Poll: Warhammer 40k What do you think about it?

[anNIALLator]

I don't play the tabletop anymore, but I loved it when I did. And the Dawn of War games are great fun.

 

[Fire Daemon]

Game play wise, I'd rather play Warhammer (or Fantasy if you prefer) over 40k. The more detailed leadership system, unit behavior, magic and the variety of the races gives a more detailed and strategic game to play. If you want to do well than you need to know your army strengths, it's weaknesses and have a plan to utilize those to your advantage while stopping your opponent from using their advantages. W40k has a similar thing going but strengths can be broken up into shooting or CQC and strategy involves getting your army into whatever situation best suits you while avoiding the other. Tau, shootings, Orks CQC, Guard shooting (with tanks and Heavy Weapon squads though). I find this to be played out and boring, you can tell how a match will be played by just looking at the two armies involved.

There is no real flanking, terror tactics, character strategy, tactical magic use or anything like that. W40k is deprived of strategy but compared to Warhammer it is lacking. I'm sure that plenty of fans with super awesome attack plans for each type of enemy which I'm sure that they put a lot of time into discovering but compared to Warhammer or even more realistic tabletop games they will always be clumsy and fall back on the luck of the dice. Warhammer also has moments in which luck rules over strategy but I find that these pop up less in a Warhammer game than a 40k one.

Story wise, Warhammer wins again. 40k just goes over the top in painting everything as Grimm-dark. Cool when your 13 but not so much later one. Warhammer kind of fluctuates between overly Grimm and what you would kind of expect in a world like this and the result is an interesting setting. Not typical but not over the top. Haven't played in years though, maybe things have changed.

 

[Sebenko]

Well well well.
But then comes the sobering realization. First strikes Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy. I cannot possibly care for any side involved, because all of them are equally, irredeemably atrocious, and everyone is going to die horribly anyway, so what's the freaking point? The god of hope is evil, i don't want to stick around in universe like that. Then the fanboys. Oh god, the fanboys, the obsessive kind of them. I cannot stand them. The brick-faced seriousness of the setting about itself is pretty annoying, but when fans start taking it serious too... THE HORROR!

I remember a White Dwarf article with a war train on one gaming table.

Also, massive shoulders are clearly serious business. I like mine pink.

 

[tjarne]

I used to play tabletop for some time. It was great fun but I quit when my friends did. As for the games, I really enjoyed the campaign Dark Crusade and Soulstorm. I only tried DOW2 in the multiplayer beta and it didn't impress very much.
And the universe, well I love it. I read a lot of the novels from time to time. Might not be the best vriting or plots but it is somehow awesome anyway.

 

[Ninjamedic]

I've never played the tabletop (although I do own a few painted miniatures), but I'm a very big fan of W40k. I mostly got into this universe via the novels of the Black Library, of which I have over 60 by now, and the collection is growing. Call them unimaginative all you want, but I love Space Marines and the like... my most recent purchase is a monster of a book called the Liber Chaotica, so as you can see I'm really into the whole background lore.
Oh yeah, and the DoW games (well, all except Soulstorm, of course) are among my favorites. I'm one of the folks who liked DoW2, and I'm really stoked for Chaos Rising! (Probably won't get to play it until April, though -.-)

You hated soulstorm as well??

 

[GodsAndFishes]

I love the tabletop version (even if it does kill my money), and DoW up to Dark Crusade was awesome, Soulstorm was a bit meh and DoW2 I haven't played.

 

[Nazulu]

I put the figurines together and paint them for a hobby, that's it. The games didn't interest me.

 

[The Undoer]

I have a few Space Marines, and Dark Eldar. Just for painting/modelling, I don't do the table top game, but I love DoW2! Last Stand for the win!

 

[Sonicron]

You hated soulstorm as well??

From what I gather most people did, really. And for good reason.

The new developers that were hired to make this expansion pack got very lazy, which became especially noticable that a lot of the visual processes like building construction with the Sisters of Battle were minimally re-skinned animations taken from the Imperial Guard.
Some of the previous gameplay mechanics were changed for the worse, like the fact that your base in a conquered region would simply vanish after completion of the mission, which got doubly annoying when you had to defend that particular patch of land from intruding forces.
The missions in which you had to capture a Webway gate were a pain in the ass, and the fact that you had to do this on both sides of the gate (i.e. complete two tedious missions instead of one) didn't help.
The campaign was a rip-off from Dark Crusade, but with blander main characters.
And, of course, there was the undeniable issue of the game having a ton of bugs up the arse.

Need I say more?

 

[Arachon]

Meh, Warhammer was cool when you were 13, at the time I thought the backstory was awesomely cool, "dark" and whatnots.

Then I grew up and started appreciating proper Sci-fi. Allthough I must admit that occasionally, I find myself wanting to paint a single model or somesuch... But I can't.

 

[Doktor Merkwurdigliebe]

silly

The problem with Warhammer 40k is that as damn silly as it is, IT TREATS ITSELF SERIOUS, because for Games Workshop it means tons of cash from all the younglings drawn to tabletop and the kids like it AWESUM AND GRIMDARK FUTURE OF DARKGRIM. It used to be much more cool during the Rogue Trader era. I didn't play it back then(too young), but as I had a glimpse of the ancient rulebook, I may clearly say, that it used to be really weird and really cool. Tons of Metal Hurlant(aka. Heavy Metal magazine) references, Space Marines not being Mary Sues, Ultrasmurfs had an Eldar-Human Librarian, all was flashy'n'80s'n'shit. Now it's serious enough, that even mentioning the name **that forbidden space dwarves race** lands a GW killteam in your backyard.

Tactics

The biggest problem with tactics in W40k is the lack of them. Usually each side has a pre-set configuration for countering a specific enemy, wether it's a choppa, dakka, more numerous, more elite, mechanized etc army. Then the only thing that actually matters is having a lot of luck with your dice rolls.

40k Video Games

I played - Space Crusader, Space Hulks, Final Liberation, Chaos Gate, Dawn of War series. They were all really, really good. It's like 40k was meant to be a video game. The only weakling was that damned Firewarrior.

 

[Ninjamedic]

You hated soulstorm as well??

From what I gather most people did, really. And for good reason.

The new developers that were hired to make this expansion pack got very lazy, which became especially noticable that a lot of the visual processes like building construction with the Sisters of Battle were minimally re-skinned animations taken from the Imperial Guard.
Some of the previous gameplay mechanics were changed for the worse, like the fact that your base in a conquered region would simply vanish after completion of the mission, which got doubly annoying when you had to defend that particular patch of land from intruding forces.
The missions in which you had to capture a Webway gate were a pain in the ass, and the fact that you had to do this on both sides of the gate (i.e. complete two tedious missions instead of one) didn't help.
The campaign was a rip-off from Dark Crusade, but with blander main characters.
And, of course, there was the undeniable issue of the game having a ton of bugs up the arse.

Need I say more?

Nope, that sums up my grievances of that game.

 

[Axolotl]

I normally avoid 40k threads not on 40k specfic forums but I just have to address this comment.

Then the only thing that actually matters is having a lot of luck with your dice rolls.

If that were true then how are some people able to do consistently well?

 

[Doktor Merkwurdigliebe]

I normally avoid 40k threads not on 40k specfic forums but I just have to address this comment.

Then the only thing that actually matters is having a lot of luck with your dice rolls.

If that were true then how are some people able to do consistently well?

I'm not among those people, so I'm full of jealousy and angst. At least I'm good at painting models.
Plus it sometimes relates to those cheesy army configs, like 1 cheap HQ, 2 cheap Troop choices, and then 1500pt army of Elites. Tournaments look completely like this where I'm from. Of course I bow before those who do the actual Mathammer and spawn an army of varied choices and eradicate everything. Such a shame those folk are so rare.

 

[Arachon]

silly

The problem with Warhammer 40k is that as damn silly as it is, IT TREATS ITSELF SERIOUS, because for Games Workshop it means tons of cash from all the younglings drawn to tabletop and the kids like it AWESUM AND GRIMDARK FUTURE OF DARKGRIM. It used to be much more cool during the Rogue Trader era. I didn't play it back then(too young), but as I had a glimpse of the ancient rulebook, I may clearly say, that it used to be really weird and really cool. Tons of Metal Hurlant(aka. Heavy Metal magazine) references, Space Marines not being Mary Sues. Now it's serious enough, that even mentioning the name **that forbidden space dwarves race** lands a GW killteam in your backyard.

That pretty much sums up my thoughts about the backstory... Possibly not the Rouge Trader part, must say I found it kind of silly as well.

Tactics

The biggest problem with tactics in W40k is the lack of them. Usually each side has a pre-set configuration for countering a specific enemy, wether it's a choppa, dakka, more numerous, more elite, mechanized etc army. Then the only thing that actually matters is having a lot of luck with your dice rolls.

From what I remember, the tactics lay in your army lists, exactly what you fielded and how, it was all about exploiting "cheap" weapon combos, rules loopholes and whatnots, all powergamers.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I like the series as a whole except for one glaring omission. Needs. More. Dakka!

 

[Chris^^]

I hardly played the game but I loved collecting the miniatures, I must have thousands of the little bastards all round my house all lovingly painted by me to varying degreees of skill. The DoW series is also great in my books, I really enjoy it.. Fire Warrior was ok and I've not played any others. DoW 2 is probably my least favourite though its still fun, if my PC could run it on full specs I'd probably like it more.

 

[UtopiaV1]

I don't understand how battles 40,000 years in the future take place on a battlefield less than 40 meters (or, in the miniature's scale, 400 meters) across..

Seriously, in today's modern warfare we have rifles that shoot further than 40k's ARTILLERY. That make any sense to you?



Seriously, look at the "range" of these units! No wonder hand-to-hand is still so important in this game set in the epically-far future!