Game Does not Match the Fluff

[Cutter]

Kerbstomped surely?

/pedantmode

Kirbystomped usually.

[Charon]

I'd be interested to know what your opinion is OP. If it has to do with Space Marines not being as powerful as they are in the novels and fluff, then I think you should remember that in the fluff, the enemies are rarely the bad guys we're used to dealing with. Often, the Characters are trying to take down Cultist uprisings, or they're hunting down a particular enemy, rather than fighting a protracted war.

I guess he is more refering to "army composition"

While Eldar is done really well fluffwise (small units of Aspects in Serpents is in the books and thats what we see on the table too) other armies are quite the opposite.
Unending waves of Gaunts outnumbering even the Imperial Guard translates on the tabletop into "a few monstrous flyers with their big buddies". Hard to outnumber IG when your basic gaunt is more expensive than an imperial solider/conscript.

[-Tom-]

I guess he is more refering to "army composition"

While Eldar is done really well fluffwise (small units of Aspects in Serpents is in the books and thats what we see on the table too) other armies are quite the opposite.
Unending waves of Gaunts outnumbering even the Imperial Guard translates on the tabletop into "a few monstrous flyers with their big buddies". Hard to outnumber IG when your basic gaunt is more expensive than an imperial solider/conscript.

Maybe for that though, you have to imagine that what you're seeing on a tabletop is like some sort of counter on a tactical map layed out on a table in the War HQ. Maybe 1 SM model on the table does represent 1 SM, but then 1 guardsman on the table represents 100 guard infantry, say, and 1 gaunt on the table is really representing 10,000 gaunts.

Like if there was a map layed out on a big mission table for WW2 missions, 1 model tank placed on that map wouldn't just mean 1 tank, but instead a tank battalion maybe.

[Path Walker]

The pursuit of balance is what changes this in Charon's example, if you wanted to play a horde of gaunts outnumbering a beleaguered IG force holding the line (i'm thinking like Starship Troopers now) this can be done but you'd need to change the win conditions, say the IG have to keep a certain model alive for a certain number of turns, but the Tyranids have to use mainly gaunt's and gants but can recycle those squads once they're destroyed.

To really represent the fluff, you have to move past the idea that the missions in the book are all there is, the Altar of War books all have great fluffy missions, as do the campaign books

[clively]

Considering that the fluff features things like an inquisitor killing space marines in close combat With nothing more than a combat knife, I don't exactly put a whole lot of stock in what the black library fluff states. To me the black library books are just one "opinion" of what happened. There might be a kernel of truth in it or it could all be hogwash.

So, no, it doesn't bother me in the least. After all why should the "truth" get in the way of a good story.

[Erik Setzer]

Ghazghkull can punch his way out of a Mawloc and is pretty much unkillable, is an extreme psyker who can communicate across the galaxy, and inspires Orks to win anywhere he goes. In game terms he will die in one round of shooting.

Orks get bigger and stronger the more they fight. In 40K Skarboyz don't even exist any more to represent this.

Orks are able to tear guys up in combat without needing power klaws, and rip open Terminator armor with their choppas. This was represented in-game once... until they decided Space Marines weren't able to slap Orks down in combat easily enough. Orks are also able to take serious wounds and keep going... in 40K that's only represented by Toughness, which can still be gotten around with a bolter. Even an Ork Warboss doesn't have Eternal Warrior, though you can literally blow his arms off and he'll keep coming. And there was a story where Space Marines cornered an Ork Warboss and his Orks, went in for the "easy pickings," and lost three companies before they decided to stop letting the Orks slaughter Space Marines.

And then there's the fluff in the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, where the Imperials (whose point of view we're usually getting in the novels) tell their soldiers that an Ork Warboss is a wimp, the main gun on a Hammerhead is just there for decoration, and Eldar are weedy gits who pose absolutely no threat at all.

Oh, and the C'tan are Star Gods. Or not. Or are, but are broken into shards. And those shards are different in power. But they're not. The Necrons worshipped the C'tan. Oh, wait, now they betrayed them. The Old Ones made the Eldar, Orks, and humans... or did they? The Necrons stole the Cullexus planet because they wanted more Pariahs, but now the Pariahs are all gone.

So, right there, we have two points: Fluff is written from certain perspectives, and it changes a LOT. Go pick up a 3rd edition Necron codex and compare the background in it to the current background. Try reading Nightbringer and making sense of it, or Andy Chambers' story about Deceiver messing with some Adeptus Mechanicus. Hunt down the fluff about the Talismans of Vaul (aka Blackstone Fortresses) and their true purpose. Try to match that with the fluff now, not that many years later.

It's madness to try to hold the game to the fluff that's ever-changing and depends on perspective.

[Arkhan Land]

The pursuit of balance is what changes this in Charon's example, if you wanted to play a horde of gaunts outnumbering a beleaguered IG force holding the line (i'm thinking like Starship Troopers now) this can be done but you'd need to change the win conditions, say the IG have to keep a certain model alive for a certain number of turns, but the Tyranids have to use mainly gaunt's and gants but can recycle those squads once they're destroyed.

To really represent the fluff, you have to move past the idea that the missions in the book are all there is, the Altar of War books all have great fluffy missions, as do the campaign books

The few times me and someone else have done the Apache VS Troopers (For the UK Zulu vs RA) style scenarios and I think sometimes worrying about "winning" isn't the point of these scenarios, more of something to enjoy for an hour or so, if yr lucky to have a models painted and a camera take some pictures.

I think theres more than just the Pursuit of Balance" and the "Pursuit of Fluff" in that GW has to make a game for the most specific of friends and campaingers and then the most generic of newly met opponents who may or may not be fighting with forces that would ever face off in the game. its a tough line to walk. oh and to try and make money while doing it, ouch.

This was discussed in a pervious thread, but whats at stake here is the eternal battle between two things:

1) The Desire for ambiguity in the Fluff that allows for players to expand little bits of the universe around their army
versus
2) The desire for "Universe Expansion" on the part of the company for the players (and for the profits)

as an example look at the great work that was BOLS' 30k Battln PDF from years before the current FW 30k, or think about the era where GW fans succesfully scored material (Rule suggestion/Pictures) into some of GWs non-codex publications essentially sharing player made fluff suggestions, models/characters.

times have changed, previously GW built an empire on the inclusiveness of its fans in the creation of the Universe, now its hammering out little detail after detail of specific battles and through its RPGs often specifically defining the internal working order of the Imperium and several other realms.

Im okay with either so long as they leave enough room for both kinds of play but Im worried only one will last. I don't this **** to turn into essentially an exspensive nuanced Pokeee-man or into some lawaless RPG. 40k is kind of its own little mess

[Cactus]

I think the OP is right, the game play isn't always reflective of the fluff.

I think reading a novel narrating game mechanics would be very boring.

Also, a game that simulates reality would be neigh impossible to replicate in a tabletop game.

It is a game that uses models after all. I think GW does a fairly good job at creating a representative game that simulates battles, gives "heroes" special abilities/stats/weapons that allows a player to root for, and creates a setting (terrain, missions, turns, objectives) for the models to interact.

GW's fluff writers may have produced a better quality product than their teammates who have written rules, but that doesn't detract from the game or make it any less fun to read novels or play games. In fact, the fantastic literature that the Black Library publishes only motivates me to play more games and paint new armies.

[Denzark]

Good spot MM, kerbstomped it is.

Irrespective of spelling though, losing 100% of the ground you are trying to hold, whilst taking 99.33% casualties, is by the metric of any sensible military in the world, a kerbstomping.

[Lhu27]

So Ive been playing since I was 9 when 2nd edition came out.

Basically i feel that the game has devolved into Mad Max with Giants running around. Certain Units are so blatantly better then other units or core fluffy units. You see this codex after codex. It use to be just an internal codex balance problem, but has now reached out past that. This is why you see white scars out of Codex SM or dakka flyrants in every Nid army. I love Nids they are my favorite army of all time but how does the exocrine a shooting monstrous creature have more attacks base then a dreadnaught. How many editions are vehicles going to be 2nd fiddle, walkers in particular to monstrous creatures. How many times do we see the same mistakes over and over. The last straw for me in this respect was Wraiths vs Assault Terminators 5 wraiths with whip coils $2 a dime and a nickel. GW has thrown all pretense of unit balance out the window. Spore Pod vs Drop Pod, Wave Serpent vs Transports etc vastly superior units that do similar things better.

GW believes that in order to sell models you have to make the new units superior to old units. I believe that if you make it balanced and at a reasonable price cost you will sell just as many, and encourage game play. I have not yet played against the Necrons but i feel this codex was a huge step in the wrong direction compared to other 7th edition codex's and has just created a new problem army. We all know the power codex's they are obvious and when you can open a book and within 30 minutes determine what units are vastly superior it is a problem. I could talk about this all night but won't. It's really getting so bad it boils down to simple math run the numbers you can see the results, put the units in the hands of some one with half a brain blamo.

My next major issue is that compared to other miniature war-games the game is old slow and clunky. ITs a 1980s system that needs to be updated. I can literally play 2 games of Dust Battlefield in the time it takes me to play a 40K game. Rules Sprawl is also a giant problem, but i can deal with that if the game is good. The game does not produce any of those moments you read about what so ever.

We can all sit and say everything is fine and the game is better then ever but its not. 40k AS late as 2006 was IT for miniature war gaming every year. The only thing keeping the game afloat in my opinion is the Best Science Fiction in the world and the best over priced plastic in the world. With 3D printing only a few year off from being a legit problem GW has to do something and it has to do it quick.