Total War: Warhammer 40,000

[Scribe]

38 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

 

Both skirmish and loose units in the game are still in a formation and operating as one, it's just less neat. Here's 3 units of skaven as an example: 

 

 

They're not simply incohension near each other, positions and spacing of each member is pretty much the same in all 3 units.

 

Right. A Unit will always have a rough shape, and is composed of Entities of various size.

 

If the game is army size in scope, there is no other way it's going to work.

 

[TheVoidDragon]

10 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

 

It's why it's not worth your time.  It's not rooted in anything sincere.  It's just doom posting for the sake of doom posting.

3 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

Your entire premise is literally "It can't do that, it wouldn't be 40k".  That's the definition of "Nuh uh".

It's the same tired argument that came out when TW;WH was announced.  It's just boring to go through it all again.

 

 

I am sincere about the whole thing.  Don't say i'm "doom posting" just because i'm passionate about the Total War series and the way 40k would/should be depicted.

 

I have tried to explain this so many times now, whether that's with in-depth posts attempting to just outline it in detail, or even going through the effort of launching the game to get screenshots to show what is meant specifically.  Comments like "You don't play the game or understand 40k!" just come across as not even understanding what I've said or just missing the point entirely, as what i've said is based on what's actually in the game and how 40k is depicted, not simply an opinion. If you were so sure otherwise and explained how and why that would be one thing, but that rather than actually trying to actually engage with what I've said and offer something in genuine response to at least attempt to show how what i've said is supposedly wrong, it's just immediate dismissal no matter that comes across as simply for the sake of being contrarian. 

 

Like at this point I just do not get at in the slightest what is supposedly so controversial about any of this and which of these is somehow factually incorrect. 

 

- The Total War series depicts infantry and cavalry units using formations

- That means that members of a unit are in some sort of structure. Whether it's loose, line, a 4 rank deep square, a cavalry wedge etc they're positioned a certain distance from each other in some sort of shape / structure / formation. There's some slight variation for terrain.

- Whether it's a neat rank & file unit of Empire Bowmen, or a loose formation of Chameleon Skinks, or a unit of Brettonnian Knights, each member will be placed to a certain position within the desired structure/shape and they then fight as a singular large unit. They try to retain that formation as best they can they move and fight and lose numbers. 

- Even units that you'd assume at a glance to be a random horde, like Zombies, are actually organized (in a 'disorganized') way, as you can see for yourself when deploying several and seeing how they all adhere to a certain structure (some of them do have 1-2 possible variations you can click again to swap through)

- 40k is not based on formation warfare. 

- In lore, animations, novels etc, something like a unit of Imperial Guard would be depicted - moving, firing, positioning, acting etc - in a way with more fluidity and dynamics than something like Napoleonic Musket troops, because they aren't fighting as a formation unit. 

- Instead 40k units are organized into and operate as squads and similar groups, rather than a basic unit consisting of a massed formation.

- Members of a squad are not locked to a certain spacing and positioning. A unit of Space Marines, or Eldar Guardians, or Tau Firewarriors, or Tyranids is not going into battle standing in a formation as they trade fire with the enemy. 

- They are instead simply in cohesion with their squad mates. In tabletop this is done via being able to place squad members how you like as long as it's within 2 inches of another, unlike WHF which - literally being a rank & file wargame - involves a typical unit with members placed aligned next to each other moved and fighting as a block.

 

 

 

4 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

Right. A Unit will always have a rough shape, and is composed of Entities of various size.

 

If the game is army size in scope, there is no other way it's going to work.

 

 

The alternative is something like what the Dawn of War series, Company of Heroes series, or tabletop 40k does, where they're just in cohesion near each other.

 

Regardless though, we'll find out soon and i'm sure no matter how it is, it'll be good. Something with the scope, scale and variety that Total War Warhammer has, but with the 40k setting, would be just fantastic. I do hope that they go as deep into the setting to be out all that cool niche forgotten stuff as they did with WHF, although i'm not sure they'd get as much allowance to do so really.

[Indy Techwisp]

2 hours ago, TheVoidDragon said:

 

Both skirmish and loose units in the game are still in a formation and operating as one, it's just less neat. Here's 3 units of skaven as an example: 

 

 

They're not simply incohension near each other, positions and spacing of each member is pretty much the same in all 3 units.

 

All three of those Skaven blobs look like ways I have experienced actual opponents form their units on the tabletop.

The game's cohesion rules make the optimal spread out shape be pretty much a vague rectangle, and that's not counting players who literally do form up units into ranks (I see SM players do this a lot to get as many individual Marine models onto a point for OC as possible).

 

I would also make a suggestion to try looking at the unit blobs for a more... "run and gun" unit or an Archery unit, since a 40k TWWH game is going to feature a lot more missile troops by definition.

[TheVoidDragon]

8 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

 

All three of those Skaven blobs look like ways I have experienced actual opponents form their units on the tabletop.

The game's cohesion rules make the optimal spread out shape be pretty much a vague rectangle, and that's not counting players who literally do form up units into ranks (I see SM players do this a lot to get as many individual Marine models onto a point for OC as possible).

 

I would also make a suggestion to try looking at the unit blobs for a more... "run and gun" unit or an Archery unit, since a 40k TWWH game is going to feature a lot more missile troops by definition.

 

I did check a few other units in the game, like Chameleon Skinks, and they're the same sort of thing too. 

 

Obviously if you want to in tabletop you could position your unit in some sort of approximation of that, but that's not really the same as it being built around depicting that sort of thing specifically. 

 

 

[Indy Techwisp]

36 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

- The Total War series depicts infantry and cavalry units using formations

- That means that members of a unit are in some sort of structure. Whether it's loose, line, a 4 rank deep square, a cavalry wedge etc they're positioned a certain distance from each other in some sort of shape / structure / formation. There's some slight variation for terrain.

- Whether it's a neat rank & file unit of Empire Bowmen, or a loose formation of Chameleon Skinks, or a unit of Brettonnian Knights, each member will be placed to a certain position within the desired structure/shape and they then fight as a singular large unit. They try to retain that formation as best they can they move and fight and lose numbers. 

- Even units that you'd assume at a glance to be a random horde, like Zombies, are actually organized (in a 'disorganized') way, as you can see for yourself when deploying several and seeing how they all adhere to a certain structure (some of them do have 1-2 possible variations you can click again to swap through)

- 40k is not based on formation warfare. 

- In lore, animations, novels etc, something like a unit of Imperial Guard would be depicted - moving, firing, positioning, acting etc - in a way with more fluidity and dynamics than something like Napoleonic Musket troops, because they aren't fighting as a formation unit. 

- Instead 40k units are organized into and operate as squads and similar groups, rather than a basic unit consisting of a massed formation.

- Members of a squad are not locked to a certain spacing and positioning. A unit of Space Marines, or Eldar Guardians, or Tau Firewarriors, or Tyranids is not going into battle standing in a formation as they trade fire with the enemy. 

- They are instead simply in cohesion with their squad mates. In tabletop this is done via being able to place squad members how you like as long as it's within 2 inches of another, unlike WHF which - literally being a rank & file wargame - involves a typical unit with members placed aligned next to each other moved and fighting as a block.

 

I did want to touch on some of this specifically, but I think a major part of the disconnect here is that the mechanics and style of a TW game is the main draw here and people want to see 40k in that style, rather than seeing that style reshaped to fit 40k.

So while yes, in actual 40k Lore Marines are depicted going around in small flexible groups, someone sitting down to play a Total War 40k game is likely going to expect a nice decently sized brick of Marines that move around near eachother in a vaguely flowing rectangle because that's the TWWH style.

 

For Guardsmen this is even more relevant because until relatively recently you could actually put a rectangular brick of 30 guardsmen on the tabletop as one unit, which is pretty much what a Guardsmen unit would look like in a Total War game.

 

As for melee units, while there is intermingling at the edges, you do still need to actually identify and selected your melee unit in the middle of a fight (particularly relevant for Cavalry Cyclecharging), so the unit still needs to maintain enough of a shape to identify and select for Gameplay purposes.

 

I do agree that an accurate TWW40k would have unit cohesion more akin to a squad level RTS or basically what we see in the Dawn of War games, but at that point it simply wouldn't be a Total War game anymore, which is what people are wanting to experience.

[Scribe]

55 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

The alternative is something like what the Dawn of War series, Company of Heroes series, or tabletop 40k does, where they're just in cohesion near each other.

 

I'd be so mad lol

[TheVoidDragon]

39 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

 

I did want to touch on some of this specifically, but I think a major part of the disconnect here is that the mechanics and style of a TW game is the main draw here and people want to see 40k in that style, rather than seeing that style reshaped to fit 40k.

So while yes, in actual 40k Lore Marines are depicted going around in small flexible groups, someone sitting down to play a Total War 40k game is likely going to expect a nice decently sized brick of Marines that move around near eachother in a vaguely flowing rectangle because that's the TWWH style.

 

For Guardsmen this is even more relevant because until relatively recently you could actually put a rectangular brick of 30 guardsmen on the tabletop as one unit, which is pretty much what a Guardsmen unit would look like in a Total War game.

 

As for melee units, while there is intermingling at the edges, you do still need to actually identify and selected your melee unit in the middle of a fight (particularly relevant for Cavalry Cyclecharging), so the unit still needs to maintain enough of a shape to identify and select for Gameplay purposes.

 

I do agree that an accurate TWW40k would have unit cohesion more akin to a squad level RTS or basically what we see in the Dawn of War games, but at that point it simply wouldn't be a Total War game anymore, which is what people are wanting to experience.

 

It's not really the size of units that I mean though, a 40k total war would need to be far bigger battles than just something like company of Heroes as going from potentially over a thousand total in a typical total war game to maybe a hundred or so would be quite a disappointment. It's specifically just the games focus on depicting units as behaving as formations that is at odds with what 40k is about. You can still have a block of guardsmen or space marines or whatever without them all being in a formation, maybe they'll do something similar to Legionnes Imperialis where it's several squads grouped together to make up one unit.

 

 

35 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

I'd be so mad lol

 

Why would you be mad at that? It's how 40k is both in tabletop and lore

Edited yesterday at 02:07 AM by TheVoidDragon

[Scribe]

1 minute ago, TheVoidDragon said:

Why would you be mad at that? It's how 40k is both in tabletop and lore

 

Because I'm looking for something closer to Apocalypse or Epic. Something the Total War franchise would be good for.

[TheVoidDragon]

2 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

Because I'm looking for something closer to Apocalypse or Epic. Something the Total War franchise would be good for.

 

Obviously the game needs to be something on the same level of the battle sizes as Epic or Apocalypse, that's something separate to this. 

[Scribe]

25 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

 

Obviously the game needs to be something on the same level of the battle sizes as Epic or Apocalypse, that's something separate to this. 

 

Then I honest to Khorne do not understand what you have been saying. I give up.

[Mogger351]

8 hours ago, TheVoidDragon said:

 

Both skirmish and loose units in the game are still in a formation and operating as one, it's just less neat. Here's 3 units of skaven as an example: 

 

 

They're not simply incohension near each other, positions and spacing of each member is pretty much the same in all 3 units.

Just a novel thought, you keep coming how they're placed on the tabletop. Have you considered you place your models in an un-fluffy way? Do you believe marines in-setting march as a disorganised gaggle or string around places in a J shape to reach 2 objectives?

[Mogger351]

4 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

Then I honest to Khorne do not understand what you have been saying. I give up.

I think they believe that total war 40k needs to be a 1:1 of the table top in terms of unit and army sizes. The ability to think big isn't there as it's not "40k" enough then.

[DeadFingers]

3 hours ago, Mogger351 said:

Just a novel thought, you keep coming how they're placed on the tabletop. Have you considered you place your models in an un-fluffy way? Do you believe marines in-setting march as a disorganised gaggle or string around places in a J shape to reach 2 objectives?

Honestly man if this game turns out to be real and Boyz don't do the conga then I'm not interested. So much wasted potential.

Edited yesterday at 10:44 AM by DeadFingers

[TheVoidDragon]

11 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

Then I honest to Khorne do not understand what you have been saying. I give up.

 

Look at the difference between infantry units in WHF tabletop and 40k tabletop.

 

WHF miniatures are on square bases, placed next to each other, in a formation. It is literally a rank & file wargame, which means large units that are organized in a formation by ranks (horizontal) and file (vertical).

 

40k miniatures are on round bases, placed somewhere 2 inches near others of that unit. It just represents them being nearby each other rather than set to some formation.

 

What the total war series focuses around is the sort of thing WHF does (and as shown even the horde units are actually organized in a specific way), whereas how 40k combat is in  both tabletop, lore, novels etc, does not involve fighting in a rank & file format.

 

That's really as simple as I can explain it.

 

6 hours ago, Mogger351 said:

I think they believe that total war 40k needs to be a 1:1 of the table top in terms of unit and army sizes. The ability to think big isn't there as it's not "40k" enough then.

 

I literally just said it's not to do with the size of the battles.

 

Big units with battles the size as shown in the Total War games/Epic 40k/Legionnaires Imperialis/Apocalypse, but where rather than fighting like a formation of historical line infantry, some more fluidity to the way they stand and move and fight, because the way 40k units behave in the lore, animations, tabletop etc  is a lot less rigid than what's how infantry is done in the game series until now. That's it. 

 

Instead of for example a unit of guardsmen being a single mass formation of 50 guardsman all standing as one like they're a unit of Empire Handgunners where they're in one big 10 x 5 box, maybe that unit is 5 squads of 10, grouped together, as something like Legionnnes Imperialis does.

 

This whole thing has gone on far too long though and considering we'll see what the answer is tommorow, I think it's best to just leave it there.

Edited yesterday at 01:47 PM by TheVoidDragon

[Mogger351]

2 hours ago, TheVoidDragon said:

 

Look at the difference between infantry units in WHF tabletop and 40k tabletop.

 

WHF miniatures are on square bases, placed next to each other, in a formation. It is literally a rank & file wargame, which means large units that are organized in a formation by ranks (horizontal) and file (vertical).

 

40k miniatures are on round bases, placed somewhere 2 inches near others of that unit. It just represents them being nearby each other rather than set to some formation.

 

What the total war series focuses around is the sort of thing WHF does (and as shown even the horde units are actually organized in a specific way), whereas how 40k combat is in  both tabletop, lore, novels etc, does not involve fighting in a rank & file format.

 

That's really as simple as I can explain it.

 

 

I literally just said it's not to do with the size of the battles.

 

Big units with battles the size as shown in the Total War games/Epic 40k/Legionnaires Imperialis/Apocalypse, but where rather than fighting like a formation of historical line infantry, some more fluidity to the way they stand and move and fight, because the way 40k units behave in the lore, animations, tabletop etc  is a lot less rigid than what's how infantry is done in the game series until now. That's it. 

 

Instead of for example a unit of guardsmen being a single mass formation of 50 guardsman all standing as one like they're a unit of Empire Handgunners where they're in one big 10 x 5 box, maybe that unit is 5 squads of 10, grouped together, as something like Legionnnes Imperialis does.

 

This whole thing has gone on far too long though and considering we'll see what the answer is tommorow, I think it's best to just leave it there.

I mean you kinda agreed with everything everyone said you've been arguing with in that post, but yes, good idea to leave it.

[son of the forest]

https://www.ign.com/articles/eagle-eyed-total-war-fan-spots-what-looks-like-a-leak-for-creative-assemblys-much-rumored-total-war-warhammer-40000-with-the-game-awards-announcement-just-hours-away

[Joe]

Always fun to see IGN reporting on things that were already spotted on Reddit and on here days ago.

[Son of Rawl]

31 minutes ago, Joe said:

Always fun to see IGN reporting on things that were already spotted on Reddit and on here days ago.

Have not taken IGN seriously since they gave Pokemon Sapphire, the ocean focused game a negative review. The reason why they did, "Too much water".

[ChapterMasterGodfrey]

Just chucking in my two pence on the whole "formations" debate: I see Dawn of War cited as a "Skirmish" game in comparison to TW's "Grand Battle" nature, but even in DoW, the marines stand in a square formation...

 

For me, I see the "Disorganised" formations being the standard for all units really. 5/10 marines in rough cohesion. I expect that infantry will be able to interact with terrain too, so set up a firing line behind a barricade or to occupy buildings and fire out of them. 

 

Guard will be cool to see, I'd like to be able to move platoons of 30 around at once but then micro manage the squads of 10.

[DemonGSides]

17 minutes ago, ChapterMasterGodfrey said:

Just chucking in my two pence on the whole "formations" debate: I see Dawn of War cited as a "Skirmish" game in comparison to TW's "Grand Battle" nature, but even in DoW, the marines stand in a square formation...

 

For me, I see the "Disorganised" formations being the standard for all units really. 5/10 marines in rough cohesion. I expect that infantry will be able to interact with terrain too, so set up a firing line behind a barricade or to occupy buildings and fire out of them. 

 

Guard will be cool to see, I'd like to be able to move platoons of 30 around at once but then micro manage the squads of 10.

 

I do expect space Marines to stay pretty close to the 3/5/6/10 set up they have now on the tabletop, but it makes almost no sense for Guard to remain in blocks set up like how we have them in the tabletop game now.  And I really don't want to micromanage 10 guardsmen, that's fully into Dawn of War territory which is not what I want this game to be.  We have that game coming already, so I'd rather the scope of TW be a lot larger than the scope of DoW. 

[ChapterMasterGodfrey]

47 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

And I really don't want to micromanage 10 guardsmen,

I think that should be optional. units of 30 as standard but then let me reposition the squads of 10; if I want to, not because I need to.

[sarabando]

1 hour ago, ChapterMasterGodfrey said:

I think that should be optional. units of 30 as standard but then let me reposition the squads of 10; if I want to, not because I need to.

a platoon being a single unit makes sense