>no crunch >no fluffWhat exactly does the modern 40K experience provide then? It’s not like the game is languishing, the popularity is growing. So my question is; what’s the appeal?
You spite anonymous people online by buying a 70 dollar 58963x10^5 detail CADslop and pretending you're a heckin grog thats been playing since 1996 so you can ignore all criticism. Its now entirely a personality replacement.
>>93424202>>no fluffIs it truly the case?I was playing some board games with acquaintances, one of them had been reading 40K novels. No idea if she plays 40k, but she spoke favorably about the fluff.
>>93424202Not really. All the casual players are playing 10th less and less and moving onto other games. The people I see playing most nowadays are tourneyfags having practice games
>>93424225I’m sorry I’m having a hard time parsing through your reply but I think I get the point you’re making. Sounds like you’re saying it’s a paypig’s hobby now and is more of a “lifestyle brand” than anything else? And when criticized they try to fall back on “well I was there in 19XX…..” am I missing something?
>>93424255You got it.
>>93424240I am talking specifically about the tabletop game, hence my reference to crunch vs fluff. Sorry for any confusion. And yes they are churning out lore in black library books like nobody’s business these days.
>>93424253I remember meeting up with someone for a game and even though we didn’t explicitly discuss casual vs competitive I brought a very relaxed list but the other guy (no shade on him, lovely fella) brought a fully keyed IG list and wiped me by my second turn. After the game he said “thanks I needed to practice against a melee army for the upcoming tournament”. Very strange experience but I learned a lot! Feels like this is more and more the case. Never had anyone try to deviate from standard tourney pack missions. They also word things weird now “I want to try my new list after the balance dataslate / im running xyz unit”
>>93424266But isn't it a PvP wargame?I'd expect those to have minimal fluff other than the visuals, with fluff being more tied to ttrpgs or to external stuff (videogames, novels, etc).I have almost zero knowledge of this game so if I'm wrong I'd be glad to be told so
>>93424266>crunch vs fluffCan you elaborate on these concepts?
>>93424291How awful. Did he have any story for his dudes?
>>93424349The fluff would be the lore behind the models and how the lore informs the gameplay I.e. space elves are lithe and fragile space marines are plodding and tough. In that most general sense it still exists but before you used to have certain wargear provide certain benefits such as search lights not affecting your shooting when doing night fighting (admittedly the others affecting stat lines are getting more into crunch territory) . Tanks getting stuck in mud and turrets being stuck firing in a certain direction etc. I would personally consider that fluff (perhaps someone wiser will come and correct me). Nowadays vehicles get picked up and removed from play after being destroyed and terrain is all just symmetrical ruins. when models get certain benefits like an Invulnerable save (generally used to be tied to flare shields and the like) it’s just baked into the data sheet with no real explanation. In short rules used to be “this is to represent…….” Whereas now asking too many questions about what certain things mean beyond its impact on the game will be met with blank stares or uninspired sloppa like “it’s just because they’re so badass they just shrug it off”.
>>93424349Yes but the older rules allowed for a degree of variety in how you played the game, the modern game has gone for a more T-sports (tabletop sports, an actual term in the modern warhammer space) symmetrical video game designIf you know video games, old warhammer was more like custom RTS lobbies. Creative and custom maps, unique scenarios and cool army compositions. Modern warhammer is just StarCraft competitive. Symmetrical maps with constantly repeated terrain formations that the game is built around (every map is a ruined city block), armies don’t look cool and are just a nonsense mash up of units. It’s lost a lot of its flavor that originally came from old school historical wargame design
>>93424374Crunch: being able to have granular wargear and vehicle facings, etc. Fluff: psychic powers feel like psychic powers not just “shooting with more keywords” I left a more detailed reply for another anon hopefully that clears things up. And of course I may have the definitions wrong!
>>93424435This anon gets it, the why has largely been removed which also removes a lot of intrigue. Holy relics that contain a fragment of an Imperial Saint that can intercept some projectiles through its aura will always be more interesting than Space Marine Captain gets 5+ invuln
>>93424387Nope just kasarkin bomb (I think?) and gaunts ghosts redeploying while his indirect fire tanks destroyed my back line. To be fair, I don’t really have much story for my dudes except that they’re so angry and deluded they think khorne is the emperor and that they’re still loyalist world eaters.
>>93424202It's got the best aesthetics and lore of any wargame IP. All of that stuff matters more than any other aspect of wargames if you want to attract players.
>>93424486One thing that goes understated in warhammer is the wide variety of aesthetics. You could be a warhammer player and think space marines are boring but love orks, for example.More games need to learn this and stop making all their factions “the same as the other guys but with smoother armor paneling” or something. Kitchen sink is how you draw as large of a net as warhammer
>>93424486Sure but it seems like many new players (myself included, I started in 9th Ed) are just sort of initially into it then once they realize that it’s just MtG with toy soldiers and 3x as expensive, they move on to other games (including prior editions of 40K). Perhaps that is their current business model with all these FOMO boxes but the game itself is heavily suffering for it in my opinion.
>>93424513Great point anon. Feels like every faction in 40K is a joke that got taken too far and then got a little bit of serious exposition.
>>93424240>she
>>93424435Yep. Not having flavor and fluff reflecting in the rules like this is what sapped at least 50% of the soul from warhammer. Nu-40k you could replace the models from one faction with models from another and the rules probably would be equally as flavorful due to how little there actually is. Really think about it, if I am playing world eaters in 10th edition what exactly does their army have that feels really specific to the world eaters in-universe? They have a fucking yahtzee minigame that generates random bonuses and...that's it?Where's the rules that make them feel like an army of rampaging bloodthirsty berserkers? You could take the world eaters rules and apply them onto tyranids, dark eldar, or orks and they'd be functionally just as fluffy for them.
>>93424593>YOU CAN TAKE YOUR KEYWORDS AND YOUR FUCKIN BLESSINGS OF KHORNE AND YOUR STRATAGEMS AND SHOVE EM UP YER FUCKIN ASS >BRING BACK THE FUCKIN FRENZY SPECIAL RULE>OH I TELL YA ONE OF THOSE FUCKIN THINGS AND YOUD BE RUNNIN RIGHT AT THE ENEMY HAHAAAAAA
>>93424593Shitposting aside; it’s a great point to make and unironically mind breaks the average nu 40K piggy. I know someone who literally refuses to read any other ruleset from GW to spite “grogs” and insists that if you don’t enjoy nu 40k it’s because you lack the intellect to engage it competitively (with secondaries and all that stuff). Odd phenomenon to say the least but I wonder if this is even a common sentiment (sure hope not).
>>93424593This, my Necrons aren’t even a slow, tanky through recursion army anymore. Now they teleport all over the board and rely on fuckin wraiths for damage. It’s nuts
>>93424202for me the fluff is all the lore and artwork its why most people get into the hobby, myself includedArtwork>Lore>Models>Gaming>Painting
At what point was 40k "taken over by WAACfags" and all the soul driven out? I started in 4th and literally my first game was getting starcannon spammed to death followed by more or less the same mass AP-2/kiting/gotcha lists for the next 2 editions up to the circus of 8th-10th. At least now with the constant updating the WAACfags who aren't loaded burn out faster trying to chase the meta (funny as hell when one gets his army back from the commissioned painter just in time for a nerf/points change).
>>93424933Well you can make them slow and tanky again goy, just buy the slow and tanky buff giving named character for only 60 dollars so you can have a bland buff on your troops choices
>>93424963*6th-10th
>>93424702I worry for his ability to remember to breathe if he thinks its intellectually challenging to copy a meta list worked out by someone else.
>>93424963So its spite over bad rules that makes you enjoy GW doing this shit?
>>93424963Anecdotally, 7th. Casual pickup games used to be huge by me, people used to run little arena battles with heroes and all sorts of fun on the fly scenarios. By 7th the stores were dead and the only games were at tournaments. Kill team now occupies the casual niche, which sucks because I don’t like the newest version
>>93424588Yes. A woman reading fantasy novels.Apparently she read ones about some female faction which she described as full of daddy issues.
>>93424963I don’t think WAAC players ruined the game in the abstract although your exact same experience happened to me in my first game of 9th and my very first game of 40K in general lol. That is to say they can ruin specific games but not THE game. And yes that’s the only good benefit of metawatch but of course every other player also suffers when massive changes are made to armies and units. I hope I’m not coming off as “You dang WAAC players, you ruined the game!” I just think that GW is catering more and more to a competitive scene than anything else.
>>93424979He works out the lists himself since he’s been doing MtG deck building for a while. That being said realizing that rerolls are good does not really require higher level thinking.
>>93424202>What exactly does the modern 40K experience provide then?Players. Whether sunk-cost fallacy, simple ignorance that there are better games out there, or something else, 40K has an utterly massive playerbase. I have to put in work to organize games and find players for any other system, but if I decided to lower myself to playing 40k, I could send a message in the local wargame FB group or LGS chat and have 5 people volunteering to play with me tomorrow.It's essentially the D&D of Wargames.
>>93424963>At what point was 40k "taken over by WAACfags"As you accurately remember it's been like this for decades and most nostalgia is about a specific friend group or being a child with no awareness of netlisting.
>>93425053Oh god he's a minnow for whales then.
>>93425068Great point. Hadn’t considered that. Now you’ve depressed me…. But I must persevere and paint my fantasy battle armies!
>>93425086Sorry I didn’t catch the meaning. Can you elaborate a bit? Pardon my ignorance.
>>93425112Its a mobile game term. Minnows are the little customers that exist to be loyal to a company while richer lazier customers walk all over them. Basically they're the suckers that play the game the way its advertised without realizing its a skinner box and they're not the end goal.
>>93424963As much as I love the edition and consider it the prime example of how you can have very simple rules while also maintaining sovl and customization, it started with 3rd.3rd is when 40k got heavily streamlined and removed a lot of the more rpg elements to where a competitive tournament style of play actually became possible. Around this time is when jervis created the first tournament rules pack also.Do keep in mind that 3rd and 4th were still very early and the scene was still very small, it has been a slow growing cancer that started to become more noticeable around late 4th and early 5th when the first wave of "internet newfags" got into the hobby with memes and games like dawn of war becoming popular. 6th and 7th are probably where most people truly saw it become common though, and now in 8th and onward it's the default mode of play for beginners
>>93425150Ah okay I’ve never been one for mobile gaming so explains why I didn’t get it. That does check out though, thanks for explaining to me. It’s an odd thing he goes to great lengths to justify whatever dogshit decision gw made; for example he has gun cultists for csm and they lost that weapon option, melee only now, and he had to convince me (and presumably himself) that the change was a good one and “makes sense” somehow. Feels like sunk cost fallacy.
>>93425172This just makes me want to play 2nd edition and Rogue Trader even more.
>>93424966Whoops sorry! That’s not for another 12 months at least. But anyways here’s a 230 dollar box with the hq you need :)
>>93424593>if I am playing world eaters in 10th edition what exactly does their army have that feels really specific to the world eaters in-universe?You could ask this of any edition though. Rage/Frenzy/Furious Charge? Plenty of other armies got those rules as options, or under certain conditions, etc. The reason you remember armies being "more unique", or whatever, is that in earlier editions there were not yet conventions in the rules writing, so everything had to be a singular bespoke rule for one army or unit when it was first written, and where appropriate it was then rolled out to other units and/or factions until most of them eventually became universal special rules that created a uniform standard for how certain types of abilities operated in the game to ensure consistent understanding in casual settings and reduce the cognitive load so that GW could push larger armies and increase sales. What you want is a game with fewer factions, so there's less stepping on toes in terms of shared design and rules, and where armies are smaller so you can have more detailed procedures in the rules for a deeper simulation. This game is perpetually half-finished and will never be a fun and balanced game, so it will attract WAACfags who will ruin it for almost everyone.
>>93425403Bit disingenuous to say that we just want a bespoke rule that’s unique from every other faction and that if it is a USR then it’s just as bad as the current trend of slop rules. It’s not that it has to be unique or bespoke compared to other armies, it just has to accurately reflect the army in question. Frenzy being a rule that forced you to charge whenever possible is more flavorful than “move d6 inches towards closest enemy model if you want to :) “. And of course these “unique and bespoke” rules that we see are generally so poorly worded that players find a loophole to exploit and that makes the unit an auto include until the next round of nerfs.
>>93424963Around 7th Ed is when Reddit and netlistibg really came into full swing. It just didn’t exist to that widespread before. The ease of finding how to optimize your shit is what killed it, more than any particular edition, but if you have to pick one I would pick detachments (7th) and stratagems (8th) that really made things worse. To many layers of possible min maxing.
>>93425403you got it wrong man, they weren't saying they wanted them to be more unique, but instead want the armies on the tabletop to represent how the models would fight and work if they were actually fighting in the setting. Frenzy and furious charge, or even the previous blood tithe points are more fluffy and in line for world eaters than whatever the fuck the 10th rule is. Any remaining faction flavor in 10th I've noticed is locked behind the lame stratagem system instead of incorporating those into the units and army rules. Modern 40k just feels like I'm playing magic the gathering with models instead of a wargame, the models are nothing but bland numbers on a paper that you throw spell cards (stratagems, character buff) on top of to increase said numbers before ramming it into the enemy cards. It's just slop and completely unimaginative, the gameplay tactics and mechanics have almost nothing to do with actually simulating a battle in the 41st millennium
>>93425068People always say this but I haven't seen a pickup game of 40k in the wild in years, you only see the "massive playerbase" in tournaments.
>>93424202It's been watered down enough to be accessible now but hasn't yet become the totally grey corpo-sludge that even Normies find tasteless like Star Wars has.
>>93424202It provides a consumerist outlet for paypigs.
>>93424202consume product, complain endlessly about the state of the game, get exited for new product
>>93425716honestly i have no fucking clue what a pick up game is either but it could just be because im not in a city with a large populationlike do people actually just walk into their local shops without any pre-discussion or planning and there's dudes always there hanging out and ready to play? sounds like fiction to me, i've always had to ask the owner first if i could use the table, and then ask the group itself if anyone is down to play a game, and then schedule it for another time after I found a guy to play with. There was always plenty of time and discussion to be had about what type of game we want to play and any changes to the rules we wanted to make or expansions we wanted to add to the mix
>>93424702(comp) 40k is doing an excellent job filtering retards like him from polluting the actual miniature wargame hobby
>>93425803For warhammer specifically, local GW stores used to have tons of pickup games. Then 7th killed casual 40k, so people only did pickup games of Kill Team. Then COVID killed that too.GWs also stopped running fun themed events, at most you'll get an escalation league when a new edition comes out (that nobody plays because nobody wants to spend $100 every week on 40k) or a local tournament that the same crowd that goes to every tournament goes to.
>>93424435>Tanks getting stuck in mud and turrets being stuck firing in a certain direction etc. What's the last edition that had rules like that?
>>93424240>she Pic related
>>93427399I’m not sure but if I were to guess I’d say somewhere in 6th or 7th. 8th was the big change in how 40K played.
there's plenty of fluff and crunch regardless of how you feel about the execution
>>93424963When they listened to Frontline Gaming as if they represented everyone.
>>93428247The crunch is just reroll mechanics out the ass and “mortal wounds” whatever that is. Fluff is still there I’ll admit but it doesn’t inform the tabletop the way it used to.
>>93428532What was the campaign pack that Redditized the lore? Storm of something right?
>>93424202It's a game you can actually play. You don't have to gamble on whether your buddy will actually split an intro box to [NEW SYSTEM], and actually assemble the models, and actually get a game going.Accordingly, Warhammer is the logical choice if you want a game everyone can agree on. Behind it are games with minimal buy in like Gaslands. Somewhat further are [MALIFINITYGAVE SKIRMISH SYSTEMS]
>>934249637e, because that was the point when the North American competitive community filled the void for somewhat balanced mission packs and rules that GW had left.Honestly, 5e was really bad for this shit too - between NewCrons, GK, and Melta Vets. Fwiw, the FLG mission packs that became standard in 7e were an improvement on the middlehammer leafblower lists.
>>93424202It provides players money into the pockets of GW employees and shareholders.
>>93424202I just think Necrons are neat. I struggle to think of a neater sci-fi faction.
>>93424202There's probably only room for one big TT wargame. One game where you can reliably get games. I despise Games Workshop for leaning into skirmish too. Same with MTG, there's really only room for it, then Pokemon and YuGiOh.
>>93429827But anon, I don’t agree on slophammer 40K
>>93430070They were cooler before they became Tomb Kings in space IMO. But yeah they’re definitely one of the cooler factions in 40K.
>>93424202Who's talking about *playing* 40k? It's 2022.bToday you *identify* with 40k. You watch vidya about 40k on YouTube, you upvote news about GW being more and more 'inclusive' on Twitter, perhaps you even visited 40k subreddit. And this, not painting some silly models makes you 40k-er.
>>93424291My last modern 40k game was against a random who also said something along those lines. I had brought a pure nurgle CSM army with a lot of random legends garbage and a land raider lmao.
>>93424374Fluff is the lore and background information for the factions and units, as well as rules that tie into that. For example WHFB orcs had the animosity rule, reflecting the fluff of orcs being an unruly horde prone to infighting by having a chance your orcs would start fighting among themselves instead of attacking the enemy. It was clearly a detriment to the player, but reflected how orcs were supposed to act in the lore.Crunch is the in-game rules for units and wargear. Usually people talk about fluffy vs crunchy lists, with the former being made to reflect how the faction's military functions in the lore and the later being minmaxed to use the most powerful models. Though in the context of the OP he seems to use crunch specifically to mean granularity in unit wargear optimization. Modern 40k still lets you make minmaxed lists, but the focus is almost entirely on picking the best units while previously each unit could have a lot of wargear options so in addition to picking the most optimal units you could also customize their weapons to best suit your purposes.
>>93424963Dunno I just play Necromunda
>>93424588i've met a not insignificant amount of women who are into warhammer. just a week or so ago i met a woman who told me that she's excited for new beastmen models in tow since she's been playing exclusively beastmen since 6th edition came out.
>>93430667Thanks for clarifying. I figured I had the terminology slightly wrong.
>>93430891I bet she likes Jay Naylor.
