Warhammer 40k

[Nogbertstein]

I wish the thread a very pleasant full resolution photo. Suffah jewsh, suffah.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I stumbled into the FAQ of 1d6 chan and it's gay as fuck:

https://1d6chan.miraheze.org/wiki/1d6chan:Frequently_Asked_Questions

Q. Is the use of generative AI, Learning Models, and GPTs permitted on 1d6chan?

A. No, of course. It isn't possible to use that technology without plagiarism, and nobody using this of all websites should need it explained to them that plagiarism isn't a substitute for creativity. A hackneyed image macro you slapped together in MS Paint has more artistic integrity than any dreck a 'prompt-smith' could tell a computer to make for them, and will be less likely to get us in copyright trouble, too. Likewise, AI text is strictly forbidden for equally obvious reasons. If there's an inaccuracy in an article on this site, it's because a human put it there, which is both funnier and less likely to be passed off as authoritative than anything an AI farts out. We know that there are some lazy people who use AI for art or text on character sheets, and that is just barely tolerable in the Campaign: namespace, but don't smear that trash on any page the general public will see, including in the Notes: and Setting: namespaces.

As a general rule: AI Generated art is mildly acceptable if you apply heavy curation to make it fit the particular need you have, but AI generated text is almost never acceptable except as placeholder or lorem ipsum text.

The important thing is that they'll decry the Adeptus Mechanicus being fearful of progress as them being backwards, while having just as empty ideological reasoning why AI bad.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Apologies again if I'm asking a bunch of noob questions.

How is the META decided? And do you guys think every 40k setting or event need to be feature all factions?


I'm not someone who chases the meta. When I started posting/reading this thread regularly, I mentioned starting a guard army built around various third party infantry kits I like. From what I read elsewhere on the internet, infantry guard was not really viable, you had to go tank guard if you wanted to not get instantly wiped. Infantry guard won a tournament, and the comments were interesting, one saying Aquilons were for scrubs, while another wanted to build an infantry Kreig list. Granted, the video just came out so I don't know if this sentiment would hold, but that seems a bit of a dumb way to decide the meta if it's based purely on which faction won a recent tournament. It also seems like an easy thing to counter. Just bring anti-horde weapons.


The other thing I wanted to ask about is some random videos and comments complaining about Horus Heresy. The complaint that "it's just space marines" I get, but there are other factions like militia and admech, so you don't have to play SM (though I'd argue you should). I don't agree with the idea that other factions like Eldar, Orks, and Necrons should be included. I understand that they were around, but the game is about the Horus Heresy. It would be like having a new space hulk, and someone going "but I play imperial knights. I should have rules and a new model line for the game too!".

If you really want to play heresy era necrons, either homebrew some rules or play any of the other editions of the game. My understanding is that HH is just 7th+, so maybe the codex would be compatible?

 

[The tired cat]

How is the META decided?

Usually META is basically a combination of the needed units+detachment. An you essentially get this combo that will almost always nail you wins. For example, until the ORKS rules were revised, the meta for them was Green Tide because all the upgrades centered around regular ork boy troops, all ork boy units got +5 invul save and the various strategemes allowed ya to bring back units, get closer into combat and so forth.

 

[SanctedElectromagnetism]

He does mention that. Not Rick Priestley specifically, but that GW (no name given) has put out official statements saying humanity is the bad guys, but everything in the lore justifies the imperium's actions, and that's no good because it makes look like fascism might be justified sometimes and corporate statements can be ignored. His suggestion to fix this is basically to return to rogue trader lore which was a parody of 80s and 90s British conservatism.

One related argument he makes goes back to what I felt earlier. He says that the lore should go back to focusing on the fringes of the galaxy, so that he can homebrew his own factions and lore, specifically adding a Star Wars style rebel alliance and Firefly. Back in my day when going to GW was uphill both ways, that was kind of the point.

At the same time, he complains that Star Wars is problematic because it makes it seem like the heroes are in the right instead of beating the audience with the "war bad" stick like Star Trek does. I have to question what these people want, as it sounds like they want a grimdark war game that has no grimdark or war in it. What are they supposed to do? Hold hands with orks and tyrannids and talk about how heckin valid they are?

modern leftists are on par with 90s Mormon boomers in terms of making fun media that isn't just propaganda brainrot. Part of me wants to blame it on millenials and be done with it, but I'm seeing more and more zoomers fall into the trap of making your setting have so many "layers" of deepness and thunk provoking that you inevitably shill for the thing you're making fun off

 

[Penne Dreadful]

How is the META decided?

It arises naturally rather than being dictated. Compfags want to win tournaments, so they look at all the rules and see what seems best and follow in the trail of what seems to work. Since the game isn't really solved, it's perfectly possible for something good to go under the radar, or for someone to pilot a suboptimal list to a tournament win through some combination of luck and skill (a 40% win rate has just over a 1% chance to go 5-0 at an event on the face of it, after all), plus, of course, an established meta naturally having some openings for lists tailored around countering it that might not do well in another environment.

Granted, the video just came out so I don't know if this sentiment would hold, but that seems a bit of a dumb way to decide the meta if it's based purely on which faction won a recent tournament. It also seems like an easy thing to counter. Just bring anti-horde weapons.

That all ties into this - you generally need to win 4-5 games, depending on the tournament, to take a win, and given that it often comes down to points and there will be other undefeated players in the top few spots, you need to win those games with good point totals, without knowing what you'll be facing. So if there are a lot of Knights in the current meta, for example, horde Guard would be at its strongest since the average player would be putting more points into anti-armour and that's by design going to be inefficient into hordes and so the cycle repeats, although if something is sufficiently broken it can warp the meta around itself for a while, and you're also always going to be dealing with some baselines - half the tournament lists in various aggregators are some flavour of Marine, so it's almost always going to be meta to bring at least some reasonably efficient way to kill MEQ.

ETA: On the meta note, it's also worth noting that, like Trudeau, you don't win games by killing your enemies. It's about scoring points, and the meta will recognise that. Ususally, that will require getting opponents out of your way, but as an example of that not always being the case, you had a time in late 9e where you had a meta dominated by what were effectively two solitaire lists - both Necrons and Sisters could somewhat consistently score perfect 100 point games regardless of what their opponents did while barely having to interact with them, and that's about as close to the platonic ideal of a meta list as you can get.

The other thing I wanted to ask about is some random videos and comments complaining about Horus Heresy. The complaint that "it's just space marines" I get, but there are other factions like militia and admech, so you don't have to play SM (though I'd argue you should). I don't agree with the idea that other factions like Eldar, Orks, and Necrons should be included. I understand that they were around, but the game is about the Horus Heresy. It would be like having a new space hulk, and someone going "but I play imperial knights. I should have rules and a new model line for the game too!".

If you really want to play heresy era necrons, either homebrew some rules or play any of the other editions of the game. My understanding is that HH is just 7th+, so maybe the codex would be compatible?

This comes down, in my view, to why someone might want to play HH. It's hard to believe it's for the rules, given that 7e was the absolute nadir of 40k's game design and 8e's soft reboot probably saved the game from going the way of WHFB, but I suppose it's been enough years that there's now nostalgia for even that. Given that it's another game with a related ruleset, it's incumbent on Heresy to convince people to play it over 40k. It does this through two avenues - the Marine hyper-focus and tie-in with the Heresy novels, to which it seems that you don't object but which doesn't really appeal to me at all, and through being more focused on narrative than competition and more friendly to rivet-counters (to the extent that FW hired an actual rivet-counter to lead the design on the HH tanks) and those latter two points appeal to everyone, not just Marine enthusiasts, so you're naturally going to get some disappointment when you look to the last bastion of what FW used to do and see that it's purely Imperials vs Chaos - it's not that everyone has to be present at everything, as you mention, so much as that HH is all that's left of that style when Imperial Armour used to cover a plethora of different conflicts (along with other specialist games that generated their own lines) with a plethora of different factions, and now HH and its Marines vs Marines (where maybe Mechanicum and Solar Auxilia get to watch from the sidelines if they're lucky) forever is all that remains.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

How is the META decided? And do you guys think every 40k setting or event need to be feature all factions?

META in general is a pattern enough people found to be way better than the alternatives, and can be what the devs even intended for. It can be general "vehicles are way better than units", or playstyle related "focus offense over defence". Rule of thumb is that the more the meta is limited, the worse the game is, as you have very little choice of what to pick save from the occasional anti-meta/gimmick, but having a meta is inevitable because there will always be retarded plays, especially as the game gets more complex.

As for the second version, 40K already has insane faction bloat and the big events having everyone piling on is just retarded, especially when the event can't really end with anything but Imperial win. HH always seemed to me to have a lot of potential for competitive play since in theory it should be easier to balance.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Compfags want to win tournaments, so they look at all the rules and see what seems best and follow in the trail of what seems to work. Since the game isn't really solved, it's perfectly possible for something good to go under the radar, or for someone to pilot a suboptimal list to a tournament win through some combination of luck and skill (a 40% win rate has just over a 1% chance to go 5-0 at an event on the face of it, after all), plus, of course, an established meta naturally having some openings for lists tailored around countering it that might not do well in another environment.

Right, that's how I assumed it worked. Which is why I was confused that inf guard went from worthless to "the new meta GW plz nerf imma build a guard inf list too".

The meta of a game, as the name states, is the most effective tactic available, not the tactic that was most recently victorious. Especially with the RNG in 40k, which I understand has been mitigated in recent years, is still a thing. So it seems strange to do a complete 180 on an army like that.

through being more focused on narrative than competition and more friendly to rivet-counters (to the extent that FW hired an actual rivet-counter to lead the design on the HH tanks) and those latter two points appeal to everyone, not just Marine enthusiasts, so you're naturally going to get some disappointment when you look to the last bastion of what FW used to do and see that it's purely Imperials vs Chaos

This to me makes it sound like a mainline 40k problem generally. If 40k is shitting the bed, then it's not on other games to become "40k but-".

For me, the homebrew spirit of old 40k seems largely lost, and exists in HH to some extent. I remember stumbling across one reddit post complaining that some kitbashed "weapons of desperation" models aren't official GW kits. (There's a rule where SM have ran out of bolt gun ammo and thus use whatever autoguns, stubbers, and lasguns they can find.) Obviously I'd like it if 40k ditched it tourniment obsession and went back to casual narrative play, but I don't see that happening.

modern leftists are on par with 90s Mormon boomers in terms of making fun media that isn't just propaganda brainrot. Part of me wants to blame it on millenials and be done with it, but I'm seeing more and more zoomers fall into the trap of making your setting have so many "layers" of deepness and thunk provoking that you inevitably shill for the thing you're making fun off

Exactly. This is why I weep for Slaanesh. They were always my favourite of the chaos gods. Yes, being a trans groomer is on brand for Slaanesh, but then to turn around and turn it into the good guy "heckin valid" faction, and I'm not sure if they see the irony in it and are playing it up for laughs, or they genuinely believe SM is the alt-right and slaanesh are the good guys. I assume this is the coldest of cold takes at this point though.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

modern leftists are on par with 90s Mormon boomers in terms of making fun media that isn't just propaganda brainrot. Part of me wants to blame it on millenials and be done with it, but I'm seeing more and more zoomers fall into the trap of making your setting have so many "layers" of deepness and thunk provoking that you inevitably shill for the thing you're making fun off

in order to make fun of something properly you have to understand what the thing you're making fun of actually is leftists actually do not understand what the right believes but the right understands what the left believes that's why the left cannot successfully make fun of the right because everything they end up making fun of is what the right actually fundamentally believes and is what most people consider good qualities in a person being heroic self sacrifice being a normal functioning adult.

 

[Penne Dreadful]

Which is why I was confused that inf guard went from worthless to "the new meta GW plz nerf imma build a guard inf list too".

Unless something is clearly dominant, there's going to be a bit of a cyclic element to the meta. Guard infantry can be bad at a time when there's a lot of anti-horde or other armies that can take a go-wide approach effectively (and considering that Sisters and Eldar are both T3 armies that are good at both and encourage the former and are often good tournament performers, that's often the case), but once that's no longer the case, there's a tournament win to be had by whoever is the first to notice in his local environment, bring the skew list, collect a win and start the bandwagon, until it's oversaturated and we move again (or until a nerf, of course).

This to me makes it sound like a mainline 40k problem generally. If 40k is shitting the bed, then it's not on other games to become "40k but-".

Yes, but unfortunately that's not going to happen. Pivoting towards competitive play with 8e might have been GW's most successful financial decision since letting Black Library get at the Heresy (which I don't like either), so that's hardly going to change - we're in agreement on that. It's just a shame that there's not really much other than Heresy driving kit designs outside of it; rulesets aren't that important and third-party proxies are more available than ever, but for the most part that's all targeting 40k (or, at a distant second, Heresy), and there's no longer anything driving more interesting designs and fluff to copy.

 

[augment]

Your local Eldar player, here to remind the younger players that in WH40K, if ever there was a "good guys" faction looking out for the little man or just being paragons of justice, they either got wiped out by humanity's Great Crusade, or were ass-reamed by a chaos god, or were captured by the Drukhari and made to provide power and energy through eternal suffering.

 

[CryptoHermit]

Your local Eldar player, here to remind the younger players that in WH40K, if ever there was a "good guys" faction looking out for the little man or just being paragons of justice, they either got wiped out by humanity's Great Crusade, or were ass-reamed by a chaos god, or were captured by the Drukhari and made to provide power and energy through eternal suffering.

Revanchist Eldar will always be a fave. I wish they expanded on the wraithguard or wraithbone constructs as a model line. I know in earlier editions they had metals cast little wraithbone drones you could attach to Spiritseers and Warlocks. Like these tiny little dudes.

 

[p1138]

Right, that's how I assumed it worked. Which is why I was confused that inf guard went from worthless to "the new meta GW plz nerf imma build a guard inf list too".

The meta of a game, as the name states, is the most effective tactic available, not the tactic that was most recently victorious. Especially with the RNG in 40k, which I understand has been mitigated in recent years, is still a thing. So it seems strange to do a complete 180 on an army like that.

The aquillon drop troops from the new Kill Team release got a 40k data sheet, that allows a 3" deep strike and rapid ingress. GW issued an update that is going to apply to their warhammer world championship thing in advance of the regular update that'll likely see the same thing in December, to not allow them to do it outside of that player's turn so no 3" rapid ingress to block a charge with a 90 point unit. As it is, the 3" deep strike also means they're a dirt cheap action monkey unit to put around the board whenever you want to score additional points for secondaries.

Angron about to charge your tanks from 7 inches? Nope, 3" rapid ingress of cancer surrounds him and move blocks him because even though he has fly his base won't fit between them and your tanks, and he can't clear your drop troops, and your tanks, and the terrain behind them so he's stuck charging the troops and now he can't consolidate into your tanks either once the infantry is dead and he's going to just get shot to shit in your shooting phase(even if the troops didn't all die just have the survivors fall back).

Fortunately it's usually pretty rare for a new unit to actually be effective in 40k as the rules are usually halfassed in the wrong direction for that. Also as mentioned by others, because the meta means you'll need some action monkeys, some anti tank, something to screen with, and then dealing with whatever the current "big threat" is, it does mean that some weird non meta lists can win big tournaments because people show up with armies to deal with ABC, and instead some guy shows up with QRS and nobody is quite sure how to deal with it, and ends up winning. Which that in itself can result in a shift of the meta as the random people who love to net list but never look at why something worked out the way it did try to copy it which leads to a bunch of people with lists they don't know how to run at events, which also shuffles around the meta.

edit: Another thing to consider as well is that unless you're actually playing at these multi-day tournaments, or even regularly at your local single day tournaments, it's probably not going to make a difference unless your local meta(because that will actually be more important) happens to be full of people who do play at those events or something. It's entirely possible your local meta is a bunch of shitters who play nothing but knights or gun line tau, or nothing but melee list after melee list because they just want to charge world eaters or khorne demons into things with maybe 1 guy mixing things up with a black templar melee list.

 

[Second Missing Primarch]

So I guess GW has just given up entirely on proofreading any of their shit. It's like their underpaid intern had a stroke halfway through.

 

[Judge Dredd]

people show up with armies to deal with ABC, and instead some guy shows up with QRS and nobody is quite sure how to deal with it

Sounds like that's the case. I didn't listen to the entire interview but the part I did hear was him talking about how a tactical squad intersessors can't put out enough bolter shots to clear him off an objective in 1 round.

My favourite cheese list like that was some tourniment back when where someone brought a farseer and attached them to some guard conscripts, giving them a +2 invul save. Nobody knew what to do about that.

 

[p1138]

Sounds like that's the case. I didn't listen to the entire interview but the part I did hear was him talking about how a tactical squad intersessors can't put out enough bolter shots to clear him off an objective in 1 round.

My favourite cheese list like that was some tourniment back when where someone brought a farseer and attached them to some guard conscripts, giving them a +2 invul save. Nobody knew what to do about that.

Not sure what you're talking about a space marine squad using bolters to clear off an objective, but most of the generic space marine stuff has been kinda mediocre for 2 editions now(except for that small bit of 9th where an apothecary could bring back an entire mario kart, but that was fixed pretty quickly and even then it wasn't winning games for people, or maybe plasma inceptors for all of 3 weeks).

At the end of the day, the hardcore meta chasers who are literally just constantly swapping their shit on ebay aren't people to worry about. The guy who actually owns 5 different armies, can play them all well, and can swap to an army they know they'll statistically do 3% better with is the type of player who is usually winning large events or at least placing well(at the end of the day it's still a game with dice) but it's probably not likely you'll encounter them at your local store.

 

[Penne Dreadful]

At the end of the day, the hardcore meta chasers who are literally just constantly swapping their shit on ebay aren't people to worry about

The other factor is that in this day and age, netlists are trivially available and people pay more attention to them, but it's hardly the end of the world, especially since with the rapid meta shifts and regular balance dataslates of the last two editions, a regular player building towards a meta list won't have the models painted before it's irrelevant, providing yet another upside to not playing against grey tide.

 

[p1138]

The other factor is that in this day and age, netlists are trivially available and people pay more attention to them, but it's hardly the end of the world, especially since with the rapid meta shifts and regular balance dataslates of the last two editions, a regular player building towards a meta list won't have the models painted before it's irrelevant, providing yet another upside to not playing against grey tide.

Sure, but even the guy who does buy a bunch of painted shit off ebay because he heard what won a tournament recently won't necessarily know how to actually run the list. Sure I gave an example of the tempestus aquilon move blocking being obnoxious with rapid ingress and how they can work as action monkeys but that doesn't mean that the guy buying his stuff off ebay(assuming he even gets it in time) will know how to run the rest of the list. Hell, that aquilon thing has only been an issue for a couple weeks and it's already getting nerfed because of how stupid it was, and that's a good thing.

Although there's some who complain that the game changes are "too fast to keep up with" well maybe you shouldn't have decided to go all in on some obvious bullshit.

 

[Judge Holden]

Gonna drop what I have just realised is probably an unpopular opinion about muh lore.

Nurgle and his forces being largely depicted as goofy and lovable if icky scamps who occasionally get icky-spooky is fucking cringe. I get the old lore of them being resentful and bitter monsters who had the shallow veneer of cruel humour and very occasional backhanded affection was not exactly concrete or well developed, and there is still an attempt to balance the silly shit with spooky shit in currentday, but going full "lol giggling farting demons going poopoo and gimmick loving green chungus marines who want to give stinky hugs to all their guardsmen frens" and then switching to something like Typhus going full sadist edgelord just does not work for me.

 

[StevieLasVegas]

I'd be fine if it was just the Nurglings that were like that, and the cruelty just scales up as the daemons get bigger. Oh sure, the Great Unclean One is clearly having a great time but that's because it's watching an entire colony literally puking it's guts out from a plague. And there's a reason my appreciation of The Purge over the Death Guard grows more & more as more normies catch wind of Warhammer.