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Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




Yes I do mean what the title says and no it’s not hyperbole. I truly believe 40k atm is worse than it’s been since 7th. Here’s why it beats the runners up of bad times; 2.0 marine winter and Wild West of 8th.

1) OP armies and powercreep: GW clearly still knows how to balance as the sisters codex came out in a good spot. However, all the other recent codex releases have been just flat OP. Orks as a whole are mostly fine, but their warboss on sharksquig, new pysker battlewagon, squig riders, and buggies all are broken units that will make the faction too good. Ad mech and drukhari have both been as bad as marines were at their peak (or at least as bad as marines where sans the 2 week period iron hands where extremely OP). This is indisputable as Dark Eldar still hold a 60+ winrate despite receiving all the nerfs pretty much everyone was asking for in my “Drukhari are OP thread”. Ad-mech had their chicken walkers buffed despite them being one of their best units pre-codex. Oh and GW somehow forgot that letting units stack a bunch of buffs at once isn’t a good idea. Right.

We haven’t seen this level of powercreep since 7th Ed. Ask necron players if their army is still good.

2) Rules complexity Is frankly way too high. In addition to releasing campaign books before all army books are out, GW seems to love creating rules for niche situations or solving issues in poor ways. Core is a perfect example of this. People weren’t castling vehicles for the heck of it, they were doing it because it was
the only way to make them efficient enough with -1 to hit heavy weapons. Now vehicles suck in large part because GW felt they needed to “balance” something that hadn’t even proven itself to be broken. Oh but they can shoot into CC! You just need to have a spreadsheet to figure out all the exceptions for what you can and can’t shoot at/with a vehicle in CC. Because GW needed to “balance” the “unfairness” that are vehicles. There are lot of these dumb restrictions like this. From limiting “commander” HQs to 1 per detachment rather than just using the blanket rule of 3 (here’s an idea GW, why just make sure commander units aren’t broken to begin with?) to making An “Always Sunny” level convoluted keyword system, it’s clear GW loves injecting complex restrictions into 9th.

Add in stuff like formatio… I mean “armies of renown”, tons of stratagems, relics, Warlord traits, and complex unit profiles, and all of sudden the game is just as messy as it was in 7th. Oh and FAQs, while nice, seem to have to fix more and more and therefore are too much now as well. I doubt even die-hard ad mech players can explain all the rules they have access to.

3) Price.
GW just loves beating inflation. The price bump this game has gotten was too extreme. This will even out over time, but it was much easier for me to justify a purchase in 8th than in 9th, which combined with the above problems, has decreased what I’ve bought considerably.

So Conclusion/TLDR 40k right now is an terrible spot due to the following. The balance is at its worst despite its complexity and restrictions being at there highest. Despite all this, I’m expected to pay an extreme premium to play right now. That leaves models as the only thing keeping the game afloat, and those have been good for around 7 years now.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/29 10:21:18


 
   
Made in us
Elite Tyranid Warrior






Yes, have you considered older editions or other games? Also if you prioritize good rules and low price you might be playing the wrong game.
   
Made in gb
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain





Earth

I have been playing 4th with a few buddies, my sister is playing her Star Phantoms primaris force quite happily too and we were surprised how easy it was to port over things from 8th/9th to 4th.
   
Made in de
Hardened Veteran Guardsman




I am having a blast and more fun than ever. But I also dont get to play too often and am not playing hardcore competitively

   
Made in it
Waaagh! Ork Warboss




Italy

I agree only on point 3), prices have become too high. To the point that I'll just stick with what I have, probably forever. In fact in the last 3-4 years I've invested in necromunda and old fantasy armies, not 40k (and not AoS since I don't like it).

But I disagree about OPness, we're not even remotely near 7th levels. Even drukhari at their best aren't as oppressive as 7th SM, eldar or tau. Really, not even remotely. Oh, and necrons are still good, very good actually.

 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




 Irkjoe wrote:
Yes, have you considered older editions or other games? Also if you prioritize good rules and low price you might be playing the wrong game.


I said since “7th” I don’t think the game is capable of being as bad it was in 7th, as at least now things die (too quickly, but that’s better than not at all). Also I buy into this game for both rules and models. I would have bought Bel’la’kor just for the model (had there been any supply) However, I wouldn’t have bought into a legion of shadow army because of the current game state.
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




Wonderful time to start playing Horus Heresy.
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




 Blackie wrote:
I agree only on point 3), prices have become too high. To the point that I'll just stick with what I have, probably forever. In fact in the last 3-4 years I've invested in necromunda and old fantasy armies, not 40k (and not AoS since I don't like it).

But I disagree about OPness, we're not even remotely near 7th levels. Even drukhari at their best aren't as oppressive as 7th SM, eldar or tau. Really, not even remotely. Oh, and necrons are still good, very good actually.


I never claimed now was worse than 7th. That said I actually don’t think right now is much better than 7th. Tau-dar for example was around a low 60% win rate army at tournaments (around what drukhari have now after their nerfs). It just felt worse at a more casual level then because the competitive/casual divide was much more pronounced then than it is now. With more information now, more people play better armies at all levels than they did in the past. Compound this with the rules complexity then, made it much harder for people to move from casual to competitive.

And no necrons are not competitive at all. I have yet to lose to my buddies necrons playing deathguard and necrons had a 36% win rate at smaller tournaments last week, with a low 40%win rates at larger events the previous weeks. With orks coming out I only see this going down further,

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/25 19:49:08


 
   
Made in us
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Italy

 Blackie wrote:
I agree only on point 3), prices have become too high. To the point that I'll just stick with what I have, probably forever. In fact in the last 3-4 years I've invested in necromunda and old fantasy armies, not 40k (and not AoS since I don't like it).

But I disagree about OPness, we're not even remotely near 7th levels. Even drukhari at their best aren't as oppressive as 7th SM, eldar or tau. Really, not even remotely. Oh, and necrons are still good, very good actually.


That's a tough one. 7th had a lot of obscenely broken things like scat bikes, D-Weapons, Trip Tide and Rhinos so bad you had to give them away for free. Nothing in 8th or 9th comes close to that. Hypothetically if 9th winds up with 8 over powered factions how to decide which is worse, 3 riddiculous broken factions or 8 overpowered ones? Hard to say to be honest but we're not there yet.

There was a sense of runaway power creep when the AdMech & Dark Eldar Codexes were released. Space Marines and Sisters rolled back some of the power levels, not surprised since they were strong in 8.5, typical GW overshoots a release then corrects in the next update. Necrons seem like the most power reasonable release so far, I was hoping all future Codexes would gravitate towards it's power level.

Oh and completely agee the game has gotten too expensive, both in models and books. What's the point of buying a rule book that's been rushed out and is riddled with errata. It's a shame seeing infantry go up in price per model whether it's Guard Squads, Dire Avengers or Boyz.
   
Made in it
Waaagh! Ork Warboss




Italy

Tournaments data don't say everything. Competitive levels in 7th meant playing with extremely skewed lists, that win rate didn't reflect most of the casual gaming. Now competitive lists are much closer to casual ones, which is a huge improvement. During 7th competitive skewed lists were flat out impossibile to defeat for all those players who refused/couldn't chase the flavor of the month.

Now things are really much better as a competitive drukhari list with a 60% win rate at tournaments should have a very similar win rate at casual levels.

A competitive 7th list, for example tau with 5 riptides, had 100% win rate at casual levels even if in tournaments was 60%. At some point I had like 10k points of orks during 7th and there was nothing, litterally nothing I could do against the 6-7 top armies (I include SW and DA at least, probably even Necrons) if they brought a tournament list. Now I have 60% of that collection and I managed to play reasonably fair games against Ad Mech, Deathguard, SM and Drukhari so far as I feel like I can really win 3, 4 or 5 games out of ten matches against them.

With a proper 9th edition codex I think I can reverse the odds and get myself a 50-60% win rates against those top tier factions.

 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran






Have you considered not being a meta chaser and playing with like-minded players? Just a thought.

The thing about 40k is that no one person can grasp the fullness of it.

My 95th Praetorian Rifles.

SW Successors

Dwarfs
 
   
Made in ie
Battleship Captain





 RaptorusRex wrote:
Have you considered not being a meta chaser and playing with like-minded players? Just a thought.


Like it or not the meta influences the game because GW is pretty clearly using tournament data to make a very rough stab at balance. Also not everyone has the luxury to choose from multiple groups to play with.

Also I agree with OP. The only editions I chose to quit 40k is 7th and 9th. Also I completely forgot vehicle can fire in CC now at all.


 
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






The blatant power creep between 8th and 9th codex is what pushed me to the breaking point. I'm selling out of 40k for the most part, will keep tabs and come back if/when a future edition improves the situation.

Or if an obliterator cult army becomes a thing.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/07/25 20:26:27


Road to Renown! It's like classic Path to Glory, but repaired, remastered, expanded! https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/778170.page

I chose an avatar I feel best represents the quality of my post history.

I try to view Warhammer as more of a toolbox with examples than fully complete games. 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




 Sim-Life wrote:
 RaptorusRex wrote:
Have you considered not being a meta chaser and playing with like-minded players? Just a thought.


Like it or not the meta influences the game because GW is pretty clearly using tournament data to make a very rough stab at balance. Also not everyone has the luxury to choose from multiple groups to play with.

Also I agree with OP. The only editions I chose to quit 40k is 7th and 9th. Also I completely forgot vehicle can fire in CC now at all.


Agreed on all points. Also don’t worry, it won’t matter that you don’t know vehicles can shoot in CC in about 99% of situations. Similar to the soulburn rule in 7th in its relevancy (although I’m pretty sure for some reason GW doesn’t know this).

   
Made in ca
Dangerous Skeleton Champion





The one thing that I don't like is how they keep adding needless complexity to the game. A good ruleset is simple, yet it allows for nuance and depth of play. With 40k, they just keep adding stuff on to sell books. Maybe 10th edition will wipe everything away again and change all the stats, thus restarting the index to codex to supplement cycle.

Necrons
Imperial Knights
Orcs and Goblins
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Wood Elves
High Elves 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran






 Sim-Life wrote:
 RaptorusRex wrote:
Have you considered not being a meta chaser and playing with like-minded players? Just a thought.


Like it or not the meta influences the game because GW is pretty clearly using tournament data to make a very rough stab at balance. Also not everyone has the luxury to choose from multiple groups to play with.

Also I agree with OP. The only editions I chose to quit 40k is 7th and 9th. Also I completely forgot vehicle can fire in CC now at all.


Maybe, just maybe, actually talk to people. "Hey, could you par down the power of your list a bit?"

I am tired of people looking for something to get mad about, getting performatively outraged over GW's newest release by taking something completely out of context, and then expecting that'll be how things will go from now on. They refuse to believe people will self-police, and assume that every table is the meta-chasers' domain. Were Eradicators the thing that broke the game? Were Space Marines? Were Deathwing? No? It's almost like this is all gak. Yet we keep succumbing to the monthly panic, like clockwork.

This has been the pattern for the whole of 9th so far. Maybe it's worse on DakkaDakka, because I don't see this gak on B&C.

TL;DR People need to stop looking at things in isolation and view them in a holistic way. Don't lose your head, and think.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/07/25 20:50:08


The thing about 40k is that no one person can grasp the fullness of it.

My 95th Praetorian Rifles.

SW Successors

Dwarfs
 
   
Made in us
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Italy

 Egyptian Space Zombie wrote:
The one thing that I don't like is how they keep adding needless complexity to the game. A good ruleset is simple, yet it allows for nuance and depth of play. With 40k, they just keep adding stuff on to sell books. Maybe 10th edition will wipe everything away again and change all the stats, thus restarting the index to codex to supplement cycle.

You know I wouldn't be surprised if they level it all again with 10th edition. Make Strength and Toughness for infantry on a 1-6 scale, get rid of all the sacred cows of S4 weapon profiles and just have something wildly different. But I also think that T5 Orks is testing the waters for that.

I really liked 8th and I love the objective based gameplay of 9th I'm just really disappointed by the heaps of complexity they keep showering on the game.
   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut



Bamberg / Erlangen

Agree with point 3. Prices could take a break or a decrease. It was always kinda expensive, sadly.

Don't agree with point 1 and partly agree with point 2. Some rules add extra time with little actual game impact.

I'm enjoying the game overall, though.

Salt donkey wrote:
Yes I do mean what the title says and no it’s not hyperbole...Oh but they can shoot into CC! You just need to have a spreadsheet to figure out all the exceptions for what you can and can’t shoot at/with a vehicle in CC...

Pistols can shoot during the shooting phase, Vehicles can shoot everything with -1 to hit and can't shoot "Blast" at all. Hardly a (non hyperbolic) spreadsheet

   
Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut




I do wonder how much knowing the data about how obscenely broken DE and AM are skews the narrative here. I'm not saying that knowing more is a bad thing, just the effect it has on the comparison.

Broadly speaking 9th was a good edition up until Drukhari. Although I think the rules are vastly over complicated, I could accept that given that the codexes seemed to be of far higher quality than in prior editions. Though not perfect, they really felt internally balanced and played enjoyably against each other.

Ad Mech and Drukhari are a disaster from a rules design and a balance POV. They are so complicated and unintuitive. Although armies like Necrons have some over-complexity (Command Protocols, their core inanity), they play like they look. Same with the other books.

One of the things I find frustrating is how often GW add rules for no conceivable reasons when they could just use the basic rules. I think here of vehicles - give them more wounds, we don't need ramshackle nonsense! The Ork T5 change was a brilliant change for this exact reason.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/07/25 21:18:30


 
   
Made in gb
Walking Dead Wraithlord






I don't see complexity.
I see rules bloat and power creep

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/772746.page#10378083 - My progress/failblog painting blog thingy

Eldar- 4436 pts


AngryAngel80 wrote:
I don't know, when I see awesome rules, I'm like " Baby, your rules looking so fine. Maybe I gotta add you to my first strike battalion eh ? "


 Eonfuzz wrote:


I would much rather everyone have a half ass than no ass.


"A warrior does not seek fame and honour. They come to him as he humbly follows his path"  
   
Made in us
Swift Swooping Hawk





 The Red Hobbit wrote:

That's a tough one. 7th had a lot of obscenely broken things like scat bikes, D-Weapons, Trip Tide and Rhinos so bad you had to give them away for free. Nothing in 8th or 9th comes close to that. Hypothetically if 9th winds up with 8 over powered factions how to decide which is worse, 3 riddiculous broken factions or 8 overpowered ones? Hard to say to be honest but we're not there yet.


I think this was true... until Stupid Succubus (which TBF got nerfed). Until Enriched Rounds and Galvanic Volley. And if we look back at 8th, there was stuff like the Goonhammer Iron Hands build.

7th is easy to meme on, but if we're being fair, there are still plenty of absurdly broken builds that have cropped up post 7th.
   
Made in de
Ork Admiral Kroozin Da Kosmos on Da Hulk






I can't take a thread serious that right out of the gate complains about things being that aren't released yet, have never see the tabletop and are perfectly in line with things that orks already have.

Orks are allowed to get good stuff once in a while. Sorry, not sorry for orks not being the punching bag that can't fight back that you want them to be.

Not to mention that about nobody knows how ork are going to perform in tournaments. All I see is battle reports of established cookie-cutter lists from 8th updated to 9th that were already declared "best builds" completely failing to win games and getting crushed by other 9th edition codices.

Stopped reading after that.

7 Ork facts people always get wrong:
Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other.
A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot.
Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests.
Orks do not think that purple makes them harder to see. They do think that camouflage does however, without knowing why.
Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor.
Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers.
Orks do not have the power of believe. 
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




'Worst point since 7th edition' is a pretty low bar. That's a couple years and a beta test ruleset.

Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





Salt donkey wrote:

1) OP armies and powercreep: GW clearly still knows how to balance as the sisters codex came out in a good spot. However, all the other recent codex releases have been just flat OP. Orks as a whole are mostly fine, but their warboss on sharksquig, new pysker battlewagon, squig riders, and buggies all are broken units that will make the faction too good. Ad mech and drukhari have both been as bad as marines were at their peak (or at least as bad as marines where sans the 2 week period iron hands where extremely OP). This is indisputable as Dark Eldar still hold a 60+ winrate despite receiving all the nerfs pretty much everyone was asking for in my “Drukhari are OP thread”. Ad-mech had their chicken walkers buffed despite them being one of their best units pre-codex. Oh and GW somehow forgot that letting units stack a bunch of buffs at once isn’t a good idea. Right.



And yet the "bad" Necrons book went 6-2 losing to Nayden in round 8 and beating Admech, Sisters, DE, and others with Immortals, Lychguard, and min sized Scarabs. The mission design allows far more diverse lists and way better balance than any edition of 40K. To state it is in it's worst state is wildly offbase despite the issues that need addressing.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/07/25 22:14:36


 
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





Yeah, we can have this conversation again in January after 5 more dexes are out. Making a judgement about an edition before half its dexes are out is premature at best.

   
Made in us
Ultramarine Chaplain with Hate to Spare






^"Wait and see"?

Well I'm waiting and seeing if I'm going to buy back into 'current' 40k. All my GW purchasing has ceased.

And They Shall Not Fit Through Doors!!!

Tyranid Army Progress -- With Classic Warriors!:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/743240.page#9671598 
   
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Fixture of Dakka




NE Ohio, USA

Salt donkey wrote:

And no necrons are not competitive at all. I have yet to lose to my buddies necrons playing deathguard and necrons had a 36% win rate at smaller tournaments last week, with a low 40%win rates at larger events the previous weeks. With orks coming out I only see this going down further,


Then your buddies a bad Necron player.

Tourney win %s? Oh no, people I don't know at events I don't attend only achieved an x% win rate for whatever reason! Conclusion: I guess it's time to sell my own Necrons off before their #s somehow bleed over & effect me.
   
Made in gb
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain





Cardiff

“No it’s not hyperbole.”

Yes, it is hyperbole.

 Stormonu wrote:
For me, the joy is in putting some good-looking models on the board and playing out a fantasy battle - not arguing over the poorly-made rules of some 3rd party who neither has any power over my play nor will be visiting me (and my opponent) to ensure we are "playing by the rules"
 
   
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Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Italy

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
I think this was true... until Stupid Succubus (which TBF got nerfed). Until Enriched Rounds and Galvanic Volley. And if we look back at 8th, there was stuff like the Goonhammer Iron Hands build.

7th is easy to meme on, but if we're being fair, there are still plenty of absurdly broken builds that have cropped up post 7th.

Oh for sure, IH 8.5 was bad, but was it undercosted Wraithknight with D-Cannons bad? Or Invisibility on a super friends deathstar bad? I think 7th still takes the cake with most absurdly broken units/combos. I think there has been some extremely good stuff in 8th and 9th but nothing that quite reaches the extremes of 7th.

My thought is which is a worse scenario. An edition where 3 Factions are bonkers? Or an edition where half the factions are so good you hate to play against them with an underpowered codex? To be honest I'm not sure which one feels worse as a player. It's all hypothetical though, while powercreep between 8th and 9th is real there hasn't really been a 'bad' codex so far. Everything is getting more powerful (and more complicated), I thought for sure by now we'd get a completely underwhelming codex. Every new codex gets doom and gloom I'm talking about one that is universally derided as double plus ungood.
   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut





There is an easy solution to the problem:

Play Oldhammer. Now you never have to buy codexes and new editions again. What joy! Doing it since end of 5th.
   
 
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