What do you like / dislike in modern 40k?

[Maritn]

Having played two games of 11th edition, with the first one being ok and the second one being horrible, I was (again) thinking about what I don't like about modern 40k, specifically 11th edition as the latest iteration, and what all those happily playing modern 40k like about it, and to be honest, I couldn't think of anything. That's why I'd like to hear from the fraters here at the B&C, what do you like / dislike about modern 40k? 

 

I don't want people to "defend" why they enjoy playing, I just want to find some perspectives that are different from mine (which has become very negative).

 

For me, the biggest issues are the following ones:

- IGOUGO. It's just boring, stratagems are a bad bandaid for it, and it leads to other problems (alpha strikes, extreme sensitivity when it comes to terrain setup, ...).

- The terrain layouts. They are just so boring and the opposite of immersive. They don't make any sense, there are ruined buildings but no roads, and it's all mirrored.

- The missions. The primaries all boil down to mostly the same, and the secondaries feel like your commander is baby-in-chief. "Go, destroy an enemy tank. Which one? I don't care. Can you move two units as far apart as possible? But don't let them shoot! Take the building in the center! Forget that building in the center, spread your forces all over the battlefield! What?? The enemy commander said that I'd never dare take that one building he is sitting in, and made some chicken noises. YOU WILL TAKE THAT BUILDING, NOW!!1!"

- Some really unthematic rules, especially line of sight, and missing vehicle facing. I hate it how a tank can shoot when only the side of its rear is peeking out, and RAW even a gun barrel is a valid target.

- Too many rules, but this is probably a "me problem". From faction rules to unit rules, to detachment rules and stratagems, I can't keep them in my head for my army, much less those of my opponents army. That leads to gotchas for me, which feels bad.

- Edition churn. I'm starting to mix up rules with the way they were in previous editions...

Edited Friday at 06:21 PM by Maritn

[Lathe Biosas]

Two problems, both minor.

 

1. Social Interaction has diminished. In my last game, my opponent stared at his phone for 95% of the game, even while he was moving pieces and rolling dice.

 

2. The Warlord. There is no real use to have one model picked out as your Leader. The rules don't add anything. No extra CP generation when they are living, no extra benefits to keeping him alive.

 

Also, my opponent had an allied Imperial Agent as his Warlord who just sat in a building doing nothing for the entire game, until I sniped him on turn 4.

[Evil Eye]

You're not alone. I was considering getting back into the game for 11th but more and more I think I'm good. But for me personally...

 

>Every single weapon being its own unique profile on the unit that uses it. The universal armoury system made much, much more sense.

>The gutting of statlines (WS and BS, Strength, Initiative etc). Needlessly dumbs down the whole game.

>The mutilation of vehicle rules in general. No more facings or firing arcs, no more actually behaving like a vehicle with the strengths and weaknesses those would give, just a giant infantry model.

>Removing the FOC. Some degree of restriction on unit choices is necessary IMO, and the free-for-all we have at the moment, blech.

>Removing templates. They really weren't complicated and were a nice thematic way of resolving area-of-effect weapons.

>Removing wargear costs and massively cutting down on options. Just, why.

>Making every model a seasonal item with an expiration date before being rendered unplayable. Fundamentally at odds with what a tabletop game should be.

>The constant patches and reworks to the game. At this point it's quite clear GW have no idea what the hell they're doing with the rules (or worse are doing them badly on purpose) and expecting the next patch to suddenly make the game work (and not just invalidate the book you've already spent money on) is foolishness.

>Everything being able to wound everything. A Land Raider should not be able to be damaged by a lasgun. End of.

 

And that's just from the rules perspective...

[NovemberIX]

The homogeneity of marines, every army looks the same, all using the same few kits, with the same loadouts, and in the same few poses.  No one does a DIY anymore because the game has no soul for it. I don't even need to get into how 11th plays, because for all it's faults, I'd rather play 5th, Ward and all.

[Lathe Biosas]

The bit about the FOC chart being gone isnt really a concern for me. I started playing in 3rd Edition...

 

My first army was Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers. I had 12 models (285 points) and you had 1,000 or 1,500 or whatever you wanted.

 

 

My second force was as an Armoured Company (Artillery) from Chapter Approved. My Basilisks were Troops, HQ were Leman Russ Vanquishers, Griffin Mortar Carriers were Heavy Support, Hellhounds were Fast Attack... and I think my 1 Chimera was Elite... oh and I had the greatest block of cheese in the game: Lord Solar Macharius. And his greatest special rule ever. I go first. So I would just pie plate all the marines away.

 

Then I moved on to Dark Angels, where I had all Bikes and Terminators. 

 

There were always, "Take this guy or this list, and X count as Troops."

 

☆☆☆

 

But I do agree with the lack of conversions these days. I picked up the last bit of Custodes on pre-order and didn't realise that they took monopose to the next level.

 

There are bits of cape or fingers or armour that are all over the place, so each piece fits in exactly one spot... the only conversions I can do are head swaps.

 

☆☆☆

 

But conversions are frowned upon in certain game stores... by a certain type of player.

 

I was testing out my list a week ago and had a player suggest I was "modeling for advantage" because my captain isn't on the rock she came on, making her less than an ⅛ inch shorter than usual.

 

It's bizarre to me. I was under the impression the game was supposed to be fun. 

[Kommisar_K]

Likes:

- Army building. The new detachment system is a welcome change. A given faction is no longer strictly limited to a certain playstyle if it wants to be good for anything but narrative games. Mix & Match is good too. 

- Primary Missions. Not all sunshine and rainbows, but the variety and the fact not every battle is a mirror matchup is nice. 

- CLEAVE. Blast for melee. What's not to love? And I don't even run anything that has it 

 

Dislikes: 

- Terrain. The more GW defines terrain rules, and especially layouts, the less fun this game becomes. True line of sight is effectively a thing of the past, we've got flat outlines that apparently block LOS even with a bloody brick sitting on them. And nobody can agree on how titanic & aircraft interact with the big pieces.

- Objectives. Linked to terrain. Placement is harder, it's more difficult to set up, every base outline has to be measured at 3 different points because everything's sitting on a lopsided triangle instead of a nice easy circle. Seriously, we could've just set up ruins over/around the circles and the "narrative" link would still be there. My first couple 11th ed games setup took an obscene amount of time because of this new thing. 

- Melee. I like games where an engagement can take a while. Not everything goes to plan, and everyone gets a chance to fight back. At range or melee, or just in tactical repositioning. This doesn't happen except in the smallest games, & melee armies are a big part. Nowadays they're all super fast, like 2-turns-to-cross-the-table fast, and melee units have insane profiles that pretty much instakill anything they touch. That speed means they always get first strike. T1 a player can move up & hide all his dudes behind the terrain outlines in the middle of the field. If his opponent already moved up, then let the charges begin! If not, wait in complete cover til BR2, then steamroller him and enjoy the benefits of having full access to all the no man's land objectives. Only against another fast melee army will this be difficult. 

    The way of melee has become too easy, and ranged combat is insanely difficult. I feel for tau, no matter how good their shooting is. Almost every army I see this edition plays the fast-melee style, and they do altogether too well. I think what I'm trying to say here is melee has become too powerful, so everyone's forced to play melee... and that's just taking away flavor. 

- Player Mindset: A tougher one to talk about. I don't think people are showing the imagination that made this hobby so fun when I started. No longer can we build stories from our battles - it's official layouts, force dispositions, card-drawn missions and the Holy WH40K App all the way. Oh and Crusade is no longer supported by G-dubs so nobody around wants that.

 

Yeah, mostly complaints, unfortunately. Here's hoping for some good Narrative material sometime soon!

 

Remember scratch-built terrain anyone? Lol

[Lathe Biosas]

Do you remember when we had lakes and rivers? You either had to jump over it, be a skimmer (ie. Eldar) or be a Chimera (with amphibious).

[Kommisar_K]

1 minute ago, Lathe Biosas said:

Do you remember when we had lakes and rivers? You either had to jump over it, be a skimmer (ie. Eldar) or be a Chimera (with amphibious).

 

Yeah! I got just the tale end of this stuff but I miss it like heck 

 

And I was what? 12?

Edited Tuesday at 07:13 PM by Kommisar_K

[Lathe Biosas]

I saw some of the terrain rules (like dangerous terrain!) make a comeback in Horus Heresy for a bit (including the Mechanicum having a unit that could blow up terrain pieces)... 

 

But this is what House Rules are for. Playing with the fun stuff you remember. 

 

We still play with a bunch of the old missions that were really fun and had bizarre rules (Remember Dusk and Dawn? It's dark outside, unless you got a searchlight, you can't see very far.) 

 

I remember one of my favorite missions was a Halloween mission, based around the Mechanicus digging up Necron artifacts. It was a Night Fighting mission. There are 6 40mm objective markers (3 placed by each player). When you got to an objective marker (you would search it automatically at the end of your turn), you rolled a d6. On a 6, you got the artifacts and they attached to your unit (they would drop in place if the unit was destroyed). On 2-5 nothing happened, and on a 1, a Squad of Necron Warriors appeared, controlled by your opponent for 1 turn *and then they would phase out.

 

Whoever had the most artifacts at the end of the ganlme under their control won.

 

It was fun and totally not balanced in any way.

 

[Tawnis]

So far my thoughts are: 

Pros: 
- List Building: While not perfect, it's a step up from 10th and I do like the new DP system brining back a bit of the feel of mixed force armies without all the soup nonsense that dominated previous editions which tried to do that. 

- Variable Missions: While again not perfect (I still prefer asymmetric and narrative missions in general) they are again an improvement over the previous versions. I've been talking about players having different mission requirements being a good thing for a long time and it's nice to see some of that. 
- Cleave feels much more thematic than Sustained Hits for melee. 

- Lethal Hits changes: Light weaponry to be non-monsters and vehicles (as seen in Ork codex and assuming it's going to roll out to others over time.) 

- Terrain as objectives: While a little more fiddley sometimes, it actually feels like your fighting over something / trying to secure a valuable position. I much prefer it to "go stand on that circle out in the open" 

- The addition of Upgrades to the enhancement system. 

Cons: 

- Balancing everything around competitive: We don't wany a little extra narrative flair in our competitive matches, we want actual narrative gameplay. 

- Terrain Layouts: Everything is still designed mostly around L-shaped ruins. Yeah we "can" make missions without them, but it's still pretty much all you'll see at hobby stores. As mentioned above, where are the rivers and trench networks of old? 

- They still haven't figured out the sweet spot for Fights First, it's either busted or useless. I'm not saying initiative needs to come back, that certainly had it's own issues, but some more nuanced middle ground would be appreciated. 
- It felt like 11th edition missed a few rounds of quality checks before it went out the door: (GSC army rules not working at all RAW at launch ect...) They're patching it decently enough after the fact, but it feels very much like a AAA video game mentality. Sell everyone on a buggy mess and fix it over the next six months. These are things that anyone giving a reasonable look at the edition should have seen a mile away. 

- Some armies being VERY limited in detachment combos: Tau can play all of 8 possible combinations for their total of 7 detachments because of all the restrictions. I know we're probably going to get our codex pretty early on, but still... yikes. 

Some things I don't think are 11th's fault and/or general responses to other people's thoughts:

- LOS / Vehicle Facing: I don't see this as an issue. If we're looking at the game from a realism standpoint, these vehicles aren't moving while doing nothing, stopping and then shooting. Everything is happening at once in theory. While a vehicles rolls between one building and another, it should be shooting during that movement, but it's not something that can work in a game system like this, so they say so long as a tiny bit of the vehicle is showing, that represents it having moved into a position in which it could have attacked. It's not perfect, but it's never broken my immersion. 
- Social Interaction: This is sadly just the times we live in and not the fault of any game system. Maybe an alternating activation system would keep people more engaged, but even in IGOUGO, you should be spending your opponent's time strategizing and planning for your next turn. Someone not really invested in the game isn't going to be invested no matter the ruleset. 

- Templates: They may have been thematic but I do not miss the days of my opponent's moving every single one of their freaking models in their 20 man blobs exactly 2" apart to make me hit one less target with my single blast weapon. Blech, no thanks. 

I'm actually working on a custom generating narrative system to overlay onto 40k games. I'm actually in the final stages and hope to be able to release something to everyone in a month or two. TLDR it's kinda like the Twist system, but turned up to 11 and the knob broken off. It's not meant to be balanced, but to provide thematic and narrative building blocks for all kinds of missions and is built to essentially be nearly infinitely repayable with different outcomes. 

[Adeptekon]

Sounds like this is just about competitive. That said Total War should solve a lot of these issues and be cheaper to get started.

[Kommisar_K]

19 minutes ago, Adeptekon said:

Sounds like this is just about competitive. That said Total War should solve a lot of these issues and be cheaper to get started.

 

This is actually a particularly notable comment IMHO because yes, it actually is just about competitive. Because sadly, competitive is just about all that's left. It's very rare now that you go to your flgs, or even hang out with a friend, and everyone's willing to just drop some stuff on a table and start rolling dice. And Crusade is gone, so nobody's interested in setting up a narrative game, let alone a campaign. What GW suggests becomes law, and the only thing left is competition. 

 

It's not all bad though  A couple of my opponents aren't enjoying the edition much, so we may find an outlet in the more creative ways of gaming.

 

And yeah the TW comment is actually true lol 

[Adeptekon]

38 minutes ago, Kommisar_K said:

 

This is actually a particularly notable comment IMHO because yes, it actually is just about competitive. Because sadly, competitive is just about all that's left. It's very rare now that you go to your flgs, or even hang out with a friend, and everyone's willing to just drop some stuff on a table and start rolling dice. And Crusade is gone, so nobody's interested in setting up a narrative game, let alone a campaign. What GW suggests becomes law, and the only thing left is competition. 

 

It's not all bad though  A couple of my opponents aren't enjoying the edition much, so we may find an outlet in the more creative ways of gaming.

 

And yeah the TW comment is actually true lol 

Getting with friends to throw dice is the only way I would.

 

What I dislike is competitive no offensive, but it looks completely hallow to me. The games as have been noted earlier in this thread are little skirmish matches taking place around objects nothing like what actual 40k battles would be except for a some special missions, but that's every game.

 

Walk into the competitive location, bright lights, folding tables, folding chairs, cheap terrain, chatter going on all around. Just doesn't look fun at all. Then there's the commentary channels of large "Opens" which remind me a lot of competitive sports casting. I _______ hate competitive sports casting. It's like tuning into a ball game on the radio I just can't do it.

 

Play on TableTop (great/funny people), but sports casters...

 

There was only one commentary competitive channel that I did stop religiously to check out and that was Tabletop Tactics. I'll admit I'm an imersion whore. I mostly just stopped for the intros, occasionally I would sit through half a match. Sadly now that Beard has gone I don't think The Spider can match what he brought to those opening cuts. Beard had the voice, and picked all the right music. Just what I expect of 40k if I was going to introduce someone to it.

 

That said all they have to do is take it one step further and show the minis more and create a visual squences that don't focus on chatter and jokes, but the actual play and ambience, the music, the visuals, the terrian, and the minis. Make it a movie? 

 

I get some people want to crunch the numbers, and hear the witty banter. I don't.

 

I want to be imersed in the battle. You've got great painters, you've got the sets, take it to the next level.

 

[Lathe Biosas]

Ugh. I've never been a great tournament player (back in 5th Edition, I fell asleep at the Adepticon 40k Team Tourney in Chicago. In the end we came in dead last... we lost to the ringer team ).

 

Give me a fun group game with zany missions and gonzo rules (remind me to tell you about Tau Zombies sometime) and I'll have the time of my life.

 

I've been wanting to recreate some of those moments for a long time.

 

 

 

 

[N1SB]

You guys just made me realise my issue with 11th.  I can't speak for others, especially since YOU put it better than I could:

 

13 hours ago, Maritn said:

- The missions. The primaries all boil down to mostly the same, and the secondaries feel like your commander is baby-in-chief. "Go, destroy an enemy tank. Which one? I don't care. Can you move two units as far apart as possible? But don't let them shoot! Take the building in the center! Forget that building in the center, spread your forces all over the battlefield! What?? The enemy commander said that I'd never dare take that one building he is sitting in, and made some chicken noises. YOU WILL TAKE THAT BUILDING, NOW!!1!"

 

12 hours ago, Lathe Biosas said:

1. Social Interaction has diminished. In my last game, my opponent stared at his phone for 95% of the game, even while he was moving pieces and rolling dice.

 

10 hours ago, Kommisar_K said:

- Player Mindset: A tougher one to talk about. I don't think people are showing the imagination that made this hobby so fun when I started. No longer can we build stories from our battles - it's official layouts, force dispositions, card-drawn missions and the Holy WH40K App all the way. Oh and Crusade is no longer supported by G-dubs so nobody around wants that.

 

TELL ME IF you feel the same please: 11th ed is LIKE a Mobile Game/Live Service Video Game version of 40k.

 

If you ever played a mobile game/live service video game (including PC, etc.), it's like a constant stream of little tasks.  Here's your daily x number of tasks for rewards, there's a multiplayer event happening RIGHT NOW do you want to fast travel there Y/N?  There's no rhyme or reason to these chores, it's just do them to check a box.

 

Then other players exist only as part of those tasks (destroy A tank).  There is as much narrative/lore/story as there is for a theme park ride.

 

Now I honestly see a real mistake by GW.  It's the same Wizards of the Coast had with 4th ed Dungeons & Dragons.

 

"Modern" is exactly it, WotC tried to "modernise" D&D by incorporating Massively Multiplayer Online Game elements OF THAT time.  Certain classes were "Strikers" in the same way a MMO would say "DPS" (Damage Per Second).  EVERYthing was standardised as an "Encounter", a roleplay conversation has the same mechanics as combat.

 

D&D 4th ed was the past.  40k 11th ed is NOT that, but it's today's modern take of the same issues, now with mobile/live service games.

 

(As I typed that out, Dawn of War 3 did something like that but way worse, becoming a MOBA.  11th ed's not that bad.)

 

+++++

 

A note, we actually had Maelstrom of War in 6th ed.  11th ed's objective cards I noticed were better.  So it's not a totally new issue.

 

Sorry I didn't compile a list, but I agree with yours.  I hadn't thought much about it until now, but I reckon it's the overall framework.

[Antarius]

I remember that people used to use "beer and pretzels" as a perjorative for the way GW wrote rules and now it seems to be exactly what a lot of people are missing. In that sense, I feel a lot of the problems with the last couple of editions of 40K are very much "careful what you wish for", because a lot of things have been tightened up and balanced a lot, for better or worse.

I actually really like the "draw cards to create random scenario" approach so far, but with the rather big caveat that it's only as fun as the people you play with. Now ,realistically, this could be said for most editions of most games, but I play with a couple of likeminded friends and we generally play smaller games on slightly oversized boards and shuffle terrain around to make it look and feel good. If we didn't, I think I would feel that the board would become both boring and rather crowded - I think the consequences would be that manouvering meant less (and could be "solved" in advance, more or less) and that melee would likely dominate too much.

I don't like codex drip and I don't like constant "patches", especially not when they're tied to tournaments (this discussion has been had at nauseam, but suffice it to say, I think it has been aptly demonstrated that this is not, in fact, good for casual play at all). I think some points adjustments etc. would be fine but at the rate things are going it just becomes a chore to keep up with the game, especially when it also feels like we're also always right on the cusp of the next big change or new edition. Once again, this is a bit of a monkey's paw situation, because people really did use to clamour for this sort of thing. Today, I think I would prefer an index edition with no actual codices.

Special rules all over the place is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of them are great, some of them are just a lot of extra book keeping and mental load. Especially when you have identical rules with different names (e.g. Grots' and Tzaangor's "get a command point on objectives" rule), those should obviously just have been universal special rules.

The greater level of abstraction I am generally okay with. I hate TLOS and much prefer an abstract system, which I feel saves time, bother and works better but it's not like the current system is perfect either. In a similar vein, I prefer a bit of abstraction in hit allocation etc. over a lot of minutiae, so I like the current system (and I mean, if that special weapon or banner i super important, someone else will pick it up when the wielder falls).

I've only played a couple of games of 11th edition, but so far I like it better than 10th which I thought was okay and much more than 9th, which I considered basically unplayable. I played a lot more of 7th edition but I honesly think 11th is better than that too - at least so far and from a purely "how much do I enjoy playing the game" perspective.
As always, I think a houseruled 4th edition would probably be a better game, but my friends are enthusiastic about 11th edition at present, so that's what I'm playing and I actually think it's quite good fun as long as you don't feel too bound by the competitive nonsense.

[Maritn]

10 hours ago, Tawnis said:

[...]

- LOS / Vehicle Facing: I don't see this as an issue. If we're looking at the game from a realism standpoint, these vehicles aren't moving while doing nothing, stopping and then shooting. Everything is happening at once in theory. While a vehicles rolls between one building and another, it should be shooting during that movement, but it's not something that can work in a game system like this, so they say so long as a tiny bit of the vehicle is showing, that represents it having moved into a position in which it could have attacked. It's not perfect, but it's never broken my immersion. 
- Social Interaction: This is sadly just the times we live in and not the fault of any game system. Maybe an alternating activation system would keep people more engaged, but even in IGOUGO, you should be spending your opponent's time strategizing and planning for your next turn. Someone not really invested in the game isn't going to be invested no matter the ruleset. 

[...]

 

 

At least for me, the abstraction for vehicles is not too bad (but still not good), when the vehicle is actually moving towards the unit it is firing at. When it completely breaks the immersion is when a vehicle is parking sideways behind a building and just moves 1 inch backwards to draw a line of sight from a track wheel and shoot its hull mounted weapons. 

 

And regarding the social interaction, at least for me what you're implying is not the case. There's only so much to plan when you're watching your enemy play for 45 minutes, especially when you're not sure which of your units survive and have no idea what secondaries you will be drawing. Drawing at the start of your turn is something I don't like on boardgames as well, because it prevents you from planning your turn. And last year I actually got into Bolt Action, and the activation system there is sooo good, you're constantly engaged and planning which unit to activate, in case the next die is one of yours (and the order test succeeds, haha ).

[Maritn]

1 hour ago, N1SB said:

[...]

TELL ME IF you feel the same please: 11th ed is LIKE a Mobile Game/Live Service Video Game version of 40k.

 

If you ever played a mobile game/live service video game (including PC, etc.), it's like a constant stream of little tasks.  Here's your daily x number of tasks for rewards, there's a multiplayer event happening RIGHT NOW do you want to fast travel there Y/N?  There's no rhyme or reason to these chores, it's just do them to check a box.

 

Then other players exist only as part of those tasks (destroy A tank).  There is as much narrative/lore/story as there is for a theme park ride.

[...]

 

Yeah, it feels a lot like wargame turned into a AAA Live Service Game, with all the 0 day patches, seasons and daily quests replacing the narrative of an unfolding battle. 

 

I'm not sure how to say this, but a lot just feels like ticking unthematic boxes, already starting at the stage of list building ("Ok, I need a cheap unit I can hide near the edge of the table, I need a unit to score Engage on all fronts, etc.").

 

Thinking about it, especially as I have a lot more experience with board games compared to live service games, modern 40k also feels a lot like a modern Eurogame. Not a "classic" one like Tigris & Euphrates or Imperial, but one of those from the past 10 years where it's more about system mastery rather than playing the other players, with tons of rules but little interaction, where your goal is to most efficiently squeeze out points from the system, with the other players mostly being there to set the score you have to beat.

[Antarius]

47 minutes ago, Maritn said:

 

Drawing at the start of your turn is something I don't like on boardgames as well, because it prevents you from planning your turn.

That's a really good point, I think drawing at the end of your turn might go on my houserule list, actually (also keeps it a bit cleaner with all the objective card stuff going on at the same time).

[Xenith]

It feels like if you don't optimise your army and bring a whole bunch of units do do secondaries, you might as well not show up. 

 

It feels like themed/thematic armies are punished by the rules 

 

It makes army building stressful and it's actually been giving me anxiety thinking about making a list or playing a game.

[Tawnis]

4 hours ago, Antarius said:

That's a really good point, I think drawing at the end of your turn might go on my houserule list, actually (also keeps it a bit cleaner with all the objective card stuff going on at the same time).

You could also just play fixed objectives, then you don't have to warry about the randomness and can plan ahead just fine. 

[Lathe Biosas]

1 hour ago, Xenith said:

It feels like if you don't optimise your army and bring a whole bunch of units do do secondaries, you might as well not show up. 

 

It feels like themed/thematic armies are punished by the rules 

 

It makes army building stressful and it's actually been giving me anxiety thinking about making a list or playing a game.

 

I agree with this. I am constantly bombarded with "friendly advice," over my lack of Sisters of Silence in my Custodes force.

 

Thematically they don't belong and make zero sense for Sisters to be there. But I'm told I can't win without them.

[Tawnis]

Admittedly, I am someone who does enjoy playing competitive 40k, but I also do enjoy narrative, and they do both feel like wildly different things that I get different kinds of enjoyment out of, so I get why some people like one and not the other. As GW makes it now, they feel like widely different systems, only one of which is officially supported. 

 

I love puzzles, that's what competitive 40k feels like to me. I have all these pieces and I have to solve for X while my opponent is trying to solve for Y and we're both trying to stop each other from doing it. I feel about it the same way I feel about chess, mentally engaging and interesting in that respect, but vary rarely does the narrative aspect of it come out. 

I'm also a writer and I love reading and telling stories. When I play narrative, we use points as a guideline at best, missions are very asymmetrical and if there are secondary objectives, they are in service to something that will affect the broader story. It's not about winning, it's about a group of people using a system to all participate in experiencing a story together. Nearly every single one of my 40k memories that I like to share is from a narrative event because is those epic "I can't believe that just happened" moment affecting characters you care about and altering a setting you are invested in that stick with you. 

 

The only tournament I've been to that has ever successfully merged these two feelings is Play On's Narrative Tournament that they hold at Gamescon every year. That team really knows their stuff and their hobbying, designing custom missions that are fun and flavourful which encourage strategizing for the broader narrative, where everyone is still playing their best and trying to win, but where doing the story is so much cooler and more fun that playing a tight competitive match. I've fought against Deathwing Terminators for an orbital laser that could shoot at other tables while a Harradin tried to tear apart the whole station. I've fought against a Krieg regiment that was defending a train station which had the trains moving across the map during our game, I've fought Space Wolves over a Time Dilation device that threw out all kinds of crazy effects either helping or hindering anyone near the device. 

 

My point is, while it's not easy to come up with a narrative system that applies to a broad range of players and armies, it is certainly doable, and having seen it done many years in a row now, it feels more and more like GW really needs to step up their game on that front. 

[Tawnis]

1 hour ago, Xenith said:

It feels like if you don't optimise your army and bring a whole bunch of units do do secondaries, you might as well not show up. 

 

It feels like themed/thematic armies are punished by the rules 

 

It makes army building stressful and it's actually been giving me anxiety thinking about making a list or playing a game.

I haven't found that myself. It's certainly harder to restrict yourself to a themed list, but especially with the new DP system, I think it is easier now to run them. Even competitively, I exclusively run theme armies, I find that a core part of the fun of the game. 

 

As I'm often talking about, I've done really well with full Kroot in competitive. 

 

I've had a lot of success with other themed armies at more casual LGS levels too. Full Tzaangors, Phobos/Scout Recon, Cultist Uprising, Imperial Agents. I'm currently working on an all Abhuman army for guard that I think will do pretty well, as well as a Recon Tau force. 

 

Theme armies aren't always easy to play, and in some cases, can't really crack into the competitive scene; but for casual games at your local LGS, I haven't seen one yet that is unplayably bad. (The theme itself, not necessarily the individual list.)

Edited Wednesday at 02:29 PM by Tawnis

[Dr. Clock]

Likes:

 

DP system is a breath of fresh air. 

Ld and battleshock are suddenly relevant.

Dispositions help for list and planning.

Openness to, and frequency of change.

Putting Legends in the app.

 

Dislikes: 

 

Not a ton tbh

Transports feel kinda shaky

Sightlines could be opened up a tad - I agree about the issues facing long range units.

Disposition balance still a bit off, and application arbitrary.

Stealth is too weak, and ignores cover too strong. 

 

I hear the Frater's concerns, but for my tiny little ecosystem the game has been improving pretty consistently for years now, and I'm looking forward to what's next. I think GW has picked a lane, and it's one that I quite like cruising in even if I don't actually engage in competitive gaming beyond a semi-annual RTT. I'm a 'different army each week' gamer, so I like how things feel different enough, but similar enough that I don't need to relearn everything game to game.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.