Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XXXVII: Highlighting the Contrasts

[Forum Explorer]

Sure. Except that I was responding to this:



That already happened. It happened somewhere between 4th and now.



You mean like Bikes and Monstrous Creatures and whatnot? Ok, I'll break it down. No missions, no unit type rules. Just playing the game: 45 pages. If you add missions, that's another 14 pages. Unit type rules take up 4, Characters and Psychic Powers get 3, 15 pages for Vehicles, 3 more for Special Rules. All told, 74 pages of rules.

The shooting phase alone gets more pages than an entire turn in 8th.

Alright, and these days it's about 30 pages for just playing the game. And honestly, I'm having a hard time remembering why psychic powers took up a full three pages. Like, 8th's psychic phase is about as complex, if not more so, than 4th's was. And yet they manage to summarize the whole thing in a single page, with the side bars talking about something else completely irrelevant.

For that matter, the shooting phase in 4th was...mostly the same? The biggest difference is the wound chart changing. Other differences is Rapid Fire weapons, the effects of running on Assault weapons, and it being literal LoS. Oh, yes, and the fact cover doesn't do as much. Otherwise it's mostly just them being more efficient in their wording and compressing the rules rather than simplifying things.

Where things did get more simple? Vehicles and Cover. Both have effectively been removed from the game. That simplified things a lot. I think it needed to be done though since they never could get a satisfactory rule set for vehicles. Particularly once they added super heavies.

[Renegade Paladin]

But, 'ordered activation' where nothing can die before everything is activated anyway, seems like missing the point.

The point of that isn't to activate and use the unit before it dies/is incapacitated (probably; there could conceivably be some sort of suppression mechanic for having blast markers on), but rather to get to a particular objective before your opponent, or to counter something you predict your opponent may do. There's serious potential for meaningful interplay there. Hell, activation order matters in 40k too even though there is no chance of your units dying in your own shooting phase via something your opponent does; it's prudent to save good shooting for last or close to it so you have something effective to allocate if earlier shooting doesn't go well.

The only thing that's giving me serious pause is putting all your strategic assets command assets in a deck subject to random draw.

[Cheesegear]

All threat ranges (move + charge / move + weapon range) are known quantities; the only way you can 'bait' someone is if they are purposefully playing badly

Listen to this guy.

The question to most of your 'tactical' conundrums can be resolved by proper deployment

As we've established, Avaris says 'Tactics' and 'Gambling' is the same thing, and that a good general will gamble hard...And that just isn't the case. A good general, playing a fair game (i.e; He has a reasonable expectation that the things he does, will have the effect he desires), gambles as little as possible.

I guess there's also the other thing that I haven't quite put my finger on yet. Ever since the 'Just play Chess' comment:

There is a massive difference between taking a risk on something, and taking an unnecessary risk.

Everyone is 'taking risks', all of the time, because this is a game about dice. A good general will have built his army list, or prioritised CP expenditure in order to mitigate those risks. Those might be things like having Re-rolls and modifiers to rolls, or spamming things like Mortal Wounds - which don't roll to wound or allow Saves - or taking units that have Ignore Wounds or Invulnerable saves. Auto-pass Morale tests, etc. Knowing that you have these abilities, allows you to offset the randomness of the game, and make 'correct' decisions.

As you take more and more actions throughout the turn, certainty (in your head) becomes near-100%. Because as you have less and less options throughout a phase, what you should do with any given unit becomes more and more correct. This still holds true for alternating activation rulesets like Kill Team, because in the Shooting and Fight phases, your opponent gets a say in how the Phase plays out. Like the Fight phase, in normal 40K. The more your opponent can influence your turn, the more tactical the game becomes.

A big problem with current 40K Objectives - including ITC and Maelstrom - is that there is no way to stop your opponent from doing the thing that they're going to do. Their turn, is their turn...Barring a handful of Stratagems, and the Fight phase, where "Do you have enough CPs to interrupt, and what are your options?" is a huge tactical question, because whether or not your opponent interrupts your Fight phase absolutely changes how you should activate your turn. Kill Team solved that. Both players' turns happen more-or-less simultaneously. What order you activate your models in, matters, because your opponent actually can shut you down if you make the wrong decisions, because the effects of their actions (i.e; Removal of models - or not) is immediate.

Allowing saves - and thus, Damage - to proc at the end of the round, means that the only time your opponent influences your turn, is during movement (that is, board control is the only thing you can do, which is actually less important than you think). This means taking a lot of unnecessary risks because you don't know the outcome of your actions. Because you don't know the outcome of your actions, as you take them, the end result, is that the more actions you take without knowing the outcome, the less tactical the game becomes because you are constantly making more and more and more decisions with no additional information.

The less a player's active decisions have, on the outcome, the less competitive and/or fair, a game is.

[Destro_Yersul]

Alright, and these days it's about 30 pages for just playing the game.

14, counting the two pages demonstrating a sample turn.

[LansXero]

The point of that isn't to activate and use the unit before it dies/is incapacitated (probably; there could conceivably be some sort of suppression mechanic for having blast markers on), but rather to get to a particular objective before your opponent, or to counter something you predict your opponent may do. There's serious potential for meaningful interplay there. Hell, activation order matters in 40k too even though there is no chance of your units dying in your own shooting phase via something your opponent does; it's prudent to save good shooting for last or close to it so you have something effective to allocate if earlier shooting doesn't go well.

The only thing that's giving me serious pause is putting all your strategic assets command assets in a deck subject to random draw.

Order of activation in 40k matters a lot more. It removes charge obstacles, it decimates units to sweep in charge phase, it brings vehicles to 'cant hit you anyways' brackets so you shoot at something else, et. If something dangerous will get to shoot regardless of what I do, then the 'lets remove this potential still unused threat' consideration is removed. Sure, gauging overkill is still there, but thats just a fraction of the complexity,

[Blackhawk748]

The tactical choice is not only about ‘how am I scoring VP’, but also ‘how am I ensuring my opponent can’t stop me scoring more points in future turns.’ Positioning is one way of doing this, ‘How many dice can I get my opponent to roll,’ as you put it, is another.

Also, we don’t yet know much about the Apocalypse win conditions, though I don’t think they will all be objective based.

You did that in list building by picking either Durable things or Cheap things. Or if you're a spoiled Codex, both. They can't score if they can't kill it.

Its 40k, of course it will be.

[Renegade Paladin]

All threat ranges (move + charge / move + weapon range) are known quantities; the only way you can 'bait' someone is if they are purposefully playing badly, ignoring your rules, or you are obfuscating something that should be public.

Or, and I know this is a stretch, human error is a thing and the more you present the opportunity and temptation to make errors the more likely your opponents are to make them.

Order of activation in 40k matters a lot more. It removes charge obstacles, it decimates units to sweep in charge phase, it brings vehicles to 'cant hit you anyways' brackets so you shoot at something else, et. If something dangerous will get to shoot regardless of what I do, then the 'lets remove this potential still unused threat' consideration is removed. Sure, gauging overkill is still there, but thats just a fraction of the complexity,

But maybe it won't - if something dangerous in shooting gets assaulted before it activates, order of activation just mattered. There's more than one way to neutralize a threat.

[Forum Explorer]

14, counting the two pages demonstrating a sample turn.

Are you counting the advanced rules? Considering those are in pretty much every game you should be.

[LeSwordfish]

Are you counting the advanced rules? Considering those are in pretty much every game you should be.

No, they're in pretty much every game you play.

[Forum Explorer]

No, they're in pretty much every game you play.

Do you play games without CP, detachments or stratagems then? Or without any terrain (how little that it matters)? Because that stuff is found in the Advanced Rules. I'm not talking about the Battlezone stuff or anything after that.

[Destro_Yersul]

Do you play games without CP, detachments or stratagems then? Or without any terrain (how little that it matters)? Because that stuff is found in the Advanced Rules. I'm not talking about the Battlezone stuff or anything after that.

Honestly, I'd prefer to. Terrain is fine, we'll add the four pages of rules for that if you like. Puts it up to 18 pages. Still under half, under a third if I get to include the rules for Vehicles in my count.

[LeSwordfish]

Do you play games without CP, detachments or stratagems then? Or without any terrain (how little that it matters)? Because that stuff is found in the Advanced Rules. I'm not talking about the Battlezone stuff or anything after that.

Mostly, yeah. I just understand that my experiences, and the experiences of a group of people selected by "online on forums talking a lot about warhammer" may not be representative of the community. And also I recognise that claiming that these rules are equivalently complex to previous editions is pretty stupid, even when you use the definition most carefully chosen to make your point. (How come 8th ed has to include Detachments when 4th didn't have characters, flyers, allies, or formations?)

[LansXero]

Or, and I know this is a stretch, human error is a thing and the more you present the opportunity and temptation to make errors the more likely your opponents are to make them.

But maybe it won't - if something dangerous in shooting gets assaulted before it activates, order of activation just mattered. There's more than one way to neutralize a threat.

So, playing badly. Is fishing for mistakes 'tactically rewarding and cinematic' now?

Once again, if you let a melee unit THAT YOU CAN SEE SINCE DEPLOYMENT charge and tie up something important, then its on you and its a mistake made during deployment. They CANT remove anything blocking them until the end of turn, after you've shot, so if you forgot to measure properly, that still doesnt make it a more nuanced and superior game system, just means you screwed up

[Forum Explorer]

Mostly, yeah. I just understand that my experiences, and the experiences of a group of people selected by "online on forums talking a lot about warhammer" may not be representative of the community. And also I recognise that claiming that these rules are equivalently complex to previous editions is pretty stupid, even when you use the definition most carefully chosen to make your point. (How come 8th ed has to include Detachments when 4th didn't have characters, flyers, allies, or formations?)

That's really surprising to me considering CP are such a massive part of the game these days. I'm curious, what do you play normally? Like, are you up to doing a Battle Report of your next game?

Honestly, I'd prefer to. Terrain is fine, we'll add the four pages of rules for that if you like. Puts it up to 18 pages. Still under half, under a third if I get to include the rules for Vehicles in my count.

Sure, you can include it, particularly considering that my point is that the rules have been compressed more than simplified. Let me bottom line my point, since LeSwordfish also seems to be misreading my posts:

Yes, 8th is simpler, because it effectively cut out Vehicles and Terrain. Those used to be massive parts of the game, now they effectively don't exist.

Other than that though, I don't really feel like the game got any simpler. No, I don't buy that because 4th had more pages in it's rule book that it was more complex. More verbose and poorly explained perhaps. And certainly more filled with examples. I remember the rules for Bolters, power swords and other common items were all found in the main rulebook.

I mean there was stuff that seemed complex like the wound chart or the morale phase, but the morale phase basically didn't matter to the majority of armies and the wound chart was just using a different formula and not showing what that formula was.

Of course, the biggest reason why the game isn't less complex is because they added in Stratagems. Which...aren't in the main rulebook, but instead inside the Codexes. They also added in faction bonuses which again, are in the Codexes. Along with all the special rules. And all the weapons.

So yeah, not buying a decreased page count as evidence that 8th is simpler, not when they moved so many rules to other books.

[Avaris]

As we've established, Avaris says 'Tactics' and 'Gambling' is the same thing, and that a good general will gamble hard...And that just isn't the case. A good general, playing a fair game (i.e; He has a reasonable expectation that the things he does, will have the effect he desires), gambles as little as possible.

We’ve established no such thing. You may think that’s what I’m saying, but it’s not. I don’t think we’re actually too far off in our opinions on what is good for the game, but as ever we’re talking at cross purposes and we’re both responding to what we think the other is saying. Let’s try again:

I completely agree with you that a general should have a reasonable expectation that the things he does will have the effect he desires. Part of that, which I have been emphasising, is that they should be able to influence the randomness they are subject to: this is what turns it from gambling to skill. Therefore, the game, which is not chess and so includes randomness, should be designed such that when it creates randomness it can be predicted and influenced by other actions the player takes. In order to do so, it needs to carefully choose when randomness should matter.

I am utterly against straight up ‘gambling’, heads I win, tails I lose, as there is no meaningful way for the player to account for it. There is quite a bit of this in base 40k, and it is poorly placed. Random shot weapons for example: how does having my Rapid Fire Battle Cannon have such a swingy range of effects make it satisfying gameplay? The only thing I can do to mitigate it is save a command point, and I guess there is some interesting choice in which thing to use your one CP on in the shooting phase, but it’s mostly randomness for the sake of randomness.

I think the thing we disagree on is what options should be available to manage the risk. I believe that the options available to reduce the risk before it has resolved should be different to those used to mitigate it after it has occured. This is because it makes the point where you commit to the risk a meaningful question: ‘have I done enough to mitigate the risk?’ This sort of question is a good thing for the game, as it allows the player to determine their own risk appetite, and is skill testing because of this: do you understand the risks ahead of you?

To take the example of rolling saves at the end of turn, the risk is quantifiable (you know what the unit’s save is), meaningful (if you don’t destroy the unit this turn it will get to act next turn) and controllable (the odds vary based on what you do, and can become near certain). The additional thing that I think is good and new to this are that the solution before and after rolling those dice is different: prior to rolling the dice you can take actions such as firing more shots at the enemy unit or finding a way to reduce the save: both of these reduce the risk so that it is less likely to occur. After the dice are rolled you can’t, unlike in base 40k, fire more shots immediately: there is a cost associated with the risk having manifested, the unit will get to fight again before you can eliminate it. But risk mitigation still exists: you have your next turn to deal with it, and if you’re playing well you’ve accounted for the possibility of it going wrong in your planning. A unit surviving where you expected to kill it will not, usually, decide a game, but it creates a situation for you to respond to which keeps things interesting.

And that’s all I’m arguing for: where randomness occurs, which it must do in a game about dice, it must be interesting. This requires it to be predictable, contollable and meaningful. At present, all the randomness in the shooting phase isn’t particularly interesting: a single attack could feature a roll for number of attacks, a to hit roll, a to wound roll, a saving throw, and a feel no pain. All of these slow things down, but are ultimately all solved by the same solution once those dice are rolled: fire more guns. By contrast, moving saves to the end of the turn means that you have to make a judgement on the results of the first set of rolls: is this enough? If you judge it is not, you can mitigate the risk in the same way as before by firing more guns. If you judge that you have done enough damage, you have assessed the situation and decided the odds are sufficiently in your favour. When it then turns out the dice are against you and you were wrong the ‘fire more guns’ option is no longer available for this turn: there is a cost to having not mitigated the risk successfully. But, in all liklihood, this won’t be too swingy: you have more guns to fire next turn. It’s a setback, but not game deciding.

There is a massive difference between taking a risk on something, and taking an unnecessary risk.

...

A big problem with current 40K Objectives - including ITC and Maelstrom - is that there is no way to stop your opponent from doing the thing that they're going to do. Their turn, is their turn...Barring a handful of Stratagems, and the Fight phase, where "Do you have enough CPs to interrupt, and what are your options?" is a huge tactical question, because whether or not your opponent interrupts your Fight phase absolutely changes how you should activate your turn. Kill Team solved that. Both players' turns happen more-or-less simultaneously. What order you activate your models in, matters, because your opponent actually can shut you down if you make the wrong decisions, because the effects of their actions (i.e; Removal of models - or not) is immediate.

Allowing saves - and thus, Damage - to proc at the end of the round, means that the only time your opponent influences your turn, is during movement (that is, board control is the only thing you can do, which is actually less important than you think). This means taking a lot of unnecessary risks because you don't know the outcome of your actions. Because you don't know the outcome of your actions, as you take them, the end result, is that the more actions you take without knowing the outcome, the less tactical the game becomes because you are constantly making more and more and more decisions with no additional information.

The less a player's active decisions have, on the outcome, the less competitive and/or fair, a game is.

This is a good point, and I agree, to some extent at least. I think our difference here is that I’m thinking across the span of the whole game, you’re thinking turn to turn. For me, the important thing is that the uncertainty goes away at the end of turn, at which point you have complete information again. You know if you’ve successfully shut down what your opponent was doing. So the tactical question is asked on a turn by turn basis, not within the turn itself. Wanting the latter, which I think is what you’re suggesting, is also a valid position.

A solution could be if having taken the action of shooting something affects their effectiveness. For example, it would be desirable if having blast markers on a unit reduced their movement or fighting effectiveness in some way: your opponent still gets to use the unit (which is desireable from a player satisfaction perspective), but you’ve reduced its effectiveness: your active decision has affected the gameplay and reduced the risk that unit presents. The sort of level I think would be good would be if, for each blast marker you placed, you choose to reduce the target unit’s movement, BS or WS by 1. This is an immediate and useful impact on your opponent. Unfortunately, I don’t think Apocalypse will have this sort of mechanic, but it’s certainly one that SHOULD be there.

To note as well, on the turn by turn tactical basis, you should be able to have the knowledge that you’ve reduced effectiveness of a unit in some way, even if you haven’t destroyed it. A risk of ‘this is either dead or completely effective’ is quite swingy, better to have ‘this is either dead or massively reduced effectiveness next turn’. Sadly, Apocalypse is based on the former, not the latter.

Tl:dr, randomness should exist in the game, but it needs to be well designed, so that it is interesting and adds to the game. Well designed means it is a) predictable, b) controllable and c) meaningful. In base 40k it tends to be predictable and controllable, but not particularly meaningful, as a simple solution (such as firing more guns) exists once the risk has manifested: the only impact is frustration at the dice going against you. I believe that the movement of saves to the end of turn creates more meaningful randomness that is still predictable and controllable. However, I also agree that there should be some immediate outcome to a decision made in reducing the opponent’s effectiveness, and it is a shame that Apocalypse does not seem to do this.

[Voidhawk]

That sounds a little bit like Epic 40k, just with 40k-scale miniatures - units didn't have wounds, but they would take "blast markers" until they disappeared.

...They were wounds, by any other name, but they didn't necessarily equate with the number of models on a base. Think of it like, each *squad* having a pool of wounds that would cause it to cease to exist when the arbitrary total had been reached, rather than 10 members with 1 wound each that would be chipped away over time

Epic 40k was not A Good Game. I honestly can't say anything more about Apocalypse, but if that is what they're doing then the less they bring back from Epic, the better it'll be.

This is exactly what I've been thinking for a while, but with the exact opposite conclusion: Epic was a fantastic wargame, with one of the most professional rule-sets GW has ever created. Moving 40k towards Epic by means of a Detachment Activation system is a very good thing and I heartily support it.

(I rank the top three rule-sets in no particular order as Epic, Battlefleet Gothic, and Bloodbowl. The key overlap between them seems to be "temporary damage between alive and dead": blast markers, Brace-for-Impact and stunning in BB. Which 40k doesn't really have; this edition even Morale has been reduced to an Alive/Dead tickbox.)

The condensing of "Wound-Save" into "Anti-Inf or Anti-Tank" with a larger die range is an interesting development, and another step towards actual military wargame type rules. When you shoot a gun at a marine, you don't care if it bounced off his armour or his toughness, you just care what the combined odds are that it gets through both. Dividing weapons/armour by effectiveness rather than narrative is a good practice, which ironically leads to narratively more satisfying games.

All threat ranges (move + charge / move + weapon range) are known quantities; the only way you can 'bait' someone is if they are purposefully playing badly, ignoring your rules, or you are obfuscating something that should be public.

The question to most of your 'tactical' conundrums can be resolved by proper deployment, flying so you can move wherever, or ignoring LoS so you dont have to at all.

So you're telling me you play perfectly all the time, a 40k Deep Blue that only ever loses games due to dice luck? We're all human, and getting another human to screw up and fail is 50% of wargaming. Even at the tourney level, people lose games due to making mistakes. That's kind of what gaming is about, you dig?

Show of hands, who's played with Activation systems before? Avaris is correct, they provide interesting tactical (and strategic) decision points, and which aren't instantly solvable or obvious. AKA, interesting places to screw up. For example:

- There's an objective in the centre of the table and it's your activation. You have a big unit of Khorne Raptors 8" from it, and your opponent has a big unit of Banshees 8" from it on the other side, neither of which have activated. Both units have a move+charge of 14", and whoever charges first fights first. What do you do?

The answer of course is "it depends". Do you have a less valuable unit that can also make it on to the objective? Then perhaps send them in and use the Raptors to cover them. Do the Raptors also have bolters? Then perhaps move sideways, still threaten the objective and shoot the Banshees. Is there another enemy-friendly-pair of units near the Banshees? Then perhaps send them in first to try and tempt the Banshees elsewhere.

The point is that it's much more granular than the I-go-you-go style of play. I got the first turn? Cool, let me destroy as much stuff as I can. Didn't destroy enough? Guess I lose.

And even if you think that playing can be done just by following a flow chart of "do X, if he does Y, then do Z", discovering what that sequence is for a new game should at least be an interesting learning experience.

[Wraith]

This is exactly what I've been thinking for a while, but with the exact opposite conclusion: Epic was a fantastic wargame, with one of the most professional rule-sets GW has ever created. Moving 40k towards Epic by means of a Detachment Activation system is a very good thing and I heartily support it.

Hmm, perhaps I was being a bit too reactionary. Epic 40k wasn't a bad wargame, because the rules reflected the intention of the game - lots of units throwing lots of stuff at each other, then at the end of the turn you sweep a bunch of them off the table and start over. It was elegant and it was satisfying in that regard.

I think the problem is, I wasn't looking for a wargame played on a board but instead I wanted a boardgame that simulated a war. The scale of the models was unwieldy and the lack of other things to do apart from "roll dice until everything is taken off the table" failed to capture my attention, and from what I've heard I think that was quite a common experience. It was a decent wargame, but I think it was let down by the lack of support - GW, at the time, just weren't sophisticated enough to market two 40k-themed games.

Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised. I hope so; I'm not passionate about disliking Epic 40k, it was merely disappointing and not what I was after at the time.

[Avaris]

Avaris is correct, they provide interesting tactical (and strategic) decision points, and which aren't instantly solvable or obvious. AKA, interesting places to screw up.

I should note that Cheesegear is also correct in that for this to work there needs to be a meaningful impact on your opponent’s units during the alternating activations. I don’t think this shoul be as simple as destroying the enemy unit, that is well placed at the end of turn, but there needs to be something, for example pinning rules of some type.

Thinking further on my arguments around randomness, it occured to me that the Acts of Faith system in the recent Sisters rules was a perfect example of randomness done badly. You couldn’t really control it enough, and when an effect did occur it generally didn’t have much of a meaningful impact. As a Sisters player, I frequently straight up forgot to use AoF, as often when I did it was just rolling a die and being unsuccessful, creating a feel bad situation.

This highlights another angle on the randomness question: it needs to do something both when you are lucky and unlucky. When shooting a unit you are almost guaranteed to do something: some dice will hit, some will wound, some will get through the armour. So the randomness is not ‘is this effective’ but ‘how effective is this?’ In the Sisters case, it is a binary dice roll, yes/no, which is unsatisfying as a use of randomness.

As an example of how one could make randomness meaningful and satisying in the Sisters case, it could be as simple as making you roll your entire pool of faith points at the start of the game. Assign each AoF a number you need to roll higher than to use, and as the game continues use up those dice to use AoF. If I roll a 4 I can use that die for any AoF requiring a 4+ or lower, if I roll a 6 I can use any of them. The point is, the randomness is still there, but better implemented.

In terms of Apocalypse, I am concerned that decisions like having a single attack from a unit of 5 Marines and having that unit have 2 wounds in total before it is removed creates a binary yes/no situation in too many cases. Your marine unit either hits or it doesn’t, it’s either dead or it’s not. That is not good randomness.

[Destro_Yersul]

Of course, the biggest reason why the game isn't less complex is because they added in Stratagems. Which...aren't in the main rulebook, but instead inside the Codexes. They also added in faction bonuses which again, are in the Codexes. Along with all the special rules. And all the weapons.

So yeah, not buying a decreased page count as evidence that 8th is simpler, not when they moved so many rules to other books.

I mean, if you want to play THAT card, my 4th Ed. Space Marine codex has 32 pages of rules, and my 8th Ed. Thousand Sons codex has 38. A slight difference, perhaps. Not enough to warrant your position that offloading rules to the codexes significantly effected the length of the core rules. Are you thinking of 3rd, maybe? 3rd edition had fairly substantial unit profiles and things in the core book. I haven't checked the difference between that and 4th.

If you like, when I have a little more time later, I'll do a breakdown of each of the phases looking at what has changed between then and now.

[Saambell]

Good job comparing Space Marines to an army with only about 10 units. The 8th edition Space Marine codex has 76 pages of rules.

[Hootman]

Do either of these arguments REMOTELY matter?

TL;DR: Both arguments going on seem flawed and/or pointless. They have no obvious endgame, and many people's positions seem strongly held. Can we not go back to our regularly scheduled darkness other stuff? I vote Kill Team, since it's the thing I, personally, wanted help with. ^^;;;

Spoiler: Full Text

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1. Apocalypse: The rules aren't fully out. There are caveats and exceptions in almost everyone's posts to that effect, but you're already declaring it great/trash, and have done so back and forth for like a page and a half, or more. Can you not agree to disagree until the full rules come out and you have the opportunity to play test it yourselves? Maybe throwing together some battle reports to entertain the Playground while also making your analysis through examples and experience? Or at least using your long-time gamer's experience to help you analyze a released ruleset without playing it, if trying right away it isn't your thing?

It just seems really counterproductive to do it the way you have been, is what I'm saying.


2. Page count as indicator of complexity? There are so many factors that go into page count (font, margins, layout, page size) that have nothing to do with content that it's a weak metric to use to indicate anything. Unless they're formatted exactly the same, it's risky to draw parallels that way. The verbosity of specific sections that are explaining the same things would be a better place of comparison, I feel, if a bit more effort unless you have a digital copy that can analyze word-count for you. I believe someone mentioned comparing the written rules for how Rapid Fire weapons work between editions? Discrete examples like that seem like better points of comparison to me.

I don't understand the goal of this argument. What does it matter which ruleset is more complex takes up more space in one book than a descendant ruleset takes up in a different book with different formatting and priorities?

[LeSwordfish]

There's a How To video available now, which suggests the official music of the apocalypse is jazz?

Alternating actions matter because you give orders that define the actions to your detachments before making the actions - so if you order a unit to Take Aim, then they fight less well if charged, meaning that you want to choose a detachment to charge them. This is done in secret.

[Forum Explorer]

I mean, if you want to play THAT card, my 4th Ed. Space Marine codex has 32 pages of rules, and my 8th Ed. Thousand Sons codex has 38. A slight difference, perhaps. Not enough to warrant your position that offloading rules to the codexes significantly effected the length of the core rules. Are you thinking of 3rd, maybe? 3rd edition had fairly substantial unit profiles and things in the core book. I haven't checked the difference between that and 4th.

If you like, when I have a little more time later, I'll do a breakdown of each of the phases looking at what has changed between then and now.

Like I said, I reject the idea of page counts as a valid argument. Particularly that one, because as Saambell points out, Thousand Sons is one of the smallest armies that didn't even exist back in 4th edition. While the Space Marine codex basically doubled in size.


And yes please. That is something that I would consider valid. I would do it myself, but I don't have my 4th edition rulebook anymore.

[Avaris]

How to play video for Apocalypse is up. Things I picked up:

• Command radius is 12” from commander, so detachments will probably be quite small and of similar movement speeds in order to stay within range. If a unit is out of command range and has ANY blast markers it is destroyed in the damage phase. Crucially though, command radius is checked at the start of the turn, but resolves at the end, so you’ll get a turn of action out of them before they rout.
• The victory conditions of one of the missions shown was objective based victory points: if you control more objectives than opponent at end of turn, gain 1 victory point. Cheesegear may have comment on how this compares to missions where you gain 1 vp per objective held?
• Detachments are secretly given orders at the start of the turn. Either Advance, which allows you to move and shoot OR fight, Aimed fire, which stops movement but improves to hit rolls, at a penalty to fight if you get charged, and Assault, which gives double movement and chance to fight. Interesting having hidden orders, I quite like it as a mechanic, and I think we’ve seen that there are ways to change orders mid turn.
• If a unit takes more damage counters than half its strength, it halves its attacks for the rest of the battle. This is good, as it means you can reduce a unit’s effectiveness even if you don’t kill it immediately (which was a concern)
• Morale checks are made if a unit has taken blast markers but not been destroyed. Roll d6 and add the number of blast markers: if higher than their leadership, unit gains a damage counter. So this mitigates some of the risk of doing a lot of blast markers and then getting unlucky when your opponent makes all their saving throws.

Overall still seems solid to me: a few of the concerns I had have been mitigated!

[Cheesegear]

I vote Kill Team, since it's the thing I, personally, wanted help with.

Problem is, I can't help you as much as I'd like.
I'm well aware that Elites has changed the meta, whilst Commanders are soft-banned in almost every meta.
Problem is, because I never bought into Elites, I don't know how they work, I don't know how ****'s changed in each Faction.

What I do know, is that if you go fast-and-melee, you're not far wrong. So, however your Faction-of-choice does that, I guess.

If a unit is out of command range and has ANY blast markers it is destroyed in the damage phase.

This rule forces you to castle around Characters. Sounds ****.

The victory conditions of one of the missions shown was objective based victory points: if you control more objectives than opponent at end of turn, gain 1 victory point. Cheesegear may have comment on how this compares to missions where you gain 1 vp per objective held?

If there's no other way to score points, then whether it's 1 or 100 doesn't matter. Castle up with durable units around Characters. The fact that you need more Objectives than your opponent means rushing to Objectives on Turn 1. Once you're where you need to be, why move after that?

Assault, which gives double movement and chance to fight.

How big is the board? How big are Deployment Zones? What does chance to Fight, mean?
So...The Move and Charge phases are different?
...When do models declare Charges?

Interesting having hidden orders, I quite like it as a mechanic, and I think we’ve seen that there are ways to change orders mid turn.

If X-Wing has taught me anything, cheating will be rampant.

Morale checks are made if a unit has taken blast markers but not been destroyed. Roll d6 and add the number of blast markers: if higher than their leadership, unit gains a damage counter. So this mitigates some of the risk of doing a lot of blast markers and then getting unlucky when your opponent makes all their saving throws.

Seems like an arse-load of book-keeping.
Not only are the rolls to hit and wound using different dice (i.e; You can't roll to hit, pick up the successes, and roll the same dice again), but you are trading Blast markers for wound counters, double-dipping on the number of tokens on the board, which surely wont lead to annoyance.

Tokens, the game.

[Requizen]

Problem is, I can't help you as much as I'd like.
I'm well aware that Elites has changed the meta, whilst Commanders are soft-banned in almost every meta.
Problem is, because I never bought into Elites, I don't know how they work, I don't know how ****'s changed in each Faction.

What I do know, is that if you go fast-and-melee, you're not far wrong. So, however your Faction-of-choice does that, I guess.

Ooh, maybe that's an excuse to finally build my Praetorians.

[Cheesegear]

Ooh, maybe that's an excuse to finally build my Praetorians.

Addendum; 'Cheaper is Better' is still a thing.

[LeSwordfish]

If X-Wing has taught me anything, cheating will be rampant.

How? If I put a token facedown on the board next to a specific character... to change that token after seeing my opponent's token would require magician-grade sleight of hand, surely?

[Requizen]

Addendum; 'Cheaper is Better' is still a thing.

-26 points
-12" gun

Hahah never mind if I get back into this game I'm just starting a new army. Goodness me.

[Cheesegear]

So, here's a thing that's bothering me about Apocalypse...

Why do number of physical models in a unit, matter?
I can't figure out why a unit (e.g; Intercessors) has to have 5 models, or even 10. If you have 5 models in the unit, the unit still rolls 1 attack, it still has the same wounds, and due to how Damage works in Apoc, an entire unit is wiped out in a single go, right?
...I'm going to assume that a unit of 10 just doubles everything. Still the same process.

So why does the number of physical models I have on the board, actually matter?

Why can't I just put one model of the type on the board, get a piece of cardboard to represent the unit's footprint, and done? Since the actual amount of models I have, appears to be meaningless.
See, in the real game, the difference between 5 and 6 models, is two more dice, two more wounds. It's not much. But it is a tangible difference.

The only reason to put Infantry models actually on the board, is if you're gonna take photos.