Well it's clear that a lot of people are un-satisfied by the rules. They are criticised on many threads here in "general", and especially in "you make da call". So does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix the rules?

Here's one for making vehicles more balanced. Not sure how well it would work.
Armour saves for vehicles. And go back to the old 6+ for explodes instead of the new 7+. A 3+ save for tanks, for example could prevent Autocannon spam from killing everything but land raiders.
Like I said, I'm not sure if it's a good idea. After all, Autocannons probably could destroy most things. You need a lot of shots to kill a tank, but against infantry you won't kill many, since you just don't have that many shots. But anyway, I digress. Just getting the thread started.

How would you fix 40k? Go!

I'd start with a basic level of proofreading.

Then I'd playtest the game before publishing the rules. I'd also get a beta test group of people outside the studio for a different perspective. Then I'd clear up all the vague and ambiguous rules that only need an extra word or two to be clear, like Psyker powers and mastery levels.

Those are just the basics.

Ideally, I'd redefine the game to be either a skirmish level/platoon based game, or make it into a sleeker company level game with rules to go with it. Currently it sits in an awkward in between where the model by model rules lend itself to platoon level gaming, but falls short when you play at the game's intended level of 1500 and up.

That's not even going into the balance issues. I'd also release all the codices with each new edition update, under the assumption the codices would be worked on simultaneously with the upcoming edition so all armies are on the same page.

Then I'd issue timely FAQs that address issues raised by the community, which would require interaction with the customer base and/or a dedicated beta test group for feedback.

Then I'd lower the prices to nearly half the current cost.

That's how I'd change the rules in a rough outline. There's too much in the way of little things that it wouldn't fit in a single post.

Well that stuff is all well and good, but I was thinking actual rules, not managerial decisions.

 Kavish wrote:
Well that stuff is all well and good, but I was thinking actual rules, not managerial decisions.

They're fairly intertwined. I could go through the current book and fix the wording on some problematic rules, but that doesn't fix or change the underlying issues with the rules.

1# of course, is to balance the codexes. But if we must futz with the rules themselves...


Assault out of stationary non-assault vehicles as a disorganized charge.

Assault when arriving from reserve as a disorganized charge. Probably have to make some exceptions (drop pods might be too effective with this rule).

Consolidate into close combat.

In addition to regular overwatch, have the option to forgo shooting on your turn and gain overwatch at full BS.

Bring back some of the 6th edition about terrain (barrage and templates only hit one level of a ruin, ability to jump down).

Tweak the psychic phase - not sure exactly what to do, but the current rules severely punish armies that only bring one or two psykers vs armies that spam warp dice.

Include better rules support for narrative play (even if they're optional).

Re-work the Kill Team rules and include them in the main rulebook.

Provide more options for integrating games of 40k into the RPG systems that FFG publishes.



And the big one...

Split up game turns into phases - Your movement, My movement, Your psychic, My Psychic, Your shooting, My shooting, Your Assaults, My Assaults. Also give players the option to seize the initiative at the beginning of each game turn.

Eliminate rolling and time consuming rules wherever possible:

- difficult terrain, no more rolling, infantry move a flat 4". Move through cover units are not slowed by difficult terrain.

- running, no more rolling, everyone can run 4". Fleet, crusader, etc add 2".

- over watch, no more rolling buckets of dice on snap shots. Templates and blast grenades inflict two automatic hits (only one model per squad can use a grenade in overwatch). Pistols fire at full BS. Anything else had its chance in the shooting phase, unless you specifically forgo shooting, as previously posted.

- eliminate pile in moves. Everyone in a combat within 6" of an enemy model fights (close combat, short range fire, etc). In the movement phase, models in engaged units must move into base to base contact with an enemy model, or as close as possible.

- look out sir rolls, only one per unit per turn. When allocating a wound to a character or IC, the player may take a leadership test on that character or ICs leadership. If passed, then for the rest of that turn the character or IC may only be allocated wounds after all other models in the unit have been removed as casualties (the character absorbs any spillover wounds). Only one character or IC per unit may LOS in a given player turn. This means players can no longer abuse an ICs invul save to protect the much more numerous grunts around him.

Reintroduce movement characteristics, save modifiers and to-hit modifiers.

Decide whether you want a large scale game or a skirmish scale game and adjust the rules appropriately.

You can charge after disembarking from all vehicles.
Assault vehicles are the only ones to give the charge bonus.

Charge distance is d6 + initiative.

2+ re rollables are re rolled on a 4+.

Choosing to Over watch forces you to hit at initiative 1

I'd make far less random stuff to allow for more player control, balance the codexes internally and externally. If this was so, things like LOW or unbound wouldn't be an issue. Streamline the game so it doesn't take so long and allow for smaller sized armies for beginners and larger armies for veterans. (Maybe more two on one type scenarios.)
Also, I'd add in narrative campaigns and rules such as special rules for fighting the same enemy more than once, campaign maps where victories and defeats matter for the next game, etc.

I actually think the majority of the core rules are ok, or would be with a little more clarification.

What I would change:

- Dispense with cover saves in favour of to hit modifiers
- Replace random rolls for tactical decisions (warlord traits, psychic powers) - this may require balancing of some of those to prevent "no brainer" choices.
- Introduce a degree of certainty to assault, without necessarily making it a fixed range
- Make Overwatch a trade off based choice, not a right, or make a test necessary.

Otherwise, most of what I've always liked about 40K is still in the game,mor has been reintroduced in the last two editions.

Many of the problems inherent to the game lie in the supplements and codexes, and I think they're the thing that needs addressing most with cost adjustments and rules corrections.

 DanielBeaver wrote:


Assault out of stationary non-assault vehicles as a disorganized charge.

Assault when arriving from reserve as a disorganized charge. Probably have to make some exceptions (drop pods might be too effective with this rule).

Consolidate into close combat.

In addition to regular overwatch, have the option to forgo shooting on your turn and gain overwatch at full BS.

Bring back some of the 6th edition about terrain (barrage and templates only hit one level of a ruin, ability to jump down).

This is great stuff! I might see if I can get my regular opponent to agree to use these. Since he plays Blood Angels I'd say he'd be very keen!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I wonder if assault would become too powerful? I hope not.

Well, I I would simplify anything where I could. 40k is good, but it's very bloated and plays very slow. So I'd make the following changes:

*Blast markers are removed entirely. Instead the weapon either hits or misses like normal, if it hits it gets x amount of wounds on the target unit.

*Wounds are always allocated by the controlling player unless stated otherwise

*Challenges removed (remain as an optional extra)

*Difficult terrain reduces movement by x (specified on the terrain piece)

*Abstract line of sight. All terrain is either clear, heavy, light or impassable. It is also tall, flat or opaque. For an example woodland would be light(-2 movement, +2 cover)/tall(does not need to go to ground for cover bonus). A rocky outcrop would be heavy (-3 movement, +3 cover)/flat (needs to go to ground for cover bonus).

Also more personal tastes -

*Terminator armour becomes 3+ on two dice. No real reason other than I think terminators are cool

*Warlord traits are choosable, probably reduce to 6 or so varients to compensate. So a generic shooty bonus, generic assault bonus, etc etc. Expand on this more in the codexes too.

*Optional weather modes

*Optional big-mob ruleset to make battles with a large model count quicker. So optional rules for condensing shooting attacks down to make that a lot quicker for one.

An activation system. This would be where instead of one player moving all their units and the next player moving all of their units, the players take turns activating a unit at a time.

Proofreading.

A playtesting system where prominent gamers can sign up early to receive a beta-copy of the rules, and submit their comments/opinions.

Less randomness. Specifically, let psykers choose their powers.

I'd begin at the beginning again. I'd trim down the stats, you don't need 4 stats to determine your melee skill.

I would remove the skirmish game elements left in 40k and turn it into a proper mass battle game.

I would turn units into a unit leader + his extra wounds. Everything would be measured from the sgt, the rest of the models just have to stay next to him. If he is in range everyone is, if he makes it to melee everyone does.

The distinction between walker and monstrous creature would be removed and they would both work of the same system, something between the two where a dreadnought would have HP, but a hive tyrant could also lose an arm.

I would reintroduce modifiers for dice rolls. An ultramarine standing in the open should not be as easy to hit as a guardsman vet with a camo cloak hiding in the jungle. Nor should a marine in the open be equally as easy to kill with a lasgun than one inside a fortification. Cover would turn into a negative to hit and a positive save mod. Instead of AP being completley useless until it utterly breaks through armour I would make it a neg modifier to the save. Feel No Pain and Invun saves would also be modifiers, so a termi captain with an iron halo might end up with a 2+ save even when being shot by a plasmagun just from the extra protection he has, or if he has a storm shield he might still be taking that 2 against a demolisher round.

Overall I would just try to streamline the game, make it so that a 2,000 point game can be played in an hour, hour and a half.

Complete reboot with the normal game size being about 30-45 miniatures + a few vehicles for a non-elite army.

Some sort of alternating activation or turn structure where both players are making decisions all the time rather than sitting there waiting and maybe rolling some dice.

Delete 6E and 7E entirely and go back to a point where the game was nearly balanced itself. Allies don't work until you get the core books alone to work.

Then define the game as a 28mm skirmish game, as it should be. If you want armies of tons of tanks, 100s of guys, and giant machines, that belongs in a 6mm to 10mm realm of Epic. The game is getting too big and too expensive. Thus, cut back to what 40k is, and get back to battle basics.

I would make HQs more a linch pin unit to the army design; having your HQ slain should be a big deal, not seen as a 100pt tax that might do something useful. It would also place a strong counter-weight towards building beefy melee HQs. They are super powerful, but come with a great risk; a mark of a good strategy game. I would also make it that the highest points costing HQ has to be your leader, but they give a discount to another section of your army. A buff leader could give you a free troop unit while and combat unit could get a reduced priced elite unit.

Make every single unit get a force allowance. Unless you take a special commander, many units will be 0-1. More common units will be 0-2, and specific commanders will unlock the now known 0-3. The Force Organization will get completely dumped by this happening and replaced with theme armies. If you follow a commanders theme, you will get bonus'. Fluff armies will suddenly become very potent when they match their theme. "Unbound" armies will be the common way to play as to not dissuade them. Troops will either be tweaked to be more useful or have a mandatory requirement of 2 units and/or % based.

The dice mechanics will be streamlined as to not require massive amounts of tables. Make it so you don't have to memorize a bunch of crap and normal most dice rolls to be "high roll" is the goal. BS2 = hits on 2+. BS3 = hits on 3+. WS 2 = hits on 2+. WS3 = hits on 3+. So on. These need to be simplified.

Delete all random tables. Make psychic powers either fixed for certain characters or purchasable off tables; discount psykers to make up for the fact they are purchasing powers. Delete warlord traits and give either characters fixed ones, like now, or select from a pre-set, fluff driven series given the scenario.

Make all missions either hard symmetrical in play, such as steamroller, or purely asymmetrical which involves each individual choosing an objective from a pool of generated ones, such as malifaux.

There are plenty more, but it all boils down to make them game less a frustrating pile of drivel and random. And making it back to the appropriate scale as it's far too bloated and costs way to much to play where the game feels designed (1500~pts).

Also, Av is a complicated and crap mechanic that's arbitrarily thrown around. Delete the entire Av though process and make tanks have toughness and wounds. Make AT weapons cause multiple wounds to singular targets. Delete the instant death mechanic since high strength weapons now cause multiple wounds. Make etnernal warrior become reduce all multi-wound weapons to 1W maximum. Bam, I just made Tyranid Warriors good.

Also, screw flyers and their hard to hit roll and ditch overwatch. Slows down the game.

Well for me, there would be no more, I move, I shoot, I assault, you move, you shoot, you assault.

I would make it more like Lord of the Rings or even have an Initiative goes first. Then he can shoot/move. If there is a tie, then who every has "priority" that turn gets to choose which person can select one unit, then the next person can select then next unit.

Maybe even have "cool down" when you can shoot. Say 6". Move 6" then shoot, or move and shoot at the end of your turn. Since you moved at the end of your turn you can't shoot again until you moved 6" first.

Once in Base to Base movement stops and then you will be assaulting.

I would also say throw in some movement stats, but a lot of people would be upset that Space Marines could only move 4" turn and Terminators only 3" or 2" per turn. So I guess will not throw in any movement stats.

I'd nuke it from orbit. Sometimes it's best just to put things out of our misery. Then they'd be rewritten from the ground up with:
- Much greater points variance, ie. turning 2k lists into 10k.
- Swap to d8's, d10's, d12's, d20's. Something larger than d6 to allow for greater variations in outcomes without needing to roll extra dice.
- Re-balance the game to be more "fluffy", as in 1 SM both costs more and is more effective than 3 guardsmen.
- To go with the above, consider optional addition of movement trays for horde based armies (and Apoc style) such as IG, 'nids, Orks. Goal is to speed up game whilst allowing lots of models. Could include things like increased mitigation of pie plate damage to make them worth using.
- Re-write and balance the various unit types well from the start (walkers, MCs etc). Possible removal of AV / toughness separation.
- Ensure all available close combat and ranged styles are both equally viable and fun to play.
- Either separate the game into skirmish, army and apocalypse scales or ensure the game is written from the ground up to be workable at all 3 scales. It would probably be doable with some minor rules modifications, such as with the optional inclusion of movement trays at army and apoc scales as mentioned above.
- Release the raw rules free online. Release nice collectors (ie. current production quality) rulebooks as physical copies and as purchased ebooks for 33-50% of the hard copy price. Ensure purchased copies do not just include recycled fluff and are not intentionally poorly laid out.

For me:

Restore To Hot rolls for Blasts, with scatter only being rolled on a miss.

Replace the from-the-closest casualty removal with owner-chooses, restore the old torrent of fire rule.

Restore cover saves to being calculated by unit instead of per model.

Remove the penalty for declining a challenge, but have the result of a fought challenge determine who wins or loses that round of combat.

Allow psykers to choose their powers.

Allow Warlords to choose their Warlord trait.

One method of army selection - remove the Battle Forged vs Unbound nonsese. Either have a FoC or Percentage based system that requires you to build coherent armies, or have an 'anything goes' system with bonuses for selecting specific detachments. Don't try and put both systems into one game.

Remove the separate statline for vehicles, and just give them similar rules to MCs instead.

Have MC's (and anything else with 3 or more wounds) stats degrade with each wound inflicted.

If an entire army is kept in Reserve, have them start coming on in turn one.

Add a long-odds 'lucky shot' mechanic so that no unit is completely invulnerable to any given attack.

And the big ones: Proof-read the damn rules prior to publication, and release a complete set of rules for a new edition, rather than having obsolete codexes running through multiple edition changes.

 insaniak wrote:
And the big ones: Proof-read the damn rules prior to publication, and release a complete set of rules for a new edition, rather than having obsolete codexes running through multiple edition changes.

It's sad that this isn't a given ; /

 Las wrote:
Charge distance is d6 + initiative.

2+ re rollables are re rolled on a 4+.

Choosing to Over watch forces you to hit at initiative 1

I like these ideas. It's a shame they didn't give assault a little more live in 7th

Wow, it surprises me how much I disagree with a lot of points raised here. As OP asks, what'd I change:

 Las wrote:
Charge distance is d6 + initiative.

2+ re rollables are re rolled on a 4+.

Choosing to Over watch forces you to hit at initiative 1

This, I agree with this.

Charging out of non-assault vehicles forces you to hit at initiative 1 and doesn't grant additional attack to show how clumsy is running out of a crowded rear/side hatch and trying to reach the enemy before he gets to aim properly.

Fixed run distance. Silo's idea of +4"(+6") makes sense. No more "RUN FOR IT AS FAST AS YOU CAN!" and then move one inch.

Look Out, Sir! rolls only with models within 2" of the model and not from blasts. They could give 5+ or 4+ cover against blast, though.

Make a nice, balanced list of powers and traits that people can choose from, rather than roll. As it is now they usually give no worthwhile bonuses while the lucky player gets the advantage.

Force Ld test to even be able to fire Overwatch.

Increase point cost for AP2 weapons that ruin terminator armies.

 insaniak wrote:
If an entire army is kept in Reserve, have them start coming on in turn one.

So much this!

I'm itching to comment on how much I disagree with stuff some of you wrote here, but I won't, given the fact that this thread is all about subjective opinions. I'm just glad that both me and the rules disagree on the vision of how 40k should play.

To change 40k I would lower the prices of everything, especially the... oh you mean the rules. Yes well still the price so I can buy the rulebook and learn them!

 Blacksails wrote:
I'd start with a basic level of proofreading.

Then I'd playtest the game before publishing the rules. I'd also get a beta test group of people outside the studio for a different perspective. Then I'd clear up all the vague and ambiguous rules that only need an extra word or two to be clear, like Psyker powers and mastery levels.

Those are just the basics.

Ideally, I'd redefine the game to be either a skirmish level/platoon based game, or make it into a sleeker company level game with rules to go with it. Currently it sits in an awkward in between where the model by model rules lend itself to platoon level gaming, but falls short when you play at the game's intended level of 1500 and up.

That's not even going into the balance issues. I'd also release all the codices with each new edition update, under the assumption the codices would be worked on simultaneously with the upcoming edition so all armies are on the same page.

Then I'd issue timely FAQs that address issues raised by the community, which would require interaction with the customer base and/or a dedicated beta test group for feedback.

Then I'd lower the prices to nearly half the current cost.

That's how I'd change the rules in a rough outline. There's too much in the way of little things that it wouldn't fit in a single post.

HERESY!!!


As far as rules go:

-platoon/skirmish level, as that seems to be the way most games are going these days
-movement values on stat line (ALA WHFB, Warmachine, etc). And have some of them different (ie: a guardsman should not be able to move as fast as a 9' tall, genetically altered superhuman who is made even stronger by his armor)
-formations/Lords of War: as cool as they are in both theory and aesthetic, "normal" games don't need them.

Apart from that, 7th seems to have been a slight step in the right direction, IMO, as most of the special rules are actually in the main rule book, and they haven't released any armies with new special rules that significantly screw everything up (Well, there is that WAAGH! Which can, for one turn,make Orks the only army in the game that can run and charge...)

Daemonology wasnt very well thought out. We have house-ruled it so that any CSM Psyker with a particular mark can summon daemons of the same mark wihtout the extra doubles-penalty.

On the flip side, we have made it so that if a Daemon tries to summon Daemons that he's supposed to Hate, he suffers the full perils-of-the-warp risk.

Saw this rule on the Proposed Rule forum, brought it up to my gaming group, and we implemented with zero arguments, since it makes sense and the rules should have been this way from the get-go.

(not exactly a game-changer like most of the posts here, I know)

The rules and codex's would have to be all thrown out. A total reboot of the game is what it really needs.

Dump allies.

Dump Lords of War.

Update and Release codices at the same time the new rules drop.

We have an entire forum for proposed rules.

-Change the WS Chart...
-Add a static element for charging.
-Add a random element for over watch
-Open up Tyranids from the confines of their codex WL traits / Powers
- Some sort of different movement system for horde armies to streamline them.

Pretty much it, I would have removed the EW missions and just popped in the new missions but that's just me. I feel T Objectives make the game just that - more tactical. It adds so many other variables to the game you have to think about turn on turn rather than just relying on taking down threats and sitting on objectives.

What I don't want;

Skirmish - the market is dripping wet in skirmish games, Kickstarter is popping up more and more -40k doesn't need to change, not everyone like skirmish. As they are very limited in their options and play styles within a system I get bored with them quickly, I want epic battles.

A lot of people don't like some rules. A lot of people like a lot of rules also, house rules within a FLGS or tournament are more than adequate to deal with them - not everyone wants the rules changing in the same way, so there are always going to be a lot of people who don't like some rules. While some with be unpopular with more people than others, already evidenced by this thread people are not always on the same page around changes wanted. For example other than Insaniaks first and last point, I disagree with the rest

Extra Armour gives a vehicle a 3+ armor save vs glances. It would cut down on things like deffguns, tau pulse weapons, gauss, etc from shredding walkers and other light AV vehicles but won't prevent things like rockets, meltas, lascannon, plasma, etc from killing vehicles.it would need to be adjusted so some of the lighter skimmers or flyers couldn't take it (force them to jink instead of having armor saves)

Tactical objective cards can have any card that is impossible to occur in a battle to be removed at the beginning of the match. Destroying a building when there are zero buildings, killing a flyer when the enemy has zero flyers, casting a psykers ability when you don't have any psykers, etc.

Vehicles can fire blast weapons as snap shots but not at flyers or in overwatch. I can fire my rail gun as a snap shot but why not the submunition fired from the same gun?

New rule called Zog Off (sounds orky but whatever). A model with Zog Off can roll to ignore a challenge on a 5+ and is improved for each WS higher the model with the special rule has over the challenger. So a Tau Firewarrior Shas'ui challenging an Ork Nob with Zog Off would be ignored on a 3+. If the ignore roll fails he can still opt to sit out (unless alone) but doesn't attack. You have to select the model answering the challenge before making the roll and can not swap who takes the challenge if zog off fails. Only the model with the special rule that answered the challenge can attempt a zog off roll. A roll of a 1 always fails zog off.

variable movements speeds, like 4",6", 8"

Assault after deepstrike.

Base to base contact in movement phase is assault without overwatch.

 poolatka wrote:
variable movements speeds, like 4",6", 8"

Everything moving 6 is weird. This way HW teams could just have a move 4" instead of move or fire. Fast assault units actually get to cover more ground than guys backpedaling with guns.

Expand the weapons skill to hit chart. open it up to 2,3,4,5,6. WS 7 will usually hit on a 2+. If assault actually happens in this game, it can often be very stagnant.

I really like the previous mention of Pistols overwatch at full BS, yet i do dislike overwatch in general.

 Nem wrote:

What I don't want;

Skirmish - the market is dripping wet in skirmish games, Kickstarter is popping up more and more -40k doesn't need to change, not everyone like skirmish. As they are very limited in their options and play styles within a system I get bored with them quickly, I want epic battles.

If I could agree with anything more than I do agree with Nem right now, Privateer Press would kidnap me and create a Protectorate of Menoth warjack based on my appearance called the Agreemer.

GW once sold a game made for epic battles. What was it's name?

It used a scale appropriate to the goal rather than asking people to buy that many 28mm miniatures and cram them onto one table.

How would I change the 40k rules? Select all, delete. Every single aspect of the game is broken beyond any hope of repair, the only solution is to make a completely new game in the 40k universe after firing all of GW's rule authors.

 Peregrine wrote:
How would I change the 40k rules? Select all, delete. Every single aspect of the game is broken beyond any hope of repair, the only solution is to make a completely new game in the 40k universe after firing all of GW's rule authors.

You also need to get rid of the management mandate that says that rules are there to sell models and replace it with one that says rules are there to give a great fun gaming experience and people will naturally want to buy models for it.

I don't have specific rules, but nerf serp shield and marker lights and other tau crap.

The bare minimum I would do would be to cut it into 3 levels:

-Squad/Platoon skirmish game of about 10-50 models per side. Would mainly be based off Standard 40k with heavy Kill Team and 40k in 40 Minutes-based rules. Limited vehicles, largely focused on infantry.
-Company level action, 50-100 models per side with each model representing 3-5 men. The scale 40k is most like today, with about a company or so of men with armoured support elements.
-"Apocalypse", 100+ models, operational level games (battalion level up). Freeform, with Lords of War, superheavies, and whatnot allowed.

 Peregrine wrote:
How would I change the 40k rules? Select all, delete. Every single aspect of the game is broken beyond any hope of repair, the only solution is to make a completely new game in the 40k universe after firing all of GW's rule authors.

+1

It needs a complete, fresh reboot.

*Codexes need to be designed at the same time and released ALONGSIDE the new edition. No more codex creep or books getting done at the beginning or end of a version's lifespan.

*Every model kit has its rules and stats included on the back of the instruction sheet. In this way, you can release a new kit with an older codex.

*Stop having armywide rules that completely ignore or break the rules in the BRB. The only thing ever to get FAQed should be the BRB.

Just a few things off the top of my head.

actually, i'd like an official online faq of official rulings for weird scenarios. Like, you can select two units and it'll clarify weird by-laws. If it were official it would mean a lot to the players, and also be a nice friendly trustworthy quick reference. I hate referencing forum posts and anything other than the rulebook. At the very least, put your video game budget into a full digital version that we can be like, 'well when i shot it with the blah blah in the video game it did this'. something concrete, or maybe even official gamesworkshop battle reports... like, weekly.... even if they were fully rehearsed and dice staged to show weird scenarios.

In my opinion most people's complaints about the rules or not actualy rules problems for example I could say you should be allowed to assault after deep strike that's not a problem with the rules though it's just a thing abou the game that I dont like. A real rules problem is when I literally do not understand how to play out a specific part of the game. Peoples complaints about the rules are wildly overblown.

 CrosisDePurger wrote:
In my opinion most people's complaints about the rules or not actualy rules problems for example I could say you should be allowed to assault after deep strike that's not a problem with the rules though it's just a thing abou the game that I dont like. A real rules problem is when I literally do not understand how to play out a specific part of the game. Peoples complaints about the rules are wildly overblown.

Anything that has to do with balance, slowing the game down, confusing the game, or works against immersion/fluff, is a rules problem.

Hence assaults after deep strike are a rules issue for some people. The many restrictions on when you can and can't assault has a direct effect on the effectiveness of assault, and thus is a problem with the rules as assault is fairly underwhelming.

 Blacksails wrote:

 CrosisDePurger wrote:
In my opinion most people's complaints about the rules or not actualy rules problems for example I could say you should be allowed to assault after deep strike that's not a problem with the rules though it's just a thing abou the game that I dont like. A real rules problem is when I literally do not understand how to play out a specific part of the game. Peoples complaints about the rules are wildly overblown.

Anything that has to do with balance, slowing the game down, confusing the game, or works against immersion/fluff, is a rules problem.

Hence assaults after deep strike are a rules issue for some people. The many restrictions on when you can and can't assault has a direct effect on the effectiveness of assault, and thus is a problem with the rules as assault is fairly underwhelming.

I disagree. Almost every example of rules problems is really just people's opinion's of how the game should be. You could simplify and speed up games drastically if you removed costumization from units like Hordes/Warmachine but you also lose the fun of fine tuning the army, that's an opinion not a rules issue.

Immersion/fluff... whatever go play D&D. If this game represented its fluff every single game would be a hopeless battle from one side or the other.

People will always complain about balance. They complain about it is SC2 and that game is tested all to hell and back. Not every tactic needs to be equally viable nor will they ever be.

First of all, the rules govern gameplay. Therefore, anything that happens within the game is a direct result of the rules. Therefore, balance issues (not subjective ones, but obvious glaring issues) are rules issues.

 CrosisDePurger wrote:


I disagree. Almost every example of rules problems is really just people's opinion's of how the game should be. You could simplify and speed up games drastically if you removed costumization from units like Hordes/Warmachine but you also lose the fun of fine tuning the army, that's an opinion not a rules issue.

No, customization of units happens before the game when you build your list. The game can easily be streamlined while maintaining all of the custom options the game currently offers. The rules aspect is how those options play out in game. Some of which have clunky mechanics, or the very process of selecting them is confusing (the 6th ed marine book was a good example of this with the relics).

Immersion/fluff... whatever go play D&D. If this game represented its fluff every single game would be a hopeless battle from one side or the other.

You are missing the point. This game can cater better to a 'cinematic' or immersive feel by making certain mechanics feel less forced. Flyers are a great example of this; even in the year 40,000, it still brings a lot of questions why supersonic aircraft loiter within a tiny segment of airspace at heights that are threatened by small arm fire. The flyer mechanics could have been included in any number of different ways that would have flowed better with the game.

People will always complain about balance. They complain about it is SC2 and that game is tested all to hell and back. Not every tactic needs to be equally viable nor will they ever be.

People complain about balance because there are always balance issues. If you're going to compare games, at least compare miniature games. With 40k, the balance is a very serious issue for the game; every other wargame currently on the market achieves a level of balance far better than 40k. This drives a lot of people away. Many of the balance issues are also fairly obvious and somewhat simple fixes. We'll never achieve perfect balance, but no one expects it either. You can get close enough where the deciding factor int he outcome of the game is not who brought a rock to scissors, but how you utilized the scissors to break the rock.

Many games already do this, where the game's deciding factor is player decision, not a rock-paper-scissors with 28mm figures.

 CrosisDePurger wrote:

People will always complain about balance. They complain about it is SC2 and that game is tested all to hell and back. Not every tactic needs to be equally viable nor will they ever be.

Right, because if your army relies upon a certain phase of the game--assault, for example-- it's completely my fault that my poor tactics have difficulty overcoming the games' designer's flawed rules making the shooting phase more advantageous. There should be no question that there needs to be relative balance between assault and shooting. This is a fundamental flaw and cannot be FAQed.

I think you're confusing QQing for legitimate issues, or you're intentionally ignoring valid complaints because the game suits your needs and that's all you care about. If you're happy with the state of the rules, then keep on keepin' on and let the haters hate, amirite?

 frozenwastes wrote:
GW once sold a game made for epic battles. What was it's name?

It used a scale appropriate to the goal rather than asking people to buy that many 28mm miniatures and cram them onto one table.

Rofl dofl.

I'd fire the head of the rules department at GW. I'd then hire a monkey with a mental disorder and put him in the vacant position. I expect the GW games rules would improve by 1,000 percent.

Cover gives a to hit modifier not an imaginary shield that protects people better than armour. -1 for soft cover - 2 for hard cover - 3 for a bunker.

This has been said many times Charges from reserves but are counted as disordered charges.

A limit on the amount of warp charges an army can accumulate, eldar and Daemon players chuck buckets of dice around and it's just gotta stop.

Tanks get a T and W, Meltas cause D3 wounds if within half range.

My biggest change would be allowing us to CHOOSE things. I know the game is going for the whole 'narrative' thing, but the things that could either make or break our army often hinge on a dice roll before the start of the game.

Warlord Traits and Psyker powers are the big one. Some traits are USELESS for certain style armies, and getting a useless trait is a slap in the face each and every time for me. I understand that some powers and traits are better than others, but there are plenty iof people who would choose some of the 'less useful' ones if they can combo it up with another power to MAKE it useful. Example: I want my Weirdboy to be my ticket to their front lines, but I can't always get that result. So I often waste points to get two chances to roll it now on the table. But if I get Power Vomit and the Beam, those prove to be far less useful to me because they don't have any synergy. Their ranges conflict, as due their purpose.

I'd rather have my Weirdboy be able to warp my Boyz around, then vomit on a squad they appear in front of, or Warp one turn, then next turn bless my army with extra attacks. Just the little things that bug me about 40k. There is TOO much random factor, that it feels like a game is lost turn one because of the game making me have abilities I can't use or don't want.

The Ignore's Cover USR, as it stands, is the bane of 40k. Change it to "forces the target unit to take cover saves with a -1 modifier to the save die roll" and we'd be one step closer to a fun game again.

 Voidwraith wrote:
The Ignore's Cover USR, as it stands, is the bane of 40k. Change it to "forces the target unit to take cover saves with a -1 modifier to the save die roll" and we'd be one step closer to a fun game again.

This, this, this.

In much the same way as Ignores Cover completely negates the save, I much prefer the armour penetration mechanic in Deadzone where each extra point of armour pen reduced the armour save of the target by one so any AP value is useful and you don't have huge variances in effect going from AP4 to AP3 for example.

 Yonan wrote:
In much the same way as Ignores Cover completely negates the save, I much prefer the armour penetration mechanic in Deadzone where each extra point of armour pen reduced the armour save of the target by one so any AP value is useful and you don't have huge variances in effect going from AP4 to AP3 for example.

I can already hear the Space Marine players complaining about terminators, all the way from the future!

Armor save modifiers

 deviantduck wrote:

 poolatka wrote:
variable movements speeds, like 4",6", 8"

Everything moving 6 is weird. This way HW teams could just have a move 4" instead of move or fire. Fast assault units actually get to cover more ground than guys backpedaling with guns.

Expand the weapons skill to hit chart. open it up to 2,3,4,5,6. WS 7 will usually hit on a 2+. If assault actually happens in this game, it can often be very stagnant.

I really like the previous mention of Pistols overwatch at full BS, yet i do dislike overwatch in general.

We are trying out a new movement mechanic: Initiative + Armor Save in inches.

Terminators move 6", regular marines 7" and so on. So far, very promising. Jump infantry for example are as above X 2". We use the old 6" assault distance, but now use a 'reaction phase' that allows defenders to possibly move or shoot, similar to over watch.

Btw, we allow a single pistol shot as one of the attacks in close combat, resolved to Hit as Weapon skill. Makes those plasma pistols handy!

TechMarine1 wrote:
Armor save modifiers

Really, do saves need to be separate at all? It's a weird situation right now where you might take a wound but hold on! Turns out the attack didn't get through your armour, or actually missed you entirely (after "hitting" and "wounding" you), and hit the wall you were hiding behind? It's a strange timing issue, seemingly designed to cause "Did this effect trigger when you were wounded?" arguments. Cover should modify the attack roll, and armour should modify toughness.

High folks.
I would throw away the WHFB in space versions 3.6 rules we currently have.

And write a rule set specifically for the game play of 40k.
My concept would be start with the Epic rules( massive battle rules ) , and ADD detail to bring the game up to the current level battle game .

I would use unit cards with all the relevant information on them .(Like other games do.it makes in game reference SO much easier..)

And use stat lines DIRECTLY .
EG
Actual values= number of dice rolled , ranges of weapons, and unit movement in inches.
AND
Score required to succeed, or modifier as appropriate.

No charts or tables required !

Write rules inclusively , so the core rules cover 80% minimum of the game play, and special rules are just for a few special abilities.

How many unit types are there in 40k from a game mechanics perspective?Two that is all.Discrete units and indiscrete units.
(Units you remove models from to indicate damage , and units where you track damage separately)

These can be covered with the same resolution methods with very slight alterations for larger multi- wound models.(larger models get 3 armour value for facings as now, and damage is tracked on unit card as opposed to just removing models.)

I would also list the weapon profile individually for each unit to display the weapon effect for that particular user,(This means focus on net in game effect, without having to reference seperate information.)

I would include suppression as part of the natural ranged damage resolution process.

GW plc are writing rules exclusively for new releases to inspire short term purchasing, following the directive of the sales department.

I think the core game play concepts that make 40k 40k, are 'players turns' and '3 stage damage resolution'.(Roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save.)
You can keep these and make the rules a lot more straight forward and intuitive.

I can post some example of the revised resolution methods is any one is interested?

Massive stream lining and making the whole system faster and more simplified.

MYbe supply ever unit with a rule card, make it easy and can roll out upgrades to multiple factions without having to do whole massive updates or new codex's.

Still need rules and the codxex for some things but the rules cover game mechanics, the codex covers the army special rules, and other specialised information and cards are simpaly a a way to mean you can gfree up production to be far more creative and supply them by replacement as easy to download PDF files.

Rules and such are decided and reduced in cost as easch has clearly defined task and no need to update as regualy, make game cheaper for players as I'm not having to add new units much to codex, the cards carry stats, cost and the formations they use.
The codex intterperts the special rules and has fluff but its point costs etc transfer to info cards. Codex cost goes down and simply becomes the backgrpoud and cypher to all the special rules and such.
The core rules supply the game mechanics only in the light verson, extra fluff/art versions sold separately at same time but have a cheaper version too that covers only rules. Say half price of full version.

And finally fprgeworld is combined into the system properly so no longer any arguments they are part of the core game, the codex's cover there special rules for faction, the cards supply info on points a etc.

However super hevey etc is kept for certain game types as there very powerul and not allowed below a certain point cost. With a scale for levels which they can be used from lesser ones to full reaver titans, emperor class and god machines.

I'd throw the game away and start over. Oh, I'd keep a few basic things like the fact that it uses D6 dice and models. Beyond that though, meh. The problem I see with 40k is that they copy/paste previous editions but don't really sanity check what they've brought over. More to the point, it's grown such that I'm not sure any individual can keep the entire thing straight in their head. Which means no matter what they need to hire someone that knows how to organize and categorize information in a way to make it apparent to rules authors how jacked up the game is. Basically, they need to standardize how things work and build a framework that rules authors have to stay within.

In the software industry we spend an inordinate amount of time coming up with solutions for "corner" cases. Basically those situations that don't (or shouldn't) happen very often but that we need to handle anyway. As soon as you add two codexes to the current rule set you have one giant corner case in which the players are left to decide how things work. If I wanted to play games like that I wouldn't buy a rule set at all.

Really only three things for me...

1. Failed charges. You should still have to move the unit the distance rolled.

2. Units without a shooting attack (genestealers, warp talons, flayed ones, ect.) should be allowed to assault the same turn they deep strike, infitrate or come in from reserves. Overwatch on these units should hit on 5+ the turn they enter the game.

3. Re-rolled invulnerable saves should be on your armour save.

Eliminate rolling for movement. Units have base movement values. During the movement phase you can either elect to advance and fire or run. A run move doubles your base movement but you cannot make this move if the unit will be moving through difficult terrain. Charge moves are base+init. Fleet can either add +2 to your movement or charge.

To compensate for this premeasuring is no longer allowed.

On overwatch you can elect to drop your initiative to one to fire at a -1 to your BS instead of snap shots.

Assuming we're talking about modifications to the 7E ruleset and not a new ruleset entirely...


First and foremost I'd want GW to make up their mind on vehicles, either give them a T stat and an armor/invul save like MC's, or go back to the 5E vehicle kill mechanic, not the awkward hybrid we have now.

I'd do something about rerollable invul saves. Rerolling a 5+ is one thing. Rerolling a 3+ or 2+ invul save is another, and is neither fun nor really require any tactical ability to use.

Make impossible to achieve mission objectives automatically swappable (e.g. if you draw a card to kill an enemy flyer...and your enemy has no flyers, draw a different card)

Allow snapshots to fire blast weapons but reroll hits, and not have Ordnance for other weapons to snapshot

Immoblized units should not be able to Jink.



Really though, 40k really needs to be rebuilt, it's trying to be too many things at too many different scales and it's very sloppy. The game is trying to return to a "2E" feel with armies 3x the size and far more extravagant units and it's just not working.

Without delving too much into specific rules, I would probably make a separate fluff and rules section.
I would not allow fluff to make rules unclear and I would make sure that I don't use words that are open to interpretation. That can be achieved by letting people playtest the new rules.

Sure, people will leak it.
But this only adds to the hype and actually increases your sales!

I think that the rules are alright and enjoyable to play with, it's just that some armies can take advantage of the rules better than others and that's what makes the game feel unbalanced.

I wholeheartedly disagree with the assault part with people.

Any kind of one-turn-arrive-charge/bomb is in my opinion a terrible idea because the other player has literally no influence on it, other than potential overwatch.

Not to mention that drop podding Ironclad Dreadnoughts would effectively charge -any- vehicle they want and they -will- pop them. No, bad, bad idea. If you disagree, think through all the possible scenarios.

 Elemental wrote:

TechMarine1 wrote:
Armor save modifiers

Really, do saves need to be separate at all? It's a weird situation right now where you might take a wound but hold on! Turns out the attack didn't get through your armour, or actually missed you entirely (after "hitting" and "wounding" you), and hit the wall you were hiding behind? It's a strange timing issue, seemingly designed to cause "Did this effect trigger when you were wounded?" arguments. Cover should modify the attack roll, and armour should modify toughness.

So you're suggesting something akin to Bolt Action's system?

 Klerych wrote:
I wholeheartedly disagree with the assault part with people.

Any kind of one-turn-arrive-charge/bomb is in my opinion a terrible idea because the other player has literally no influence on it, other than potential overwatch.

Not to mention that drop podding Ironclad Dreadnoughts would effectively charge -any- vehicle they want and they -will- pop them. No, bad, bad idea. If you disagree, think through all the possible scenarios.

Yup. Drop pods, Blood Angels, and all manner of scatter reducing deep strike abilities (and the increased potential charge range) would make charging from deep strike insanely powerful. Besides, anyone who has seen people actually parachuting, fast-roping, or otherwise deep striking irl, can see that it's not a clean or particularly fast action. It's hard enough to regroup and find your unit, let alone immediately charging headlong at an enemy unit.

I'm a bit more amenable to charging from reserve/outflanking, after all those units are charging headlong onto the battlefield. And it's easier for the other player to plan against that.

Fix the assault phase. Stop penalizing melee armies.
Axe the whole of 7th edition psychic section and return to 6th (including the powers they made in 7th. Summoning is ridiculous)
Adjust units cost to come in line with their power (Specifically Riptide and wraithknight)
Increase the minimum requirements to be filled at the FOC level causing games to become larger and last longer. No more elitist armies! More like 4 troops, 1 HQ, 1 elite, 1 fast attack and 1 heavy support required to fulfill FOC befor ebeing able to allow more of the same units. (Disallows alot of triptide and such at lower point games and pretty much eliminates deathstars altogether)

I think it is important to separate the symptoms (specific areas of game function balance and even specific rules issues.)

From the root cause of ALL 40k game play balance issues.

40k has NEVER had a rule set specifically written for 40k game play.

Current 40k is a battle game using 'functionally modern units'.But uses 'Napoleonic Skirmish' (WHFB) rules for its core rules .(Which only cover standard infantry in the open.)
This means to cover the game play GW HAS to add in multiple systems and resolution methods, adding needless complication.

So a re -write would be the ONLY way to achieve a well defined intuitive easy to learn game with a decent depth of player choice in game.

A team of professional game developers at GW towers have tried to make WHFB in space work for 16 years.And all they manage to do is make a huge holistic mess no-one really understands.
If you lose control of the game development like they have with 40k, the ONLY sensible option is a complete re-write from the ground up.

Lanrak wrote:

40k has NEVER had a rule set specifically written for 40k game play.

Current 40k is a battle game using 'functionally modern units'.But uses 'Napoleonic Skirmish' (WHFB) rules for its core rules .(Which only cover standard infantry in the open.)
This means to cover the game play GW HAS to add in multiple systems and resolution methods, adding needless complication.

So a re -write would be the ONLY way to achieve a well defined intuitive easy to learn game with a decent depth of player choice in game.

As far as I remember every POPULAR modern game that is not a historical(haven't played any of these so I can't tell) works that way. In every game you have rules for cover, but in every game models are considered standing in the open when they're.. standing in the open. It's exactly the same in Warmachine. The same in Infinity. FoW.. not sure, haven't played but I think it's not much different if at all. Dystopian Legions? Just like WarmaHordes/40k. While I see that your vision of what 40k is supposed to be to fit your idea of it, the current gameplay is how it was supposed to be and it works.

Lanrak wrote:
A team of professional game developers at GW towers have tried to make WHFB in space work for 16 years.And all they manage to do is make a huge holistic mess no-one really understands.

Now I feel insulted. I understand almost everything(aside from a few odd badly worded or missing rules). Remember that 40k has lots of players, including new ones, that are having a blast playing it, myself included. Unless you're TFG always rules lawyering you can have lots of fun. Despite people crying that the rules are overly sophisticated the gameplay is, largely, very smooth - where I play people finish games fairly fast(if it's not newbies) - units die pretty quickly in 6th/7th and only a few badly thought out things slow the process down(multiple barrages, twin-linked and shredding like with the Wyvern, but it's a case of bad-ish unit design, not rules). The game is quick, aggressive and -very- simple while retaining the classic 40k feel. Stop expecting it to play like some other game you know if it works fine as it is - it's a separate title with it's own flavour(in case of 40k it's vanilla) and with it being so old it can be considered it's own niche.

Non variable charge distance = 24" charge distance for beast/cavalry which is the insanity i faced in 5th ed. I do not ever want to see that again. Melee weapons ignore cove which is the biggest bonus already given.

Vehicles being glanced 20 times n no damage is something i never want to see again. Hull points makes sense to me.

Lord of war should be removed from battle forge n cad bonus. That titan is too powerful. Taking a lord of war should barr you from making your troops objective secured. Can anyone explain why taking a lord of war should confer additional bonus on top of str d weapons?

Flyers need to be shot down easier. Do a smash like rule where you half the number of shots to shoot at bs2 or 3. Or just reduce the cost of flakk or give skyfire upgrades to lascannonns too but cheap.

@Klerych
Why should the players feel insulted if the game developers do not understand the game they have rushed /hashed together?
If the rules are clearly defined why do players have so many problems determining what 40k is supposed to be?

All I can say is Epic Armageddon does large battle games set in the same universe as 40k with 1/10th the pages of rules and twice as much game play.
So how can you say 'WHFB in space with gunz' is what 40k GAME PLAY is supposed to be, when it has been proven modern game mechanics and resolution methods work so much better.

All the other rule set I play are fully understood by the game developers, so they can write clear concise well defined rules that deliver intuitive and enjoyable games from the RULES AS WRITTEN. When new players understand EVERYTHING after the first read/play through.Then the rules are good.

When you have to dedicate a entire section of a game forums to try to work out what the rules actually mean ,(YMDC) there is serious problems, IMO.

Yes players can agree to interpret the rules, or fix the rules in the same way to reach an enjoyable game.And they may enjoy their version of the rules.

But that does NOT mean the rules as published by GW plc are good .
All the other game systems I have enjoyed have a professional level of proof reading and editing that is sorely lacking from GW plc publications.

Please explain to me why you think the core rules for WHFB are the best choice for 40k.?

I am happy with the 'WHFB in space as a setting'. Just not the mechanics and resolution methods for the game play.

Things I would like to see:

- assault range changed to 6+d6.
- vehicles getting a base save determined by type.
- reduce the amount of ranged AP2 or better by half.
- tanks being able to fire all weapons while moving combat speed.
- allow assaulting from reserve, deep strike, and disembarking from a non-assault vehicle, but make it like snapshots in OW, only hit on a 6 (and disorganized charge).

Things that have been suggested that I don't want to see:

- save modifiers. They sucked in 2nd edition.
- skirmish focus. I like 40k as it is as far as battle size. Skirmish tends to be a tad boring after a few games for me.
- throwing out the core mechanics. Then its not 40k, so why not play a different game to begin with? Besides,the core mechanics work for the most part.

Klerych wrote:I wholeheartedly disagree with the assault part with people.

Any kind of one-turn-arrive-charge/bomb is in my opinion a terrible idea because the other player has literally no influence on it, other than potential overwatch.

Not to mention that drop podding Ironclad Dreadnoughts would effectively charge -any- vehicle they want and they -will- pop them. No, bad, bad idea. If you disagree, think through all the possible scenarios.

Yet, a drop pod with metla gunners (or just combi melta...) will pop the same vehicule, or shoot a squad, and don't even eat overwatch... Yes you can shoot them with interceptor weapons, but the same is true for the CC squad... So why a shooty squad in a drop pod is a good tactical option, but a CC squad an aberation?

I really think that it it tied to the terrible "I want to win CC, but only during my opponent turn!" system. The charging player hoping the opposing squad survive the assault (with ideally only one member), but still make their command check, while the other player just want to die, or fail his moral check (and maybe die...) rather than hold the ground... It's quite counter-intuitive!

Klerych wrote:
As far as I remember every POPULAR modern game that is not a historical(haven't played any of these so I can't tell) works that way. In every game you have rules for cover, but in every game models are considered standing in the open when they're.. standing in the open. It's exactly the same in Warmachine. The same in Infinity. FoW.. not sure, haven't played but I think it's not much different if at all. Dystopian Legions? Just like WarmaHordes/40k. While I see that your vision of what 40k is supposed to be to fit your idea of it, the current gameplay is how it was supposed to be and it works.

Well you will think that I hate you (2nd quote where I'm disagreeing with you!), but I think you miss the point on this one.

Cover is a good thing, and should be in the rules. but most games make cover something... intuitive. Nearly every rules I know makes you harder to hit when in cover, and not harder to damage, but only if you have crap armor, or the weapon is so powerful that it will ignore your terminator armor, yet will be stopped by barbed wire...



I won't make a full list of changes, because I really think that the system should be remade from scratch... but here a few things I'd like to see :

Return of modifiers (hit or armor) : the whole "binary" design is something I dislike a lot... And most of all, I hate the whole "your stats are useless" design ; overwatch BS1, charging through cover I1, etc... Modifiers would be really better for this.

Return of a movement stat : would streamline a lot of special rules that are just here to make a unit slightly faster or slower...

Removal of charts... the "to hit" and "to wound" charts are quite horrible, and most other rules don't need them right now, for a good reason!

Streamline the statline : 4 stats are only for CC (WS, S, I, A), and IMHO, T ans Save have the exact same role... it give you some resilience again damage... why not merge them?

Fix the whole S/AP of weapons : a S10 AP - will kill a land raider, but will bounce helplessly on terminator armor, and a S3 AP2 will do abolutely nothing to vehicules, while kiling most heavy infantry proving it have a high enough ROF...

Fix the CC phase, because you should not go faster when moving, shooting, charge, kill dudes in CC, rather than just running...

Dark Phoenix wrote:

Klerych wrote:I wholeheartedly disagree with the assault part with people.

Any kind of one-turn-arrive-charge/bomb is in my opinion a terrible idea because the other player has literally no influence on it, other than potential overwatch.

Not to mention that drop podding Ironclad Dreadnoughts would effectively charge -any- vehicle they want and they -will- pop them. No, bad, bad idea. If you disagree, think through all the possible scenarios.

Yet, a drop pod with metla gunners (or just combi melta...) will pop the same vehicule, or shoot a squad, and don't even eat overwatch... Yes you can shoot them with interceptor weapons, but the same is true for the CC squad... So why a shooty squad in a drop pod is a good tactical option, but a CC squad an aberation?

I really think that it it tied to the terrible "I want to win CC, but only during my opponent turn!" system. The charging player hoping the opposing squad survive the assault (with ideally only one member), but still make their command check, while the other player just want to die, or fail his moral check (and maybe die...) rather than hold the ground... It's quite counter-intuitive!

When it's shooting, if your unit survives the attack it can retaliate for one turn before the enemy charges. If they'd get charged, guess what they can do on their turn. Yepp, you guessed right - die some more in combat because they're unable to face dedicated melee unit.

No. Any kind of turn one assault is stupid because the opponent has no say in it. Now add the consolidation move from combat to combat that some people here wish for.. and think about a Tau fire warrior gunline. You are looking at literally invalidating a popular list type with turn one assaults because Tau stand no chance in combat. Just, please, think through all the possibilities before you say it's good for the game!

Also it's easier to raise your gun and shoot than run towards the enemy quick enough for him to not notice(and shoot) you after taking your sweet time to assess the tactical situation around you, even as a Spess Mahreen.

Dark Phoenix wrote:

Well you will think that I hate you (2nd quote where I'm disagreeing with you!), but I think you miss the point on this one.

Cover is a good thing, and should be in the rules. but most games make cover something... intuitive. Nearly every rules I know makes you harder to hit when in cover, and not harder to damage, but only if you have crap armor, or the weapon is so powerful that it will ignore your terminator armor, yet will be stopped by barbed wire...

But it's not about the barbed wire stopping the shot. Cover save is explicitly said to be caused by the fact that the model tries to avoid hitting it as it stands in the way to the target, so he can miss it trying to avoid hitting the cover. While I understand that it'd be better if cover save was rolled -before- the "To Wound" rolls, it'd invalidate some of the in-game mechanics like markerlights or necron Triarch Stalker's effects happening on "hit" rather than wound, so they can still kick in, even if they don't wound/get cover saved.

Now I get that the To Hit modifiers could be a bit more intuitive, but then cover would be much less viable with all those twin-links and other stuff, so I think it's fine as it is and all the issues people have come from just the order in which the rolls are made, but they seem to be there for a reason from gameplay perspective. Also people already whine about the game not being streamlined enough for their taste, and yet some advocate towards more modifiers/counting on model basis instead of flat, rulebook-defined roll for particular pieces of terrain.

So, yeah, I like it as it is as it serves it's purpose, even though some people are too stubborn to try understanding it. Could be better, of course, but it works fine so far.

Dark Phoenix wrote:

Removal of charts... the "to hit" and "to wound" charts are quite horrible, and most other rules don't need them right now, for a good reason!

They're some of the most iconic stuff in 40k and they work fine! Not to mention being very intuitive and you can remember/make the calculations on the fly.

Dark Phoenix wrote:

Streamline the statline : 4 stats are only for CC (WS, S, I, A), and IMHO, T ans Save have the exact same role... it give you some resilience again damage... why not merge them?

Again - iconic stuff. 40k was always like that. Why do you even bother playing 40k at this point if you don't like even the most basic stuff?

But seriously, I hope YOU don't hate ME now! I just think that you're trying to change every known aspect of 40k which is so iconic to it's genuine gameplay. If you want to change almost every basic rule of the game, then you don't want to play 40k. You seem to want to turn it into a whole different game, just with the same models. ^^"

Lanrak wrote:
@Klerych
Why should the players feel insulted if the game developers do not understand the game they have rushed /hashed together?
If the rules are clearly defined why do players have so many problems determining what 40k is supposed to be?

I didn't say the rules are perfect, but saying that noone can understand them is a horrifying stretch and I felt insulted, because 99% of the rules are clear and simple, with only a few being badly worded.

Lanrak wrote:
All I can say is Epic Armageddon does large battle games set in the same universe as 40k with 1/10th the pages of rules and twice as much game play.

I don't like the scale of Epic. Not even nearly as thrilling as 28mm scale in my opinion. :-)

Lanrak wrote:
So how can you say 'WHFB in space with gunz' is what 40k GAME PLAY is supposed to be, when it has been proven modern game mechanics and resolution methods work so much better.

It's how 40k played since the dawn of time and it worked for over ten thousand yea- I mean 27 years. Just because other systems are experimenting with various rules doesn't mean that 40k has to copycat them and lose it's genuine feel. And I even call bs on some of the arguments because lots of those 'bad things' about 40k also happen in other systems, yet noone whines there. While GW has it's own flaws and does some seriously bad/stupid crap, I think the 40k community, when on the internet, is a sorry bunch of raging whiners. And it's been like that for many, many years while some people tend to act like it's a new thing and a sign that the game is dying. I find it really stupid.

Lanrak wrote:
All the other rule set I play are fully understood by the game developers, so they can write clear concise well defined rules that deliver intuitive and enjoyable games from the RULES AS WRITTEN. When new players understand EVERYTHING after the first read/play through.Then the rules are good.

Hey, even Warmachine has some YMDC moments on their forums over stuff that isn't clear enough without reading some rules three times over to make sure you got them right! You wouldn't believe how often people say that Cygnar Charger can shoot twice base with it's gun because that's it's ROF(while in fact you have to buy another shot with Focus)!

Lanrak wrote:
But that does NOT mean the rules as published by GW plc are good .

They're not as bad as people pretend them to be either, though.

Lanrak wrote:
All the other game systems I have enjoyed have a professional level of proof reading and editing that is sorely lacking from GW plc publications.

Can't deny that, you're right.

Lanrak wrote:
Please explain to me why you think the core rules for WHFB are the best choice for 40k.?

Not best. Traditional, yes. Worked fine for 25+ years and now suddenly after the influx of new titles on the market EVERYONE wants 40k to change into one of them because they just like the rules better. No. Leave my game as it is, go play yours. Again - if you don't like basic aspects of the game and want to change almost everything, then why even bother? It is, too, trying to turn it into another game just with the same models.

Now don't get me wrong - the rules could've been written much better, GW made some really stupid decissions and they sometimes don't even seem to cooperate as a studio, I'm not denying that. But I want the game to be better as a 40k, not reworked with some other games' mechanics. I want my 40k to stay 40k - I enjoy the game a lot and I don't want it to change because someone has a crush on some freshly-popped skirmish system.

P.s. - long post is long. Here, have a potato for the effort of reading it. :-)

@Classic Carraway.
We can use more modern resolution methods , the ones other games have been using since 1980s.
You are not stuck using WHFB game mechanics and resolution methods.

Seeing as I have used several rule sets to play games of 40k, you CAN change the game mechanics and resolution methods , and the game is still 40k!
(But plays faster and has fewer WTF moments!)

I agree that new rules should focus on detailed unit interaction, as 40k is a battle game now, not a skirmish game.
(And the same rules can be used for a separate skirmish game simply by changing the focus from detailed unit interaction to detailed model interaction.)

The core resolution methods and SOME game mechanics do not work for the current 40k game play, that is why the rules are so over complicated and diffuse.You HAVE to add lots of extra systems and sub systems to get it to sort of work sort of ok ish.

Eg the 'army level alternating game turn' mechanic NEEDS additional reaction mechanics to put the interaction back in.
Where as a more interactive game turn achieves the same end with much less complication.

So rules written for the current game play in an inclusive way arrives at more diverse game play with far fewer pages of rules.

@Dark Pheonix.
I totally agree with your ideas on how the rules should be changed.

If you use appropriate stats on the stat line directly, you do not need to use any charts or tables.And a FEW simple modifiers can add enough proportional and scalable diversity , without having to resort to umpteen extra USR /special/unit type specific rules.

EG if you use a Stealth stat to show how hard the unit is to spot on the battle field.(This takes unit size shape and agility and equipment into consideration.)
Then add 1 to the Stealth value if the unit can claim cover, and add 1 to the Stealth value if the target unit is over 30" away.(Long range.)

This makes rolling to hit as simple as , whats your units stealth value?
Are they in cover? are they at long range?

The units shooting skill can be shown as a modifier to their to hit dice roll.OR directly in their effective range if we give each units it own weapon stat line.(better shots hit targets further away.)

This new system takes the skill and disposition of the attacker and defender into account, to give the roll to hit.
7th ed just gives a fixed value based on the attackers skill.And an additional save system for cover.

However 7th ed gives you a fixed, easy to remember value, rather than one you have to calculate each time. As a contrary position to modifiers being used, which is more intuitive?
Theyve long said that cover in 40k is used as a save as generallly it keeps the action = reaction theme correct - you roll to hit, see if you could damage, then i roll to see if that damage has any effect. Same no matter whether what stops that being cover, or armour, or a forcefield.

Lanrak wrote:
Eg the 'army level alternating game turn' mechanic NEEDS additional reaction mechanics to put the interaction back in.
Where as a more interactive game turn achieves the same end with much less complication.

But why? Why change something that worked for over two decades? It's a very simple turn-based system in which your army can synergize with itself. You're only seeking to add another crapload of unnecessary combinations to a game that is cried to not be streamlined all over the interwebz. Your way one player's turn will be even longer. It should be done the other way - simplify the rules, make the active player's turn go faster - streamline stuff so the other player gets his turn sooner, not spends more time in opponent's turn.

Your idea of reaction mechanics is perfect for tactical skirmish games, but terrible, terrible for medium/big size battle games such as 40k.

@nosferatu1001.
Well what do you prefer ,an over simplified core rule set, that needs to have 7 times as many pages of additional rules to cover the rest of the game play.
Or a few simple easy to remember modifiers applied to a slightly expanded core rule set?

Have you played any other rules sets that cover larger battle games?(Epic Armageddon, Net EPIC, Dirt side, Drop zone Commander , etc.)
Compared to these games 40k has very needlessly over complicated rules.

@Klerych.
Have they done away with the awful reaction mechanic of overwatch in 7th ed.(Along with the clunky counter intuitive USRs.)?
Reaction mechanics ARE a terrible Idea in larger battle games like 40k.

That is why they should be avoided by using a more interactive game turn.(As used in other games.)

I probably did not make that clear with my previous post.

It would be easy to write a rule set with far less complication , that delivers far more complex game play options.
However, you would have to decide what 40k is supposed to be first.

I would like a* fast paced modern battle level war game with an even balance of mobility, fire power, and assault.(To allow effect use of all unit types.)
Sort of Epic Armageddon scaled up with more detail to suit the larger scale models of 40k.Start with a good battle game rule set and add more detail.
(Rather than start with a skirmish game and hack lumps out to speed up game play.And then apply random patches in a hap hazzard way.)


Does every one agree with this basic *concept?Or does 40k mean something else to you?

I find it confusing when you say MORE complex options but LESS complexity. They seem contradictory.

I would rewrite the game from the ground up and base it and its mechanics on the d10.

pm713 wrote:
I find it confusing when you say MORE complex options but LESS complexity. They seem contradictory.

They seem that way but I think a better way of saying it is adding more depth while also making it simpler. As an example changing the BS skill to be the number you need to hit on. No more looking at a table, your hit number is right there on your statline. See, simpler, faster and generally better, and in the same vein you could have stat cards or something for each unit, listing all their special rules and what they do so you don't need to flip between the codex and main rule book. Nice and simple. You could then go in and give the units more upgrade options on top of that so people have to think more about what to take in list building, but the game on the table plays much smoother.

Klerych wrote:
But why? Why change something that worked for over two decades?

My very last game of 40k was around a 750 or 800 point game. I had tyranids. And about 75 models in my army. I moved them. And then they fleeted. And then some assaulted. All while my opponent stood there and waited. I understand people have developed house rules to combine all these movements, but it was in a league for prizes and we couldn't do that. I think i had 150-200 model movements to do while my opponent waited. I resolved then to never do that to my opponent again and I haven't played using the 40k rules since.

It worked when the model count for 40k was 30 or so models a side. Like how segregated turns works alright in Warmachine/Hordes (which has a lower model count). Since 3rd edition GW has been cranking up the model count and the complexity of the game so the opponent has to wait longer and longer and longer.

It's a stupid turn structure.

 frozenwastes wrote:

Klerych wrote:
But why? Why change something that worked for over two decades?

My very last game of 40k was around a 750 or 800 point game. I had tyranids. And about 75 models in my army. I moved them. And then they fleeted. And then some assaulted. All while my opponent stood there and waited. I understand people have developed house rules to combine all these movements, but it was in a league for prizes and we couldn't do that. I think i had 150-200 model movements to do while my opponent waited. I resolved then to never do that to my opponent again and I haven't played using the 40k rules since.

It worked when the model count for 40k was 30 or so models a side. Like how segregated turns works alright in Warmachine/Hordes (which has a lower model count). Since 3rd edition GW has been cranking up the model count and the complexity of the game so the opponent has to wait longer and longer and longer.

It's a stupid turn structure.

At least your opponent waited. I had someone ignore me and just talk on the cell phone, or talk to other people. So much for the social aspect of the game there.

That is why I play 40K more like the Lords of the Rings now. More interaction and not as much waiting now. Even thinking of everyone moves at the same time in order of initiative. Have a tie, roll off with LD test to see who goes first, or passes.

@pm713.
I actually said i wanted less complicated rules and more complex game play.

Complication is the amount of action/instructions to cover a single function.
So for example 40k has very complicated weapon and armour interaction ,because it uses multiple rules and systems to cover this single game function.

Complexity is the amount of variable options/interactions in the instruction set.
X-wings game turn is very simple, but allows a huge amount of tactical depth.

@Psenesis.
Game developers have been developing different types of resolution methods over the last 30 years since WHFB was written.
If you use these newer methods D6s can still be very effective.
Nothing is a s good as the old D6 for rolling lots of dice at once.(Roll to hit, roll to beat armour , roll to damage.)

However, single dice rolls like morale or leadership could be better served with a larger sided dice perhaps?

It is only when you use a dice in a fixed deterministic way, does the dice size become an issue.

If you use ranges of numerical values that are compared directly to give the dices score required.

Eg
Armour values extended down to 1 to give a range of values from 1 to 15 to show how thick the models armour is.
And all weapons get a value of 5 to 20 to show how good they are at beating the armour.

So when a model is hit by a weapon it rolls a D6 and adds its armour value .If this value is higher than the weapon hits AP value it makes its save roll.

This simple resolution method covers ALL units , and gives the proportional results without using a list of separate modifiers.

I could illustrate this with some examples if needed?

Davor wrote:
At least your opponent waited. I had someone ignore me and just talk on the cell phone, or talk to other people. So much for the social aspect of the game there.

It was brutal. And it wasn't even a full size game. I kind of wished he had pulled out a book or something and started reading. I tried to make what conversation I could, but it sucked.

I can totally see people just zoning out while they wait for their opponent to actually do something they need to care about.

That is why I play 40K more like the Lords of the Rings now. More interaction and not as much waiting now. Even thinking of everyone moves at the same time in order of initiative. Have a tie, roll off with LD test to see who goes first, or passes.

LOTR was a solid system and the alternating going on the turn structure is way, way better than 40k and WFB's wait-fest. Bringing in classic ideas like an intiative order with a roll off is a great simple fix.

Just wish they were more streamlined!

I think the one other rule that grinds me the wrong way is how charging works. The random distance alone is a pain in any Ork's backside. But I feel we should still MOVE even if we fail to actually get stuck in. If I roll for a 8 inch charge, but I roll a 7...feth, let me MOVE that 7! My opponent just killed X of my Orks, at least give me SOMETHING in return for the risk.

@Melevolence.
I totally agree with you , the current charge rules are possibly the worst combination of random and auto fail.
If you applied the same methods to shooting ,no one would play the game!

I you want to include pre measuring , with fixed movement and weapon range values.But off set it with some chance of not completing the attack.

Use a simple 'motivation 'check, before the attack takes place.(You can have racial modifiers, like Orks get +2 to motivation check dice roll for charging.)
This also makes LD important in the game.

So there is a chance that the unit MAY NOT attack the target as intended.
Eg If an ork mob fails the motivation check for charging, the may decide to move to cover, withdraw or stay put and shoot instead.

I may not have explained that too well..

no more true line of sight. Everything is area terrain.
Make up your mind on vehicles and STICK to it.
recost and redevelop a pointing methodology to ensure some reasonable semblance of game balance is achieved
remove the cover/invulnerable save system. if you have an invulnerable save, its a bumb to your armor save
nothing in the game except for terminator like infantry can save on anything higher than a 4+
terminators save on a 3+
remove "wounding" from the combat process. if the shot hits, lets assume its probably going to be lethal
get rid of stupid random objectives, and mission objectives that you can actually score with no effort
get rid of the psychcic phase. move it back to a context sensitive system: if your casting a melee buff, its case at the beginning of the assault phase, if your casting a shooting buff, its case at the beginning of the shooting phase, ect ect....
get rid of anything bigger than a land raider for the game. with that, reintroduce epic 40k. get rid of apocalypse from being "normal, accepted standard games" of 40k.
remove the allies system from the game. if an army can take an ally, it is clearly defined in the codex what models/units they can take as an ally and they have to pay a points increase or reduction to reflect the balance shift in the game
no more random charge distances; units have a movement stat. use that stat. its fine. no need to mess things up anymore with stupid random charge distances.
make leadership important again. have penalties that have real consequences for failing the check, and have models and units that can use this effect.
get rid of flyers. again, that what the new version of epic is for
have a technical writer write the rules, clean them up and keyword everything
reduce shooting ranges dramatically. range is unimportant in the game now. every gun can shoot almost the table length it seems.
no more pre-measuring of anything. ever.
declare all shooting and charging simultaneously.
allow overwatch to shoot with a small penalty
more game balance. more game balance.
less random stuff. everything from powers to missions, and everything else in between, just get rid of it. give players the option, and balance the powers to make taking one not so much better than a clear choice is easily attainable.
more intra-army synergy. IE. unit A gets a buff because im running charector B. so on and so forth....
seperate the fluff from the rules entirely. i dont care if grey knights should be able to destroy a planet on their own with only one dude, the fluff is the fluff, but balance is balance. quit trying to build fluff into the rules. its klunky, akward, makes for terrible conversation and wont help you at all when you try to make sense out of it...a lot like a bad date....

thats a start, i could probably think of a few more.

Instead of changing the core rules, I will propose a simpler fix. Make the codices more equal in power level.

 Random Dude wrote:
Instead of changing the core rules, I will propose a simpler fix. Make the codices more equal in power level.

Why not both?

 Blacksails wrote:

 Random Dude wrote:
Instead of changing the core rules, I will propose a simpler fix. Make the codices more equal in power level.

Why not both?

Sure, in a perfect world. GW already has enough on their plate. They still have multiple codices to update, and I feel changing both would be expecting too much. Of course with the prices they charge, I think we are entitled to expect a lot.

 Random Dude wrote:


Sure, in a perfect world. GW already has enough on their plate. They still have multiple codices to update, and I feel changing both would be expecting too much. Of course with the prices they charge, I think we are entitled to expect a lot.

No, not in a perfect world. In a totally reasonable world in which other, smaller companies do just that.

And no, they don't have too much on their plate. For a company their size, I would expect all codices to be updated with each new edition. They had a four year cycle, that's plenty to write a new edition and get all the codices up to date and do enough play testing to catch the glaring errors and most of the smaller ones.

Stick to your guns as a model company. Have Fantasy Flight take control of writing rules for the actual game, they are pretty good at it. Additionally, helps to cut down on competition between two companies that have a strong relationship while still competing for customers (X-Wing) Focus time and attention on churning out good quality models via GW and ForgeWorld, fluf through BL. In doing so, work to reduce production costs by not having to have a writing team on staff that catches nothing but flak from a community that has some legitimate concerns but often struggles to express these in a constructive and unbiased way.

When I try to imagine the writing team at GW, I can't help but imagine it's just Floyd Petrovski from season 6 of The Guild.

I would adjust charging rules so that a lot of currently disallowed types of charges are allowed but at considerable penalty (ie Initiative 1 and opponent can Overwatch at full BS or similar) for those who must absolutely charge out of their rhinos or on the turn they deep strike.

I would make a number of charge types no-bonus charges to represent less than ideal charging scenarios, but not as badly disorganized as the scenarios above. Things like infiltrating or scouting or outflanking to set up a charge in here.

I would reconnect Jink to Moving rather than have bikes and skimmers pull Matrix style dodges.

I would change up the phases so both players get to move, then both get to shoot and finally both get to assault rather than each player moving, shooting and assaulting before the other player can do anything.

I'd do a few other things if I had the time to think some more.

avatarofawesome wrote:
Stick to your guns as a model company. Have Fantasy Flight take control of writing rules for the actual game, they are pretty good at it.

The single best solution available for all concerned. HBMC, get to work! *whip*

 Random Dude wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Random Dude wrote:
Instead of changing the core rules, I will propose a simpler fix. Make the codices more equal in power level.

Why not both?

Sure, in a perfect world. GW already has enough on their plate. They still have multiple codices to update, and I feel changing both would be expecting too much. Of course with the prices they charge, I think we are entitled to expect a lot.

When Spartan Games brought out Dystopian Wars v2 they redid the rules for every single unit in the game on release. The result was a much better, more balanced, game. I'd love to see GW do this.

Honestly the entire codex release scedual is a relic of the pre internet age and is holding GW back.

Have Fantasy Flight take control of writing rules for the actual game, they are pretty good at it.

Oh, holy snail snot, no. FFG couldn't balance a ruleset if their life depended on it in less than 5 editions.

 Psienesis wrote:

Oh, holy snail snot, no. FFG couldn't balance a ruleset if their life depended on it in less than 5 editions.

GW have had 7 so far, and they still haven't got it either...

Coming from PC gaming, I look at for example World of Warcraft which has been iterated on substantially each expansion and frequently between expansions too. Subjectively many of these changes may not appeal to everyone, but there's been clear advancement in a number of areas, something GW cannot really claim with their own game. A new edition from GW doesn't substantially improve the game, it tweaks it for a lateral shift which I find really frustrating.

FFG hasn't really gotten there yet, either, only they've only got 5 editions of Dark Heresy out now. Give 'em a year and Im sure there will be a core book for the Administratum game, where you play bursars and tithe collectors in a grim galaxy of perilous adventure.

Dark Heresy is an RPG where the focus is on cooperation rather than competition. Cooperation can allow imbalances, competition cannot. It's also mediated by a GM who can counter any imbalances on the fly.

I haven't played the FFG games - yet - but I have read through all of them. I *have* played and mainly GMed RPGs for 20 years though both on and offline and any imbalances are easy fixed as the GM has full discretion over everything. Sometimes you can want a high powered campaign, or you could reward an underpowered player with something to beef them up to compensate - or the party could start to revolve around the imbalance which is fun too. Ideally you don't have gross imbalances, but they tend to come from things like 2nd ed DnD what was it... barb rogues? Weird combos rather than the blatant undercosted or otherwise poorly designed units you get in 40k.

And 40K is written in the same manner, in this case the GM is replaced by a "roll off" with a d6.

 Yonan wrote:
Dark Heresy is an RPG where the focus is on cooperation rather than competition. Cooperation can allow imbalances, competition cannot. It's also mediated by a GM who can counter any imbalances on the fly.

This, pretty much.

I've never seen the big deal about RPGs being imbalanced, since they're a co-operative rather than competitive game, and you have the impartial arbitrator to remove any silliness.


Having said that, a company's credentials as the writer of such a game don't necessarily mean anything when considering them as the potential writer of a wargame. Although they get a certain amount of leeway based on the 'surely can't do any worse' factor...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
And 40K is written in the same manner...

...aside from how you're playing against each other, with the goal being for one of you to beat the other.

Yep, the cooperative vs competitive is a huge distinguishing factor. Imbalance in cooperation is usually fine - I am *much* better at RTS and FPS games than my mates, so when we play on the same side we all have a ball. When we play versus... no one has fun unless there's a handicap system. That's the difference. When the differences come from rules rather than skills the enjoyment factor still remains, you can enjoy imbalanced coop, you cannot enjoy imbalanced competitive.

Imbalance in RPGs also is generally situationally imbalanced. A powerhouse melee fighter can wreck face in a certain brawl situation whereas a wizard chain casting fireballs will wreck in others. Both for the good of the team.

 insaniak wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
And 40K is written in the same manner...

...aside from how you're playing against each other, with the goal being for one of you to beat the other.

Be sure you take the whole quote into context, because the "forge the narrative" axiom of GW is basically instructing you to play the game as if it were a cooperative RPG, in that you are supposed to be cooperating to tell some sort of 40K story. Disputes are intended to be handled, currently, by a roll of a d6, rather than a GM or Referee, as was referenced in previous editions.

A lot of us don't accept "forge the narrative" as anything other than an excuse designed to cover for their shocking rules sorry. There are no narrative forging rules in 40k, no cooperative rules - there are only bad competitive rules.

 Psienesis wrote:
Disputes are intended to be handled, currently, by a roll of a d6, rather than a GM or Referee, as was referenced in previous editions.

'Previous editions'?

RT was the only edition to have a GM. Every other edition has just asked players to roll off.

Assault from deep strike. Game fixed.

All vehicles are assault vehicles, assault from deep strike. This would balance out shooting/assault.

Well the current rules provide all i really need which is fun nights at my gaming club but im sure i could think of plenty of minor personal preferences.

The only major change i would make would be for the game to use D10s rather then D6s.

So the fact 40k still uses the core rules (game mechanics and resolution methods,)from WHFB , even though 40k is not using massed ranks of infantry and cavalry fighting in close formation armed with hand weapons and bows/muskets.

Has not aroused concern any one else?

Of all the things wrong with 40k rules, the humble D6 can work fine if used in an intelligent way.(As many modern war games prove).
And so could easily be kept in a 40k re write.

But as GW seem reluctant to use any modern game development options , (eg anything after 1982.)

All they can do is add progressive layers of complication to the core rules that do not cover the current game play.And this leads to a over complicated holistic mess.

Lanrak wrote:
Has not aroused concern any one else?

Of course it has. This is why I say the rules need to be rebuilt from scratch, you're never going to have a good game when you're building it on the foundation of something that is completely inappropriate.

pax_imperialis wrote:
Assault from deep strike. Game fixed.

You must be a Chaos Daemons player....heck, I play Daemons too and even I can see how broken assaulting out of deepstrike is.

 Blacksails wrote:
Why not both?

Because it's hard to make some good points
Most changes I've read in this thread would make me open eBay, sell my entire army and never look back.

I'm a Blood Angels player and I understand why Assaulting after Deep Strike is a terrible idea.
The things that I would change are probably the things that take the fun out of many games.

First of all I really dislike the WS-table.
I think it's ridiculous that my WS8-model still misses 33% of his attacks.
Though I might be biased when I turned my Sanguinor into a MC with Divine Intervention and had it MISS every freaking attack that turn.
I do like the BS-idea, where everything over a 6 lets you reroll.
Maybe that could work with WS.

Random Charges are a nice thing, but I would like to see more rules that allow models to reroll those dice, especially CC-armies.
6+D6" sounds like a good idea, though I think that it makes no sense for armies like Tau to charge that same distance.

Remove Seize the Initiative.

No single roll has a greater power to end the game, and it does so 2 hours before you stop playing.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

No single roll has a greater power to end the game, and it does so 2 hours before you stop playing.

Only if you ignore the possibility of your opponent going first when you are deploying.

 insaniak wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

No single roll has a greater power to end the game, and it does so 2 hours before you stop playing.

Only if you ignore the possibility of your opponent going first when you are deploying.

To put it another way, the person who is going second never deploys their army for that 1-in-6 chance that they're going first, so I' m not quite sure how Seize the Initiative is such a game-breaker for you.

Less ambiguity and less randomness.

Compile a list of every type of terrain that can be thought of and list each one under the save it gives. Anything not on there would have a generic 4+ save. Area terrain: goes by model, 5+.
Anything that flat out "removes from play" rather than going by T/W/HP should be removed.
Anything that wounds on a value other than T should be removed to speed things up.
Models in reserve at game end should not count as dead.
The game should simply continue if 1 player has all models in reserve at end of turn 1.
General removal of unnecessary random tables from all books.
Make charges a set 6" again.
Difficult terrain halves movement and charges.
Take out allies, D weapons, Lords of War and Unbound altogether and put these in a separate book. Limit to one FOC in a normal game.
Something to speed up CC. I often find it's the slowest phase. Maybe let every model in the combat attack. You'd roll more dice but not have to lean over and work out who was and wasn't in range.
Look Out Sir: immediately declare the model that will block the hit before rolling to wound (any in the unit as long as on the same level) and they make an Initiative test.
Drop Challenges, it's too easy to make these forgone conclusions and they add further steps to CC.
Just drop Daemonology altogether. Too much fluff contradiction and potential to allow one player to keep adding models. In fact, drop anything that allows models not bought with points to be added.
Make Invisibility as it was before.
Remove the psychic phase, have all powers cast at the start of the shooting phase and have 2 durations: instantm(use it and it takes effect and is then over), or until the beginning of your next shooting phase.
Armies that can never take a psyker should be able to Deny the Witch on a 5+.
Models with BS5+ should start getting a bonus to Overwatch. Maybe +1 to OW BS for every point of BS over 4 to a maximum of 5 (so you couldn't reroll OW shots).
Make the table edge when Outflanking something you choose, not roll for.

Just play-test endlessly. If you find anything that has to be able resolved with a house rule, roll-off, compromise etc then rewrite it to make it unambiguous.

 Fezman wrote:
Less ambiguity and less randomness.

Make charges a set 6" again.
Difficult terrain halves movement and charges.
Take out allies, D weapons, Lords of War and Unbound altogether and put there in a separate book. Limit to one FOC in a normal game.
Something to speed up CC. I often find it's the slowest phase. Maybe let every model in the combat attack. You'd roll more dice but not have to lean over and work out who was and wasn't in range.
Look Out Sir: immediately declare the model that will block the hit before rolling to wound (any in the unit as long as on the same level) and they make an Initiative test.
Drop Challenges, it's too easy to make these forgone conclusions.
Just drop Daemonology altogether.
Make Invisibility as it was before.
Remove the psychic phase, have all powers cast at the start of the shooting phase and have 2 durations: instant, or until the beginning of your next shooting phase.
Armies that can never take a psyker should be able to Deny the Witch on a 5+.
Models with BS5+ should start getting a bonus to Overwatch. Maybe +1 to OW BS for every point of normal BS over 4 to a maximum of 5 (so you couldn't reroll OW shots).
Make the table edge when Outflanking something you choose, not roll for.

Just play-test endlessly. If you find anything that has to be able resolved with a house rule, roll-off, compromise etc then rewrite it to make it unambiguous.

That all makes perfect sense, but GW is too busy trying to find ways to make more money. They'll never playtest.

Allow blast weapons to shoot at flyers.
Remove the multiple barrage rule, use the multiple blast rule in its place.
Reintroduce the Movement stat.
Remove AV, vehicles get toughness and wounds.
Bring in ways to inflict mutliple wounds to multiwound models with a single hit, eg tack it on to armorbane and fleshbane.
Cut back the proliferation of rerolls.
Rewrite wound allocation and determining cover to no longer go model by model.

Make charges a set 6" again. No thanks - happy with charges as they are
Difficult terrain halves movement and charges. Sounds good as long as there are ways round it
Take out allies, D weapons, Lords of War and Unbound altogether and put there in a separate book. Limit to one FOC in a normal game. nah there are just as bad Codex things
Something to speed up CC. I often find it's the slowest phase. Maybe let every model in the combat attack. You'd roll more dice but not have to lean over and work out who was and wasn't in range. Nah I love close combat
Look Out Sir: immediately declare the model that will block the hit before rolling to wound (any in the unit as long as on the same level) and they make an Initiative test.
Drop Challenges, it's too easy to make these forgone conclusions. I like challenges
Just drop Daemonology altogether. sounds good if we can ditch the whole new Psychic phase and have a tided up version of 6th ed without the cheesey bits
Make Invisibility as it was before. Ok
Remove the psychic phase, have all powers cast at the start of the shooting phase and have 2 durations: instant, or until the beginning of your next shooting phase. Sounds good
Armies that can never take a psyker should be able to Deny the Witch on a 5+. What does Adamantium Will do? 4+
Models with BS5+ should start getting a bonus to Overwatch. Maybe +1 to OW BS for every point of normal BS over 4 to a maximum of 5 (so you couldn't reroll OW shots). Only if CC units get better chance to hit much weaker opponents like high BS figures get 2+ and re-rolls
Make the table edge when Outflanking something you choose, not roll for.

Just play-test endlessly. If you find anything that has to be able resolved with a house rule, roll-off, compromise etc then rewrite it to make it unambiguous.
Excellent idea

We are also looking at (in our little group) Allowing vehicles to have Overwatch - usual restrictions apply.

To me the most important change to rules is to change the whole philosophy about what purpose they serve. They should not be used to generate money directly through sales of rule books or indirectly to drive sales by overpowering one unit/army while making other, previously great units useless. Instead they should generate money by drawing people into a well constructed, balanced game.

To do this, they should make the rules available online and free. Update the rules on a quarterly basis to continuously fine tune and balance the game.

I don't mind having some armies being better than others because playing with a weaker army can be a fun challenge, but they should be close enough to the others so that they can be competitive.

Return to area terrain. You can't represent a thick jungle, forest etc. that you can place models in without using abstraction. It was so much better when you could put down felt to represent an area of thick vegetation that blocked LOS and actually move models around in it.

1. Remove random charge distance
2. Tweak intercept and overwatch to make assault more viable
3. Tweak charges to make assault less scary and remove the reluctance to make it viable
4. Fix the true line of sight issue that negatively affects so many games

 Mr Morden wrote:

Make charges a set 6" again. No thanks - happy with charges as they are
Difficult terrain halves movement and charges. Sounds good as long as there are ways round it
Take out allies, D weapons, Lords of War and Unbound altogether and put there in a separate book. Limit to one FOC in a normal game. nah there are just as bad Codex things
Something to speed up CC. I often find it's the slowest phase. Maybe let every model in the combat attack. You'd roll more dice but not have to lean over and work out who was and wasn't in range. Nah I love close combat
Look Out Sir: immediately declare the model that will block the hit before rolling to wound (any in the unit as long as on the same level) and they make an Initiative test.
Drop Challenges, it's too easy to make these forgone conclusions. I like challenges
Just drop Daemonology altogether. sounds good if we can ditch the whole new Psychic phase and have a tided up version of 6th ed without the cheesey bits
Make Invisibility as it was before. Ok
Remove the psychic phase, have all powers cast at the start of the shooting phase and have 2 durations: instant, or until the beginning of your next shooting phase. Sounds good
Armies that can never take a psyker should be able to Deny the Witch on a 5+. What does Adamantium Will do? 4+
Models with BS5+ should start getting a bonus to Overwatch. Maybe +1 to OW BS for every point of normal BS over 4 to a maximum of 5 (so you couldn't reroll OW shots). Only if CC units get better chance to hit much weaker opponents like high BS figures get 2+ and re-rolls
Make the table edge when Outflanking something you choose, not roll for.

Just play-test endlessly. If you find anything that has to be able resolved with a house rule, roll-off, compromise etc then rewrite it to make it unambiguous.
Excellent idea

We are also looking at (in our little group) Allowing vehicles to have Overwatch - usual restrictions apply.

Oh, these are just spur of the moment thoughts. Far too many ideas to expect anyone I played against should do them, or for me to even remember half of them. And your replies show how subjective any exercise like this. Though I prefer shooting I'd prefer it more if it and CC could be equally viable instead of "this edition makes shooting better, that one nerfs shooty armies" etc. The fact house rules seem to be so common suggests the rules could be quite a bit tighter.

The way psykers are now I'd happily just make it the same as fantasy magic, that system actually works

This may sound a little crazy, but I like the current rules editions setup. My group and I played fifth till we were all bored of it. We even went several months without playing (before anyone says so, I realize that new armies could have injected more life into our games but I'd rather pay like ~80 every 4ish years for a new rulebook then build a whole new army, I'm poor).

These new editions have injected some new life into the game for me. I like the changes. Its like getting a sequel to a game I love.

My biggest complaint about the rules in general is that GW still seems utterly befuddled by them ther' interwebs. They can't seem to figure out what a HUGE resource they have at their fingertips with the internet. Better FAQ support. Every now and then they could do a live chat with some rules writers.Maybe just an official forum where their rules writers can endorse things like house rules. SOMETHING.

They need to do something to make people want to go through them quick, because with their move to more electronic versions of everything, piracy is an issue they really have to worry about now.

 TNT925 wrote:
This may sound a little crazy, but I like the current rules editions setup. My group and I played fifth till we were all bored of it. We even went several months without playing (before anyone says so, I realize that new armies could have injected more life into our games but I'd rather pay like ~80 every 4ish years for a new rulebook then build a whole new army, I'm poor).

Not even new armies. New campaign or scenario material could have achieved the same goal, if all you wanted was a little something different to make the game more interesting again.

A new edition isn't supposed to be a new game, it's just supposed to fix problems with the previous edition.

 insaniak wrote:

 TNT925 wrote:
This may sound a little crazy, but I like the current rules editions setup. My group and I played fifth till we were all bored of it. We even went several months without playing (before anyone says so, I realize that new armies could have injected more life into our games but I'd rather pay like ~80 every 4ish years for a new rulebook then build a whole new army, I'm poor).

Not even new armies. New campaign or scenario material could have achieved the same goal, if all you wanted was a little something different to make the game more interesting again.

A new edition isn't supposed to be a new game, it's just supposed to fix problems with the previous edition.

Yes but certain things are still going to be dominant in certain editions. 5th had lots of msu spam and transports for example. I do agree with the point about scenarios and such but 7th has really made that sort of thing more easily don't within the ruleset.

Each edition has had its own 'feel' to it is basically what I'm getting at, and I enjoy that.

You don't need a new edition to do that. In starcraft, a small balance change can drastically change the meta, and a new round of ladder maps does the same thing. The game stays the same but the gameplay changes - hopefully for the better. No need to buy a new edition for a sidegrade in gameplay. As Insaniak says, a new edition should fix the previous ones problems. Even the new psychic phase isn't a new mechanic so much as just a change in how the current psykers function.

 TNT925 wrote:
. I do agree with the point about scenarios and such but 7th has really made that sort of thing more easily don't within the ruleset. .

How?

Unbound, the addition of LoW to the foc, warlords, and maelstrom missions all contribute well to running a more narrative/campaign style game. Now obviously these are all things that could have easily been house ruled into the game, but I appreciate that GW has written the rules in such a way that they cater to a style of play that I prefer.

 TNT925 wrote:
Unbound, the addition of LoW to the foc, warlords, and maelstrom missions all contribute well to running a more narrative/campaign style game.

No they don't. LOW were already available if you really needed one for a story, warlord traits hinder the story aspect of the game by replacing characters with random tables (good luck building a coherent narrative around your chapter master who brings a different random skill to each battle), and maelstrom missions are probably the worst possible mission for narrative games. The only thing GW has done to support narrative play recently has been to scream FORGE THE NARRATIVE as often as possible.

 Peregrine wrote:

 TNT925 wrote:
Unbound, the addition of LoW to the foc, warlords, and maelstrom missions all contribute well to running a more narrative/campaign style game.

No they don't. LOW were already available if you really needed one for a story, warlord traits hinder the story aspect of the game by replacing characters with random tables (good luck building a coherent narrative around your chapter master who brings a different random skill to each battle), and maelstrom missions are probably the worst possible mission for narrative games. The only thing GW has done to support narrative play recently has been to scream FORGE THE NARRATIVE as often as possible.

Agreed.
I've been looking at how a mate and I would run a narrative campaign recently, what we keep coming up with are things like chaos marines at kill team scale trying to down a dreadnought in X number of turns as he heroically sacrifices himself in a rearguard action, or guardsmen holding the line until the Astartese drop pod in. Absolutley nothing about running to take hill number 2, then back to bunker number 3, then back to hill 2, then suddenly need to kill the chaos sorcerer.

Well that's fine for you guys. I'm just saying I've found ways to get them to do fun things for my campaign type thingie whats-its. No need for the internet yells haha.

First thing I'd do:
I'd play-test replacing all movement dice rolls with Initiative first and foremost. Less dice rolling to speed things up and create consistency. The random charge winds me up.

For example, run is Initiative value, charge is 6"+initiative, consolidation is Initiative value.

If this doesn't work add a Movement value or equivalent.

Then I'd test consolidation into combat. It's hard enough getting into combat in the first place - playing to try and not win the first round of combat is counterintuitive.

These might not work but I'd test them first.

A handful of tweaks would open up a whole new world of play styles:

Fleet is +D6 to Run / Charge distances instead of a reroll

Charging through terrain is -2 to initiative, unless you have Move Through Cover

Charging from reserve / outflank / infiltrate is allowed, but at half the charge distance rolled

Assault Grenades force re-rolls of successful Overwatch hits (or cancel out twin-linked / rerolls)

You can forgo shooting in your own turn to fire Overwatch at full BS, with Ignores Cover and Twin-linked rules

Smash attacks automatically hit.

 TNT925 wrote:
Unbound, the addition of LoW to the foc, warlords, and maelstrom missions all contribute well to running a more narrative/campaign style game.

And all of those things could have been added in expansions rather than a new edition.


And none of which actually add anything in the way of narrative. You add narrative through actual campaign material, not by adding rules which give your army commander a special ability which he will have forgotten by the start of the next battle he fights. Unless your narrative is that your army commander has had one too many blows to the head, I suppose...

 insaniak wrote:

 TNT925 wrote:
Unbound, the addition of LoW to the foc, warlords, and maelstrom missions all contribute well to running a more narrative/campaign style game.

And all of those things could have been added in expansions rather than a new edition.


And none of which actually add anything in the way of narrative. You add narrative through actual campaign material, not by adding rules which give your army commander a special ability which he will have forgotten by the start of the next battle he fights. Unless your narrative is that your army commander has had one too many blows to the head, I suppose...

Certain characters such as Captain Sicarius come with warlord traits that they can always choose to have. Sicarius always has "The Imperium's Sword".

1) Re-introduce hit modifiers / fix the rubbish of not being able to avail of both cover and armour (Discussed alternative rules on this extensively in my own thread [url]http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/606078.page#7058433
2) Get rid of random run movement and any other glaring random roll silliness that makes the game too swingy and belongs in casually fun boardgames, not competitive battle games.
3) Future codex and rule changes to be made with consideration to existing players of that army. No illegalising weapon loadouts or relegating units unless as a last resort.

Contrary to what some others have posted , I'd like to keep detailed rules, I like playing both skirmishes and large battles, but have little interest in using simplified /mass combat/ epic 40k rules. I like the level of customisation that a squad or character can be given and that even in a 3000pt battle, the difference between giving a squad leader a power sword or an axe can potentially swing something. Losing that level of detail would take the fun out of it the game...for me anyway.

I wouldn´t go full ham on the magic. Twin linked for example is way to overpowered and not to mention the new demonology tree, invisibility etc.
Remove overwatch, why nerf melee when range was already OP.

Infantry in the open should be rightly vulnerable, but infantry in cover (especially hard cover like a ruin) should be hard to dig out and require a lot of concentrated firepower. There is WAY too much "ignores cover" out there.

There should be a "suppressing fire" mechanic, whereby you can reduce the effectiveness of enemy shooting by putting fire on them to keep their heads down.

1. Make all weapons "pinning weapons"
2. Pinning tests only on taking casualties, not wounds
3. Pinning test modifier based on number of casualties sustained (say, -1 Ld per 10%)
4. Being in cover makes you "stubborn"
5. "Ignores cover" negates the "stubborn" rule, not the cover save
6. Simple rule for cover saves: Can it stop a bullet? If yes, 4+; if no, 5+.

Maybe make cover a bonus to your armour save instead of an "either/or" thing? It seems strange that a space marine doesn't gain any additional protection by hiding behind a wall, but I'm not sure this is the solution.

Then, playtest playtest playtest. And when they think they're done, playtest some more. New edition coming out? Advertise for playtesters, make them sign confidentiality agreements if necessary, put them on three month contracts, and then they playtest 8 hours per day. Maybe look at videogame companies and how they do QA, see how it might be adapted to tabletop gaming.

I would probably rewrite the entire ruleset if i'm honest, but keep the basic stuff like shooting phase and ballistic skill. Remove gak like random charge distance (Which i think is gone anyhow) 2+ Invuln and so on :p