WH40K: Fifth Edition

[Lago PARANOIA]

So. Being someone on the fence about getting into this wargame (mostly because I do not have the cash ATM to get into TTRPGs and this), I amuse myself by listening to other fans of the game. Right now it seems that GW has carefully measured the proper amount of trolling, bullshit, stupidity, wank, and awesome to make it as infuriating as possible while still making it fun. So I must ask:

How's 5E? I heard that there are supposed to be space dwarves in this edition. Squats. There is no fucking way I will ever be able to resist playing space dwarves in space if it's true. Even if there aren't space dwarves, what else was supposed to happen in this edition?

[Koumei]

So. Being someone on the fence about getting into this wargame (mostly because I do not have the cash ATM to get into TTRPGs and this),

Don't. That would be my primary advice, and I'm pretty sure I could get most people here to agree on that, even people who always argue with each other. Fuck, I could get both North and South Korea to agree on that.

to make it as infuriating as possible while still making it fun.

It depends. If you like Spess Mehrins, then it is probably fun. If you are an obnoxious person by nature, then it can be, especially with Orks. If you like armies that Matt Ward likes, then it will be fun (though he will rape the fluff, so just don't read anything not stat-related).

If none of the above apply, then you will only find the infuriating bit.

I heard that there are supposed to be space dwarves in this edition. Squats. Ther

Careful, that word gets you b& and abducted/killed, and your post gets baleeted. And they lied to you. The dorfs existed back in very early editions, and were taken out because:
1. They're fucking stupid
2. It's just another Space Marine variant (and then LOL Sisters of Battle, and LOL let's give each SM Chapter its own codex lololol!)
3. Nobody actually liked them or played them - yeah, you get a whole heap of whining and "Bring the stunties back!" from fans, but they never actually played them.
4. Not every WHFB army needs a 40k port (then lol Necrons (Undead), and Dark Eldar, and I can't wait for Wood Eldar)

They're gone, dead, removed from most fluff. You may have heard that other armies are going the same way, though. Until a month or so ago, bets were decent that Dark Eldar were going that way, but they get a new Codex this month (if you haven't downloaded it yet, you're a sucker). Current bets are that Sisters are taking the bullet of baletion soon.

what else was supposed to happen in this edition?

TANKS, MOTHERFUCKING TANKS!

5E is all about Tanks. Infantry MUST take transport vehicles, and heavy support choices WILL be tanks, not squads of dudes with heavy weapons. That's even before we get into Spearhead and Apocalypse. Speaking of which, it's the Edition of crazy expansions - Cities of Death (first made for 4th? I dunno), Apocalypse (first made for 4th, but getting more support in 5th, including tanks even bigger than my ego), Planetstrike (complete with big buildings) and Spearhead (TANK TANKITY TANK-TANK, TANK TANK!)

It's also the edition of new codices getting lots of options and stuff. Space Marines got basically "Everything that every previous codex for other armies ever had" and heroes that make the whole army twin-link their Flamers and Meltas, or make all units Outflank.

Orks became able to field a million greenskins, or mega-powerful elite crack assault squads, or decent vehicles...

Nids can do huge fuck-off swarms where you cover the entire board in minis (complete with monstrous creatures that shit more of the little ones out), even more "my army is ten monstrous creatures, I will break your ass" options, fast-striking flying attackers...

Blood Angels can drop their heaviest tanks in from orbit, and have FLYING PSYCHIC DREADNOUGHTS WITH HARPOONS. And they have a Librarian who is seriously as bulky as a Tyranid Hive Tyrant.

Space Wolves can do tankspam really easily, get some crazy psychic powers, can mount champions on cyber wolves, can actually make their "Dudes with heavy weapons" squads kind of useful, and have some other good stuff. Their best champion is called Wolf Wolfborn of the Space Wolves, he rides a Wolf.

Guard? They can now put ten million guys (and plenty of Lascannons) on the table, or a wall of steel (many many tanks), or bring the jets in.

Yeah. Lots of options, and generally you can make several non-fail lists. So they're doing a lot better than previously. Which is like saying public lavatories are much more hygienic to eat in than they were a hundred years ago.

[Username17]

5th edition seems to be the "throw shit at the wall and then let other people clean it up" edition. First of all: every faction with a codex has like twenty million options that completely change their battle formation and force/allow them to take army compositions that are completely unlike the "normal" lists, which basically means that after you've really read and understood the whole list there is no normal list. But secondly, most of the options are incredibad and in any case are not remotely balanced with each other.

So if you want to play Guard and win, then you end up fielding a company of tanks that are followed around by lesser tanks and led by more elite tanks (with, ironically, smaller guns, because those are the tanks that benefit more from bing more elite). Or you have an army almost entirely composed of PCP smoking madmen with axes, some of whom are carrying giant bombs they can barely lift, let alone throw (that is an actual list). Or something else equally gimmicky and inane. Under no circumstances are you going to accomplish a god damned thing by putting down some number of infantry platoons with some heavy weapons squads, a tank escort, and a commissar. Sure, you're supposed to do something like that, and the game tells you this is "standard", but it is also horse shit. The fact of the matter is that different weaponry is optimized to fight different enemies, so actually having a mixed army is a liability because your opponent has to cover all the bases with his weapons allotments, so every type of target you didn't bring to the table is like extra points your opponent is denied during list creation. If all your points are spent on tanks, your opponent just lost all his points spent on anti-personnel weapons, if all your points are spent on angry naked men, your opponent just flushed all the points they spent on anti-armor.

The third thing to note is that the fluff, such as it was in the grimdarkness of grimdark future space where there is only war, has been fucked. In the eye. With a penis that had chaos mutations or something. The banner carrier for this is the Space Wolves. They are classically speaking an annoying Norsey Norse Norse faction of Spehss Marines who fight you with their rugged Norseness and have a weird set of doctrines about troop setup that made them arbitrarily incredibly overpowered in 2nd edition rules. But in the 5th edition rewrite... they are basically just Wolves. In Space. Apparently someone read the codex title hyper literally and now they have a bunch of Wolf shit for no reason. So... men in power armor riding wolves. Robot wolves. Werewolves. Cannons that shoot wolf teeth. Psychic powers that drop wolves on people. It goes on. And that's really unfortunate.

-Username17

[cthulhu]

The best game GW has ever produced is, was, and always has been Blood Bowl.

If you want to play something GW based, play blood bowl.

[PhoneLobster]

Blood bowl disappointed me when I finally tried it.

It... isn't very exciting, but that wasn't the thing which really disappointed me.

I was expecting a fairly character heavy complex miniatures style game, and what I ended up playing was really more of a simple board game style game. It was, acceptable, for a GW board game, but not amazing.

But the fact that it WASN'T on the level of complexity of a squad based minis game, and WASN'T set up in a way that made me care about a kick ass hand crafted Orc Footballer #7 was really a let down.

Especially considering the pricing and availability of models is in the miniature wargaming style stratosphere.

If I want a beer and pretzels sports board game I'll get a cheaper, better and more complete one from pretty much anybody else.

[Sashi]

The fact of the matter is that different weaponry is optimized to fight different enemies, so actually having a mixed army is a liability because your opponent has to cover all the bases with his weapons allotments, so every type of target you didn't bring to the table is like extra points your opponent is denied during list creation. If all your points are spent on tanks, your opponent just lost all his points spent on anti-personnel weapons, if all your points are spent on angry naked men, your opponent just flushed all the points they spent on anti-armor.

So is the requirement that you cover all bases a literal game requirement or strategic? It would seem like the proper thing to do against an army of naked men is switch to all anti-infantry, and then swap your armament when going up against the tanks.

[Blasted]

What I find amusing about BB is that when played as a computer game, it becomes very obvious that GW cannot even balance a simple game, let alone anything with reasonable complexity.

The developer is left with the pieces saying "I know it's OP, but that's the way it is and we're not allowed to change it".


On space wolves, from memory they always had a 'genetic flaw' which let to growing wolf sized canines, etc. I only played SW in 2nd ed, so my memory maybe a little hazy. Certainly there's been a progression to 'werewolves in sppaaacceee' to match the 'vampires in sppaaacceee' of the blood angels.

Being an avid wargamer, I'm a little very disappointed in the current games on offer. I'd give your left arm for a decently balanced scifi game with nice rules, good enough fluff and the option to BYO miniatures. Even the BYO I can take or leave.

[cthulhu]

What I find amusing about BB is that when played as a computer game, it becomes very obvious that GW cannot even balance a simple game, let alone anything with reasonable complexity.

The developer is left with the pieces saying "I know it's OP, but that's the way it is and we're not allowed to change it".


On space wolves, from memory they always had a 'genetic flaw' which let to growing wolf sized canines, etc. I only played SW in 2nd ed, so my memory maybe a little hazy. Certainly there's been a progression to 'werewolves in sppaaacceee' to match the 'vampires in sppaaacceee' of the blood angels.

Being an avid wargamer, I'm a little very disappointed in the current games on offer. I'd give your left arm for a decently balanced scifi game with nice rules, good enough fluff and the option to BYO miniatures. Even the BYO I can take or leave.

The balance is actually pretty fucking good - excluding the 5 joke teams, the Win spread between the best and worst team is 55-45 in TT leagues, which is better than most fighting games.

Edit: I see where PL is coming from in terms of overall care factor, but I dunno, my bowels clench in fear every time a star thrower takes a blitz or whatever. Which means I care.

[Blasted]

55-35 on high TV, according to BBManager.

Still BBManager's stats are self selected, I don't know if the sample size can make up for it. The other statistic we have is the Cyanide MM, which is flawed by other means, but shows that there's a distinct lack of team variation in the top 100. Most of them are dwarf, wood elf and chaos.

And why any joke teams?

[Zinegata]

First Lago, then dispelling some myths...

Lago->

40K is a pretty expensive hobby to get into. And if you want to play, as opposed to assemble and paint models, it's not an ideal game.

That being said, 5E is generally seen as an improvement, with a bit of streamlining here and there.

There are no Squats coming in though (and Koumei covered pretty well the problem with Squats). There were rumors of another new army that has never been seen before, but I think that ended up being the Daemon codex (which lots of people hated).

As for the myths...

First of all: every faction with a codex has like twenty million options that completely change their battle formation ... are not remotely balanced with each other.

Variable Army Slots have been around since the previous edition. 5th Edition actually cuts down on this rather than adding to it.

And most of the time, messing with Army Slots now requires the purchase of special characters. Game-wise, it balances it a bit because you now have to pay points to get these mods. Money-wise, it makes GW more money.

The fact of the matter is that different weaponry is optimized to fight different enemies, so actually having a mixed army is a liability

*sigh* That's been a problem of 40K since the previous edition. And again, if you think it's bad now, it was worse before.

40K tends to favor all-tank or all-infantry armies since 4th Ed. However, in 5th Ed only troops are allowed to capture objectives. So while tanks are now more awesome, you still need some infantry to capture stuff.

They're still a long way from encouraging true combined-arms play. But it's better than 4th Ed.

The banner carrier for this is the Space Wolves. They are classically speaking an annoying Norsey Norse Norse faction of Spehss Marines who fight you with their rugged Norseness and have a weird set of doctrines about troop setup that made them arbitrarily incredibly overpowered in 2nd edition rules. But in the 5th edition rewrite... they are basically just Wolves. In Space. Apparently someone read the codex title hyper literally and now they have a bunch of Wolf shit for no reason. So... men in power armor riding wolves. Robot wolves. Werewolves. Cannons that shoot wolf teeth. Psychic powers that drop wolves on people. It goes on. And that's really unfortunate.

A lot of people I know actually liked the new Space Wolf codex.

Traditionally, chapter-specific codexes sucked. As in, it's basically the Space Marine Codex with a different paint job, a few house rules, and a couple of new models (Dark Angels Codex, I'm looking at you).

The new Space Wolf codex isn't like that. It actually does feel like a different army from a standard Marine army. And it doesn't suck, like that retarded Black Templars codex which forced you to mix Scout Marines and regular Marines in the same squad.

[cthulhu]

55-35 on high TV, according to BBManager.

Still BBManager's stats are self selected, I don't know if the sample size can make up for it. The other statistic we have is the Cyanide MM, which is flawed by other means, but shows that there's a distinct lack of team variation in the top 100. Most of them are dwarf, wood elf and chaos.

And why any joke teams?

Well, here is the source of win percentages I'm going by. Sample size is 10,972, results drawn from league play across a number of sources. Teams marked with a star are in BB:LE

Necro 57.55

Pro Elf 57.34

Wood Elf 56.52 *

Undead 56.47

Skaven 56.23

Dwarf 56.16 *

CDwarf 53.98

Dark Elf 53.47 *

Norse 53.31

Lizardman 53.16

Chaos 52.01 *

High Elf 51.31

Amazon 50.16

Orc 48.48 * (Favoured by Newbie players for various reasons.. actual tournament performance is better than this. Results are confusing)

Creepers 47.93

Slann 47.01

Khemri 46.88

Human 46.40 *

Nurgle 46.07

Teams below here are shit:

CPact 44.03

Vampire 42.75

Halfling 37.07

Goblin 36.81 *

Ogre 32.42

The cyanide percentages are like they are because the BB:DE line up is very 'bash centric' and humans suck. Pulling out the BB:DE stuff

Wood Elf 56.52 *
Dwarf 56.16 *
Dark Elf 53.47 * (Added late to, not in the Orginal Cyniade blood bowl)
Chaos 52.01 *
Orc 48.48 *
Human 46.40 *
Goblin 36.81 *

So as we can see the BB:DE blood bowl rankings are dominated by Wood Elf, Dwarf and Chaos because those are the best teams in the line up that the Cyanide guys picked. In the Cyanide Winter League, Orks did really well as well (2 semi Finalists were Orcs) which reflects that they are not as good as Chaos at high TVs, but better to start. Ironically, two dark elf teams were the finalists.

Chaos also get a real boost because of the 'real' teams in BB:LE, there are 3 bashy teams and 3 passing teams.. but humans are shit and Dark elves were added late, so there is really Three Bashy Teams and One Passing Team - and Chaos claw hard counters bashy teams.

Overall, it's pretty good. Humans need a bit of a boost - probably giving their catchers +1 strength and maybe adding pro to linesmen (or something).

Edit: Fuck, I forgot lizards. As a weird hybrid, they probably don't invalidate my analysis that Chaos get a boost because bashy teams get a boost. Lizards cage pretty hard, so I'm inclined to add them to the bashy end of the roster.

[Koumei]

I was going to use some WHFB Dark Elves for a BB tourney once, except I was told "You'd have to remove the weapons, otherwise it'd be stupid." They then played two games at a time, but only had one board, so the second game used the New Space Hulk board.

Yeah. And Dark Elves carrying weapons would be stupid. I wonder if I could have used a Genestealer team? In the end I decided "Fuck it, I'm not paying $60+ for a set of minis I'll maybe get to use twice". Besides, I was disappointed that I couldn't field a Khainite team with nothing but Wyches and Assassins.

Anyway...

The wierd sub-lists thing is actually a thing more of the past. Examples:
Chaos Meringues can no longer do that thing where, if they're X type, they get to take 4 Heavy support slots.

Daemons are not limited in a "You took Slaanesh? You can't take Khorne!" way (you just can't take an IC of X and attach it to a unit of Y... oh and Heralds can be taken as 2 for 1 HQ choice, only Greater Daemons take the full slot each)

Dark Elfdar used to have the Wych army thing where Wyches become Troops, Warriors become Elite, and you can't take half a dozen things. No longer. Now, if you take a Master Haemonculus, Wracks (weaker Grotesques, basically "Crack your bitz box open and go nuts!") become Troops choices alongside the Wyches and Warriors.

Apparently Elfdar had weird shit like Wraithlords as Troops. Currently the strangest it gets is "If you take a full group of ten Wraithguard, with a Warlock, for about a million points and ten million pounds, and remember you can't fit their slow asses in a transport, then it's a Troops choice!"

Oh, apparently Wolf Wolves get 3 HQ choices or something.

And yes, Spearhead and Planetstrike alter the "What you're allowed to take" charts, and Apocalypse flat-out says "TAKE EVERYTHING MUAHAHA".

Now, about the specialising thing: very very true.

Troops are the only things that can claim objectives (relevant in 2/3 of the games, but note that anything can contest a claimed objective). You still claim/contest when in a transport. So put your squads in tanks, that way they have immunity to normal guns, and can move 12" (or more, depending on type) per turn. Fuck, put your Heavy Weapon squads (Guardsmen) in a Chimera (they GTA the normal squad out), zoom up to an objective, then next turn go full auto - the tank fires the Multilaser, Heavy Bolter and Heavy Stubber, and the weapon platforms inside fire their Autocannons or Heavy Bolters.

Likewise your Meringues and Wolf Wolfs and all them will break into Combat Squads and ride WAVES of Razorbacks. And so on.

Most basic squads (including compulsory Troops choices) only have crappy anti-infantry weapons, with 1-2 models able to swap them out for special weapons or heavy weapons. So:

Space Marines: 10 doods in the squad? One guy can take a Heavy Bolter/Missile Launcher/Plasma Cannon/Las Cannon, one can take a Plasma Gun/Melta Gun/Flamer. So that's up to 2 anti-tank weapons, and 8+ "Not Very Effective" against Steel-type Pokemon.

Sisters: 10 girls minimum, 2 of them will have Melta Guns (it says they can choose Flamers and shit, but they will take Melta Guns). The other 8 literally waste their turn when you shoot tanks.

Guard: special case. They take a bunch of different little squads as 1 Troops choice, and can add up to three groups of 3 heavy weapons. Pretty effective (but can get expensive).

Most armies have some kind of similar set-up. So you generally don't *have* to take anti-tank options, but then you flat-out lose the game automatically. But you can't *just* take anti-tank options, because the game doesn't let you. And as such, if your whole army is mechanised, then you are immune to all their weaker shit.

But yeah. For Guard, you will either have a million men (lots of lascannons, and as many of the 50-man Conscript squads as you can to soak up fire, along with General Chekov who lets you respawn them because of the "Send in the next wave" tactic), or you will have tanks full of doods, with more tanks and some other tanks as well, or if you're allowed to use bullshit Imperial Armour lists, your leader is actually a Battle Tank (with anti-tank rounds), your Troops choices are squads of 3 Battle Tanks (as in, for regular Guard that's a Heavy choice), your Elite choices are Battle tanks and your Heavy choices are special Battle tanks with "I fuck you up long time" cannons.

Oh, or the "groups of specialists with those fucking underpriced Drills, and the special cannons that make people run away off the board" (again, Imperial Armour only).

Everything is about specialising though. Mixing and matching is bad.

[Zinegata]

In theory, the best Guard lists are either all-Mech or all-Infantry.

In practice though, there have been plenty of pretty good hybrid lists which mix both infantry and tanks.

And the reason for this is the metagaming aspect of building an army. Many players now build lists that are specifically designed to counter mech armies (with lots of AT weapons), or to counter horde armies (with lots of anti-infantry weapons).

When these anti-mech/anti-infantry armies meet a hybrid list, they suddenly find half of their specialist firepower going to waste. It's kinda embarassing when a Vulture Gunship is reduced to firing its three twin-linked lascannons to vaporize 1 Guardsmen after taking out a Russ.

That being said, individual units (i.e. a Space Marine Squad) should definitely be specialized. Because most units can only target one enemy unit per turn.

[cthulhu]

In theory, the best Guard lists are either all-Mech or all-Infantry.

In practice though, there have been plenty of pretty good hybrid lists which mix both infantry and tanks.

And the reason for this is the metagaming aspect of building an army. Many players now build lists that are specifically designed to counter mech armies (with lots of AT weapons), or to counter horde armies (with lots of anti-infantry weapons).

Assuming competitive competition, and acknowledging that the pure lists can have hybrid offense

Attack

T - AT

P - AP

H - Hybrid

Composition

T - Armor

P - Infantry

H - Hybrid

A HT list loses to P(x), HH, draws vs HT & HP, and wins vs A(X) scoring 3 wins, 2 draws and 4 loses.

a TH list on the other hand beats HH, HP, PP, TP, draws the mirror and HT and loses to X(T) for 4 wins, 2 draw and 3 loses.

The correct response to all infantry or all mech lists is to guess what is going to be most common in the meta and pick the opposite one as a hybrid or as a pure kill the most common one.

When these anti-mech/anti-infantry armies meet a hybrid list, they suddenly find half of their specialist firepower going to waste. It's kinda embarassing when a Vulture Gunship is reduced to firing its three twin-linked lascannons to vaporize 1 Guardsmen after taking out a Russ.

This isn't embrassing. The gunship costs about as much as the Russ. If it killed the russ, anything else is just gravy.

Also 40k is a shitty wargame and I hate it.

[Username17]

The correct response to all infantry or all mech lists is to guess what is going to be most common in the meta and pick the opposite one as a hybrid or as a pure kill the most common one.

Sort of. Actually Guard lists of any type are a tiny minority of a tiny minority. The vast majority of lists are some flavor of Marine, with only a secondary nod to Eldar or Orks. If you're fielding Guard or Tau, chance are very good that your opponents will have to read your list twice and chances are even better that the existence of your entire army codex (as opposed to just your list) will have netted zero consideration from your opponent's meta-analysis. Because really their list was designed to kill marines.

This means that your opponent faps to Str 6, AP 1 weaponry, because that shit kills marines. The fact that it is basically no better than a Heavy Bolter against Guard brings a smile to a Guard player's face, but doesn't really rate a second thought to people actually making lists.

Also 40k is a shitty wargame and I hate it.

That is a fair assessment.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Yes, in fact we should form an official club by that name.

And yeah, people love them some S6 (Wound Marines on 2+ - though it's Instant Death for Human/Eldar characters with 2+ Wounds, so...) when Human/Eldar infantry go "So what? S5 does that just as well." Likewise AP3 weapons are crazy overpriced because they are "Marine-killers", and Guard armies (or fucking Orks or Wyches with Sv 6+ or -) go "And? Nice job there, wasting those points when a Bolter breaks my armour".

And AP2, well, that's your Terminator-killer (ignoring the Invuln. save - which can be 3+ if they have Hammer and Shield, the fuckers), so naturally you're paying assloads of points and every non-PA list goes "Hahaha, stupid motherfucker" (especially in the case of Plasma, where you sometimes kill yourself with it).

Occasionally you get people making lists saying "Now if I have to deal with ____ Nid list or ____ Guard list", but usually it's just "And this is how I handle Marines."

[cthulhu]

The correct response to all infantry or all mech lists is to guess what is going to be most common in the meta and pick the opposite one as a hybrid or as a pure kill the most common one.

Sort of. Actually Guard lists of any type are a tiny minority of a tiny minority. The vast majority of lists are some flavor of Marine, with only a secondary nod to Eldar or Orks. If you're fielding Guard or Tau, chance are very good that your opponents will have to read your list twice and chances are even better that the existence of your entire army codex (as opposed to just your list) will have netted zero consideration from your opponent's meta-analysis. Because really their list was designed to kill marines.

This means that your opponent faps to Str 6, AP 1 weaponry, because that shit kills marines. The fact that it is basically no better than a Heavy Bolter against Guard brings a smile to a Guard player's face, but doesn't really rate a second thought to people actually making lists.

Also 40k is a shitty wargame and I hate it.

That is a fair assessment.

-Username17

Yeah, last time I played a 40k tournament my entire list was 'how many plasma guns can you realistically get in an imperial guard army + some' and yeah, it works well.

[Zinegata]

cthulhu is pretty much correct regarding the metagame, while Frank is only somewhat correct regarding Marines. While Marines are still a majority, I'm seeing a lot more non-Marines in my locality (Guard mainly).

The main reason for this is that cover saves are much more widespread in 5th Ed. In 4th Ed, everybody is packing Plasma Guns because it's the only reliable way to take out the Marine 3+ Armor Save.

In 5th Ed however, it's pretty easy to get a 4+ cover save. And cover saves are not negated by AP weapons like Plasma guns. So with some basic positioning, a Guardsman will have a save that's almost as good as a Marine's, while costing only half the points of a Marine.

In short, thanks to cover saves the way to kill infantry (both Marine and non-Marine) nowadays is via saturation fire. People still take plasma guns and meltas, but I'm seeing them used more and more for light anti-tank work as opposed to Marine-killing.

Still, 40K's not a good miniatures wargame (again, us historical wargamers aren't dead yet and we still lay claim to the "wargame" title ). 5th Ed is better, but it's more of going from "pretty damn bad" to "pretty bad".

40K is really more fun if you like to make models and play a light-hearted wargame.

[TheFlatline]

40K is really more fun if you like to make models and play a light-hearted wargame.

There's entire wargames that still use models/figs and can be gotten into for 1/10th of the cost.

I went into a Games Workshop store the other day (big mistake) to see if they had paint in a specific GW color that I liked. First, 5 dollars for a fucking quarter of an ounce of paint is bullshit.

Second, holy fuck the guy who worked there is a hard sell. He would. Not. Leave. Me. Alone. The entire time I was in the store he was pushing fucking plastic models on me. I eventually left because I couldn't look at any of the stock without him distracting me. Then when I wanted to look at the paint colors he spent 10 minutes blocking the paint rack telling me how much I really needed to buy his last super-paint-combo, with like 50 or 60 paint pots, only 200+ dollars.

Also, it's not surprising that 40k has become TankHammer 40k. If you're fielding a half dozen tanks on the field, they are 50-60 dollars a pop, and you are that means you're spending at *least* 300 dollars on your army. Once you're done painting them, you've probably spent another 100 bucks if you use GW brand paint, glue, and wanking tissues.

[souran]

Some of the things being said here have little relevance to reality. Others are aspects of the game that apply only when looking at things through a really skewed perspective.

However, that doesn't change the fact that people are basically correct. Unless you have about 2 grand lying around that you have no better use for don't get into 40k

So, a recap of some of the major points that need a bit more explanation:

tanks motherfucker!

Yes, in the newest edition most everybody wants armor of some sort. Vehciles in general were pretty crappy in 3rd/4th edtions of 40k as they sort of became these huge targets that had:

a) to Stand still fo fire there best weaponry
b) No meaningful way of interacting with infranty
c) weak enough armor that many of them could be destroyed by just firing a squards basic armanent at them

Honestly, the only advantage of vehiles/tanks was really that you didn't have to paint a whole squad of guys.

GW attempted to fix this buy making vehicles relevant. Which they needed badly. However, they did it by doing what hey have done with everything in this edition which was

Throw Shit[ty rules] at the wall and see what sticks

Lots of people liked 2nd edition 40k where it was really 1 or 2 squads on a side.

Most people wanted larger battles. So the 3rd edition rules were designed to cut down on the complexity of the 2e/necromunda type rules and make things pretty standard.

It did help, a 1500 point game (which takes about 4 hours to play and is really the target size for any "personal" collection of models) grew to be about a half dozen squards and supporting vehicles.
but they were boring and brutally straight forward.

4th edition began a powercreep unseen even by GW before. Soon there monster was totally out of control. Tyranids would be able to become endless, orc troopers would be basically free. Space marines would be immune to anything that they didn't like etc.

This could be good for the game. It would help if the "horde" armies and the "shooty" armies and the "tank" armies all played a little more diverse. And it is a wargame. When your opponent does something you don't like that should be par for the course.

However, the result is that the game has become a little bit like playing soldeirs in the backyard (which I guess is the wargaming equivalent to magic tea party) where each side just keeps bring out bigger and bigger weapons and utilizing more and more silly trump cards or special rules till one person is screaming that the other has under-estimated the power of his fully operation battle station! (Note that this is no guantee of victory because the other guy is probably playing the "furred miniature jungle dwellers" variation of his army list)

So the game is a bit on the crazy side right now.

Appco-City-Fight-Spearhead-shananigans

In addition to the funiness within army lists, GW has decided that actually publishing a game is hard and it would be much better if all there players would just buy the miniatures, scenary, glues, paints, and all the other expensive products for the hobby and then instead of actually playing a game with them to have each player pick up a miniature, point it at somebody elses miniature, and make machine-gun-noises and then proclaim that the other minature is dead.

40k Appcolpse is designed to make it so that everygame of warhammer can be as annoying as the "100,000 point!" multi-table affairs that they have at conventions where everybody plays 750 points of totally expendable crap while dozens of GW staff try to turn what is really the permanent chaos of grown men playing with undersized space GI joes into a "game".

The fact is that only the stupidly wealthy can possibly afford to own an appcoplypse sized battle force. So really what normally happens is people play teams. Only big battles played as teams become slow.

Spearhead is just a way of adding the crazy ass new vehicle rules to appcolypse madness.


So Lago: as you have been told before. NO you don't want to play 40k.

[Blasted]

The cyanide percentages are like they are because the BB:DE line up is very 'bash centric' and humans suck. Pulling out the BB:DE stuff

Wood Elf 56.52 *
Dwarf 56.16 *
Dark Elf 53.47 * (Added late to, not in the Orginal Cyniade blood bowl)
Chaos 52.01 *
Orc 48.48 *
Human 46.40 *
Goblin 36.81 *
...

Chaos also get a real boost because of the 'real' teams in BB:LE, there are 3 bashy teams and 3 passing teams.. but humans are shit and Dark elves were added late, so there is really Three Bashy Teams and One Passing Team - and Chaos claw hard counters bashy teams.

Make sense, I think Chaos/Dwarf have an advantage in longer leagues as they tend to severely injure/kill opponents, where WE/DE just win games

Overall, it's pretty good. Humans need a bit of a boost - probably giving their catchers +1 strength and maybe adding pro to linesmen (or something).

Why do you think Vampires are so bad? I was under the illusion that 6ed gave them something of a boost by not having them kill their thralls so hard.

Are your stats from fumbbl?


FWIW I'm thinking my next foray will be into one of spartan game's ship combat wargames. I think the scifi one - it'll be easier to drum up opponents and I have plenty of mooks for standins/objectives.

[cthulhu]

Chaos also get a real boost because of the 'real' teams in BB:LE, there are 3 bashy teams and 3 passing teams.. but humans are shit and Dark elves were added late, so there is really Three Bashy Teams and One Passing Team - and Chaos claw hard counters bashy teams.

Make sense, I think Chaos/Dwarf have an advantage in longer leagues as they tend to severely injure/kill opponents, where WE/DE just win games

Dwarves actually get worse in longer leagues - the reason being that once whoever they are playing gets block, Dwarves big advantage goes out the window and they are stuck with their slow movement speeds.

Chaos are bad at the start (see: Their total failure in the Cynaide winter league) because they have great stats, expensive players and no skills. However, once they get their full roster on the pitch and get skills they are seriously nasty.

Why do you think Vampires are so bad? I was under the illusion that 6ed gave them something of a boost by not having them kill their thralls so hard.

I don't know, never played one. I suspect they did get a boost but it's not enough. It appears that teams of a few good guys and lots of immense fail clogging up the rest of the pitch are just bad - Ogres, Chaos Pact, Nurgle, Vampire Counts all fall into this category and they are all shit.

The teams with a few good players that don't suck - like undead - actually have a number of pretty good positionals that do what they say on the box.

Are your stats from fumbbl?

No, if they publish I'd be interested in seeing them.

[spasheridan]

BB. The only way to play BB is with a turn clock. 3 minutes and you are out of there. You get 2 minutes of safe actions then you HAVE to go pick up the ball and make that pass, otherwise you are doomed. Stop counting those squares and move a model, no take backs.

As far as balance - one side gets chainsaws. To play rugby. Name your linebacker Rimjabber and have a beer while you roll some dice. Honestly, adding beer to a GW game is about the only way I can stomach them these days, but it makes you realize how those guys in England play games - DRUNK OFF THEIR ASS. I guess that's how they write the rules too

[Koumei]

how those guys in England play games - DRUNK OFF THEIR ASS. I guess that's how they write the rules too

It's fucking England, why would they not be drunk there? All other options involve being miserable because of the weather, the economy, the social conditions and the fact that the Great British Empire is no more, just a thing of the past.

[TheFlatline]

I just picked up blood bowl: Legendary Edition for like 25 bucks and had forgotten how insanely frustrating it is to play against dwarf teams early on in a season. Seriously frustrating. I remember the older Blood Bowl game having to score touchdowns and shit with my linemen so that they could SPP up to get a fucking block skill hopefully.

That was back when 95% of the games played in the "league" were against dwarves and I think humans.

Also, n00bs are guided towards Orcs because they play like new players think Blood Bowl should be played. They have good armor, they don't suck at their movement rates terribly hard, and they're pretty strong and like to bash the f*ck out of people.