40k Models and Minis to Cards and Tokens - Where are we Headed?

[Captain Caine 24th]

My question is where we are going from here?

 

First off, the models are good. The free indexes are good. Responding to the fandom (mostly good). More frequent release schedule (good but not for the wallet). 40k isn't a bad game. That said I have some questions on what the game will continue to be. Two examples: 

 

Terrain - physical or cardstock?

• I've disagreed with terrain's disproportionate army impact several editions running.
  • Especially if player placed. Example: "Yes, you're ok with X rule, right," said the veteran player salivating at the prospect. "Ok," said the new player, not realizing the game was lost just then... Not good for getting/keeping new players. 
  • Example: After placing line of sight blocking terrain, "yes my suits can jump shoot and move again."  Indirect fire is also a perennial fun topic. 
• (amusingly) both players not really knowing how to set up terrain - just overcomplex on a Saturday morning not having a game in some time
• Fights over local interpretations. "Toe in works so i get this cover," said on turn 2 after armies have deployed and maneuvered. "The bottom floor has no line of sight through it," said the general of the assault oriented army. Local interpretations may be very helpful, but it's not a good feeling to find on the spot that suddenly armies operate very differently. Yes, it's good to have these talks before a game - but the point here is the game should provide adequate guidance so as to avoid chicanery. It shouldn't be, "oh, I guess I can't shoot your whole army now."
• Why aren't we paying points - or at least managing incidents where some army effectively gets a pure +1 SV? 
• Baneblades or large aircraft are still not quite functional.

 

My take: It is anathema to me that we would do away with physical terrain. And yet, while trying out another game (involving dragons and  a certain iron throne) I saw that half of the 40k "competitive" scene's terrain problems could be solved right then and there by having a 2d cardstock with terrain printed on it laying flat on the table. A metaphorical mortal wound to line of sight debates. No guessing about wobbly models or who is on or off terrain. In addition, it looks like tournaments are about to cost a whole lot more if we increase terrain, and simultaneously abolish old school set ups (like the green hills and trees of late 90's white dwarf). Many tournaments already get a lot of criticism for not having optimized setups for 20-100 tables. 

 

The new 5 or 10 man and free wargear - why not just a unit card?

 

Again, Anathema to my very sense of this hobby since 1998 (might have been 96). I love the customization. A powerfist or needle pistol here or there is great fun. But, again I played a certain game with dragons. The units just had cards. I'm not hunting down a powerfist or chainsword. It's all just straight forward roles for the units - not individual models. If GW wants easy army construction and easy game play- just go to a unit card. Balance that infantry squad to include a heavy bolter, lascannon, or missile launcher. Aren't we there already if we aren't paying the points? Maybe I'm the one behind the times here. Maybe we shouldn't have a choice on weapons. 

 

I have the feeling the 40k design team is staffed or managed with the lessons learned from magic or esports. More and more I feel we're being pulled from a wargame by analogies that don't actually fit the core concepts of what 40k is. Experience from other games doesn't translate. Moreover, there are lots of ways to play (necromunda, combat patrol, apocalypse, etc). But, my feeling is this edition is an awkward step towards that translation. I don't know, maybe the gameplay aspect is better served by the proliferation of decks, and decks for the decks, and packs of packs and tokens. But at some point why is the game even served by using physical models? My take is that 40k doesn't have to be like another game to be legitimate, but it does need a lot of work.

 

What do you think, where are we headed? Or, where should we be headed?

 

 

[NovemberIX]

I guess maybe from a strictly tournament prospective, that's the sort of platonic ideal of 'balance', but from a personal gameplay perspective I'd never buy another 40k product ever again. If I wanted to play a card game, I'd play one, but I want little plastic and metal space people being manipulated around small plastic and resin buildings. I haven't a clue to where the game is headed (I'm not sure even GW knows at this point) but if I had my way, where it would be headed would look more like a combination of 5-8th but with d10's for granularity and a long shelf life to actually bug fix and stabilize the game, because the edition churn is making it real hard to want to stay up to date. If there is one other thing I'd like to see, but probably never will would be a meta-game that uses the various different sub-games as part of it's campaign rules set. For example a Battlefleet game leading to Aeronautica Imperialis (RIP) to Epic (may it reign forver) to 40K, to kill teams, vice versa, or some sort of combination there of. Admittedly, I know I can do this myself, but if we're talking where things should be headed....

[Redcomet]

I have been playing Battletech on flat map sheets with flat tokens for mechs for 25 years now. 
But part of the lure of 40k and its cousins, is a nice looking battlefield to play on. 
GW just need to do better making rules for them

 

But where should we go from here? Longer edition cycles. 3 years is just ridiculous.

Can the entire game and build a modern game from the ground up.

 

40k needs to come down in army sizes again. Back to how they looked in the beginning of 3rd Edition. If people want to field 10 tanks, play Epic or apocalypse. More granular and advanced rules can come back.

 

Apocalypse should be a separate rules system again, with a core book and free army rules. Simple rules. Field 100 marines and play in a couple of hours.

Edited July 12, 2023 by Redcomet

[Ahzek451]

34 minutes ago, Redcomet said:

I have been playing Battletech on flat map sheets with flat tokens for mechs for 25 years now. 
But part of the lure of 40k and its cousins, is a nice looking battlefield to play on. 
GW just need to do better making rules for them

 

But where should we go from here? Longer edition cycles. 3 years is just ridiculous.

Can the entire game and build a modern game from the ground up.

 

40k needs to come down in army sizes again. Back to how they looked in the beginning of 3rd Edition. If people want to field 10 tanks, play Epic or apocalypse. More granular and advanced rules can come back.

 

Apocalypse should be a separate rules system again, with a core book and free army rules. Simple rules. Field 100 marines and play in a couple of hours.

I agree mostly with the first half. More polish on the whole thing, core rules and army balance. GW has repeated the same pattern of edition cycles since the start. Would be nice if we could sit back and enjoy an edition with all the army books out for more than a few months before the next edition reset hits. 

[MARK0SIAN]

The spectacle of nicely painted models on interesting and well made boards is half the reason I play the game. I love seeing it so much that I even dislike seeing things like wound counters or reaction tokens or any other gaming aids next to the models as it breaks some of the immersion for me. I don’t think I’d ever play if the game was reduced to moving over 2D mats for terrain or using things to represent models etc. 

[Lord_Valorion]

That sounds so horrible that I suggest that you play your strange game and leave 40k alone.

[Captain Caine 24th]

7 hours ago, MARK0SIAN said:

The spectacle of nicely painted models on interesting and well made boards is half the reason I play the game. I love seeing it so much that I even dislike seeing things like wound counters or reaction tokens or any other gaming aids next to the models as it breaks some of the immersion for me. I don’t think I’d ever play if the game was reduced to moving over 2D mats for terrain or using things to represent models etc. 

Thanks for the responses, Frater.  I think I agree here the strongest. Something about the card decks and tokens really irks me. And I just get the feeling GW wants to lean into more cards (maybe for the profit of quick quarterly turnover on new 'not' mandatory mission decks, or maybe from the disproportionate influence of the competitive scene over more quiet casuals like myself).

 

I welcomed 8th and 9th with open arms. 7th and 6th had some things I liked, but unkillable 'deathstars' left me so disillusioned I went over to 30k. Let me wade a bit deeper into the waters of 10th, maybe it'll warm up for me. 

 

9 hours ago, Redcomet said:

But where should we go from here? Longer edition cycles. 3 years is just ridiculous.

Can the entire game and build a modern game from the ground up.

I agree with a lot of what you've said here. This part amused me as I do think about this sometimes. I remember filling out a GW survey once on how often I'd like to see updates on new rules for units. I think I'd now change my answer if I'd known this is where GW would run with it. The other odd thing is that as often as they change over editions, you'd think there'd be a continuing line of lessons learned. Instead I see a lot of steps back, forward, and sideways. Lots of solutions in search of a problem and problems still in search of a solution. 

 

Seeing additions/changes denoted in red in the updated indexes gives me great hope GW is in fact willing to change. 

[Scribe]

12 hours ago, Captain Caine 24th said:

What do you think, where are we headed? Or, where should we be headed?

 

Where are we headed? A continued mess. 10th is not a refinement, and anyone saying it is a snake oil salesman.

 

It is painfully obvious by looking over the rules, the index, that this was half baked and rushed. Why we continue as a community to accept this is anyone's guess.

 

Where SHOULD we be headed?

 

An actually refined, stable ruleset.

 

I dont hate 10th. I really dont. There are things I dont like, things that could be tweaked, but at its core, I think its mostly fine.

 

What GW should be doing in my most humble opinion, is dialing it in to what 40K should be, and yes releasing Apoc again. We have Kill Team. Why can't we have a game that actually MAKES SENSE for a middle ground, like we did in say 5th? Apocalypse was fine...and there are those who loved it as evidenced by the people who packed around MULTIPLE FW Titans.

 

Just go back to 3 main 40K games.

[ThePenitentOne]

Side tables.

 

The game is all about side tables.

 

If you don't like tokens on the game table, don't put the tokens with the unit- put them with the unit card on the side table, which would also be the place you roll your dice.

 

As for mission decks, they work better than missions in books because you can randomize different elements of the mission. Randomizing deployment, objectives and twists independently of one another will create games that seem slightly different even when the objectives are the same, because the elements that go with those objectives might be different. To do the same thing in a book, you'd be rolling dice on three charts, and then you'd have to remember which elements you rolled, rather than having those rules (and only those rules) in your hand, or on the side table.

 

If they do release different mission decks with every season, then the creatives get the chance to mix cards from multiple decks.

 

I think mission cards are great idea. At the peak of negativity around 9th, the people who were complaining least were the Open War/ Tempest of War deck users, followed by the Crusaders. The bulk of complaints in 9th came from 2k Matched pick-up gamers. And missions being "Samey" was one of the biggest complaints.

 

Having said all that, as a Crusader who uses mostly homebrew missions that are linked in a narrative structure, the random games don't really fit my playstyle.

 

Unit cards are also an excellent idea- I've made my own for every edition of warhammer I've played. I just don't understand why, if someone uses 15/100 possible units, they'd rather search through a book containing all 100 units with them at a game rather than just bringing the 15 cards they actually need. Maybe it's because they like creating 60 page hate threads on Dakkka about how many books they have to bring to a game.

 

Tokens are unavoidable in a game with multi-wound models. They can also be used for game state information- who is battleshocked, who is affected by an environmental game factor, who is benefitting from a particular buff... And all of these things are interesting and bring variety to the game and carve out design space for future innovations. We've used tokens for Overwatch, pinning, or going ground in previous editions, and people often lament the loss of these mechanics... But tokens where an integral part of all of them. How many complaint threads about the loss of blast markers have you seen... And remember how many of them at various point in the game's history have been persistent effects, becoming tokens in effect.

 

What about Cherubs and familiars. They are models, sure... But they're tokens too. And cool :cuss:.

 

I'm not denying that 40k has taken cues from CCGs, and I do think that it's good to be vigilant so that 40k doesn't go too far in that direction, so I see your point. But using unit cards, tokens and even mission decks aren't the things you need to watch for. Be vigilant about strat creep, character spam and unit rules. Those are your CCG elements.

[Xenith]

On 7/13/2023 at 1:51 AM, Captain Caine 24th said:

I remember filling out a GW survey once on how often I'd like to see updates on new rules for units. I think I'd now change my answer if I'd known this is where GW would run with it.

 

As always, be careful what you wish for. In this case, the loudest players cried out for regular updates and balance passes, and got exactly what they asked for. An ever changing, every updating meta. 

 

20 hours ago, ThePenitentOne said:

The bulk of complaints in 9th came from 2k Matched pick-up gamers. And missions being "Samey" was one of the biggest complaints.

Agree, and again, the competitive scene got exactly what they wished for. Can only really have true skill based competition in an even, regular playing field. You don't see chess players complaining about the lack of diversity in missions. 

Edited July 14, 2023 by Xenith

[Bouargh]

Terrain - Physical or Cardstock?

 

It is true that in Warhammer Series, whatever recent or past Editions of 40k, WFB, Mordheim... the Terrain rules as always been a source of discussions and interpretations or even difficulties. When people bring their own terrain/home made it goes to even worse. I even recall the "true Line of Sight" with a laser marker to see if "from the model´s eyes" you could legitimatly target another model... This truly sucked. 

 

Nothing has never been prefect been on this side of the playing mechanics. But neither do I think it is the proper of GW games (40k, because Bloodbowl saves the day on this topic ). I remember games of Cry Havoc in 2D with hexagon maps that were nighmarish. for LoS or cover... 

 

I personally like the simplification brough in 10th that I interprete as being a kind of merging of 2D and 3D - you get a 2D footprint and the terrain is treated as a volumetric block with a set of global properties. Not perfect but rationalized. And you can still develop an attractive gaming table. Because as most said, large part of the fun and pleasure is the outlook of the table. 

 

[Bung]

@Captain Caine 24th

 

I played the same game, and didnt like it for the Cardboard Terrain, same with Warmahordes that did the same.

 

But lets be honest if i look at most pictures from 40k tournament tables the terrain sucks and most times its not enough.

Most of the problems with terrain cold be handled easier if people talked and defined the terrain before the game. 

That goes out to tournam,ent organizers too, if they already do the work to setup a tournament, why cant they be botheres with a one page definition of the terrain they use for the tables?

And if you use homerules for tourney, aka local interpretation, then make them clear when you opne your registration for said tournament.

 

A lot of the terrain complaints wouldnt be there if TOs would think about that before or werent just sloppy. The last part is GWs job with the terrain rules.

 

 

 

 

[Gederas]

So another thing that would help with terrain? A nice abstraction rule like how Mantic's Kings of War has "Height" stat. IE: How tall the models in a unit are considered to be for Line of Sight with terrain. Now this is due to KoW being miniatures-agnostic (with Mantic's obvious preference being their minis), but this is their explanation from page 29 of the 3.5 KoW rulebook:

 

"As a rough guideline, a piece of terrain is Height 1 plus one level of Height for each inch of actual physical height, so a 2" high wall would be Height 3 for example.

Terrain blocks LoS to any units behind it in the same way as a unit. For example, a Height 3 or higher building will block LoS between two Height 3 units. Some pieces of terrain, such as rivers or ponds, will be completely flat and never block LoS.

Terrain does not block LoS drawn to units that are at least partially inside the piece of terrain. If any unit is in a forest, for instance, than other units outside of the forest may draw LoS to the unit in the forest."

 

So... Yeah. MOST OF 40K'S TERRAIN WOES could be solved with something this. Using an example with the Height stat, the vast majority of Infantry models in 40k would be Height 2

[KenaiPhoneix]

The best way to solve some of te terrain problems is to tell what is what before the match. If the other player is new, he could ask what that means, and if both players are experienced the misinterpretation is solved by discussing it before de match starts. 
 

I understand the idea of “paper” terrain but, let’s be honest, 40K is a “diorama game”, we play living battlefields that take it apart from a normal board game. That’s what “wows” people and made them ask “what are you playing?”

 

They could made more clear rules, but my take is that they want to stream line this game in 10th: having a lot of classification and subsections to terrains wil let us in the same place like having 4 pages of stratagems. You also need to consider that many people like to build their own terrain so there will always be some gaps. 
 

About the equipment, well it looks cools, and there is always a “what you see is what you have” rule that. And if you are with friends, you can always say “hey, this units have flamethrowers btw”. 
 

they could simplify the game by making it “this units has this”, and give it a card, but that would take versatility and will hinder, imo, the best part of having units: it personality. One of the great things a love about Dawn Of War is that that game let you customize units: you SM squad can really different depending on what weapons you equip them. 
 

Now I’m not a competitive/tournament player, so I can’t really speak for this situations on those types of matches

[MegaVolt87]

Terrain rules, LOS and terrain range products have been issues across the history of 40k.

 

Shooting from the hip, I think the 5th Ed terrain and LOS rules are probably their best implementation. The old discontinued terrain like the craters, grass mats, old city fight buildings etc are superior to what replaced them. Game tables would be in a far better place if old terrain is re-introduced and GW just breaks even on them for pricing. It's entirely feasible to rob Peter to pay Paul so to speak with GW's terrain range. GW have made a conscious push to encourage painting, they can do the same with game tables terrain. 

[Bryan Blaire]

8 hours ago, KenaiPhoneix said:

there is always a “what you see is what you have” rule that.

So what page is that rule on in 10th Edition?  People keep bringing up this rule, but I can’t seem to find it in the rule book.  Can someone quote the rule?  I’d really like to find it, since so many people say it is a rule.

[KenaiPhoneix]

13 hours ago, Bryan Blaire said:

So what page is that rule on in 10th Edition?  People keep bringing up this rule, but I can’t seem to find it in the rule book.  Can someone quote the rule?  I’d really like to find it, since so many people say it is a rule.

 

It is not a “rule” per se from what I have read. It is not on the 10th and iirc it wasn’t on 9th too, the game manual assumes that you will be using a unit with a Bolter to actually shoot a Bolter. It never says that you can just be “hey, this guy have a plasma rifle btw”, but it also states that it is ok to ply with customs rules. 
 

I first heard this back in like 2007 and always considered an “urban” rule (there are no official GW games here, ve every store can run whatever it wants) mainly aimed in that if you can actually see it, it is more difficult for your opponent to keep track of “ethereal” equipment. 
 

now, I personally consider 40K and any tabletop game most of a social/fun experience, so if you just want to be more capable to face your opponent but cant afford to have multiple miniatures of the same units, I think it is ok to ask you opponent use it as a proxy. If anyone’s don’t want to play against you because of this (assuming it is not the entire army), it is his lose, just move on to other match. And if everyone is like this I would suggest you to go to another 40K circle. 
 

the idea is to have fun with tabletop games

[Bryan Blaire]

WYSIWYG was once a written rule, but so was “Counts As”.  Both appear to have gone away from what I can tell - they aren’t written in 9th or 10th, and have become “up to the players” to determine from what I can tell.

 

So it would be a house rule.  If you are demanding it of some else, you are requiring them to play by a house rule.

 

House rules aren’t bad, but they also aren’t official rules for the game.

 

GW has their own whole set of house rules they use for their own tournaments.  People try to misapply those to games as “official rules” as well.

 

That is a great thing about unit cards - they can tell you exactly what a unit on the table has, and you don’t have to keep looking down - you can just play against the rules on the card and it doesn’t matter if that unit over there has some unknown appearance gun or melee weapon - the rules say the unit is armed with a Melta-gun and a Power Sword.  No one can “get confused” by what something appears to be armed with that way.

 

It can keep a game from getting bogged down in arguments about army lists and accusations of cheating, while still allowing for the tabletop “spectacle” and freedom for people to explore the varied appearances that would happen in a fractured but unified galactic society like the Imperium or the variable ramshackle nature of weaponry we should see with Orks, etc.

Edited July 20, 2023 by Bryan Blaire