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 Da Boss wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I feel like there is also an issue with a disconnect from younger more modern gamers andolder gamers. middle millenials and younger want a game with a tight ruleset where you can face off and prove her is better. competition is a way to socializing.
Older gamers really see it was just a way to kill time and play a game.

I think that's broadly true, though I think you characterise the older gamers in a bit of a dismissive way. I spend a lot of time thinking about my games, painting miniatures for them, making custom scenery, thinking through scenarios - they're not a trivial investment for me in terms of time, love and attention. As I've gotten older, honestly this hobby has become more and more important to me.

But when I play, I try to win, sure, but I don't really care if I do or I don't. I like a close game, and I like some interesting tactical decisions. But I am totally disinterested in list building - I want to play with my collection and I want to only use units I think are cool and fit the scenario I have in mind. I don't want weird skew armies unless that's the entire point of the scenario. I want a system that has enough simulation in it to give me the feeling of something that makes sense - what "would" happen. I want the system to be light enough that I can teach it to non-gamers and get them up and running.

And given all the effort I'm putting into all these different aspects, if a rules system asks me to compromise on any of it, I'll just look for another system. Like if your rule system requires boring terrain set ups because it doesn't balance shooting any other way, I'm looking for something else. If it doesn't let me play with models from my collection, I'm going to look for something that will. If it doesn't provide interesting, relatively simulationist gameplay and I can't teach it to my friends easily, it's a non-starter.

I'd be up for a tournament, as a way to hang out, play a bunch of games, see a bunch of armies and meet new people. I'll even happily play a competitive game with someone in their preferred system if they seem cool. But what I'm really dreaming about is that curated experience where everything is just right, because I've sorted it all out myself.

I didnt mean so sound dismissive, my mistake its just a way I see games vs how older generations do. I think alot of older generations are more than ok just playing games with the same people, or something. are ok with using the same minis again and again, nothing wrong with. i think the changes In how games are played, constant growth and new units, new things and new ways to play, things that drive growth in the hobby. people wasnt to feel like a game is alive so constant units makes it feel like it is.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
...i think the changes In how games are played, constant growth and new units, new things and new ways to play, things that drive growth in the hobby. people wasnt to feel like a game is alive so constant units makes it feel like it is.

Speaking as a grouchy old person, I'm not even slightly annoyed by the addition of new units. I am annoyed by the release of units that invalidate existing units and the deletion of old units. If I wanted to play a game where the pieces I needed to play the game could be casually deleted because the writers would prefer I bought different units I'd be playing games where I didn't have to spend time and energy building and painting them first.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
...i think the changes In how games are played, constant growth and new units, new things and new ways to play, things that drive growth in the hobby. people wasnt to feel like a game is alive so constant units makes it feel like it is.

Speaking as a grouchy old person, I'm not even slightly annoyed by the addition of new units. I am annoyed by the release of units that invalidate existing units and the deletion of old units. If I wanted to play a game where the pieces I needed to play the game could be casually deleted because the writers would prefer I bought different units I'd be playing games where I didn't have to spend time and energy building and painting them first.

You'd be a CCG player!

Speaking of the CCG players.... It always amuses some of at the shop when the card players are watching us play a minis game. They comment on how cool it looks, etc etc etc. And then say something dumb like "I could never afford to play a minis game". (we last heard this the other day from people watching a couple of Bushido games - a skirmish game requiring around 7-10 models )
They are then amazed when they learn that some of us are using models older than they are. Meanwhile the cards they bought just a year or so ago? Are out of rotation, banned, have been sold off & replaced twice over....
We've also joked about how many of them would instantly become minis players if One Piece had a minis game.

I dont have much positive to say to this thread to be honest. By now, 40K is only about the miniatures for me, only so much churn one can take..

The best thing about 11th edition releasing is the fact that it will forever "freeze" the 10th edition rules and points values. So one can now complete collecting everything ever released for 10th edition and keep playing it indefinitely. in fact, I'd wager that the first few months of 11th edition would be the best possible timing for completing a 10th edition book collection from the second hand markets..

ccs wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
...i think the changes In how games are played, constant growth and new units, new things and new ways to play, things that drive growth in the hobby. people wasnt to feel like a game is alive so constant units makes it feel like it is.

Speaking as a grouchy old person, I'm not even slightly annoyed by the addition of new units. I am annoyed by the release of units that invalidate existing units and the deletion of old units. If I wanted to play a game where the pieces I needed to play the game could be casually deleted because the writers would prefer I bought different units I'd be playing games where I didn't have to spend time and energy building and painting them first.

You'd be a CCG player!

Speaking of the CCG players.... It always amuses some of at the shop when the card players are watching us play a minis game. They comment on how cool it looks, etc etc etc. And then say something dumb like "I could never afford to play a minis game". (we last heard this the other day from people watching a couple of Bushido games - a skirmish game requiring around 7-10 models )
They are then amazed when they learn that some of us are using models older than they are. Meanwhile the cards they bought just a year or so ago? Are out of rotation, banned, have been sold off & replaced twice over....
We've also joked about how many of them would instantly become minis players if One Piece had a minis game.

A friend of mine switched from WHFB tournament Player (doing International championships and stuff) to magic because of AoS. He said Magic is much more expensive if you want to play competitive due to the Rotation you mentioned, cards going for 1000€ and other madness...

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
...i think the changes In how games are played, constant growth and new units, new things and new ways to play, things that drive growth in the hobby. people wasnt to feel like a game is alive so constant units makes it feel like it is.

Speaking as a grouchy old person, I'm not even slightly annoyed by the addition of new units. I am annoyed by the release of units that invalidate existing units and the deletion of old units. If I wanted to play a game where the pieces I needed to play the game could be casually deleted because the writers would prefer I bought different units I'd be playing games where I didn't have to spend time and energy building and painting them first.

I’m also a Sad Old Git, and whilst new units are nice? New Units For The Sake Of New Units irk me.

I’m not against Primaris as a thing. Background wise I’m rather fond of them. But GW has gone overboard with adding new units and arms. There’s a part of me resentful a modern Marine army doesn’t really look like a classic Marine army. But then, I don’t play 40K these days, let alone Marines so my opinion there is of extremely limited value to be honest.

And the backdrop of course is other lines not getting anything like fair treatment. Now, I will gratefully acknowledge that GW are better with Xenos armies than perhaps ever before. Orks, Eldar, Nids, and Necrons have all had hefty updates and editions which, crucially for me, haven’t changed the Shape of the army.

But Dark Eldar? Yeesh. And Chaos remains a weird hodge podge of half imagined ideas and overly separated forces. Sure, the models that both have are pretty damned good. And I don’t think they’ve many lagging behind in the aesthetic stakes.

Let’s consider World Eaters. What’s there, I like. But where the blinking flip is the rest of it? And where oh where are the god dedicated Daemon Engines? Those have been a thing since Titan Legions. If you’re going to make playing WE, EC, TS and DG unique experiences with very different units and strategies? OK fine. But do it right, yeah? Make them feel like sizable and varied forces within their own ranks.

For instance? With World Eaters to carry the origin of this critique’s theme? OK you’ve the Astartes units. But why doesn’t the army also offer Stimmed Up Mortal Gladiators as a viable army without having to repeat That One Unit six times? Where are the Khornate Terminators? You’ve got the perfectly good and ultimately horrifying Red Butchers from Heresy. Those are ace. Veteran Brothers lost to their rage with remotely deactivated suits of Terminator Plate. What might they have evolved into over the past 10,000 years? What about Blood Slaughtereds, Tower of Skulls, the Deathdealer, Brass Scorpion and so on?

Of course I can’t speak for everyone, but I’d imagine most gamers would prefer to wait for their army a little longer than be in receipt of something distinctly half arsed and incomplete.

And, especially where Chaos is concerned? Just bite the bloody bullet and let Chaos players a pretty free choice in which Codex they draw their units from. That way, you can go purist, or reflect the mental approach where each unit is essentially a Warband unto itself, temporarily allied to others.

Perhaps have God Alignment as the dominant restriction. So you could have Khorne and Tzeentch and Khorne and Nurgle, but not Khorne and Slaanesh etc.

 Jidmah wrote:
Top competitive players either have teams or complete collections with 3 of everything. If something was overpowered, it usually became the standard within a week or so. Sometimes an overpowered thing was something everyone already head from previous editions, like the DG demon engines. Then it's everywhere immediately.

I agree that a competitive list needs most of the abilities in the game to work. As LunarSol said, if you don't have any advance and charge in your list, then you are playing with one hand behind your back. As you say, you usually want some infiltrators/scout otherwise you potentially lose the game from deployment. Some uppy-downy is extremely useful etc.

I also agree if something appears explicitly overpowered then its tried and upon success gets everywhere very quickly.
I guess what I'm talking about is detachments which the "competitive meta discussers" (which is a rather niche area of the game) think are weaker, but I think are playable.
I'd argue that not everything can be tested all the time. And if you accept there's quite a bit of skill in 40k, something being tested by someone who constantly makes mistakes that cost them games isn't really a fair test.

How "good" for example is the Kroot detachment? I'd argue its quite capable - and occasionally has runs in tournaments. But equally its played about about 5% of Tau players. Most just don't have the models or any interest in getting them.

I guess I also have a slight bias in playing Dark Eldar. Right now competitively the best detachment is Spectacle of Spite, which tends to be a Wych/Hellion skew with supporting pieces.
I don't think anyone is really playing Realspace Raiders - which I'd argue is our "generalist" detachment. Very few are playing the Covenite Coterie either - presumably due to thinking it sucks. (Skared went 3-1 with it about 6 weeks ago, but I don't think it was run in a recorded tournament in March.) But do we "know" it sucks? How can we, if no one is trying it? (I guess you can play games at home which don't get recorded, but still.)
But with a relative lack of overlap (some near obligatory scourge and mandrakes and transports I guess), to be able to play Kabals/Covens/Cults detachments "properly", I'd need about 4-5k~ points of Dark Eldar. Which I don't have.

Sorry, there was too much to quote, so i cropped out thr bit im responding to.

Tyel wrote:

But do we "know" it sucks? How can we, if no one is trying it? (I guess you can play games at home which don't get recorded, but still.)
.

Well, personally I know how to read & I know how to play this game.
I then combine those two skills to arrive at an initial conclusion....

After that I add in consideration what other people are likely bringing.
(This gets easier if I actually know who these other people are.)

The final consideration is personal.
"Will I enjoy playing this style, army, mix of units?"
If any of those answers are "NO"? Then regardless of how good list is overall, for others, I wont do well with it & thus won't play it.

ccs wrote:
The final consideration is personal.
"Will I enjoy playing this style, army, mix of units?"
If any of those answers are "NO"? Then regardless of how good list is overall, for others, I wont do well with it & thus won't play it.

I agree that there's nothing more likely to drive you away from the hobby than picking an army "because its good" when you have no interest in the minis, the fluff, or how the army will actually play (and feel to play) on the table.
But that is ultimately subjective.

What I'm trying to say is "does Covenite Coterie suck full stop? Or would say 10/20/50 competitive games with it really give me a feel for what works, what doesn't, where I can push and where I can't". I don't know if that information is immediately available. I think in the past Jidmah has noted how certain big names of the "professional 40k chatting circuit" have made big claims about Orks that turned out to be wrong - because you can't play the faction as if its Marines or Eldar. You have to get experience of playing it "as Orks".

I guess you'd dislike it because they took away the all Talos/Cronos build.

Tyel wrote:

ccs wrote:
The final consideration is personal.
"Will I enjoy playing this style, army, mix of units?"
If any of those answers are "NO"? Then regardless of how good list is overall, for others, I wont do well with it & thus won't play it.

I agree that there's nothing more likely to drive you away from the hobby than picking an army "because its good" when you have no interest in the minis, the fluff, or how the army will actually play (and feel to play) on the table.
But that is ultimately subjective.

What I'm trying to say is "does Covenite Coterie suck full stop? Or would say 10/20/50 competitive games with it really give me a feel for what works, what doesn't, where I can push and where I can't". I don't know if that information is immediately available. I think in the past Jidmah has noted how certain big names of the "professional 40k chatting circuit" have made big claims about Orks that turned out to be wrong - because you can't play the faction as if its Marines or Eldar. You have to get experience of playing it "as Orks".

I guess you'd dislike it because they took away the all Talos/Cronos build.

Despite popular belief alot of people, event hardcore tournament goers, do not buy armies just because they are good.

Take all comers lists weather edition changes better then those who rely on certain rules interactions. Of course, top performing tournament lists tend to lean into those, as they need to squeeze 100% of the power they can out of an army.

Also it’s safer to stick to the core theme of your army. Sure, there are niche themes and sub-factions, and those will probably be OK. But sometimes GW will take them behind the shed and put a bolt round through them.

GW also has a history of wild pendulum swings of cross edition balance. Today’s hotness will often pay the price by being nerfed into the ground in the next edition. Although with their more frequent balance passes this is not as horrible as it used to be.