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If GW actually responded in a visible way to customer questions like their sister company Forgeworld does, 99% of the rules questions would evaporate.

Every time I've ever had a rules questions about how to play a Forgeworld thing and shot them an e-mail, it's been responded to within 2 days. Issue resolved.

GW could hire some intern for minimum wage and have him respond to customers, for like 2 weeks, and have it all posted up somewhere official, and their game and community would benefit so much from it.

 SRSFACE wrote:
GW could hire some intern for minimum wage and have him respond to customers, for like 2 weeks, and have it all posted up somewhere official, and their game and community would benefit so much from it.

They used to have a rules hotline at it was terrible.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 SRSFACE wrote:
GW could hire some intern for minimum wage and have him respond to customers, for like 2 weeks, and have it all posted up somewhere official, and their game and community would benefit so much from it.

They used to have a rules hotline at it was terrible.

Yeah, I remember that. You could call 3 times, and ask the same question, and if you got a different guy each time, you got a different answer. Didn't really help.

 Squidmanlolz wrote:
It depends on what you want from the game. A lot of people want 40k to be a balanced, competitive game. I disagree with that sentiment. 40k is FAR from perfect, but it's still fun. It's a beer-and-chips game with good quality miniatures. Personally, I wouldn't change the course of friendly 40k.
If you were to try to remake the game into something competitive or balanced, I'd vote for FFG to do the rules. But, I don't see the need to overhaul 40k.

A balanced and competitive game can be played friendly as beer and chips.

Even when just playing a friendly game the best and most fun games are the ones with fairly balanced sides that include interesting tactical twists. close games are the best games. The rules should help support that happening as often as possible.

The rules don't necessarily need to be rewritten from scratch. They need to peel back the layers back to 5th Edition, and then rebuild on that again, with the intention of improving the game each time instead of piling on randomness.

Also, IIRC Wizards of the Coast has an FAQ Twitter page the answers people's rules questions. Seems like a more modern way of the whole "FAQ hotline" thing.

Newbie here:

While a complete re-write does not seem necessarily, streamlining (cutting out somewhat redundant rules, some simplification,) would help a lot. Getting rid of the many ambiguities would also be a nice change of pace (like in what ways are units allowed to get out of the way of Tank Shock, that is never described specifically.)

Frankly I like some of the complexity of it, such as the sheer variety of weapon options, units, abilities, and large scale battles. However streamlining and ambiguity hunting seems beneficial.

I'd say current rules need adjusting, rather than adding more special rules, but that was closest to my belief, so hey, there you have it.

I personally like 7th edition. Yeah, there are a ton of special rules (I made four laminated sheets of
special rules summaries so I wouldn't be constantly fishing thru the book), and I forget to use some
here and there. But it's the only table top game I would play. Models are the right size and generally
beautiful, the fluff is huge and when the models are painted it is a gorgeous experience.
I'm not thrilled by the foot tall models - bad fit.
I tend to eat what I'm served (Imperial Knights are brussel sprouts - yuk). I'm not familiar with other
table top games other than FOW, mainly because I don't see then being played too much at hobby stores.
Know they're out there, but where are they?
Also figure if you like 5th edition etc, play games with it. If GW ever goes tits up, we still have all the books
they've published. I don't play Forge World as to me it's an expensive side trip, but people do like it so it
appeals to a market out there.
GW is much more together than many give it credit. They aren't perfect, but there is enough choice in their system
to have a good time with what you choose. And it is being run by humans - Brits no less...
Frankly, I ain't going to buy a whole new set of books from a re-write - I get enough of that as is.
And don't fire them all. Just what we need - a fresh set of geeks in a committee trying to figure out what to change.
If you don't like the game, vote with your feet. Lots do apparently. I'm staying and rolling with the changes.
Yes, I have to re-learn my Dark Eldar, but a good challenge and actually somewhat simpler.

I voted total re wright but maybe what I really think is a skirmish scale set. For large battles the current is acceptable. That being said I feel they need to present something in the vein of the Rogue Trader style with a focus on smaller unit clashes and a more precise rule set. My $0.02.

TBH, I actually enjoy the game (shocking, I know) and I enjoy how the rules work, although I'll admit it isn't perfect, nothing is.

Do I get banned by mods for saying that? Seem like I would be given all the hate.

As always, alterations need to be made. Regardless of that, im not found of needing to drop another $100+ to get a new rule set, and am totally fine playing with the current rules for that reason

Hi Folks,
Some people seem to be confusing game play with rules as written .
The game play of 40k is fine as is.(Perhaps slightly more complexity would be beneficial as it would allow players to grow with the game play.)

But the 7th ed 40k rules are over complicated, poorly written , badly edited and proof read.

If the new rules were in a free to down load PDF format.Along with free to down load PDF Codex army organisation books .(No fluff just rules.)
So they can be updated every 6 months or so as required.

And the art background and craft hobby related stuff would be sold in a Resource book.(Current codex minus the rules.)
So collectors could still buy them if they wanted to.

Would more people play 40k?

If the re write covered the current game play, (or expanded it, ) but only took 50 pages of rules ,would this be seen as an improvement?

I often think some people confuse complication in the rules with game complexity.

Some people say they like rules complication in 40k.
The more complicated some thing is the harder it is to understand, And the more likely it is to break down and cause confusion.

So wanting 40k to be needlessly over complicated is actually saying...
I like having to learn 100s of pages of poorly worded rules before I try to play a game, and end up arguing what the rules actually mean.
I like to let rules lawyers win, by them exploiting over complicated and poorly worded rules.
I think any one should be able to cheat on a D6 roll of 4+.
I want to spend more time reading rules than playing games.

Wanting more game complexity,(more in game choices,) is probably what most players want.
However, good rules writing can give more game complexity than 40k has , without using as many pages of written rules.
This means a complete re -write to cover the current game play, not a skirmish game like RT/2nd ed.

I now exclusively play "casual" 40k with an amended rules set - basically 6.5. its not perfect but we do enjoy it - a lot.

We find RAW discussions both tiresome and circular so we usually work them out based on what sounds right - so what we feel is RAI.

40k has problems - all systems do, but 40k does seem to have more than most with regards to internal balance.

I have watched it evolved from the RT edition and like some of it and equally not others so

Pre-measuring - thank the gods - speeds up the game, makes it more tactical rather random / guesswork - ie you make informed decisions rather than guessing ranges or using other medthods

The randomness of recent "innovations" in the codex's and rules has not helped the game - "Random" Warlord traits are a stupid idea IMO.

Going back to a "magic" phase is a big step backwards from 6th Ed Psychic rules.

Monsterous Creature/ Vehicle rules need to be closer / merged.

The rules just need a tweak. Assaults from stationary transports need to come back. Assaults from reserves (but not deep strike) too. Most of all though, they need to stop changing units each codex, just to sell more models. Internal and external codex balance. That's what the game needs. Then everyone will love the game and buy heaps of armies and GW wins.

 Kavish wrote:
The rules just need a tweak. Assaults from stationary transports need to come back. Assaults from reserves (but not deep strike) too. Most of all though, they need to stop changing units each codex, just to sell more models. Internal and external codex balance. That's what the game needs. Then everyone will love the game and buy heaps of armies and GW wins.

I would tend to agree - if they gave all armies a general update when new editions hit it would help - then release new codexes later.

What hurts is that the game shifts and changes dramatically as various codexes are updated - seemingly with no sense of balancing them against each other or often even internally - see Dark Eldar Codex and the compare it to the Eldar - so much disconnect....

I'm uneasy about complete rewrites after AOS...

None of the above.

The ruleset should be tighter and more streamlined.

I don't really want to game to change an awful lot. I see a lot of people here complaining about how bloated the game is. Whereas I enjoy a rich rule set. I really don't see how the game would suffer from more rules. TCG's have a like a billion special abilities and nobody complains about that either.

The rules are horribly written and ambiguous and with seemingly little thought about what impact they will have on the game. Additionally it almost feels like every unit was designed by a different company for a different game. Very little support is given too.

In that sense the game does need a total rewrite, but not in these sense of changing it. Rather a rewrite to would be closer to RAI. And as far as I can tell GW is physically incapable of writing a proper rules set, let alone consider the actual game as a proper product in it's own right.

So if GW could outsource their rules and let somebody competent handle the game then everybody would win.
So I kin of want a reboot but most certainly not along the lines of Age of Sigmar.

That said, I would very much enjoy a separate game on a smaller scale. with rules that reflect that. I think kill team plays horribly but I like the idea. And if such a game existed I might even accept a more simplified rules set with less complexity spend on individual heroes for 40k. And then move some of that customization to the smaller scale game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And I would enjoy it if they released products in campaign cycles which tell a story and all. I don't need the setting as a whole to move on an awful lot, but there are a lot of plots and battles happening on a universal scale that are integral to the whole setting. Yet each individual battle is only a small part so it would take a long time for the setting to advance. Even if it took a small retcon to set this kind of thing up.

Sell campaign books with unique rules for each campaign, and unique terrain. the terrain they make is just as amazing as the rest of their range. I hate how it consists entirely of IoM stuff though. Sell some unique models for a limited time, or upgrade sets only. There are many more alien races out there that could be made for certain campaigns.

It makes for long term sales while at the same time keeping things fresh for the players.

No, but it could do with some good tweaks. Take the game out of the tournament setting, it's suddenly a lot less broken. Unless you actively try to play to abuse the rules, or only play against that guy, the rule-set really isn't to bad for fun, casual game play. I hate to actually quote BoLS, but: http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/08/40k-the-bottle-not-broken-until-you-drop-it.html Yeah, there are broken codexes and bad rules, but unless you play a person who abuses the rules, or constantly play situations where you need to play a net list/only the best units, then you are not going to enjoy the game even if they do change it.

Secondly, now that I've pissed off most of the people who have read this far, take off the damn rose-tinted glasses. You all say go back to 5th, go back to 2nd, but really, when was the last time most of you looked at 2nd with fresh eyes? When your wearing rose-tinted glasses, the red flags just look like flags.

Though, judging by the options open in the poll, this is just another GW hate-on thread pretending to be about something other than "GW sure is bad, right?"

None of the options really fit my opinion. There is a lot that can be improved, but I do not agree that the whole thing needs to be scrapped either. Many of the game's core rules are fine either as-is or with very minimal tweaking. The core gameplay is fine, but the balance is completely shot. I am not convinced GW has or can ever get the talent it needs to balance the game, but I do believe they could do better with a little more consistency in their design strategies.

All they need is to streamline. Take note Games Workshop, streamlining does NOT mean butchering the game system, putting the wonderful background to the torch, destroying all hope of using the already overpriced models by replacing them with worse, even more expensive models with ridiculous names, spitting in the faces of the established fanbase and laughing all the while.

*takes sedative*

Ah, that's better.

I agree that a D10 system would work better because D10.
Give each Psyker Character an "Amount" of powers they can choose from the list not including primaris powers.

everything else has already been said.

I don’t really write on dakka dakka to much, I do enjoy reading a lot and viewing all the wonder art people post on the site.
With that said I would like to express my opinion a bit....

I started 40k in 3rd ed.
I loved the 4th edition alot (still have the book on my shelf).
I had mixed feelings on 5th, but grew into it.
6th edition, I returned the book (What a load of )
7th I was very shy about getting into, but now I enjoy 7th as much as I enjoyed 4th. I am very happy to have been talked into buying the rules for 7th.

with all that said though, I find I have to express my opinion of how a complete write up sounds amazing, but knowing GW and their past release style, a new write up will never be enough.
I have played long enough, and im sure many others have noticed the cycle of GW. New rules, new codex, new models, sounds great but i am so worn out on this month my army or models are working and in a few months a new rule book messes all that up, because GW is a model company. They dont want balance, they dont want fair, they want to sell sell sell....
I dont want to go on and on with examples from past edition, but i would rather offer an alternative.
Me and my friends, and most stores I play at have house rules, solves all problems. Unless you are playing with complete holes people will listen to logic. I think a new write up of rules from scratch is a terrible idea, every person’s army would become obsolete, just like with the new Age of Sigmar (God i hate GW for this POS game)

All I am saying is GW sells models, they want you to buy models, they will never, ever, ever write a set of rules that will work for a long period, they will just keep pumping out their flavor of the month and try to get players pumped into playing the 'Newest' and the 'Best'.

My advice, if you liked a certain codex or rule book, stick with it. tournament are over rated, I have had so much more fun playing with people at my home or at the store who bring what they like and use rules that are within reason.
No rules like house rules.

No. Minor rewrite to the basic rules. (Major fixes to most codexes.)

Most importantly: clear, relevant, frequent FAQs.

I think the rules need a slight rewrite, but not the fluff. If GW does the same as with AOS, I WILL QUIT WARGAMING!!!!!!
Not just 40k, nor WHFB, but WARGAMING in general. I swear.

 Peregrine wrote:
The rules need a complete re-write, but first everyone involved in writing GW's rules needs to be fired. If you keep the same incompetent morons in charge of the game then all you'll get out of a re-write is a game that is just as bad but in different ways. Once they're gone the new people can write a decent scifi-focused game in the 40k universe to replace the current bloated mess of special rules and exceptions to special rules and exceptions to the exceptions piled onto the skeleton of a bad 1980s fantasy game.

Unfortunately the only way this will ever happen is if someone else buys the 40k IP.

Look a sign of the End Times, I agree with Peregrine.

First get rid of the rules team. Like really, come on guys. Then adapt epic to 28mm. Oh, and take Matt Ward to the dungeons.

 LeCacty wrote:
First get rid of the rules team. Like really, come on guys. Then adapt epic to 28mm. Oh, and take Matt Ward to the dungeons.

I thought ward wrote decent rules... Any way, even with the games half baked rules, if you amend (heavily) with house rules outside of a game then it will lead to less confusion in a game in theory

System too bulky for its tactical abilities. Many stupid rules.
Armies too large, bad for bying, painting, transporting, playing.

Rewriting to remove ambiguity is the biggest thing. RAW and RAI should, ideally, be one and the same. I rather like the complexity of all the special rules, but toning it down a bit couldn't hurt, and finding a good balance for things like vehicle damage.