Sigmar/40k quick discussion

[Vextol]

As always with me, long one.

So, I was hoping to get some input from people regarding my dislikes with sigmar and whether they are different in 40k.  I'm not going to argue, it's just my own feelings and observations about the game.   I'm not a newbie by any standard and I very much like the game and the models, these are just a few things I don't like.

1. Bulk units:

This comes down more to the practical aspect of things.  I just finished painting my skinks. 160 of them. I hate them. Hate them passionately.  I want to smush there stupid little faces.  That said, it was not enjoyable for me.  Now that they're finished though, I don't want to field them, because I don't want to move them onto the table, off of the table or around the table.  This is not unique to skinks.  Skeletons, zombies, plague bearers, namarti, arknauts, dryads, reavers, bloodletters, tzangors, grots etc.  I just hate every aspects of dealing with this quantity of models.  Too much hassle.

2. Obvious choices

Weapon loadouts are fun to discuss, but at the end of the day, 90% of the time people use the same stuff. There just isn't much of a calling for most of the options.  Same goes with command traits and artifacts.  Sure there are a lot, but if 200 are +1 to hit and one of them is +2, it's hard to argue for the slew of +1s.

3. Unrealistic diversity

This obviously plays to balance, but it seems like in order to sell more stuff, GW has given you an "overview race" for so many factions.  Sylvaneth, kharadrins, idoneth, sisters, ironjawz, bonesplitters, BCR...all these guys have very little competitive variety and most of that really boils down to basically one unit, frequently in bulk.  This ends up feeling stale to me.  It's why I've owned 12 factions over time.  I get bored quickly.

4. Complexity

Obviously tactics are tactics and there's a lot of debate to be had, but I feel like most of the play happens before the game and during setup. This is not a con mind you.  Some of my favorite times have been in discussion with teammates and army building.  But once it gets to the field, I feel a lot more disconnected.  It's just too few decisions for me.  Maybe one or two big decisions to be made and a lot of the time, your units are too slow or too weak to do anything to course correct.  I know the modicum of teleportation has made that less, but I do kind of feel a little apart from my games.

5. Bubbling Tactics

This stems a little from the last three.  I want to be more flexible, more mobile, more reactive.  The biggest issue I have with that in sigmar is that so often, if you break your buff bubble, you lose so much potency that your ability to be flexible doesn't overcome the damage caused by breaking away.  

Anyway, the point of this post is that I wanted to ask anyone familiar with 40k if these problems are persistent there or if the game is markedly different in these areas.  I was going to buy the book and just read, but that can sometimes be hard to grasp unless you actually play.   This is not intended to be a bash session on Sigmar at all, just my own personal feelings on some of the parts that cause me to look elsewhere from time to time.  As an aside, does 40k have a team system integrated?

[NemoVonUtopia]

I have played a moderate amount of 40k and I play for fun with what looks cool so I cannot speak for the competitive scene.

1) As long as you stay away from orks, tyranids, and astray militarum you shouldn't have much of an issue. Many units only go up to 10 or 20. Overall 40k needs less models especially if you play custodes or imperial knights.

 

2) There are a lot more options and they all cost differently and are good a different things so there isn't always a best option unless you want to be cutting edge competitive in which case there is usually specific loadouts that everyone takes.

3) I think overall most of the main factions in 40k have more unit options, but only a few are considered competitive. There have been several rules changes to prevent people from spamming the same unit. So at a competitive level 40k has the same problem but on a more casual level for some factions there is more diversity. 

4) Personally if feel like 40k is worse in this regard than AoS. Since there are more specialized weapons options I have encountered times where I have lost before the game began because I didn't have enough anti-tank weapons vs a vehicle heavy list for example. But that is mainly from my inexperience with list building or using a list based off of what looks cool going against a tournament list. Having longer ranged and more powerful shooting in 40k does add a good amount of depth.

5) 40k has a similar problem but there are usually multiple ways to buff through cheaper characters with a weaker version of the buff. For example in my harlequin army all troupe masters have a buff aura naturally so I dont have to spend any resources to use them .

[SwampHeart]

On 10/7/2018 at 10:51 AM, Vextol said:

This comes down more to the practical aspect of things.  I just finished painting my skinks. 160 of them. I hate them. Hate them passionately.  I want to smush there stupid little faces.  That said, it was not enjoyable for me.  Now that they're finished though, I don't want to field them, because I don't want to move them onto the table, off of the table or around the table.  This is not unique to skinks.  Skeletons, zombies, plague bearers, namarti, arknauts, dryads, reavers, bloodletters, tzangors, grots etc.  I just hate every aspects of dealing with this quantity of models.  Too much hassle.

Depends on what you play - many armies in 40k suffer from these. Even perceived elite armies like Eldar have builds that utilize units like 20 guardians. That said 40k does have more favorable elite armies but if you intend to play any from of Imperium army be ready to field 32 Guardsmen in every list.

 

On 10/7/2018 at 10:51 AM, Vextol said:

Weapon loadouts are fun to discuss, but at the end of the day, 90% of the time people use the same stuff. There just isn't much of a calling for most of the options.  Same goes with command traits and artifacts.  Sure there are a lot, but if 200 are +1 to hit and one of them is +2, it's hard to argue for the slew of +1s.

This isn't really different in 40k. There is the illusion of more choice for many units but mathematically there are still the best options and everything else. Units may have 6 wargear loadouts but only one of them is going to be competitively viable, maybe 2 for a few armies. And command traits/psychic powers are largely the same - the good ones are usually very obvious and you can tell what the intended build is. 

 

On 10/7/2018 at 10:51 AM, Vextol said:

This obviously plays to balance, but it seems like in order to sell more stuff, GW has given you an "overview race" for so many factions.  Sylvaneth, kharadrins, idoneth, sisters, ironjawz, bonesplitters, BCR...all these guys have very little competitive variety and most of that really boils down to basically one unit, frequently in bulk.  This ends up feeling stale to me.  It's why I've owned 12 factions over time.  I get bored quickly.

Absolutely just as bad in 40k. There are competitive factions and in those factions the competitive units are well known. Don't expect to see a variety of builds at the top tables or a variety of units used during list construction. The only difference is in 40k because of the ally system you'll see even less of a given faction's models because you'd be a fool to ally in anything other than the most optimum choice from a given book. Oh and don't plan on playing a single faction - if you can soup you will soup in 40k. 

 

On 10/7/2018 at 10:51 AM, Vextol said:

Obviously tactics are tactics and there's a lot of debate to be had, but I feel like most of the play happens before the game and during setup. This is not a con mind you.  Some of my favorite times have been in discussion with teammates and army building.  But once it gets to the field, I feel a lot more disconnected.  It's just too few decisions for me.  Maybe one or two big decisions to be made and a lot of the time, your units are too slow or too weak to do anything to course correct.  I know the modicum of teleportation has made that less, but I do kind of feel a little apart from my games.

If you think this about AoS you'll be even more disappointed in 40k. About the only decision you're ever going to make is what to shoot and what stratagem to use. Atleast in Sigmar charge order and model formation usually matters but given how predominant shooting is in 40k at the moment the amount of choices you'll make are very limited. 

 

On 10/7/2018 at 10:51 AM, Vextol said:

This stems a little from the last three.  I want to be more flexible, more mobile, more reactive.  The biggest issue I have with that in sigmar is that so often, if you break your buff bubble, you lose so much potency that your ability to be flexible doesn't overcome the damage caused by breaking away.  

This is army specific (much like it is in Sigmar) some armies rely on being in range of certain buffs, psychic powers, or stratagems, others don't. That said don't expect a lot of tactical flexibility and reactivity in the game - shooting is incredibly potent and usually when your opponent is done shooting about the only thing you're reacting to is being down a third of your army and hoping he didn't kill the correct third that included your counter punch. 

I was a competitive 40k player through all of 7th and into 8th and left it because Sigmar offers many of the things you think it lacks when compared to the same things in 40k.  

[Vextol]

@SwampHeart I appreciate your input.  I was hoping 40K was more 'small, survivable groups with special purposes'.  Think dead zone with more variety.

I play particulay shooty opponents in sigmar, so the "get gunned down" feeling is nothing new.  I was invisioning lots of shooting in 40k, but a more survivable and hopefully reactive approach to it.  Guess that's not the case.

Thanks again.  I am always looking to fill a missing void in my gaming experience but I am never 100% sure what that is! 

[JPjr]

5 hours ago, Vextol said:

I was hoping 40K was more 'small, survivable groups with special purposes'.  Think dead zone with more variety.

you've checked out Kill Team, right?

[Gaz Taylor]

39 minutes ago, JPjr said:

you've checked out Kill Team, right?

100% this. If you want a smaller game where you can concentrate on converting/painting a few models up then 40K is for you. I've not had chance to play it yet but it looks great. 

Like with all games though, it's all down to who you play with as this will change your perception on how it works. I love AOS and there is an amazing community here in the UK (and of course online) and I also love 40K which is similar. On the other hand, I hate Historical games due to playing them when I was younger as the games always descended into arguments at the club I went to. The reason for this was the group I played with, were historical "experts" and would spend large parts of the game arguing over how a certain unit would have operated in real life. I just wanted to play a fun game in a historical setting but it's been forever tainted for me now  

 

[JPjr]

14 minutes ago, Gaz Taylor said:

would spend large parts of the game arguing over how a certain unit would have operated in real life

stand around in mud, bored for most the day then experience a few brief minutes of absolute terror, before bleeding to death covered in their own ******? 

[Gaz Taylor]

7 minutes ago, JPjr said:

stand around in mud, bored for most the day then experience a few brief minutes of absolute terror, before bleeding to death covered in their own ******? 

Believe it or not, but they would in fact argue over this. Especially if the game had activation rolls or anything like that  

[Ravinsild]

On 10/7/2018 at 10:51 AM, Vextol said:

As always with me, long one.

So, I was hoping to get some input from people regarding my dislikes with sigmar and whether they are different in 40k.  I'm not going to argue, it's just my own feelings and observations about the game.   I'm not a newbie by any standard and I very much like the game and the models, these are just a few things I don't like.

1. Bulk units:

This comes down more to the practical aspect of things.  I just finished painting my skinks. 160 of them. I hate them. Hate them passionately.  I want to smush there stupid little faces.  That said, it was not enjoyable for me.  Now that they're finished though, I don't want to field them, because I don't want to move them onto the table, off of the table or around the table.  This is not unique to skinks.  Skeletons, zombies, plague bearers, namarti, arknauts, dryads, reavers, bloodletters, tzangors, grots etc.  I just hate every aspects of dealing with this quantity of models.  Too much hassle.

2. Obvious choices

Weapon loadouts are fun to discuss, but at the end of the day, 90% of the time people use the same stuff. There just isn't much of a calling for most of the options.  Same goes with command traits and artifacts.  Sure there are a lot, but if 200 are +1 to hit and one of them is +2, it's hard to argue for the slew of +1s.

3. Unrealistic diversity

This obviously plays to balance, but it seems like in order to sell more stuff, GW has given you an "overview race" for so many factions.  Sylvaneth, kharadrins, idoneth, sisters, ironjawz, bonesplitters, BCR...all these guys have very little competitive variety and most of that really boils down to basically one unit, frequently in bulk.  This ends up feeling stale to me.  It's why I've owned 12 factions over time.  I get bored quickly.

4. Complexity

Obviously tactics are tactics and there's a lot of debate to be had, but I feel like most of the play happens before the game and during setup. This is not a con mind you.  Some of my favorite times have been in discussion with teammates and army building.  But once it gets to the field, I feel a lot more disconnected.  It's just too few decisions for me.  Maybe one or two big decisions to be made and a lot of the time, your units are too slow or too weak to do anything to course correct.  I know the modicum of teleportation has made that less, but I do kind of feel a little apart from my games.

5. Bubbling Tactics

This stems a little from the last three.  I want to be more flexible, more mobile, more reactive.  The biggest issue I have with that in sigmar is that so often, if you break your buff bubble, you lose so much potency that your ability to be flexible doesn't overcome the damage caused by breaking away.  

Anyway, the point of this post is that I wanted to ask anyone familiar with 40k if these problems are persistent there or if the game is markedly different in these areas.  I was going to buy the book and just read, but that can sometimes be hard to grasp unless you actually play.   This is not intended to be a bash session on Sigmar at all, just my own personal feelings on some of the parts that cause me to look elsewhere from time to time.  As an aside, does 40k have a team system integrated?

No, it’s worse. 

Chaos Space Marine Army? Not a single marine in it. Chaos Cultist spam forever because it’s the most efficient. 

Basically for almost all factions there’s like 3 efficient units and those are spammed in sets of 3’s (they had to literally set a limit because people did ****** like literally all flying Hive tyrants to points cap so now you can only take 3) and it’s largely why I moved away from 40K. 

Melee isn’t very viable, shooting is king and lists at the highest competitive end are ridiculously spammy and often the least cool models are the strongest for whatever reason. 

[JPjr]

16 minutes ago, Gaz Taylor said:

Believe it or not, but they would in fact argue over this. Especially if the game had activation rolls or anything like that  

amazing! there's almost something noble about pursuing verisimilitude to the point that absolutely no one has any fun whatsoever. I can imagine even after a game has been grudgingly completed, most the time is then spent rolling on a D100 table to see what minor yet untreatable infection your troops will succumb to in the weeks after the event.

 

[Ravinsild]

Just now, JPjr said:

amazing! there's almost something noble about pursuing verisimilitude to the point that absolutely no one has any fun whatsoever. I can imagine even after a game has been grudgingly completed, most the time is then spent rolling on a D100 table to see what minor yet untreatable infection your troops will succumb to in the weeks after the event.

 

“At this point in history that squadron and unit had been stuck in the trench for 3 months, which is plenty of time for them to develop trench foot. Your unit is unable to charge my machine gun line due to illness and actually has to flee from battle to be taken off the front lines to the hospital. It’s historically accurate because that’s what really happened.”

 

[JPjr]

Hmmm, now I'm actually starting to believe that this should be ported over to AoS.  I do like to think my Skeleton warriors generously provide a free dose of tetanus with every cut, thrust and jab of their manky, grave grime encrusted swords.

Plus in narrative play I quite like the idea of some brave mortal single handedly stomping a Great Unclean One and then dying the next day from uncontrollable diarrhoea, not sure even Sigmar would want to beam some grizzled hero up to Azyr if he passed away squatting over the army camp long drop with his breeches around his ankles.

[Vextol]

4 hours ago, JPjr said:

you've checked out Kill Team, right?

I had not.  I haven't tried skirmish either.  I like the feel of full blown battles.  I just don't need 300 skinks to represent it.  I'll check it out though.

Last battle I played in sigmar had 200 models on the table.  This is pretty typical/ a pinch light for our big group. 4-1500 point armies.  It's just a lot of models to be hauling around and moving.

 What's a typical model count on an army in 40k?  Similar?  I know there's a lot of variety, but, in the 12 races I've played in sigmar, 11 of them work best with high model count so the trend is definitely there.

Just for reference, my favorite armies in Sigmar so far are Nurgle, Seraphon and Stormcast.  Not necessarily because everything about them is better or "my style", just because they have a lot of (albeit sometimes terrible) variety.

80% of my games are with the same person (my neighbor).  He keeps his pieces at my house so it makes quick pickup  games a lot easier.  We are both competitive, but mostly just like variety.  I don't mind playing terrible lists (all 'ents' for example or nothing but boar Boyz) just for the sake of of trying things that are different.  After playing BCR, iron jawz, Bonesplitterz, idoneth, sylvaneth, kharadron etc, the 40+ number next to the 40k factions online intrigued us.

Also, wow!  Went to bed with one response, woke up with 9!  Thanks guys!!

[Gaz Taylor]

1 hour ago, Vextol said:

80% of my games are with the same person (my neighbor).  He keeps his pieces at my house so it makes quick pickup  games a lot easier.  We are both competitive, but mostly just like variety.  I don't mind playing terrible lists (all 'ents' for example or nothing but boar Boyz) just for the sake of of trying things that are different.  After playing BCR, iron jawz, Bonesplitterz, idoneth, sylvaneth, kharadron etc, the 40+ number next to the 40k factions online intrigued us.

This to me says, don't worry what we say. Get some models and paint them up and have a few games. Even watch some battle reports to get an idea what's hot and what's not (Tabletop Tactics is one I enjoy). If you want to be uber competitive, thats fine but do what you and your neighbor want to do.  

[Vextol]

10 hours ago, Gaz Taylor said:

This to me says, don't worry what we say. Get some models and paint them up and have a few games. Even watch some battle reports to get an idea what's hot and what's not (Tabletop Tactics is one I enjoy). If you want to be uber competitive, thats fine but do what you and your neighbor want to do.  

I don't discount your opinions at all-I greatly value them.  I was going to go online and spend hours researching, like usually do, but I figured I'd tap the knowledge pool here first. 

We look all over for miniatures games.  Sigmar has been our favorite so far.  It's also our most involved.   X-wing, Arcadia quest, rune wars, dead zone, zombicide, battlelore, myth, war in the north, conquest, axis and allies... we've been all over. Sigmar is definitely the closest to scratching whatever itch we can't seem to get. 

Doesn't sound like 40k will be an answer to most of  the concerns I have with  Sigmar, but it's definitely worth a  shot.  Maybe I'll just play chaos demons.  I'm basically done now ?

[SwampHeart]

Just now, Vextol said:

I don't discount your opinions at all-I greatly value them.  I was going to go online and spend hours researching, like usually do, but I figured I'd tap the knowledge pool here first. 

We look all over for miniatures games.  Sigmar has been our favorite so far.  It's also our most involved.   X-wing, Arcadia quest, rune wars, dead zone, zombicide, battlelore, myth, war in the north, conquest, axis and allies... we've been all over. Sigmar is definitely the closest to scratching whatever itch we can't seem to get. 

Doesn't sound like 40k will be an answer to most of  the concerns I have with  Sigmar, but it's definitely worth a  shot.  Maybe I'll just play chaos demons.  I'm basically done now ?

Just out of curiosity have you tried Frostgrave? It seems like it might fit pretty well and you could likely use your AoS minis to get started. 

[Ravinsild]

3 minutes ago, Vextol said:

I don't discount your opinions at all-I greatly value them.  I was going to go online and spend hours researching, like usually do, but I figured I'd tap the knowledge pool here first. 

We look all over for miniatures games.  Sigmar has been our favorite so far.  It's also our most involved.   X-wing, Arcadia quest, rune wars, dead zone, zombicide, battlelore, myth, war in the north, conquest, axis and allies... we've been all over. Sigmar is definitely the closest to scratching whatever itch we can't seem to get. 

Doesn't sound like 40k will be an answer to most of  the concerns I have with  Sigmar, but it's definitely worth a  shot.  Maybe I'll just play chaos demons.  I'm basically done now ?

Well since you don’t go to tournaments or anything then just pick either an all Primaris army or something like Grey Knights. 

Their literal model counts are around 20 models or so. Less than 40 total for sure 100%. 

One of my Primaris only lists is 47 models and it’s not even particularly efficient or competitive. 

If it were actually more efficient it would be less, but I just wanted to fit every single model I think looks awesome into the list, basically. 

Deathwatch is also low model count. 

Everything else is similar to Sigmar more or less except shootier. Much shootier. At least on the friendly casual scene. 

 

[123lac]

15 hours ago, Ravinsild said:

No, it’s worse. 

Chaos Space Marine Army? Not a single marine in it. Chaos Cultist spam forever because it’s the most efficient. 

Basically for almost all factions there’s like 3 efficient units and those are spammed in sets of 3’s (they had to literally set a limit because people did ****** like literally all flying Hive tyrants to points cap so now you can only take 3) and it’s largely why I moved away from 40K. 

Melee isn’t very viable, shooting is king and lists at the highest competitive end are ridiculously spammy and often the least cool models are the strongest for whatever reason. 

This is EXACTLY what is turning me off 40k.

I'm not the type of person to buy a whole bunch of models I don't like the look of just so I can compete. If the meta requires I do that then I'd rather not play at all.

[AverageBoss]

You might go for a super elite army. BCR or Everchosen in AoS or Custodies or Primaris in 40K.

Other than that you might check out some platoon scale games, that might actually be more what you are looking for (roughly 30-60 models per side full blown).

Warmachine/Hordes is at that scale. I believe Star Wars Legion is as well. The Other Side will be another option on that front when it releases.

[mikethefish]

After reading the OP's post, it's pretty obvious that GW games are not for you.  You should give Warmachine a shot.  That game will deliver something closer to the gaming experience that you are craving

[Vextol]

4 hours ago, mikethefish said:

After reading the OP's post, it's pretty obvious that GW games are not for you.  You should give Warmachine a shot.  That game will deliver something closer to the gaming experience that you are craving

Definitely not the case, but I understand where you're coming from.  I could list a hundred things I wish my kids would do better and things that I'm not too fond of.  Doesn't mean I want to abandon them ? 

Either way, I appreciate the suggestion and quite honestly, warmachine and 40k are neck in neck for our next venture. I'm glad you agree that gameplay wise it may have a few more things I'm looking for.

Sigmar is definitely not going anywhere anytime soon.  

[wander]

Have you  checked out Bolt Action also? WW2 game, uses rules similar to oldschool 40k (having been made by one of the old 40k devs) and you can do fairly small scaled games with it whilst keeping that Geedubs feel. The only issue is that whilst it's very balanced, most units are still similar, though you can still give a 'your dudes' and/or theme to your squads and base them on a specific front/campaign from the war. May be worth a look.

[gjnoronh]

Highly recommend Blood Bowl.

11-16 models is the entire team ('army')

Reasonable diversity of teams to pick from and extensive choices on the table top each turn.