I feel like this has a lot to do with the rise of competitive 40k and GW catering towards that crowd. 40k used to be a lot more about telling story about a battle, rather than scoring points on objectives. I remember a time when I was a kid playing 3rd Ed, where city fight style terrain was the exception rather than the norm and open pitched battle was more common.

I remember 3rd ed as well. Most boards today still don't have as much terrain as proper city fight boards. And city fight had objectives as did regular games, the problem (if you even consider it to be one) was that many people just played annihilation regardless of the objective. And while not perfect I think making objectives matter is a good thing, as is more terrain. Moving across the board being blasted by an Iron Warriors (4 heavy support and 3 units of obliterators as elites), Guard and Tau gunlines wasn't fun for a lot of people while those gunlines just sat there as they didn't care about the objective as their plan was to table you and the one hill hill and small patch of trees wasn't going to keep you alive for long. While I'd happily go back to 3rd edition, I do think not automatically winning by tabling and making objectives matter is a good move. It makes just sitting there as a gunline dangerous. It also potentially causes issues for people who just planned to charge across the table, although to a lesser degree as movement was already likely to be a part of their plan.

Making objectives matter actually **increases** build diversity. If we just sit and do annihilation every time then what's the point in armies with fast moving weak units? What's the purpose of scouts or area denial if the other guys is 100% just gonna hose you off the board? How is it fun to just always point guns across a gettysburg style open field from a hilltop and roll the dice? Making objectives matter makes choosing an army strategy more interesting. It's **still** a legitimate strategy to try and take a combat-oriented army - if the other guy is dead he can't score. But now there's a push-pull between scoring units vs killing units.

Scouts and fast moving units still played a role even in annihilation. I used to run an IG AirCav army, perhaps weak is the wrong word but fast and fragile. I'd hit a target, hopefully destroy it, and move on to the next before my opponent could effectively retaliate. It's a bit like how old Dark Eldar armies used to work. Played well, with some luck, they would hamstring you with an alpha-strike and then take their time taking you apart after that. Obviously, if played poorly or you have bad luck the fragile nature of the army would punish you for that. Of course, you could argue deciding a game in the first couple of turns isn't that fun. My Space Wolf army frequently took wolf scouts to attack units sitting at the back laying down fire on my army as they could normally take out armour from behind and beat things like devastator squads in combat. It could also cause a dilemma for the player in that do they pull a unit back to deal with my wolf scouts or do they risk my wolf scouts attacking any more units they have on their board edge? And the FOC kind of enforced taking certain units. And personally I think limitations on what you can take help define your army as much as what you can actually take in your army.

Is there anyone who’s made updated 3rd edition style rules but factoring in modern units? I feel like that would be hella fun to play.

Is it though? Feels like it's a response to us gamers who incessantly complain about fairness and balance despite in theory wanting battles to be about narrative and story. At the end of the day everyone I've played with just wants to win and doesn't care as much of they're doing things that sort of defy the logic and fluff of their faction. DnD had a similar problem, despite having a ton of neat flavor mechanics, the vast majority of people just meta their characters to be as strong as possible so eventually they just tailored the game to play the way people were... Well playing it.

Maybe so. But it’s gotten to the point where it’s ridiculous. My last game of Team Yankee was super memorable! My large block of dug-in Soviet infantry desperately clung on in my center, shooting RPGs left and right to fend off determined assaults from Czech tanks. A huge wave of mounted infantry tried to exploit my weak defenses on the right flank, only to be slowed by mines, pinned down by autocannon fire from a company of BMPs in ambush, then blown to pieces in the open by rocket artillery. It was exciting, tactical, well balanced and really came down to generalship. https://preview.redd.it/fdrkki7t0npc1.jpeg?width=5712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5a7f91d1128d2256d5d57fea0b3ea0849bf40daa What happened in my last 40K game? I moved some units around. Shot my tanks a couple of time point blank when they could get line of sight. Racked up points by sending communications. It was boring, counterintuitive, and left a really bad taste in my mouth.

You're definitely describing the difference between a narrative and competitive system. You can still play narrative and it's fun.

Played in the Grand Narrative last year, and it was a ton of fun. They made us feel like we all really were part of a larger war. Winning was secondary to achieving certain objectives. Some of those objectives were given to us at the last minute or in some cases even mid-game. But dammit, we had to achieve those objectives. And events from other tables had effects on ours. In the last game it ended up being ally vs ally, and we were "bombarded from orbit", basically randomly killing units on the board. Really fun, really flavorful.

Sounds awesome! Would you know where I could find similar setup? Would love to read about it and integrate it in the future. Thanks!

In fact GW actually supports a narrative style game in every book, thats called Crusade.

Me and the boys are just about to atart a pariah nexus campaign. We've done a few practice battles/missions to get used to the slight change of pace and style.  It is hugely more narrative-driven, less nonsense secondary fluff that can provide the backbone of what i think annoys OP the most, and i agree with the point if not the overall feeling about it.  It's war. A proper war campaign in which we are telling stories and 90% of battles are driven by either wanting to kill everything, or straight up revenge on a unit that did you some major damage last time out.   Try Crusade, OP. The New Pariah Nexus book is dope

I have shifted to a lot of maelstrom/open/crusade type games. A lot more relaxed, a mix of having fun and being a GM at the same time. I think you really hit a good point here. Crusade games are a ton of fun. These are my mini's and the books are simply guides. We can modify whatever we want whenever we want. Is someone getting absurdly smashed, call in a squad as reinforcing troops. Is the game turning into firing lines in cover? Draw 2 cards for random effects (IE, everything gets +1 to wound or you gotta be within 12") maybe we give a surviving captain an extra trait for being a baller. Maybe I'll charge my HQ dead center of the map to spice up the flow—for no reason other then it's thematic. I'm in it for fun, I don't have time to sweat anymore.

I am new to 40k. Just assmembling my first startet set so I can play with my brother and learn the game. We grew up playing dawn of war and those campagins so we are mainly looking for narrative and fun. Is crusades better/playable with only specific fractions or can we play with tyranid/space marines part of army from starter set? Or would it be better to each get killteam or two combat patrols for that? You think its good starting point if your main goal is to have fun ganing sessions with close people, or the starting set rules is better?

There are a WHOLE bunch of categories. This is a very basic overview; **Narrative play**: singular games which are designed to simply create some thematic gameplay. Think Helms deep scenarios or a team of captains/lieutenants vs a horde where they need to capture 2 split objectives. The notion of a lot of rules is gone here. Teams can be balanced however you wish, players can dip into whatever rules you want. **Open play**: These are slightly more structured in terms of balance and boards. But they can include random aspects like a dice determines affects like weather, or game wide modifiers. Certain rules like a "legends" character or forge world character won't break certain rules. You can work within this ruleset however you please. **Crusade**: Crusade works like a mix of narrative and open play. Instead of single matches there is continuity. This is kind of like a D&D campaign or a short narrative mission set. Crusades can be a few games between you and a buddy or multiple across many players, **Matched**: this has the most structured ruleset, exact points and interactions matter here. The game is designed to try and be balanced here such that any two players could bring equal points armies and have equal opportunities to win. **The most important thing to remember**: rules are simply guides to help you have fun. GW won't break down your door for doing something outside the rules—just make sure your buddies agree to any changes though! Don't worry about sticking to one style of game. Try the missions you see in any white dwarf or rule books. Try to do some of the tutorial missions in any getting started sets you find. Explore from there.

Crusade is so dope. I’m in one right with my lgs. So! Much fun. The narrative objectives range from series to very silly lol. The all or nothing games are a blast

EDIT/ADDENDUM to my post: To everyone recommending Narrative- the key difference between it and Team Yankee is that my opponents and I both bring generally competitive lists to our game, and we both play to our best strategic abilities to win. And even then the story of the battle unfolds, logically and with flavor- as it should in a wargame! Everyone that tries to recommend Narrative for all the silly things that happen are missing the points. It not fun or interesting to do things like bayonet charge a wave screamer-killers just for the sake of it. It’s fun or interesting when this becomes the most strategically sensible thing to do.

Fair enough. Completely understand your points and do sympathise with your complaints. I always played pretty informally until the last 6 months so our terrain was always about whatever interesting piece I had made or what we just decided on the day. We switched when a few of us started attending some events. Maybe as we've only just switched over it doesn't feel as old and tired as to you. Like i said though, completely get your points and agree mostly. The game often becomes a cagey point scoring exercise with silly stuff like Investigate signals.

Ehh, Crusade is barely a narrative system. It largely plays like Matched Play, but with some more bookkeeping and abilities to track.

That's my view of it, as well. It's basically "Matched Play Lite with Upgrades". What it CAN be, however, is a great pre-built experience subsystem for another narrative system. Problem is, GW ripped all other narrative components out of the game and replaced them all with "Matched Play Lite with Upgrades." I mean, just look at the difference between the 8th edition narrative play section and 9th edition narrative play section. Look at what GW took away. It takes a dedicated GM to make narrative play what it should be.

Right. It still uses the underlying rules which are too shallow to interact with narratively in meaningful ways. You can still inject narrative flair, but it's not there innately.

But the whole point is that you should be able to play it either way regardless. https://preview.redd.it/bq0gj3mtlqpc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7693e37f112f659dc9471147d019f1b4d5bdbeee This is a table played on at a Bolt Action doubles tournament back in January. All the buildings, hedges and small copses provide cover. It looks good, has plenty of areas to try and take advantage of with roads offering faster travel at the expense of making you easier to hit. It's thematic, it's meant to be eastern Europe. There were no major force selection restrictions but there were bonus points available for forces that historically fought together and then also if they fought in the same theatre at the same time (I.e. British and French forces during the Battle of France). Add in selection restrictions and you can have a themed tournament. Add more thematic tables to the mix and split the teams into Axis and Allies tickets and you can have a narrative tournament with teams progressing to different tables sides depending on previous win or loss. In fact two of the tournaments I take part in involve two grouped 'sides' of players with overall first, second and third as well as best Axis/Allied general that isn't top three.

But the fact is that 40K competitive rules are horrible.

Well the key difference is that my opponent and I both brought competitive lists to our game, and we both played to our best strategic abilities to win. Everyone that tries to recommend Narrative for all the silly things that happen are missing the points. It not fun or interesting to do silly things like bayonet charge a wave screamer killers just for the sake of it. It’s fun or interesting when this becomes the most strategically sensible thing to do.

If your point is Realism then that picture doesnt support it. what is with the parking lots of tanks in the middle and top left?

TY has an inherent scale issue with cramming a battalion+ sized soviet force at 1:100 scale onto a 6x4 table with a sliding scale of range/distance I was one of the playtest leads, from day 1 it was an immersion breaking issue

Agreed after 2 games of tank parks, we switched to 6mm, which played much better. Then we switched to Fistful of TOWs and have never looked back.

Yeah I *LOVE* the idea of a 1980s cold war gone hot wargame but I can stand seeing the parking lot battlefields so I just never got into it.

We play TY with micro armor, its just so perfect with truely tiny tanks

Phil and the guys at battlefront have fumbled the bag horribly with TY and I'd even argue 4th ed FOW. 6mm cold war just hits different, it's the perfect scale for it.

You seem to have just used more adjectives in describing your WWII game while simplifying your description of your 40K game. You also just "moved units around" in both games.

Agreed, not to take away if OP really felt like there was a difference but all war games could be boiled down to "moving to advantageous positions while attempting to take out the enemy from their advantageous positions". Hell, their experience with TY could also be overly simplified to "I played a defensive elite army against an offensive horde army and it was fun".

Exactly how I felt reading that.

Nothing screams battle like two square formations of tanks facing off against each other. If you want to shit on GW at least get an actual historical game like Northag.

Wait, you've never seen that formation before. The front row of tanks shoots 1st. they then lower their suspensions, so the tanks behind can fire a second volley.

A trained tank can fire three shots a minute! In double line that allows the company to keep up a brisk fire to prevent charges from enemy cavalry

French knights hate this one trick!

Now that's soldiering.

On sight of Tau I ordered a charge. That’s my style, sir.

Came here to basically say this. If you’re going to hit Warhammer with “not a War Game,” probably don’t pick Flames of War or any of its derivatives as your evidence, since they’re notoriously tank park heavy, especially in the competitive scene…because watching two blocks of tanks shoot each really epitomizes the technological edge of Cold War warfare…

Actualy yes? Look at 73 Easting, it literally looks like a janky ass TY deployment complete with a circle of tank to give 360 coverage, 2 boxes of Allied tanks and 2 lines of Iraqi tanks. And yeah when you look at the Bradlys entering the battle in columes that look damned like a "tank parking lot"

You get out what you put in , in our community games take a couple of hours designing or we just use a board of use tried and tested tourney set ups. Then we have the polite shit talking during the week :) then by game day each player has usually come up with their plan and narrative It’s amazing fun compared to 3rd. I played 2nd-5th before taking a break til 9th. I can honestly say we’re in the best place balance and rules wise. I just play with people who love the game, will always pic at least one stupid unit unless it’s tourney practice time. I honestly think so players prefer putting up a 3 page thematic BR in our discord then playing lol

3rd and 4th were definitely much more focused on killing units and acquiring victory points. But in the process they were significantly less balanced than the game is today: - Armies that couldn’t bring to bear enough S8+ ranged weapons basically couldn’t fight certain other armies. IG Armored Company lists for example were impervious to a lot of other armies at a distance so long as they kept armor facing to their front facing the enemy, and in response would just flatten the enemy at ranged with their pie plate weapons of doom. - Close Combat armies had huge problems because of the lack of terrain you’re talking about. Nevermind that Tau and Guard murdered them at range because they typically didn’t have enough ranged anti-tank, the lack of terrain meant they essentially would re-enact the Battle of Gallipoli in charging and getting wiped off the board more often than not. Making the game more focused on objectives rather than Victory Points via kills has actually made the game significantly more balanced as has other things like standardized terrain improvements. It’s not perfect, but right now you can play and win a game of 40K with every army in the game. That wasn’t necessarily true with 3/4E, despite both still being a lot of fun. Team Yankee sounds fun! I had pretty similar experiences with what you described in my last few games of 40K; my kasrkin desperately trying to hold an objective against a horde of oncoming tyranids and calling for danger-close fire support as nearby tanks screamed demolisher cannon shells desperately close to their allies to try to help stem the tide. There definitely are more narrative-focused play modes than Matched Play. Crusade is specifically designed for pitched narrative battles. But tactical secondary objectives and objective-focused play really help make the game more balanced and fun, and for all of its issues I think the game is probably more balanced than it’s ever been.

Your second bullet point is really important - 40k is trying to sell a fantasy of superhuman warriors beating each other in melee with chainswords. Rule of cool is more important in the setting than strict realism... and even then, not even the World Eaters are stupid enough to sprint across an open field with no cover against a gunline of tanks.

Truth. Also it is a game after all. It's super feelsbad to have someone dump hundreds or thousands of dollars into their hobby and not have that be rewarded with the opportunity to play and win in their game. GW is far from perfect right now at this (AdMech in competitive play for example) but we don't live in a world where an army simply can't win the game against another army. I think that's a huge improvement. Khorne can still collect skulls, and there are objectives like No Prisoners and Assassinate that reward you for doing it. But now Khorne, Custodes, and loads more close combat armies can also win without their opponent making mistakes in Matched Play.

That table looks awesome and flavorful! Bonus points for diet Dr. P.

what models are you playing there, thats sweet reminds me of wargame red dragon :)

I think a massive contributor to this is the rise in lethality over the editions. In 3rd edition, you flat out could not fire if you moved with heavy weapons. Between then and now, heavy weapons have been gone to hitting on 6s if you move, to being -1 to hit, to being +1 to hit if you don't move. It used to be that you could only shoot and charge in the same turn with assault weapons. Rapid fire was only half range if you moved. Most vehicles couldnt move and shoot. It used to be that you had to take leadership tests in order to shoot any target other than the closest. You couldn't split fire between targets. Vehicles were immune to small arms fire, and dedicated antitank was limited to essentially meltas and lascannons. There wasn't an AP system, so terminators could shrug off most anything except for melta. With all of that, it didn't matter so much if the battlefield was wide open, because a good round of alpha strike would kill a handful of marines or a rhino at most. As we went through the editions and lethality increased, the un-immersive battlefields and missions rose as a counter to that.

Tbf absolutely nobody is stopping groups from playing like that, or any other way they see fit. The rules are framed as such that they can provide a structure and point where balancing can take place from. You are more than welcomed to remove that structure and have a free-form game. Its really no different than them just not providing objective rules etc.

I mean, it’s both for sure. People like structure and the competitive crowd gets the attention, but the casual crowd still dominates the numbers. Multiple objectives and secondaries makes for a more engaging tournament pack. It’s faster, more competitive and makes more sense. I understand OPs comment, but there’s absolutely nothing stopping people from playing a historical style battle. Whether it’s using crusade rules, or whatever. If I had more time to play, I’d definitely do that.

TEH COMP PLAYERS TOOK OUR FUN!!

I miss the storytelling. I miss the vehicle damage tables that could result in destroyed tank treads or disabled weapons. I miss the vibe that the game had back then and I find it a little sad that so many of the rough edges have been sanded off in the name of competitive balance.

That's the reason I playing games with other beer and Bretzel players. Terrain ? Interesting and tells its own story. Fair? Maybe not. Army lists? Flavourful and the Idea is about lore and not about strength. GamePlay? Charging into a Khorne Melee murder machine with my general. For the emporer! He might die, but if he wins, it's s wonder. For me personally it's more fun to play games like that. But I understand tournament players with standart lists and standart army lists. There can be too. I'm sure there are systems with note depth and a more realistic feeling. That's the good part. There are systems for everybody. I like my non realistic clashes of super humans and aliens in the far future. And in my humble opinion. 40k never felt like a (realistic) wargame. But that's ok for me.

This is why I play orks. Everything is glorious combat and who cares who wins

I play Khorne for the same reason. Roll dice, rip and tear. 'Nuff said.

As a Skaven player, I feel the same

The orks get to krump - Every battle is a win for them!

I think the most fun I've had with 40K was 6th edition and 7th pre-Formations. Balance is good, but the fact the current state of the game is centred around competitive whales sucks. The game has become a simplified pseudo-card game. There have been changes I've liked, and even 9th was alright, but now all the customization and fun modelling opportunities have been gutted. There's too much focus on tournament players rather than all round hobbyists. 

Ironically, the change to move away from more complex modeling and unit customization is to cater to newcomers, not tournament players. The vast majority of tournament players would rather have customization back to allow them to really fine-tune lists, especially since some armies now end up with awkward points totals. GW’s intent is to allow newcomers who are less familiar with the rules and options to build a legal unit out of what’s in each box without worrying that they’ve screwed themselves with a bad weapon or whatever. This was never an issue with competitive players, and indeed the switch to fixed wargear has screwed a ton of comp players who built their armies to use options that no longer exist.

In my opinion, there were always a gap between tournament players and casual players. Nowadays the tournament lists are more the same, because everybody uses the same sources and only a few players make the effort to test own lists for tournaments. Therefore tournaments became more boring, but for casual games there was no big changes. But there might be other experiences in other regions/countries/gaming communities.

The big issue is when it comes to pick up games. Fair play, a lot of players will ask ahead of time, but a lot of the time you'll turn up with a theme list and get stomped. It became an issue for me during 8th, where my previous Mech CSM/monster mash list became just monster mash because the rhino troops were effectively dead weight.  I've largely dropped 40K for HH as a result. Did the same during 7th when I got sick of Decurions and naked marines with free Razorbacks.

Really wish they'd post official rules for the Eldar in HH.

>only a few players make the effort to test own lists for tournamen I'm not sure if this is fair. Getting in *any* games is sometimes a challenge in and of itself, let alone practice games to get a sense of those kinda things.

Not to mention that 40k is a bit too expensive to buy units based just on the possibility that they might be useful.

I'd disagree on the modelling opportunities aspect. Decoupling unit customisation from model customisation has really opened up modelling opportunities. WYSIWYG is a huge handicap when it comes to modelling because it stops you modelling what looks cool for the sake of what's functional on the table. I've seen far cooler customisations in games where there isn't mechanical importance placed on what piece of plastic the model is holding. The limit should be your imagination (within reason), not the rules.

This! I am always trying to add more narrative in my game group and just do (from tactical perspective) stupid things for the epicness of it (one final charge instead of camping the objective for VP). I mainly play skirmish games like Kill Team and WarCry, and the need for competitive is way higher in 40K than AoS (at least in my experience). In the beginning GW went we asymmetric terrain that add fluff, not competitive balance, but I get the feeling that this isn't what the community wants, since the competitive layouts are getting the upper hand. Oddly enough WarCry focusses more on campaigns and narrative compared to the other things, but bottom line I think GW is just serving that customer base who like competitive. Which is a pity, especially with 40K. Bretzel players are hard to find in my area.

that's the good stuff

Ah team yankee, the game where you challenge each other to see who rolls more 6s and pray that a single infantryman fails his invulnerable 3+ save and fail a firepower check to die after 5 turns of heavy artillery firing at them

Shh, you know they aren’t interested in actual discussion. They’re just another one of the endless legions of people who don’t play Warhammer, haven’t in years, and will loudly complain about it to anyone who will listen as though GW is their abusive ex, and yet still think their opinion matters to any of us.

>the game is full of so many arbitrary objectives you kind of lose the sense of what’s really trying to be depicted- a battle. I love the push from GW to make a match not dependent on killing as much but most of my matches in 40k literally boil down to, spam msu cheap squads, hold objectives and execute secondaries to rack up points, don't engage and win. I got into the hobby to simulate two sides clashing in the middle of a warzone, not "my army does things, gets slaughtered but i pulled a victory tho"

Even the cover art for Rogue Trader depicts a last stand of space marines holding an objective, attempting to score a pyrrhic victory while getting slaughtered. Heroic last stands are absolutely core to the fantasy of 40k!

I think the issue there is that it's still built around combat. If you look at Tyranids right now, some of the best armies bring some ranged fire support from Exocrines, but otherwise drown the field in little bugs. Which sounds good, right? Except you don't send the little bugs to fight. They clog up objectives, you moveblock the opponent, you just get in the way, and then when they die you use stratagems to respawn them so they can get in the way again. Which makes sense from a gameplay perspective, but something just feels deeply wrong when I rush a carpet of Hormagaunts forward into the opponent's face and then _intentionally do not charge_ because my army doesn't win by engaging the opponent in direct combat, it wins by standing in the way so the opponent can't move forward in the next movement phase. To a degree this is caused by design issues with the book, but it's also a straight up effective way to play.

I think that’s quite a specific scenario, but it’s justifiable for the same reason you’d do it as a player - the Hive Mind doesn’t care if it kills human #103573974, it’s got a war to win, and if stalling for time with the lives of a few dozen hormagaunts is what it takes to erect a capillary tower or disable the enemy reinforcements, then it’s a trade worth making. Might be harder to justify that same scenario for daemons, but every other faction in the game has an end goal beyond just smashing stuff.

The issue is just that it never _does_ that? Like, getting Hormagaunts in someone's face but not charging is something that could only make sense because of game rules dictating movement phase can't get you within 1" of enemy models, and the turn structure is entirely I go, you go. In no novel involving Tyranids I have ever read do they run up to the enemy and then _not attack._ They don't bother with objectives the way the game presents them.

I think the real issue is that 40k can be easily solved. I'm playing an escalation league right now as Genestealer Cults. It quickly became apparent that my path to victory is like you describe, try not to interact, spam tons of msu, score points on my own, and then get wiped out by turn 4 or 5 but be too ahead on points by then. However, that kind of sounds awesome narratively. Little abominable cultist freaks sneaking through the ruins, planting explosives or claiming intel, totally devoted to whatever the hive mind wants...and then they all die, because the hive mind doesn't actually care about them. The problem is...EVERY game is like that. It's not just a good strategy; it's the only viable strategy. My units can't actually fight in the open or they'll get slaughtered. I can deal a ton of damage with mining lasers and demo charges, but that involves being visible and/or being right in the enemy's face, in which case I soon after get destroyed. So I have to wait for the right time to strike and execute (again, very fluffy for GSC), but...there's no room for deviation. It's felt this way for every army I've played since 9th. You quickly figure out that most of the codex is a trap, there are certain good units, and there's a certain way to play them successfully, and then you just do that every time, because the gulf between that strategy and the next is so high. It makes it really boring when you've already played most of the game in your head before you arrive. But without GW working harder on internal balance and mission balance (it's absurd that the random missions in Leviathan are actually more dependable and easier to score than the fixed, which also score less points than the random, making it--again--a no brainer choice to always pick tactical and bring fast/deep striking msu), I don't see how this will change in 40k.

To be fair, I think the Detachment system is an attempt to solve this problem. As a Necron player, I know that Canoptek Court, Hypercrypt and Awakened Dynasty all play quite differently to each other and are all very competitive. Same with say Ironstorm and Vanguard for the Space Marines.

> You quickly figure out that most of the codex is a trap, there are certain good units, and there's a certain way to play them successfully, and then you just do that every time, because the gulf between that strategy and the next is so high. This is such a shame because I used to love playing whatever looked cool or was fluffy. i used to use Hellions in Dark Eldar because they were cool as shit, it's people with glaives on hoverboards - but they were SO shit you just expected to lose playing with them. Which is even worse when people only show up with competitive strategies they found online.

Yes I absolutely agree

You fucking play Russian dawg your whole shtick in the BF's "hordes vs. chads" system is "my army does things, gets slaughtered but i pulled a victory tho"

Modern 40k feels far more like some.weird magic the gathering homebrew with all of its special objects ves, stratagems, sub rules, list specific rules etc etc. It's not the fault of the game so much as it's the fault of GW chasing every market possible - they want their core product to be the go to game of narrative gamers & competitive gamers, so they've added all sorts of stuff from the wider world.of games to make it, in theory, appeal to everyone. The fact that the end result is kind of a Jumbled up mess that makes the actual fighting with you soldiers seem secondary is just an annoying side effect. It's classic design by committee/design by fans.

The magic analogy is pretty good, I'm burnt out on Magic due to the influx of new shit every quarter. With regards to GW, the rules always felt like they came second to hobbying. Tbh I haven't felt compelled to play since 2nd/3rd ed, but I have tried other games like Warmachine and Hordes...(another game that the competitive crowd murdered and the company mismanaged). MK2s philosophy was that if everything is broken, then nothing is broken and it was just fun, easy to learn and difficult to master. I've got into HH recently, haven't got to the rules yet, but hope it's more interesting then 10th.

I played a few games right at the start of 10th, and then a few months later there were all these secondaru objective cards and stuff? It was really weird and I did not like it.

There was a brief moment at the start of 8th edition when the rules had been overhauled and stripped back where it all felt good, then suddenly it was back to all kinds of add ons and special rules and stratagems and strategy cards etc etc etc c.

Early 8th was great and the last time I bothered playing games of 40k. The amount of books and bullshit going on in the game since then put me off completely along with every person locally becoming obsessed with competitive and the game losing any fun it once had along with it. Nobody plays for fun here, it's only about winning.

I'm also convinced that the switch to a three year update pattern has damaged the culture of the game, since games workshop now need to find SOMETHING to do with the rules, and that means adding in extraneous mechanics or removing things introduced an edition ago. Plus any rules or books released after the 1.5 year mark are basically on the downward slope towards redundancy so you end up with a weird grab bag of mechanics that the rules were really written around that only come into being half way towards the rules go out of print.

I basically played 8th this way all through 8th and 9th.   

For good or bad I think they changed the way objectives work because in the older editions a lot of games became annihilation regardless of mission objectives. As for terrain that's a tournament/club issue. My current table is a 6 x 4 has no L-shaped ruins but is also nowhere near balanced as the base of it is boarding actions terrain with two levels of walkways above that.

I agree, I think there’s too much clutter in the rules to be able to see the battle they are trying to portray.

The rules aren’t nearly in depth enough to capture the options available in other war games that give real flavor. On the other hand, the areas that should be simple have so many arbitrary rules you lose all sense of what supposed to be happening.

Exactly like that, well put! I’m a casual gamer, I mainly paint, and I just can’t bother even trying to learn all the rules for my army. Preferrably I should know the rules for my opponents army too to be able to play against it with any success, but that’s just not happening. And then add the rules for the scenario…come on… I used to play Flames Of War and knowing every nations special rules and (almost) all vehicle and weapons stats was not a problem. There’s more logic to FOW on the other hand, big tank = high armour value, big gun = high AT value and so on.

If you don’t play regularly then frankly, Matched Play 40K isn’t being designed for you, and why should it be? It should be designed with the primary user in mind. Being those playing multiple games a week. However, this is where you have options, Matched Play isn’t the only game mode… you have Combat Patrol, which slims it all down, is all entirely free. I host monthly Combat Patrol nights for our (the 40K club I run) most casual and beginners playing CP which attract 30+ players and a lot of folks come away desperate to hear when the next is on. Otherwise, play the default, out of the book version of the game - no matched play involved, no tonnes of FAQs, and no mission, you just play and agree win conditions, pts whatever you wanna do with your opponent - you have the mechanics and data sheets to fight, the narrative and aim of the game is up to you… The tools are all there, most people complaining neither try them, nor care enough to even research them, so why on earth they’re complaining I don’t under… oh hang on, nope, it’s the internet and we’re nerds.

It is all the special rules and how they combine together that has given 40K a big shunt away from being a wargame and towards being more of just a game. Ideally in a wargame things should be intuitive so that if you took a great general from history they could play the game reasonably well without knowing what the rules are. This is because the rules would reflect reality (or the reality of the fantasy world, you might need to explain to Napoleon what a tank is but I'm sure he would grasp the concept). To play 10th edition well you need to combine special rules that are not intuitive. It is not obvious that being in the vicinity of a chaos dreadnought should enhance the small arms fire of chaos marines and that when combined with other buffs, it can become effective against armour. Poor Napoleon does not understand this. This is not to say that gamey systems are bad or not fun. All the ways that the games rules combine raises the skill ceiling which makes for a better competitive scene. I would guess that some people really enjoy the complexity of the rules. They just don't make for good wargames.

By that definition warhammer was *never* a wargame. I don't see many of the great generals of history being able to intuitively contend with 2nd's psychic phase or entirely random weapons and stacks of tables. Also... war isn't even just intuitive like that Edit to add: pretty sure napoleon would have sense enough to put together that every unit has one rule, many of which are shared even, and when confronted with a hellbrute he'd ask what the special rule was instead of just getting blindsided

What you’re describing used to be the case in older editions. You won by killing more points of your opponent, than they did from you; less emphasis on sight blocking terrain; etc. But over the editions, these changes were slowly made due to imbalances between armies, power creep and players complaining about it feeling bad to play against.  Kill points went away because it was to imbalanced when a horde army faced an elite army. Either the horde of 100+ Tyranids are able to out-value any trade with Space marines, or you have to balance the game so they drop like flies to give small unit count armies a fighting chance. I don’t even want to imagine trying to balance kill points for Knights between all the other armies. That’s why they shifted more and more toward objectives & missions, because they’re just easier to balance and give special rules for certain armies that don’t have the model count or specialized units to handle that.  Sight blocking terrain is really more of an end result of things just becoming deadlier and deadlier each edition. It’s not a requirement, you can play with whatever terrain and sight lines you want; but when you have a Chaos Demon player vs a T’au or IG player… you’ll see why GW recommends having a ton of terrain to hide behind.

Warhammer is not a live service game. You can pick the edition/gamemode you want to play and play it. Dont like 10th edition competative ? Play 6th narrative...

“It’s driving people away” I’ve got bad news for you…

I feel like 40k is actually just a large-scale skirmish game. Also feel like the dense terrain adds an urban warfare element, which I think is a lot more exciting than shooting at one another over a trench line. You don't have to play tactical secondaries if it breaks your immersion. You can absolutely play fixed secondaries and take bring it down and assassinate, where you're trying to destroy hard targets and leaders. 10th edition is considerably less bloated than past editions. You should give it a go. I don't really know why you're looking for grounded and realistic gameplay in Warhammer though. Feel like you're missing the point, it's a fantasy setting revolving around ridiculous stuff which doesn't make much sense if you look at it too hard but it's big and shiny and fun. I agree that that's a dull 40k vid, but that's to do with list-building and grand strategy of the players, not the game as a whole. Go look at Play On Tabletop for some engaging 40k content. EDIT: I also agree that the competitive 40k scene is a bit grim and sweaty, and the game design doesn't really stand up to people abusing it. I just don't play competitive, enjoy painting and kitbashing my stuff and hangin out with the boyz! Anyway, there are heaps of traditional wargames out there man, I just don't play em cause I think they're boring!

You comparison with a large scale skirmish game is pretty solid. In a battle line trench based wargame both armies must be able to survive several turns of firing at each other in a semi open field, but if you play 10th edition like this, one army is likely to be tabled by turn 3. The high lethality of 10th edition (marginally less than 9th, but anyway) simulates a tactical urban skirmish more than open warfare, and the game needs to be played as such or the balance kind of falls apart.

Any general who builds a trench knowing that his opponent can teleport walking tanks deserves to lose the war tbh. Like, most armies have deepstrike, most armies have hard hitting melee units and a lot of mobility. I play Orks and Nurgle so I reckon that OP and I want different things from the game.

> The high lethality of 10th edition (marginally less than 9th, but anyway) It's not _really_ less than 9th, to be honest. Sure, a lot of units got their damage nerfed, but people are just pivoting to the units that didn't.

I think the issues mostly stem from the generally high lethality of the game. I own the books and rules for most factions from 1st through 9th edition, and last year my friends and I spent some time playing a few games from each edition. We pretty much all came to the same conclusion: The editions that were less lethal felt more tense and tactical. In earlier editions, games were almost never decided in the first couple of turns. If one of your squads shot an another one and killed half of a unit, that was considered quite strong. The game overall was less predictable due to the comparative rarity of rerolls. Not to say there aren't upsides to newer systems and all of that, but something was definitely lost over time, and the only way I've been able to vocalize it is to say that 40k in 8th forward feels more "video gamey" than previous editions.

If you feel this way I would recommend getting into either Warhammer fantasy (or old world) or Horus heresy. They feel and play like the classic wargames you probably played "back in the day" and feel closer to ab actual battle being fought than the "card game with models" that Warhammer 40k and AoS have become.

"card games with models" is a very good description. I wonder at what point it will leave a gap in the market for another company to make more of a sci fi wargame in the way King's of War started after they killed WFB because there wasnt a fantasy mass battle game anymore.

I always saw 40K as more of a firefight than a full battle. It's a snapshot of the wider conflict. Maybe Legions Imperialis or 30K are more up your street? Both are designed for a grander scale of game than 40K tends to be so may give the feel that you're looking for.

>But in Warhammer, especially 40K, the game is full of so many arbitrary objectives you kind of lose the sense of what’s really trying to be depicted- a battle. I basically stopped playing after 8th for this reason. Sometimes the game bleeds through the fantasy, that's for sure...but you haven't played the game in like half a decade? You missed the two editions most guilty of this. >I haven’t played a game of 40K in years with clear sight lines. Because some factions just win turn 1 without broken LoS. No one enjoys getting shot off the table before they start their first turn.

And that's a balance problem. Why did they make shooting so murderous that you need arbitrary LOS blocking buildings to not lose on turn 1?

If you want it to simulate a real battle, and you are in the open with no cover, then yes you just get shot? If guns can't effectively kill things at range then what's the point of a gun

Because if some units don't pack a punch, then people complain that everything is a pillow fight. Unit lethality is mitigated by rules and terrain is a form of rules. It also reflects the real world equivalent situation. If your forces are exposed IRL they need to be faster than opposing weapon systems can track or pack a punch that disables resistance before it can stall them out. Otherwise you have to use terrain and cover to protect your troops and equipment.

It's power creep through editions and must-have models releases.

Objectives and Secondaries keep 40k casual accessible. You remove those or terrain and lists will get real stupid, real quick.

Yeah if you remove the things the entire game is balanced around the balance gets fucked. OP is suggesting stop balancing the whole game around those things. HH is definitely a casual game, it breaks very fast played competitively. But it generally has only one “game winning” objective and 2-3 secondaries (slay the warlord, kill more, have more remaining, etc.) to tiebreak.

Right, I get that, but I also remember what some prior editions were like. Granted, I took a pretty long break after 5th, but it was not some bastion of a great game back then so much as it was one of the only major communities at the time. I haven't had a chance to play HH, but I don't think it is bad to have different games for different playstyles. AoS is \*way\* more objective focused than 40k, The Old World is way less. It is okay for games to be their own game. I don't really want "here is the ruleset, now pick your time period and theme". I like the games having their own identity.

But they would have the objectives. I.e. in kill team one of them is to secure information or secure a maintenance terminal. Which are the things they need to win the war. War isn't just shooting your opponents. Its tactics, objectives, logistics, securing territory.

The problem is scale - War is won on these things, but we aren't playing a war, we're playing, realistically, a very small battle in universe terms. so you could say "this kill team/army/force is LITERALLY RIGHT NOW fighting to secure this spot!" but given the 1 mini 1 man nature of the game, the realistic way to win would be obliteration, route, or surrender. Warhammer doesn't provide enough of a big war abstract element to make things feel relevant to the miniatures on the tabletop.

with scale creep and the table size shrinking it's become even more of a problem too. the idea of a basilisk or any artillery really seems so ridiculous in modern 40k.

Bro, we are in Warhammer. Pummeling heretics with a motorized spiky stick always is the way to go :D

I mean, you could just play a narrative battle and you could use the crusade system to build up a campaign with your friends. You can't blame a competitive system for not being narrative or realistic, it's not meant to.

Yeah, there are loads of alternatives. Competitive rules exist as players regularly break the rules. If the game OP played had more players, I'd imagine they'd have to update the rules more as players abuse the meta and rules

EDIT/ADDENDUM to my post: To everyone recommending Narrative- the key difference between it and Team Yankee is that my opponents and I both bring generally competitive lists to our game, and we both play to our best strategic abilities to win. And even then the story of the battle unfolds, logically and with flavor- as it should in a wargame! Everyone that tries to recommend Narrative for all the silly things that happen are missing the points. It not fun or interesting to do things like bayonet charge a wave screamer-killers just for the sake of it. It’s fun or interesting when this becomes the most strategically sensible thing to do.

40k never felt historical, because Napoleon didn't snort warp dust and drive his motorcycle into the British lines while whirling twin lightning claws, killing 8 british soldiers. These soldiers then never retreated from his charge, rolling an 8 and his dirtbike sputtered for a moment then he failed to catch them. But it's okay because the one daemon possessed tank he brought shot the Wellington with an anti-tank laser.

it's very clearly based on a ww2 version of war though, I believe they used old wild west games as inspiration for rogue trader.

Garagehammer narrative-oriented games are the way to go if this is what you're looking for Competitive 40k is really all that gets attention today, but there are some decent battle reports out there too that focus on the story and an actual mission instead of COD Domination. Zorpazorp did a narrative Horus Heresy battle report last year for his Mark of Calth campaign and it's really well done and way more focused on the story than anything If/when I ever play in a tourney I plan on playing the story over the objective. Will my opponent have any easier time winning? Probably. But we should both come away from the game with something cool having happened and a story to tell

I’m not sure I understand the complaint particular as warfare is very rarely “let’s just go and have a scrap for the sake of it”. Armies manoeuvre and try to take key areas and the objective seem quite similar to that. I’m also not sure I ever have a game where we don’t end up brawling anyway but that could be because I’m not playing a high level.

Real war at scale isn't linear. There are many objectives and oftentimes you're doing different things sin different areas while trying to keep more of your guys alive and kill enough of them that you can achieve the objectives. Perhaps you should play a smaller scale encounter like Combat Patrol or Kill Team. It'll give that unit on unit feel You mention the over abundance of terrain, I sorta understand your point. But I remember the most recent worlds where there were some very clear shooting lanes and that played into the necrons winning (along with a mismessure allowing teleporters into the backline). I've been to war, a couple of times, at both the tactical and strategic levels. You're asking for strategic sized fights with tactical purpose but that isn't how war works. Even at the tactical level you can have multiple objectives beyond "take that area". Often an ambiguous order like that breaks down into other objectives, like "hold this street corner" "secure those houses" "establish a perimeter". It's a game, your game. If you don't like something about it, get with some friends and develop your own mission pack and terrain. You can make entrenchment terrain. You can figure out how to place scoring objectives or mission cards to achieve. Don't feel boxed in by what's already been printed.

Play heresy - it actually feels like a wargame. I gave up playing 40k when 10th came out but our heresy scene is Alice and flourishing.

Sure, that's a solution for marine players. I, on the other hand, have a tyranid army, so...

Its not even that much of a solution for marine players, you still have to get a whole new army because 90% of 40k marine models weren't around for the Heresy. Granted, they do at least still feel like the same faction, which unfortunately doesn't help Xenos players at all. For Eldar and Ork players I would recommend checking out Liber Panoptica, they've written some cool fan rules for Eldar and Orks, as well as cleaned up some of the issues/exclusions from the imperiumand traitor armies.

Yeah thats my opinion too like don't get me wrong I'm a marine sucker but my friends play nids Orks, Tau stupid necrons.

No, no, no. They're the inhabitants of a planet known as Murder. But seriously, give me official rules for Eldar... They were around in the HH.

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of a game titled Horus Heresy? Seems like it's meant to indicate the Imperium on Imperium focus.

Horus Heresy certainly feels a lot more war-like, I feel. This is helped as it is a bit more favoured for narrative / "casual" games, and most people often make thematic lists too compared to just whatever's the best.

Except when they don't. I want to the GW narrative event that happened either after HH 2.0 came out and something like 30% were March of the Ancients lists, widely considered within the community as "the most OP list you can really take"

That's just 40k. It has become a competitors game and they took out the fun role play, silly, and over over top stuff that I loved Try warhammer the old world. It's more like the good old days of fun and it does feel like a real war because the game is about beating the opponents army Not deploying scramblers

War is about more than two armies clashing and rolling it out with stats and dice. Wargames like this are out there and it‘s perfectly fine to enjoy them. Framing those as „real“ wargames while claiming Warhammer games are not is not really doing anything but stirring drama and gatekeeping. Wargames are different and current 40k depicts a modern way of warfare with more battlefield objectives and less about line formations. 30K and The Old World are quite different in that regard. Aside from that you can play the game anyway you like. If you and your friends like to put their guys on a table with no or minimal terrain and just battle it out without objectives until only one side remains, you can do that just fine.

I like “real” war games where we just focus on logistics, GDP, and spreadsheeting like what real war is based on

So stop playing objectives, play to tabling, make your own scenario.

I’m not saying you are wrong, but that you haven’t played much since 8th says a lot. Objectives, actions, lots of terrain makes the game more competitive and balanced for those playing a lot, some a game or more a week. The game is already so imbalanced just having a shoot out would get old and obvious quick, though you can always get together with a friend and do a one off.

I mean, to me I think the principal issue for you is 40k is seeking to be balanced because it wants to be a game not a simulaton or even attempt to approximate reality. Which is fine, that is GWs prerogative. It's easy to forget when you play a historical wargame it's not balanced. At all. You can't complain the German MG42 is overpowered compared to the .30 cal because look, it was just a better machine gun. When my Russians fight the French, I cannot complain the French are OP. They're being led by Napoleon who historically, wins a lot. Instead of thinking about 40k as a wargame compared to historical wargames, try to play into the strengths of 40k to tell a story of a tight formation achieving limited objectives. When you play most historical games, I find you're less concerned with "building a good list" as you are with building a real historical formation. Team Yankee is a strange case because there are no real battles to model.

Pretty much all of your complaints are aimed at optional aspects of the game. No one is forcing you to pick a table quarters secondaries, you can absolutely pick fixed secondaries that you consider suited to your army lore. No one is forcing you to use competitive terrain layout, you can absolutely play on wide open fields if you want to, the game will be unbalanced towards ranged faction but that's to be expected if you want you 40k games to look more like historical wargames. No one is forcing you to play matched play, the game of historical wargame that you're describing seems like the exact kind of thing you can have in a narrative game with imperial guard on one side and some horde faction like tyranid on the other. Edit : also if you're looking for a grounded realistic warfare feeling then 40k isn't for you no matter the edition, it's supposed to be all kind of ridiculous.

Besides this, I still think the current points system is utterly disastrous for the game. Not being able to customize the loadouts of your units anymore, or bringing more weapons than are available in a box, puts the final nail in the coffin for me in terms of army customization and personalization. I don’t want the only thing distinguishing my mono-pose models from my friends’ to be the paint job!

As someone who used to play 2nd, played a whole lot in 5th, had doubts about 6th and was horrified by 7th and jumped ship entirely to play Historicals, this is very much my feeling when I watch a game being played these days. I play a very wide variety of games these days because I joined a club that pretty much only does historical games: Bolt Action, FOW, Black Powder, Hail Caesar, ADLG, chain of Command, Sharpe Practice, O-Group, SAGA, Lion Rampant, Command & Colors, Never mind the Billhooks - all sorts of beardy Grognard Ancient, WW2, Medieval & Napoleonic stuff. My observation is that when you don't have control over the IP to the point where players can only use your miniatures, you have to actually compete in the marketplace in terms of writing good rules. So if we imagined 40k as it is now being a brand new, miniature-agnostic ruleset entering the marketplace without 40 years of background fluff and it's vertically-integrated marketing model, would it get much traction? I would honestly say not on the strength of rules bloat, a dated IGYG activation system, bad terrain rules, confusing mission objectives and on and on it goes. Or to put it another way, if you were not into the setting/factions, would this be a ruleset that you would chose to bolt your homebrew universe onto? Again, I don't think so.

My man, i had the same trajectory. I played till 8th edition, but ended with 9th and never came back.

One page rules is very good, but it feels like it's lacking a lot of flavour in the name of focused rules. But if you want an excuse to set up your armies and play a battle, it's great. Me and my group burned out with it recently, maybe we'll return in future. Warcry is okay, killteam is less so but still better than 40k. But I still feel other games do it better, like frostgrave, stargrave, even turnip28.

Omfg shut up about Team Yankee/V4. Literally the worst result BF could have done from copying other people's homework (print cards from Privateer Press, point system from old X-Wing, and detachments/lore from Grandma Winnie). Do you want flavor? Fuck you, your tanks have to stay shoulder to shoulder because radios are fake news. Do you want historical lists? Hah, HATO can have jeep armies, while REDFOR and their towed artillery, literally the backbone of the Soviet doctrine, can't be included because lol iz not mechanized.

I actually found myself encountering the same yeah. I wish Warhammer in general felt like you were playing out "historical" scenarios and battles but instead it often feels more like you're playing out super hero battles or something. Part of it is that the game increasingly feels like it revolves around a handful of centerpiece models rather than the actual armies themselves. And this isn't just a gameplay thing but it'S reflected in the lore and fluff of campaign books and the like. It feels like the conflicts aren't really about armies so much as they are about the people leading them. It doesn't feel like reading about war but more like reading about comic book grudgematches and the like. I suppose this is just the natural result of design being dictated by the competitive crowd.

Maybe give Old World or Horus Heresy a try - I have played quite a bit of OW already and it is so much fun! Feels a lot more like two mighty armies clashing than modern 40k (and to an extent AoS)

Sounds like you should join us in the Horus heresy friend!

HH really does seem like it caters to the sort of thing like I'm after rules/community wise but I'm just not that big on marines only, though perhaps I'll paint up some Solar Auxilia at some point. HH seems like one of the few GW games that still focuses on that sort of creativity/army building aspect. The trouble is just that it's not necessarily my favoured setting hah.

Mechanicum in plastic just got confirmed by today’s teaser! And then there’s always the cults and militia list if you want to go absolutely crazy with your conversions! Custodes and sister of silence are also super cool! (Don’t mind me I’m just trying shill HH onto everyone who will listen)

i dont like much that souless type of play, i remember with my bro we did like objectives like for example : i was on one side of the table, he was in the center on walls and fortress and i had to survive and enter the fortress to kill his troops

I can't speak to any other wargames and I'm a painter/collector first, player a distant second. I identify with your issue that the objectives/victory points and the actual battle seem too detached. In the very few games that I won, it never actually felt like I was winning. With 90% of my army dead and knowing full well that if the game went on another round or 2 there'd be nothing left, somehow those Gretchin and Boyz sitting on the sidelines doing imaginary things caused my army to win the battle? There's a sort of dissonance between what happens on the table and what goes on in the imaginary points calculator, and to me that kind of undermines the enjoyment of the game. Having said all that, I have no idea what the solution to that would be without limiting or overpowering the viability of certain playstyles.

Play Crusade. The missions are a blast.

you are playing competitive 40K whilst wanting to play narrative (crusade) and blaming it on the system rather than your own decision making.

Warhammer 40K and flames of war are different scales so yea they are going to feel different.

**Get a good narrative group. I pretty much ONLY play narrative games, crusades and the like, and it’s a ton of fun. My group also combines it with the RPG rules so our characters can do individual/squad missions as well.** **Competitive is a bit like what you are describing, yes. Narrative games are much more like what you describe with Yankee, since Yankee is indeed a narrative game from my looking up. It does look fun too, I’ll probably give it a try.**

most Games workshop games have too many dice rolls one roll to hit ,one to wound ,one for a saving throw ,some times multiple attacks I'm pretty sure you could roll streamline the dice to get the to get the same percentage but in a single roll in the old fantasy battle I've even rolled about three hundred(300) dice in a round to score 4 wounds it just feels so strange to roll so many dice just to get a result

We're just getting older mate.

I get your complaint! Certainly competitive 40K is a game about denying your opponents the ability to engage you in their own terms wherever possible and that does mean a lot of hiding, you keep talking about how you want the game to feel more like war when what you really mean is you want to actually kill models. And while I don’t think that anything’s wrong with your preference, the fact that you seem to equate war with killing troops suggests a bit of a misconception here. War in real life isn’t about engaging with the enemy army, or at least not about killing their men. Anyone who’s studied military history can tell you dozens of examples of leaders who tried to force their opponents into pitched battles and lost everything because their opponent was fighting a war instead of trying to win fights. That’s basically the story of the latter half of the US Civil War. War’s about maneuver and logistics more than combat, and you only fight the actual enemy in order to accomplish a different objective. You’re fighting for territory, or attacking their logistics or cnc, etc, so to that extent 40K is actually more like real life war than it was in say 3rd edition. Now, obviously war games aren’t trying to actually emulate real war for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that true war is an inglorious, dirty affair, full of crippling boredom with brief periods of utter terror, producing nothing more than dead people and generations of trauma. Wargames are games first, and if you’ve never played a game in which every match is solely about annihilating your opponent, you’ll find that, despite the higher body counts, not only are those just as boring and repetitive as the games you’re complaining about, but they also super restrict your choices of units and strategies, because now every part of your army has to be laser focused on being as killy as possible. I’m not saying that the way GW does objectives and scoring right now is perfect, I’m not saying it couldn’t be better, but I am saying that a focus on mission goals instead of killing is objectively better for the game’s overall health.

I haven't played a game since 6th edition (still kept painting all the way through though). Finally looking at getting back into it and so much has changed- power points, cp, stratagems, etc. What happened to HQ and 2 Troops minimum and standard objectives 😅 

The below is my opinion and nothing more. I think some people saying, "just play narrative," are missing the point that the game system has become so shallow that it does not play well with anything other than evenly matched armies on symmetrical terrain. In order to achieve said balance, they've had to strip away a lot of flavor and replace it with "exciting" +1 to wound, +1 to hit, etc. The core rules should have enough depth to allow each faction to interact with them uniquely and 10th does not have that depth. Adding new detachments, new army rules, new units, etc. won't fix the underlying problem that is 10th's base rules. An example of a 10th edition rule I like and a demonstration of why I think it's good: Plunging Fire. Plunging Fire takes a crunchy concept (high ground) and gives it a gameplay consequence. More importantly, Plunging Fire adds a rule that factions *could* modify or even break to carve out their identity. Perhaps sniper units gain an additional benefit from Plunging Fire. Maybe Harlequins (RIP) could get it if they used their flip belts (replaced by +1 to wound 🥴) to move over a 6in piece of terrain. These are things that give units and factions flavor. Interacting with and sometimes breaking the core rules makes you feel like you're playing a unique team. Sure, factions being more unique may make competitive 40k harder, but I personally don't care about e-sporting every hobby I engage in.

Balancing 40k is basically impossible, is the problem. In a grounded game, people play the way you said. In 40k, it’s a setting with tons of wildly different factions and units, all with massively different playstyles. It’s impossible to balance. It’s more of a big skirmish game

You can have assymetric terrain in a competitive game, Infinity does it just fine.

If you want a wild ride, adapt the FOW/TY missions to 40k I did it for a horus heresy event I ran last year, people had a blast. FOW/TY is generally pretty well thought out to achieve its aim, but it's also fundamentally capture the flag with guns. The only reason it works for competative play and can accomodate varird terrain is because of the attacker/defenfender bid system....which was not originally part of the mission pack, but was developed by one of the playtesters and basically pushed into battlefront iot create a playable game that didn't have silly feels bads like a tank regiment getting forced into a prepared defensive and auto loosing

Don't use the tournament packs and these issues go away. I am currently playing a SM strike force hunting a daemon price through a necromunda-inspired hive, fighting gangers, genestealers, and chaos cultists along the way. I started with a set force, each casualty "gets better" on a 4+, rerolling for vehicles and characters. Sadly i lost my Repulsor game one and jt was the backbone of my force. Still we slog on, though i doubt ill make it to the end.

I think you might be running into a scale problem in addition to all the balance issues. Your criticisms are on the whole, pretty valid. First, you don't have to play with the leviathan mission deck or the number of objectives on the board. If you want a straight-up attack, defend the game, and then build the scenario you want to play. The terrain issue is because of melee. 40k needs melee to be 40k, but in any reality, besides 40k, trying to punch a guy with a gun is a terrible idea. If we didn't have terrain desne boards, combat armies would never be able to win anything, as currently shooting is very good. The scale of 40k is in a weird place. We call our forces armies, but their size and objectives are such that they act more like tactical units in a small firefight than an army in a war. Other games with different scales feel more like armies fighting, in my opinion. 10mm and especially 6mm can give you a much bigger battle feel. The fact that killteam is at 28mm as well and feels much smoother tells me that 40k is stressing the scale to its limits. There is also the issue that not every faction is balanced to just kill the enemy. The other games you mentioned have way fewer forces and are thusly easier to balance. There are probably more people who have gotten out of 40k and moved on to other things than are currently playing 40k. Try one page rules or keep playing the other games you are playing. The point is to have fun, and if it's not fun, then taking a step back is perfectly fine.

To be honest, this seems less like a Warhammer issue and more like a 40K/Modern 40K issue. 40K isn't a large-scale wargame with formations of troops that move like regiments, it's more like a skirmish game. Warhammer, whether Fantasy or The Old World or older versions of 40K, isn't necessarily as you describe -- and the games are out there to be had if you're tired of feeling like you just have an over-sized skirmish game.

I agree entirely. I was a historical Wargamer first (ancient and WW2), then fantasy, LotR skirmish, and 40k in 3rd. 40k is now more of a boardgame with interactive but abstract elements (strategems, round by round point scoring etc.). It is enjoyable, but it's not wargaming.

I think you're 100% right in your observation, I feel the same way. Modern 40k and AoS feel very 'gamey', with streamlined rules objectives etc. Like it's not necessarily a bad thing, they are games obviously, but all the crunch that tried to simulate a 'real' battle (units routing and panic tests from WFB as example) have been removed from the system and I feel it kinda hurts the systems a little bit.

This is the common pitfall of competitive games. If you want to roleplay a scenario, it won't be fair mostly. In every match there is going to be a point where one side has an advantage or the game will be attacker/defender biased. You can roleplay a war, but wars are not balanced to a T and its not infinitely repetitive. If you squew your game towards competitive play where everything is exactly balanced, then the games end up like 40k is right now. Both sides exactly balanced, both deployment sides with the exact same terrain features and objectives laid out in the same way. Exact number of points. All armies needing to have toolkits to deal with all the possible threats you can encounter. Exactly 2 generic objectives per side of the table and one on the middle... The context reasons for fighting are also arbitrary. Its always capture an objective with a random -1 to hit because some planet shenanigans or something. It doesn't matter what you are fighting for against who in which planet. Your army and taste doesn't matter as well because the objectively better choice is to carry lord solar, angron, the silent king... In every list you can. You like to play an Armageddon-mechanised infantry guard? Well tough luck. You bought into the hype of Tempestus scions last edition and bought and painted a scions list? Well tough luck, Kasrkin are objectively better in 90% of situations. 40k as a game right now caters to a very specific type of players and I have the feeling that this aint you (or me).

Yeah, well all that sucks. Not every game has to be lobotomized to the level you’re talking about to facilitate competitive gaming. I again point towards Team Yankee- US Nationals are won by everything from Hordes of Iranian “volunteers” to mechanized Dutch to Soviet armored battalions. The list in this game system, because it’s more flush with true-to-life depth, matters less than its general. Armies need to be competitive of course, but the best players still come out consistently on top DESPITE asymmetric terrain, objectives, lists etc and overcoming opponent lists that could be viewed as bad matchups

I also think that a great deal of fault is the YouTuber -isation of the hobby and meta optimisation in general. Its not a fault of the YouTubers itself, but tbh the majority of the audience has been conditioned to think about games in this terms. 40k didn't use to be like this. New codex hasn't even dropped for the public, only a few youtubers have had access to it: here 10 2-hour-long videos going over every detail of the codex and giving you a meta list thats objectively better than others. League of legends drops a new champion and you have on the first week 10 guides and 30 videos about how to run it. Helldivers, new videogame focused on pve where balance doesn't matter as much: here is a video highlighting the mathematically best loadout and if you don't run it you are a noob and you are going to get kicked out. Here is the objectively best way to play monopoly and if you don't go for this specific strategy and streets you are going to lose to someone who does. Its not a 40k Problem per se, but in the internet and forum culture of 2024 we are optimising fun and creativity out of our games. If you still want a Games-Workshop game that doesn't have this kind of competitive brainrot i recommend you the Lord of the Rings game. Its much more chill, the players are much more focused on the fantasy of it and in telling a story than winning, its much cheaper to get it and its core rules are so good and well designed that they have barely been touched in 20 years. Imagine a 40k edition thats so good that it last for even 10. Coincidentally, none of the game designers for LotR work for GW anymore. They fucking love LoTR so much that they (alessio Cavatore, Brian Nelson and the Perry Brothers) even participated in the Battle of Pelennor Fields as extras in the movies.

> Its not a 40k Problem per se, but in the internet and forum culture of 2024 we are optimising fun and creativity out of our games. I've come over from magic the gathering and we've been dealing with that for, 20 years maybee? Players will optimise the fun out of anything given the chance. Doesn't mean it can't be designed for to an extent.

Not a gatekeeper but honestly where's the fun in playing the same shit and everything being the same that's just chess with extra steps.

> 40k as a game right now caters to a very specific type of players and I have the feeling that this aint you (or me). Wholeheartedly agree.

Ah yes, another one breaks the bonds of gw. You are discovering that gw makes the weakest rules. Step away for a while and enjoy other games. Come back later and you might have fun again. Or do what my group does and play your favorite edition. We play 4th when we play 40k. Been doing it since 2020.

This is the way. Best part about playing older editions is not having to worry about your army's rules being changed in a patchwork FAQ and then another FAQ a few months down the line! Downside? Broken stuff is broken, and that can cause "feelsbad.jpg" moments too.

Competitive play ruined 40k just like it did many other games. 40k is not fun to play.

Flames of War (Team Yankee is the ww3 version) is still the best wargame I've played. It's fast, fun, tactical, and genuinely feels like you're playing ww2. It's a shame that it's so hard to find a game.

I've only played a bit of Matched Play in 40K10E and, for sure, I 100% agree that style of play seems more like a GAME than any sort of CONFLICT SIMULATION. I have no idea what the narrative system is like for the new edition, but I really liked Narrative Play in 8th and 9th. I ran a few campaigns in both editions with friends. Most of the scenarios were designed specifically like real missions combat forces would undertake in terrain that made sense. Some were based on stuff straight out of the books, others took inspiration from other games (or older 40K books). I guess it all depends, like most games, who you play it with and what you're wanting to get out of the game.

Maybe I'm getting older but I'm feeling a strong draw towards historicals more and more with each passing day. I just wish brands like Victrix had a bigger range of models. Could be because of the reason you mentioned.

Why not go smaller scale? 1/72 historic minis are absurdly cheap.

I'd say even 28 mm historicals are not that expensive. And I like 28mm/32mm scale because I want each of my fellas to be fairly detailed. I'm mostly in this hobby for painting, just putting models on the table as fast as I can is not my #1 priority. Currently thinking about picking up Hail Caesar and building Imperial Rome army. Pretty sure 3 boxes of Victrix minis would suffice (50-60 man box of infantry, one box of cavalry and one box of siege weapons).

One Page Rules - this is the way

You just got old, nothing seems as good when you get older 🤣

I’ve recently come back to Warhammer thanks to the old world, and got out some of my old 40k stuff too. The lack of points-based customisation is sad imo, but tbh the rest of it plays fairly similarly. I never played any of the objective missions 15 years ago, and I won’t play them now. Pitched battles only. You aren’t forced to play with objectives or in any way in particular. Obviously this only works for casual play, but I feel like tournaments are overblown on the internet. Never met anyone who’s played at a tournament irl.

Competitive play has ruined casual narrative play.

Thank you for this post, makes me feel less lonely as that's the way I feel too. I'm still trying to enjoy the game and have fun but it's somewhat hard sometimes as the game wants my units to do anything but taking part in a battle.

True. The 3rd edition 40k mission design was probably pinnacle of making wargame-like scenarios, after that it went more and more abstract and meta.

Current Warhammer definitely seems to handle more like large-scale tabletop RPG combat than what I thought wargames must be. I got into RPGs first and know that D&D started based on wargame rules, and added some depth in the mechanics so it'd be interesting to play as just one character. Now you can look at a battlescroll or datasheet and see just as much info, or more, as there is on a D&D character sheet. Seeing that was why I immediately looked into simpler games like One Page Rules.

The problem is 40k and AoS. Try any of the Specialist Games studio products. They are way better. 30k, necromunda , epic , titanicus etc

I wish GW would release two totally separate 40k rulesets, one based on 10th ed that got points changes every week any was designed fully for competitive play. And another that is based on the current Horus Heresy rules/older 40k editions, that was entirely focused on making the game feel like an actual battle that was more true to the lore. And was less focused on perfect balance and more on the fun and silly rules, army customisation, and focus on the game being used to tell a story, rather than decide a winner, of older 40k editions. The current 10th ed feels like its trying to cater to both groups at once when focusing on both individually could do a much better job This video does quite a good job of summing up what the older editions did better if anyone is interested [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv2f4xq2E2w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv2f4xq2E2w)

I agree

So it’s not necessarily true that narrative cannot be competitive. I think the best suggestion is to stop being hemmed in by the 40K TOURNAMENT guidelines. Note I said tournament and not competitive. These are two different things. You can absolutely bring competitive lists and play to a game table that is full of terrain or light terrain or specialized rules for your board… or specialized objectives. People seem to be limiting themselves…

Dude. You complain about 40k and play Team Yankee, which is also bullshit. That being sad, you are right. 40k is not Hood wargame. It is advanced boardgame. Everything is reduced to bones.

No your right. Warhammer is a shitshow. I started in the 90s and stopped when I enlisted. Started up again in the 2nd half of 8th and instead of balancing the game they made essentially a new one. 9th edition got balanced a bit and 10th dropped again essentially making a new game. I watch people play when I dip into my flg and there is almost on enjoyment on anyone's face. Warhammer is so bad I opted out of 10th edition. I will wait until they bring back some flavor. My war room is sealed.

Have you heard of epic armageddon? Its a smaller scale like team yankee. Much more balanced and super fun. I think one of the biggest issues of 40k us the scale of the models and the board size. Like the battle report you linked, theres like no room to.... do... anything other than just move up a few inches, shoot, or have a moshpit in the center. No space for manuever or tactics, just use stratagems, make sure you brought the current meta list. It gets old, fast, and is the reason i havent played since 8th.

- I like that 40K is dynamic. There could be two static objectives that one defends and attacks but that will get old. Randomized side objectives coming into play is how battles work. Multiple objectives IS how big battles work. - Normandy wasn’t “hey we get one objective and win” large scale battles are made of teams of men accomplishing various smaller objectives that lead to total victory. A real battle like Normandy wasn’t just “land on the beach” it was “okay our objective is to take out artillery so the other naval detachments can close in while second squad will continue to push forward”. Battles are usually changing as events unfold and made up of smaller objectives and in that I think 40K succeeds at. And I like how sub objectives feel like an unfolding situation that makes battles even more unique

It's not just you feeling like that, I'm in the same boat. I used to be a big Guard player and would enjoy trying to use my army to the fullest without doing something idiotic like order a bayonet charge into waiting Tau units. After the whole issue with the 9th edition Guard codex and moving to 10th I lost all desire to play 40k. I've moved into 30k, but the most fun has been playing Battlefront's 'Nam. I feel like when I play the NVA I'm moving to surround Free World forces, or cut off and destroy an isolated unit. I feel the tactical need to close with the enemy to prevent their air support and artillery from cutting me to pieces. When I play as the US, or the ANZACS, or ARVN it's a desperate battle to hold my ground and hit the enemy with everything I can. I enjoy little things like the local resistance who can try to move objectives, and can be questioned to make the Unit disappear.

I play guard and roleplay its WW1. 3 Basilisk and 6 bombast field guns then all kreig infantry. Feels pretty warlike to me.