Thane Morgan wrote:
>
> Tactics is about maneuver more than anything else. In this regards, 3rd ed.
> comes up way short of 2nd, though still way ahead of 40k and WHFB.
Both games involve tactics, just not the same ones.
> In second
> edition, the great variety of units gave a flexiblity in army design that
> promoted more tactical thinking.
Greater variety, but a larger percentage of it is crap. The variety of
units available to eldar, chaos, tyranids, and marines in E40k is
roughly equal to the variety found in SM/TL (not sure about orks or IG,
although I'm pretty sure that the orks lost out).
> You had to worry about lines of sighting
> between units, you had to prepare your units for CC, and you had to come up
> with a battle plan without knowing what your opponent was thinking each turn;
E40k comes with a mind reader? Yes, the hidden counters were (are)
great. But you still don't know what your opponent is thinking, and the
2 movement phases allows for him to still pull some surprise maneuvers.
> the hidden order counters are sorely missed by this gamer. While luck could
> help, the sheer volume of dice being rolled usually assurd that luck would
> balance out by the end of the game, and superior tactics would win that game.
Still comes down to luck. You're rolling more dice, but it'll still
come down to making critical rolls (break tests for units holding
objectives, repair rolls for your titan's reactor, your only volcano
cannon shot at your opponent's unshielded titan - and let's not forget
the initiative roll, grand arbitrator of who
wins the game).
That said, E40k is certainly no different in this regard; intiative has
been de-emphasized in favor of placing a lot of importance on the
assault rolls (but at least it's possible to reroll those dice if you
need to).
> I don't like designing the "ultimate" detachment.
??? I wasn't aware that there was an ultimate detachment. I have seem
people who seem intent on designing the ultimate army in both SM/TL and
E40k plenty of times though.
> I'd rather spend my time
> playing the game. That's my biggest problem with GW's other fare; the battle is
> 2/3 decided by the time the mini's have been placed on the table. E40K isn't
> nearly that bad, but maybe 20% is determined soley by detachment selection. In
> SM/TL, there were a few real loser armies that you could build, but almost any
> army had a reasonable chance of winning or losing if played well.
Chaos vs Eldar loaded with warlocks & prism cannons.
Chaos vs Nids (in case you haven't guessed, these two cases are real
sticking points with me).
Any army without fast attack units (like bikes) vs any army with loads
of fast attack units (the power of bikes is another problem I have with
SM/TL).
Again, SM/TL is no different than E40k in this respect. A measurable
part of the battle still comes down to army selection.
> I liked the old VP system. It greatly encouraged manuevering, as grabbing a key
> point on the field could put you 1/6 to 1/8th closer to winning the game; if
> you focused soley on attrition, there was a good chance you were going to get
> beat.
...unless you're playing Tyranids... =) (what's an objective?)
> In contrast I NEVER worry about achieving objectives in the new game,
> because they are almost worthless in terms of victory. I'll take them if
> offered, but I won't sacrafice a unit trying to do it.
Yeah, objectives don't mean that much anymore. I guess the problem is
the morale you gain for them comes nowhere near the morale you lose from
your detachments getting halved. Plus, the rules about placing
objectives generally means they end up in your opponent's deployment
zone, as opposed to out in the middle of board where both sides can
fight over them. GW srewed up here... OTOH there's a great variety of
objective-oriented battles available: take the bridge, break through the
enemy line, rescue the trapped spy, etc (not that you couldn't also do
these in SM/TL).
> The old system had lots of complementary units which encouraged tactics.
"Hey, I'll smack his titan with my wave serpents and then fire my doom
weavers at it! Kewl!"
> The
> new system's units are largely generic; you can play with 10 cm disks which
> have the detachments total stats on them.
Figuring out nasty ways to combine special abilities is not tactics.
Hitting your target from more than one direction, drawing units away
from where they're needed, stopping certain units from getting to where
they're wanted... these are tactics. And they're possible in both SM/TL
and E40k.
> The old way of issuing orders was fantastic. You had to plan, issue orders,
> then stick with them. Now, you get to completely see not just what your
> opponent plans to do, but how he has actually move before you even have to
> decide what your units are doing.
>
> I did like not having to posistion every LR just so, but why should they be
> able to fire through two other detachments of LR's. Though realism is a scary
> thing to bring into the debate, every commander worries about catching his own
> troops with friendly fire on the ground. You can have a line of tanks on a
> road, all of which can fire at another line of tanks directly ahead on the
> road. Hell, if you can fire through an imperator, why not a building.
>
> OK, so there was only the "meeting engagement" scenario in the 2nd. ed. rules
> system.
Plus the attack/defense scenario, the breakout scenario, and a few
others that people seem to forget about. A good number of the scenarios
presented in the E40k Battles book are translations of old SM/TL
scenarios.
> All of the new scenarios can be played equally well with the old
> system's rules, so that is not an improvement in the game system.
True, but at least they're all offered in the basic set (as opposed to
the variant SM/TL scenarios that you had to buy WDs to get).
> The new
> objective system is irrelevant to victory, so they certainly cannot count
> towards "varied" scenarios.
I don't see your point here. The fact that the objectives don't count
for much doesn't invalidate all the different scenarios. Their purpose
is is not to grab objectives, but to fufill the whatever your side's
goals are without losing your entire army.
> OK, the old system had some rules conflicts, which we managed to work out quite
> well. The "brain trust" at GW surely should have been able to do so as well.
> OK, there were 10 pages of unit statistics: play thenm more than once a month,
> and you learned them. The only people I know who had trouble keeping the units
> straight were the White dwarf guys, who would suddenly feel guilty once every
> two months about ignoring the game and try to do a battle report.
^^^^^^
You mis-spelled 'years'. =)
> The difference is like becoming a good chess player, then suddenly having only
> checkers players around. Sure there are tactics in checkers, but do they really
> compare?
I'd say it's more like chess to othello/reversi (imperfect analogy, but
aren't they all?) - at first you think, this game is
easy/stupid/braindead compared to chess, but then you begin to
appreciate just how complicated it really can be.
> In closing, people have a right to be angry about playing a lobotomized game. I
> do have fun playing it, but not as much as I used to.
...so why don't you play SM instead if it's more fun? (genuine
question)
> So all of you E40K
> supporters are just going to have to deal with a few of us crusty old SM/TL
> players whining about the good old days and how you younger folk don't know
> what a good game is.
Of course, not all of us here are 'younger folk' who don't know what
SM/TL is or what it was like.
Scott Shupe
shupes_at_... shupes@...
http://www.rpi.edu/~shupes
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"Avoid everything!" - Lard
Received on Tue Feb 24 1998 - 17:07:07 UTC