch of classic marine units, while axing none of the terrible new marine units, all while claiming "its just so hard to balance so many units and armies" which is again weird coming from a company whose design has purposefully gone the other way to the point where we have entirely separate unit listing because a model is on a bike. They also spin off every conceiveable sub faction into its own codex now, again puzzling to do that to only go "gee golly we got all these different factions to balance" -immediately makes every chaos god its own sub faction because money-

The great "path not taken" was GW trying to sustain a long-term 40k player base. We know that GW makes money from churn, but I don't think Tom Kirby ever thought about what mature gamers in their prime earning years might unleash on a hobby they grew up with.

The money I spent as a starving youth pales in comparison to what I could drop on 40k today if it was still a going concern. If I had any faith that the design was stable, that the mechanics were decent and that the company wasn't going to pull the rug in three years regardless of how it was going, I'd dive into it.

And there is a certain irony to it all - just as I was coming into my own, I realized that new editions weren't about improvements to the rules, they were about making my re-buy all the books and rebuild my armies. It was a software upgrade that brought inferior performance.

As I said at the time, the console industry understood that people wanted real improvement before they dropped money on a new system. Switching to a new edition was the price of a PS 4 with none of the guaranteed fun.

So the people of my generation who "grew up" on 40k found other things to do with our money. I keep tabs on it, and I still play 2nd ed. (which I love), but nothing over the past 20 years has tempted me to get me 'current.'

Far from it, I see references to weird new mechanics, new army composition concepts, and I think to myself "What about just throwing some models down and playing a game? Why is this so hard?"

And yes, Battle Tech is on my mind as well. It wasn't my cup of tea, but it has stood the test of time. At this point, can anyone argue that 40k ever had a better system?

While this was discussed in the new meta watch data thread, I am appalled by the marketing and can't really wrap my head around it.

On the one hand, the IP is sold like no tomorrow. 40k blogs, YouTubers and even Instagram are everywhere, pumping hype like never before. You get space marines plastered on CSGO and WoT, primaris at every corner...

And yet, despite all the hype brewed over the internet and some rarer times beyond for the IP, for the universe, it seems GW has lost any interest in its own lore, in being a modelling hobby, in letting people have fun, in short.

I may be completely mistaken on this, but that's really a paradox a feel about this, putting into perspective my dives into GW channels, internet, and seeing how people around me who got in lately don't seem to have any interest in painting, modelling, campaigning... Often because they are too lazy to be bothered, they acknowledge it themselves.

So, I'm quite puzzled by the feeling that now 40k is totally different, both hellbent on selling it's IP but then doing nothing to sustain the interest of potential newcomers. Effectively relying on 300 first pledge maybe.

Not that I'll feel sick about out, it's but a hobby in the end, but I'd say more like disappointed by GW. Personnal thoughts.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
While this was discussed in the new meta watch data thread, I am appalled by the marketing and can't really wrap my head around it.

On the one hand, the IP is sold like no tomorrow. 40k blogs, YouTubers and even Instagram are everywhere, pumping hype like never before. You get space marines plastered on CSGO and WoT, primaris at every corner...

And yet, despite all the hype brewed over the internet and some rarer times beyond for the IP, for the universe, it seems GW has lost any interest in its own lore, in being a modelling hobby, in letting people have fun, in short...

I mean, it scans to me as pretty deliberate/strategic that GW is trying to be Disney. They want a colorful poster they can use to sell merchandise to children without having to worry about the baggage of making a game that works or a story that makes sense.

it is that simple, the IP reached a point were placing an icon prints money

why should they invest anything else or even care
not like GW ever cared on the previous stuff but changed everything on the fly for new releases, because it is models first background later

no need to care or keep things in line with anything or even try to be consistent as long as it works
fans will ignore the new fluff anyway because the know the IP and don't care to adjust for the new things
and new people only know the new things anyway
in this case it is fans being angry at newcomers and vice versa rather than both being angry at the company

PS: also be aware that selling toys to kids works better without there being a story behind
Primaris toys and posters selling because they look cool, adding somewhere that those are space nazis won't work well

Yeah the both of you are right. But that's a shame!

Hope companies like warlord games won't follow the same path too soon, although they aren't quite big enough to for now.

Apple fox wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And then every now and again someone comes along to show off the 'great boards' they saw at a recent event, and every single one is a symmetrical swarm if identical L-shaped buildings, just paintee differently from table to table. Some even use city street mats and put buildings in the streets.

Cancerous.

Remember one event the club put on. Organiser set up a bunch of boards and club members set up some others. Horror ensued as we were informed the thematic boards we had set up wouldn't be fair to some of the armies coming and they wouldn't have practiced or known to expect those sorts of layouts.

This is where GW really fails with their terrain rules, as well as presenting different environments for play.

You can do a lot of awesome board layouts that are good for tournament’s and events, if players know even to expect them and can actively build fun army’s that can play on them.
But there terrain rules are just so uninspired, and they don’t even seem to want to make terrain that is good for the game. Or fix factions that have skew issues, and lack of rosters.

Even the tournament terrain packs could be improved without huge jump in costs, as tournament terrain can be basic if it supports good gameplay. And much better looking for players that like it.

I've often thought to myself that GW could do really well by making a nice thematic terrain set for each of their campaigns. The Kill Team box sets do that to a degree. But if they put out a nice looking terrain set that isn't endless L shaped ruins it could be a lot of fun if yearly there's a warzone in a new sector with terrain that gives some good verisimilitude to your battles.

If they were to do this, I think it would be smart to lower their profits on terrain, make the latest warzone "on sale" for the duration and encourage people to build nice terrain sets for the year, along with warcom and white dwarf showing off the various ways you can set up the terrain pieces for the beginners and the advanced players.

 catbarf wrote:

But as far as the rules themselves, my issue with 40K's terrain rules is that the game is too big for it to work. You need a ton of LOS-blocking terrain to have interesting maneuver rather than raw target prioritization, but then trying to move a tank (let alone a superheavy) around becomes nigh-impossible. A 2000pt army takes up too much space to comfortably exist on a 60x44" board.

All the ruins and obscuring terrain as a band-aid to fix the high lethality arms race (although I'm happy with 10th my chaos crab is able to scuttle over terrain pieces). A lot of this could be solved by letting go of TLOS or just establishing something more meaningful when it comes to unit targeting as well as visibility and very small portions of a target being visible. I often wonder what went on in the GW design studio when TLOS became the way moving forward and why it's been untouchable since then.

I will give them credit in 10th for making cover much simpler and having the unit partially obscured by anything generally results in a cover save. (Though that is also a bandaid for too much AP lethality). There are some good ideas in 10th, some half baked ideas (good and bad), but also a ton of unecessary churn. The edition has many items that point to it being rushed out the door, I get the impression management saw an increasing bloom in 40k popularity and wanted to get a 'simplified' edition out the door for new customers. Unfortunately a rushed edition isn't as simple as one that's been polished and removed much of the "this could be a neat idea" rules.

True line of stupid became the norm because its "easy"

the trouble is its an abstraction and, as with most abstractions, this brings in other things - specifically for TLOS to work you need a fixed ground scale, or you are shooting around corners

you also need some mechanic to factor in dust, smoke etc in the air, especially close to the ground. ditto bring in that light flat out refuses to scale so shadows etc are wrong

some mechanic to allow a "roll to see" perhaps, harder at increased ranges, easier with elevation etc - adds complexity that a d6 system will struggle with though

GW do have a decent terrain system, its used in MESBG, but a more structured system would help

at least now we have "in/out but not through" ruins

leopard wrote:
True line of stupid became the norm because its "easy"

the trouble is its an abstraction and, as with most abstractions, this brings in other things - specifically for TLOS to work you need a fixed ground scale, or you are shooting around corners

you also need some mechanic to factor in dust, smoke etc in the air, especially close to the ground. ditto bring in that light flat out refuses to scale so shadows etc are wrong

some mechanic to allow a "roll to see" perhaps, harder at increased ranges, easier with elevation etc - adds complexity that a d6 system will struggle with though

GW do have a decent terrain system, its used in MESBG, but a more structured system would help

at least now we have "in/out but not through" ruins

Any insight why true LoS works so bad at 40k? Because in both Bolt action an project z that I regularly play, it works perfectly fine, so I wouldn't say its a flawed mechanic in and of itself.

I truly need to get to implement 4th edition lines of sight in my games some day to see how good it fairs and how smooth it goes. Be it only for the sake of curiosity.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:


Any insight why true LoS works so bad at 40k? Because in both Bolt action an project z that I regularly play, it works perfectly fine, so I wouldn't say its a flawed mechanic in and of itself.

I truly need to get to implement 4th edition lines of sight in my games some day to see how good it fairs and how smooth it goes. Be it only for the sake of curiosity.

because it penalises dynamic models heavily. A space marine with his stubby boltgun close to his chest kinda stays in his "1x2" inch silhouette no matter the pose. But then you have any sniper unit ever, where the barrels poke out of the base and theyre suddenly vulnerable, as if the gun was a vital part of them.

It means "Modeling for advantage" can be a thing so it restricts options for the modeler.

If i put my Lord of change behind a ruin, facing the enemy, his wings poke out and he's visible. If i put him sideways, he's not suddenly hidden.

And why is LoS bound to the model yet distances are bound to the bases?

If you play any other game with an actually decent LoS system (Malifaux, Infinity, SW:Legion) , 40k's flaws suddenly come to light

A visibility check may not be too bad on a d6 system. Just off the top of my head here's a quick idea using 2d6.

Visibility in the Maelstrom of Battle
To target a unit beyond 24" you must succeed on a Leadership check.

If you want granularity you could assign penalties if the unit is further away (>36" or if there's a lot of smoke and debris (a blast weapon targeted this unit already this turn), or if they are partially obscured by cover. Of course you'd have to make an exception about the stacking of penalties to make that work in 10e.

I'd also include an exception where this rule does not apply if you are targeting the nearest enemy model or if you are using a [Precision] weapon. I'm sure there are other exceptions to be made and flaws to be pointed out since it's just a quick idea, but I do think it's possible to do in a d6 system.

As for why TLOS is so bad in 40k, the most common example is the tank fully obscured by a hill, except the antenna is sticking out, thus you can dump several heavy weapons teams worth of lascannons into the tank without issue. Since 40k is built around building cool models with fun spiky bits, it's definitely a feels bad moment that having a single iota of model exposed means the enemy can unload every weapon in their arsenal at it without penalty.