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And thats arguably GWs fault for not balancing the game appropriately while still catering to a narrative mindset. Its possible to do both, the narrative competitive balance was healthy in the 4th/5th edition. IMO it was the 6th and 7th edition era when they actually started catering to the competitive community more that the disconnect between narrative and competitive started to set in.

The disconnect started the moment codex creep started. People have been playing to win since forever, codex creep just made the tools to do so very blatantly obvious.

EDIT: and while relatively tame compared to what would come after, codex creep really got going during 5th.

codex creep seems a natural process that ive encountered in basically every tabletop wargame I've ever played, so I'm not willing to blame that as root cause for a problem that is overwhelmingly unique to just 40k and Warmachine. I have not encountered the same behaviors or attitudes in the AoS or 30k communities, nor the Malifaux, MESBG, Battletech, Flames of War/Team Yankee, or Conquest communities (for just a cross section of the circles I travel in). Bolt Action is a weird one because there is a certain "competitive style" to the game that causes friction with those who play casually in some circles, etc.

PenitentJake wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
GW started pandering to the ITC crowd because the ITC put the money where their mouth was and managed to get large amounts of people to adopt their rulesets as standard.

Had they ignored it chances are ITC would keep growing and diverging until GW had little control over the rules of their own game.

I still think that would have been preferable to allowing an outside entity to dictate changing your rules based on an incredibly vocal minority who loves to shout down all dissenting opinions.

It worked fine for 25 years.

A vocal minority that somehow managed to make most of the US play their way... Doesn't pass the smell test. The silent majority that wants to play roulette missions just doesn't exist, find the handful of people in your area who wants to play that way but stop trying to make us believe that everyone wants to play with dragon attacks that determine the game more than player decisions and relic missions which create tonnes of unwinnable matchups. Prove that a loud minority can change how everyone plays, make your state mainly play the 4th edition missions, shouldn't be a challenge at all since it's proper GW rules and not overhyped homebrew or whatever you want to call ITC.

As far as I know, GW doesn't publish information that would allow anyone to make an informed statement.

An educated guess would be that whatever most individuals say they privately want to play when you ask them is what the majority wants. If that's roulette missions but what you see at your club is mostly ITC missions because of two vocal and active tournament players that are always training for their next GT and the rotating list of rogue casual players go along with it because it's easier it still shouldn't be an issue to organize regular roulette missions in your area, so there'd be no reason to be such a vocal hater of the loud minority of ITC enjoyers. If it's ITC missions because they want player interactions and their opponent's list to be what decides the game, not (Russian) roulette missions or random terrain tables then there is no silent majority that wants what Wayniac claims the silent majority wants.

I'm going to assume that the UK has the highest player base per capita, but I don't know about absolute numbers. With a world wide hobby, it certainly is possible for a loud minority to influence the dominant playstyle in the US, because on the world stage, all of the US is a minority. There are 400 million 'Mericans. There are 7.6 billion of everyone else. If every single customer in the US wanted tournament play only, that could still be a minority of players on the world stage.

UK was happily playing their Frankenstein of Russian roulette and eternal war while the US was doing ITC (OMG homebrew is scary when Americans do it). If the UK had hated the 9th edition ITC-style missions they would have rioted and played with their 8th edition missions, if not at GTs then at home, maybe they did but if that was the case there is still no reason to make conspiracy theories about how the evil ITC people are influencing the game against the will of the silent majority. Every bad rules change becomes the fault of tournament players, but when GW cancels their competitive playtesters and decides to break the game with the Eldar Yahtzee mechanic people don't blame the vocal casuals.

Wayniac wrote:
Even now, part of the problem is that people will refuse to play things not Leviathan, or cite them as not being "real" 40k. Even things like Crusade, or the Bunker missions they have been publishing in white dwarf (four of them now, all of them are based on the Open War mission in the core rules so no secondary objectives but interesting twists or additions for VP, like one of them certain objectives give a 5++ save, another if your warlord dies your whole army needs to take Battle-shock, very interesting missions that aren't just Leviathan stuff), people immediately start bitching that you "need" secondary objectives to have a balanced game, which IMHO just sounds like ITC propaganda bullgak that has bled into the masses.

Why is the silent majority that loves roulette missions and hates ITC devils refusing to play the roulette missions you suggest playing? Either it's because you're a gakhat and nobody wants to play you or it's because there is no silent majority that likes the missions you like. You're not so bad, you just have a different taste in 40k than your locals, no need to be angry at ITC or Nova.

Wayniac wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
How would you go about gathering data from non-tournament games?
Genuine question.

I wouldn't. But I also wouldn't use tournament data as the only metric for balancing, especially since those people will always find the OP combos and abuse them, so trying to fix it is a futile effort as they just move onto whatever is next, they never "learn" not to do it in the first place, so GW constant chasing them every few month does nothing but shake up the game for everyone else, invalidate codexes before they ever come out, and in general make it hard to find half the rules anyway.

Where tournament data should help is identifying actually broken things (e.g. Titanic, Eldar) and, if it's showing that the factions have an acceptable win rate but then you look and it's like 1-2 lists that are viable, identifying what should be corrected to fix that. Instead they act like a 55% win rate is something to be proud of, and comp players will say look how great the balance is we have 8 factions all within 3% win rates or whatever crap, but then you see each of those factions are being propped up by one "meta" list and that's it. So it's IMHO useless.

How can it both be futile and helpful? Now that GW have gotten everyone into a sane win rate they can make adjustments to internal balance (starting with making wargear cost points again). I think Death Guard and Eldar players are happy they can have game now without the Eldar player having to bring 1500 pts, even if it requires the Death Guard player to dig through his cabinets for the models that give him a chance.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
...Tournament Edition 40k, which is what 9th was...

That's an odd way to spell Crusade Edition 40k. Maybe you meant Narrative Edition 40k? Especially odd given how few tournaments there were at the start of 9th, what a puzzling statement.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
...It's been very interesting witnessing tourny-play become more and more of a scapegoat for balancing problems as time goes on. I'm really curious what people think tournament-play had to do with the creation of things like Daemon-factory, strength D weapons, invisibility spam,deathstars with 2+ invulns, allies shenanigans etc.

I think you're missing the point. Tournament play isn't being blamed for "balance problems", it's being blamed for the game turning into what, to some of us, is an ever blander and blander exercise in grinding balls of numbers against each other that doesn't make any concessions to narrative or immersion, and for a community that is increasingly confused and terrified by the prospect of varying from the official rules in any way lest they "ruin the balance of the game". The difference between 3rd-7th and 8th-10th isn't that one was balanced and the other wasn't, it's that in 3rd-7th we all knew and acknowledged the game didn't work very well as written and we should have the freedom to fiddle with it, while 8th-10th feels increasingly like it's dominated by an attitude that people should be playing "real 40k" and any deviation from the official rules should be frowned on and criticized.

It's the casual 40k writers that decided to turn melee into a boring artificial stupidity grind instead of a tactical exercise in positioning.

Talked about a 2055 list a few weeks ago (not here) and had someone tell me with a straight face that you can't play that points level.

I actually did the same thing with 1500 points, I don't want to make a list for a game mode I'm never going to play again and that I can't compare apples to apples with anyone else, while 1k or 2k is more of a standard experience, it's a bit like watching a German language indie film instead of the latest blockbuster. With 2055 there's the added thing of feeling like someone refuses to play by the rules and cheats by going over the points limit when you've played by the rules and worked out the puzzle of getting a list that is close to but not higher than 2k.

 vict0988 wrote:

Spoiler:

PenitentJake wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
GW started pandering to the ITC crowd because the ITC put the money where their mouth was and managed to get large amounts of people to adopt their rulesets as standard.

Had they ignored it chances are ITC would keep growing and diverging until GW had little control over the rules of their own game.

I still think that would have been preferable to allowing an outside entity to dictate changing your rules based on an incredibly vocal minority who loves to shout down all dissenting opinions.

It worked fine for 25 years.

A vocal minority that somehow managed to make most of the US play their way... Doesn't pass the smell test. The silent majority that wants to play roulette missions just doesn't exist, find the handful of people in your area who wants to play that way but stop trying to make us believe that everyone wants to play with dragon attacks that determine the game more than player decisions and relic missions which create tonnes of unwinnable matchups. Prove that a loud minority can change how everyone plays, make your state mainly play the 4th edition missions, shouldn't be a challenge at all since it's proper GW rules and not overhyped homebrew or whatever you want to call ITC.

As far as I know, GW doesn't publish information that would allow anyone to make an informed statement.

An educated guess would be that whatever most individuals say they privately want to play when you ask them is what the majority wants. If that's roulette missions but what you see at your club is mostly ITC missions because of two vocal and active tournament players that are always training for their next GT and the rotating list of rogue casual players go along with it because it's easier it still shouldn't be an issue to organize regular roulette missions in your area, so there'd be no reason to be such a vocal hater of the loud minority of ITC enjoyers. If it's ITC missions because they want player interactions and their opponent's list to be what decides the game, not (Russian) roulette missions or random terrain tables then there is no silent majority that wants what Wayniac claims the silent majority wants.

I'm going to assume that the UK has the highest player base per capita, but I don't know about absolute numbers. With a world wide hobby, it certainly is possible for a loud minority to influence the dominant playstyle in the US, because on the world stage, all of the US is a minority. There are 400 million 'Mericans. There are 7.6 billion of everyone else. If every single customer in the US wanted tournament play only, that could still be a minority of players on the world stage.

UK was happily playing their Frankenstein of Russian roulette and eternal war while the US was doing ITC (OMG homebrew is scary when Americans do it). If the UK had hated the 9th edition ITC-style missions they would have rioted and played with their 8th edition missions, if not at GTs then at home, maybe they did but if that was the case there is still no reason to make conspiracy theories about how the evil ITC people are influencing the game against the will of the silent majority. Every bad rules change becomes the fault of tournament players, but when GW cancels their competitive playtesters and decides to break the game with the Eldar Yahtzee mechanic people don't blame the vocal casuals.

Wayniac wrote:
Even now, part of the problem is that people will refuse to play things not Leviathan, or cite them as not being "real" 40k. Even things like Crusade, or the Bunker missions they have been publishing in white dwarf (four of them now, all of them are based on the Open War mission in the core rules so no secondary objectives but interesting twists or additions for VP, like one of them certain objectives give a 5++ save, another if your warlord dies your whole army needs to take Battle-shock, very interesting missions that aren't just Leviathan stuff), people immediately start bitching that you "need" secondary objectives to have a balanced game, which IMHO just sounds like ITC propaganda bullgak that has bled into the masses.

Why is the silent majority that loves roulette missions and hates ITC devils refusing to play the roulette missions you suggest playing? Either it's because you're a gakhat and nobody wants to play you or it's because there is no silent majority that likes the missions you like. You're not so bad, you just have a different taste in 40k than your locals, no need to be angry at ITC or Nova.

Wayniac wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
How would you go about gathering data from non-tournament games?
Genuine question.

I wouldn't. But I also wouldn't use tournament data as the only metric for balancing, especially since those people will always find the OP combos and abuse them, so trying to fix it is a futile effort as they just move onto whatever is next, they never "learn" not to do it in the first place, so GW constant chasing them every few month does nothing but shake up the game for everyone else, invalidate codexes before they ever come out, and in general make it hard to find half the rules anyway.

Where tournament data should help is identifying actually broken things (e.g. Titanic, Eldar) and, if it's showing that the factions have an acceptable win rate but then you look and it's like 1-2 lists that are viable, identifying what should be corrected to fix that. Instead they act like a 55% win rate is something to be proud of, and comp players will say look how great the balance is we have 8 factions all within 3% win rates or whatever crap, but then you see each of those factions are being propped up by one "meta" list and that's it. So it's IMHO useless.

How can it both be futile and helpful? Now that GW have gotten everyone into a sane win rate they can make adjustments to internal balance (starting with making wargear cost points again). I think Death Guard and Eldar players are happy they can have game now without the Eldar player having to bring 1500 pts, even if it requires the Death Guard player to dig through his cabinets for the models that give him a chance.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
...Tournament Edition 40k, which is what 9th was...

That's an odd way to spell Crusade Edition 40k. Maybe you meant Narrative Edition 40k? Especially odd given how few tournaments there were at the start of 9th, what a puzzling statement.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
...It's been very interesting witnessing tourny-play become more and more of a scapegoat for balancing problems as time goes on. I'm really curious what people think tournament-play had to do with the creation of things like Daemon-factory, strength D weapons, invisibility spam,deathstars with 2+ invulns, allies shenanigans etc.

I think you're missing the point. Tournament play isn't being blamed for "balance problems", it's being blamed for the game turning into what, to some of us, is an ever blander and blander exercise in grinding balls of numbers against each other that doesn't make any concessions to narrative or immersion, and for a community that is increasingly confused and terrified by the prospect of varying from the official rules in any way lest they "ruin the balance of the game". The difference between 3rd-7th and 8th-10th isn't that one was balanced and the other wasn't, it's that in 3rd-7th we all knew and acknowledged the game didn't work very well as written and we should have the freedom to fiddle with it, while 8th-10th feels increasingly like it's dominated by an attitude that people should be playing "real 40k" and any deviation from the official rules should be frowned on and criticized.

It's the casual 40k writers that decided to turn melee into a boring artificial stupidity grind instead of a tactical exercise in positioning.

Talked about a 2055 list a few weeks ago (not here) and had someone tell me with a straight face that you can't play that points level.

I actually did the same thing with 1500 points, I don't want to make a list for a game mode I'm never going to play again and that I can't compare apples to apples with anyone else, while 1k or 2k is more of a standard experience, it's a bit like watching a German language indie film instead of the latest blockbuster. With 2055 there's the added thing of feeling like someone refuses to play by the rules and cheats by going over the points limit when you've played by the rules and worked out the puzzle of getting a list that is close to but not higher than 2k.

The point you keep missing isn't whether ITC itself is bad or not, the point is that the influence it had actively changed the shape and course of the game.

No small number of people are saying the spirit and feel of the game has worsened since 40k became ITC lite. It's also not that houserules are scary when Americans do it. It's scary when it's forced on a large swathe of the community as the "correct" way to do it. And for the talk of "roulette missions", tempest of war came out to wide praise in 9th. 10th is based, in part on luck based objectives, albeit quite safe ones.

Further to that point, the reason ITC caused some problems as noted in many places, is that GW were balancing a game around their missions played their way. Which is why it became harder for ITC to constantly have to rebalance everything, because it was a different game.

Luck based missions have no room in a good tournament mission pack. They're the most fun to play casually. 10th edition missions have no narrative throughput, the deployment zone, objectives and special rules are decided seperately which is not to my taste.

Of course, ITC had an impact on the shape of the game, it was massively popular in the US and helped grow the scene to insane proportions. Just like fans of Tempest of War (Russian roulette) and the Open War deck and narrative missions (roulette) had an impact on the game. But I'm not claiming that the bleh missions in 10th came from a loud minority.

GW nerfed Ogryn when they were garbage and did not touch Bullgryn in the same patch despite that being a core competitive unit for the faction in ITC. Where did ITC missions help make balance worse for other mission sets? By nerfing Iron Hands which were 69% win rate in ITC? But wait, Iron Hands were 65% win rate in every mission format so they didn't cause damage there. Give me 5 concrete examples where ITC hurt balance for other mission sets and I'll give you 20 examples where the data gathered at ITC tournaments helping balance for everyone.

It sure as gak shouldn't be tempest or maelstrom missions providing the background for game analysis, it's way too random which can hide a lot of gak balance.

Lol, vict you assume that the standardised format doesn't do the same aswell , infact it will advantage certain types of factions far more so that when you play not standardised but out of the rulebook suddendly you are confronted with issues that are blindspots for your approach.

Also ro3, cultist nerfs , aircraft and indirect fire etcetc.

Arguably due to the non randomised approach you have massive issues in regards to statistical bias.

 vict0988 wrote:
Luck based missions have no room in a good tournament mission pack. They're the most fun to play casually. 10th edition missions have no narrative throughput, the deployment zone, objectives and special rules are decided seperately which is not to my taste.

Of course, ITC had an impact on the shape of the game, it was massively popular in the US and helped grow the scene to insane proportions. Just like fans of Tempest of War (Russian roulette) and the Open War deck and narrative missions (roulette) had an impact on the game. But I'm not claiming that the bleh missions in 10th came from a loud minority.

GW nerfed Ogryn when they were garbage and did not touch Bullgryn in the same patch despite that being a core competitive unit for the faction in ITC. Where did ITC missions help make balance worse for other mission sets? By nerfing Iron Hands which were 69% win rate in ITC? But wait, Iron Hands were 65% win rate in every mission format so they didn't cause damage there. Give me 5 concrete examples where ITC hurt balance for other mission sets and I'll give you 20 examples where the data gathered at ITC tournaments helping balance for everyone.

It sure as gak shouldn't be tempest or maelstrom missions providing the background for game analysis, it's way too random which can hide a lot of gak balance.

Loud minority (streamers, podcasts, YouTube content) > primarily event focused and US based > play ITC missions and advertise it as best way to play > people start playing ITC casually as it's the content they're normalised to > GW missions actively avoided or not played > GW takes over from ITC > online presences and the like rockets > people now only play tournament matched play as the "default" > GW skews their marketing and products appropriately > present day.

Maybe my memory is skewed, but I feel ITC wasn't unknown in the UK even in 7th edition, and was an increasingly common ruleset in tournaments by the second half of 2018 or into 2019.

Really though I'd just echo the point that people didn't like this system of "we're doing this mission, oh your army is screwed" any more than "oh you get this side of the table, yeah this terrain is completely unfair".

There were various attempts to make Russian Roulette work - but I don't think it was ever that popular. It was sort of enjoyable because ITC has generally produced a hard meta (these 2-3 lists=win everything) whereas everything's up in the air with Tempest of War. But losing (or even winning) games just because you draw well and they draw badly isn't all that fun. There's no illusion that you made the correct decisions and therefore "played better".

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
...It's been very interesting witnessing tourny-play become more and more of a scapegoat for balancing problems as time goes on. I'm really curious what people think tournament-play had to do with the creation of things like Daemon-factory, strength D weapons, invisibility spam,deathstars with 2+ invulns, allies shenanigans etc.

I think you're missing the point. Tournament play isn't being blamed for "balance problems", it's being blamed for the game turning into what, to some of us, is an ever blander and blander exercise in grinding balls of numbers against each other that doesn't make any concessions to narrative or immersion, and for a community that is increasingly confused and terrified by the prospect of varying from the official rules in any way lest they "ruin the balance of the game". The difference between 3rd-7th and 8th-10th isn't that one was balanced and the other wasn't, it's that in 3rd-7th we all knew and acknowledged the game didn't work very well as written and we should have the freedom to fiddle with it, while 8th-10th feels increasingly like it's dominated by an attitude that people should be playing "real 40k" and any deviation from the official rules should be frowned on and criticized.

B-b-b-b-bingo! You see it all the time on various places like Reddit and even here. Mentions of "official" base sizes, a thing which does not, and hasn't ever existed in 40k. People asking things like if their opponent would frown on them to use a HH Rhino in 40k, the aforementioned example showing how it has permeated its way into newer players without them ever having been exposed as to "why" they were told to think that was even a question they had to ask. The list goes on...

The more random the inputs the more statistical bias, that's why I said it's a problem.

I don't see how Ro3 makes it impossible to balance formats without Ro3. If a unit often gets taken at 3 then it needs to be nerfed, this will benefit formats where you can take 5 of them. How often will a unit only be good once you can take 6 of them but not when you take 3? I'd say never. I can see rule of 2 for Flyers limiting things enough to blind the designers from certain problematic flyers because 2 Flyers is very few. What was the Cultist nerf you mentioned and what do you mean by the indirect fire nerf? That it didn't apply to certain formats?

Why most people in the US preferred ITC doesn't matter, most people preferred it, there was no silent majority wanting to play UK Frankenmissions. If you want a loud minority to actually decide then there needs to be a silent majority that disagrees.

 vict0988 wrote:
The more random the inputs the more statistical bias, that's why I said it's a problem.

So why do all statistics that are worth anything at all randomise the people they question as much as possible from their datapoint in a specific set of people ? Even when it is a specific field and therefore the subset of questioned people get's restricted?

I don't see how Ro3 makes it impossible to balance formats without Ro3. If a unit often gets taken at 3 then it needs to be nerfed, this will benefit formats where you can take 5 of them. How often will a unit only be good once you can take 6 of them but not when you take 3? I'd say never. I can see rule of 2 for Flyers limiting things enough to blind the designers from certain problematic flyers because 2 Flyers is very few. What was the Cultist nerf you mentioned and what do you mean by the indirect fire nerf? That it didn't apply to certain formats?

Why most people in the US preferred ITC doesn't matter, most people preferred it, there was no silent majority wanting to play UK Frankenmissions. If you want a loud minority to actually decide then there needs to be a silent majority that disagrees.

Ro3 was a Bandaid solution to units that were a problem in the ITC sphere but a lot of these weren't an issue in non ITC standardised formats. It didn't help that we are talking about GW for which 3+ Veterans = 3+ Badmoons planes. Something that would've been more than obvious to GW if it had actually sat down and tested the far less restricted detachment system with any ammount of it. feths sake it was obvious from merely reading the rules.

The cultist nerf was: because in ITC standardised formats you saw only cultists in 8th -9th instead of CSM for comp CSM lists. So clearly Cultists were a problem, except they weren't their mainline competitor that was even better, was picked plentifully and the endresult was that a comparative worse unit got a higher Pts pricetag. Whilest they still pushed CSM out due to opportunity cost provoked by internal factors thanks to a fethed up wound table and doubleshooting nonsenery.

Just looking at the ITC system hasn't done realistically anyhting, it merely highlights which units in which factions perform good enough in these circumstances, and those are far too small due to the pool of terrain and mission design to be accurate enough to solely square balance on it. Indeed the lack of list variety provoked by that small specific set of missions is the key reason as to why it is a problem to draw data from it exclusivly as is done, because GW is lazy.
Arguably a lot of wrong takes from it would be avoidable if GW had better internal and more flexible testing in it's forces and built the balance from there, instead of post release on the fly adaptation from an overly specific subset of the player population that is the issue.


For the record, i still think competition data is worth more than casual data, however, we can't ignore that the current competitive data pool comes from a specific set dictated by specific parameters that differ far too much to draw deciscive conclusion out of it in many cases.

 vict0988 wrote:
That's an odd way to spell Crusade Edition 40k. Maybe you meant Narrative Edition 40k? Especially odd given how few tournaments there were at the start of 9th, what a puzzling statement.

You can keep sayin' it as much as you like, but it ain't ever gonna be true.

 vict0988 wrote:

Why most people in the US preferred ITC doesn't matter, most people preferred it, there was no silent majority wanting to play UK Frankenmissions. If you want a loud minority to actually decide then there needs to be a silent majority that disagrees.

Of course it matters. If it becomes the de-facto game format in your store, it doesn't make it your preferred game method, it makes the only one you have assured access to. The efforts GW have gone through to bake those preferences/habits into the game are directly impacting the "soul" as described repeatedly over the last few pages.

We get it, you like ITC mission, you don't like randomness in your games. It sounds like GW has moved the game forwards towards your preferences. But I'd also take stock of the fact you are the vocal minority in this thread at this point.

 Grimtuff wrote:
B-b-b-b-bingo! You see it all the time on various places like Reddit and even here. Mentions of "official" base sizes, a thing which does not, and hasn't ever existed in 40k. People asking things like if their opponent would frown on them to use a HH Rhino in 40k, the aforementioned example showing how it has permeated its way into newer players without them ever having been exposed as to "why" they were told to think that was even a question they had to ask. The list goes on...

Our own Breton made a post talking about how he would check old Sternguard and new Sternguard vs the terrain on the table to see whether he'd be fine using old Sternguard over the newer models, lest the few mm shorter Marines give an advantage.

That's where we're at.

gw wanted the cult of officialdom to monopolise it's market share after chapterhouse.
Unfortunate sideeffect.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
That's an odd way to spell Crusade Edition 40k. Maybe you meant Narrative Edition 40k? Especially odd given how few tournaments there were at the start of 9th, what a puzzling statement.

You can keep sayin' it as much as you like, but it ain't ever gonna be true.

It is certainly true, as HBMC says that tournament play drove all the balancing data, and that it was the format most played in 9th.

However, it is also true that in 9th there were far more published resources with Crusade content than without. It is also true that Crusade was more of its own thing in 9th than it is in 10th. There have already been more updates affecting Crusade in 10th than there were in all of 9th- PL changed once or twice; Armour of Contempt and Boarding Actions were the only changes in 9th that affected Crusade if I'm not mistaken.

In 10th, every fething points up date has, and will continue to affect Crusade. Another thing I dislike about 10th.

To this day I've still never actually seen someone play Crusade, and only know one person irl who has any experience with the format. If not for threads on dakka I'd assume it was not really a successful format.

chaos0xomega wrote:
To this day I've still never actually seen someone play Crusade, and only know one person irl who has any experience with the format. If not for threads on dakka I'd assume it was not really a successful format.

someone at the local club has mentioned using it for a campaign, seems to be getting a sub zero amount of traction. Have to say I have basically no idea what it is

chaos0xomega wrote:
To this day I've still never actually seen someone play Crusade, and only know one person irl who has any experience with the format. If not for threads on dakka I'd assume it was not really a successful format.

I think crusade has two major issues that even now kind of make it in a weird spot:

1) in my experience people really don't like bookkeeping even though it has minimal. In ninth at least I also feel there was a lot of misconceptions that people didn't realize you still agreed to a point or power level; I recall talking to a few people thought the idea was okay but were afraid of having a situation where they may have had say a 50 PL force and their opponent had 60 because God forbid you don't have exactly even levels.

2) this goes back to the previous discussion but because the missions are specific and don't use matched play it still has that stigma. I can't put my finger up what it is but I don't get why people are so caught up in match play as the only thing that could even remotely be balanced when we've obviously seen that's a load of crap.

But if you go on to like the competitive subreddit or something and ask about using missions not Leviathan or don't have secondaries you immediately told how this is a terrible idea and how some armies automatically win or automatically lose because apparently secondary objectives are such a cornerstone to game balance that it's inconceivable to think of not using them.

leopard wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
To this day I've still never actually seen someone play Crusade, and only know one person irl who has any experience with the format. If not for threads on dakka I'd assume it was not really a successful format.

someone at the local club has mentioned using it for a campaign, seems to be getting a sub zero amount of traction. Have to say I have basically no idea what it is

The problem with Crusade is it's quite a complex and intimidating-looking system if you have no experience with it. Just flick through the Crusade section of any Codex and you'll see it appears like a lot of work and info for questionable improvements to your gaming. That's likely what turns people off.

As far as the general direction this tread has gone in, I agree that tournament play has driven much of what GW has done during 8th-10th. In some ways this is good. Gathering standardised data about army strength is very useful to help balance the game. My problem is GW don't seem to be able to (or want to) interpret the data at all and seem to concentrate far too much on win rate and not enough on other factors like what successful armies look like, what variety there is and how they actually play. I think the ultra standardised approach to tournaments is a massive problem. Randomness is not the great enemy in a tournament setting. The correct amount of randomness is essential in testing the key skills that should be needed in wargaming. I don't know the exact amount of randomness that should be injected but I can tell you it's more than we've had since the ITC/WTC became so prominent.

Most of my games in 9th were crusade, I literally had only 1 non-crusade game in that edition.
But that's also why I know that crusade missions are hardly different from the matched play ones.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Most of my games in 9th were crusade, I literally had only 1 non-crusade game in that edition.
But that's also why I know that crusade missions are hardly different from the matched play ones.

No secondaries, that's enough

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Most of my games in 9th were crusade, I literally had only 1 non-crusade game in that edition.
But that's also why I know that crusade missions are hardly different from the matched play ones.

I still think crusade big problems is the systems it’s built on, not crusade itself. 40K is just not great, and if players are only getting a few games a year, then even if crusade was the best way to play it would probably still be used less.

It’s a fine campaign system, that GW wanted to sell as a narrative system. But good narrative comes from good game rules, and is supplemented by good campaigns.
Even Mordheim, one of GW best games ever has a very satisfying game play on its own despite being simple. The campaign that surrounds it just enhances what may be fairly simple mechanics.

Wayniac wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Most of my games in 9th were crusade, I literally had only 1 non-crusade game in that edition.
But that's also why I know that crusade missions are hardly different from the matched play ones.

No secondaries, that's enough

Well, they called them agendas but it's not that different .

chaos0xomega wrote:
To this day I've still never actually seen someone play Crusade, and only know one person irl who has any experience with the format. If not for threads on dakka I'd assume it was not really a successful format.

About 2/3rds of my 10th games are crusade, and I like crusade, but 10-ths take on it is very poorly balanced for the different factions. Like, Knights, Nids, and Tau all suffer from the fact that they are full of monsters/Walkers, who don't get buffs like other factions but instead have to go down a kill-tally upgrade tree, just as an example. The missions are pretty good, but some are horribly tipped in one player's favor, meaning you are relying on a dice-roll to determine who wins or loses. Not saying I want perfectly symmetrical missions or anything like that, but 10ths crusade is so horribly imbalanced for certain factions and for players joining an existing crusade I can't really recommend it without serious overhaul. At least 10ths crusade anyway.

Apple fox wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Most of my games in 9th were crusade, I literally had only 1 non-crusade game in that edition.
But that's also why I know that crusade missions are hardly different from the matched play ones.

I still think crusade big problems is the systems it’s built on, not crusade itself. 40K is just not great, and if players are only getting a few games a year, then even if crusade was the best way to play it would probably still be used less.

It’s a fine campaign system, that GW wanted to sell as a narrative system. But good narrative comes from good game rules, and is supplemented by good campaigns.
Even Mordheim, one of GW best games ever has a very satisfying game play on its own despite being simple. The campaign that surrounds it just enhances what may be fairly simple mechanics.

Have played Mordhiem a few times, and Necromunda, both have simple mechanics and the idea of a quite small force that you grow and grow to love. a lot of little details in a reasonably basic framework make both work and work well.

Chain of Command has a campaign system I think would work well for 40k as well, your force gets at best minor buffs from the campaign rules, which are really all about balancing three things:

- how well your character feels about themselves
- how well respected your character is by those they lead
- how well respected your character is by superiors

there are maps etc as well, but the core of it is trying to balance and grow the three above

Slipspace wrote:

The problem with Crusade is it's quite a complex and intimidating-looking system if you have no experience with it. Just flick through the Crusade section of any Codex and you'll see it appears like a lot of work and info for questionable improvements to your gaming. That's likely what turns people off.

The progression system certainly can be intimidating for people who prefer wargames.

If you've GMed a 1-20 D&D campaign of any edition, the amount of book keeping Crusade calls for is neglible... But most people who prefer wargames haven't GMed a 1-20 D&D campaign because they prefer wargames. That's why Crusade looks like a lot of work and book keeping.

I can't speak for all people who prefer RPGs, but for me, most wargames are just dull. That's not to say that I can't have fun when I play them- but they are stand-alone one of games that I play casually when a friend is willing to most of the work to make that happen- often supplying the rules, models etc. RPGs, on the other hand, are regular events- I played weekly for five years or so- one campaign 1-20 and the last one we left at 5th due to irreconciliable differences between my partner and I and the rest of the group. Too bad too, because the character I played in that campaign was one of my favourite characters of my 40+ years of RPGing.

I can have that same sense of immersion and progress over time when I use Crusade.

When I don't, it's a series of unrelated stand-alone games with no growth and development over time, which is far less interesting for me.

think campaigns, in any game, have a huge problem,, the need to have a group who can meet up and play them on a regular basis and players who won't lose interest if they are not on a winning streak.

it is interesting how the gameplay gets very different when preserving you own force and minimising casualties becomes a further objective (which is why the why Flame of War scores normal games is interesting). This also creates side missions regardless of the game system, e.g. the desire to splat that hard to replace unit and a willingness to take casualties to do it

leopard wrote:
think campaigns, in any game, have a huge problem,, the need to have a group who can meet up and play them on a regular basis and players who won't lose interest if they are not on a winning streak.

it is interesting how the gameplay gets very different when preserving you own force and minimising casualties becomes a further objective (which is why the why Flame of War scores normal games is interesting). This also creates side missions regardless of the game system, e.g. the desire to splat that hard to replace unit and a willingness to take casualties to do it

Yeah the biggest potential issue I have found in both leagues and campaigns is not limiting games per week. People who can only play once a week feel there's zero reason to bother because the guy who can play 3+ times a week just keeps getting ahead. Even if it's a Crusade or narrative and there's no prize, people tend to lose interest if it feels like they can't "win" just due to not having the time. Even in a system like Crusade which, I'm pretty sure, has ways to give a bonus to someone who is playing with a less experienced force against someone with more, it's the fact of "he can play more than me so he's going to be just better".