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Uptonius wrote:
I got started with 3rd. Played actively for the entire edition. I practically lived at DakkaDakka. I didn't mind 4th so much because the changes to vehicles and combat had already been added at the end of 3rd. I played a few hundred games of 4th.
When 5th dropped and changed the rules of terrain to true line of sight, all the terrain at my flgs became useless. I quit 40k completely after 1 game and didn't return until the very tail end of 7th because I happened to have an Eldar army that was all the rage (wave serpents and scatterbikes). That lasted about 3 games before no one wanted to play against it any more.
By the time 8th dropped a few friends FINALLY got into 40k but by then I just didn't care.
I played 3 games of 9th. Worst version of 40k ever. I honestly can't understand how anyone could enjoy it. I just assume the people that like it all started after 5th and probably learned of 40k through videogames (that's not a dig at anyone, just the way it seems to me).
10th is kind of what I've been waiting for (a return to 3rd edition) but it's missed the mark almost entirely.
At this point I'm done. I'm trying to get rid of all my Warhammer stuff. I just stopped caring on every level. I don't like the game, I don't like the direction GW has been going, I don't like the culture around the hobby anymore.
Where once upon a time Warhammer was the coolest thing ever to me, it's now become a deep regret and it feels like I've wasted 25 years of my life.

If you enjoyed your hobby, it is never a waste of time. I never played the 4th, but after going over the books, it does interest me. I would check to see if any of your old buddies from the 4th are still around and are willing to play once again. Of course if you get a few classic games in your local, you are more than welcome to post any batreps at the website in my sig. But there is also this thread:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/789567.page

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

This. The days of gw being a couple of hobby nerds in an attic are long gone, sadly. It's just another corporate lead by its sales/marketing department now*. The "churn instead of improvement" model makes perfect sense if you see them as such.



*another poster linked the "what happened to gorkamorka" articles on goonhammer a while ago. It's a depressing read, but it supports the "just another corporate" vibe.

On LoS issue:

Now that you talk about models restriction because of LoS, I see what you mean and it does ring a bell.

I just doubt the antenna tank bit as at least in 6th it was stated that only seeing minor outstreched details didn't make a valid target. I guess it's hyperbole on your part but anyways i'm being touchy for the sake of it and the point stands no questions asked.

Comparing with Bolt Action mostly where it works fine is that BA has got a lot of to hit penalties, so shooting at a quite effectively hidden ennemy often misses anyway, and the models are more or less streamlined humans with few fancy poses.

I really really need to test out 4th LoS rules gork damn it

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

I just doubt the antenna tank bit as at least in 6th it was stated that only seeing minor outstreched details didn't make a valid target. I guess it's hyperbole on your part but anyways i'm being touchy for the sake of it and the point stands no questions asked.

in the current edition, targetting an antenna is 100% valid according to the rules

MODEL VISIBLE
If any part of another model can be
seen from any part of the observing
model, that other model is visible to
the observing model.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

I just doubt the antenna tank bit as at least in 6th it was stated that only seeing minor outstreched details didn't make a valid target. I guess it's hyperbole on your part but anyways i'm being touchy for the sake of it and the point stands no questions asked.

in the current edition, targetting an antenna is 100% valid according to the rules

MODEL VISIBLE
If any part of another model can be
seen from any part of the observing
model, that other model is visible to
the observing model.

Oh God

Another reason I dislike models like this, with pointlessly large wings. For display its great, for gaming, especially seeing as those are resin wings, its going to be nightmare. and los is only the beginning of that.





A good example of where 8th completely deviated from 5-7
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/727189.page


This is where we started seeing stuff like shooting from antennas

 Crablezworth wrote:
Another reason I dislike models like this, with pointlessly large wings. For display its great, for gaming, especially seeing as those are resin wings, its going to be nightmare. and los is only the beginning of that.

Spoiler:

A good example of where 8th completely deviated from 5-7
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/727189.page


This is where we started seeing stuff like shooting from antennas

BROTHER I AM HIT

That really is the perfect image isn't it?
I remember my first time playing 8th a small 500pt game and a buddy of mine said all his necrons were going to dump a load of gauss fire onto one of my marines with a visible spiky bit. I thought he was messing with me but as we looked it up, yes technically he could. Obviously we apply some sanity with house rules, but it is the default.

Funny too because GW loves making center pieces models which by their nature have grandiose sweeping poses (and very visible bits). Well at least Bel'lakor can hide in shadows

I think shooting from antenna is a result of several points:
1. rules lawyers that couldn't accept the old rule of "things sticking out from the main body don't count"
2. GW writers not having a better idea than the old or the new
3. GW trying to make the rules more approachable and with less room for interpretation
4. GW trying to keep the game relatively clean from other gaming tools but dice and range rulers. No tokens (hence no activation mechanic), no silouettes, no templates

In our games we also houseruled it to the old version. Even the designer's commentary from 8th hinted at the old rule, but I guess it was their last attempt to say: If you have reasonable opponents you don't actually shoot at or from antenna and find a common ground, but well... we're getting many mails.

Most games these days have abandoned any sense of TLOS. GW would greatly benefit from a "model height" stat and have players define their terrain with it in mind.

 LunarSol wrote:
Most games these days have abandoned any sense of TLOS. GW would greatly benefit from a "model height" stat and have players define their terrain with it in mind.

yeah, this is how the games i mentioned earlier function and it makes the game flow much faster.

Malifaux in particular since you assign height to terrain so lets say we translated it to 40k we would have :

Grots : Height 1
Guardsmen : Height 2
Space marine : Height 3
Rhino : Height 4
Boxnaught : Height 5

and

Crates : Height 1
Barricades : Height 2
First floor building : Height 3
second floor building :Height 6

then any model that has a height smaller than the intervening terrain is out of LoS

Yeah fake heights don't work. It lead to massive problems in titanicus with warlord jumping over building their own height. It doesn't matter what arbitrary number one assigns a model with decorative elements 3 times their body height. Especially when marketing shows up with a model like this:

Can't see any terrain interactions pushing us toward giant L's at all... total mystery. Hey look an entire army of knights, this isn't getting silly one bit, giant L shaped ruins for all


Very simply because you have gaps in terrain of a physical nature regardless of what you pretend the dimensions to be. The lesson of true line of sight was it didn't interact well with terrain full of keyholes or natural terrain like trees. Those are issue one has to contend with in a practical way, not layering abstraction. You can introduce some, like area terrain bubbles, but the devil is in the details, less about unit dimensions that unit types, how they interact and if models that can benefit need to be entirely within the area to do so. It wasn't total line of sights fault that gw would write nebulous things like "in" and not include a qualifier like "entirely". Nothing sillier than flying fmc's with their toes in area terrain. Then 8th just completely destroyed unit types and any semblance left of building on what works. Baby with the bath water. Churn baby churn.

 Crablezworth wrote:
Yeah fake heights don't work.

You mean GW have never gotten them to work. It works fine in other games.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
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.

^^^^^

Exactly this.

I got into 40k when I was like…. Ten? 20+ years later I have a six figure income and upwards of 50k annual disposable income as a huge nerd. If 40k was actually good, and GW hadn’t rung my last drops of food will out years ago, I’d happily drop 10k ish a year on their products.

But instead GW is a demonstrably incompetent company with no interest in putting out a product that encourages me to buy. So I buy the odd rule book / boxed game and that’s it, and instead dump thousands of dollars into 3rd party producers like kromlech and various Etsy stores.

 Crablezworth wrote:
Very simply because you have gaps in terrain of a physical nature regardless of what you pretend the dimensions to be. The lesson of true line of sight was it didn't interact well with terrain full of keyholes or natural terrain like trees.

That's why more serious games use templates with tree models serving as decorative reminders.

One of the telling differences between 2nd and 3rd for me was how 2nd ran well in a dense, urban environment. Indeed, most the games I saw being played were set up like this, and that was a large part of what drew me into the game. The idea of troops fighting along multi-level walkways while jump troops dropped onto the rooftops was seriously cool.

When 3rd came out, those boards vanished, never to return. Codex: Cityfight came out to try to make it work, but the fact that the game had to generate a second rule book to cover what was a core function of the rules spoke volumes.

And of course the book costs money, $25 if memory serves.

I think GW is the first gaming company to hit on the idea of making people pay for erratta.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Very simply because you have gaps in terrain of a physical nature regardless of what you pretend the dimensions to be. The lesson of true line of sight was it didn't interact well with terrain full of keyholes or natural terrain like trees.

That's why more serious games use templates with tree models serving as decorative reminders.

One of the telling differences between 2nd and 3rd for me was how 2nd ran well in a dense, urban environment. Indeed, most the games I saw being played were set up like this, and that was a large part of what drew me into the game. The idea of troops fighting along multi-level walkways while jump troops dropped onto the rooftops was seriously cool.

When 3rd came out, those boards vanished, never to return. Codex: Cityfight came out to try to make it work, but the fact that the game had to generate a second rule book to cover what was a core function of the rules spoke volumes.

And of course the book costs money, $25 if memory serves.

I think GW is the first gaming company to hit on the idea of making people pay for erratta.

It's been a LONG time since I played 3rd edition (but I do have the BRB and the City Fight book laying around), but I don't really remember any core issues with the terrain rules. IIRC the City Fight book mostly tackled thematic rules for fighting in a city. Things like grenades / flamers getting additional strength vs targets in ruins, rules for firing at vehicles from significantly higher up, and giving some highly specific terrain rules for various types of urban debris / deterants (tank traps, razorwire, ect). Otherwise I mostly remember it being alternate deployments, a few specific missions, and a substantial amount of 'campaign' stuff such as buying terrain, booby trapping buildings, paying for pre-game bombardments, and the logistics of levelling your units in a city fight / creating campaign maps.

Like wise, I also have a 4th ed rulebook and the associated City Fight book in my garage (somewhere) and IIRC it's basically the same thing. AFAIK the terrain rules in 3rd and 4th were pretty much spot on. A smattering of TLOS but with broad-strokes area terrain effects such as depth limits, no shooting through area terrain, and model size categories.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
...I think GW is the first gaming company to hit on the idea of making people pay for erratta...

I mean, at this point most minis companies have realized that more people will play their game if they don't make them pay money for rules...

People will pay for rules. But additional ones. Not for erratas flung at your face as an "expension". Similar to videogames DLC: you have normal DLC (say, return to Palmyra for the game Syrian warfare, that adds more units and missions to the game to make it last longer) and make-believe DLC of raw cancer that paradox makes for its games, selling and unfinished EU4 and then having you pay 10 euros for each "patch" to have the full game.

Like wise, I also have a 4th ed rulebook and the associated City Fight book in my garage (somewhere) and IIRC it's basically the same thing. AFAIK the terrain rules in 3rd and 4th were pretty much spot on. A smattering of TLOS but with broad-strokes area terrain effects such as depth limits, no shooting through area terrain, and model size categories.

Andy Chambers kept many of those same type of terrain rules when he did the 3d terrain rules for DUST tactics/1947 he also did the armor/wounds system better.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

yeah, this is how the games i mentioned earlier function and it makes the game flow much faster.

Malifaux in particular since you assign height to terrain so lets say we translated it to 40k we would have :

Grots : Height 1
Guardsmen : Height 2
Space marine : Height 3
Rhino : Height 4
Boxnaught : Height 5

and

Crates : Height 1
Barricades : Height 2
First floor building : Height 3
second floor building :Height 6

then any model that has a height smaller than the intervening terrain is out of LoS

Which is more or less how 40k 4th edition worked but then they went with full TLOS instead

That Land Raider it isn't fully covered from most angles regardless and many munitions won't need a straight shot to have a chance of destroying the enemy and please correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't that thing provide cover for the Land Raider this edition?

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I think shooting from antenna is a result of several points:
1. rules lawyers that couldn't accept the old rule of "things sticking out from the main body don't count"
2. GW writers not having a better idea than the old or the new
3. GW trying to make the rules more approachable and with less room for interpretation
4. GW trying to keep the game relatively clean from other gaming tools but dice and range rulers. No tokens (hence no activation mechanic), no silouettes, no templates

In our games we also houseruled it to the old version. Even the designer's commentary from 8th hinted at the old rule, but I guess it was their last attempt to say: If you have reasonable opponents you don't actually shoot at or from antenna and find a common ground, but well... we're getting many mails.

I have no obligation to play by your stupid house rule that makes the game one big debate about what counts and what doesn't count as part of the model, just forge the narrative and move on. Have you tried to politely bring it up before the game? In the handful of games where people have done it I've accepted, but don't call me a rules lawyer because I won't accept you bringing in house rules in the middle of the game to favour you, if I notice you haven't shot something that can see me with its antenna I'll point it out as well. You're only really a rules lawyer when the rules only apply when it benefits you. A classic scenario is in Yugioh when you let your opponent make an illegal move and instead of immediately correcting your opponent you wait long enough that the game gets tangled and then you call a judge and say the initial thing was illegal, now by the letter of the rules your opponent gets a game loss because he did not follow the rules and it has become impossible to reset the game state back to before the cheating occurred. Or you will take advantage of your opponent not knowing their antenna are part of the model and a representation of the model's combat output and input and can therefore be shot at or with, let it move into a position where it can be shot, ignore your opponent not shooting with it because they think it cannot shoot and then shoot it to bits in your following turn. That's being a rules lawyer, but if you point out when it is moved into that position that you can see it then you are not a rules lawyer, you are just playing the game by the rules.

Your tone seems a bit salty like you have been through this before.

One of the basic rules of good sportsmanship is taking a look at a debated rule or interpretation of a rule and understanding that if it seems to give an unfair advantage you DO NOT USE IT.

Any wargame is something that by it's nature involves the consent of both players. if you act like a jerk you will soon find you have no players to game with.

By settling on the agreed upon rules before the game it prevents these kinds of issues.

Our group uses "house rules" to fix 5th edition. although i use the term loosely because they are just official rules from other editions that work better and should not have been changed (4th ed wound allocation instead of 5th even though we are playing 5th). but we all agree to it ahead of time so we have no issues.

Same with terrain and LOS in 5th you have to see the body of the model from the firing model or weapon mount of the vehicle. antenna, wings, banners etc.. do not count in the official rules. so while we use area terrain as an abstract like a forest/tree template with a hard cover save. with true LOS we also include modular terrain that is "solid" that blocks LOS including large hills, buildings etc....

Edit: commenting to Vict0988

Well, if the introduction to your post is that it is not illogical to shoot though stuff because you make potshots at the supposed location of the véhicule judging by the antenna, then:

Take into account the fact that the projectile loses momentum by going through terrain features

Determine what kind of weapon can punch through what terrain features

For non véhicules models, what do you hit since you're either Blindshooting or shooting at that gigantic wing? Does it make a difference of targeting, damaging or saving?

Are those factors integrated into the game in 10th?

If not, I guess it still sounds quite badly designed and needs building up, clarifying, or changing outright.

I'm not commenting much about the abiding by the rules etc because there's nothing to say argue over.

Other than that technically the rule lawyers is as valid as you just playing by the rules, he's just not using common sense on purpose, probably being dishonest, and doesn't care, but technically there's no arguing against it rulewise.

This is a tabletop game, the rules cannot and should not try to account for everything, shooting and melee rules in 10th are very abstract I will concede and abstractness offers a poor simulation. The rules for LOS work really well for me, I am willing to give up a lot of simulation-effectiveness for just a little bit of making the game easier to learn and less likely to cause arguments at the table, it is regrettable our preferences are at odds. At the end of the day I also need for there to be a game, I don't want to play 40k autochess, although I do love me some autochess, the key feature of autochess is that the computer handles all the movement, so you don't have to follow some stupid algorithm for movement like you have to with melee in 10th.

 aphyon wrote:
Your tone seems a bit salty like you have been through this before.

One of the basic rules of good sportsmanship is taking a look at a debated rule or interpretation of a rule and understanding that if it seems to give an unfair advantage you DO NOT USE IT.

Any wargame is something that by it's nature involves the consent of both players. if you act like a jerk you will soon find you have no players to game with.

By settling on the agreed upon rules before the game it prevents these kinds of issues.

Our group uses "house rules" to fix 5th edition. although i use the term loosely because they are just official rules from other editions that work better and should not have been changed (4th ed wound allocation instead of 5th even though we are playing 5th). but we all agree to it ahead of time so we have no issues.

Same with terrain and LOS in 5th you have to see the body of the model from the firing model or weapon mount of the vehicle. antenna, wings, banners etc.. do not count in the official rules. so while we use area terrain as an abstract like a forest/tree template with a hard cover save. with true LOS we also include modular terrain that is "solid" that blocks LOS including large hills, buildings etc....

If you are better at playing by the rules you have a fair advantage, not an unfair advantage. The rules are that you can see and be seen from an antenna, the assumption all players need to make is that unless otherwise agreed we play by the rules. I cannot ask every opponent about every possible house rule they might want to play with. If a house rule becomes common then it is a good idea to see whether it is in effect before a game, I thankfully can't think of any right now. If playing with a certain house rule is more popular than playing without it then the expectation is reversed and if you do not want to play with the house rule then you have to ask for that since almost everyone will assume you are playing with that house rule. In which of these 3 layers your house rule falls can be up to debate, if the people you have played with in 8th-10th have all agreed that changing the LOS rules was a common sense house rule and you used it then I guess I'll just have to educate you about how it's played at every major tournament and therefore most clubs around the world and how it's taught to new players where I play. But if you know almost nobody plays LOS the way you want to play it and you try to be sneaky and change things up turn 2 when I'm in my shooting phase and say I can't shoot with the large decorative strut on my Doomsday Ark you are being a git.

Your definition of house rules is silly in my opinion, either it's house rules or it's a unique Frankenstein edition, it's not regular 40k that anyone else has ever played, but lots of people have played 4th edition or 7th edition and anyone could go back and play those editions, I cannot play your house rules without learning about them from you because there is basically no way that I'd come to use the exact same Frankenstein edition you do.

I can see why you would prefer TLOS, obviously. But in a way, again, I can take that for BA that is a "competitive WW2 themed" set of rules rather than a lore or a simulation.

Going that far into simplicity feels tasteless because the game is supposed, to some extent, (or was maybe) to reenact the lore and let you fight and reenact stories within it. At least that's what I expect from 40k. Oversimplified rules don't really provide that I think.

It's then a matter of balance of course, as we said 6th started to really pile stuff on for the sake of it and it quickly escalated into unrunnable.

I don't know. An eldar player knowing his rules playing vs a Votan players knowing his rules, has a fair adventage in the game?

It would be good if GW decided what it wants and stuck with it for some time. And not try to have skirmish game rules , like an attempt at true LoS in a table top game. And vice versa if we are suppose to operate in a true LoS setting, then could we not be getting banners, dudes doing jumps in to the air, standing on rocks/rubble/stairs/etc so that no one has to worry that their Salamanders captin gets hit in to smoke from his brazier or part of his cloak.

Karol wrote:
I don't know. An eldar player knowing his rules playing vs a Votan players knowing his rules, has a fair adventage in the game?

No. If two players play Poker and one player knows what level of investment is good with two aces in hand, a king, 2 and 7 on the field and the other player just knows it's a good position but might overinvest or underinvest then the more knowledgable player has fair advantage. If one player always brings a pair of aces and the other player always brings a 2 and a 7 then it's not a fair game even if the cards on the field will in rare cases give the second player a win. The problem of being seen because of antennae, banners, and wings is overblown because infinitely tall ruins can hide them anyway.

Regarding the LoS debate, I suppose one advantage of removing any sense of firing arcs is that there is no longer any scenario in which a vehicle can be shot without being able to return fire.

So if an antenna on a Leman Russ can be shot, that Leman Russ can fire its entire arsenal through that antenna.

Beyond that, I think the issue with house-ruling this sort of thing is that it seems entirely open to debate and opinion as to what counts as a 'vital' part of a model.

For example, I used to see it suggested that the sails on Raiders shouldn't count. Okay, I can get behind that. However, it was also said that the nose-cones shouldn't count either. That seems very strange to me.

Hell, it seems strange that wings wouldn't count. I mean, they're still part of the model's actual body, right? This isn't like a flag. You'd expect shooting them to, at the very least, severely slow the model down. I can understand why you wouldn't want wings to count (especially looking at that abomination above). At the same time, it's not your opponent's fault that GW made the wings three-stories tall.

A good test I think is whether removing the tactical rock on the new jump marines is modelling for an advantage or not.

The captain is quite tall on the rock, and if I get one. I would be compelled to remove it.
It looks stupid, and from a hobby perspective I could not be happy with it.

But a tournament or even other player’s independent may consider that an advantage on a CC unit.

how would "wings don't count" work with a T'au Manta?

the "tactical rock" stuff needs to be a separate part, with options for rook, industrial wreckage etc so you can at least try to fit a theme