No primarchs ...

[gideon stargreave]

4 hours ago, The Unseen said:

I would also argue that most of those novels could have the elements of overall setting changes scaled back and still be just as good.

 

40k worked a lot better as a galactic wide setting where almost anything could happen, rather than a universe were apparently nothing happens at all without involving 1 of like 3 people.

Hard agree.

the RPG origins of the game (and miniatures) don’t square away with metaplots  that are told in detail. 
 

the 3 people that should change the universe are supposed to be your guys. Not theirs. And primarchs and special characters are their guys.

I would prefer a state of affairs where all special characters are opponents permission only, and that superheavies worked this way too. 
that said I’d also prefer a situation where all games are narrative and campaign based. Just like ttrpgs. You’d work out a scenario, make lists for it that fit the scenario, and see how your force would deal with it. Balance be damned.
 

[Karhedron]

1 hour ago, gideon stargreave said:

I’d also prefer a situation where all games are narrative and campaign based. Just like ttrpgs. You’d work out a scenario, make lists for it that fit the scenario, and see how your force would deal with it. Balance be damned.

 

That's fine if you have a regular group of ga,ming buddies and have the time to work that sort of detail out in advance. I have a family and job to support them which means gaming time is in short supply and prep time even moreso. I want to be able to rock up at the club with X points of army and fight someone without having to know in advance who it is or what the scenario is. 

 

If you enjoy the scenario based approach then that is great and narrative play is available to support that. But for those of us who have less time and just want to turn up and roll dice, a system where an infantry horde can face off against a Lance of Knights is essential.

[TheArtilleryman]

7 hours ago, Kallas said:

Sure, you can bring your pawns and Rooks to play, but when someone brings their Big Queens, you need to have an answer for them or, well, you get stomped on because Big Queens can't realistically be hurt by Rooks (Bishops can, but it takes a bunch of them); and if they bring a Biggest Queen, well you'd better have your own Big Queens, or at least a heap of Bishops and Queens to stand a chance.

I love how this indirectly makes Roboute Guilliman, Angron, The Lion and Mortarion “the biggest queens.” 

[Kallas]

53 minutes ago, TheArtilleryman said:

I love how this indirectly makes Roboute Guilliman, Angron, The Lion and Mortarion “the biggest queens.” 

If nothing else, Primarchs are definitely drama queens 

[phandaal]

12 hours ago, FoursCompany said:

So essentially, if I’m understanding it correctly, the game has shifted from something more akin to a tactical strategy game (maybe something like chess, or Stratego) where the decisions you made felt meaningful to something more like “I win because I have the hardest hitting, most durable units.” 
 

or at least, that’s the view the dissenting opinion holds. The game has been simplified, decisions matter less, and tactical acumen is no longer as important as a data sheet?

 

Not sure who is dissenting with whom here, and this is painting with a broad brush, but you are heading in the right direction.

 

The game has shifted from being a tabletop wargame to something more like Yu-Gi-Oh with trap cards and gotchas. Rather than playing out a mini battle with the models on the table, you play your rules against your opponent's rules.

 

Whether that is more less tactical is going to depend on people's opinions of those systems.

[phandaal]

11 hours ago, The Unseen said:

I would also argue that most of those novels could have the elements of overall setting changes scaled back and still be just as good.

 

You can see this in the books that are actually considered to be among the best. Space Wolf, Night Lords, Helbrecht, Eisenhorn/Ravenor, Word Bearers, etc.

 

All of those novels firmly establish that they are part of the 40k universe, and then they tell their own stories without dragging the Current Year meta plot into every aspect of their novels. Having these epic conflicts on a self-contained scale actually does more to expand the scope of the universe than finding a way to drag the Great Rift into everything.

[Lexington]

13 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

Completely disagree. All the best fiction came from when it was a setting, not a story.

Agreed in the larger sense, but I actually take issue with the idea that 40K has a “story” now, and the suggestion that it didn’t before.

 

Stories have arcs. They have setups and payoffs. They have beginnings, middles and, importantly, ends. They have little guideposts to tell you where you are. In that sense, 40K has had an overarching story since at least 2nd Edition. It’s a Biblical one, or a Tolkienien one, however you want to refer to it - the Great War of Gods (Heresy), leading to the Time of Mortals (The Age of the Imperium), and finally the Great Reckoning (End Times!) as the awesome figures from the past return to finish the battle. 40K took place right there at the transition point between the second and third arcs, because as soon as you fully hit the End Times, things have to, you know, end. Being right there, between the age of mundane and immortal threats, has a great frisson, setting up an ending that was never coming, but always felt like something portentous. Even when you knew the trick they’re playing, it was a lot of fun.

 

8th Ed/Dark Imperium blew that up. The “end” wasn’t an end, and instead just the herald of a new normal that’s got no real drama to it. There’s no more feeling of the large, the apocalyptic, the coming end because what 40K doesn’t have anymore is a story. What it has is a plot - a set of events that move forward, but not towards anything besides more plot, more releases, more “epic events” that end right back at the status quo, because they’re crafted around miniatures sales. There’s no tension and no excitement. Just more product. A lot goes on, as the song says, but nothing happens, and it doesn’t feel like anything is going to happen. I think that’s at the root of a lot of this malaise.

 

Edited April 27 by Lexington

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

A system where you have to have an opponents permission to use you own miniatures is total bs and GW needs to keep that in the coffin where it belongs. 

 

An opponent shouldn't decide what miniatures of yours, that you've invested in, you can use. 

[jaxom]

It’s hard, but I highly recommend trying to normalize 1250 and 1500 point games wherever, y’all play. It’s such a different play experience. Enough points to take the units you want, but not enough to have your cake and eat it to.

[gideon stargreave]

1 hour ago, The Praetorian of Inwit said:

A system where you have to have an opponents permission to use you own miniatures is total bs and GW needs to keep that in the coffin where it belongs. 

 

An opponent shouldn't decide what miniatures of yours, that you've invested in, you can use. 

But a game is a contract; surely that’s better than just turning up, seeing an army that is unplayable cheese, and having to walk away. RPGs work the same way, you decide what sort of game you’re looking for, in what system , how crunchy it will be, and then decide if it will work for you or not, no hard feelings. 
perhaps 40k would benefit from a sideboard, eg. Bring a 2500 point army, discuss terms, play with 1500 

[TheArtilleryman]

51 minutes ago, jaxom said:

It’s hard, but I highly recommend trying to normalize 1250 and 1500 point games wherever, y’all play. It’s such a different play experience. Enough points to take the units you want, but not enough to have your cake and eat it to.

This is how I play most games these days; in fact more like 1000 points. I just don’t have time to play a bigger game than that in most cases, especially as I feel like I’m learning the rules from scratch again and even a 1k game can take a few hours at the moment.

[ZeroWolf]

I prefer 1000pts myself, and I'm still able to build themed lists with it, like my destroyer themed Necrons.

[lansalt]

13 hours ago, The Unseen said:

The so-called "Great Man" theory of history. Which is generally not a good way of looking at events.

Maybe not in the real world, but fiction it's another history and the 40k universe is literally defined by the actions of a "Great Man": the Emperor.

 

Anyway, I think the problem here is the disconnect between the capabilities of big characters/units in the lore and the necessary constraints of a 28mm table top wargame. There's just not enough granularity for it.

[Evil Eye]

Reading this thread, I feel like the various issues are being compounded by the simple fact that no hobby can appeal to absolutely everyone (least of all what was historically a niche hobby like tabletop wargaming) and as a result, GW's attempts to make 40K into a massive multimedia mainstream property with as broad an appeal as possible have flattened a lot of what made the hobby interesting in the first place to achieve mass-market acceptance. Engaging mechanics allowing for in-depth army building, scenario construction and gameplay? Too complicated for the average schmuck, so it gets the boot. Any kind of fluff elements that might be alienating to any possible customer (regardless of whether they'd play the game regardless)? That's no good, the universe needs to be made as inoffensive and sterile as humanly possible. Requiring actual engagement in modelling/hobby techniques to get the most out of an army? Screw that, that might discourage players from buying more stuff, just make it so you can play with models as they come out the box and no other way! It's the "hobby trumpet" and its consequences in action.

 

Simply put, if GW were to bring the game back to its roots and make it appealing to people like you and me, more dedicated wargamers/hobbyists who get long-term invested in these sorts of things, it would probably chase away vast swathes of GW's target playerbase (read: the lowest common denominator). Personally I'd be fine with that, but I highly doubt short of the CEO having a Damascine Conversion and intentionally torpedoing the company's botttom-line (and financially martyring himself in the process) that's very likely at all. And even if it did, given the sheer power the investors have over the company, including companies like Blackrock(!), the company would probably be bought out and "steered back on course", because this is the nightmare world we live in where our giga-trillionaire hivemind overlords have decided we aren't allowed to have anything nice.

 

As a shorter version of that, 40K won't be good again unless it massively decreases in popularity and has to target niche enthusiast markets once more.

[lansalt]

17 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

people like you and me, more dedicated wargamers/hobbyists who get long-term invested in these sorts of things

I feel like this sentiment expressed by many here is revisionism, or a rose tinted vision of the past.

There's a recent Andy Chamber's interview where the says that armies became bigger during 3rd edition not just because of GW wanting to sell more models, but because regular players ended with collections that they wanted to fully use. The same 3rd edition which was derided by many as dumbing down the game too much.

At the same time, dedicated wargamers/hobbyists in the fandom (or in FW) were the ones responsible or pushing for a lot of the stuff that people complain about so much today: superheavies, flyers, primarchs, the HH, and eventually the plot moving forward.

And while I agree that on the surface 40k feels nowadays more sanitized and like an overproduced corporate product, specially in GW's social media, I'd argue that it has still plenty of edge once you look below the water line of the iceberg. Even the WH+ 40k episodes prove that.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Yeah I don’t think introducing primarchs made the game or lore better.

i don’t think demystifying the HH made the franchise any better either.

 

i know that last one is going to get a lot of hate.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

23 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Yeah I don’t think introducing primarchs made the game or lore better.

i don’t think demystifying the HH made the franchise any better either.

 

i know that last one is going to get a lot of hate.

 

It isn't getting any hate from me. While I liked reading about the various fights and trials of Sigismund, the revised ending of HH was a gross mess. I'd gladly give up the former to revoke the latter.

 

There is also some truth to be found in both sides of the argument about scale and fan push. I know several people who love knights and super heavies, and love any chance to get them on the table. But those players also like playing epic, and apocolypse. Those are game systems where that stuff makes sense, and the zooming out of perspective helps it work as such. Most knight players I know understand the problems that having knights in 40K brings.

 

Most, not all. But the same players I know who don't understand the issues with their knights also don't understand why their space marines didn't have higher initiative than Aeldar in 7th, so I don't really expect them to understand the intersection of theme and balance.

 

The game has been reduced a lot in terms of tactical play. There is still definitely skill involved in knowing how to manage threat, and where to move pieces, but it's limited. If your army can bring significantly more threat and survivability than the other army, then it's just a matter of moving your pieces onto objectives and deleting theirs. There isn't really a way to play around the numbers in those cases. And those numbers themselves are crazy. We roll so many dice, have so many ways to bypass wound rolls or hit rolls entirely, to turn off saves. It's just a mess. A lot of your game is won or lost in list building now, rather than on the table.

 

Personally I think 10th is a wash. I tried it with all 3 armies I own, from 1,000 to 2,000 points, and while I think it plays okay at small point values it doesn't play well. It wasn't giving me exciting moments like 8th did, for all its faults, and doesn't have all the chunky weird crunch to dig into like 9th. There is something missing from it keeping me from having fun. Now, mind you, I was burnt out with 9th by the time it ended. Boarding Actions were the only thing that brought me back to the table then, and those were everything I wanted. But 10th isn't doing it for me either, for various reasons.

 

 

[jaxom]

3 hours ago, Marshal Valkenhayn said:

It wasn't giving me exciting moments like 8th did,

Can you expand on this? I’m very curious about your experiences because mine have made me think of 10th edition more like 8.5.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

3 hours ago, jaxom said:

Can you expand on this? I’m very curious about your experiences because mine have made me think of 10th edition more like 8.5.

 

I have lots of fond memories of 8th edition. The Cities of Death book that dropped gave our group the best campaign we've ever had, with one notable moment being my Black Templar Lieutenant charging the last 2 ork boys left in a squad at the center of the table, him overwatching me and throwing a tank bomb, and hitting, then killing my character for the win.

 

Another mission we did from one of the Psychic Awakening books had the battlefield covered in fire wiping our units out while we desperately tried to flee the field, and all of us having a blast with those themed missions.

 

I have a lot bad to say about 8th as well. It was an awful time for the Primaris vs Firstborne split, and 1 wound marines in a high AP world was brutal. Killing 30 ork boys only to have a Nob left on one wound bring the entire squad back was frustrating, if also hilarious. But that was when our group hit the height of thematic games, even without 9th edition Crusade, and so I have fond memories of it.

 

I would not, however, want to go back. 8th played itself out by the end.

[Karhedron]

10 hours ago, Marshal Valkenhayn said:

A lot of your game is won or lost in list building now, rather than on the table.

 

This was always the case. As far back as 3rd edition, Blood Angels players worked out that they could abuse the Death Company mechanic by running lots of cheap Tactical squads and cramming as much as possible into a Rhino rush. World Eaters then took that and dialled it up to 11. Every edition has had power builds that could be created at list building time and were hard for your opponent to interact with.

 

Rhino-rush gave way to Fish of Fury in 4th/5th. Then 6th and 7th had invisible Deathstars as well as the madness of Formations. 8th edition was all about alpha-striking as much as possible. 9th turned the bloat stratagems up to the max with effects daisy-chained together. List building always baked in the effects and tactics that you would use during the game.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

2 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

This was always the case. As far back as 3rd edition, Blood Angels players worked out that they could abuse the Death Company mechanic by running lots of cheap Tactical squads and cramming as much as possible into a Rhino rush. World Eaters then took that and dialled it up to 11. Every edition has had power builds that could be created at list building time and were hard for your opponent to interact with.

 

Rhino-rush gave way to Fish of Fury in 4th/5th. Then 6th and 7th had invisible Deathstars as well as the madness of Formations. 8th edition was all about alpha-striking as much as possible. 9th turned the bloat stratagems up to the max with effects daisy-chained together. List building always baked in the effects and tactics that you would use during the game.

 

Yeah. I don't disagree that list building has always been a core component of wargaming, or that it has had various ways to cheese it over the years. But it's the majority of the strategy behind the game right now. There are a few techniques still, like knowing when to charge block, which targets to prioritize, but on the whole the game feels mostly solved by the time you see what's in either list. And I don't think this started in 10th. It feels like it started in 7th with the crazy detachments, and evolved into what it is now. Away from a weird cheese mechanic like invisible death stars, and into something that is intended to be what it is. This is the game working as designed, it's just not interesting to me.

 

I could pull up other game systems and outline ways to change 40K so that choices on the table feel more impactful, show examples of mechanics they've left behind, or not used. But suffice it to say that the units on the table are too reliable, swing mechanics are rare, and you have to adapt to unexpected shifts a lot less. That contributes to the game feeling solved. You can roll 90 dice looking for 5+ to auto wound if you like, there is some chance that what you're shooting at won't die, but it's vanishingly small. Take that and apply it to greater and lesser degrees. That, on top of some core mechanics decisions and a continued leaning into the command point and strategem system has worn me out.

[Cleon]

Just to agree with the above, we recently broke out Rogue trader for a 1.5 ed battle at the farm and it was so refreshing that my models wargaming actions actualy were the most important thing again and not the datasheet rule combos they could execute.

 

I didn't realise how much I'd missed my key choices being 'do I leave my cover to get into short range' rather than 'what ability do I activate with my limited resource pool'.

[jaxom]

@Marshal Valkenhayn, thank you! It reminded me of how much a well written mission pack or similar things can impact enjoyment.

 

[Timberley]

22 hours ago, lansalt said:

At the same time, dedicated wargamers/hobbyists in the fandom (or in FW) were the ones responsible or pushing for a lot of the stuff that people complain about so much today: superheavies, flyers, primarchs, the HH, and eventually the plot moving forward.

 

To throw my two-penneth into the mix, I remember wanting to own the OG Thunderhawk (the metal one) when it was released, because it was a great-looking model, not because I wanted to use it on the tabletop as a unit in 40K.  I still want the current Thunderhawk, for that reason.  I wonder, did GW start making the big FW kits because people clamoured for them as units, or because they wanted cool models to build? 

 

I got into 40K because I like making models, enjoy sci-fi and fantasy, and the setting offered both of these things, with a Gothic mash-up of Star Wars, Dune, Napoleonic Wars, and so on. I had far fewer unit choices, but each unit felt like it had an impact on the battlefield.  Now, looking at the various battle reports and factions, it feels like I need to make sure all of my toy soldiers has at least AP-1 (or a gimmick rule that necessitates their inclusion) and several attacks before they are considered from the huge swathe of units that my factions can field.  Obviously, in a friendly game I can field all sorts of randomness, but I still need to be mildly structured with a game plan in mind. 

 

The elephant in the room is the likes of the Knights (and other superheavies).  They work well as an expensive unit in a bigger game, or as an 'all or nothing' unit in a smaller game, but they're a standard unit, you need specific models and can't just take the ones that you think look cool/have some utility but aren't hyper-focussed.  One of my main group runs Knights, and if I know I'm playing him, then it'll be a right pain because my available models (which are perfectly serviceable against most other factions) for my T'au/IG/Marine armies won't have a good time against his Knights.  Even my Farsight Enclaves list can struggle, despite The Eight and a bunch of other high AP stuff.

[Cenobite Terminator]

There’s so many things in the game that are easily or more than a Primarch it’s not a big deal and you never see them in any semi serious competitive list. Roboute was crazy good for awhile but you never see him anymore now.