Aos doesn't seem balanced either to me. Maybe if you talk to your models, do silly dances and remember not to get down on one knee things are balanced? Most tournament rules i've seen seem to use wounds now instead of points but how does that work when wounds is only one stat out of the whole troop profile? How does a 20 wound unit of goblins stand up to a 20 wound unit of vampire blood knights? Is it balanced in that nobody brings goblins to a tournament and everyone just uses the one troop type from one army?

I hardly ever played 40k, although I do have a few Eldar models. What I did play for a time as the Lord of the Rings game, and Inhave to say it doesn't suffer from some of the problems that apparently plague the big GW games.

Power creep was very small, perhaps even less than that of X-Wing. At one point, the Haradrim had the same stats as Rohirrim warriors because of the introduction of a new rule even though they cost fewer points, but apart from that the later units were pretty balanced relative to the earlier ones. Some of the units introduced relatively late were actually quite weak, like the warrioris of Khand.

The game worked very well as a skirmish game; some scenarios required just a few models. The successive rulesets did not change the game too radically and the slim booklets containing the stats weren't very expensive. And the game was, at the beginning, relatively cheap. The price per model was below that of Warhammer/40k. Biggest price increase was around the time of the switch to resin or "finecast", but at that point I had stopped buying them. There was a pariod in which models for LotR were actually very cheap, because of a deal GW had made with a publisher: every two weeks or so, a mag was published with some hobby stuff and a plastic sprue or a metal mini. Especially the sprues were a cheap way of getting some models for an army.

Looking back, I think there are a few ways in which X-Wing could learn something from LotR. All matches were good vs. evil - mirror matches were not allowed. The game was also better suited for different scales of battles, it held up well up to 1500 points or so.

And LotR could be played as a simple points match, with random missions, and with a huge range of scenarios. Those scenarios would often actually replay some scene from the source material. X-Wing hardly ever does that, and I feel it's a missed opportunity. Finally, the rules are quite simple, and the various abilities don't make them too complex either. Some upgrades in X-Wing can really become very subtle in their interactions. LotR rules were fairly 'tight'.

The game was very popular for a few years, but that popularity collapsed after the movies. I hardly bought any Hobbit stuff, it did not seem as well made/supported as the previous game and I thought the basic set was too expensive.

Caution: Language

Hahah I love those videos so much. For the record, Brother Zael has never flamed a battle brother while under my watch... well, not yet, anyways...

this must be the "no genestealers until turn six" version of suicide mission

Hahah, no, standard 2 blips at the start plus two blips per turn. It's a brutal mission, though, and blowing a couple Overwatch rolls, or getting hammered with weak CP draws, and it's a real slog. Especially if your Genestealer opponent knows what he/she is doing.

Semi related;

I hope that FFG can buy the epic Armageddon rules and remake that game with a SW theme.

Ideally backwards compatible with 40K armies.

*dreams joyful dreams of bliss*

I went to the shop today, to see what X-wing I could play.

I saw a man there, pulled him up a chair and said "Sir are you good for a game?"

He looked me right in the eye, and his words I'll try to surmise.

For he said "40K is the game that I play, and this X-wing dross I'll not try."

Said I: "Sir, now that's hardly fair: just give it a chance and you'll see!"

But no matter how, I bargained and cowed, an adamant stance stood he.

"It's hard to explain;" he replied, "for it's not the gameplay I attack;"

"I'm worried it might be something I'd like; and if I try it I'll never go back!"

- (True story from last Friday evening; I had the ships for him and everything. Some people are just that stubborn. )

Preach Kelvin, Preach.

I logged in purely to like Kelvin's post.

Also, I've noticed GW are now doing a Heresy-era starter set. They've failed to fully capitalise on the fever for 30k for some years now IMO, and no doubt this set will give them a little boost for this year to appease their shareholders until the next time rolls around.

That said, I can't see much of a big 30k scene given that the biggest appeal seems to be conversion? May be wrong.

Beautiful, Kelvin dude!

Comparing 40K with X-wing doens't really make sense anyway, one's an army scale game (or company scale game at least) and one's a skirmish game. If you want to compare prices compare it with games like Infinity, Malifaux, etc... and x-wing isn't really cheaper than any of those.

£95 is cheaper than forgeworld resin marines but it's still not cheap, certainly not for a board game.

And anyone into 30k is so because they dont like GW and forgeworld is the last part of that company they trust, loyalty to FW will keep people slowly buying resin kits instead of GW's plastic.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if 40k jumped back to 30k stuff.

Never come across a more timid bunch of fluff writers than those at GW. It's been ll:59 PM, December 31st, year 40,999 for about 2 decades and they are absolutely TERRIFIED of what will happen if they advance into the 42nd millennium. It's the same level of paranoia accompanying the Y2K scare, only it's in a land of make believe that they control entirely.

Occasionally they put on their big boy pants and decide to advance the story (ala Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade). But within the next few books they remove all reference to that event and pretend that nothing changed because they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. The last 2 Eldar books for instance, make no mention whatsoever that Eldrad died.

So they're staring at the precipice of the 42nd Millennium and nobody has the courage to advance, so I fully expect them to jump back 10,000 years to "see how we got here."

It's kind of hilarious to witness the desperation of an entire company who doesn't seem to be able to control their own product.

Yeah well otherwise they'll have to rebrand the whole thing as Warhammer 41.000.

And 41K doesn't have the same ring to it.

But GW focusing on the 30K era makes sense if you see how popular the HH novels and FW models are.

No wonder they came out with Betrayal at calth.

I haven't played 40k in months. "The warhammer will end soon but before it does a lot more people gotta not buy."-Wardaddy in Fury. Im trying to get my 40k/dnd club to "Join FFG and together we can rule the galaxy! Im going to seduce them with promises of balance and no chance of being AOS'd. The leader is a star wars nerd so if I can convince him...

Im going to seduce them with promises of balance and no chance of being AOS'd.

I dunno. I might play an age of sigmar version of a star wars game

Like getting bonuses if you talk like Darth Vader or if you pretend to force choke your oponent.

It's kind of hilarious to witness the desperation of an entire company who doesn't seem to be able to control their own product.

All are invited to my end of games workshop day party.

I played a game of 40k yesterday. First time in about 6 months, and the first time with all the 7th ed knobs and buttons.

It's an absolute clusterfudge of a game.

However has the newest army with the most special rules will win. Bah, never going back now.

Once you're off the wagon there is little appeal or pleasure to be found in going back. Kind of like drugs.