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I currently play Kings of War and was thinking of getting into a new gaming system, mainly to give me an opportunity to get more games in. Whilst each of the above games seem to have there merits, from my perspective I am thinking:

40k
- can get second hand models easily, and as thinking of playing daemons can use these for a number of Kings of War armies
- games workshop's attitude towards members of the hobby (particularly relative to Mantic's leaves a lot to be desired)

Xwing
- cheaper to get into
- somewhat bland appearance (due to all units being pre coloured) but presumably could still pain them up
- uncertain if it will be around for a long time (popular at the momement but concerned about being a flash in the pan)

Warmahordes
- have heard good things about the game in terms of complexity
- models seem to be extremely expensive (whilst lower model count in the army it means that I will not be able to use the models as easily to fill out KOW armies), also much smaller second hand market to buy cheaper models on

Whilst I think that each of the games have merit, things I look for in a Wargame include
- balance (out of these games which company has done the best job of balancing the factions)
- tactical complexity/thinking required (ie not rules complexity - eg chess has very simple rules but a great deal of depth)

Could anyone who has knowledge of these three systems comment about the points above (particularly in relation to the games' level of balance and tactical complexity)?

40k doesn't really match either of your requirements.

On balance, the game is awful. Armies are terribly internally and externally balanced. You've got some armies that need to play very, very narrow selections of models to even have a chance, and even then, they can get kicked aside by the current most powerful army. On rules, it's a bloated mess. Special rules on top of special rules in a core system that wasn't great when it was introduced in 3rd edition.

You play 40k for the still rather excellent miniatures and atmosphere of the fluff. If you're looking for balance and depth, there's frankly better games on the market.

Another point - you mention Warmahordes seems expensive. Well, 40k will abuse your wallet and laugh at you while you cry about it.

X-Wing is your best bet. Stick to the ships you like and just print any particular cards you need that aren't part of the ships you buy.

Xwing is a fire and forget game. You buy minatures put them in a case play a few games every week at the local shop and it has very little hobby time. It's also gotten more expensive and bloated over time.

Warmahordes is the exact same as 40k. All the things people praised about it when it fits released. No huge models, cheaper, balanced, faster, better tournament game have gone out the window over time.

There is no perfectly balanced minature game I've ever played that has lasted past the initial wave of expansions. You play whichever game has the most players in your area and with the minatures you enjoy playing and modeling. 40k continues to be the most popular game overall. (Although I personally have a decent sized FoW community by me I'm really not into WW2 games)

gungo wrote:
There is no perfectly balanced minature game I've ever played that has lasted past the initial wave of expansions.

No game is perfectly balanced. Many have gotten it far, far better than 40k, so it is something you can very much seek in a game. And if you do, 40k isn't even worth considering in its current form.

I would suggest 40k. If you do go with Daemons, you could also try Age of Sigmar with the same army so that way you would have three game systems to play with one army

X-wing's easy to get into but has tons of depth when it comes to list making.

It's also a game where skill and thought are rewarded, the rules are tight and they are constantly issuing faq's and erretas to fix the odd issue.

It's very different from how GW half arses things.

-Loki- wrote:

gungo wrote:
There is no perfectly balanced minature game I've ever played that has lasted past the initial wave of expansions.

No game is perfectly balanced. Many have gotten it far, far better than 40k, so it is something you can very much seek in a game. And if you do, 40k isn't even worth considering in its current form.

Balance may be easier to find with a ruleset that isn't trying to sell accompanying miniatures, or an entire package. Or expansions, for that matter.

That said, there are other factors that might come into play, like player base. Are you thinking of joining an existing scene, or creating one? (Whether between a few friends, or more widespread) Is that why you narrowed things down to those three games, or do you just like the look of them? As Loki and Gungo said, 40K and Warmahordes may not mesh with your balance and tactical complexity requirements - if player base is not an issue, are there any other requirements that could help to pick out other games? Genre, scale, franchise (or not), etc.?

But if push comes to shove, I'd say go with X-Wing.

Rolsheen wrote:I would suggest 40k. If you do go with Daemons, you could also try Age of Sigmar with the same army so that way you would have three game systems to play with one army

I'm trying to think of an appropriate metaphor, but it's difficult. I'll say... from some PoVs that sounds more like a warning than a recommendation.

You can go beyond the one 40K faction, and use any army in other rulesets outside of GW's bubble. (which, in a way, includes Mantic's alt-FB setup)

X-Wing is, imho, far more economical. There isn't a huge market for second-hand stuff, but as Vetrucio said, you just print your list, don't worry about the cards, unless you want to get into the tourney scene.

I live in a small city (1.5M people) and we still have 5 or six X-Wing nights were multiple people show up. And with a solid IP like Star Wars, you're likely to see the game last. It's been around for close to 5 years, now? Sure, it's not 40K, but 40K has little to do with it's initial incarnation too.

You spend very little time setting up and breaking down a game. A lot more time is spent playing. I've repainted most of my ships, so that's always possible.

From what I heard, WM/H mk3 has pissed off a lot of the community. Take with a grain of salt, but the anger is out there. Of course, you can say the same about 7th ed 40k and AoS. X-Wing is hugely popular, but if you wanna play in tournaments, you'll pretty much need to buy everything the way they spread upgrades out and the good upgrades sometimes come with only okay ships.

Daemons, of course, will give you stuff for KoW, 40k, AoS, and possibly Warpath as Plague faction models. So if you're leaning daemons as you said...they're gonna be your best all-around army choice. Just don't forget the two Fenris campaign books in addition to the codex (that's right, you need 4 rule books total to play them in 40k instead of 2). If you want any of their really fun stuff, that is.

What games can you get in? All of them? Some of them? For me, nobody plays Warmahordes or X-wing so I basically gave up playing that. People just started playing 40K 2 years ago and just started playing Age of Sigmar in my area.

That said, X-wing is no flash in the pan. If it was, it would have been gone by now like Star Trek Attack Wing. It does seem X-wing has died down a bit just like Warmahordes and other games as of late. Maybe because GW has gotten better a bit they seem more popular. I don't see as much Infinity or Warmahordes being talked as much as they were in 2015 and before.

So I say it depends on you area. Are people playing? How are those people? So it comes down to do you want to collect or do you want to play? So see what games you can get in your area.

X-Wing appears to be alive and well in most places. I know one person who plays Attack Wing; it seems too all over the place, and the models are trash by comparison to X-Wing (due to heroclix models repurposed). GW has been getting a lot better lately though, and multiple people are saying 40k is getting a new edition in like 4-5 months.

XWing is my city's most popular game and has been for a few years now. It appeals to current gamer culture in that its cheap, you don't have to do any hobby at all, and you can get a game in in less than sixty minutes. Its also got a huge global tournament scene.

Warmahordes and 40k are expensive, neither are balanced, and both require hobbying.

All that being said, I don't enjoy xwing or play it so I'm not an xwing fan boy trying to sell you on the game but thats the state of things in my city. Our xwing group in the city is the biggest gaming group that I know of. I prefer 40k of the games listed solely based on the narrative, but the rules of 40k right now are flaming garbage and I'm waiting for the new edition and the rumored "streamlining" before I put anymore time into my 40k endeavors.

I would say X-wing, it seems like a really good game, the ships are quality hard plastic and take to repainting if that's your thing.

40k is a mess, even 30k (the Horus Heresy stuff from Forgeworld) isn't much better. As said above, play it if you love the minis. I like my Alpha Legion but I have no doubt there's going to be better armies that'll stomp me because of how unbalanced the game is. For me it's a hobby project first and foremost.

As for Warmahordes, I was burnt out after Mk3 dropped. The company made too many bad decisions (their anti-online retailer one is the biggest to me) while trying to charge more for the same crappy restic minis. I just didn't feel engaged by the game anymore.

X-Wing's costs are understated.

Yes. Your individual ships are well priced. But, their business model is set to keep you buying, buying, buying.

See, unless you're lucky enough to have a local crowd that don't insist on you having the actual card, to keep on top in terms of balance, you need to keep buying the new ships to get the new cards.

And it seems to me they knowingly release underpowered or over pointed ships. Given the game is fairly well balanced, the blunders may well be deliberate.

Take the TIE Advanced. It's a bit crap, unless you get the saucy upgrade cards. Cards which are only available through the Imperial Raider a Huge Ship which isn't suited to every day play, and will set you back a load of cash - just to stop one ship from sucking.

Same with the A-Wing. You'll be needing Rebel Aces to make that worth your while.

But as I said, that's really only a problem if your opponents insist on the correct cards being held - which will be a factor if you intend to partake in organised play.

X-wing is pretty darn fun, but yeah, they nickel & dime (or $15) you to death with expansion cards in new kits. If you're fine printing cards, that's not a problem, though.

40k I think is hugely dependent on your meta. I think it's an abysmally bad competitive game due to lots of outliers and huge options, but an enjoyable one if everyone's playing on the fluffy side and not making lists to crush each other (and then playing reasonably competitively).

WM... feel like it's gotten to be more and more of a mess, and at the point where you can participate reasonably competitively (which is the bare minimum), I found the play got tedious.


...so, caveats for 2, and a recommendation against the other.

40k can be quite well balanced....Just one requirement detail... Communication and agreement about fielding hardcore stuff between you and your opponents.

You only need the cards for tournament play for casual no ones going to demand you own the card and there are tons of sources for the rules.

I dare say 1850 of 40k will cost a damn sight more than an x-wing fleet for competitive play.

X wing is really fun and fast. Unless you,play in tournaments, it's also far, far cheaper. Just use any of the excellent online list builders and print out your list so you don't have to buy cards from ships you don't want. I have never - not once - had anyone have a problem with it.

I've also seen some cool re paints. Most don't, but it's totally possible. Armada is where I see lots of people painting their stuff.

hobojebus wrote:
You only need the cards for tournament play for casual no ones going to demand you own the card and there are tons of sources for the rules.

I dare say 1850 of 40k will cost a damn sight more than an x-wing fleet for competitive play.

Back along, when the whole "you think X Wing is cheaper, but it isn't really" argument was deployed by someone trying to advocate for another game (40K,) I went and costed the current world championship winning list. I used RRP and current listings on eBay for singles, and "bought" each ship needed, included a starter and then "bought" singles needed to fill out the list, including postage where it wasn't already included.

It wasn't even close.

The whole list came to a little over £100, which would barely cover the rules needed for 40K, let alone even the core models for an army.

This is obviously a dreadfully inefficient way to buy X Wing, but it makes the point that X Wing is nowhere near as expensive to play as 40K, whichever way you cut it, and many of the ships are a fraction of the cost of pretty much anything model wise for 40K, and contribute significantly more as a percentage to any list they're used in.

I think I did a rough and ready estimate of the cost of everything available outside Epic play for X Wing around the same time, and it came to £3-400, which is going to be in the ball park of what most people would spend (at RRP remember) on a single average 40K army.

To argue FFG "make you keep buying" is also a facile thing to say, that's the plan behind every company wanting to stay in business, just ask the 40K player who bought the third edition of their codex in 5 years.

40K does a lot to make you keep buying including making new and more powerful stuff in pretty much the same was as FFG.

The card thing is an issue, but then again, those cards come with nice prepainted miniatures that you can use. Meanwhile new rules in 40k come from overpriced books. Although you don't need to buy those, but you can also still just print the cards.

I'll toss a bone out to Strike Teams or Kill Teams for 40k, but at the same time, those are not full games, but rather tie in attempts to get people to start and work up to the full 40k experience. That's fine from a business perspective, but the games you play will be unbalanced messes as they're based off bashing together full codexes together.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
From what I heard, WM/H mk3 has pissed off a lot of the community. Take with a grain of salt, but the anger is out there.

A lot of that is self inflicted to be fair, or the usual 'sky is falling' malarkey that us gamers love to crow about.

Mk3 and its implementation wasn't perfect by any stretch, but it was necessary. And arguably, pp have taken their lessons from it and have stepped up. Skorne, the faction that didn't come out right in the transition got a huge makeover in January. Pp are transitioning to a 'living rulebook' models tin twice yearly errata to target issues, along with a beta period for all new releases where people can give back feedback before new releases get their rules 'stamped'.

Warmachine/horses is an interesting game. It is generally regarded as one of the better balanced games out there. No, it's not perfect, but on the table top, more things that people give credit for are useful and generally speaking, everything can be built into a game winning strategy. It's not necessarily cheap in the long run, but the buy-in is reasonable and the upkeep and the cost of expansion is pretty reasonable too. It is,however an unforgiving game with a steep learning curve. It I said a game where knowledge and skill play a huge role. One of the best things about it if you ask me, is pp's 'organised play' format. They give excellent support for tournaments ans their rule packs and scenarios aim for balance and are all geared towards competitive play/tournaments more so than narrative events.

Regarding x-wing - it's a fun little diversion, but I have little to no interest in either Star Wars or dogfighting games. I won't give an opinion on it, but certainly will not disagree with anyone above selling its merits.

For 40k, the rules are old and cumbersome, and the company that writes them is not all that interested,in balance. Ultimately, they leave the game in your hand s to do with what you will. Some people like it. Some don't. It can work, but it requires like minded approach from opponents, and a Co-operative game-building attitude to build good scenarios and match ups to get the most out of it and to avoid the jagged edges. It has worth, but it's very much in the vein of it's almost a diy job.

Ultimately, what's key is to look at both your community and what your local community is playing and to adapt to thst landscape. There is no point picking x-wing or WMH if no one plays it. Similarly There is no point picking up a game if you do not like the people playing that game in your area. For me, I'd go with playing with a good community first, and playing the games that community plays. But hey, that's just me. There is the other approach of being the first with a game, and then 'selling' it to the community. But that is a lot of hard work, and often unrewarding or unappreciated.

ScarletRose wrote:As said above, play it if you love the minis.

'That person is horrible, but they're good-looking, so marry 'em anyway.'

The thing is, unless your local meta is aggressively locked in to the 'minis = rules' mindset, there's no reason to play a certain set of rules if you like the minis. And that's only if you plan to play any game with them.

Deadnight wrote:It is generally regarded as one of the better balanced games out there. No, it's not perfect, but on the table top, more things that people give credit for are useful and generally speaking, everything can be built into a game winning strategy.

That's part of the problem - it's about setting up your Rube-Goldberg strategies and combos beforehand, less about on-board tactics. I'd even hazard it's generally regarded as one of the better balanced games out there because the frame of reference of a lot of it's players includes 40K, WFB, and not a lot else. It's not a million miles removed.

For 40k, the rules are old and cumbersome, and the company that writes them is not all that interested,in balance. Ultimately, they leave the game in your hand s to do with what you will.

It's like ordering an especially expensive piece of furniture and being delivered a box full of twigs.

 -Loki- wrote:
40k doesn't really match either of your requirements.

On balance, the game is awful. Armies are terribly internally and externally balanced. You've got some armies that need to play very, very narrow selections of models to even have a chance, and even then, they can get kicked aside by the current most powerful army. On rules, it's a bloated mess. Special rules on top of special rules in a core system that wasn't great when it was introduced in 3rd edition.

You play 40k for the still rather excellent miniatures and atmosphere of the fluff. If you're looking for balance and depth, there's frankly better games on the market.

Another point - you mention Warmahordes seems expensive. Well, 40k will abuse your wallet and laugh at you while you cry about it.

Warmahordes will also do that, and still give you less models.

 Brutallica wrote:
40k can be quite well balanced....Just one requirement detail... Communication and agreement about fielding hardcore stuff between you and your opponents.

That's a joke, right?

If not, you might to try to figure out what balance means to you, if a system where you effectively house rule limitations to create a parity in forces counts as balance.

 Vermis wrote:

Deadnight wrote:It is generally regarded as one of the better balanced games out there. No, it's not perfect, but on the table top, more things that people give credit for are useful and generally speaking, everything can be built into a game winning strategy.

That's part of the problem - it's about setting up your Rube-Goldberg strategies and combos beforehand, less about on-board tactics. I'd even hazard it's generally regarded as one of the better balanced games out there because the frame of reference of a lot of it's players includes 40K, WFB, and not a lot else. It's not a million miles removed.

'Tactics':

an action or strategy carefully planned to acheive a specific end.

the art of disposing armed forces in order of battle and of organizing operations, especially during contact with an enemy.

Combos and tactics can be the same same thing. 'Combo' literally refers to a combination of moves, whether it's in boxing (where I am most familiar with it) or on a table top game. Quite akin to 'hold their spearmen in the centre while our cavalry sweeps them in the flank'. Nothing more than a series of interlocking actions from separate units/pieces designed to achieve a result. 'Combo' is often a derogatory adjective ascribed to a more abstract or artificial (i.e. Game) tactic while 'tactic' is often used by the same speaker when referring to something (usually in 'real' life) that they agree with, and which, on closer inspection can often have more than a passing reference to what they sneer at as 'combos'.

Warmachine is quite tactical on the actual board. Movement and positioning as quite crucial. Organising your plan, Getting your pieces in the right position to pull off that move that's allows something else to get in and do its thing are part and parcel of the game. You can have the perfect combinations of pieces in your list for a killer strategy, but it's utterly irrelevant unless you sill have to get those pieces in the right place and working coherently to acheive their objectives. And get things working on the board. All the time while the other guy is dissecting your army and trying to play his game too. In other words: tactics. And no different to 'hold in the centre with this, take out their flanks with that, hold the other thing in reserve and use it to punch through to the objective when the first wave clears their front lines'.

Having that combo present in your list doesn't count as a fire and forget missile. It doesn't play itself. You have to get it working.

It's quite a bit about on-board tactics. The best analogy I came across is that it's like trying rob solve a Rubix cube as it tries to dissolved your hands.

Sure, it's obviously a game. A very fictional game with outlandish proportions and aesthetics. and plenty ridiculous stuff . With limited real world analogues in some ways (unless we have battle mages and steam powered robots?). But there are tactics. Maybe not perfectly analogous tactics to real life events and how we do things in the 'real world' but within the context of the game itself, and the game world, perfectly valid. And even then, if you squint hard enough, you will see some similarities.

And FYI my experience is a lot more than 40k and warhammer fantasy. I hope you are not assuming that I say what I say from such a limited reference.

 Vermis wrote:

[

For 40k, the rules are old and cumbersome, and the company that writes them is not all that interested,in balance. Ultimately, they leave the game in your hand s to do with what you will.

It's like ordering an especially expensive piece of furniture and being delivered a box full of twigs.

Sounds like ikea.

Heres the thing. That's just an analogy, and frankly, anything can be used as thst. You talk about ordering furtiture and getting twigs, I see it as buying bread, butter, cheese and chicken in a shop and making my own sandwich rather than buying a pre-made one at subway.

It's the same reason I loved old Lego when I was a kid because I had a massive box of blocks and just made whatever monstrosities and vehicles out of it that my imagination could come up with, and then i went and played games with my own personally made toys.

It's all about expectations. If you want defined top down 'organised play' where everything is presented rigidly in terms of how you are supposed to play it, you I'll never find value in 40k. If you want to, and approach it as an open sandbox where it's up to you to build your own will find far more value from 40k (and to be fair, I would encourage approaching every Wargame with this attitude as well..) the mechanics are clunky and unwieldy, and if you ask my honest opinion I will say it is mechanically very poorly designed, but I feel that the best value gained from 40k is approaching it almost from a diy perspective where you build your own games and match ups.

Cheers vermis.

If anything about 40k was actually designed to be modular or easily changed I would agree. As it is it's designed, produced, and priced as a ready made game. It's neither designed or presented as a diy sandbox, like say any number of RPGs. If there was a book dedicated to helping you build scenarios, create new units, run campaigns, etc... that would make sense.

There's a reason every RPG has entire books dedicated to helping you create your own material. Heck, there aren't even any great official examples from GW for alternate rules, dynamic campaigns, etc...

If the actual design of 40K was that it is meant to be a sandbox game to be filled in by its players on a game by game or campaign by campaign basis then I'd say it's even more poorly made than approaching it like it's ready to eat.

 Azreal13 wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
You only need the cards for tournament play for casual no ones going to demand you own the card and there are tons of sources for the rules.

I dare say 1850 of 40k will cost a damn sight more than an x-wing fleet for competitive play.

Back along, when the whole "you think X Wing is cheaper, but it isn't really" argument was deployed by someone trying to advocate for another game (40K,) I went and costed the current world championship winning list. I used RRP and current listings on eBay for singles, and "bought" each ship needed, included a starter and then "bought" singles needed to fill out the list, including postage where it wasn't already included.

It wasn't even close.

The whole list came to a little over £100, which would barely cover the rules needed for 40K, let alone even the core models for an army.

This is obviously a dreadfully inefficient way to buy X Wing, but it makes the point that X Wing is nowhere near as expensive to play as 40K, whichever way you cut it, and many of the ships are a fraction of the cost of pretty much anything model wise for 40K, and contribute significantly more as a percentage to any list they're used in.

I think I did a rough and ready estimate of the cost of everything available outside Epic play for X Wing around the same time, and it came to £3-400, which is going to be in the ball park of what most people would spend (at RRP remember) on a single average 40K army.

To argue FFG "make you keep buying" is also a facile thing to say, that's the plan behind every company wanting to stay in business, just ask the 40K player who bought the third edition of their codex in 5 years.

I've been playing the same imperial guard list in 40k for nearly 20years since third ed with my steel legion and it's always been relatively effective.. Xwing started with a tie swarm and that list is completely bunk now. Xwing has quarterly releases most of which you need to constantly buy usually in multiples just to get the new card or ship to play. The meta is in constant flux and power creep where a new ship is usually the strongest. Older ships tend to get weaker and weaker and forced to buy upgrades or repacks to boost them. X wing is not a cheap game as nearly everyone I know who plays xwing has hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of ships most of which they don't play. I have at lest a thousand dollars worth of ships and I just decided to stop at wave 9. I'm done becuase thier is no end in site and more and more obscure ships are released as a money grab.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vertrucio wrote:
40K does a lot to make you keep buying including making new and more powerful stuff in pretty much the same was as FFG.

The card thing is an issue, but then again, those cards come with nice prepainted miniatures that you can use. Meanwhile new rules in 40k come from overpriced books. Although you don't need to buy those, but you can also still just print the cards.

I'll toss a bone out to Strike Teams or Kill Teams for 40k, but at the same time, those are not full games, but rather tie in attempts to get people to start and work up to the full 40k experience. That's fine from a business perspective, but the games you play will be unbalanced messes as they're based off bashing together full codexes together.

My foot guard list in 40k using steel legion, chimeras, leman Russ tanks and special and heavy weapons has been the same for 20 years and relatively competitive with little need to buy much else.
My xwing tie swarm is garbage now and constantly needs to buy more upgrades to stay competitive. Xwing is designed for a slow powercreep and constant purchases. Gw biggest problem is most models are always relative and neck beards don't need to buy more if they don't want. This was part of the reason fantasy had poor sales.

dosiere wrote:
If anything about 40k was actually designed to be modular or easily changed I would agree. As it is it's designed, produced, and priced as a ready made game. It's neither designed or presented as a diy sandbox, like say any number of RPGs. If there was a book dedicated to helping you build scenarios, create new units, run campaigns, etc... that would make sense.

So what you put on the board, and what you put it against is pre-set? What scenarios you use (or invent) is pre-set? You mean to tell me there are no ideas for campaigns or interesting scenarios through the history of gw publications (like white dwarf or imperial armour) or a google away on the Internet?

Come on! think bigger! After all, 40k is pretty damned big.

Now, I agree - having a book tell you how, and spell out the a,b,c's of 'co-operative game design, gsme building and scenario building would be pretty cool. It's also a red herring as you don't really need it. 40k has a huge lore, and it's littered with thousands of interesting comments, set pieces and suggestions in terms of who fought what, where and when. Heck you don't even need 40k's Lore! Watch s good movie , read a good book, and think how would that battle work if it was 40k-ified and how you could 'build' it. Gw's various publications, like thr lore, such as the various imperial armours and what's not have loads of scenario ideas. Beyond that, it's just a case of putting together an interesting match up and having a go.

Ultimately, it 40k is presented as a set of rules that you can use, or change as you wish. And even if they dOnt, who or what s stopping you? It's your hobby. Do what you want with it. Gw won't send inquisitors after you If you put in house rules, tailor a match up instead of a blind pick up and play,or home brew a game, despite what the 'official at all costs' crowd would like to to howl in your ear.

If you need someone to impose a rigid formality on the game, and insist on having someone tell you how you are supposed to play, you've already failed to grasp the entire concept of doing your own game building and scenario making.

You don't need gw's special permission to be creative in your hobby.

dosiere wrote:

There's a reason every RPG has entire books dedicated to helping you create your own material. Heck, there aren't even any great official examples from GW for alternate rules, dynamic campaigns, etc...

Like I said, diy.

And are you saying gw never suggested people make up their own craftworlds, chapters, white their own lore, paint their own paint schemes or whatever? Or to do their own thing? The 40k universe is as open ended as they come. The whole point is for players to be creative as they want to be and make the game they play their own. I just don't see why this should stop at the point where you put your toys on the board. Gw present you with plenty units and unit types and scenarios. Everything from dudes with chains to city stomping robots. Frankly, as I see it, we, as players are just as capable of putting these components together in interesting ways to make interesting scenarios and match ups. Use them. Or modify them. Up to you.

A lot of those RPGs give suggestions and guidelines and frankly, what's stopping you lifting some of it and applying it to 40k? You won't explode from approaching the game with a different approach/attitude.

dosiere wrote:

If the actual design of 40K was that it is meant to be a sandbox game to be filled in by its players on a game by game or campaign by campaign basis then I'd say it's even more poorly made than approaching it like it's ready to eat.

I don't disagree that it's 'poorly made'. I think the game mechanics, s originally designed are old and past theiR sell by date. It's a game of its time - the 80s, and like a lot of things from that era, time has moved on and left a lot of it behind the 40k rules are crude, clunky and unwieldy design made worse by thirty years of ad-hoc game design without any long term strategy or coherent design philosophy.

That said, a poor interface does not stop 40k being a 'sand box game'. Or being approached as a Sandbox game.Or rather, this does not stop the 'sandbox game' approach being arguably the best way (the only way, if you ask me - considering 'pick up and play' for 40k is hazardous in the extreme and all but unworkable) to extract whatever worth is there within it.

In any case, I suggest this approach with any, and every game. We do this with flames of war, historicals and infinity, amongst others. I've found great value in this approach to my games.

DIY mechanics should be looked at as a last resort in any system IMHO. 40k is a competitive gaming system (even in the most casual setting, you're still trying to beat the other guy), and rebalancing the system shouldn't be on the player. And, if you've done that, who's to say it's fair? The onus is on the company to design something that works.

Re: DIY creative non-mechanical stuff, sure, go crazy.