Oh how GW has failed me.....Let me count the ways (7 of them in honor of 7th ed)

[WickedGood]

Let me begin by saying if you want a beer and pretzels game 40K is just fine. But as a tournament rule set they have proven what they have always said that they do not design 40K to be a competitive game. The most interesting thing about 7th edition to me now is will the tournament organizers be able to save 40K in spite of GW by building mass restrictions into the game in a consistent and even handed way. My bet is not. I believe that Hawk Wargames is celebrating this weekend as this is the beginning of the end for 40K. Just like Fantasy we had one rule set with some serious flaws come out followed by another rule set that completely set the game on a non competitive level.

Anyway, enough ranting here are the flaws I see in a competitive game of 40K:
1. No limit to detachments..... almost as stupid as unbound.
2. Invisibility...... This is stupid as psychic heavy armies will be able to stack the 2++ rerollable behind invisibility...
3. Did not fix the 2++ rerollable. I mean how hard is this. Read the forums, watch a couple of tournament results. Take a little bit of time and care in your game and you can fix this. It is the fact that 7th ed came out and this is still not fixed that pushes me away from the game. If they couldn't be bothered to fix this then they obviously just do not care.
4. Psychic powerhouses - The psychic phase in 40K just became as game breaking as the magic phase in fantasy. It just takes longer. 40K just became a game of the haves and have nots. You can either bring 10+ psycher levels to the field to begin with or you will loose.
5. Deamonic powers are stupid good - Especially for deamon players who have multi wound casters and units that can throw dice at powers. Just like in fantasy you mitigate the perils and then just keep casting.
6. Destroyed the tie between the fluff and the game. I was pissed off enough when the 6th ed allies chart made no sense. But to throw it out completely. And don't get me started on certian forces being able to summon deamons. I go back to its like they don't even care.
7. New edition, $80, 6th edition with more stuff broke. So I get the pleasure of paying for a rule set that the only major change is the one thing they break even more.

So I am done. I am not even going to try. It's not worth it. It is obvious they do not care about a competitively balanced game so I am going to move on. Warma-Hordes is solid, Dropzone looks very promising, those infinity guys keep showing up. GW is no longer the only game in town. My prediction is that 40K will go the way of Fantasy. 100 man tournaments will become 50 man, 50 will become 20 and the tournements will disappear in 2-3 years. GW seems to think that this is fine. I have a suspicion it will not be. I have always believed that one of the reasons 40K was so successful is that there was a core group of players that were always playing the game in the store as people wandered in. Many of these players are competitively minded like me and so we formed a nucleus that when people walked into a store they could see this game being played and the cool armies. My gut is that this edition changes that. We will find another game to play and when those new players come into a game store they will see us playing a different game with cool armies instead. I have a massive investment into 40k so I hope I am wrong. I hope some group of TO's come together and fix 40K in spite of GW. But as 7th ed shows, GW does not only not want to service this market they are actively working to make the game more noncompetitive.

Oh and if any of you GW people actually read this (which I doubt as 7th ed shows you don't care) I am a share holder and I will be selling my stock. I held on to yhe shares after your latest set of financial results thinking you might bounce back in a big way. It is clear you will not. Maybe enough of us will sell that the stock price will get low enough someone new can buy you out and fire you all.

[xcom]

I haveny played since 5th, and was considering maybe getting back in with 7th. There was several issues that I was hoping would change with 7th, but most of that didn't happen. The new deamon summing thing is just plain silly. Well GW you lost your chance to get me back into you game. I'm going to stick with Warmahordes and give Deadzone and Bolt Action a try now.

[Xaric]

Ok counter to your rant

1 Means more options... You have a Leader who comes with a warlord trait why would you need a bound army other then for the claim objective this means you can be creative with your army and its background just the way GW is thinking the game should be more about the narrative then rolling some dice and removing said model sorry but if you don't want substance to the game go play chess...

2 Instead of whining and claiming something is broken how about using tactical know how and figure a way to beat it is that not the hole point of a game with a army not just like the problem we had in 6th deathstars

3 Maybe they had a good reason maybe someone found a way to completely nullify it but you clearly haven't given any reasons to why it is broken.

4 Hmm so basically your telling me because they streamlined the 40k magic phase it is a bad thing so rolling 2 d6 for leadership then the other person rolls a d6 for deny the witch is slower then pooling all your dice and using what you got also onto your rant about Invisibility it can be denied now where it could not before. Here's a tip if they need 3 warp charges and they roll lets say 5 dice get and they rolled let say 6 6 3 1 4 and you roll say 2 deny the witch and get a 6 and a 2 they get perils and fail to cast the ability due to you removed one of there warp charges instead of rolling say 3 deny the witch because he has to get 3 warp charges and wasting your pool of deny the witch dice.

5 You do know they still need mastery lv 3 to use half of those spells so unless they play daemons who have access to mastery lv 3 they are the only ones who can use most of those ability and yes even if pink horrors are a unit of 16 they are still counted as mastery lv 1 they just give the army 3 warp charge to the pool. And if they sacrifice themselves they loose all upgrades and are mastery 2 at most so they loose there ability to use the 3 warp charge ability such as summoning.

6 the chart has been made so if you play with friend's who say have nids and the other plays space marines there's no objection when it comes to the allied but they must deploy 12" away from each other. Ok really now your being silly summoning daemons is how most daemons get into real space you really should read the fluff if you feel this is incorrect even the most loyalist member can be tempted by power for personal gain.

7 New edition with cost about the same but with 3 books in there own respected areas instead of taking a giant *** tome that you will only game with 200 pages and a new phase.

Ok balance you want your playing the wrong game then chess is your game because this game was never designed to have balance in mind or they would have never made other factions other then space marines war is not meant to be fair that is the challenge if you can't accept a challenge and want a I WIN to suit your needs then ask yourself why do you play the game?

[interrogator_chaplain]

Bye!

[Joe Fixit]

To the OP, give X-Wing a whirl, it's a truly great game, easy to learn and cheaper to get into. I'm not ditching 40k all together but mainly just collecting the cool models now. The odd standalone to paint. The constant push of 40k product is too much for me now to justify.

My sentiment is pretty much this now as far as GW and 40k go. I love the models and the background. The game not so much anymore.

[St.Germaine]

I'm in kind of the same boat as Joe Fixit. For a number of reasons I haven't been able to be active on the gaming side since 40Kv5. Several people whose opinions I trust have confirmed some of the typical Internet chicken-little-ing about v6. I was leery of 7 being released so soon after 6 and given GW's track record this seems to something I was right to be leery of. I love the fluff and am generally in contempt of power-gamers but, I've played any number of games over the years that have nice tight rulesets that allow fluffiness and competition. GW fails because they spew this nonsensical pap about 40K having always been only a beer & pretzels game. They don't have the balls to admit that the single biggest roadblock to getting a truly balanced ruleset is that rule changes are all-too-frequently driven by sales issues. Sad. I, too, have a massive investment in time, $$$, and love in their world but, until there is evidence that they've decided to try and successfully execute an auto-cranial-anal-extraction, I'll be just working on assembling and painting forces that I'll hopefully be able to use when(if) they decide to actually fix the rules. Maybe I can get some of my cronies to play v5 or perhaps the pseudo-6 rules that were leaked before v6 came out.

[Archon Charybdis]

5 You do know they still need mastery lv 3 to use half of those spells

No, you just have to generate a total of 3 warp charges in your army. Mastery Level only effects the number of spells you know and how many you can cast a turn. The Malefic Daemonology chart is one of the few major gripes I think are founded.

[Melon-neko]

5) Mastery level just declares how many powers a psyker has and how many they can cast per phase. A level 1 psyker now generate a warp charge 2 or 3 power (One of the changes from 6th to 7th)

[YorkNecromancer]

But as a tournament rule set they have proven what they have always said that they do not design 40K to be a competitive game.

http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/i_beg_your_pardon_true_blood.gif

So... so you know and freely admit that you're wrong to complain about it being poorly balanced for tournament play... but you still do?

Hmmm.




So I am done. I am not even going to try. It's not worth it. It is obvious they do not care about a competitively balanced game so I am going to move on.

Go to your wide future. I trust it will bring you more happiness than 40K.

http://static.tumblr.com/77b3306f6abddb374d805b69de57871e/hvf6sau/19qmkm1o5/tumblr_static_mishacollins.gif

[daboarder]

can we stop with the sepctic "bye and good riddance" please?

people leaving 40k is never a good thing, it means that there are less people to find a game with, less people contributing to the modeling and painting and that ultimately the health of 40k as a whole is that little bit worse.

To the OP, it is a shame to see you go, Can I advise that you hold onto your miniatures so that you can always change your mind later.

[Defenestratus]

I played a game of 6th/apocalypse today.

On the other table, a Tzeench daemon army summoned 1200 points of additional daemons during the course of the game during the psychic phase.

Really effing stupid.

[White Tiger88]

I played a game of 6th/apocalypse today.

On the other table, a Tzeench daemon army summoned 1200 points of additional daemons during the course of the game during the psychic phase.

Really effing stupid.

I am sorry but lol

[DarkLink]

http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/i_beg_your_pardon_true_blood.gif

So... so you know and freely admit that you're wrong to complain about it being poorly balanced for tournament play... but you still do?

Hmmm.





Go to your wide future. I trust it will bring you more happiness than 40K.

http://static.tumblr.com/77b3306f6abddb374d805b69de57871e/hvf6sau/19qmkm1o5/tumblr_static_mishacollins.gif

Don't be so condescending. Other people are allowed to have opinions, and being judgemental about is is a great way of driving a split in the community.

[Caitsidhe]

I played a game of 6th/apocalypse today.

On the other table, a Tzeench daemon army summoned 1200 points of additional daemons during the course of the game during the psychic phase.

Really effing stupid.

The scary thing is I did some calculations based on likely CD lists and that is below average. :D

[White Tiger88]

The scary thing is I did some calculations based on likely CD lists and that is below average. :D

Yup i noticed it seems to be around 2000pts.........

[Morgrim]

I doubt I'll be playing the new edition because I've been priced out of GW's market. They want $140 for the rulebook, and said rulebook doesn't even include all the rules (ie Stronghold). That is roughly my entire annual hobby budget just as an entry point, forget about actually purchasing an army. Why would I buy something that expensive will be obsolete in 2 years time?

[Vangrail]

Idk i like a lot of the tweaks they did. Yes the demon summoning should have been more limited but thats kinda my only complaint. The snap firing after jink helped balance a lot and the now more limited ally chart helps. I just wish the rumor mill didn't get to bad with this edition. Its not the company that failed you its the *** hat who started the bs rumor making it sound amazing when it was more tweaking and adding rules here and there. People are blaming the wrong thing...

People need to stop complaining play it see how you like it. You do not have to buy the $85 book. Wait for the starter it will have a small one and usually a good deal on minis.

[Darren Richardson]

to the people being rude and condescending, QUIT IT already, it's not nice and it makes you look like a jerk....

To the OP and others like him, have any of you who don't like the changes EVER actually written to Games Workshop to tell them in detail how you feel about the rules which you think are broken?

you may post your opinions here on this site, and maybe others, but do you seriously think GW employees or top brass even read these boards, they have better things to do with their time like managing a company or working on figures/books/paints/etc.

THE ONLY way your views would be heard is by writing directly to them, they have a snail mail address, they have email addresses so write to them, encourge your disallusioned friends to write to them in detail, pointing out the areas which cause their concern and lack of enjoment in the game...

IF EVERY disalussioned player was to write to them, then perhaps you might finally get heard and then you might finally get the game you want...

TRY IT it will only cost you a small portion of your time, and perhaps a stamp or two.

[White Tiger88]

Ahahahaha.... GW listen to players? That will be the day.....

On the other hand i LIKE the new edition from the sense everyone can cheese each other fairly!!

[Harley]

I doubt I'll be playing the new edition because I've been priced out of GW's market. They want $140 for the rulebook, and said rulebook doesn't even include all the rules (ie Stronghold). That is roughly my entire annual hobby budget just as an entry point, forget about actually purchasing an army. Why would I buy something that expensive will be obsolete in 2 years time?

This is a common opinion I've heard amongst Aussies. The pricing there is just ludicrous. I feel like they have really abandoned their customer base over there. I'm just glad here in the States we can still get good deals from discounters. $64 big rule books available!

[Xaric]

Ahahahaha.... GW listen to players? That will be the day.....

On the other hand i LIKE the new edition from the sense everyone can cheese each other fairly!!

GW does listen to there customers... just not the stupid people who know nothing about running a company and complain about how they think the price should be lowered. do you recall the exsalted flamer that could not be a model with out its chariot? they made a white dwarf book to correct it and give its own statline to be played as a model with out it chariot this was to try and fix the issue that if the chariot moved it could not fire other then snapshots with its blue flames.

GW is run by humans after all people need to stop demanding they do things and request changeis with some exsample to why you feel its unblanced and not the generic "this is broken FIX IT !!"

[Darren Richardson]

Ahahahaha.... GW listen to players? That will be the day.....

you never know, they might if they were to get several tons of "hate mail" on their laps :D

[Charon]

Sorry but if you dont see why summoning 2k points of deamons over the course of a game is broken you probably dont deserve to be called a "game designer"

[DarkLink]

GW is run by humans after all people need to stop demanding they do things and request changeis with some exsample to why you feel its unblanced and not the generic "this is broken FIX IT !!"

Here's a business lesson for you: If you produce a poor quality product, charge a premium for it, and have terrible customer relations, you're doing something wrong.

GW's models are good, but their books are terrible, and for a lot of people 40k is a package deal. It's nice that there are a good number of collectors out there, but there are too many people who actually care about playing the game for GW to be able to afford to lose them. And since this is a package deal, it doesn't matter how good the models are if the rules are terrible. It would be like buying a really nice looking car without a functional engine.

[daboarder]

Case in point. Pyrovore looks awesome. Good luck getting people to buy more than one

[Vlad78]

Ok counter to your rant

1 Means more options... You have a Leader who comes with a warlord trait why would you need a bound army other then for the claim objective this means you can be creative with your army and its background just the way GW is thinking the game should be more about the narrative then rolling some dice and removing said model sorry but if you don't want substance to the game go play chess...

2 Instead of whining and claiming something is broken how about using tactical know how and figure a way to beat it is that not the hole point of a game with a army not just like the problem we had in 6th deathstars

3 Maybe they had a good reason maybe someone found a way to completely nullify it but you clearly haven't given any reasons to why it is broken.

4 Hmm so basically your telling me because they streamlined the 40k magic phase it is a bad thing so rolling 2 d6 for leadership then the other person rolls a d6 for deny the witch is slower then pooling all your dice and using what you got also onto your rant about Invisibility it can be denied now where it could not before. Here's a tip if they need 3 warp charges and they roll lets say 5 dice get and they rolled let say 6 6 3 1 4 and you roll say 2 deny the witch and get a 6 and a 2 they get perils and fail to cast the ability due to you removed one of there warp charges instead of rolling say 3 deny the witch because he has to get 3 warp charges and wasting your pool of deny the witch dice.

5 You do know they still need mastery lv 3 to use half of those spells so unless they play daemons who have access to mastery lv 3 they are the only ones who can use most of those ability and yes even if pink horrors are a unit of 16 they are still counted as mastery lv 1 they just give the army 3 warp charge to the pool. And if they sacrifice themselves they loose all upgrades and are mastery 2 at most so they loose there ability to use the 3 warp charge ability such as summoning.

6 the chart has been made so if you play with friend's who say have nids and the other plays space marines there's no objection when it comes to the allied but they must deploy 12" away from each other. Ok really now your being silly summoning daemons is how most daemons get into real space you really should read the fluff if you feel this is incorrect even the most loyalist member can be tempted by power for personal gain.

7 New edition with cost about the same but with 3 books in there own respected areas instead of taking a giant *** tome that you will only game with 200 pages and a new phase.

Ok balance you want your playing the wrong game then chess is your game because this game was never designed to have balance in mind or they would have never made other factions other then space marines war is not meant to be fair that is the challenge if you can't accept a challenge and want a I WIN to suit your needs then ask yourself why do you play the game?


I respect your opinion but could you please stop repeating the main GW sorry argument used to explain their complete lack of interest into making this game as balanced as possible?

40k is no chess so what? are you getting paid for repeating such ludicrous idea as 40K can't be balanced? or are you just repeating what you heard here and there coming from people who do NOT want this game to have better rules?

This is completely non sensical.

They don't WANT to invest money into balancing things. Period.
Broken units allow them to sell. That is all.

and this is NOT acceptable.

If you accept the unforgivable poor quality of GW playtesting (if there's any) , it's your choice but please do not complain about those who are legitimate to complain about it as customers.

There should be a place for all, be they casual or competitive or fluffy players.

[Xaric]

Here's a business lesson for you: If you produce a poor quality product, charge a premium for it, and have terrible customer relations, you're doing something wrong.

GW's models are good, but their books are terrible, and for a lot of people 40k is a package deal. It's nice that there are a good number of collectors out there, but there are too many people who actually care about playing the game for GW to be able to afford to lose them. And since this is a package deal, it doesn't matter how good the models are if the rules are terrible. It would be like buying a really nice looking car without a functional engine.

Ok now your making odd sense you said there models are good but you say they produce poor quality product... That just conflicts itself GW staff make both models and rule books so I am going to refraze what you said you love the staff who sculpt the miniature but you hate the staff who make the books did you know the rules develop have to have a sense of realism to them because after all warhammer 40k is based on what if real life turned out like this in the 40k.

Give me a rule that you feel objected as broken and I will come up with a way to beat it add the army you use and what you went against.

Do you know why people hate some of the rules in the game? It force's them to use there brain and beat a challenge I will give you a prime example of a player who plays the same army as me in my local GW shop.

He plays nurgle daemons he losses a majority of the time because he does not want to deep strike due to the risk and said using icons is silly because if the unit dies you loose the icon. He also said GW was stupid to give all nurgle daemons slow and purposeful and shrouded.

Now to me nurgle units are slow because there decaying and mostly resemble a shambling zombie that makes sense to me and I accept that rule.
Shrouded is because of the fly's buzzing around them also the smell could be obstructing the aim of say a guardsmen with coughing and vomiting.

I have won almost every game other then facing tau damn gunlines but that's how they play and I have beaten them some times because of getting a model deep strike about 5" away from them in ruins and scaring them off the board next turn with nurglings :).

[daboarder]

GW is by their own admission both a model making and game design company. darklink is refering to the quality of the "game design" products

[Denzark]

Wickedgood the OP finished his 'constructive criticism' by stating he hopes the share price falls low enough to get people fired. Hang on - not only does he want people to lose jobs, but he wants the company that produces a product he has elected to no longer use, but that I and hundreds of thousands of others still do, to be damaged?

And you think his histrionic BS doesn't merit some condescension?

Well I hope Wickedgood is kind enough to post the links to the ebays of his armies as he rage quits, and I hope he doesn't let the door hit him on the arse on the way out.

[Xaric]

I respect your opinion but could you please stop repeating the main GW sorry argument used to explain their complete lack of interest into making this game as balanced as possible?

40k is no chess so what? are you getting paid for repeating such ludicrous idea as 40K can't be balanced? or are you just repeating what you heard here and there coming from people who do NOT want this game to have better rules?

This is completely non sensical.

They don't WANT to invest money into balancing things. Period.
Broken units allow them to sell. That is all.

and this is NOT acceptable.

If you accept the unforgivable poor quality of GW playtesting (if there's any) , it's your choice but please do not complain about those who are legitimate to complain about it as customers.

There should be a place for all, be they casual or competitive or fluffy players.

Then tell me what is balanced in your eyes? Because clearly you seem to have a very high understanding to what balance is yet you give no example or reason to how you state it.

Example of balance on a very basic level take away every rule and replace it with 3 rules rock paper scissors there you go a balance of a game where each player can win or loose because they are completely equal. Now take warhammer 40k we have a total of 17 army's each with there own rules and play styles and you tell me how you can balance said game this is just as bad as the wow forums when people cry because there warrior could not solo 2 druids and demand the druids to be nurfed because there the god of balance.

Non sensical or just you don't want to hear the truth of what you are hearing.

This is how you see it as NOT acceptable you don't speak for the hole community sorry.

I am assuming you are comparing a video game to a game done in reality video games can be play tested by millions of people because its online and available to everyone sometimes free of cost due to free to play so the data is easy to be accumulative in real time to give a more higher scale of how the game could be balanced. But for a game like warhammer GW can only get a very small and limit amount of data due to they don't have access to every play done by people all around the world who play warhammer the only information is via youtube battle reports and real life play in close area to where they are doing research on the balance of the game.

Casual and competitive can never be one and the same Casuals are people who don't have a huge amount of time so they have very little understanding to say someone who is a competitive player who will understand most of the statistics of the game to the point they could destroy a casual player because of the knowledge they have the stuff they learned and the tricks to not brake but find loopholes in the rules.

I hope this information helps.

[daboarder]

Then tell me what is balanced in your eyes? Because clearly you seem to have a very high understanding to what balance is yet you give no example or reason to how you state it.
Not this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryMAAP6HWfw

[Xaric]

So you are saying one battle report justifys the hole balance of a game... really?!? wow...

[daboarder]

no, but its a poor start and this will likely be a common occurrence. Heck, this actually is one of the weakest showings for that daemon list due to the cards going against him and not actually having screamer models etc to summon (the group also decided NOT to allow horros themselves to summon)

[Voltigeur]

I understand the frustration that the OP is feeling. I would have switched to a better game years ago but my gaming group is hung up on 40k and my town isn't big enough for some of the smaller ones to take hold yet. In the meantime I have found a good way to mitigate the hatred I feel towards GW, it's called not buying anything from them. Rulebooks can be torrented for free after they've been out for a few days and there are so many great miniature companies to buy from there is never any need to give GW a cent. I'm currently building a Napoleonic french army that will double as an imperial guard force whenever I play 40k.

[Xaric]

no, but its a poor start and this will likely be a common occurrence. Heck, this actually is one of the weakest showings for that daemon list due to the cards going against him and not actually having screamer models etc to summon (the group also decided NOT to allow horros themselves to summon)

Hmmm but it ended in a draw and not a landslide because the cards are going against him? ok lets put it in the perception of the game shale we daemons come from the warp and are made up from the warp and powers are generated from the warp so to me this makes sense for daemons to have this much dice in the psyker phase its there primary life force vs someone who is not part of the warp and can only tap into a very little amount of the warp to activate there powers this is very fluffy to a tee. Find grey knights vs daemons using there new powers with the ability to make a D strength vortex wiping out masses of daemons in 1 hit.

[Caitsidhe]

Hmmm but it ended in a draw and not a landslide because the cards are going against him? ok lets put it in the perception of the game shale we daemons come from the warp and are made up from the warp and powers are generated from the warp so to me this makes sense for daemons to have this much dice in the psyker phase its there primary life force vs someone who is not part of the warp and can only tap into a very little amount of the warp to activate there powers this is very fluffy to a tee. Find grey knights vs daemons using there new powers with the ability to make a D strength vortex wiping out masses of daemons in 1 hit.

Except that you aren't bothering to do the math. 1) D-strength weapons will not wipe out masses of Daemons in one hit, let alone keep p with the generation of Daemons. 2) There are four powers in Summoning which bring over Daemons. There is one power which brings in the aforementioned D-strength weapon. 3) Daemon lists, even more than Gray Knight lists, are capable of generating enough Psychic dice to sit on opposing psykers. A balanced game would allow any person with the same number of points, regardless of their different faction, a fighting chance against the same number of points of another faction. You will note that I didn't say it would be an equal chance. In systems this complex, it is impossible to come up with something as even as Chess. However, a fighting chance should still be attainable with diligence and commonsense.

If you are asserting that it is fair for a Chaos Daemons player to double to triple their points allowed in the course of a game against an opponent who cannot, I have to seriously question bias and motivations for posting here. Chaos Daemons were already performing extremely well against the other factions before these changes. Math is a harsh mistress, and a game based on simple probability as well as logistics is cruelly easy to calculate. They want to sell a lot of Daemons models. They crassly and in no uncertain terms rigged the game to favor anyone who buys a lot of Daemons. We all know they did it. It is an extremely shortsighted financial move aimed at achieving a short term bump in sales.

[Xaric]

But you must take into account for example grey knights are mastery lv 1 they get a +5 Deny the witch not sure if they have animantim will if they do they get +4 deny the witch for half of those daemon summoning ability's they need 3 warp charge and they roll 3 successful and you deny one of them the spell fails and the unit can't use it till the next turn. You need to work out the average of how many dice a player will use to cast a ability I hear so far people will use about 5 dice for warp charge 3 ability's because fear of getting perils so I would say in most cassis you only need to roll 1-2 deny the witch.

Daemons don't get a shooting phase yes they get a warp storm but that can also backfire onto the daemon player.

[Caitsidhe]

But you must take into account for example grey knights are mastery lv 1 they get a +5 Deny the witch not sure if they have animantim will if they do they get +4 deny the witch for half of those daemon summoning ability's they need 3 warp charge and they roll 3 successful and you deny one of them the spell fails and the unit can't use it till the next turn. You need to work out the average of how many dice a player will use to cast a ability I hear so far people will use about 5 dice for warp charge 3 ability's because fear of getting perils so I would say in most cassis you only need to roll 1-2 deny the witch.

No, I don't. You also do not get bonuses to Deny the Witch against spells that don't target you. Summoning doesn't target you. I don't have to take anything into account which applies "tunnel vision" to the game. Even if I were to accept your argument (which I don't as the math doesn't hold up) not everyone plays GK. So even if I accepted your argument, what is everyone else supposed to do?


Daemons don't get a shooting phase yes they get a warp storm but that can also backfire onto the daemon player.

Again, this doesn't matter or have any relevance to the discussion at all. Daemons didn't get much shooting before and yet they they STILL were managing to beat the pants off most lists in 6th due to a variety of unbalanced broken builds. Giving them even more options to overwhelm everyone else is simply moronic. The math doesn't lie. You can't make a silk purse out of this sow's ear. It is bad design.

[Comrade_Nikolai]

Then tell me what is balanced in your eyes? Because clearly you seem to have a very high understanding to what balance is yet you give no example or reason to how you state it.

I'll give this one a go. I'd like to rock up to a table with a well designed list and have a nice challenging game that I can win through skill, and perhaps a little bit of luck. I don't want to lose in the army design phase, or before I've even had a turn. Thats what I would consider balance. I don't want an excuse to take a crap list.

I don't understand what this pushback and shaming of people that want a balanced game is. Its not just tournament gamers, but as it seems to need spelling out:

if casual gamers are happy with an unbalanced ruleset but tournament gamers are not, how is that situation preferable to a balanced system that would please both casual and tournament gamers? a balanced ruleset would please everyone whereas at most an unbalanced ruleset would please only a subset of casual gamers. Can any of you GW apologists answer what the advantage of this lack of game balance is in that context?


So you are saying one battle report justifys the hole balance of a game... really?!? wow...
its not one battle report. its the first battle report. If you can break a game that easily on release day it really doesn't bode well.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

I think a lot of the push-back is experiential.
Having a hobby is an emotional connection for a lot of people, and when someone rants about how rubbish something you like is you tend to get ranty too.
Of course what those of us who leap to defend often forget is that the people attacking aren't attacking us.
We all share a passion, and that's a good thing.
But when group A sees a change as something great that will enhance their experience of the game and group B sees it as ruining theirs then both sides are essentially saying "your way of seeing the game is wrong" in increasingly elaborate and loud ways.
Ultimately we all want to get our toys out and have fun, but some of the changes that people moot for balance would spoil fun for some people, just as some of the changes which are added for flexibility make it less fun for others.
You're ultimately NEVER going to create a ruleset with the flexibility that the casual and narrative gamers want AND the balance that the tournament gamers want.
GW have chosen who they want to please, likely because A)It'll make more money (as far as they're concerned) and B)It'll please more people (as far as they're concerned).
Since we don't know the numbers all we can do is be glad that the game still exists, and feel sorry that some people feel badly enough about these changes to stop playing. Best we wish them luck in whatever new thing they start, and invite them to come back to the game if an edition that suits them ever returns.

[Comrade_Nikolai]

Ultimately we all want to get our toys out and have fun, but some of the changes that people moot for balance would spoil fun for some people, just as some of the changes which are added for flexibility make it less fun for others.
I don't understand how those changes would make it less fun for people. In my experience, when playing in a narrative campaign we never had any issues with people playing around with stuff or trying some more unusual games as long as they weren't doing it just to gain a competitive advantage. In the context of a fluff driven campaign I've never really seen it as a problem to relax some of the rules or house rule things so I've never thought it would ruin the game to have a better ruleset. However, the lack of balance has always been a much stronger issue and I have seen that ruin games for people far more frequently.

[Patrick Boyle]

4 Hmm so basically your telling me because they streamlined the 40k magic phase it is a bad thing so rolling 2 d6 for leadership then the other person rolls a d6 for deny the witch is slower then pooling all your dice and using what you got also onto your rant about Invisibility it can be denied now where it could not before. Here's a tip if they need 3 warp charges and they roll lets say 5 dice get and they rolled let say 6 6 3 1 4 and you roll say 2 deny the witch and get a 6 and a 2 they get perils and fail to cast the ability due to you removed one of there warp charges instead of rolling say 3 deny the witch because he has to get 3 warp charges and wasting your pool of deny the witch dice.

5 You do know they still need mastery lv 3 to use half of those spells so unless they play daemons who have access to mastery lv 3 they are the only ones who can use most of those ability and yes even if pink horrors are a unit of 16 they are still counted as mastery lv 1 they just give the army 3 warp charge to the pool. And if they sacrifice themselves they loose all upgrades and are mastery 2 at most so they loose there ability to use the 3 warp charge ability such as summoning.

You seem to be confused as to how Deny the Witch and using powers works. First, to successully Deny the Witch, "you need to nullify all of the Warp Charge points that were successfully harnessed by the psyker when he passed his Psychic Test." So in your example, if the power used was a blessing, yes they still roll on perils, but the power still manifests unless I roll three 6's.

As for your second point, Mastery level affects the following things; Number of powers they can attempt to use per turn, number of powers they get to generate(if not otherwise specified by the unit entry. For instance ML1 Librarians still get to generate two powers), number of dice they contribute to the Warp Charge pool. No where in the rules for choosing which power you're going to use during the phase does Mastery Level come into play, the only restriction is on what powers the psyker in question knows, and how many dice you still have in your Warp Charge pool.

All of that said, it's not all roses for Eldar and Daemons. Perils isn't the real threat, unless you're talk single wound psykers; the chances of something much worse than suffering a single wound from perils are pretty low(the real danger from perils for most psykers is the lose a power result, I think, but you have to fail a leadership check for that to happen, after suffering perils in the first place then rolling for that particular result). The problems are how many dice you have to expend on each power, and and that the same unit can only attempt to cast a given power once per psychic phase. Someone else has gone through the math so I'm relying on their numbers, but it takes 5 die for an 80% success rate on a ML2 power, and if you fail, you both wouldn't have the die to spare for a second attempt, and in the case of something like Seer council, wouldn't be able to try the same power again anyway. 2 Farseers and a full unit of warlocks is 16 die before the D6, so you reliably have enough die for an 80% shot at 3 ML2 powers. You probably want to roll extra die on any ML1 powers you're using as well to make them safer from a deny attempt. If your typical opponent with maybe a psyker devotes all of their die against a single power they might deny 1 of them, though that depends highly on the D6 result. There are going to be situations though where psyker-less armies flat out can't deny powers even with all of their die pool, but then you already couldn't even try to deny blessings in 6th so I guess 'maybe' is better than 'can't'.

In all, things didn't really change all that much, other than even psyker heavy armies are going to be casting fewer powers in total if they want to reliably succeed.

[Defenestratus]

So you are saying one battle report justifys the hole balance of a game... really?!? wow...

I saw basically the same thing happen at my store.

By the end of the 3rd turn the Ork player was wondering how the daemons outnumbered him 2:1. Its ridiculous.

I'm putting together a certified "7th edition 40k Pickup gamer questionnaire" that will need to be completed prior to each pickup game I try to play. The answers to which determine whether or not I decide to waste my time getting my minis out of their case.

Note: it shouldn't be like this.

[Xaric]

I'll give this one a go. I'd like to rock up to a table with a well designed list and have a nice challenging game that I can win through skill, and perhaps a little bit of luck. I don't want to lose in the army design phase, or before I've even had a turn. Thats what I would consider balance. I don't want an excuse to take a crap list.

I don't understand what this pushback and shaming of people that want a balanced game is. Its not just tournament gamers, but as it seems to need spelling out:

if casual gamers are happy with an unbalanced ruleset but tournament gamers are not, how is that situation preferable to a balanced system that would please both casual and tournament gamers? a balanced ruleset would please everyone whereas at most an unbalanced ruleset would please only a subset of casual gamers. Can any of you GW apologists answer what the advantage of this lack of game balance is in that context?


its not one battle report. its the first battle report. If you can break a game that easily on release day it really doesn't bode well.

About time someone gave me a correct exsample to how they feel the game is for them.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

I don't understand how those changes would make it less fun for people. In my experience, when playing in a narrative campaign we never had any issues with people playing around with stuff or trying some more unusual games as long as they weren't doing it just to gain a competitive advantage. In the context of a fluff driven campaign I've never really seen it as a problem to relax some of the rules or house rule things so I've never thought it would ruin the game to have a better ruleset. However, the lack of balance has always been a much stronger issue and I have seen that ruin games for people far more frequently.

Let's take a look at the thing people hated on most in the last edition.
Allies.
Was it perfect, god no, but it openeded up a load more freedom that we'd ever had before.
I'll grant you that in some respects it wasn't well implemented, and the chart reflected the fluff about as well as I reflect a sane non-orky person who doesn't have a squig for a brain.
BUT I could have a Marine leading Guardsmen, for the first time EVER (unless you count the unbelievably complex rules in the old SOB book).
My bloodaxes could finally sell their services to my guard (eventually betraying them obviously).
And allied lists added a load of other cool stuff like Inquisitional Detachments and Knights (who also got hated on).
These things for me and my ilk made us very very happy because it was nice to have something official allowing that kind of play, esp as the majority of my play was at a GW.
I totally understand that these things threw the tournament meta into disarray, because (and rightly so i guess) the tournament scene is all about making the most finely tuned army possible and playing it with the maximum of skill to win a competitive game.
My idea of fun involves a lot more excited shouting, arm flailing and occasionally making sound effects or quoting Zapp Brannigan.
I'm totally aware that that means that some people would not enjoy playing me, for exactly the same reason I'd likely not enjoy playing them, because we see the game differently.
My IDEAL allies system is more like 7th's, because now I can make Arbite Units and Genestealer cult and use Chaos Dreadbnoghts as imperial robots (berserk chart representing the fact that they invariably ran in circles and fell down no matter how hard I worked on the logic for them).
The most balanced way to do allies would be to heavily limit the or remove them altogether, because this would encourage using your army on it's own strengths competitively, preventing the gap-filling approach.
But then my grot-driven Labyrinth Doorkeeper inspired looted Carnifex would never get to see the light of day.............
I've played Warmahordes, and I find it pretty dull if I'm honest. It's dry. But I get why tourney guys like it.
However I don't want Warhammer to end up like that, extremely limited customisation in favor of an excellently tuned ruleset.
And from a pretty damn broad gaming experience (historical, and multiple 3rd partys as well as GW) what the GW stuff offers me that no-one else does is madcap inventiveness when it comes to unit equipment and army composition.
That's all I really care about, and every game that steps towards balance seems to step away from that.
Find me a game with as many different permutations of as many varied units as 40k that has a tightly balanced ruleset and is designed for large scale battles and then............ well I'll probably start playing that too TBH.
But I haven't found one yet.

[Defenestratus]

My idea of fun involves a lot more excited shouting, arm flailing and occasionally making sound effects or quoting Zapp Brannigan.

You sound like a fine bloke to play a game against.

Unfortunately the double-edged-sword of this ruleset that gives you the freedom to play as you like also allows people whose idea of fun it is to get out every ounce of passive-aggressive nerdrage on their opponent. I can live with the former, the latter I could do without.

Unfortunately, at least locally here (and in the other places I've played with the exception of one place), its the latter that is ruining the game for the rest of us. I cannot walk into my store without finding a player that is willing to just take 4 riptides, 12 broadsides and 3 min squads of firewarriors to totally table me by turn 3 because I decided that I'd like to try and use my striking scorpions and nightspinners instead of spamming wave serpents and mounted seer councils.

What I would like to have is a game that is flexible enough to allow you to play the narrative type games you want, but also punishes the kinds of players whose only joy in life is seeing the disappointment on your face as you put your models back in their case faster than it took to get them out. Its possible - but unfortunately GW doesn't seem to want to invest effort into doing that.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

While I agree in sentiment, their hobby is building those kinds of lists and they should be allowed to enjoy it by playing other people who WOULD enjoy playing them.
That's a failure of the players not the game, I'm sorry that your local store is populated by such people, and if you ever find yourself in Sydney with models on hand them PM me and I'll expose you to my level of crazy!
BUt we can't blame the game for people being tools, those guys would still exploit whatever they could to get an edge and would still rub it in when they won. The only two ways to "punish" people like that are to walk one of two paths, to play like me (not caring about win or lose, just caring that stuff explodes) robbing them of the satisfaction of seeing you suffer. Or to walk the path of playing them once, and politely declining thereafter. Soon they will find it harder and harder to get said game, until no-one will play them at all. Saw the vets at GW Bournemouth do this to their "that guy" over the span of about 18 months to the point that he just went away. It was sad really, if he'd just learned to play more nicely it would have been better for everyone.

[Defenestratus]

That's a failure of the players not the game,

I totally agree. However, I think that its pretty clear that with the advent of the internet, the community is incapable of policing itself.

[Caitsidhe]

While I agree in sentiment, their hobby is building those kinds of lists and they should be allowed to enjoy it by playing other people who WOULD enjoy playing them.
That's a failure of the players not the game, I'm sorry that your local store is populated by such people, and if you ever find yourself in Sydney with models on hand them PM me and I'll expose you to my level of crazy!
BUt we can't blame the game for people being tools, those guys would still exploit whatever they could to get an edge and would still rub it in when they won. The only two ways to "punish" people like that are to walk one of two paths, to play like me (not caring about win or lose, just caring that stuff explodes) robbing them of the satisfaction of seeing you suffer. Or to walk the path of playing them once, and politely declining thereafter. Soon they will find it harder and harder to get said game, until no-one will play them at all. Saw the vets at GW Bournemouth do this to their "that guy" over the span of about 18 months to the point that he just went away. It was sad really, if he'd just learned to play more nicely it would have been better for everyone.


Actually, I disagree. We can blame the game for encouraging people to be tools. If the game's design makes something perfectly legal, why wouldn't they do it? Why should they assume they are being tools? More to the point, since "Fluffy" players can just do whatever they want since all such games are by mutual agreement, why do they need a rules set at all? It seems to me that a standard, balanced game is best and those who want to do narrative things which might be outside of it just can do so at will. Thus, a balanced rules set works for both sets of people. An unbalanced rules set only works for half at best.

[Mr Mystery]

Trouble is, the WAACmaniac will still find a way to WAAC, and thus risk your own enjoyment of the game.

Even if the rules are very strict and well defined, they'll find some other way to be arse, because they're a WAACmaniac.

The only way to counter them is to not to play them.

Here's some food for thought. 7th Ed is comprised of three books, each one numbered. Book One? All about the models. Book Two? All about the setting and the background. Book Three? All about how you play a game featuring the stuff in Book One and Book Two. That to me really sets out GW's stall. If it's not your bag it's not your bag. But it's what GW wanted to produce.

[Comrade_Nikolai]

Here's some food for thought. 7th Ed is comprised of three books, each one numbered. Book One? All about the models. Book Two? All about the setting and the background. Book Three? All about how you play a game featuring the stuff in Book One and Book Two. That to me really sets out GW's stall. If it's not your bag it's not your bag. But it's what GW wanted to produce.

Here's some more food for thought. GW are the ones that used to run tournaments and could therefore be considered as responsible for people still wanting to play tournaments using their system. At some points in the past, their tournaments were even comped (no special characters).

[Mr Mystery]

And now they're not. It's not unheard of for businesses to change approach.

[Defenestratus]

It's not unheard of for businesses to change approach.

2nd half 2013 Gross Operating Profit 7.7m GBP.
Year prior? 11.0m GBP

Changing their approach really seems to be working out for them!!

I realize that correlation != causality but GW is continuing to alienate its customers either through price, quality, or customer conduct.

[Comrade_Nikolai]

And now they're not. It's not unheard of for businesses to change approach.

Its quite rare that they alienate this much of their customer base though.

Lets see what it costs them.

[Mr Mystery]

But what percentage is actually alienated?

We don't have anything like enough suitable data for any more than the odd anecdote. And as a Fortean, I'm a firm believer that the plural of anecdote is not data.

[Harley]

The whole topic reminds me of Climate Change.

GW apologists deny the division of the 40k community and alienation of the fanbase, citing lack of evidence and clear statistical data.

Meanwhile, the polar glaciers (in this case the fanbase) are beginning to look a bit like Swiss cheese.

[Mr Mystery]

Locally perhaps. That's my whole point. Talking Heads on the Internet aren't particularly representative.

I mean, how many posters does BoLS have registered? And how many of those are expressing alienation? Can that be taken as representative of the wider gaming community? I dunno.

[spaceman91]

I have recently felt a little alienated but not from GW but from the local store. Not felt very welcome in the store for quite some time. Shame as I love the hobby.

[Mr Mystery]

In what way?

[spaceman91]

Its hard to explain but some of the staff ( not all ) have really not been friendly. Its sort of like because I'm a established gamer that I'm not as important as some one new.

[Mr Mystery]

Fair enough.

Surely you've got a local club, being a University town?

[Harley]

Similarly to climate change you can't just claim that a escalating trend of rising temperatures in one region is an isolated event. We live in a global community. Having been a member of BoLS, Heresy and Warseer, they all had the same general shift.

You're right that such alienation is going to be less common the closer to England you are, and the EU. These places are where GW is strongest.

The only real statistical data we have to go off of are stock prices. Look at their stock history. It correlates to their release of editions. Every 4-5 years they release a new edition. Stocks soar then peter off about 2 years later, and their prices slump. Right now their stock should be on a strong decline, bottoming out around 2018. However, releasing 7th edition after only 2 years will have a strange effect. My guess is stocks will skyrocket again but not as much as in 96, 2003 and 2012, leading to a decline and eventually bottoming out in 2020.

[spaceman91]

We do but its having some trouble at the mo. The place it has been in for ages has let them go so they are trying to find somewhere new. I still game with my friends so I'm not lost to GW. I chosse to shop elsewhere because of the unfriendliness.

[Psychosplodge]

The only way you can compare climate change and GW share prices is its all guesswork with people throwing numbers about and drawing prettymuch whatever conclusion they want.

[Alex Knight]

Couple of sentiments on my own front:
1.) Regarding Tournaments (pt. I)/ "Game-Balance" - How hard is it for a tournament organizer to say, "Armies may only consist of up to two detatchments. One must be the Combined Arms detatchment, the optional detatchment may only be the Allied detatchment." "Only Eternal War missions will be used." "Daemonology powers may not be selected."

2.) Regarding cheesemonkey, WAAC gamers and lists. Yes, I understand some people have limited areas to play in, and thus are stuck with players like that, but there is a rule on page 116 that so many people seemed to have overlooked - despite being written in bold letters - "players must agree how they are going to select their armies, and if any restrictions apply to the number and type of models they can use." That was in bold, freaking letters. GW put in the rules, "Don't be a dick."

3.) Regarding Tournaments (pt. II) When did tournaments for 40K start becoming a thing? Rogue Trader? 2nd Edition? 3rd? My experience seems to tell me that it was 3rd edition. So why does wargaming now have to be all about the "Tournament?" Why can't it go back to the ideals of having a gorram fun time with little toy soldiers and not who the frack is the better player?

[King Chud]

I was a strong competitive player in their 40K third edition and fifth edition. I play Warhammer Fantasy now, and I feel that is more balanced version of their gaming system. 40K has a history of arms races. It used to be Kult of Speed, Tyranids, and Chaos Space Marines regularly beat the Imperial forces in the third edition. Fifth edition had their escalation of armies with power weapons and vehicle squadrons. Every codex got to be the hot gaming item at the moment. I got out of it. 5th Edition became a pricey version of paper, scissor, rocks. The ork mobs could run anybody down with kustom forcefields and killer kans, while Imperial Guard had their leafblower tactics of bombarding the hell out of everyone with 5" templates with tank squadrons. I thought the introduction of fliers was a good idea in 40K, but I liked being able to pay points for my psychic powers for thousand sons. Can't do that in 7th and 6th edition. I think tournament judges would be better off not allowing allies and fortifications into the game. The army should come just from the codex, like in Warhammer Fantasy. I like my armies to be competitive. I sold off my tyranids and orks once they got shafted in later editions. I still have my thousand sons, and I can play about 9000 points in apocalypse. I always thought the chaos space marines should have a codex for pure Khorne, Nurgle, Tzzentch, and Slaanesh armies. I am sick of the plethora of space **** codexes for the Emperor.

[DarkLink]

Don't be pedantic, Mr Mystery. Just because there are people who play the game differently than you doesn't mean that they're an irrelevant minority. You want data, look at the explosion of the tournament scene in America. I don't you're probably just going to roll your eyes and ignore anything related to that, but there are thousands of players who pay extra money and take vacation time off work and travel to attend tournaments. The LVO drew over five hundred people from all over the world, and it's in its first year. Adepticon has several thousand attendees annually. There are a dozen other major tournaments that draw large crowds, and those are just the big events. And that's only a small portion of the number of people who play regularly, since only a relatively small percentage of players will travel to attend tournaments. Is it 50% of GW's customer base? Is it 10%? I don't know. Don't take that as evidence that it isn't a fairly large group, though, which is exactly what you're doing. GW does not have the profit margins to lose even 10% of its customer base and walk away unscathed.

[Psychosplodge]

But DL we stopped caring what the Colonies thought in the late 1700s or we'd have made more of an effort to keep you :p

[Alex Knight]

Psychosplodge, I wish I could like posts, because you have won the Internet for the day. As someone on the colonies side of the pond, I rather thought that was high-larious.

[Psychosplodge]

:D

[Big_jon]

http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/i_beg_your_pardon_true_blood.gif

So... so you know and freely admit that you're wrong to complain about it being poorly balanced for tournament play... but you still do?

Hmmm.





Go to your wide future. I trust it will bring you more happiness than 40K.

http://static.tumblr.com/77b3306f6abddb374d805b69de57871e/hvf6sau/19qmkm1o5/tumblr_static_mishacollins.gif

Whenever a guy makes a list of valid criticisms about something that they are passionate about why is it that people act like children hoping on the bandwagon of trying to completely belittle them? Like seriously it's cool to disagree but posting up a bunch of douchey gifs to mock someone is un necessary, you're not being edgy, you're not being cool, you're being a dick.

People leaving the hobby is not good for the hobby.

[firestorm]

There are a lot of people saying similar or the very same as the op all over the net.

I actually wonder if this is the tipping point for GW, the moment which will start an irreversible decline, greater than the financials bomb this January?

Part of me actually hopes so. Because I would love to see this actually happen - and it would be fantastic if Privateer, Mantic and other gaming companies form a consortium to buy out the rights to 40k and Fantasy, and make 8th Ed the properly play tested and balanced game it needs to be.

It most likely wouldn't happen, but I can't see there being a better solution.

[Gingerpanda]

So it seems a lot of people have written the new 7th edition of over the course of 2 days, impressive! IS it really as bad as they are making out or is there a few freshly spanked armies out they owned by people who are used to winning but under the new rules found their tactics (beardy or otherwise) not as successful as they was under 6th?

These battles where 1000+ points of extra deamons are being summoned, sounds more like someone is taking advantage of a flaw in the rules to win, personally if I came up against a player doing this I would throw the game, pack up my miniatures and go play someone who will play in a honest sporting manner! I would go as far to suggest it's the "Win at all cost players" are the ones causing the issues here and not the 7th edition rules.

[Charon]

sounds more like someone is taking advantage of a flaw in the rules to win

It is not. The primaris of the new demonology (malific) psi powers allow you to summon 10 daemons. Every turn. Per psyker with this power.

[daboarder]

with all the trimmings free

[Gingerpanda]

It is not. The primaris of the new demonology (malific) psi powers allow you to summon 10 daemons. Every turn. Per psyker with this power.

If the rule gives a player that much of an advantage, then it sounds like a flaw in the rules to me!

[daboarder]

and yet your blaming the players?

[Charon]

Welcome to the wonderful world of GW desperately trying to sell daemon minis.

[Gingerpanda]

and yet your blaming the players?

You wouldn't consider it unsporting that a player would use this rule purely because of the advantage it gives them?

[Colum Standard McCrudden]

The years seem to get shorter between editions

(1st) 1987 - (2nd) 1993- (3rd) 1998- (4th) 2004- (5th) 2008- (6th) 2012- (7th) - 2014 and in some cases, rarely get better. The summoning daemons is just plain old ridiculous. Those supporting Games Workshops better clean yer noses. This is a clear insult to our intelligence

We can expect 8th edition to come out at Christmas.

[daboarder]

You wouldn't consider it unsporting that a player would use this rule purely because of the advantage it gives them?

No more so than a tau player using markerlights

[Gingerpanda]

The years seem to get shorter between editions

(1st) 1987 - (2nd) 1993- (3rd) 1998- (4th) 2004- (5th) 2008- (6th) 2012- (7th) - 2014 and in some cases, rarely get better. The summoning daemons is just plain old ridiculous. Those supporting Games Workshops better clean yer noses. This is a clear insult to our intelligence

We can expect 8th edition to come out at Christmas.

You make it sound like the "rift" in the film Pacific Rim lol


No more so than a tau player using markerlights

And I also considered that taking advantage of a flaw in the rules, I guess it's because I always play with a force that is more "realistic" to the theme/concept to the army involved.

[Mr Mystery]

It is not. The primaris of the new demonology (malific) psi powers allow you to summon 10 daemons. Every turn. Per psyker with this power.

Except with 3 successes required, it's unlikely to be every psyker.

That's 3 dice minimum to poop out Daemons, and five to cast with any real reliability. And with *any* double causing a Perils, it's somewhat risky to low level psykers.

[Caitsidhe]

So it seems a lot of people have written the new 7th edition of over the course of 2 days, impressive! IS it really as bad as they are making out or is there a few freshly spanked armies out they owned by people who are used to winning but under the new rules found their tactics (beardy or otherwise) not as successful as they was under 6th?

If anything people are understating how bad it is in fact. And the armies that were doing great tended only to get better. Contrary to popular belief (because they need to read for themselves) the big combinations are not gone and the 2+ reroll save is alive and well (Deathstars are dandy). So, no the armies that are used to winning didn't get freshly spanked.


These battles where 1000+ points of extra deamons are being summoned, sounds more like someone is taking advantage of a flaw in the rules to win, personally if I came up against a player doing this I would throw the game, pack up my miniatures and go play someone who will play in a honest sporting manner! I would go as far to suggest it's the "Win at all cost players" are the ones causing the issues here and not the 7th edition rules.

A 1000pts would be below average in Daemons summoned. Nobody is taking advantage of a flaw. Games Workshop didn't overlook anything. They designed it this way on purpose.

[Charon]

Except with 3 successes required, it's unlikely to be every psyker.

That's 3 dice minimum to poop out Daemons, and five to cast with any real reliability. And with *any* double causing a Perils, it's somewhat risky to low level psykers.

Unless the caster is a deamon und the army is a tzeentch army summoning even more tzeentch daemons... which will generate even more dice next turn.

[Mr Mystery]

That is an exception, yes.

Thankfully, Horrors are fairly easy to put down. Just pile on the Dakka.

And all those dice used to summon, remember that's 5 for reliable? That's dice not being used to flick magic at my army.

[Gingerpanda]

Unless the caster is a deamon und the army is a tzeentch army summoning even more tzeentch daemons... which will generate even more dice next turn.

The more explanations I read on how players are summoning a seemingly inexhaustible supply of deamons, the more it sounds like an exploit rather than how the actual rule was designed to work.

Sure GW's fault for writing the rule as it stands but on the other side there is no need to use it in this manner.

[Caitsidhe]

Except with 3 successes required, it's unlikely to be every psyker.

So what? With a Chaos Daemons list able to hit 30+ Warp Charges with ease, I don't think dice are the problem. I will be glad to post several different lists for you and count up the charges?


That's 3 dice minimum to poop out Daemons, and five to cast with any real reliability. And with *any* double causing a Perils, it's somewhat risky to low level psykers.

Again, "so what?" I expect they will throw a lot more than three dice at it and not care a bit about Perils. The risk of Perils is extremely low this time around compared to the gain. I will be happy to do the math and post it painfully for you here, but consider the fact that as a the Primaris power any and every Chaos Daemon can cast summon. This means on average it can be cast by a Psyker set CD army 5+ times with dice heavy enough to pretty much ensure casting it 3+ times. That means 30+ Daemons hit the board a round minimum. I am going with a worst case scenario to show just how powerful it is even assuming the worst. This means over the course of a game a minimum of 150+ Bloodletters (or whatever) have swarmed out toward your opponent. If I were to break down the math in a more likely manner it would be FAR MORE. We aren't even talking about summoning big nasty things either, just the little stuff.

Even with bad Perils, it barely slows down at all. It is, simply put, garbage.

- - - Updated - - -


The more explanations I read on how summoning a seemingly inexhaustible supply of deamons, the more it sounds like an exploit rather than how the actual rule was designed to work.

It isn't an exploit. Open the book and read. They intended it this way. If you think this was an accident then you are indicating that you think their Game Desigers are booger eating morons who walk into walls and dribble drool all the time because they are mouth breathers. It isn't something they can just overlook. They clearly intended it this way.

[daboarder]

wait till they start turning horrors into heralds then turn heralds into greater daemons

[Mr Mystery]

That's how it works.

However, it's not as scary effective as is made out.

I'm going to grab my dice and see what happens.....

20 dice rolled in groups of 5.

Two were successful, with one double six to trigger a Perils.

So it does work, but it's not as if you're going to pull off every casting.

[Charon]

Why should you care about 5 dice (on fact ist more but it doesnt make it any better) when you generate around 30 dice a turn?
Killing 30 Horrors and a Greater Daemon per turn is not an easy task (i would rather say "impossible") for most armies.

[Mr Mystery]

No, but I can hammer them pretty hard. And probably focus on the Great Daemon first. (I've always found Greater Daemons to be surprisingly squishy)

Again, if you've got 30 dice, that's 6 casting attempts you get. And then you have no dice left to actually, you know, try killing my army with. And as that's about all a Horror can do (certainly can't fight for toffee), is it really going all out on the summoning? Let's consider my Necrons. There's precisely two thirds of fifty percent of bugger all I can do to stop you summoning. And it really doesn't help I've never passed a Deny The Witch roll in my puff. But what my Necrons do have is a frankly obscene amount of.....Tesla. Yes folks, Tesla. It's a Daemons worst nightmare! High chance of wounding, decent enough range, and the potential to generate an obscene amount of hits. And as a player, I tend to focus my fire to take out units at a time, rather than leave the job half done. Your best bet is to hit me back. And with the proposed all Tzeentch Summoning army, that means you not using every available dice to summon.

Doesn't matter how many units you summon. You have to come at me at some point. And all the time you're summoning, I'm giving your army what-five with my shooting, bagging me VPs.


The tactic is doubtlessly effective. But in purely practical terms, it's somewhat overstated. Only a full on Tzeentchian Daemon list can really exploit it, and if you want to really exploit it, your force won't be doing a great deal else.

[Caitsidhe]

No, but I can hammer them pretty hard. And probably focus on the Great Daemon first.

Again, if you've got 30 dice, that's 6 casting attempts you get. And then you have no dice left to actually, you know, try killing my army with. And as that's about all a Horror can do (certainly can't fight for toffee), is it really going all out on the summoning?

Each summoned unit also grants VPs, which is nice.

The tactic is doubtlessly effective. But in purely practical terms, it's somewhat overstated. Only a full on Tzeentchian Daemon list can really exploit it, and if you want to really exploit it, your force won't be doing a great deal else.

Come on Mr. Mystery... you are a smart guy. You know they screwed up just as well as the rest of us. You can do the math too. You know that while they start with 30+ dice it just keeps going up each round they summon more. You know that Daemons were already top tier before they got to double and triple themselves in play. No amount of of hedging is going to wash with anyone. What is worse you know as well as I do that the more games played the more ridiculous trying to argue for this is going to sound. Just admit it is a big screw up and quit trying to defend it.

[Comrade_Nikolai]

The more explanations I read on how players are summoning a seemingly inexhaustible supply of deamons, the more it sounds like an exploit rather than how the actual rule was designed to work.

Sure GW's fault for writing the rule as it stands but on the other side there is no need to use it in this manner.

I think they actually explained how to do it in white dwarf. I'm like, 95% sure that's how they intended it.

[daboarder]

That's how it works.

However, it's not as scary effective as is made out.

I'm going to grab my dice and see what happens.....

20 dice rolled in groups of 5.

Two were successful, with one double six to trigger a Perils.

So it does work, but it's not as if you're going to pull off every casting.

and thats a fair point. 7 dice however I think has been found to be the best compromise, you still perils about 20% of the time, but you succeed about 80%

[Gingerpanda]

It isn't an exploit. Open the book and read. They intended it this way. If you think this was an accident then you are indicating that you think their Game Desigers are booger eating morons who walk into walls and dribble drool all the time because they are mouth breathers. It isn't something they can just overlook. They clearly intended it this way.

Mistakes happen, maybe a sentence was not added, corrected, taken away, it happens which is why GW have over the years issued FAQ's and corrections.

Every game type I have played against/with other people, be it on a table top or on a computer there are always people who manage to find something or some way to take advantage of a game mechanic and use it in a way that it was not designed or intended but for what ever reason it remains "Legal" I personally think this is the case, GW may have dropped the ball on this but it has only been 2 days, maybe they will correct the issue or as you suggest leave it only as it is "working as intended" which would prove you right but I still wouldn't want to play an opponent so would use this for WAAC purposes.

[Mr Mystery]

Does it keep going up? That's working on the assumption your opponent spends his entire turn with his thumb up his posterior, instead of ripping into your force. With your army not actively engaging my own (on account you're piling your dice into summoning), I'll be at full fighting strength for a good old time.

Tell you what, I'll have another roll of my dice, this time using 30. I'll group them into 5's again for no other reason than consistency with my previous roll. 3 successful attempts that time (two of them generated 5 successes, which was nice). So that's 30 horrors, and 3 extra dice next turn.....not really enough to reliably summon, but still worth a crack as it can produce 3 successes needed. Of course, before your next attempts, my entire army (pretty much unmolested, on account all psychic dice were piled into summoning) get to have a crack. And your T3 troops? As I said, quite easy to put down, especially as there's no 2++ snap shot only nonsense happening, as you went all out summoning.

So as I said. Yes, it can be effective, but it's not the wonder plan you might think.

- - - Updated - - -


and thats a fair point. 7 dice however I think has been found to be the best compromise, you still perils about 20% of the time, but you succeed about 80%

And the more you chuck at it, the fewer units you can actually summon. Are 10 Horrors really worth 7 psychic dice? Is there nothing more constructive (or indeed, destructive depending on how you look at it) you could attempt with those dice?

[Caitsidhe]

So as I said. Yes, it can be effective, but it's not the wonder plan you might think.

Ok. You have planted your flag. You say it "can" be effective, which implies it won't be reliable. We shall see. :) I'll not prod you on this one for a month or so. That way we can revisit it with a lot more games under the belt. I happen to think it will be very reliable and broken to the point of disgust.

- - - Updated - - -


Mistakes happen, maybe a sentence was not added, corrected, taken away, it happens which is why GW have over the years issued FAQ's and corrections.

Every game type I have played against/with other people, be it on a table top or on a computer there are always people who manage to find something or some way to take advantage of a game mechanic and use it in a way that it was not designed or intended but for what ever reason it remains "Legal" I personally think this is the case, GW may have dropped the ball on this but it has only been 2 days, maybe they will correct the issue or as you suggest leave it only as it is "working as intended" which would prove you right but I still wouldn't want to play an opponent so would use this for WAAC purposes.

The only possible screw up that I would buy is that they INTENDED to say that you cannot cast a spell with a Warp Charge cost higher than your Mastery Level. That simple change would limit the number of units that can cast certain spells. The problem would be gone instantly. Daemons (and others) would still be able to summon things if they built for it, but not at the ridiculous level. The issue of having such overwhelming WC that nobody else would ever manage anything would remain, but at least the exponential growth of units would cease.

[Defenestratus]

Ok. You have planted your flag. You say it "can" be effective, which implies it won't be reliable. We shall see. :) I'll not prod you on this one for a month or so. That way we can revisit it with a lot more games under the belt. I happen to think it will be very reliable and broken to the point of disgust.

- - - Updated - - -



The only possible screw up that I would buy is that they INTENDED to say that you cannot cast a spell with a Warp Charge cost higher than your Mastery Level. That simple change would limit the number of units that can cast certain spells. The problem would be gone instantly. Daemons (and others) would still be able to summon things if they built for it, but not at the ridiculous level. The issue of having such overwhelming WC that nobody else would ever manage anything would remain, but at least the exponential growth of units would cease.

Its never reliable when I start off the game with 3000points of minis against my buddy's 2000

:P

[Mr Mystery]

I just think it's ropey logic, and needs it to work reliably, and your opponent to be a bit dim, and not lay into your army with wild abandon.

TBH, I think it would work a lot betterer if your summoning up non-Tzeentch Daemons. Bloodletters would be saucy, as you can summon them up, and then let them get with the stabby. Downside there of course is that the main weakness of Horrors being your battery, is that Horrors remain well easy to squish.

[Big_jon]

So I don't yet fully understand how the psychic phase works yet but I'm wondering how this will effect my Tyranids. Witch fire is now able to be fired along side weapons now I hear? So warpblast just got better. And Hive Tyrants will have 3 powers instead of two now? So that's good. But what does shadow in the warp do now?

[Mr Mystery]

The only possible screw up that I would buy is that they INTENDED to say that you cannot cast a spell with a Warp Charge cost higher than your Mastery Level. That simple change would limit the number of units that can cast certain spells. The problem would be gone instantly. Daemons (and others) would still be able to summon things if they built for it, but not at the ridiculous level. The issue of having such overwhelming WC that nobody else would ever manage anything would remain, but at least the exponential growth of units would cease.

Trouble is, that would make ML1 psykers pretty bobbins overall, as they'd miss out on the stuff that makes Psykers really cool!

DB's comment about 7 dice caught me off guard, as I was still labouring under the misapprehension you could only chuck 6 dice at a casting attempt. Didn't realise there was no cap!

[Tyrendian]

I'll just leave this here as evidence that a) mass summoning looks ridiculous in the numbers and b) you're far from guaranteed a win with it, at least with the new mission cards

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryMAAP6HWfw

[daboarder]

So I don't yet fully understand how the psychic phase works yet but I'm wondering how this will effect my Tyranids. Witch fire is now able to be fired along side weapons now I hear? So warpblast just got better. And Hive Tyrants will have 3 powers instead of two now? So that's good. But what does shadow in the warp do now?

Shadow in the warp still only lowers the Ld of psykers, it doent currently make it harder for them to cast. This may change in an FAQ but i'm not holding my breath. The only real upside is that perils is more common over all and the negative leadership makes the perils results typically worse.

overall I think Nids got hit hard in the psychic department, many of our core powers (Warp Blast, catalyst, dominion) that are neccesary for the army to function are harder to cast and indeed cannot likely all be cast a turn.

And then there are the zoanthropes who are now again a special kind of stupid with something like a 2-3% chance to do anything to an AV12+ armour facing. (when you use 4-5 dice to cast warp blast)

[Defenestratus]

I'll just leave this here as evidence that a) mass summoning looks ridiculous in the numbers and b) you're far from guaranteed a win with it, at least with the new mission cards


So the answer to massive demon spawning is random missions where 50% of the ones you draw are completely useless and un-playable?

[Caitsidhe]

Trouble is, that would make ML1 psykers pretty bobbins overall, as they'd miss out on the stuff that makes Psykers really cool!

DB's comment about 7 dice caught me off guard, as I was still labouring under the misapprehension you could only chuck 6 dice at a casting attempt. Didn't realise there was no cap!


Nope. No cap. Which means they can add a Greater Daemon (or more) per Turn if they like (as at least 1-2 units will have that power too)

[monkeyking118]

Lets face it, if you're the kind of *** who would willingly spend large amounts of money and willingly carry 2-3k of extra points everywhere you go just to win one game, you're probably the kind of *** who'd win at rock, paper, scissors by taking an actual pair of scissors to your opponent's hand to win one game. I think its pretty damning evidence of the state of players that when given the freedom to re-enact any battle in the 40k universe, we instead see just how cheesy we can make our armies . Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy winning, but it's the moments in the game that make it fun, which is why I like skaven in fantasy... guaranteed to be hilarious at some point.

[Mr Mystery]

True.

I do wonder if Horrors will be FAQ'd to say they can't take Malefic, only Tzeentch.

And I reckon we'll see an FAQ for Deamons fairly soon, if only to clarify how Flickering Fire now works - do I simply declare whether I'm casting it as WC1, 2 or 3, or do I get as many D6 as the successes I generated?

[skaroreg]

I am enjoying a bit of schadenfruede on this. i jumped ship on 40k during the change to 6th edition. I used to love the game. Then one day a friend of mine showed me Warmachine. One poster here said they liked the idea of the infinite combinations possible on a unit. That is all well and good but it is a pain in the *** in all practicality. You never know what your opponent will bring and inevitably they bring a unit with the "sword of doom" which will kill 2000 points with one swing. The problem with 40k is balance. there is none. GW just wants to sell models. They do not care what you do with them afterwards. There are so many other companies that are out there that care about the long term health of their game that they want successful tournaments.

I find Warmahordes works for both casual play and tournament play and if you talk to people that play you will find that both groups are happy with each their game experiences. I can't see how anyone can justify giving money to GW. Fantasy Flight has done better things with Fantasy and 40k than GW had done. Try out other games people, then you will realize how far 40k has fallen. If you like the fluff, read the horus heresy books.

The biggest tell all is that here in Raleigh NC there used to be a HUGE 40k scene at the end of 4th and beginning of 5th. Now you go to a game store on Mini night and you see people playing Warmahordes. There is usually a 40k player sitting in the corner wondering why he can't get a game. It's because as Roland would say, "The world has moved on" and GW is running their company into the ground.

[Big_jon]

Well 7th does sound like a bit of a joke but there are some changes I'm super happy about.

1. The new smash! 1 attack combined with tougher vehicles makes me super happy.
2. Walkers having hammer of wrath, I mean these are huge powerful machines akin to an MC, why not?
3. Vehicles are slightly tougher, though the glancing to death of lighter vehicles is still pretty lame, at least vehicles above AV 12 are going to be a bit harder to break open now.
4. Flying MCs, though it's a shame that assault is still not going to be super viable, I was super sick of bloodthirsters being pretty much unstoppable between a turn 2 assault pretty much guaranteed and smash.

As a dude who loves Contemptor dreadnoughts and plans on bringing 3 to a lot of my 30k games, I'm very happy that they have at least seen a slight boost. And with Smash now being reasonable, my friend daemons will no longer treat them and my spartan like paper.

But I cant believe that we STILL can't assault out of a freaking rhino even if it didn't move...

[Defenestratus]

I am enjoying a bit of schadenfruede on this. i jumped ship on 40k during the change to 6th edition. I used to love the game. Then one day a friend of mine showed me Warmachine. One poster here said they liked the idea of the infinite combinations possible on a unit. That is all well and good but it is a pain in the *** in all practicality. You never know what your opponent will bring and inevitably they bring a unit with the "sword of doom" which will kill 2000 points with one swing. The problem with 40k is balance. there is none. GW just wants to sell models. They do not care what you do with them afterwards. There are so many other companies that are out there that care about the long term health of their game that they want successful tournaments.

I find Warmahordes works for both casual play and tournament play and if you talk to people that play you will find that both groups are happy with each their game experiences. I can't see how anyone can justify giving money to GW. Fantasy Flight has done better things with Fantasy and 40k than GW had done. Try out other games people, then you will realize how far 40k has fallen. If you like the fluff, read the horus heresy books.

The biggest tell all is that here in Raleigh NC there used to be a HUGE 40k scene at the end of 4th and beginning of 5th. Now you go to a game store on Mini night and you see people playing Warmahordes. There is usually a 40k player sitting in the corner wondering why he can't get a game. It's because as Roland would say, "The world has moved on" and GW is running their company into the ground.

I love the warmahordes people who try to come in and feed on the corpses like carrion crows...

While I loathe the direction of 40k, I'll never join warmachine. Its simply *boring*. No tanks. No scenery, the tables all look the same. The mission is always the same. The models are drab and boring. No planes zooming around no jetbikes, jump packs or winged mega demons vs fish people.

Its just a pair of developmentally disabled dreadnoughts fighting each other surrounded by a ring of dudes. Sure it might be a fun game, but so is Monopoly and I haven't played that in decades.

At any rate... the solution to our problem is to fix 40k. 7th edition is a missed opportunity. The only reason to jump to warmachine is because you want to stick it in GW's eye for the shenanigans they just pulled with 7th edition.

Anyways...

Go Pack!

[DarkLink]

That just conflicts itself GW staff make both models and rule books so I am going to refraze what you said you love the staff who sculpt the miniature but you hate the staff who make the books

A generous rephrasing (there's no z in there). I like a lot of 40k models. Their big kits (Wraithknight, Riptide) are pretty solidly the highest quality on the market. But their infantry is a lot less impressive compared to some of the newer competitors out there, and there are numerous companies that completely blow their single model sculpts out of the water. But, generally, GW has good quality models.

Their books are pretty, but the actual writing is not good quality. It's rife with typos and poor writing, considering the premium price tag. The rules themselves get put to shame by almost every other major game on the market.



did you know the rules develop have to have a sense of realism to them because after all warhammer 40k is based on what if real life turned out like this in the 40k.

WTF?



Give me a rule that you feel objected as broken and I will come up with a way to beat it add the army you use and what you went against.

It's not just 'broken' that's the issue. The rules also have to be fun. Which, to a degree, is subjective. But take the wound allocation rules.

To shoot a unit with a character up front, I now have to roll to hit, reroll to hit (because, really, what isn't rerolled nowadays), roll to wound, reroll to wound (Grey Knights can get reroll 1's to wound, and there are other things that get similar things as well), then my opponent can chose to roll one look out sir and one save at a time. It can take, literally, five minutes to resolve the effects of a single shooting attack, and you can have a dozen such overly clunky actions. I literally have to restrain myself from telling my opponent things like "just roll all your damn saves at once".

Currently, wound allocation is the thing I hate most about 6th (and hasn't changed at all in 7th), but there are dozens of other examples I could use. Psychic powers were, and by all appearances still are, massively time consuming and require rolling buckets of dice just to figure out if you actually do anything.


Now, compare to a game like Infinity, where even the most complex of actions are resolved by rolling five or fewer dice once. No rerolls (though there are far more modifiers than in 40k), no spending half an hour shooting a few hundred shots into a single unit only to do like two wounds, it's fast paced, easy to keep track of, elegant, and much, much, much, much more fun.

Not that 40k isn't fun. But many of the rules are outdated, clumsy, inelegant, and generally of a mediocre quality at best, and they're littered with terribly written rules and poorly thought out game mechanics.

[Voltigeur]

I am enjoying a bit of schadenfruede on this. i jumped ship on 40k during the change to 6th edition. I used to love the game. Then one day a friend of mine showed me Warmachine. One poster here said they liked the idea of the infinite combinations possible on a unit. That is all well and good but it is a pain in the *** in all practicality. You never know what your opponent will bring and inevitably they bring a unit with the "sword of doom" which will kill 2000 points with one swing. The problem with 40k is balance. there is none. GW just wants to sell models. They do not care what you do with them afterwards. There are so many other companies that are out there that care about the long term health of their game that they want successful tournaments.

I find Warmahordes works for both casual play and tournament play and if you talk to people that play you will find that both groups are happy with each their game experiences. I can't see how anyone can justify giving money to GW. Fantasy Flight has done better things with Fantasy and 40k than GW had done. Try out other games people, then you will realize how far 40k has fallen. If you like the fluff, read the horus heresy books.

The biggest tell all is that here in Raleigh NC there used to be a HUGE 40k scene at the end of 4th and beginning of 5th. Now you go to a game store on Mini night and you see people playing Warmahordes. There is usually a 40k player sitting in the corner wondering why he can't get a game. It's because as Roland would say, "The world has moved on" and GW is running their company into the ground.

Warmahodes is a great game that I love but it's so radically different from 40k that I don't think it has a huge amount of crossover appeal. The fantasy/steam punk setting isn't Sci-fi enough to speak to a lot of 40k fans (or at least the one's I've tried to introduce it to).

I do totally agree with you on how far the game has fallen. When you play other games it's easy to see how aged and clunky 40k is. Honestly I wish 7th ed had been a total rebuild to make the game faster to play and far more streamlined.

[daboarder]

True.

I do wonder if Horrors will be FAQ'd to say they can't take Malefic, only Tzeentch.

And I reckon we'll see an FAQ for Deamons fairly soon, if only to clarify how Flickering Fire now works - do I simply declare whether I'm casting it as WC1, 2 or 3, or do I get as many D6 as the successes I generated?

I think the current understanding is that you should declare which level of flickering fire you are attempting to cast before rolliing. though an FAQ would help clear the issue up.

It should also be noted that the battle report presented earlier did contain the caveat that they were not allowing horrors to roll maleafic powers




And the more you chuck at it, the fewer units you can actually summon. Are 10 Horrors really worth 7 psychic dice? Is there nothing more constructive (or indeed, destructive depending on how you look at it) you could attempt with those dice?

Relatively speaking it is. What I mean is look at the other powers, to get a reasonable chance of casting warb blast (zoanthropes basic shooting attack) you need to roll 5 dice, 7 is not that much more for a significantly better spell.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

Actually, I disagree. We can blame the game for encouraging people to be tools. If the game's design makes something perfectly legal, why wouldn't they do it? Why should they assume they are being tools? More to the point, since "Fluffy" players can just do whatever they want since all such games are by mutual agreement, why do they need a rules set at all? It seems to me that a standard, balanced game is best and those who want to do narrative things which might be outside of it just can do so at will. Thus, a balanced rules set works for both sets of people. An unbalanced rules set only works for half at best.
In theory ture, but games aren't just by mutual agreement, if you play at your local GW, or like attending tournaments (both of which I do), they are also dictated to by the rules.
You say a balanced game benefits everyone, but what of us that liked the last edition and like the looks of this one? It takes about 6 months to really know if you like a game i recon, so I'm not set until then. We don't want things to change in that direction because we like things as they are now.
So no, i doubt that you could make changes that wouldn't annoy someone along the line.


Its hard to explain but some of the staff ( not all ) have really not been friendly. Its sort of like because I'm a established gamer that I'm not as important as some one new.
That is very poor behavior and extremely contrary to GW's corporate line.


Trouble is, the WAACmaniac will still find a way to WAAC, and thus risk your own enjoyment of the game.

Even if the rules are very strict and well defined, they'll find some other way to be arse, because they're a WAACmaniac.

The only way to counter them is to not to play them.
My point exactly, if we as a community fail to be self policing then we deserve what we get.


I totally agree. However, I think that its pretty clear that with the advent of the internet, the community is incapable of policing itself.
And that is not GW's fault, nor is it the game's fault. We as a community have a responsibility to rise our voices when we see something wrong with how the game is being played. The online community has a lot to answer for when it comes to the proliferation of things like 6th edition death stars and so on, because when we talk about it like it's happening everywhere it'll start happening that often.

On the subject o GW alienating people they've made some clangers over the last few years, not least of which was about 4 years ago where the corporate line was that retention of existing customer didn't matter anywhere near as much as recruitment in-store. They have corrected that mistake of late (been out of the loop long enough not to know exactly when). And I know the pricing thing is a big issue here in Aus, because we get geopriced like a mofo.

As for the whole daemon summoning thing, I'm curious to try it :)

[DarkLink]

20 dice rolled in groups of 5.

You don't roll in groups of five. You also don't have just twenty dice. You have forty or so, and you roll 7-8 dice, and you're summoning 50 horrors a turn on average. And for every time you only summon 3,0 there's a time when you summon 70. Per turn. And since you're summoning more warp charges, you're only going to summon more and more each turn. That is not easy to put down. And no one cares about Perils when you're losing a single wound to gain ten more models and a bonus warp charge. Malefic daemonology is utterly broken.

[daboarder]

I'll be honest, Unbound was what had me most worried pre-7th, but given that the Force organisation chart is so loose now in and of itself I can only really see unbound being used for fluff lists.

The lists that spam the big kits arent going to hold their own against the battle forged lists that re-generate themselves, swarm them with incontestable troops or run rings around them with scoring transports

[Hellsentinel]

Feel strongly enough to complain to GW?

Address your snail mail to Alan Merrett at GW HQ.

IF he has to read a thousand letters (not emails) things will change.

[phrank]

can we stop with the sepctic "bye and good riddance" please?

people leaving 40k is never a good thing, it means that there are less people to find a game with, less people contributing to the modeling and painting and that ultimately the health of 40k as a whole is that little bit worse.

To the OP, it is a shame to see you go, Can I advise that you hold onto your miniatures so that you can always change your mind later.

^This, especially the bit about hanging on to your models! As a long-time Magic: The Gathering player, I can't count the number of times I've seen people sell their entire collection, only to pay 10x as much in a few years to buy back the cards. You may be done with the hobby, but you also might change your mind and want to come back, and won't it be awesome to not have to start from scratch if you do? Either way, good luck to you.

[DarkLink]

I doubt they'd take physical junk mail any more seriously than junk email.

[Senger285]

PEOPLE!!! Space Wolves are back! Codex over rules rule book. Don't like summoning. ... hello rune priest! How about a 4+ and no soup for you. Yes please. God in love my wolves!

[Brenlak]

Mail doesn't work on GW, only money. I'm not in a hurry to buy the book, none of my friends are either, after all we all need time to paint up the hundreds of dollars in models we can now field!!(sarcasm). On the plus side I guess all those armies I don't play that are all over Kijiji, Ebay ect are more desireable because I'm not a Nid player anymore; I'm a 40K player now.

[White Tiger88]

No soup for Me? I PLAY 30K! *Insert three Stooges laugh here*

[Hellsentinel]

They have to take notice of real mail.

one or two, yeah, they don't care...

If a thousand someones care enough to put pen to paper, it's taken seriously there, at that level… Just believe me, I know.

Not a petition, they don't care that much about those...

Handwritten over printed too!

Get an "Occupy the GW mailbox" movement going!

Encourage everyone to hand write a letter personally to Alan. Not to the writers of the rules, games designers etc., but to Mr Merrett. They have to do what he says.

Rock out!

[DrBored]

The fewer Negative Nancies in the community the more we will attract positive, fun seekers into the community.

So, to all you leaving 40k, I hope you find a hobby that works for you. In the meantime, I'll be painting my Space Sharks.

[DarkLink]

The less you're insulting and condescending to people who have different opinions than you the more people will enjoy being in the same hobby as you.

[Brenlak]

I play Tyranids and I have to say there was a strong urge to just throw in the toque before I had even read the new codex thanks to boo birds. Was it all I wanted it to be? Of course not. Did I get over it? Of course!! Lets face it most people that are complaining are just like me and havent even seen the book yet. Put your dudes on the shelf, wait a month, and if you don't love them anymore then make your choice.

[KR3LL]

The OP has some very valid points.

All of you whining about him whining need to wise up.
Competitive or Beer and Pretzel....GW is going in a very wrong direction. I am not an ultra competitive player. I try to make solid list that fit with how I think the army should operate. This is getting nothing short of silly in terms of balance. Hell the fluff doesn't even work any more....who is summoning daemons...what? What!?

You know what...
My best friend and I started playing 40k again, together. He quit a few years ago. I started going to a LGS to play. Our player numbers have been dwindling for years. From near 20 just a few years ago....we are down to about a half a dozen. People are sick of the prices. People are sick of the rules. People are sick of the power creep. People are sick of the lack of balance. They are leaving the game in droves....and in the end this only hurts the hobby. Only 1 person we have lost was ultra competitive...and good riddance to him as he was an @ss. Most of the players we have lost were good people, fun to play against. They have all quit and moved on....mostly for those reasons listed.

I even ask my self why. Why do I continue.

[Harley]

Is it even worth trying to still wade into this conversation?

On the one hand you have a large portion of the community saying they want a certain format and balance, that GW isn't providing it and that it is making the game less fun and harming the community.

And on the other you have both GW and fans saying that they don't care, they don't intend it that way, if you leave no one will miss you and if you have a problem solve it yourself.

It's hard to imagine a scenario where a company and it's fanbase take a more self indulgent and dismissive stance. That's always turned out really well in the end... right?

[Bork]

unbound is ridiuclous

psychic phase is clunky, ponderous and very easy to abuse.

daemon summoning is a horrible idea

new card objective mechanic strikes me as too random and hinders army building and tactical play.

fluff has gone out the window


those are the key points that have just turned me away from 40k. this edition is a glorified FAQ where instead of fixing the broken things they've made them worse. im not interested in a game where internal balance isn't even attempted, but actively discouraged by the ruleset. where im charged a fortune for army i might not get 2 years out of before a new edition makes it redundant and most importantly for me where i'll be facing armies that are just cobbled together from several factions for the most cheesy combination of rules possible. why even bother with individual codices anymore i can't remember the last time i played a single faction army, now it'll be even worse.

i might still keep my hand in with small kill team games among friends but 40k is now dead to me as a game, its too far gone. it offers me nothing and has shown me theres no hope whatsoever it'll ever be the game it can and should be again. iv'e played 40k man and boy for 20 years and left more than a couple of times to try other things but have always returned. i can't see that happening now.

GW will never learn. its forgotten it's roots and before too long it's roots will forget GW.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

Is it even worth trying to still wade into this conversation?

On the one hand you have a large portion of the community saying they want a certain format and balance, that GW isn't providing it and that it is making the game less fun and harming the community.

And on the other you have both GW and fans saying that they don't care, they don't intend it that way, if you leave no one will miss you and if you have a problem solve it yourself.

It's hard to imagine a scenario where a company and it's fanbase take a more self indulgent and dismissive stance. That's always turned out really well in the end... right?

You appear to be mistaking liking the direction the game is going in and not caring about it.
I actively don't want things to turn in the direction that has been suggested in the name of balance.
I'm all for self governance by the community in terms of play. because I think that the guy who makes a demons summoning demons army has as much right to enjoy his hobby as I do.
I won't be doing it out of personal choice, and I doubt I'll play him more than once, but he the fact that he now has the freedom to do it pleases me.
I used to be one of those guys who rails against WAAC players and their shenanigans, but then it occurred to me that those guys have every right to play and have fun, just as the guy who wants a balanced and tight ruleset has every right to choose not to use the rules as they exist.
As I see it it's significantly easier for us as gamers to have the rules to do anything provided and simply not use or restrict the ones we don't like than have to house rule things in.
But then it is, as is all of this, an opinion. Which means none of us are intrinsically right or wrong.

[Harley]

You appear to be mistaking liking the direction the game is going in and not caring about it.
I actively don't want things to turn in the direction that has been suggested in the name of balance.
I'm all for self governance by the community in terms of play. because I think that the guy who makes a demons summoning demons army has as much right to enjoy his hobby as I do.
I won't be doing it out of personal choice, and I doubt I'll play him more than once, but he the fact that he now has the freedom to do it pleases me.
I used to be one of those guys who rails against WAAC players and their shenanigans, but then it occurred to me that those guys have every right to play and have fun, just as the guy who wants a balanced and tight ruleset has every right to choose not to use the rules as they exist.
As I see it it's significantly easier for us as gamers to have the rules to do anything provided and simply not use or restrict the ones we don't like than have to house rule things in.
But then it is, as is all of this, an opinion. Which means none of us are intrinsically right or wrong.

The problem is a player should be able to drive to a game store an hour away without being close friends with anyone there, ask if anyone wants to play and begin a fun pick up game within 15 minutes of arriving. Right now that's impossible by your standards because that player has to first learn the house rules of the store, then find a player who's list is "fun" to play against, negotiate what type of game they want to play, what sort of lists they want to play with, what sort of missions they will use and what is banned outright as being OP. Said player then has to hope that he brought the right models to play by this now established standard, meaning he had to have brought a large collection of models far and above what he would normally be playing with in a single game. He then has to sit down and write a NEW list which fits the house rules and opponents standard. Furthermore, if he doesn't like the house rules or his opponents list and fails to convincingly negotiate with them, or maybe just didn't bring the right models because he thought that 6 Leman Russ tanks were kosher but the store says it's WAAC, he is **** out of luck and just drove an hour for no reason. Either way he just blew ANOTHER hour setting up a game which already takes several to play and possible killed any opportunity of actually finishing said game let alone getting another game in.

That is the reality of the 40k gaming community right now. That is how GW has divided gamers which otherwise had common ground to play and have fun upon. Literally, this reason, is why many players are quitting. That's not ok.

[Charon]

The thing is that it is way easier to ignore restrictions than to enforce restrictions.
If you go for a P&PRPG which has crazy tables about thirst and starvation, crippled limbs and slow recovery you can either accept them and play within the tight ruleset or ignore some/all which seem to be bothersome.
From personal experience most gaming groups tend to ignore large portions of rules because they hamper gameplay.
Sure. You can do it the other way round and add new rules and restrictions. But this requires much more work, explaination and time.
Lets take an example.

We go for an unrestricted version of 40k which is basically unbound. You dont like that and want to change it.
Now you tell your gaming partner:
Ok I want to play it like this.. we both have to take a Leader and at least two Troops, then you can add in 4 more troops 3 elite 3 heavy support and a second leader these all have to be from the same army. You can only ally with certain armys on a table I made up.

on the other side we have a restricted 40k. You also dont like it and want to change it.
Now you tell your partner:
Hey, can we agree on not using the FOC and just use what we like?

Ignoring rules is no disadvantage and takes minimum time. Creating a new ruleset is time consuming. Thats why a restricted game will always come out on top as you can always decide to just ignore restrictions as you see fit. the other way is harder, may alienate your gaming partner, is time consuming and generally a proof of lazyness in game design.

And evidently ignoring rules actually DOES work in 40k and always has. We ignored FOC for campains, we agreed to not use escalation, stronghold assault, allies, special characters, forge world,...
And all that worked way better than to rewrite rules or adding some more.

[DarkLink]

I used to be one of those guys who rails against WAAC players and their shenanigans, but then it occurred to me that those guys have every right to play and have fun, just as the guy who wants a balanced and tight ruleset has every right to choose not to use the rules as they exist.

WAAC players deserve to have fun, sure. So why not create a game that minimized their ability to abuse the game to make it that much easier to have a fun game between a WAAC player and a casual player. I mean, they'll still probably be dicks a lot of the time, but the less often they can be the better, for everyone.

As to the latter, if you buy a car, it's reasonable to expect you should be able to drive it home without it breaking down. You can't do that with 7th. Sure, you can take a significant amount of time to study the rules in great detail to determine what's broken and figure out a reasonable solution and then spend a half hour per opponent convincing them to use your houserules, but that's as much of a waste of time as replacing the radiator on a brand new car because it was of a shoddy quality and needed to be replaced.

Balanced, quality rules are better in every conceivable manner for everyone, including you.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

I'd like a dollar for every time you say "quality rules" without defining in precise terms what that means, DarkLink. I mean, I'm sure GW's game designers believe they design quality rules; it's just that they have different tastes and priorities. You say - and I don't at all think you're wrong - that a game which is quick, streamlined, simple to learn but hard to master is an example of quality rules; someone else might say that the ability of a ruleset to evoke a strong background and a sense of narrative is a mark of quality; others still might prize the elasticity and adaptability of basic rules to myriad situations that the players might come across or come up with. etc.

What I'm driving at is that you play fast and loose with the word quality as if it was an objective measure, and it isn't (it is in car parts; game design, less so). You also overuse it to a maddening extent. It doesn't invalidate your argument, but it also doesn't strengthen it as much as you think it does.

[Caitsidhe]

I'd like a dollar for every time you say "quality rules" without defining in precise terms what that means, DarkLink. I mean, I'm sure GW's game designers believe they design quality rules; it's just that they have different tastes and priorities. You say - and I don't at all think you're wrong - that a game which is quick, streamlined, simple to learn but hard to master is an example of quality rules; someone else might say that the ability of a ruleset to evoke a strong background and a sense of narrative is a mark of quality; others still might prize the elasticity and adaptability of basic rules to myriad situations that the players might come across or come up with. etc.

What I'm driving at is that you play fast and loose with the word quality as if it was an objective measure, and it isn't (it is in car parts; game design, less so). You also overuse it to a maddening extent. It doesn't invalidate your argument, but it also doesn't strengthen it as much as you think it does.

I don't think he has ever been vague about what he defines as "quality" rules. However, I will be glad to give you mine:

1) Balanced.
2) Consistent.
3) Crystal clear with all information regarding a rule in the same rules section.
4) Fast, i.e. not bogged down with lots of looking things up or rolls spamming rolls.
5) Simple, i.e. not complicated, i.e. direct, i.e. the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
6) It handles MECHANICS and lets players handle narrative.
7) Updates correct existing problems, i.e. allowing new editions to improve rather than replace with new problems.
8) Self Correcting, i.e. if a huge issue is found, it is addressed and corrected within (30) days.
9) An organized rule book, i.e. none of this foolishness of having multiple entries for something, one for color and one for tech. Put it all together damn it.
10) Add on rules, i.e. other books follow all the rules listed but with particularly emphasis on BALANCE and CONSISTENCY with core book.

[The Tisroc]

1) Balanced.
2) Consistent.
3) Crystal clear with all information regarding a rule in the same rules section.
4) Fast, i.e. not bogged down with lots of looking things up or rolls spamming rolls.
5) Simple, i.e. not complicated, i.e. direct, i.e. the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
6) It handles MECHANICS and lets players handle narrative.
7) Updates correct existing problems, i.e. allowing new editions to improve rather than replace with new problems.
8) Self Correcting, i.e. if a huge issue is found, it is addressed and corrected within (30) days.
9) An organized rule book, i.e. none of this foolishness of having multiple entries for something, one for color and one for tech. Put it all together damn it.
10) Add on rules, i.e. other books follow all the rules listed but with particularly emphasis on BALANCE and CONSISTENCY with core book.

Ha! You just described Warmachine (my favorite game)! I love 40K but (rules-wise) it doesn't hold a torch to WarmHordes.

[Throne Agent]

The less you're insulting and condescending to people who have different opinions than you the more people will enjoy being in the same hobby as you.

My irony detector just broke.

You treat any one who says the game is fine as it is, a friendly "beer and pretzels" game to play with friends to use your cool models in like they're an idiot that couldn't possibly understand the wikipedia article on Game Theory that you read.

You try and force your opinion that what you think are quality rules (as if that is an objective thing) are better for everyone, ignoring the wider communities utter indifference to what you care about.

[Charon]

So you are suggesting that the majority of players dont want a balanced game with clearly written rules which is consitsent within itself?
A bold theory.

[Throne Agent]

So you are suggesting that the majority of players dont want a balanced game with clearly written rules which is consitsent within itself?
A bold theory.

For the vast majority of players, the rules thay have are balanced and consistent because they're not sad acts who try and break a game to feel better about themselves.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

FWIW, and to lay out some of my own cards, I'm not unsympathetic to the idea that GW doesn't produce the clearest, simplest rules on the block. I'm sure they don't. I also think it's absolutely the case that Fantasy and 40k substantially do things the way they do because that's the way they've always done them (igo-ugo etc.); not because it's the best way. But that's the thing: so much of GW's games' identity is the fact that the product has always been in some sense The Same throughout their editions; the Str, T, W, I, A, Ld characteristics are a recognisable part of the game's marketing. You can recognise a GW game from these things and so they don't change that stuff.

I think we all recognise that a big part of why GW does things is for business, rather than game development reasons. :) Whatever we think of those reasons.

With all that said: because I'm not into the hardcore gaming side of the hobby - I'm into background and painting, dreaming up scenarios and playing casually - I'm not as fussed as you guys about the rules. Most (not all!) of the people I play with aren't either. I do like what I'm seeing of 7th; I think the psychic phase looks interesting and I think they've done some work on some of the more annoying aspects of 6th. I think there's definitely some valid criticisms, and I'm not at all a fan of a two-year turnaround and hope that isn't a new precedent.

[Charon]

Any proof of this?
Cause I see people complaining all the time how an army is OP because it has unit X and how unit Y is useless compared to unit Z. These are not competitive players and no WAAC players. Hell there are even discussion about how unfair it is to pick plasma vs space marines or that a BF6 Models snapshots not better than an BF2 Orc.
And we are not talking about anything that breaks the game... which is another quite subjective factor. Are 2 Serpents breaking the game? 4? 6? What if this is part of a craftworld which deploys mobile infantry? There is even a guy posting around who thinks markerlights are breaking the game.
Gunlines do break the game for example and still they are considered fluffy and narrative. So please tell me: What does break the game form an objective point of view? Does a Knight army break the game? Does an imperial armored Company break the game?

[Throne Agent]

Any proof of this?
Cause I see people complaining all the time how an army is OP because it has unit X and how unit Y is useless compared to unit Z. These are not competitive players and no WAAC players. Hell there are even discussion about how unfair it is to pick plasma vs space marines or that a BF6 Models snapshots not better than an BF2 Orc.
And we are not talking about anything that breaks the game... which is another quite subjective factor. Are 2 Serpents breaking the game? 4? 6? What if this is part of a craftworld which deploys mobile infantry? There is even a guy posting around who thinks markerlights are breaking the game.
Gunlines do break the game for example and still they are considered fluffy and narrative. So please tell me: What does break the game form an objective point of view? Does a Knight army break the game? Does an imperial armored Company break the game?

You're not even talking sense now.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

I will also say that the internet gives one a very different impression of the mood in the community, generally. Which is not to say that The Internet Is Wrong, just that the internet is different.

[Throne Agent]

I will also say that the internet gives one a very different impression of the mood in the community, generally. Which is not to say that The Internet Is Wrong, just that the internet is different.

The internet is where people who don't have friends to play the game in the manner its intended for, come to moan about the game for being what they want it to be.

[DarkLink]

I'd like a dollar for every time you say "quality rules" without defining in precise terms what that means, DarkLink.

I'd say there are three requirements:

1: The rules should be clear and concise, with minimal typos, ambiguities, and loopholes. You should not need to houserule anything to make the game function. If an issue arises, which will happen in even the best written of games, there should be an official FAQ/Errata to cover the issue within a reasonable period of time. Objectively, GW fails at this. Even the most staunch defenders will handwave most complaints with "just houserule it". GW FAQs are often nonsensical, or fail to address relevant issues, or just completely nonexistent.

2: The rules should be reasonably balanced. You should be able to show up to a game with most any army and have a decent chance of winning. Objectively, GW fails at this. Even the most stauch of defenders of the tournament scene will admit that 40k is often barely functional as a competitive game because the balance is so skewed.

3: The rules should be "fun". This is totally subjective, so it mostly isn't relevant to the discussion since different people like different things. That said, overly clunky mechanics (Look Out Sir and Wound Allocation), and rules that sound cool but are effectively useless in game (Fear, Ramming), are probably pretty universally considered a bad thing for a game. I happen to like a lot about the general gameplay in 40k, but it does have a lot of rules that fall into those categories.



Compare to Warmahordes or Infinity. Both have well written rules, and when a loophole arises, PP and Corvus Belli are quick to answer the community's question. The games are fairly well balanced. There are certainly things that are too good or not good enough, but you can show up with any army and have a solid chance of winning, as long as you're a good player. Both have two very, very different styles of gameplay from both 40k and each other, which is a toss up on whether or not you like their respective style, and there's no shame in not caring for the way Warmahordes plays, but the gameplay is fast and smooth in a way that 40k isn't. Infinity in particular is extremely fast to play, and most of the game is spent pondering tactical decisions rather than bogged down in complex book keeping or rolling buckets of dice over and over again.


Does that clarify your question? There's a lot to like about 40k, but it objectively fails a couple of these qualifiers.


Plus, when you say that it's not designed nor good as a competitive game, because it's intended to be a beer and pretzels game, you're literally saying you have to be drinking to enjoy it ;).




My irony detector just broke.

You treat any one who says the game is fine as it is, a friendly "beer and pretzels" game to play with friends to use your cool models in like they're an idiot that couldn't possibly understand the wikipedia article on Game Theory that you read.

You try and force your opinion that what you think are quality rules (as if that is an objective thing) are better for everyone, ignoring the wider communities utter indifference to what you care about.

I was blunt and offensive. If you have a problem with that, I don't particularly care. While DrBored, who is generally a cool guy, nor is he an idiot, used polite words, anyone older than about 5 should know that you don't have to be using four letter words to be insulting. I take no offense to the idea that not everyone plays competitively, nor did my statement imply that in any way. I personally prefer competitive games, but I enjoy more casual silly games as well. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

However.

There is significant unwarranted social stigma against players who happen to enjoy playing competitively. It's literally elitist class warfare, which is kind of sad considering this is basically a game of war barbies. It is not behavior I find acceptable, so even if I like someone, I will call them on their attitude. I come from a place where if someone is wrong, you tell them they're wrong, you don't hide behind passive-aggressive political correctness. If DrBored changes his opinion or explains that he meant something different that I misunderstood, then no big deal, everything works out.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Eh, I don't think that's fair. The internet just does what it does; skew perceptions one way or another.

[The Tisroc]

Gaming wise, the interwebz seem to be a big echo chamber wherein a discontented few shout and shout. The discontent and dismay that I find in the digital world doesn't really match the real world that I play in.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Thanks for the response DarkLink: I think your standards there are reasonable. I don't even disagree with you very much; I just care much less about those things. :)

"you're literally saying you have to be drinking to enjoy it"

Nah: I think it's more a description of the kind of tone where you're both playing to enjoy it and aren't too concerned about the result or any issues which arise (and I've never played a game without at least one rules query!). "Beer and pretzels" is a shorthand for a light-hearted game, not "this only makes sense if you're drunk". :)

(And yeah, I know that hardcore tournament players and WAAC types are, in fact, having fun as a primary activity. ;) )

[Mr Mystery]

There's also the approach of the individual to what they want their hobby to be.

Me? It's for relaxing. Whether it's talking biscuits on the interwebs about Warhammer and 40k, building up a kit I bought just because I liked the look of it, or having the odd game down the shop.

It gets me away from my professional life, which whilst I do enjoy it, can often be mentally exhausting and frustrating in equal measure (I've got one case in my name where one side just will not give me the information I need, despite them legally not having an option. Inquisitorial mandate, dontcha know!). And despite being a public service, it's a competitive environment when it comes to promotion and standing out. And that is my arena. That is where I pull out the stops and don't let people get in my way. So I feel somewhat naturally, my downtime and hobby time should be anything but. It should be a time when I'm not driving myself to ever greater heights, but just monging out and enjoying myself.

Others? I don't know their own motivations, nor do I care to speculate, as there's no way to do that sort of speculation without being an arse.

[DarkLink]

"Beer and pretzels" is a shorthand for a light-hearted game, not "this only makes sense if you're drunk".

I know, I was being obtuse. Besides, it was Frontline Gaming, some of the biggest proponents of competitive 40k, that brought about Beerhammer.

[Brenlak]

Maybe it's just me but I think "light-hearted" and "game" fit very nicely together. Life is to serious to be taken seriously and we are pretty much playing with toys. You can be competitive without being a knob.

[Patrick Boyle]

Thanks for the response DarkLink: I think your standards there are reasonable. I don't even disagree with you very much; I just care much less about those things. :)

"you're literally saying you have to be drinking to enjoy it"

Nah: I think it's more a description of the kind of tone where you're both playing to enjoy it and aren't too concerned about the result or any issues which arise (and I've never played a game without at least one rules query!). "Beer and pretzels" is a shorthand for a light-hearted game, not "this only makes sense if you're drunk". :)

(And yeah, I know that hardcore tournament players and WAAC types are, in fact, having fun as a primary activity. ;) )

My problem with this line of thinking is why do the casual players of 40k think this and balance are somehow mutually exclusive? I've probably even already essentially posted this in this thread already, as I know I've said it a few times the last week in varioud bols topics, but I just want a game where I feel like I'm not handicapping myself taking Codex Marines without bikers or Grav centurions. If what I want to play is a lighthearted game I can sit down and play a 30-60 min game of X-Wing miniatures, or Android: Netrunner, where the rules are clear with regular FAQs, the factions are all relatively balanced, and my time is spent making decisions and playing the game, rather than the clunky 2 hour exercise that is Warhammer 40k where more often than not I'm just going to get curbstomped by a book that happens to have better rules than I do. I still enjoy painting my 40k minis and reading books and video games and what not but I've been actually playing 40k less and less often because it's just not fun anymore, most of the time, it's a chore. I so far can't see 7th doing anything to change that.

[Brenlak]

I wish it was more balanced too, guess were lucky around here that not to many of our regular scene take advantage of this imbalance. And I totally get you on the actual playing time compared to time spent flipping through rulebooks. We are just gonna ease into it and see what happens, what else can you do? These babies loose half thier value when you drive them off the lot, X-Wing you can still get more of your money back. Is that the way GW thinks now? "he's got waaaaaaaaay to much plastic crack, he won't quit, just thow some stuff together and he will buy it". GW forgot that real crackheads have a poor memory and a shorter life span than there Plasticrackheads.

[WickedGood]

After thinking about this for a bit I think I have figured out why I am so upset at GW. 40K was a game to me. Games require balance. Without balance they are just toys. I am too old to be interested in playing with toys. I am interested in playing a game. Sure I can meet with my buddies and negotiate a set of rules to play by but part of the reason I bought these miniatures was that someone else was supposed to be a third party and set the rules for us. How fracking lazy is it that GW expects me to rewrite their rules for them? Can a group of smart people get together and fundamentally fix 40K. Maybe..... I am having a real hard time coming up with something that works off of the core rules but doesn't fundamentally break the game just as bad. The issue with this approach is that this will need to be an ongoing effort and the tournament community at ;arge will have to not only recognize this as the ruleset to play by but even my pick up games at my LGS will have to be bound by them. Personally, I think people that go down this route will be like those sad Battletech guys playing the 20 year old pre-clan edition I see every once in a while. I think you need actual support from the games designer and we all know the second you put 40K alternaive rules on something GW lawyers will come smash your doors in with a lawsuit.

Got a little preachy in there sorry about that. My original argument stands. a game requires balance. 40K is not balanced. thus 40k is not a game. It is a set of toy's just like the GI Joe's I bought when I was 10.

[skaroreg]

Ha! You just described Warmachine (my favorite game)! I love 40K but (rules-wise) it doesn't hold a torch to WarmHordes.

That was my exact thought when I read that rule set:p