State of the HH vs 40k 8th edition

[Marshal Rohr]

I hoping they take the opportunity to address the issues everyone has with 7th, fix those issues, and finally put an end to the debate.

[m0nolith]

I hoping they take the opportunity to address the issues everyone has with 7th, fix those issues, and finally put an end to the debate.

This is not a debate.

In a debate someone makes an argument, the other person reflects upon it and makes a counterpoint, and at the end there is a solution.

 

This is more people (or more specifically 4 or 5 stubborn and unreasonable people) shouting and repeating themselves ad nauseam.

 

Whatever happens, this is not going to end anytime soon, maybe ever.

The best thing I can hope for is that Mods shut down anyone bringing up this argument if it’s off topic.

Almost every thread we have outside the AoD subforum, it devolves to the same people demanding it switch to 8th because that’s what they like and other people arguing against that, and then the thread gets shut down.

Edited December 2, 2019 by m0nolith

[Bloody Legionnaire]

 

I hoping they take the opportunity to address the issues everyone has with 7th, fix those issues, and finally put an end to the debate.

This is not a debate.

In a debate someone makes an argument, the other person reflects upon it and makes a counterpoint, and at the end there is a solution.

 

This is more people (or more specifically 4 or 5 stubborn and unreasonable people) shouting and repeating themselves ad nauseam.

 

Whatever happens, this is not going to end anytime soon, maybe ever.

The best thing I can hope for is that Mods shut down anyone bringing up this argument if it’s off topic.

Almost every thread we have outside the AoD subforum, it devolves to the same people demanding it switch to 8th because that’s what they like and other people arguing against that, and then the thread gets shut down.

 

 

QFT

 

It's kinda sad that you have to say all of that but I'm glad you did and you're right. I really appreciate that there are those in this community who can understand this as an issue and can call it out. It's also pretty sad that we can never actually have that debate and then wind up with a solution..

[Fajita Fan]

I would like for HH to move to 8th but keep the complexity of their army lists, special rules, and interesting force org modifications but NOT so they can be played against other 8th edition armies.

 

Most likely the systems will converge with 9th edition?

[Bloody Legionnaire]

I would like for HH to move to 8th but keep the complexity of their army lists, special rules, and interesting force org modifications but NOT so they can be played against other 8th edition armies.

 

Most likely the systems will converge with 9th edition?

 

It's been touched on a page or two back, but this is most likely not the case. They are separate games now and are likely to remain that way.

 

I really can't understand why people want things to move in the 8th direction though.. Don't get me wrong, I understand some of the positives and really like them, but take for example even something as basic as the way certain units shoot. In previous editions the demolisher cannon was an incredibly destructive weapon that only fired one shot. It sucked when you rolled a one to hit, sucked even more when your dice scattered to hell but it was way more realistic than giving that weapon D6 shots in 8th edition. Now that's just one simple case but you see it everywhere across all factions. The multiple damage and the AP systems are positives I can agree with, but the weapons themselves still do not do anywhere near as much damage as they used to. Weapons like lascannons and missile launchers all had the possibility of destroying most vehicles in one shot with the vehicle damage table dynamics, and that's something else I really agreed with. I know it's not always the best arguments to compare sci-fi to real modern life but there are certain weapons in military's arsenals that are capable of reducing something like a tank to a a pile of metal scrap in one shot. Because the damage system is based on a six sided die and because vehicles and creatures are so much more durable with high wounds, the possibility of outright destroying a unit in one shot is gone. Personally, I feel like heavy weapons should literally do double the damage they currently do. I think it would add a lot of the game. 

 

I could go on ad nauseam  about all the issues I have with 8e.. It's easiest for me to sum it all up as dumbed down WH40k, and I'm sorry guys but that's all 8e is. I wont disagree that it has it's merits but it's just a completely different feel from what WH40k was when I started. I think some of the changes were a great idea for narrative and open play, but GW should have gone a step further for matched play and retained a lot of the features from previous editions. That way those who didn't want to take the game as seriously (and I don't mean on competitive terms) could do so but those that wanted the immersion and the complexity could have that as well. All of that is gone from WH40k, now and it's something myself and most of the HH/30k community appreciate about those rule sets staying with 7e. 

Edited December 3, 2019 by Bloody Legionnaire

[Vykes]

The background noise is going to be the same day in and day out when we get to this sort of polarity of opinion.  We don't need to be on the defensive for our favourite first born child here, it's a game system that was constructed at its core in 1998 and has had incremental face lifts five more times to get to Age of Darkness 1.0.  There is going to be baggage, flaws, and wonky archaic conventions that maybe, just maybe, could use innovation without having to disassemble the system completely. 

 

Every single time this discussion gets brought up, sure you have a few sorts saying "8E or bust" which is best replied to as, "'8E and bust are actually synonyms."   which is incredibly annoying, but we're also stuck with, "What's wrong with Age of Darkness?  It's perfect!  I mean, I guess if pressed, it's not but don't you dare insinuate that it's not as good as 8E just because it's not as popular.  Shut up, Damien Age of Darkness is perfect just the way he is!"

 

8E is too dumbed down, and Age of Darkness is 7E with some cool artwork that plays like an Excel spreadsheet.  One has a long winded manual, full of charts and cross referencing, and it makes players look like those elitist model train people to the community at large.  The other hopes you love random silly dice rolls with your Sci-Fi Avengers game, getting upset by them, and finding a way to roll them again until you get the result that you want. 

 

I'd like to think I'm sort of progressive moderate to be honest.  There are some stuff that works really well for 30K that I don't want in 40K, and some stuff in 40K that I don't want in 30K.  A lot of the core Age of Darkness stuff really does just work because so many of the armies are built on the same principles which lends itself well to more of the granular minutia that actively sets the forces apart.  

 

But the moment the world 'realism' gets tossed around, I'm reminded that most Primarchs only get a small handful of attacks, and can only hit a cowering six-foot tall target with a motorcycle sized murder mallet just over half the time.  Explosions form perfect circles despite intervening objects.  Every single carbon based life form that doesn't have a rocket strapped to their back move the same speed.  And that a statistically significant part of the time, an anti-tank laser gun has the same chance to significantly damage a heavy tank as it does to not hurt Carl from Cadia.  Everything that gets touted as real is so, only in so far as we've come to accept that weird little degree of verisimilitude that we're already pretty well versed in.  

 

It's a game design, it works for what it is, but there are some elements that probably could use a check up in 2.0. 

 

There we go.  There it is.  After a fair bit of plotting and thinking how I'm going to use my 1K post, now it's here.  Am I upset?  Absolutely.  At anyone here?  Nope... just me.  Me and me alone.  Now I think I'll go paint some bootstraps on my impossible-to-fill 2.5K grenadier army and drink some Captain Morgan.  

[StrangerOrders]

I'd actually dig 30k going its own way, keeping the good parts of 7th (I'm glad for you if you like 8th, but blaming codex issues on the engine does not make you wise) and improving where it has problems.

 

Sort of an alternate reality's Eight Edition, one where they didn't decide to chuck the old game into the blender to reinvent the wheel. And then realize that their alternative wheel is just a rife with entirely new and exciting problems.

 

I will say that I think folks always miss one key thing with 40k. GW has the restraint of a toddler when it comes to shoving powercreep into each new faction, and 8th has compounded this with constantly creating new armies rather updating most of them. Most of the issues 40k-onlys had with 7th was that the game was cancerous with Formations and are fairly blind to the fact that 8th already has the beginnings of this problem on steroids. 

 

If you do not want 'a garbage game' then figure out how to teach GW some restraint. Up until that point you could have the God of Tabletop descend from the heavens and design the game for them and they will make it a clunky hellscape within a few years. 

 

30k's appeal is in some ways its own problems, it has relatively few core armies and few of the faction upgrades do much. This means that you can have a fun game where the balance does not have its spine torn out and used as a flail to beat it to death before hurling its corpse into the nearest star. Its also fairly static and not as flooded with factions vying to have their own gimmick. 

 

In other words, making 30k 8th would just inflict 8ths problems on it not eliminate problems altogether. I am also really skeptical of folks saying that the only reason they arent into it is 7th. Most of the time budget and game availability are much bigger factors than that, when push comes to shove someone with genuine interest will play the game. 

 

My own sentiment is that 30k's main 'issue' is the budget and some stores being dicks about letting FW players in (fortunately not an issue I have experienced). I think a return to start sets like Calth or Prospero would do it to be frank, along with cheaper red books.

 

I think that the Black Books will sell well regardless. I know people that have zero interest in playing but buy them anyway because they love BL and treat them like ASOIAF fans treat the setting books which are apart from the novels. 

 

Actually, if BL took out the rules and just sold the lore, I would wager that they would make an aggressively pretty penny.

[Leif Bearclaw]

 

But the moment the world 'realism' gets tossed around, I'm reminded that most Primarchs only get a small handful of attacks, and can only hit a cowering six-foot tall target with a motorcycle sized murder mallet just over half the time.  Explosions form perfect circles despite intervening objects.  Every single carbon based life form that doesn't have a rocket strapped to their back move the same speed.  And that a statistically significant part of the time, an anti-tank laser gun has the same chance to significantly damage a heavy tank as it does to not hurt Carl from Cadia.  Everything that gets touted as real is so, only in so far as we've come to accept that weird little degree of verisimilitude that we're already pretty well versed in.  

You almost get there with the last comment, but this 'don't complain about realism because xyz is already unrealistic' argument really grinds my gears. Granted, it's somewhat due to the degeneracy of language, but when people talk about realism they really mean verisimilitude (the former is just easier to spell and say). Although I'd also say the issue is less 'we've come to accept xyz that we're well versed in, and the new thing is the same, but we haven't got used to it yet', rather more 'xyz mostly make sense (for a given value of 'sense'), abc do not, and so come across as 'unrealsitic''.

 

All of your examples have perfectly plausible explanations that don't break the sense of verisimilitude for many/most players. Primarch stats have to be somewhat lowered from their presentation in the fiction for pure gameplay reasons, otherwise a Primarch would have stats like Cain from old WoD (which iirc was a character sheet with 'you just die' written across it in big letters). However, even a superhuman demigod can only swing a sword so often in time x, and if we at least assume the opponent is trying to escape/parry/dodge attacks rather than standing there like a numpty the idea of a Primarch missing a swing is hardly unprecedented. So while the numbers or proportions might be 'unrealistic' the actual events are plausible, so some sense of verisimilitude is maintained. Same with infantry speeds (most standard infantry are about the same size and bipedal, so an approximately similar 'combat speed' doesn't bother most), although I doubt there would have been much pushback on this one if the M stat had come back before 8th. As for big guns not wounding, there's plenty of potential in universe explanations for the dreaded 'anything but a 1' outcome (dud warheads, flat batteries, sudden pratfalls, one squad member taking most of the blast etc.), and of course the irl 'Doylist' explanation that the to wound roll helps foster investment and a sense of agency in the players. Again, the point is these things seem somewhat plausible, so the verisimilitude holds.

 

However, this breaks down with 8th ed's vehicle rules  (and 6th and 7th weren't that much better, thanks to the abomination that was hull points). We expect 'anti tank' weapons to be more binary (tank is either 'mostly fine' or 'dead' not '1/3 or so dead, 2 more of those and we're in big trouble'), because that's how such weapons function irl, and how they've been consistently portrayed in 40k fiction to boot. So 8th defanging of previously high power AT weapons in the AT role grates, and the sense of verisimilitude degrades. Although imo the biggest issue on this score is the 'everything can hurt everything' idea. Yes, I've heard the defence, the math hammer of just how many bolters it would take to drop a Russ. But the fact that this is even a discussion is an irritating break in the illusion for many, because the very idea of small arms being able to significantly damage an AFV (this is far less of an issue with more obviously lightly armoured/open topped stuff, like Trukks, Raiders and Land Speeders) defeats the point of AFVs existing in the first place. Unlike in your examples, it's not just the numbers/proportions that are off, but the very concept is implausible/counter intuitive, which is what really damages the sense of verisimilitude.

[Vykes]

Leif, I'm gonna let your gears get ground on this one because you did just completely handwave me away, mate. Or at least a little bit.

 

'It's not unrealistic, it holds verisimilitude that is a gross and arbitrary simplification of something... okay, it is actually kinda unrealistic.  But it's done for gameplay reasons and makes sense on the surface to most of us.  But lets just all agree that it's not as bad as 8E which is the literal devil.'

 

It's not enough for others to boo and hiss at anything 8E related because it's the enemy.  My dude, we've had posters say 'I don't want anything 8E related because it's a slippery slope' when aspects like the movement stat would gain traction because it's one of those thins that adds a degree of granularity to the system.  And we already use a convoluted aspect of it in those poor poor Breacher squads.  And I'm on this side of the fence arguing for more of it, which is weird as I do think AoD is overly complex in some of its conventions*.   And yeah, 8E has some grotesque over simplifications and some other elements both codex and core that are just really, really dumb.  But that doesn't mitigate the failings of Age of Darkness's ruleset. 

 

Primarch only hits a cowering weapon skill 1 guardsmen who failed their fear test on a 3+?  What, we can't update our gaming convention to allow for characters that have double the weapon skill of their opponent = 2+ to hit?  Super human soldiers having a tough time attaching a magnetic limpet mine on the side of a cottage sized vehicle?  Writing a Ballistic skill role in a way that doesn't require cross referencing a chart to say 7-Bs=Roll to Hit?  Having rules like Slow and Purposeful in the book despite actively taking them out of all the stat blocks?  Having some pretty wonky provisos for the Fall Back moral mechanics?  Or how about weapons that have a strength double or more of the toughness of a model automatically succeed on their wound rolls?  Then we can keep that nostalgic S vs. T chart exactly the same, too.    Those are all game based as apparently Carl's new Lascannon lasek lab presents itself as a perfectly rational and justifiable theme.  At this point the suspension of disbelief is stretching that verisimilitude to its limits if we call it 'realistic'. 

 

StrangeOrders has the right of it as far as I'm concerned*: let AoD 2.0 go its separate way and improve on itself.  It's not beholden to 8E.  Frankly there's room for it because the core mechanics are intended for very similar armies which, to probably no ones surprise, means that the simulationist aspect can become stronger by needing less factors or generalizations built in to accommodate wonky outlandish stuff that has to be expressed by such well regarded mechanic as "Reroll everything that isn't what you want." and the ever popular, "Mortal wounds."  

 

I firmly believe Age of Darkness can do better.  And just to be clear, I don't think that 'better' has to look like 8th edition.

 

*I have a fairly big 30K group and play at least a couple of games a month, but trying to bring people in that have frankly ridiculous army collections that would work in AoD is actually really flippin' hard.  I've been told point blank by more than one that it's because the rule system is impenetrable... and it shouldn't be because I've played 7th edition with these same people!  Mention 8E and the question only turns to if we can ignore Power Points. It's stupid and it hurts because I can't tell you how much I like 30K's setting better than 40K. 

Edited December 3, 2019 by Vykes

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Leif,

 

I don't know if I'm reading you right but I kind of agree with that high power AT may sometimes leave a tank "1/3rd" dead. Weird things happen in reality and sometimes things you'd expect to happen don't and vis versa. I had a buddy who was right next to a IED in AFG when it exploded. He was unscathed because the terrorist planted the bomb poorly and the blast was absorbed by the ground/terrain mostly. Sometimes those hits against vehicles are going to hit something very critical, powerplant, fuel, ammunition, and it'll cause something catastrophic.. then again sometimes it'll go straight through and hardly touch anything critical for the vehicle. You have to imagine with every hit armor takes it has the ability to reduce the structural integrity. You could say that's what hullpoints represent. Don't get me wrong, it probably should have been designed better. But it's still infinitely more plausible for me than anything in 8e. 

[Gederas]

Leif,

 

I don't know if I'm reading you right but I kind of agree with that high power AT may sometimes leave a tank "1/3rd" dead. Weird things happen in reality and sometimes things you'd expect to happen don't and vis versa. I had a buddy who was right next to a IED in AFG when it exploded. He was unscathed because the terrorist planted the bomb poorly and the blast was absorbed by the ground/terrain mostly. Sometimes those hits against vehicles are going to hit something very critical, powerplant, fuel, ammunition, and it'll cause something catastrophic.. then again sometimes it'll go straight through and hardly touch anything critical for the vehicle. You have to imagine with every hit armor takes it has the ability to reduce the structural integrity. You could say that's what hullpoints represent. Don't get me wrong, it probably should have been designed better. But it's still infinitely more plausible for me than anything in 8e. 

Yeah. whenever people bring up "anti-tank/anti-air weapons should either not do anything, or totally destroy what they're shooting at!", I can't help but think: "laughs in B-17"

 

If something is well-built enough, unless you have a weapon that can OUTRIGHT ANNIHILATE WHAT YOU'RE SHOOTING AT, there's a very likely chance it'll continue to operate when damaged heavily.

 

See above: all three of those B-17's continued to fly and operate while suffering that catastrophic damage. And you can even point to a lot of WWII and Modern tanks that function like that too.

 

And since Warhammer 30k/40k has a WWII-style of design..... It would make sense that Astartes vehicles at the very least should be able to function at only minor effectiveness reduction unless outright rendered inoperable. Because real life has precedents of that happening all the damn time.

 

Even with civilian vehicles. Just ask this Volkswagen Bus

Edited December 3, 2019 by Gederas

[Bloody Legionnaire]

No kidding, It's like the A-10 b(brrrrrrrt) Warthog, the thing was designed to take a direct hit from a SAM and keep flying. And surprisingly things like that did happen. That's a hit from 1 SAM though, 3 or more would most likely obliterate the jet.. I certainly believe lascannons are supposed to be capable enough weapons to do that. 

[Vykes]

Man Gederas, while nowhere near that bad, the stories I hear from my D&D crew (of the 11 of us... yes it's a big group, 3 were in armour, 1 infantry, and 1 were sapper, 1 signals) say basically the same stuff about their equipment when they were headed back from Bosnia and Afghanistan. 

 

On the game side of things, I like the damage effects... a lot.  The degrading stat line in 8E doesn't cut it (Though I'll still admit I'm kinda shocked that Optics for reduced BS isn't a thing but we have a lot of stunned and shaken results).  I'd agree with Bloody Legionnaire on this'n too, weird things definitely happen and Hull points at least do a certain job in representing that nebulous hull deformation/minor system cascades that lead to mobility kills that fly under the radar of all-or-nothing systems. The more robust and redundant a vehicle is, the more hull points it has.  The more finicky and fine tuned, the less.  It's the stupid plethora of haywire and cumulative glance hits from garbage like grav weapons in 7E that really gamed that system hard. 

 

On the recollection front: buddy's Coyote took an RPG that shredded it pretty good.  It got mostly patched up and sent back.  What knocked out the vehicle?  A schmuck commander that told him to 'gun it' like he was commanding a leopard, up near Cold Lake and it hit a ditch. Did so much damage to the stupid thing that it ended up as a write off. 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

We all know for the most part GW now writes the rules for FW. Let that sink in for a moment.

[Leif Bearclaw]

Leif, I'm gonna let your gears get ground on this one because you did just completely handwave me away, mate. Or at least a little bit.

 

'It's not unrealistic, it holds verisimilitude that is a gross and arbitrary simplification of something... okay, it is actually kinda unrealistic.  But it's done for gameplay reasons and makes sense on the surface to most of us.  But lets just all agree that it's not as bad as 8E which is the literal devil.'

You've completely missed my point. Or I may have missed yours. It looked to me like you were responding to Bloody Legionnaire's point about previous editions having powerful AT weapons capable of one shoting vehicles being both a good thing and grounded in reality with a form of the 'you can't complain about realism in 40k because it's already unrealsitic' argument. If I misunderstood, then I'm sorry.

 

What I was trying to get at is that 'xyz is already unrealistic, therefore you cannot complain about abc' is an apple to oranges comparison seemingly rooted in the misnomer that realism is the goal. A sense of verisimilitude is/should be the goal (admittedly a rather subjective and lofty one, as what breaks it will vary on a person to person basis), and the vehicle rules of 8th (which is all I referenced) are imo far, far more damaging to that than any of the older 'unrealistic' aspects of the 40k game, far more so than the examples you listed (all of which are still present in 8th anyway). I wasn't trying to demonise 8th or put 7th on a pedestal. Both editions imo are notably inferior to 5th, and even 5th was far from perfect.

 

Leif,

 

I don't know if I'm reading you right but I kind of agree with that high power AT may sometimes leave a tank "1/3rd" dead. Weird things happen in reality and sometimes things you'd expect to happen don't and vis versa. I had a buddy who was right next to a IED in AFG when it exploded. He was unscathed because the terrorist planted the bomb poorly and the blast was absorbed by the ground/terrain mostly. Sometimes those hits against vehicles are going to hit something very critical, powerplant, fuel, ammunition, and it'll cause something catastrophic.. then again sometimes it'll go straight through and hardly touch anything critical for the vehicle. You have to imagine with every hit armor takes it has the ability to reduce the structural integrity. You could say that's what hullpoints represent. Don't get me wrong, it probably should have been designed better. But it's still infinitely more plausible for me than anything in 8e. 

I guess the main issue is that atm, high power AT always leaves a tank '1/3 dead'.

 

Then there's the whole 'what does being a third dead mean to a tank?' issue. To me all that is better covered by the older, 5th edition system (plus the age old bad rolling). You had your short term inconvenience hits (shaken/stunned), system/crewman x knocked out (weapon destroyed/immobilised) the critical engine/magazine/entire crew get shredded by mass spalling hits (destroyed) and even the cumulative mission kill (multiple immobilised/weapon destroyed leading to wrecked).

 

Yeah. whenever people bring up "anti-tank/anti-air weapons should either not do anything, or totally destroy what they're shooting at!", I can't help but think: "laughs in B-17"

 

 

 

 

 

If something is well-built enough, unless you have a weapon that can OUTRIGHT ANNIHILATE WHAT YOU'RE SHOOTING AT, there's a very likely chance it'll continue to operate when damaged heavily.

 

See above: all three of those B-17's continued to fly and operate while suffering that catastrophic damage. And you can even point to a lot of WWII and Modern tanks that function like that too.

 

And since Warhammer 30k/40k has a WWII-style of design..... It would make sense that Astartes vehicles at the very least should be able to function at only minor effectiveness reduction unless outright rendered inoperable. Because real life has precedents of that happening all the damn time.

 

Even with civilian vehicles. Just ask this Volkswagen Bus

 

Something also to bear in mind is 'what does 'destroyed' mean in the context of a wargame?'. If the damage to those planes didn't impair its ability to fly, shoot at interceptors, drop bombs and go home, then from a 'crunch' perspective they weren't really damaged, and could be workably represented by either a shaken/stunned (maybe weapon destroyed for when it appears turrets have been taken out) or just a failed AP roll, despite the physical damage. Similarly, if that damage was enough for the pilot to abort the mission and return to base, than from the game's perspective the plane is 'destroyed', even if it got back to the airstrip safely with no crew casualties and was subsequently repaired irl.

 

Also, one thing to bear in mind is 'how many B17s which took similar hits just flat out crashed?'. That's one of the 2 big grating issues about 8th vehicles atm. That you always need multiple big hits from dedicated AT weapons (or commonly, even more hits from less powerful high rof weapons) to go through a tank's wound stat. Which goes against both the fluff and common sense/the reality of AFVs and AT weaponry.

[Vykes]

I think we both may have missed points there, Lief my dude.  I actually agree with Legionnaire's take on high AT weapons, especially wishing they did more damage.  It's more when he said '8E is just dumbed down' and not being able to understand the shift to it, in which I took issue. 

 

My core irritation is this tribal polarized identity thing that aficionados that a lot of fans stick with: "8E can do no wrong vs. 8E is the devil that must not be allowed to corrupt the righteous."  Recognizing AoD's flaws is important in being able to mitigate them as a community and, when the time comes, suggesting updates.  8E isn't objectively worse in every regard than AoD, but neither is it objectively better.  However, there are elements of both that really could probably be melded to a system that is, at its core, almost 22 years old. 

 

Even fans of 8E kinda have to face the facts that a lot of the most well received elements of 8E aren't new, they're retooled elements of RT or 2E elements that got streamlined into the new system.  And as nice and workable as some of them are in principle, in practice they haven't all worked.  And how many FAQ's have been needed to 'fix' drop pods and reserves in 8E?  How many of the rules for deployment or wound management actually interact totally differently despite being named the same thing, because one book got updated in an FAQ and another hasn't?

 

I also actually agree that weapons should do more damage than they do in 8E, but I think the same about them doing that in AoD.  But we're brought to the duality of the AoD system: a system in which a spartan has a 1/36 chance of exploding if getting hit by a las cannon on a non-flare shielded side, but a simple guardsmen has a 1/6 chance of not dying, and a castellax has a 0 chance of dying to the same weapon if it hasn't been previously wounded.  It gets really hard to swallow that as 'realism' .  

 

Frankly, 8E did take steps to make that better for people like me:  In 8E I can boil a biker captain's brain to mush with a melta gun (and probably will if I get close enough), cripple a carnifex in one shot, or finally get rid of those  custodes.  The system in AoD worked poorly in outlier cases like characters, monsters, etc, because the AT weapons were designed (fairly well, in my mind) with interacting with vehicles, but didn't necessarily work against individuals. 8E's system works poorly against vehicles ironically, but I'd say a whole lot better against monsters and characters.

[Marshal Rohr]

We all know for the most part GW now writes the rules for FW. Let that sink in for a moment.

For 8th Edition. Not for AoD.

[Marshal Rohr]

For the time being, AoD might just be 7th but that isn’t going to be the case forever. I would be really surprised if we didn’t get some fundamental rules mechanics reworks when AoD 2 comes out. I would also be very surprised if they didn’t update the army books at the same time with points values to reflect the interactions of those fundamental reworks.

[Noserenda]

Tbh i was disappointed chiefly that the much vaunted AoD rules were just 7th with an extra FAQ page, i mean ideally id like it to just synch up and benefit from the resources of mainline GW but a Version 2 that gutted the shell of 7th and did something good could work, its the mad defence of an awful rules system (mostly in the name of elitism) that gets especially tiring, which is why most of the last page has been so refreshing, i suspect mostly due to Vykes, so credit to all you frater.

[Brofist]

I’m happy, overall. We just lived through a major game transition: 30k became a specialist game that's broken cleanly from Warhammer. Keeping the core rules mostly untouched while focusing on getting more black books out the door? I feel that's the sensible thing to do, considering most of the team was repurposed to focus on new specialist games. They just didn’t have the people to crank out a new edition. Moreover there just isn't the pressure to release one because people already happily pay even more for a yearly leather bound black book.

 

One thing that comes up in these topics every now and then is that everybody needs to play the same system for it to be profitable and survive. Financially speaking, keeping the two games separate actually makes more money in the long run, provided some mass of players exists there. The investment and massive expansion of specialist games are testament to that.

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Lol, I guess I should have gone into way more detail with dumb down 8th edition has brought about. That’s more in reference to how things and particularly vehicles fire now and other details alike. No more armor values and everything has “wounds,” everything is very vanilla for the sake of simplicity and easy game play.. i.e. lacking in complexity and detail or realism or however you want to describe it.

 

I know it would probably be helpful to the discussion and readers to detail my responses but nobody wants to read a book of my opinions..

[rendingon1+]

O

 

Tbh i was disappointed chiefly that the much vaunted AoD rules were just 7th with an extra FAQ page, i mean ideally id like it to just synch up and benefit from the resources of mainline GW but a Version 2 that gutted the shell of 7th and did something good could work, its the mad defence of an awful rules system (mostly in the name of elitism) that gets especially tiring, which is why most of the last page has been so refreshing, i suspect mostly due to Vykes, so credit to all you frater.

Stop using "elitism" word because it really makes no sense. You're personal feelings about 7th edition core set are just that - you're personal feelings. And HH is not 7th edition per se and never was. In AoD you don't have blatant powercreep with each faction released, you don't have underpiced-game-breaking-py-to-win units that are almost impossible to counter, nor you have stupid formations that even further broke already mutilated balance. That was the 7th and you know it. As for elitism considering the rules, well... I seriously don't get that argument at all. If you're willing to learn and put actual effort into it you'll have a full grasp of the system in no time. Argument that to hit or to wound tables are difficult is silly, literally takes 10 min to memorize. I'm 100% in agreement that the ruleset as it is would benefit from some changes but by saying that AoD rules are too difficult equals to admitting one's laziness at the very least. No one in their right mind that AoD ruleset is perfect, no main GW game ever was be it Fantasy or 40k.

 

As I have noticed your only thing here on AoD forum is to pop in and  voice your contempt for the system (and by extension - HH community) when threads like this appear. Why even bother?

 

Problems with HH as I see it are:

- rock-paper-scisors AP/armour system. As people mentioned it's just stupid that power armour can just deflect shots that would otherwise wreck a tank. However my main gripe with AP is close combat, not shooting. I literally hate this artificer armour, power fist/axe.  shenanigans + the fact that some legions have AP2 I weapons standard on sergeant level characters. (And I don't like 8th edition approach where 2+ armour is just a joke).

- vehicle firing arcs and fire while moving limitations.

- atrocious point costs vs utility. goes both ways, like whirlwind scorpius way and breachers/recon the other.

- special rules and mechanics that exist in the rulebook but are absent or scarce in the actual game. Like: pinning, sniper (I'm not for sniper vets return), precision strikes/shots

- too many AP3 barrage with easy access

- Legions specific units and characters that never see tabletop because of very outdated rules. Not ot mention Imperial Army and Solar Auxilia which are just ignored in updates.

- lack of erratas or F&Q that could be made in 30min (since you can "design" sabre during lunch time, why can't you do the same with rules)

Edited December 3, 2019 by rendingon1+

[Vykes]

-laughs- thanks Noserenda.  I guess I just don't like the 'pile on' effect that some of these discussions can evoke (from both sides, mind you.)  I wouldn't call it awful... that's reserved for the likes of D&D 4E and its ilk.  But um, yeah, not sure what the word is.  I guess I always just hoped that AoD could stretch itself into something more unique as i think it had a reasonable enough basis to work with and just kinda didn't.  The elitism is something that we kinda face, but I'm one of the sort who has faced a bit of a backlash over FW pieces: then had to explain in-game and out-of why the articles I chose aren't there to be game crushing OP buy-to-win things... I just like Storm Eagles and don't like stumpy toddler dreadnoughts, m'kay?  

 

Brofist brings up a good point, the Black Books definitely took some degree of priority.  And frankly I'm glad they did because I love the lore in those to death.  I love the setting to death.  And if I have to look like some AoD version of John Oliver to get across that I really rather like something in principle but think it could use work in practice, I will.  Likewise, I'd wager on Marshal Rohr being right and that we'll see an AoD 2.0 with some fairly big changes beyond things like points.  Though I will rail that they should have absolutely covered all the legions before they got sidetracked into knights, mechanicum, daemons, imperial auxilia, knights again, custodes, knights for a third time because it absolutely deserves to be said.     

 

Eeeeh no worries Legionnaire my dude, I didn't want to make it sound personal so I tried not to toss many sticker tags around.  It's just "8E is just dumbed down for the plebs." is one of the most common refrains that there is when it's brought up in 30K circles.  "It's just not real enough." then trying to finagle maximum checkerboard unit coherency on their custodes and Look out Sir against melta guns to keep every individual model alive but wounded.  Neither are exactly realistic.  And some of AoD's choices for rules are kinda bewildering.  I will stick up for the degrading stat line, though.  Monsters absolutely needed something like that, and I kinda like that vehicles will slow down when taking damage.  The accumulation effects are nice, though I'll readily admit it's not visceral as that nice old penetrating hit chart.  

 

Both games are 'gentlemans games' if we want to use that parlance.  If you want to break it and game every bit of realism and joy out of the system, you absolutely can and both are just as egregious albeit it in different ways.

 

@rendington, dude I really hate to be the killjoy but there absolutely is an Elitism streak in AoD.  And you just kinda pushed it to an us vs. them thing again which is... like, kinda part and parcel with it.  It's not that it doesn't take effort or time or what not, it's just that can they be made better/easier?  

[rendingon1+]

 

@rendington, dude I really hate to be the killjoy but there absolutely is an Elitism streak in AoD.  And you just kinda pushed it to an us vs. them thing again which is... like, kinda part and parcel with it.  It's not that it doesn't take effort or time or what not, it's just that can they be made better/easier?  

What do you mean by elitism? :) And how do I push it on AoD commu with what I've just said?

[Vykes]

Ummm, like the definition? 

 

Elitism: 

the attitude or behavior of a person or group who regard themselves as belonging to an elite.

 

Elite: 

a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society.

 

AoD community groups (not always in the individuals, but as a general attitude) tends to exude a certain attitude that the typical AoD gamer is more sophisticated, more complex, more nuanced, and in a lot of cases, more talented individual interested in the hobby side.  There's an internal perception that we focus more on thematic armies, better painting, and general more congenial attitude than the typical 40K player.  The ruleset thus acts as a gatekeeping tool used to weed out the non sophisticate who can't handle such a robust system and will gravitate towards a less worthy option (that being 8E at the moment), while of course adhering to a general code of community conduct that is the best means of self moderation. 

 

Frankly, all good goals... but when it gets smeared in others face as a perceived proof rather than a goal, it's gonna get called out.  So every time that one of us says 'Go back to your dumbed down grey plastic game while I stay here with my period accurate resin upgrade legion kit' it fosters a bit of negativity.  

 

  If you're willing to learn and put actual effort into it you'll have a full grasp of the system in no time. Argument that to hit or to wound tables are difficult is silly, literally takes 10 min to memorize. I'm 100% in agreement that the ruleset as it is would benefit from some changes but by saying that AoD rules are too difficult equals to admitting one's laziness at the very least. 

 

This.... doesn't read well if you don't consider yourself part of the core community. 

 

Oh, as for your actual list... maybe a bit of a surprise I actually agree with every single point, mate :P

Edited December 3, 2019 by Vykes