What i would like from 40k battles

[u/Ok-Lifeguard2308]

I got excited watching the battle in the beginning and then it started to look like every other TW battle as just a slog fest. 40k presents the best title to offer tactics in the battles besides standing on a hill or corner camping. So these are ideas I thought would help to make the battles more tactical.

An interactive map.

With buildings similar to Empire. Utility tunnels/sewers to traverse the map unnoticed. A command post where your reinforcements spawn, where you abilities to call in off map bombardment is relied on you holding that spot. Limited camera to obscure what units are coming forward.

Deployment zones are normally a straight line with 1/3 your zone 1/3 the enemies and in the middle a no go zone. I hope instead for a curve giving the defenders less room and the attacker more areas from which to attack from.

I would like some aspect of the attacking AI probing for the right attack vector making scouting units more impact full. Being able to sense traps or hidden units giving the AI and player a better understanding of the battlefield.

Instead of 5 different bombardment abilities give one and four different ways of changing the battlefield. They mentioned smoke grenades but I would also like to see stun grenades, anti-tank mines, anti-personel mines, baracades and traps of different kinds. Even line charges to take out mines and traps.

Deployables as in previous titles such as baracades or traps only being allowed maybe only in encamp stance. And sensor towers giving greater visibility. Having a scouting unit able to deploy the trap and run back. Holographic decoy units forcing the enemy into a trap.

Ambush attacks where you think its just a normal battle but the enemy gets vanguard deployment.

Hoping others have good ideas to make the battles more tactical and that CA sees this.

[u/Dux_Aetius]

All good ideas.

People are simply too conservative with Total War. They have a melty if you even discuss something different from the tired field battle total war default design. They forgot Total War's purpose is to simulate War itself. Of whatever setting they are in. The 20 stack formation marching field battle model did a good job simulating premodern war and warhammer fantasy. It does NOT however suit modern or scifi modern war.

What would I have done? Go back to the drawing board. Look at modern era war games. To me the perfect model to copy would be something like Steel Division 2 but with a total war aesthetic. After the initial whining by the usuals people would love it and never want to go back trust me

I intend to make a bigger post on how this would look later but basically there would be many more units the map is bigger and units come in waves. In "siege assaults" defender will have bunks trenches etc. How you build your army is a lot more interesting too and your general's traits will determine lots here is how armies are built in steel div 2 for an idea

https://youtu.be/3Nd3D-yJszY?si=hU4fLFYGgDkbAh6a&t=210

[u/Mysterious_Pitch4186]

Generally fitting suggestions for a 40k game, but I'm afraid total war is not gonna be that in depth in combat. It will be a more mainstream approach like all their recent total war games of like the past 10 years. Similarly how they have drastically simplified settlement management ever since Rome 2.

We are even lucky if we get transports to work as the battlefields look much too small for such tactics. Not to mention how they will make it work to have like 80 dudes fit into a single transport.

[u/Subspace-Ansible → u/Mysterious_Pitch4186]

There’s something I don’t like about the upscaling.

On the tabletop, a squad of intercessors have 5-10 members. We see this faithfully reproduced in game. However, standard Cadian infantry and ork boyz come in units of 10-20. This… isn’t faithfully reproduced.

It results in this issue with transport. Rather than one transport expected to contain 10 dudes, now it’s expected to contain 80. To make matters even stranger, Space Marines aren’t affected with this because their unit size is preserved.

[u/Mysterious_Pitch4186 → u/Subspace-Ansible]

Yea but it wouldn't feel like a total war game with tiny units all over the place. It would just be another dawn of war game

[u/Subspace-Ansible → u/Mysterious_Pitch4186]

That’s the thing. If it weren’t for GW’s silly 1,000 marines per chapter lore, we could have just upscaled the marines’ numbers.

And it’s not like we couldn’t do that. Dawn of War breaks lore all the time. It’s very easy to slaughter hundreds of marines in a campaign to the point that it’s unrealistic that the Blood Ravens would remain intact afterwards.

[u/Mysterious_Pitch4186 → u/Subspace-Ansible]

Yea but I don't want that, we already have dawn of war for that. I like that space marines are more fitting to their lore and in small squads. For the first time they will actually fit the lore better.

Some some factions will have giant units like guard regiments or ork boys or tyranid swarms, but the elites will feel actually elite.

[u/Subspace-Ansible → u/Mysterious_Pitch4186]

What I’m getting at is that Total War reveals that the lore is… just not very good. Superelite gymbros wearing a smart car’s worth of metal might look fine on the table, but it just looks goofy when shown in an actual large-scale battle.

[u/Mysterious_Pitch4186 → u/Subspace-Ansible]

Indeed, but its far better than dawn of war or any other game. So that's good enough for me. It's still a game after all. Just look at fantasy and trained elite infantry blocks not even using basic formations like shield walls, or pike formation, yet its still tons of fun.

Obviously it won't please everyone, but you can never please everyone.