Can GW really fix the problems that repeat with every edition of 40k?

[ThePenitentOne]

As a Canadian, when Tim Hortons told me I needed their App to participate in the Roll Up the Rim contest, I realized that the world has left me behind.

[Scribe]

17 minutes ago, ThePenitentOne said:

As a Canadian, when Tim Hortons told me I needed their App to participate in the Roll Up the Rim contest, I realized that the world has left me behind.

 

Even Tims?! Clearly we are lost.

[Arikel]

13 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

I mentioned this in another topic, but it drives home my frustration.

 

My chapter hasn't received a sniff of rules or model support in 9th edition. No updated abilities, stratagems or crusade rules. Nothing.

 

Meanwhile, Azrael of the Dark Angels has just received the THIRD set of new rules in the 9th edition cycle. He got a new 9th edition PDF at the start of 9th, he then got updated rules in the 9th edition supplement, and now he has a shiny, new Primaris datasheet.

 

 

This is unfortunately part of the problem, and I do say this as a primarily SM player. Most chapters are pretty bog standard space marines that don’t need pages and pages of rules and units. Even Dark Angels and Blood Angels aren’t distinct enough in my mind to warrant whole separate codices, rules for Ravenwing, Deathwing and Death Companies should fit nicely into the main codex as small variations on typical chapter organization.

 

Arguably, Black Templars and Space Wolves could have supplements, as they are not organized in the same way, nor do they use the same units as Space Marine armies.

Otherwise its just uniqueness for the sake of being unique, which adds very little to the game in terms of gameplay, while adding lots of rules bloat. The differences between space marine armies should come from your choices of strategy and tactics, your chosen units, the equipment you give them, and how you choose to paint them, not from which $60 addon codex you have to buy to unlock your chapters “special rules” and “unique units”.

 

This leads me to another pet peeve of mine, which is special characters in general. I would prefer robust build your own general rules, with any named characters shown as being able to be built from them. I’m ok with special characters having powerful or unique weapons and equipment, but having to use a special character to unlock specific builds for a codex (apart from armies of renown, those seem ok), or having it effectively be where having the named character makes your entire army more powerful than a custom generic character leading the same army list really annoys me on a level it is difficult convey.

 

[Brother Navaer Solaq]

I dont think the game will ever be balanced. There is no monetary incentive to do it. 

 

Glad i found OPR to play with friends. 

[2PlusEasy]

8 hours ago, ThePenitentOne said:

 

Which is why I ALSO suggested tacking the campaign cycle on to the END of the codex cycle. We're coming up on the end of a three year campaign cycle; if that only began once all the dexes were out EVERYONE, even the last codex released gets 3 full years of campaigns to play through. Perhaps that wasn't clear in my previous post, but that's what I meant.

 

It's true that the two dexes that drop at the beginning of the edition will get an extra 18-24 months, but when everyone gets the full 3 years of the campaign cycle, it's a bit less of an issue. The other thing this does is prevent the overlapping of seasonal rules updates with dex releases and their associated FAQ's, which makes them more manageable. It's the same amount of rules updating, but it is spread over a period that is twice as long.

 

Having all of the dexes available on day one would absolutely lead to a loss of sales, and certainly it would erode the consistency of incoming revenue, making things swingy for the company. It's an approach that's great for folks that collect one big army, or even two. It's certainly not ideal for a guy like me who would much rather have four 500 pt armies than one 2k point army. 

 

 And I am also against the 100% digital transition. Don't get me wrong- a digital system is essential, it just shouldn't be mandatory for the player base to use it if they don't want to. I am frustrated with the modern era where you don't exist unless you have a cell phone.

 

 

 

 

 

Your points were good ones as always, and that was never in question.

 

My view is that the three year cycle is the problem: if it was a five year cycle then there would be more room to let the game settle. But alas, GW are a miniatures company, so the game itself will always take a back seat while GW's business strategies continue to sell out their releases.

 

Where I disagree with you though is that I have no issues with digital at all. I play lots of Infinity where the rules, army builder, annual updates and tournament system is 100% digital, and more importantly free for the players. But that's Infinity's system's strength: it's all digital and all free, meaning I just need my phone, my minis and my peripherals to play. (Though for any fellow infinity players reading this, I wish that Corvus Belli just amalgamated Comlog and the OTM into its main app and be done with it, but not to derail the topic!)

 

GW's execution of having an app, but needing to buy hardcopy books anyway to unlock the app, but frequently erata'ing the hard copies so it's a waste of money is just bonkers though. I don't blame anyone in being frustrated with that. If you're going to commit to hardcopy books or an app, commit to just one GW!

 

11 minutes ago, Brother Navaer Solaq said:

I dont think the game will ever be balanced. There is no monetary incentive to do it. 

 

Glad i found OPR to play with friends. 

 

Sad but true my friend, and I think alot of us here cynically share that sentiment. I'm glad that OPR is scratching that itch for you.

Edited March 9, 2023 by 2PlusEasy

[gideon stargreave]

I've just given this thread a skim and I have come to an interesting conclusion.
What the vast majority of people want is exactly the opposite of what I think will improve the game.

I've been playing this game for a very long time, and the more it has drifted away from deliberate unbalance, the worse it has become. 

Despite clunky rules, the earliest 40k editions, as well as their associated skirmish games, were the most fun. Over time, GW has tried to balance or unbalance the rules to various effect, from 3rd editions sparseness, light on special rules and weapons, with reduced power levels accross the board, to the heady days of DECURION formations before the great purging of 8th. I don't think the rules were ever to blame for the pronlems of the game though.

The problem has, for a long time, been player expectations. People expect a balanced game, where the best general will win, or the best picked army or whatever.  But that is not what 40k has ever really been about. Or at least in my opinion it shouldn't. Instead it should be about desperate last stands, about brutal slaughters, and last minute rescues. It shouldn't have to be balanced, it shouldn't be about winning, it should just be fun. As a community, I think we need to manage our expectations a little better, and rejoice in some of the more random or swingy moments. Think of it as a simulator rather than a test and perhaps we'll be halfway there

 

I think we could take a lot from TTRPG players, who pretty much homebrew everything, and mine tonnes of different sources for their game. Their objective is not victory, and sometimes not even survival, their desired outcome is a story

 

Tl;dr It is up to us, not GW to make the game enjoyable. 

[alfred_the_great]

36 minutes ago, gideon stargreave said:

I've just given this thread a skim and I have come to an interesting conclusion.
What the vast majority of people want is exactly the opposite of what I think will improve the game.

I've been playing this game for a very long time, and the more it has drifted away from deliberate unbalance, the worse it has become. 

Despite clunky rules, the earliest 40k editions, as well as their associated skirmish games, were the most fun. Over time, GW has tried to balance or unbalance the rules to various effect, from 3rd editions sparseness, light on special rules and weapons, with reduced power levels accross the board, to the heady days of DECURION formations before the great purging of 8th. I don't think the rules were ever to blame for the pronlems of the game though.

The problem has, for a long time, been player expectations. People expect a balanced game, where the best general will win, or the best picked army or whatever.  But that is not what 40k has ever really been about. Or at least in my opinion it shouldn't. Instead it should be about desperate last stands, about brutal slaughters, and last minute rescues. It shouldn't have to be balanced, it shouldn't be about winning, it should just be fun. As a community, I think we need to manage our expectations a little better, and rejoice in some of the more random or swingy moments. Think of it as a simulator rather than a test and perhaps we'll be halfway there

 

I think we could take a lot from TTRPG players, who pretty much homebrew everything, and mine tonnes of different sources for their game. Their objective is not victory, and sometimes not even survival, their desired outcome is a story

 

Tl;dr It is up to us, not GW to make the game enjoyable. 

40000% agree. 

[Scribe]

2 hours ago, gideon stargreave said:

I think we could take a lot from TTRPG players, who pretty much homebrew everything, and mine tonnes of different sources for their game. Their objective is not victory, and sometimes not even survival, their desired outcome is a story

 

Tl;dr It is up to us, not GW to make the game enjoyable. 

 

Agreed, and I've said before we should be building an actually sane rule set (hi 5th!) but the comparison to RPG's doesnt quite work because its a more collaborative, than competitive, game type.

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

Quote

I think we could take a lot from TTRPG players, who pretty much homebrew everything, and mine tonnes of different sources for their game. Their objective is not victory, and sometimes not even survival, their desired outcome is a story

 

Tl;dr It is up to us, not GW to make the game enjoyable. 

Oh boy do I ever agree with this. 

 

Quote

Agreed, and I've said before we should be building an actually sane rule set (hi 5th!) but the comparison to RPG's doesnt quite work because its a more collaborative, than competitive, game type.

It works if you want it to--I play these games almost entirely solo/cooperatively for the last few years.  A side-effect of the pandemic isolation, and it's been a revelation!

[tychobi]

On 3/8/2023 at 12:05 PM, ThePenitentOne said:

As a Canadian, when Tim Hortons told me I needed their App to participate in the Roll Up the Rim contest, I realized that the world has left me behind.

Naw you just need to man up and cross the Rubicon.  Primarisize your caffeine buckets!

[Scribe]

28 minutes ago, Inquisitor Eisenhorn said:

It works if you want it to--I play these games almost entirely solo/cooperatively for the last few years.  A side-effect of the pandemic isolation, and it's been a revelation!

 

Yes, but if I wanted that, there has to be better games out there for it. We used to have a fine competitive system, GW just has to go back to it.

[tychobi]

9 hours ago, gideon stargreave said:

I've just given this thread a skim and I have come to an interesting conclusion.
What the vast majority of people want is exactly the opposite of what I think will improve the game.

I've been playing this game for a very long time, and the more it has drifted away from deliberate unbalance, the worse it has become. 

Despite clunky rules, the earliest 40k editions, as well as their associated skirmish games, were the most fun. Over time, GW has tried to balance or unbalance the rules to various effect, from 3rd editions sparseness, light on special rules and weapons, with reduced power levels accross the board, to the heady days of DECURION formations before the great purging of 8th. I don't think the rules were ever to blame for the pronlems of the game though.

The problem has, for a long time, been player expectations. People expect a balanced game, where the best general will win, or the best picked army or whatever.  But that is not what 40k has ever really been about. Or at least in my opinion it shouldn't. Instead it should be about desperate last stands, about brutal slaughters, and last minute rescues. It shouldn't have to be balanced, it shouldn't be about winning, it should just be fun. As a community, I think we need to manage our expectations a little better, and rejoice in some of the more random or swingy moments. Think of it as a simulator rather than a test and perhaps we'll be halfway there

 

I think we could take a lot from TTRPG players, who pretty much homebrew everything, and mine tonnes of different sources for their game. Their objective is not victory, and sometimes not even survival, their desired outcome is a story

 

Tl;dr It is up to us, not GW to make the game enjoyable. 

I think you have it right that the rules should promote fun and it is up to us to have as much fun as possible.  Where you have it backwards is that a two player competitive game is more fun with less balance.  Uninvested casual players may not care or notice but folks who find fun in the contest need a balanced game. There is nothing about a competitive game that precludes desperate last stands, brutal slaughters, or last minute rescues.  Fun and winning are not mutually exclusive, its fun to win.  It never should be the only reason you play a game (especially a dice game) but it is an important component of any contest.  

 

While true balance may be a far flung heady goal just failing to improve the game is not the answer.  TTRPGs are not competitive they are cooperative and therefore it is no issue having a million little rules sets for everyones game.  No such thing as a DnD tournament or world champion.  This is not the case for 40k and many players were lost to the utter dreck that was the Decurion formations.  Bad rules are one of many things that can break a game.  There is nothing stopping you from doing your basement hammer with whatever rules tweaks you want but then you are not really playing 40k and may have trouble playing a stranger or someone who expects you to know the rules.  The nostalgia you feel for old editions is real but it does not reflect the quality of the game at the time, just your experience.  Things are more fun when they are new and exciting, go back and play old Warhammer editions.  They are not better.  If they were you would still be playing them

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

40 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

Yes, but if I wanted that, there has to be better games out there for it. We used to have a fine competitive system, GW just has to go back to it.

We’ve had this debate before my friend! All we’re saying is that GW will never make the game any of us actually want, it’s on us to make the experience of play enjoyable in whatever way is meaningful to us respectively.  

Edited March 11, 2023 by Inquisitor Eisenhorn

[aura_enchanted]

i think people place a lot of unrealistic expectation on GW, at the same time as games workshop has become a dynasty it doesnt need to "work for it" it has no competitors, no challengers in the retail space. battletech is stuck on patreon for the moment by and large, PP games like malifaux are stunted in growth. star wars had the potential to be great but constantly quagmiring their own IP has really burned peoples enthusiasm for the product. and everything else is too small or niche, a curiosity at best like guild ball or infinity or bolt action, or or. 

 

the age of "radical new directions" for the game are over, and pretty much have been since 4th edition, we wont see another "rogue trader" moment from games workshop. and while we expect such things unrealistically games workshop has 0 incentive to do anything at all but take victory laps around the competition gloatingly as it slowly transitions from walking to a mobility scooter becoming fat and lazy with each passing lap.

and the fact of the matter is that we are moving to progressively more and more idsocnnected generations. gen Z when they hit adulthood (25+ is how i define it) will be socially awkward in the extreme, they will rarely leave the house, they will be terrified of human interaction face to face and want to stay home, and so they would sooner play TTS 40k then tabletop, and this is forcing gw to jack up prices more and more and more whaling harder and harder their top 5% of players for everything their worth before the inevietable day were they will be forced to transition to a digital game space instead and in so doing find out that they were the last ones to that party the last to innovate, and probably die out as a result. games like battletech (hairbrain schemes), and blood bowl, and not to mention their own TTS community through guys like tactical tortoise have shown there already is a market and that market will only grow in time but games workshop will cater to the 50 yr old seniors who want a person to person games before the 20 somethings their horrible expansion into phone apps and warhammer+ have pretty much cemented that.

games workshop as a result is a dying animal, he refuses to adapt, get with the times and abandon the physical market space and pave the way for an entirely new way to play, and surrender its dynasty for new frontiers and so someone will inevitably get their 1st before games workshop does. so expect further stagnation, further bloat, further neglects, further price hikes btween now and say 7 years from now where i suspect your gonna see the smaller games largely transition to digital screens instead of physical games, and those that dont simply fall away to nothing, and games workshop is the unicorn in that old irish rovers song
 

 

[Scribe]

13 minutes ago, aura_enchanted said:

battletech is stuck on patreon for the moment by and large

 

God if that isnt the truth.

 

I was in local shop the other day, chatting about 40K, when we looked at the massive stock of Battletech. I remarked 'with basic designs, in 2023, why are their models still so bad?!'

 

He said he hears the same all the time, cannot shift the stock.

 

Annoys me to no end.

[Evil Eye]

I actually disagree with the whole "40K is competitive, not collaborative" stance. 40K has its roots in a system that was essentially a hybrid of TTRPG and skirmish game (complete with DM!) and I'd argue for the longest time wargames as a whole were collaborative games, with the intent being that both players were simulating how a battle would take place between X faction and Y faction on Z battlefield, with an interest in the outcome regardless of who won. You were playing with each other, not against; yes there was some degree of rivalry/test of strategic skill, but that wasn't the entire point of the medium. Sometime around mid-to-late 5th edition (around the time the whole tournament scene became more of "a thing" and became more widely known about courtesy of the internet) this started to be forgotten about in favour of more aggressively competitive game styles- one of the reasons Warmachine did very well around that time was it catered wholeheartedly to such mindsets, whereas 40K still wasn't quite there. Then around 6th-7th GW realized they could get in on that gravy train too (albeit incompetently) and things went downhill from there, and now here we are with the "edition cycle" accelerated to warpspeed, exacerbated by the utter failure of a "living game system" (read: content invalidation, DLC and other such wonderful tactics purloined from the videogame industry).

 

Honestly, assuming GW suddenly told its shareholders where they could stick their investments and decided they were going to focus entirely on making good decisions for the community- something that will never happen, obviously- the only way they could actually fix 40K's problems is if they went back to a more traditionally wargame-y outlook, with the intent of creating an engaging, genuinely narrative-driven system for people to play their armies with (whatever those armies were) and completely abandoned the "competitive tabletop videogame" concept altogether. 40K's strength has always been in the setting; GW has never been great at making super-tight competitive rules, in the early days because that wasn't the point and nowadays because of a combination of their own incompetence and the array of factions and units within those factions being too vast to represent accurately whilst maintaining any degree of balance. So why even bother? Why try and make the game be something it has never been, isn't, and likely never will be, when you could make it be something it used to be quite good at being instead?

 

I'd actually go a step further and say it would be best if they made it a "stable system" instead of a living one, where the core rules and codices, once released, are final, set in stone and never invalidated ever again; all future rules releases being expansions upon what already exists, with actual replacements only being implemented under the direst of circumstances (such as a book just outright sucking). It'd honestly be better from a pure balance perspective too, because once a book was released it'd be a permanent fixture in the system, and for environments where such things needed to be considered it could be subject to unofficial restrictions/bans/whatever as required.

 

But I digress. Whilst it's purely wishful thinking on my part and will never happen whilst GW remains in its position of confidence/being controlled by investors, 40K would honestly be better if they just gave up entirely on the modern "T-sport" nonsense and treated it like a traditional wargame again. Yes, it might chase away the tourney crowd, the powergamer and the WAAC player, to which I say good riddance, but it'd actually give me and many others a reason to give a damn about GW's current rules. And quite frankly, catering to the tourney crowd is a waste of time anyway; Warmachine built its entire foundation on that demographic, and when they slipped up with 3rd edition the entire game fell apart, as it didn't really have anything else to hold people's attention.

 

So yeah, maybe when GW stops trying to make 40K into some kind of "innovative new system" and just makes it a decent narrative-driven wargame again I'll start buying 40K rules once more. Until then I'm quite happy just sticking with 4th and homebrew addons.

[Valkyrion]

9th edition at this point feels like a completely different game to when it was released; I can't quite put in to words, so a clunky computer game analogy is the best I can do; it's like Diablo 3. On release it was a nice, simple to understand hack and slash. Then patches came and introduced jewelcrafting, then Kanai's Cube, then seasons, set dungeons, paragon points, new levels, ancient items, primal items, legendary gems etc, so by the end Diablo 3 is completely different to it's beginning except the basic premise.

 

The codexes in this edition feel like new patches or DLC rather than extensions of the current rules. As we've previously discussed, the core rules are sound, but the codexes introduce things that fundamentally change the core rules - ignoring mortal wounds, daemonic saves, auto wounds, exploding hits, fighting first/last, bringing models back from the dead and so on in a never ending cycle of power creep.

The things that you are supposed to inherently know about the rules - moving, hitting, wounding, saving - have so many exceptions and gotchas that there might as well not be core rules at all. 

 

 

[Khornestar]

I think my thoughts have mostly been expressed already in multiple ways by multiple people.

 

My first point is just one of appreciation for the participants in this thread. It’s been a great read, thank you for your contributions and civility. (I know there was some pruning, but it sounds like it was based on RL politics, which I am glad to see scoured away.)

 

I guess aside from all the obvious, on a personal level I have a dissonance in my head regarding the game. I both love the vast, sprawling game environment filled with factions, subfactions, and a million wargear and special rule options - and despise the idea that the game would not approached from a place of balance I.e. not deliberately designed to be balanced.

 

In editions past, I’d look at something like the renegades and heretics army list and shake my head. Until it got some flavorful, fun, and powerful updates (artillery tyrant, for example) the army was just blatantly worse than playing imperial guard and that stuck in my craw something fierce. The idea that the army was almost essentially designed to lose (or just so poorly thought out that was the de facto result) was unacceptable me. I guess when I think on it, the rules and strength of the army really are important to me. The idea of fighting space marines with that army and saying “ha ha it’s so cool that I’m just picking up all my units and failing to inflict many casualties, this is so thematic and narrative, what great fun” just does not resonate. 
 

My buddy/usual opponent and I have managed narrative games via the crusade system just fine, with lethal armies. And to be honest, the idea that we can just do that “out of the box” without coming up with home brewed rules to even the playing field is part of the appeal.
 

Anyhow, to echo the sentiments of others: yes it can change, but it probably won’t.

Edited March 11, 2023 by Khornestar

[Special Officer Doofy]

43 minutes ago, Khornestar said:

The idea of fighting space marines with that army and saying “ha ha it’s so cool that I’m just picking up all my units and failing to inflict many casualties, this is so thematic and narrative, what great fun” just does not resonate. 

 

This. After reading @gideon stargreave post it made me think well with how much we are paying for the models and how much and how frequent we pay for rules, the game might as well be balanced and playable without having to homebrew and do our own narratives to make the game enjoyable. Can't have that desperate last stand or last minute rescue when you are just picking up your models because GW wanted Leagues of Votann to sell well with the new shiny codex.

 

After paying $60 for a rule book, $40+ for a codex and other campaign books, and anywhere from $100's to $1,000's in models to build an army, including painting and assembling supplies, it should not be me or my opponents responsibility to make the game balanced or fair, which makes the game more fun by having every decision matter. That should be the company that we all paid $1,000's to job to do... 

Edited March 11, 2023 by Special Officer Doofy

[ThePenitentOne]

I still haven't figured out multiquote, but I'm gonna try to broadly respond here and hope it makes sense.

 

Shout out to those talking TTRPG- particularly those pointing out that the rules of the original Rogue Trader had a lot of RPG inspired content... And for me, this is exactly why 9th, and specifically Crusade escalation- is my favourite version of the game ever. I've played since Rogue Trader, skipping only 6th and 7th (though I did buy the 7th ed GSC Codex). In all that time, I've never played 40k as a wargame- I have always loved it because it has always had the best potential to be a miniature game that played like an RPG.

 

Inquisitor was a miniature game that played like an RPG, but the range was so limited, and the large scale meant that terrain had to be freakin' huge. So then, the underground started playing Inquisitor 28. Other little stops along the way, like the prototype versions of combat patrol and kill team, without which, Crusade wouldn't have been possible. I liked all of those games in their day because they brought us closer to an RPG, but they always seemed to fall just short of it, leaving me to make up the difference with house rules. With the arrival of KT and Crusade, I finally have enough tools that the only house rules I need are slight changes to how existing resources can be used in slightly different ways.

 

Right now, Kill Team and Crusade can merge pretty seamlessly. It may be a bit out of scope for me to get into the details in this thread, but having multiple Kill Teams within an army composed of multiple detachments allows for amazing RPG potential, and there's a lot of variety in small battles too- especially in a moderated escalation campaign with player-based mission building. I find Tac Ops to be similar to Agendas, and if you treat them as such they allow you to build WAY fluffier Spec Ops for KT, and applying the Spec Op structure gives you an interesting way to link Agendas across multiple games of Crusade. Kill Team Assets really flesh out a faction identity, and incorporating them into map-based campaigns as territories, or carrying them through into Crusade is pretty awesome. Some are great terrain projects.

 

If you've read some of my other posts, you know I'm slow-growing a GSC according to the Brood cycle using KT and Crusade and that I've got a many-flavours of Eldar story Arc that starts in Commorragh. So just a quick example or two of how rules and narrative interact: my Archon Ascendant needs to reclaim territories that were lost during the daemonic incursion. When he manages to get a Docks territory, he can attract Corsairs. So the Docks part, there's a rule for that, but linking that to the Corsair availability is a role-playing story based choice. But the Corsair/ Kabal alliance doesn't end there: Nightfire Missiles are a Corsair Asset, so if I earn that with my Corsairs in KT, that means that the Corsairs own a vehicle that can shoot missiles. I can start using the Asset the moment they earn it, but if they want to field it in Crusade, they also have to fight in enough raids to raise the supply limit high enough to add an aircraft to their order of battle. Also because of that asset, when I add my Razorwing, I will paint it in Corsair colours. So now rules have created a relationship: hey Archon, wanna bring that Razorwing on a Realspace raid? Well, you best be bringin' the Corsairs, cuz they own the Razorwing and they aren't going to let you use their toy unless you invite them to the party.

 

Now compare that to anything you've been able to do to pair role-playing and rules in order to execute a story in any previous version of the game. And the thing is, that's just one of a dozen stories going on in the game. Two wych cults are competing for the right to go on realspace raids with the kabal, while the losers are forced to barter their dead for an alliance with a haemonculus, and my Lhaemaean is not a servant to the Archon, but rather his equal- she owns a poison distillery territory which she will gift him if he impresses her; she'll also supply the poison upgrades his Kabal learns in Crusade, as well as all the poison upgrades on the new Drukhari sprue.

 

You can let the rules create these stories for you, or you can create the story in your head and use the rules to express it on the table.

 

Some other miniature games scratch this surface in a more generic way, and some people might prefer or praise that because it's less bloated, better balanced and imposes less book keeping and a smaller cognitive load- all valid points BTW, even though I totally disagree with all of them due to my personal preferences. I find most wargames fun enough to play fore an afternoon, but they've all felt so generic and minimalist that I was never compelled to buy in. I played 40k because it was as close as I could get to an RPG with enough toys to tell a good story. Until Crusade, what gave it the appeal as an RPG was the breadth and depth of the range, and the connections in the lore. Now that Crusade is here, however, slow-grow warband style game play has never had so many tools to choose from, and the sandbox absolutely is the biggest it's ever been. 

 

When the reset comes, no matter how balanced or ground-breaking it is, it will represent an enormous contraction of role-playing potential- it literally cannot be otherwise unless Crusade can somehow be bolted to it. 

 

Someone mentioned earlier that there aren't a lot of D&D Tournaments... but there are. They're not tournaments, they're conventions and they aren't designed to showcase a single game like a Warhammer event, they usually offer several different games in timeslots of various lengths so that you could go and play a handful of games you'd never tried. At the end of each session, players vote for the best role-player, so if you contribute the most to telling the shared story via the most entertaining character, you might come away with a prize- usually a lesser sourcebook for the game you played so that if you liked the game enough to buy the core rules, you have something extra to go with it.

 

That sort of thing can happen in 40k cooperative storytelling too. My hope is that writing up batreps for all the campaign play might lead to a satisfying novel, and a group of like-minded players abslutely could make that happen. And there's 40k events like the Grand Narrative. The article features a download of a short story that was written entirely on the basis of games played at the event, and you can bet that many of the players covet the battle hours their units earned in those battles more than those that they earned closer to home in regular play.

 

It would be amazing to do a circuit of organized narrative so that the growth and story could continue- you'd need TO's to maintain the Crusade cards from event to event- just like RPGA Living City used to keep copies of character sheets for D&D characters. They used to do cool charity auctions for magic items- usually lesser powered so they don't throw things too out of balance, but often unique and fluffy. Anyway, the thing that would be cool about organized narrative circuit events is that each is for a different size armies- so you run them quarterly with the first at 50PL, the second at 100PL and the third at 150PL and the 4th quarter event is the final. At every event, you earn XP/ RP over every round of battle, but you don't spend any RP on supply limit, because that stays consistent for each event and is automatically raised for the next event. 

 

Anyway, sorry to babble. For those who have followed my other threads, my painting challenge is proceeding, and while I don't know if my Kabalites will be done by the 15th, but Friday is still within reach and that might still be within my reach and that still leaves me plenty of time to get the Lhymaean's Cort painted for March... After that, I'll start playing some campaign battles for batreps and posting campaign ideas. I wish I had been a faster painter because once 10th drops, the interest in Crusade batreps dries up.  Peace.

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

@ThePenitentOne

 

All I can say is I wish you lived nearby so we could get a campaign going!

[Arikel]

Finally have a little time to reply here. All this rpg talk and narrative campaign stuff is wicked cool, but a big thing to keep in mind is that a lot of what makes rpg’s fun is you have the players working together against the dungeon master’s npc’s. 

Applying this to warhammer in  earlier versions tended to result in what I would class as pc factions and npc factions. We can see this in how the imperium in general, and space marines in particular, are a player character faction. They are the poster boys of the franchise, the protagonists as it were. Space marines alone have as much variety, rules and models as 2-3 other factions put together. In contrast, a lot of the other factions look like they were originally put together so you have something for the imperium to stab and shoot. This is still apparent in the game even today, though it has lessened considerably. 
 

The issue this legacy leaves is that pc’s are typically going to be tougher, better armed, more fleshed out and in general just better than any npc, even one of equivalent level. This is fine in an rpg, but in wargame that’s trying to position itself as a balanced game that can be played competitively at high skill levels, it is anathema. 
 

If GW wants to be a tournament game, but still cater to the narrative crowd, it should split the rules to be tournament and narrative, with the base tournament rules have a smaller amount of factions and special rules to consider so that it can provide competitive play, while the advanced/narrative rules would then be bolted on to to provide the flavour and customization campaign players want. GW instead seems to try to cram what should be narrative options into competitive play, which I’m sure pleases no one

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

On 2/8/2023 at 4:45 AM, Orange Knight said:

I made this post over in the 10th edition rumour topic, but I think it warrants it's own separate discussion.

 

The cycle has repeated itself over and over. GW release a new set of rules, everyone is happy. Over time the game is drowned in erratas and faqs, rules bloat, rapid updates after updates that have a significant impact on the game, and it's all compounded by uneven codex creep.

 

Let's assume that GW are taking some drastic measures to streamline the game - returning to an Index format is certainly something that would give that impression.

The current game of 40k has another big problem - Faction and Sub Faction bloat.

 

The factions and units need to be consolidated, and GW also need to think very carefully about the sub faction rules in every codex.

Look back on 9th edition - Marines have been awful for the last 2 years, but even during that time there were specific lists built around certain sub-factions that were able to compete with the more powerful codex books. The specific faction bonuses, in combination with the sheer number of available units and wargear combinations, created a vast disparity between armies that were built from the same codex. 

 

I don't know how this can be solved exactly. Perhaps something similar to what happened in the Guard codex? It is a single army able to take units from different "regiments" that have some unique rules and wargear. That isn't ideal to me, and I wouldn't want to see the same happen with the Marines. Whatever change they end up making, the community will need some maturity in recognising that a toning down of unique rules might be what's needed for a more healthy tabletop experience.

 

I'm happy that Eldar and Harlequins were consolidate under a single book. In my opinion GW need to create an Inquisition codex that would consolidate the Grey Knights and Deathwatch into two separate sub-factions in a single book, alongside all the various Inquisitors. They are, after all, the military arms connected with the Ordo Malleus and Ordo Xenos. Imperial Agents is something else that needs to be looked at - perhaps a mini codex that features the assassins, arbites, rogue traders, etc etc.

 

Marines themselves present a massive problem. The faction has over 100 datasheets at this points, whilst other armies exist and function perfectly well with only 12-16 separate datasheets. If the Primaris range is separated, the entire generic faction (and all existing chapter specific Primaris units) can be consolidated quite easily under a single codex. What GW intends to actually do is anyone's guess at this point. Having to release 10 separate books for a single faction across years of real time is starting to feel really stupid at this point, not to mention that it has created massive problems like what occurred in 9th edition.

My Imperial Fists haven't received a rule update for an entire edition of 40k. This starts to sound more crazy when you realise that the Ultramarines, White Scars, Salamanders etc have also been completely neglected. How did we reach a point where a faction is simultaneously the most supported in an edition, and the most neglected?

 

GW have a bit of a mess on their hands. There are way to solve all these issues but the community is very sensitive to both change and perceived slights against them. It remains to be seen if their streamlining and consolidation will have any meaningful impact, or if the same problems that exist today will be cropping up again a year or two into the next edition. 

The first paragraph isn’t a problem that has been around in all of the editions, just the last two or so.

 

in general it seems like this post has little to do with problems that have recurred edition after edition.

in the imperial fist example what exactly would an IF supplement have in it? A few special characters? Traditionally codex compliant chapters’ characters should just be in the standard SM codex like in the old days, including guilliman.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

2 hours ago, Arikel said:

Finally have a little time to reply here. All this rpg talk and narrative campaign stuff is wicked cool, but a big thing to keep in mind is that a lot of what makes rpg’s fun is you have the players working together against the dungeon master’s npc’s. 

Applying this to warhammer in  earlier versions tended to result in what I would class as pc factions and npc factions. We can see this in how the imperium in general, and space marines in particular, are a player character faction. They are the poster boys of the franchise, the protagonists as it were. Space marines alone have as much variety, rules and models as 2-3 other factions put together. In contrast, a lot of the other factions look like they were originally put together so you have something for the imperium to stab and shoot. This is still apparent in the game even today, though it has lessened considerably. 
 

The issue this legacy leaves is that pc’s are typically going to be tougher, better armed, more fleshed out and in general just better than any npc, even one of equivalent level. This is fine in an rpg, but in wargame that’s trying to position itself as a balanced game that can be played competitively at high skill levels, it is anathema. 
 

If GW wants to be a tournament game, but still cater to the narrative crowd, it should split the rules to be tournament and narrative, with the base tournament rules have a smaller amount of factions and special rules to consider so that it can provide competitive play, while the advanced/narrative rules would then be bolted on to to provide the flavour and customization campaign players want. GW instead seems to try to cram what should be narrative options into competitive play, which I’m sure pleases no one

Right? Like IF and CF were perfectly balanced against each other in ‘98. Not so much now.

why? Because the only difference was paint job.

[Helias_Tancred]

My "jury" based on 10 yers of experience in the hobby says no. I've seen the same patterns repeated with 7th, 8th, and 9th. 

 

I go forward with anything GW does pertaining to the 40k game rules with low to mid expectations at best. 

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Eilio Tiberius