40K - could you make a game with less interesting factions?

[souran]

So, lets say you wanted to make a sci-fi wargame. Lets say you already have a nominally functional set of rules. Now it is time to put together faction lists. You have to competing perogatives. First, you have chrome - how do the factions look, what is their backstory etc. Second you have gears - how do they play on the table and what is their combat philosophy. You might put together a pair of lists like:

Combat Philosophies supported by our wargame:

Quality over Quantity
Quantity over Quality
High Mobility
High Specialization
Aggressive
Defensive

Faction Concepts for our wargame:
Bugs
Mecha
Lots of Tanks
Robots
Distinctly Alien
Space Knights/Space Roman Legionaries/Space Foreign Legion

You would then pair these off till you had 5 or 6 initial factions that were playable.

If, however, you are the designers of 40K you instead just build minis and slam them together making pew pew noises. This is how you end up with the imperium having 6 distintic model range factions (and several dozen sub factions) while the whole rest of the universe is 5 factions with less than a 5 sub factions.

Also, while I am complaining about 40k, would it freaking kill one of their paper-trash writers to actually read a military history book? The "incredible strategies" of the supposed brilliant military minds of 40k make Cobra Commander look like Napoleon Bonaparte. I listened to Helsreach on audible after seeing the animation and good lord is it filled with da stupid. Let me count the ways.

1) A huge hive city defending by nominally millions of guardsman and under the command of what can be approxmiated as staff officer of the black crusade and the highest ranking guardsman is...a colonel. WTF. The reason colonel is the highest ranking officer seen in rulebook for the guard is because thats the highest rank you can (un)reasonably expect to see front line action. They talk about multiple divisions of guard. There should be lots of staff officers.

2) The colonel has a personal baneblade tank. Hey numbnuts. How about setting up a CP in one of the bunkers that was described and doing an officers job and send that baneblade into the fighting. I get that high officers often get stupid stuff (Montgomery wanted his own B29 and eventually got one), but this is dumb as hell.

3) Also, the whole concept of imperial superheavy tanks is dumb as shit. 40k Tanks already suck at being tanks in the first place, a tank isn't better because you stick more pointless ass guns on it. 40K tanks are basically gun trucks. Also, super heavy tanks didn't last that long after WWII. By 1960 the US was not even building heavy tanks. The German Heavy tanks of WWII were constantly plagued by being broken. Also, they were a pain to transport and the key element in designing tanks is knowning what bridges they can cross without causing a collapse.

4) While the super heavy tanks are dumb as hell, the addition of titans to the lore in space marine/epic was a great way to make all models that everybody had purchased feel pointless. For fuck sake, just because battletech had building sized mecha does not mean that is the only way to go. The game already had reasonable sized mecha for all the factions. Making gianter versions was just made all your super cool space marines into insignifcant cannon fodder. At least you could ignore them in regular 40k, or just build them as scenery for your troops to fight around... oh wait, they added a faction that was just various out of scale imperial mecha and it is rapidly becoming the most played faction because it has the least cost investment. What a bunch of jack asses.

5) Also in Helsreach, the freaking grand priest of one of the black Templar, decides in the middle of the battle that his role was not to be the regional CO but instead to something something smash orcs in the face. WTF. You don't just get to decide that being in charge isn't fun anymore and walk away. That doesn't make you cool, that makes you seem like you are derelict in your duty. Also, with all the adjacent command structures in the imperium how the fuck do they decide who is in charge? Where exactly do spare marine captains and chapter grand masters slot in? I will buy that the custodites and the sisters don't really have to typically work with the other factions but the guard, marines, and mechanicus have to work closely ALL THE TIME. I would love a game where you were actually at a theater level command and actually had to make use of these desperate parts. They have 3 separate command structures. Its way worse than the Wehrmacht and those assholes gave the air force a freaking tank division (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Falls ... %C3%B6ring)

6) Also, we are 8 editions into this freaking game and our battles of the far future tend to play an awful lot like battles of the first world war. The game heavily punishes most movement and the vehicles, while now a lot tougher, still don't actually do anything like traditional armor. This is a list build wargame and the table decisions are mostly shitty zero-sum affairs.

Holy crap do I wish there was a good sci fi wargame in the 5-15 mm range that actually had a player base and a company that supported it.

[Foxwarrior]

If, however, you are the designers of 40K you instead just build minis and slam them together making pew pew noises.

I read a few White Dwarves as a child, and my impression was that yes, that is how they think. But it's because they are (or at least, were) miniatures designers first and foremost and game designers second or maybe fifth, so the specific factions and such end up looking pretty cool even if they're not ordered in any sort of standard way. Look at all those spikes and skulls and screaming faces on chaos space marines. Pretty metal, right? Mmm, space elves with silly hats and crescent-shaped hover ships. Space orks have ended up being the gold standard all other orcs fail to measure up to.

[Username17]

40K's "setting" started as a joke, and hasn't really moved past that. At all.

Warhammer Fantasy started with the idea "we should really put out some rules so that people can play a game with our miniatures line" and 40K was an outgrowth of that based on the idea "wouldn't it be funny if these guys had lasers and chainsaws instead of swords and bows?"

To the extent that it has changed since, it has been to appeal to the cargo cult fans of the 1987 original. They've repeatedly doubled down on the heavy metal stupidity and not to make it better as a storytelling medium or as a wargame.

An exception I would say was 3rd edition. That was a legit attempt to clean things up. They downplayed some of the teenage stupidity of the setting, simplified the rules, and endeavored to make some actual force org charts. It wasn't perfect, but it was a genuine attempt to make things less retarded. That was in 1998. Everything since then, basically the last twenty fucking years, has been people trying to embiggen things by increasing retro-stupid elements.

-Username17

[Koumei]

It's super easy to make something with less interesting factions. Here we go: real world, where all factions are humans with different coloured hats and basically the same weaponry. There we go, do I get a prize?

Your main argument seems to be that the game isn't based on the real world. Tanks are cooler than mans, and giant ridiculous tanks are completely awesome - the real world just needs to catch up with this and change physics to fit accordingly. Giant robots are awesome and I don't even watch mecha anime. That they didn't really fit in 40k itself is fair enough, though it has had various side-games where they certainly do - even the new Apocalypse is basically Epic Armageddon 40K but in big scale.

I think there is a real problem where there are various "not on the table" people involved but because there aren't miniatures of them to put on the table, even the writers forget they exist. I'm not convinced the Master of the Fleet belongs on the table as opposed to "back at the base" or "off-world on a space thing to control an off-world fleet". That the leaders then choose to run into the front-line is a logical conclusion of what happens when A) any aura/radius effects (the most that their leadership abilities confer when we're not in an edition where individual leaders set army-wide changes) reach out to 6 inches and B) all of their weapon options are pistols and close combat weapons (a problem that also shows up for many others - I think only Tyranids and Tau really escape this, off the top of my head?) All of these are real lore problems derived from their "make minis then work the rules and story out" approach and the fact that someone somewhere decided commanders shouldn't have long-range effects.

Honestly, they could probably do better with their stories being less stupid if anything approaching a full scale war was written from the perspective of "we made up some Epic lists and these are the forces, we're theory-hammering how they would roughly be deployed and interact and how it would play out" (which pays more attention to chains of command and leadership and routing and less to "which actual person got shot?"), interspersed with small personal skirmishes where you care about Sergeant Bob.

Edit: in regards to Frank's post above, you can read more about the changes of 3rd Edition in this thread here by two really rad people with loads of friends, one of which has amazing hair and taste in music.

[phlapjackage]

I've never played it, but I've heard good things about 40K Epic (discontinued). This was the GW "real" scifi wargame, supposedly.

[zeruslord]

Also, with all the adjacent command structures in the imperium how the fuck do they decide who is in charge? Where exactly do spare marine captains and chapter grand masters slot in?

That's a major source of in-fluff tension. The mechanicus is almost never in overall command if anybody else is around, space marine officers can pull rank on any guard officer short of a general (and sometimes even a general), any space marine at all can pull rank on guard officers below colonel, and grand masters are viable candidates to command entire crusades. There's a few other hierarchies that come into it: the Inquisition can theoretically get whatever they want but generally can't actually get armies moving on their own authority, Imperial Guard Commissars aren't supposed to have operational command but can shoot guard officers for cowardice if they want, and the Imperial Navy is parallel to the guard.

Also, depending on what era of fluff you're reading, this is either part of the existential horror of being a citizen of the imperium or a deliberate decision put in place thousands of years ago to prevent a recurrence of the Horus Heresy. Or both. Both is good.

[OgreBattle]

Warhammer 40k's driven by aesthetics, it's to sell miniatures so the sculptors and concept artists built the setting around their fun sculpts

So the rogue trader space marine is a space knight with studded shoulders like that captain picard fellow in the king arthur movie, and a beaky face.

Then Jes Goodwin comes in for the 2nd edition redesign with the grimacing grill face. More flat areas are added to the pauldrons for decoration. Then they do variants where you make some of them furries, some of them catholic gays, some of them construction workers, and other village people archtypes.

I'm pretty sure Eldar were created after they got some bio booster guyver beta tapes. The Eldar robots are definitely Orguss, Zentraedi, 80's anime mecha.

Orks are orcs in spaaaace. It took another decade to really go with mad max

the current 'focus on story' with the novels, I have no interest in it and it's really dampening the fun for me. Admech's new models are great, Primaris Marines feel like blizzard knockoffs of space marines.

Now primarchs are back and the loyalist one pounds the loser traitor ones. Now your dudes don't do shit because the primarch's are more important.

I've never played it, but I've heard good things about 40K Epic (discontinued). This was the GW "real" scifi wargame, supposedly.

One of the editions of epic has the best written ruleset I hear, it's been mentioned on here.

[Thaluikhain]

If, however, you are the designers of 40K you instead just build minis and slam them together making pew pew noises. This is how you end up with the imperium having 6 distintic model range factions (and several dozen sub factions) while the whole rest of the universe is 5 factions with less than a 5 sub factions.

Disagree there. Ok, yeah, it's to sell minis, and always has been, but most players are human, and most armies IRL are made of humans. Not too surprising to see a zillion versions of humans there. Space marines are what people want, for a long time they didn't update the DE codex because far less people cared about it.

You could argue if there were more versions of DE and less of marines that'd be different, though, but I still think marines would be more popular.

Also, while I am complaining about 40k, would it freaking kill one of their paper-trash writers to actually read a military history book? The "incredible strategies" of the supposed brilliant military minds of 40k make Cobra Commander look like Napoleon Bonaparte.

On the one hand, yes, on the other, if it was realistic, it wouldn't be 40k. There is a sensible middle ground between the two, though, but not of interest to writers.

1) A huge hive city defending by nominally millions of guardsman and under the command of what can be approxmiated as staff officer of the black crusade and the highest ranking guardsman is...a colonel. WTF. The reason colonel is the highest ranking officer seen in rulebook for the guard is because thats the highest rank you can (un)reasonably expect to see front line action. They talk about multiple divisions of guard. There should be lots of staff officers

Yes...well, they say if takes 2 days to go through the figures for the IG force, but they also say there are like 4 regiments defending the city, because numbers are hard. Absolutely should be a much higher ranking IG leader, that bugs me as well.

The Black Crusade is Abaddon's one, though, the Black Templars call themselves the "Eternal Crusade", and he's in charge of about 100 marines, and sorta kinda the city a bit.

2) The colonel has a personal baneblade tank. Hey numbnuts. How about setting up a CP in one of the bunkers that was described and doing an officers job and send that baneblade into the fighting. I get that high officers often get stupid stuff (Montgomery wanted his own B29 and eventually got one), but this is dumb as hell.

3) Also, the whole concept of imperial superheavy tanks is dumb as shit. 40k Tanks already suck at being tanks in the first place, a tank isn't better because you stick more pointless ass guns on it. 40K tanks are basically gun trucks. Also, super heavy tanks didn't last that long after WWII. By 1960 the US was not even building heavy tanks. The German Heavy tanks of WWII were constantly plagued by being broken. Also, they were a pain to transport and the key element in designing tanks is knowning what bridges they can cross without causing a collapse.

Yes. OTOH, they are big expensive models so I'm not going to buy one so I don't care. GW tanks are a bit embarrassing, though they re-did the SM ones some years back and improved quite a bit.

4) While the super heavy tanks are dumb as hell, the addition of titans to the lore in space marine/epic was a great way to make all models that everybody had purchased feel pointless. For fuck sake, just because battletech had building sized mecha does not mean that is the only way to go. The game already had reasonable sized mecha for all the factions. Making gianter versions was just made all your super cool space marines into insignifcant cannon fodder. At least you could ignore them in regular 40k, or just build them as scenery for your troops to fight around... oh wait, they added a faction that was just various out of scale imperial mecha and it is rapidly becoming the most played faction because it has the least cost investment. What a bunch of jack asses.

Don't have a problem with them in lore (the things they do aren't the sort of things your marine or IG force should be doing, can't fit a Titan on a spacehulk), sticking them into the game...I was annoyed when those Knights came into 40k. Been in Epic years ago, though.

5) Also in Helsreach, the freaking grand priest of one of the black Templar, decides in the middle of the battle that his role was not to be the regional CO but instead to something something smash orcs in the face. WTF. You don't just get to decide that being in charge isn't fun anymore and walk away. That doesn't make you cool, that makes you seem like you are derelict in your duty. Also, with all the adjacent command structures in the imperium how the fuck do they decide who is in charge? Where exactly do spare marine captains and chapter grand masters slot in? I will buy that the custodites and the sisters don't really have to typically work with the other factions but the guard, marines, and mechanicus have to work closely ALL THE TIME. I would love a game where you were actually at a theater level command and actually had to make use of these desperate parts. They have 3 separate command structures. Its way worse than the Wehrmacht and those assholes gave the air force a freaking tank division (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Falls ... %C3%B6ring)

I'm seeing this a big plus, not a minus, myself.

Marines and sisters and Ad-Mech don't fit in anywhere, they are totally separate groups that are supposed to pull the same way mostly.

As mentioned by zeruslord, things were split up after the Horus Heresy, and a big part of 40k has always been the crushing bureaucracy and inefficiency of government. It also gives plenty of room for politics amongst the Imperial factions, there was a bit of that in Helsreach

There's a big conference in the beginning where people listen to Yarrick not because they have to because of his rank, but because of his past achievements. The Templars got to command the SM fleet because they were well-respected and had the largest number of marines in system (according to them at least, in either Helsreach or that other story about what the others did when Grimaldus was at Helsreach, it said that number may have included Templars not at Armageddon, but would probably get here soon). When the big names had agreed, other people stopped arguing with them.

Later on in Helsreach it's stated that Grimaldus wasn't there to run the city (it was the IG that determined strategy), his marines were to bolster defences, but that knowing everything he could about the city helped.

6) Also, we are 8 editions into this freaking game and our battles of the far future tend to play an awful lot like battles of the first world war. The game heavily punishes most movement and the vehicles, while now a lot tougher, still don't actually do anything like traditional armor. This is a list build wargame and the table decisions are mostly shitty zero-sum affairs.

Not bothered with learning the latest edition, but this has always been a problem, yeah.

[Iduno]

Also, while I am complaining about 40k, would it freaking kill one of their paper-trash writers to actually read a military history book? The "incredible strategies" of the supposed brilliant military minds of 40k make Cobra Commander look like Napoleon Bonaparte.

So you want an old-school FASA version of 40k? Battletech with more of an infantry focus? Sounds pretty decent.

[souran]

It's super easy to make something with less interesting factions. Here we go: real world, where all factions are humans with different coloured hats and basically the same weaponry. There we go, do I get a prize?

This is just not true to put it politely. Have you seen Team Yankee? It turns out that people put together forces based on planned conflict or available resources and that leads to different weapons, optimizations, doctrine, and composition.

Your main argument seems to be that the game isn't based on the real world. Tanks are cooler than mans, and giant ridiculous tanks are completely awesome - the real world just needs to catch up with this and change physics to fit accordingly. Giant robots are awesome and I don't even watch mecha anime. That they didn't really fit in 40k itself is fair enough, though it has had various side-games where they certainly do - even the new Apocalypse is basically Epic Armageddon 40K but in big scale.

My main problem is that the game is still bad after 8 editions and nobody plays interesting games because wargames require an investment in real dollars.

That said, Tanks are cool, but when your your game is about squads of infantry fighting you don't introduce tanks that could be the battlefield. The giant rediculous tanks suck because they are dumb in setting, dumb at the table top, and dumb from sci-fi design perspective because they don't even look cool. The giant robots were dumb becasue they are such a clear reaction to battletech in a game that already had its own unique mecha.

Epic is honestly a really good game...except for titans. The titans are the worst.

I think there is a real problem where there are various "not on the table" people involved but because there aren't miniatures of them to put on the table, even the writers forget they exist. I'm not convinced the Master of the Fleet belongs on the table as opposed to "back at the base" or "off-world on a space thing to control an off-world fleet". That the leaders then choose to run into the front-line is a logical conclusion of what happens when A) any aura/radius effects (the most that their leadership abilities confer when we're not in an edition where individual leaders set army-wide changes) reach out to 6 inches and B) all of their weapon options are pistols and close combat weapons (a problem that also shows up for many others - I think only Tyranids and Tau really escape this, off the top of my head?) All of these are real lore problems derived from their "make minis then work the rules and story out" approach and the fact that someone somewhere decided commanders shouldn't have long-range effects.

Officers have pistols and swords (historically) because they are NOT front line combatants. They are supposed to be direct the battle first and shooting dudes second. Now in 40k this combination happens to make them better in assaults. However, that is not logical, its moronic. The player is supposed to be the off table commander.

Honestly, they could probably do better with their stories being less stupid if anything approaching a full scale war was written from the perspective of "we made up some Epic lists and these are the forces, we're theory-hammering how they would roughly be deployed and interact and how it would play out" (which pays more attention to chains of command and leadership and routing and less to "which actual person got shot?"), interspersed with small personal skirmishes where you care about Sergeant Bob.

There are lots of people who write military sci-fi. There are lots of them that do it badly (ahem ringo) and lots who write stuff that is practically indistinguishable in tone from 40k but played straight. However, the 40k novels are written like pro-wrestling scrips and not like military sci-fi. They just don't have anybody who understands how armies actually work on their staff.

Edit: in regards to Frank's post above, you can read more about the changes of 3rd Edition in this thread here by two really rad people with loads of friends, one of which has amazing hair and taste in music.

I have also played tons of 3rd, 4th, and basically every edition of warhammer since 1994. However, cool!

[souran]

Also, while I am complaining about 40k, would it freaking kill one of their paper-trash writers to actually read a military history book? The "incredible strategies" of the supposed brilliant military minds of 40k make Cobra Commander look like Napoleon Bonaparte.

So you want an old-school FASA version of 40k? Battletech with more of an infantry focus? Sounds pretty decent.

My personal prefernce would be a sci-fi wargame at about the scale of panerblitz/panzer leader/panzer grenadier. However, in the minis wargame community you would probably be better off at the epic/flames of war scale where 1 stand is 1 squad.

However, yes I would like it to focus on the factions as described and add a combined arms aspect instead of adding giant robots. If I wanted to play a giant robots battle game I would play battletech.

[souran]

Disagree there. Ok, yeah, it's to sell minis, and always has been, but most players are human, and most armies IRL are made of humans. Not too surprising to see a zillion versions of humans there. Space marines are what people want, for a long time they didn't update the DE codex because far less people cared about it.

I don't have any problem with space marines being popular, I like space marines. Heck, when the game had Space Marines, Guard, and Sisters it was not unreasonable. You had humans that ran the gamut of quality. There is also an oppostion faction of marines. It would be cool if there was at least a similar "chaos guard" or something. However, did we really need the imperial knights? Did the Adeputs Custodites need to be expanded into a playable faction? The grey knigths were a terrible addition. The mechanicus faction is probably amounst the best model ranges added in a long time and a cool and unique faction. They would be even cooler if they were not just another part of the imperium.

On the one hand, yes, on the other, if it was realistic, it wouldn't be 40k. There is a sensible middle ground between the two, though, but not of interest to writers.

Again, I am not asking for tom clancy level realism. I personally think that starship troopers and enders game are not good as military sci-fi. Falkenburg's legion, the mote in god's eye, and footfall are much better. However, every 40k paperback makes starship toopers look like army war college material. The tactics are bad, the command philosphy is bad, and the general lack of understanding how militaries work is depressing.

The Black Crusade is Abaddon's one, though, the Black Templars call themselves the "Eternal Crusade", and he's in charge of about 100 marines, and sorta kinda the city a bit.

You are right about the Eternal crusade vs the black crusade. In the lore 100 space marines have the combat effectiveness of about a division. As you noted there are 4 guard regiments (that's not enough regiments for the numbers but whatever). 4 regiments is a square division. 2 divisions are a corp. Grimaldus has a corp command. Now, the way they treat this on the front end is more like an Army command (2 to 4 corp) and he is in charge of the city and accompanying sector. However, he eventually decides that no he is not in charge and was just supposed to smash orc face. Which is dumb.

Don't have a problem with them in lore (the things they do aren't the sort of things your marine or IG force should be doing, can't fit a Titan on a spacehulk), sticking them into the game...I was annoyed when those Knights came into 40k. Been in Epic years ago, though.

Yes, and epic is a worse game because of the addition of titans. They were so convinced they needed them to take on battletech and now they remain around making the setting stupid and finding their way into lower and lower scale confrontations.

I'm seeing this a big plus, not a minus, myself.

Marines and sisters and Ad-Mech don't fit in anywhere, they are totally separate groups that are supposed to pull the same way mostly.

As mentioned by zeruslord, things were split up after the Horus Heresy, and a big part of 40k has always been the crushing bureaucracy and inefficiency of government. It also gives plenty of room for politics amongst the Imperial factions, there was a bit of that in Helsreach

This is just not true. While I can at least buy that the sisters are nominally a defensive force and outside the typical command structure, the marines, guard and mechanicus all explictly work joints. The Adeptus Astartes are called out in all of their codex's going back to 3rd edition as "the tip of the spear" They are supposed to be the crack troops that make openings for guard armor to exploit. Additionally, the mechanicus operates the titans and provides infantry to allow them to operate. They have to work closely with the other factions and know where they slot in.

Now, yes there can be bickering and infighting. The idea that guard/marines/mechanicus/sisters bicker over who has operational control is fine. However, there must be some method for sorting and then integrating these forces.

Later on in Helsreach it's stated that Grimaldus wasn't there to run the city (it was the IG that determined strategy), his marines were to bolster defences, but that knowing everything he could about the city helped.

This is not the way i read it at all. Grimaldus was given command, forced to take it, oversaw the operational planning, then the author decided that Grimaldus would be cooler if he didn't have to think about his actions other than smashing face. The whole thing was stupid and infuriating.

Not bothered with learning the latest edition, but this has always been a problem, yeah.

Not bothered by learning new editions. I am bothered by editions promising interesting table top play then delivering wwI grind fests with no interesting tactical play.

[Thaluikhain]

I don't have any problem with space marines being popular, I like space marines. Heck, when the game had Space Marines, Guard, and Sisters it was not unreasonable. You had humans that ran the gamut of quality. There is also an oppostion faction of marines. It would be cool if there was at least a similar "chaos guard" or something. However, did we really need the imperial knights? Did the Adeputs Custodites need to be expanded into a playable faction? The grey knigths were a terrible addition. The mechanicus faction is probably amounst the best model ranges added in a long time and a cool and unique faction. They would be even cooler if they were not just another part of the imperium.

Didn't need the Knights, no (don't have a problem with them, though). Grey Knights and Custodes...instead of a new chapter of marines that are different to the existing one, new marines that are flat out better? No thanks.

They have the "Lost and the Damned" for chaos, but they'd not always be remembered when a Codex came out.

Again, I am not asking for tom clancy level realism. I personally think that starship troopers and enders game are not good as military sci-fi. Falkenburg's legion, the mote in god's eye, and footfall are much better. However, every 40k paperback makes starship toopers look like army war college material. The tactics are bad, the command philosphy is bad, and the general lack of understanding how militaries work is depressing.

Generally, yeah. There are some authors who do a better job (William King, Gavin Thorpe and Si Spurrier come to mind), but you have to squint your brain a bit.

You are right about the Eternal crusade vs the black crusade. In the lore 100 space marines have the combat effectiveness of about a division. As you noted there are 4 guard regiments (that's not enough regiments for the numbers but whatever). 4 regiments is a square division. 2 divisions are a corp. Grimaldus has a corp command. Now, the way they treat this on the front end is more like an Army command (2 to 4 corp) and he is in charge of the city and accompanying sector. However, he eventually decides that no he is not in charge and was just supposed to smash orc face. Which is dumb.

...

This is not the way i read it at all. Grimaldus was given command, forced to take it, oversaw the operational planning, then the author decided that Grimaldus would be cooler if he didn't have to think about his actions other than smashing face. The whole thing was stupid and infuriating.

I've not listened to it on audio, but have watched the animated thing and read the novel. There might be some differences there.

In the novel it's mentioned that he was supposed to be doing Chaplain stuff, not strategist stuff, and it's the IG that come up with the "thousand points of light" defence. Or maybe "hundred points of light". Where the Imperials give up on defending the city properly and scatter into lots of areas not supporting each other so the orks can pick them off one at a time. Which...um...

Admittedly, part of the reason I'm seeing Grimaldus as not being in charge might be because he goes off and smashes ork faces and that'd be stupid and infuriating if he was in overall command.

This is just not true. While I can at least buy that the sisters are nominally a defensive force and outside the typical command structure, the marines, guard and mechanicus all explictly work joints. The Adeptus Astartes are called out in all of their codex's going back to 3rd edition as "the tip of the spear" They are supposed to be the crack troops that make openings for guard armor to exploit. Additionally, the mechanicus operates the titans and provides infantry to allow them to operate. They have to work closely with the other factions and know where they slot in.

Well, yes, except in the other fluff when that's not what they do, and they work independently most of the time, or form ad-hoc alliances. Notably in the Space Wolf novels by William King, the Dark Angels novels by Gavin Thorpe, some of the later Gaunt's Ghosts books by Dan Abnett (also the one about the Titans, set during the same crusade), the first Soul Drinker book by Ben Counter.

Never seen them described as being there to make openings for guard armour, IIRC.

Though, 40k fluff is all over the place. Like you say, 100 marines are a division. In Helsreach, it's mentioned that 900 marines is more than enough to conquer entire star systems, and the same author goes on to repeat Dorn's quote of "Give me a hundred Space Marines. Or failing that, give me a thousand other troops." in their next Armageddon story. I'm guessing he didn't mean star systems where almost nobody lived.

I used to get annoyed by that, 40k was a big deal for me growing up, but GW has succeeded in eroding most of my care about its products. If your reading of the fluff is that the factions often work closely with each other, that's fair enough, I'm sure there's lots of evidence for that around.

[Hadanelith]

However, every 40k paperback makes starship toopers look like army war college material.

So, uh, funny story...Starship Troopers is part of the required reading at all of the US military academies.

[Stahlseele]

However, every 40k paperback makes starship toopers look like army war college material.

So, uh, funny story...Starship Troopers is part of the required reading at all of the US military academies.

That explains so much.

[maglag]

Though, 40k fluff is all over the place. Like you say, 100 marines are a division. In Helsreach, it's mentioned that 900 marines is more than enough to conquer entire star systems, and the same author goes on to repeat Dorn's quote of "Give me a hundred Space Marines. Or failing that, give me a thousand other troops." in their next Armageddon story. I'm guessing he
didn't mean star systems where almost nobody lived.

Notice he only mentions "other troops". Any other troops.

So one spech merine with power armor, bolter and whatnot is worth 10 naked rookies with bamboo spears (which certainly qualifies as troops from Feral Worlds).

I used to get annoyed by that, 40k was a big deal for me growing up, but GW has succeeded in eroding most of my care about its products. If your reading of the fluff is that the factions often work closely with each other, that's fair enough, I'm sure there's lots of evidence for that around.

In the video games when you put Guard and Sphech Merines and Sisters in the same planet or even the same system and they'll be at each other's throats in no time even if there's orks and chaos and (dark) eldar and necrons next door.

But heck, even inside each faction there's plenty of inter-fighting. Chapters have plenty of violent rivarlies, and then there's good old communication problems where a group start going "Heresy!" "No, u are the heresy!" at themselves. Just look at radical Inquisitors.

[souran]

Didn't need the Knights, no (don't have a problem with them, though). Grey Knights and Custodes...instead of a new chapter of marines that are different to the existing one, new marines that are flat out better? No thanks.

They have the "Lost and the Damned" for chaos, but they'd not always be remembered when a Codex came out.

So, here is the problem with the knights as i see it.
1) They are a quality over quantity faction, and not only that they are the games current farthest extreme in that regard. Quality factions are going to have more players because unless games start charging for models in proportion to their point cost instead of their fabrication cost they will generally be cheaper to field. This means that LOTS of people play knights because the investment is minimal.
2) The faction lore is bad, they are supposed to be aristocratic warriors of feudally run planets? That is crap because the guard already had the aristocrat warrior/officers thing. They are also called knights, and their lore is that they adhere to wierd strict codes. Well the game already HAS a faction of space knights who adhere to wierd strict codes. That's the premise the space marines have had for like 3 decades.
3) Combining how they crap on the lore and other factions with them being the cheapest faction to run and now they are everywhere and they just make me frustrated. I want them gone. I will admit this is personal opinon and not really objective.

Similarly, the Custodites should never have been made a table faction. They were already supposed to be "just better" space marines, and the game already has a disconnect that is pretty huge between how good marines are supposed to be and how good they actually are. These golden butt holes got produced before sisters. The grey knights shouldn't be a seperate army they should be a unit in the ecclesiasty faction book.

Lots of pointless models for the imperium.

Generally, yeah. There are some authors who do a better job (William King, Gavin Thorpe and Si Spurrier come to mind), but you have to squint your brain a bit.

I have tried a couple others after helsreach, including one of the horus hersey books (first one sequentially). All were so bad I didn't finish.

I've not listened to it on audio, but have watched the animated thing and read the novel. There might be some differences there.

In the novel it's mentioned that he was supposed to be doing Chaplain stuff, not strategist stuff, and it's the IG that come up with the "thousand points of light" defence. Or maybe "hundred points of light". Where the Imperials give up on defending the city properly and scatter into lots of areas not supporting each other so the orks can pick them off one at a time. Which...um...

Admittedly, part of the reason I'm seeing Grimaldus as not being in charge might be because he goes off and smashes ork faces and that'd be stupid and infuriating if he was in overall command.

The audiobook was just an unabridged reading of the book. What I remeber from the novel was he was placed in command, his first command since being raised to the "inner circle" which I assumed was the Black Templar staff officer corp. He whined about having to be in charge, but when he gets to the city makes it very clear to everybody he is in charge.

The IG have been prepping the defense because no one man can do everything but Grimaldus spends litteral days going over all the relevant command data so that he can be best prepared to lead the city. He is the one who decides the black templars will drive out and explore the crashed hulk, he coordinates with collegium titanica, when the battle gets inside the city he is the one who decides where the reserves get plugged in. That's all commander shit. Now, yes he and the colonel decide that everybody should go find the best place to die fighting and everything seems kinda dumb and random.

However, when he decides that his "proper" role is as a chaplain smashing faces its LONG after he has been making all the major command decisions for the cities defenses. I found everything about it to be stupid and uncool. Deciding that being in charge is to borning and you would rather smash faces after you have been the one making all the decisions is gutless not cool. To me eveything about it seemed bad.

Well, yes, except in the other fluff when that's not what they do, and they work independently most of the time, or form ad-hoc alliances. Notably in the Space Wolf novels by William King, the Dark Angels novels by Gavin Thorpe, some of the later Gaunt's Ghosts books by Dan Abnett (also the one about the Titans, set during the same crusade), the first Soul Drinker book by Ben Counter.

Never seen them described as being there to make openings for guard armour, IIRC.

Again the whole tip of the spear thing comes from their long standing fluff. So does their dedication to their combat doctrines which have them serving alongside guard all the time. Literal decades of fluff indicates that space marine battle companies deploy as independent combat battalions to theaters in support of imperial operations. Battle companies bring along their own battle barges, air support, armored elements etc. They are supposed to be the marine expeditionary forces of the far future. However, like other assault oriented troops they have to rely on other more numerous troops to hold their captured ground and exploit their breakthroughs because by doctrine they don't have the manpower to followup. When they did the war for armageddon in mid/late 3rd edition they talked about how guard forces follow on behind space marines.

Though, 40k fluff is all over the place. Like you say, 100 marines are a division. In Helsreach, it's mentioned that 900 marines is more than enough to conquer entire star systems, and the same author goes on to repeat Dorn's quote of "Give me a hundred Space Marines. Or failing that, give me a thousand other troops." in their next Armageddon story. I'm guessing he didn't mean star systems where almost nobody lived.

I used to get annoyed by that, 40k was a big deal for me growing up, but GW has succeeded in eroding most of my care about its products. If your reading of the fluff is that the factions often work closely with each other, that's fair enough, I'm sure there's lots of evidence for that around.

40k fluff has lots of contradictions, and 40k space marines are in the fluff substantially more powerful than their tabletop counterparts. Even all of that doesn't really bother me. I have mostly stopped caring about the fluff but then I will get the itch to jump back in and I read up on stuff and it is just head poundingly stupid.

The guard, the marines, and the mechanicus have to work closesly because they are all the imperium. The Armageddon event, and Helsreach the novel to a lesser extent, kind of show how all the parts of the imperial war machine have to work in concert. Marines are the elite troops, the mechanicus runs the titans, and guard provide the backbone.

GW could have arranged the game differently and said that there were 3 human space empires, one who created bio-enhanced super soldiers, one that relied on tanks and combined arms, and one that was made up of cyborgs and robots and they fight each other for domance of human race but will stand together against alien threats. Then the guard and sisters and mechanus and the space marines could have all been the represetnative forces of different factions.

However, they are not, they all fight under a single flag and are described as all part of the same uncontrollable war machine.

[Thaluikhain]

So, here is the problem with the knights as i see it.
1) They are a quality over quantity faction, and not only that they are the games current farthest extreme in that regard. Quality factions are going to have more players because unless games start charging for models in proportion to their point cost instead of their fabrication cost they will generally be cheaper to field. This means that LOTS of people play knights because the investment is minimal.
2) The faction lore is bad, they are supposed to be aristocratic warriors of feudally run planets? That is crap because the guard already had the aristocrat warrior/officers thing. They are also called knights, and their lore is that they adhere to wierd strict codes. Well the game already HAS a faction of space knights who adhere to wierd strict codes. That's the premise the space marines have had for like 3 decades.
3) Combining how they crap on the lore and other factions with them being the cheapest faction to run and now they are everywhere and they just make me frustrated. I want them gone. I will admit this is personal opinon and not really objective.

And they are easy to paint, don't have to do 100 faces. Like marines, but moreso.

Though, the lore has been there since before 3rd ed, and for nostalgia reasons they kept it, but yeah, things have moved on. Feudal worlds with the big fancy Ad-Mech toys, how does that work nowdays?

I have tried a couple others after helsreach, including one of the horus hersey books (first one sequentially). All were so bad I didn't finish.

Heh, the Horus Heresy, GW's version of the Star Wars prequels.

I used to be very active on the old Black Library forum, generally critical as they got very "slap our label on any rubbish and sell it". Got suspended for a month for saying CS Goto shouldn't write for BL after he decided that Eldar were the same as Tolkien elves (and the mods later said I was suspended for being critical of readers, not the books). As an aside, been seen as very negative led to me inspiring the "Festerheart" in one of C L Werners books. Generally a decent author, IMHO, but that was the weakest book of his I've got.

Anyhoo, read loads of 40k (and WHFB) books, might have given me a different perspective than you.

Again the whole tip of the spear thing comes from their long standing fluff. So does their dedication to their combat doctrines which have them serving alongside guard all the time. Literal decades of fluff indicates that space marine battle companies deploy as independent combat battalions to theaters in support of imperial operations. Battle companies bring along their own battle barges, air support, armored elements etc. They are supposed to be the marine expeditionary forces of the far future. However, like other assault oriented troops they have to rely on other more numerous troops to hold their captured ground and exploit their breakthroughs because by doctrine they don't have the manpower to followup. When they did the war for armageddon in mid/late 3rd edition they talked about how guard forces follow on behind space marines.

Literal decades of fluff indicates that they don't do that. That is not to say you are wrong, though, people had said all sorts of things about what SMs do or are supposed to do. Being "the marine expeditionary forces of the far future" isn't a bad idea, but it's hardly the only one people have about them.

I have mostly stopped caring about the fluff but then I will get the itch to jump back in and I read up on stuff and it is just head poundingly stupid.

Ha! I know how that feels.

The guard, the marines, and the mechanicus have to work closesly because they are all the imperium. The Armageddon event, and Helsreach the novel to a lesser extent, kind of show how all the parts of the imperial war machine have to work in concert. Marines are the elite troops, the mechanicus runs the titans, and guard provide the backbone.

Why do they "have to"? Because otherwise it makes no sense and can't possibly work?

Again, in Helsreach it's explicitly stated that 900 marines is more than enough to conquer entire star systems. They flat out don't need the guard or anyone else. That's ludicrous, flat out cannot be true. But that's the way it is.

Hive Fleet Behemoth was big enough to strip the surface and atmosphere of entire Earth like planets, the the Ultramarines and a fleet from another Segmentum (not even the entire fleet, just some of the ships from the fleet base) stopped them.

I used to try to make sense of it all, nowdays I think it's best to point and laugh at the people behind the fluff and collect models I'm going to get round to painting (badly) sometime, honest.

[Stahlseele]

Well no, CONQUERING entire star systems with about 1k Speech Mehringues is doable . . for HOLDING them they still need the Guard, Mechanicum and probably Sisters of Battle as well . .

[Username17]

The reason tank warfare has always been dumb in WH40K is that even in 8th edition they are patches on patches of rules that were originally created for catapults and chariots in a fantasy wargame. No one has ever seriously contemplated whether these are supposed to be used like WWI Armor or WWII Armor or Korean War Armor or Gulf War Armor or whatever. These are science fiction flavor patches on Trojan War Chariots. The underlying rules aren't referencing Patton or Estienne, they are referencing Homer.

40K combat is basically a mess because it's still an engine devised for marching blocks of spearmen around and the only concession they've made to the fact that people have guns is that they don't have square bases.

-Username17

[Thaluikhain]

Er, not with you there. They massively re-did the rules for 3rd ed and again for 8th, little of the original remains. Now, in 8th ed they might (not sure) have made tanks like large monsters in contemporary WHFB, but I don't see how 3rd ed tanks did not work anything at all like chariots or catapults from the WHFB of the time (move in any direction the same speed for every vehicle, front/side/rear armour). Or 2nd ed (a zillion different armour values and armour penetration rolls for everything), excepting they had turning arcs like WHFB regiments.

40k minis don't have square bases because they don't fight in tight formations. Which means you don't have rank bonuses, being attacked in the flank or rear doesn't matter, your formation (excepting editions where the closest models got killed first) doesn't matter, and you don't have tightly restricted movement. Those are (or were), big differences. Though AoS got rid of all that.

Now, that's not to say I think 40k tanks (or anything, really) work, it's just that I don't see the reason for them not working being too close to WHFB.

[Username17]

3rd edition was a massive simplification, but it was still coming at it from the standpoint of chariots and catapults. The battle cannon still rolls a direction die and a deviation die like it was a lobbed rock. Exactly like a lobbed rock, because that's what those dice and procedures were created for.

Similarly, while 3rd edition made big and bold cuts to the stat lines, the core was still a melee combat simulator. Initiative, Weapon Skill, and Toughness are all just aspects of close combat that basically shouldn't matter if people are running around with future weapons and flying around on anti-grav platforms.

Warhammer 40K never did have the discussion about what the actual fuck it was trying to be or how the games and battles were supposed to work out. Everything about it is just people in a Nottingham garage saying "Wouldn't it be cool if..."

-Username17

[Thaluikhain]

The battle cannon still rolls a direction die and a deviation die like it was a lobbed rock. Exactly like a lobbed rock, because that's what those dice and procedures were created for.

True.

Similarly, while 3rd edition made big and bold cuts to the stat lines, the core was still a melee combat simulator. Initiative, Weapon Skill, and Toughness are all just aspects of close combat that basically shouldn't matter if people are running around with future weapons and flying around on anti-grav platforms.

Well, not so much toughness, but close combat shouldn't matter, yeah.

OTOH, close combat is a massive part of a lot of sci-fi, whether it's Star Wars, Aliens, Predator or anything with zombies in it. I can see why they'd want to keep it.

(It also means you've now got two entire strategies, instead of staying in place and rolling dice at people, you can run forwards at the enemy. That gives you 4 different ways the battle can go.)

Warhammer 40K never did have the discussion about what the actual fuck it was trying to be or how the games and battles were supposed to work out. Everything about it is just people in a Nottingham garage saying "Wouldn't it be cool if..."

Certainly, yes.

[OgreBattle]

[quote="FrankTrollman]

Warhammer 40K never did have the discussion about what the actual fuck it was trying to be or how the games and battles were supposed to work out. Everything about it is just people in a Nottingham garage saying "Wouldn't it be cool if..."

-Username17[/quote]

It’s to sell miniatures, they also make for fun dioramas and artwork. The artwork is then based on yeah chariot to colonial age officers waving a sword as everyone is packed in melee

That there’s now a series of superhero novels after the fact and a fan base trying to make sense of it is an accident, like Bible fanboys saying dinosaurs are leviathan
Bible combat is also how I think of “40k storytelling”

—-

Does MtG ever rationalize how 1/1 pitchfork peasant tokens take out a laser juggernaut? I never read their novels

[Username17]

I suppose Strength is a better example than Toughness. Because certainly a sci-fi game might plausibly have alien monsters and power suits that are tough enough for that to actually matter but the ability to swing an ax especially hard is still perplexing as a thing to actually worry about in a game where characters have missile launchers.

It also means you've now got two entire strategies, instead of staying in place and rolling dice at people, you can run forwards at the enemy. That gives you 4 different ways the battle can go.

It would be nice to have actual tactical choices, which would probably require a ground-up rethinking of how units worked and what they could do. If you wanted things to play out like actual battles from some period where people had automatic weaponry you might want to provide rules to do that with. You could have suppression fire and snipers and maybe even figure out what role you want transports and armor to actually perform.

Does MtG ever rationalize how 1/1 pitchfork peasant tokens take out a laser juggernaut? I never read their novels

MtG posits a duel involving people with dimension warping powers who can ramp up to near (or in some cases actual) limitless power, but if if various ley lines are stabbed with a pitchfork before it all comes together the portal goes backwards and sucks everything away.

The stuff in the Red Deck Wins deck is specifically less "powerful" than the stuff in Tron. But you can have your enthusiastic goblins hastily perform the banishment ritual and then the phenomenal cosmic power on the other side doesn't matter - it's like the end of Aladdin, Monster Squad, or Willow.

It's not directly applicable to science fiction wargames because there's specifically a win condition that doesn't require you to actually kill the tentacled space god on the other side. You can go around and smash the runes and say the words and just win while the space god rampages uncontained.

-Username17