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Main => General 40k => Topic started by: magenb on May 14, 2019, 11:12:39 PM

Title: 8th ed v 5th ed power gaming [split from "The problem with Terminators"]
Post by: magenb on May 14, 2019, 11:12:39 PM
Termies are usable in 5th, you know, back when there was a risk vs reward factor in the game. We still play 5th ed and termies can be a real problem for my CWE in the hands of a clever player.

As for 8th ed...

Well its the edition for power gamers and power gamers only buy the new hotness, new hotness also means sales to the old timers. GW will give it some lip service, but no real effort to make them competitve while they are churning out the new stuff.


Title: Re: 8th ed v 5th ed power gaming discussion
Post by: Grand Master Lomandalis on May 14, 2019, 11:48:09 PM
Termies are usable in 5th, you know, back when there was a risk vs reward factor in the game. We still play 5th ed and termies can be a real problem for my CWE in the hands of a clever player.

As for 8th ed...
The hay-day for the Terminator was actually 4th edition where Assault Cannons were statistically more likely to kill a Land Raider than a Lascannon was.  Lysander-wing was the new hotness and it was disgusting.

Well its the edition for power gamers and power gamers only buy the new hotness, new hotness also means sales to the old timers. GW will give it some lip service, but no real effort to make them competitve while they are churning out the new stuff.
I'm sorry, I have an issue with this assessment.  Every edition of 40k was for power gamers.  You're praising 5th edition which had a huge issue with huge units of Ork Nob Bikers and Space Wolf Thunderwolf Cav that were all equipped differently so that you could spread wounds around, and Grey Knights purifier spam where Cleansing Flame could kill units of 30 boys.

8th edition is the most I have seen GW try to balance the system in the past 20 years.  You are always going to encounter power gamers.  And honestly, if you think 5th edition isn't without its issues, then you may need to take a closer look at the game...
Title: Re: 8th ed v 5th ed power gaming discussion
Post by: magenb on May 15, 2019, 10:27:24 PM
8th edition is the most I have seen GW try to balance the system in the past 20 years.  You are always going to encounter power gamers.  And honestly, if you think 5th edition isn't without its issues, then you may need to take a closer look at the game...

5th wasn't perfect, every edition has had it problems but over all 5th requires the least amount of effort, it was a lot more balanced than 4th ever was lol.

I might also be using power gamer in a different way to you. Take a cleric in Neverwinter, basically a one man wrecking ball in neverwinter nights, power games option of choice because it removed just about all risk. To be more specific 1st edition of D&D as a system, was the least power gamy, as you really needed a party, vs say the 1 man armies of 3rd D&D.

Have a look at the mechanics of the game, 5th estimated distance vs premeasuring, foot based infantry that can move faster than vehicles, Mortal wounds that can be done on mass, pinpoint accuracy in deep striking. These are all power gaming features as they remove the risk of anything going wrong. In 8th, your biggest problem is the dice, and you get sooooo many of them now and so many re-rolls that even that's some what negated.

As for Balance, well just because everyone can drop a bucket of dice, doesn't mean it is balanced, the person going first in that case has a huge advantage. I've never been tabled 1st turn in 5th. I can have a bad first turn and still come back. I see far more games going down to the wire in 5th than in 8th, this speaks volumes to  systems balancing than just evening up the number of shots the army can put out (bolter rule change for example).


I would also question if GW is really making an effort to actually balance the game, if we look at say patterns that keep poping up, new models+ruledates = podium finish in tourneys, then nerf, new models+rule update for another faction = podium finish, follow by a nerf.... That sound more like a marketing strategy.

Sure they pay lip service to some of the least used units give them a buff, stopping short of making them compete against NEW units then pop them in a box set.. again, sounds more like marketing than balancing.

Even this thread is kind of proving the point, if they were actually focused on balancing the game, then I don't see how one of the most iconic things in the whole franchise can end up in this state.


but I think we are getting off topic, something needs to happen with Termies, something like only AP-3 or more affect's their armour save, that would make them tanky again.
Title: Re: 8th ed v 5th ed power gaming [split from "The problem with Terminators"]
Post by: Fenris on May 16, 2019, 03:22:09 AM
As usual GW don't care about balance, they want collectors not players.

It's like asking a stamp collector, "how far will a letter travel with this stamp?" as if the collector would care about that.

40k is more like a puppetshow than a chess game and that is very sad and sadly people get tricked into thinking this is a game.
Title: Re: 8th ed v 5th ed power gaming [split from "The problem with Terminators"]
Post by: Wyddr on May 16, 2019, 10:13:59 AM
All I ever wanted from 5th edition was two fixes:

1) Remove wound allocation shenanigans
2) Weaken vehicles

You know what gave us that, pretty much? 6th Edition. And everybody be-atched and moaned about 6th to the point where we got 7th, what, two years later? And 7th was a monstrosity.

The worst things about 8th that need fixing are two things:

1) The AP modifier system makes heavily armored elite troops (and vehicles) way, waaay too fragile.

2) Blast Weapons suck suck suck.

(Optional 3rd problem: cover is too hard to use, but that's not a game-changer)

You fix this by toughening up elite units across the board (add wounds, pretty much) and doing something drastic to blast weapons to make them actually useful against hordes. My personal vote is to let them auto-hit, but there are a lot of other ways to do it, too.
Title: Re: 8th ed v 5th ed power gaming [split from "The problem with Terminators"]
Post by: magenb on May 16, 2019, 07:10:09 PM
All I ever wanted from 5th edition was two fixes:

1) Remove wound allocation shenanigans
2) Weaken vehicles

Wound allocation, yeah a unit of Nobz all kitted out differently is a right pain, but units like that are rare. From a mechanics point of view though, it means your expensive special weapon or squad leader actually got to do something, but you still had a chance of losing them. I don't mind 6th way of doing it, but it did make close combat drawn out as you have to remove the closest model.

The Hull Point system in 6th, made killing vehicles too easy, with just glancing something to death. That said, most game we play with 5th, most of the tank are down by the end of 3rd turn, but no one is spamming them. By 3rd turn, the need for transports tends to be gone, so they've done their job.

Title: Re: 8th ed v 5th ed power gaming [split from "The problem with Terminators"]
Post by: Wyddr on May 16, 2019, 09:44:35 PM
I played a lot of games in 5th Edition (a LOT) in which I never lost a vehicle and I would usually take only 5. I lost or drew more games than I could count for not being able to glance Vypers to death that were contesting objectives. I played a lot of tournament lists that took eleven Razorbacks/Rhinos (11) just to screw with enemy movement, tank shock, and contest objectives.

It was crazy broken.

The Hull Point system solved that. Vehicles still worked fine (you can tell because everyone still took them, despite everyone's raving), but you couldn't sit inside your Rhinos, cozy as kittens, and ride out a whole game's worth of firepower because the other guy couldn't get his melta guns into range.

Now, 6th Ed Flyers were kinda ridiculous, ESPECIALLY anything that could transport troops, but that's a whole other story.
Title: Re: 8th ed v 5th ed power gaming [split from "The problem with Terminators"]
Post by: Grand Master Lomandalis on May 16, 2019, 10:15:35 PM
Wound allocation, yeah a unit of Nobz all kitted out differently is a right pain, but units like that are rare. From a mechanics point of view though, it means your expensive special weapon or squad leader actually got to do something, but you still had a chance of losing them. I don't mind 6th way of doing it, but it did make close combat drawn out as you have to remove the closest model.
Rare?  This was the edition where they brought in the allies matrix and every Imperial player worth their salt brought a maxed out unit of Thunderwolf cav to capitalize on that rule.  You'd go to a tournament and 3/4 of the people there had either Orks, Imperium + Space Wolves, or Grey Knights.

I would agree that it was rare in that not many codexes had the ability to take that, but pretty much everyone had some method of taking at least one unit.  Hell, you could ally anything to any codex with Come the Apocalypse, and just had to pay attention to how close your units got to each other.

The Hull Point system in 6th, made killing vehicles too easy, with just glancing something to death. That said, most game we play with 5th, most of the tank are down by the end of 3rd turn, but no one is spamming them. By 3rd turn, the need for transports tends to be gone, so they've done their job.
I used to run Ravenwing with 6 Land Speeders.  I could go dozens of games without ever losing a single speeder because of how the vehicle rules were.  (I am remembering 5th correctly in that it was the last edition that had glancing hits only for fast skimmers, right?)

Regardless, the rules had to be changed because they promoted the parking lot armies of "here's my wall of armour.  I'm going to stay here until you are dead."
Title: Re: 8th ed v 5th ed power gaming [split from "The problem with Terminators"]
Post by: Wyddr on May 17, 2019, 08:48:29 AM
5th didn't have the allies matrix--you're thinking of 6th (and yeah, that was broken. Still is).

Yeah, 5th was the edition you could take 6 Landspeeders and they had reasonable odds of surviving. Fast Skimmers didn't downgrade to glancing hits (that was 4th Edition), but they *did* get a cover save from moving more than 6", and you *couldn't* kill a vehicle on a glance at all unless you knocked off every weapon, immobilized it, and then scored *another* immobilized or weapon destroyed hit.

Title: Re: 8th ed v 5th ed power gaming [split from "The problem with Terminators"]
Post by: magenb on May 18, 2019, 09:59:05 AM
Yeah, 5th was the edition you could take 6 Landspeeders and they had reasonable odds of surviving. Fast Skimmers didn't downgrade to glancing hits (that was 4th Edition), but they *did* get a cover save from moving more than 6", and you *couldn't* kill a vehicle on a glance at all unless you knocked off every weapon, immobilized it, and then scored *another* immobilized or weapon destroyed hit.

Skimmers only get a cover save for moving flat out (can't shoot), the down side is, that if you get an immobilised result on the damage table, it is wrecked. With Land Speeder's or Vyper's they are opened topped, in addition, "Damage" effects accumulate, so, a 5 or 6 and it was gone, so three 4's and it would be gone. The attacker gets to pick the weapon that gets taken out too.

Additionally they were squadrons, which meant ANY immobilised result is a wreck. So a Penetrating hit would kill it on a 3+, if you used a real AT weapon its a 2+ to wreck it.

Its risky but even a small squad of warpsiders can cause problems for most tanks, breaking their weapons or just even stopping them from firing, worst case, they can be reasonable at poping a rhino, but your risking the unit to do it. Even scorpions could rack up some damage on tanks in a pinch, especially if it was already immobilised.

I suspect given how long its been since most people played it, the editions are being mixed up.


Title: Re: 8th ed v 5th ed power gaming [split from "The problem with Terminators"]
Post by: Wyddr on May 18, 2019, 04:45:18 PM
That's true about the cover saves, yes.

Nevertheless, it would take Warp Spiders (a unit almost uniquely suited to killing AV10 targets) an average of 54 shots to glance a Land Speeder or Vyper to death and 13.5 shots to kill one.

That is *without* a cover save.

And those numbers are ridiculous.
Title: Re: 8th ed v 5th ed power gaming [split from "The problem with Terminators"]
Post by: magenb on May 18, 2019, 09:49:29 PM
That's true about the cover saves, yes.

Nevertheless, it would take Warp Spiders (a unit almost uniquely suited to killing AV10 targets) an average of 54 shots to glance a Land Speeder or Vyper to death and 13.5 shots to kill one.

That is *without* a cover save.

And those numbers are ridiculous.

54 shots, 36 hits, 16.667% change to glance, so 6 glances, with a 16.667% change to immobilize = 1 dead land speeder. However out of those 54, 36 hits, 12 are Pens, with a 33.33% chance to kill, so 4 dead outright. those 54 shots are enough to take at a squad of 5.

A medium sized unit of 8 (no exarch) put out 16 shots, ~10.66 hit, 50% chance to pen or better so ~5.33 hits go through. On average 1.77 are glances which best case would immobilise  0.296, so not great odds. However 3.55 are Pens, with a 33% chance to wreck or explode. which is 1.185. I'm more likely to kill a land speeder out right than glance it to death.

In 6th you were far more likely to glance stuff to death, so 6 shots on average would take out a land speeder or vyper. Which is just too easy.