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I hear a lot of people doing the thing here at Dakka about the problems with 40K. Why not use the models and simply present a different rules set?

Because there really aren't any other systems that are widely available to the 40K community. Some groups choose to make up their own rules and others do indeed use rules from other sets. However there are only a few compainies that make their product available outside of their nation, and most of those are model makers not rules makers.

Because then they wouldn't get to use the anonymity of the internet to ridicule, complain, abuse other people and generally make an ass out of themselves while trying to give the impression that they are superior to everyone in every way.

As much as we rag on GW, making a ruleset takes a lot of work. I've been doing just that, and I've been at it a long time. HBMC's gaming group has an alternate ruleset that they use ("40K Revisited," IIRC) and they have a whole team working on it. The NetEpic folks are working on an Epic system called "Heresy." So you see, people are doing as you suggest, but it's a tough row to hoe.

I've heard of people using the SST ruleset (apparently originally intended for 40k), I would think that would work great.

SST rocks.

G

Heh heh.. Pariah said hoe... But in all seriousness people are doing their own rules, and even those have flaws. Rules will always have flaws to some people. Plus, alot of people have very little access or knowledge of other rules and believe that the GW rules are the ONLY rules. Others are just too lazy and find that it's easier to point out flaws on the internet and when they come up in rl games, find that moaning over it helps... somehow.

There are tons of good rulesets for SF skirmish combat or if you want an apocalypse style game there are big battle rules too.

The reasons why 40K is popular are
1. Because it's popular.
2. Big tournaments.
3. Fluff

(That order does not indicate priority.)

DeathGod wrote:Because then they wouldn't get to use the anonymity of the internet to ridicule, complain, abuse other people and generally make an ass out of themselves while trying to give the impression that they are superior to everyone in every way.

Despite what you want to believe about us. We do want GW to get better, we just don't expect it. I've been playing their games for over fifteen years. I've become quite jaded about their ability or desire to write good rules. Sometimes my frustrations comes out on the Internet, other times I just play competitors games. It was being pissed at GW that lead me to Warmachine, Flames of War, AT-43, etc., all great games. If GW wrote better rules I may never as left in the first place. Some of us stick around and complain, hoping GW will finally learn their lesson.

40k has a lot of attractions to it, even with all the moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth. The capability of being able to find a game in more locations than any other ruleset is one, for me. I travel a ridiculous amount. I realize I am prob. in a very small demographic, but hey.

Gavin Thorne wrote:I hear a lot of people doing the thing here at Dakka about the problems with 40K. Why not use the models and simply present a different rules set?

I hear Jervis Johnson doing the thing there in White Dwarf about people "just playing simply to have fun" with 40k. Why not produce some 1. rules that are cleaner OR 2. FAQ's so that tournement players arent alienated in that philosophy?

I think everyone has thier own idea of how 40k should be as well, look at the grumblings about the new vehicle rules for an example, but so far praise for 5th (obviously very early) has been high, a lot of people are saying the rules are written better, so that can only be good.

Jervis Johnson's philosophy of games design is to help people to move nicely painted 28mm models around the table, and jave a fun game, with a flavour of the historical period involved.

(I'm getting this from the stuff he wrote in the latest SoA magazine.)

Thanks for jumping head-first into my first thread, guys. I've never gotten "whole hog" into tabletop miniatures battles, being mostly an RPGer. The RPG community is rife with game mechanic concepts that everyone and their cousin has brought to the table, sometimes improving an existing system and sometimes making a system unto itself. As several of you have indicated, the wargaming community has done much the same.

There's lots of great indie systems that would make a great core rules system for 40K, none of which are perfect by any means, but might make a simple yet elegant alternative to the highly debated GW system. FUDGE, for instance, or even Fuzion (which I think is the basis for Dreampod 9's Heavy Gear RPG, another TTM game) could be very easily adapted to fit the 40K system, right down to the point values of troops and gear. Of course, these systems aren't as widely known and interpretations of value from model to model and gaming group to gaming group are going to vary, but don't they anyway?

I love 40K for it's fluff - the main reason I play the game at all besides the painting/hobby aspect - and would never want to separate the armies of the far future from their heritage. In some ways, I think that earlier editions of 40k may have gotten that part "right", assigning game mechanics to the core concepts of the characters and troops, concepts that seem to have been forgotten or set aside in recent years. Wouldn't it be nice to have stats for a model that match the proposed abilities the fluff says it has, stats that have a relative balance in respect to the other models on the field?

I feel that GW is simply building new and shiny tourist attractions on the devastated ruins of it's past, grand cities that were mined and rebuilt in favor of the almighty British Pound and American Dollar. Maybe a clever and determined archeologist could unearth and restore some of this lost glory with an easily understood and adaptive game system that better reflects the armies of the Imperium, Ork hordes, deamonworlds of Chaos, etc...

I've been giving it a go just because I'm obessive once I get an idea into my head and would like a rules set that I don't have to spend $50 on that needs a FAQ written by a gaming group outside the company just to play with a degree of reliability. I'm echoing some voices I've heard here, I know, but this is a common cry, right?

I've played a lot of SF mini rules over the years.

From Laserburn, to Combat 3000/3001 (both part predecessors to 40k, Priestley worked on LB, Richard Halliwell and Priestly wrote Combat), Warzone, Kryomek, Stargrunt /II

Still have my copies of all of them and all have their advantages/problems with rules. I've happily used my SM/IG and Eldar in SGII (which has rules for Powered Armour) and used the eldar as "El' Sha'ari", the race that gave rise to the legends of elves in humanity, and pretty much use modified Krava'ak rules.

If and when 5th ed proves to be the complete and utter set of canine bollocks that some people make out, I'll just as happily drag my SGII back out.

Gavin Thorne wrote:I've been giving it a go just because I'm obessive once I get an idea into my head and would like a rules set that I don't have to spend $50 on that needs a FAQ written by a gaming group outside the company just to play with a degree of reliability. I'm echoing some voices I've heard here, I know, but this is a common cry, right?

It certainly is.

As mentioned above, our group has been working on a set of 40K rules for the past 5 years, know as the Warhammer 40,000 Revisited Project. We started just before 4th Ed came out with a revised Eldar Codex, as at the time the Eldar simply did not work. When 4th Ed came around, we played around with it and decided that it just wasn't fun. The parts of the game we enjoyed either weren't there any more, or had been changed and simplified/dumbed down to the point were they weren't enjoyable.

Like you, the fluff of 40K is something I adore. I have spent more time coming up with the fluff for my armies and writing detailed backstories for simple scenarios and characters than I have painting models (and I can't paint... but that aside... ). It's the reason I haven't stopped playing 40K, even if the 40K we play mainly now is a version that we created. As long as I can play a game that tells a story in a manner that makes sense and is fun to play, then I'm happy. The current state of the rules makes that virtually impossible, as they're too loosley written and the writers don't care enough about fixing mistakes for that to happen.

A big deal-breaker, or, I should say, the biggest deal-breaker for me has always been vehicles, and sadly with 5th Ed it's the same deal - if the vehicle rules aren't fun, I'm not interested in the game. Vehicles in 5th Ed aren't so much a step backwards from 4th, more of a lateral shift, but considering that 4th was a step backwards from 3rd (and I didn't like them either, but tollerated them), you can see my point of view. Much of 5th Ed looks like a general step in the right direction, and I'm certain it will be a better game, and for that I'm happy, but the vehicle rules ruin it for me. End of story.

Even more sad is the incredibly vocal and vacant members of this board (and others) who seem to think that 'Just stop playing if you hate it so much!' constitutes a valid argument against the people, such as my self, who are endlessly criticising the game and the people who make it. The reason it's sad is because those people miss the point. The people who you see right along side me, like Doobie, Alpharius, and many others, we don't hate 40K. If we did hate 40K, we would stop playing. In fact, it's the opposite, we like this game so much that it angers us that the people running the show seem just so... casual about the way they go about making it.

The simple fact is that until GW starts trusting their audience, stops being so damned secretive about things, and actually listens to feedback and suggestions, just like the CBT guys do, they will never improve.

BYE

chromedog wrote:I've played a lot of SF mini rules over the years.

From Laserburn, to Combat 3000/3001 (both part predecessors to 40k, Priestley worked on LB, Richard Halliwell and Priestly wrote Combat), Warzone, Kryomek, Stargrunt /II

Still have my copies of all of them and all have their advantages/problems with rules. I've happily used my SM/IG and Eldar in SGII (which has rules for Powered Armour) and used the eldar as "El' Sha'ari", the race that gave rise to the legends of elves in humanity, and pretty much use modified Krava'ak rules.

If and when 5th ed proves to be the complete and utter set of canine bollocks that some people make out, I'll just as happily drag my SGII back out.

Star Grunt II is being used a lot these days as an alternative ruleset for GW miniatures.

The advantages are:
The rules are free
The rules are a wargame simulation (Although not over-the top complex) rather than a wargame game like 40K
You can rep most 40K miniatures with not much effort
You can play a satisfying squad level game with only a few dozen minis in a reasonable amount of time
The rules have real scales and can be played at 25[8]mm, 15mm, or even 6mm (Although there is a ruleset for 6mm called Dirtside)

Some links:
The free rules: http://downloads.groundzerogames.net/SGII.pdf (Warning! 25MB PDF ahead)
Someone else who discovered playing WH40K with SGII rules on TMP http://theminiaturespage.com/rules/scf/stargrunt.html
Shameless plug! I'm blogging on Dakka about building a 40K marine army that will probably do more time in SG. In fact the tanks are SG minis http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/212015.page The point is that not only can you play WH40K with other rules, but you can play WH40K with other miniatures as well.

There's lots of fun to be had out there. That's why I love wargaming!

I work in customer service for a major corporatin here in America and if there's one thing I've learned in the last ten years, it's that the corporate environment has forced itself into a corner: there's very little direct communication from the endpoint of the consumer with the decision-makers at the top. Customer service reports take the place of actual feedback (ie, how many customers complained about deliveries? How many about defective molds? how many about product compliments?), and if there's not enough monetary incentive to "fix" a problem, then it's not going to get fixed. The movie "Fight Club" covered this in the Automobile Recall rant by the protagonist.

If enough GW customers made their complaints vocalized, their reports would show this, but whether it would actually mean something to them is another matter... If the complaints don't come from their target audience (12 year olds) or the financial supporters thereof, they might dismiss them altogether.

HBMC, thanks for the link the the Revisited project. I'll definitely be trolling there and will end up posting once I get caught up on the material!

Gavin Thorne wrote:I hear a lot of people doing the thing here at Dakka about the problems with 40K. Why not use the models and simply present a different rules set?

I always got the feeling that people complained about GW because they
love the hobby in some way, shape or form. People who don't care have
gone elsewhere.