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I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?

5th was the last time I had fun playing.
Since then things have gone downhill imo.

LordTyphus wrote:
How's the current rule set

Utter garbage. It's a bloated mess of poorly planned rules and special exceptions to the rules and special exceptions to the special exceptions, all of which involving rolling dice to see what table you roll a die on and then rolling for the details of the result. And of course balance is nonexistent, the overpowered stuff is stupidly overpowered and the garbage stuff is hopeless. And remember: don't complain about the poor state of the rules, Forge™ A™ Narrative™!

GW company policies

Still pretty bad. Some of the dumbest stuff seems to be in the past, but GW still isn't a sensibly run company. Finally dropping some of their ridiculous IP lawsuit abuse and issuing a mediocre FAQ doesn't change the fact that they don't give a about the quality of the products they're selling at ridiculous prices. People will talk about how GW is supposedly showing signs of improvement, but that's really just low expectations turning even the slightest reason for hope into proof of miracles. They're still failing pretty badly at all that stuff compared to virtually any other game company.

and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?

Remember all that stupid stuff that used to be limited to Apocalypse? That's a standard 1000 point game now. Balance is much worse, the complexity of the game is much worse (without adding any depth to make up for it), badly designed random effects are much more common, and the idea of taking a single FOC from a single faction as your army identity is completely gone. Honestly, the game is just worse in almost every way. The only improvement I can think of is that you can now measure range at any time, so you no longer have to resort to all the stupid gray-area tricks (and blatant cheating) for figuring out ranges.

Hardly playable at a global scale, but still playable in a closed group.
We have organized (bi-)monthly tourneys until Feb. 2014. We still play apoc games at a regular basis. 30k is on the rise here. But WMH has taken over the lead. Lots of games per week.

The reasons for the decline of 40k are rather diverse. The rule set is complex and some armies are hardly playable any longer like CSM. Some want to go to tourneys. But they first check how many Tau and Eldar players have registered.

I think the game is fun but that fun is dependent on both players being on the same page as to what kind of experience they want on the table top. By that I mean if your trying to play no holds bared full force cheese or playing fluffy lists that focus on fielding less than optimum lists or avoiding using power combos to break the game. 40k now is a much more social contract game than before as GW has gotten a bit fast and loose with their rules writing while allies makes mixing and matching armies both fun and also vulnerable to being exploitive.

GW policy use to be pants on head levels of stupid but they are slowly turning the ship around with some attractive boxed sets and ways to get their products for cheaper. Time will tell which direction things go as GW continues down their production schedule.

Rules for the most part now favor psychic powers and shooting over close combat although through psychic powers and certain special rules its quite possible to create nearly unkillable "deathstars" that can absorb insane amounts of shooting while murdering anything in close combat. Vehicles have hull points (wounds) and generally vehicles are only good if they are flying (most units have to snap shoot at flyers) or are solely transports. Combat vehicles such the Leman Russ and Hammerhead plus nearly all standard walkers are not good as its extremely difficult to function as a shooting platform due to how easy it is to either strip hull points as glances take hull points (vehicles don't have saves outside of cover for the most part) while the vehicle damage table from penetrating hits makes it so combat vehicles are usually either snap shooting, immobilized, or just outright explode. Monstrous Creatures are basically everything combat vehicles want to be while usually being far more durable (easier for MCs to get cover saves and they generally have decent armor saves plus feel no pain) and can't be one shot unless hit by an instant kill attack which are generally far more rare, especially at range unless its doubling out the toughness of the MC.....most MCs are T6 so that's basically impossible.

All three of the armies you listed are doing well currently with some very powerful codexes (Eldar is generally considered the best codex in the game). A lot of variety and playstyles can be had with those armies that can both be fun and fluffy while not being completely terrible in terms of results. Big thing now are Formations and special detachments (Force Organization Charts) which have certain restrictions and requirements but give bonuses to the models that are a part of that special detachment/formation. It gives a lot of variety to how you can build an army and can be quite fluffy at times while also being extremely powerful in select cases.

Also 7th edition allows super heavies in the game (those Apoc units like a Stompa) but generally its best to discuss with your opponent how they want to go about allowing them. Bringing an Imperial Knight or Wraithknight (now a Gargantuan Creature) to a 1000 point game might be considered unfun for your opponent where as other opponents are bringing the type of stuff that can handle such things. Power units aside some people prefer the game to focus more on the smaller units and tanks and would prefer to avoid things like Strenght D and super heavies/GMC.

Despite all the doom, gloom, and piles of salt, 40k can still be a ton of fun to play and the variety in list building is potentially huge and can really fit different playstyles. Play with people looking for a similar 40k experience and it can be a blast. Good sportsmanship and a quick chat about expectations with your opponent goes a long way towards making the game fun for everything involved. Also Maelstrom missions are potentially a lot of fun as progressive scoring can make holding objectives during the actual battle important instead of becoming important during the last turn or two of the game. Its RNG as can be which is poor design by GW but maelstrom missions at its core is imo a good way to play the game (with a bit of house rules to fix some problematic issues).

I would approach it as if it's an entirely different game.

It still is a type of tactical combat simulation, though many aspects have either been dumbed down or made overly complex to calculate (or difficult to remember every applicable rule and exception for).

There is enjoyment to be had, but that depends on your expectations and view of what makes a fun game.

If you're after a balanced, fair tactical game that relies more on your skill with a bit of randomness to simulate the uncertainty of war - 40K fails to deliver significantly and will end up becoming a frustration.

If you're after a thematic game where you're content with (most likely) grossly uneven odds, more (or less depending on the army) randomness and a 'top trumps' style of rules and exceptions to those rules until one of you gives up or can't remember another one to use to counter the opponents play. - basically a game that isn't to be taken seriously. Then 40K appears to be just that beast.

Essentially - fair and balanced - look elsewhere unless you are playing with a good friend land you both make a serious effort to address the issues yourself. Beer and pretzels game for those who don't mind trawling the Old Testament of rules, spot on.

The game can work with a group of like minded individuals who have a solid grasp of balance in order to have fairly balanced armies in the group. At the tournament/competitive/random style gaming, the game falls apart rapidly. In 5th, the worst you'd run into was a GK Razor spam with riflemen dreadnoughts, or the IG parking lot, or Necrons. Those armies were at least manageable to all but the very worst and made sense from a fluff perspective. Now we have super friend lists of deathstars that make biker Nobz look like child's play. We're talking about units with a re-rollable 2++ Invuln save, FnP, and Invisibility, which makes them all but impervious to shooting, and pretty much invincible in CC.

All those things from the old Apoc rulebook are not 100% commonplace. If you like titans, you might like the new rules, but if you feel that the titan should stay at home except for your quarterly Apoc game or a scenario match, then you won't like the new changes. Destroyer weapons are increasingly common, and every new codex seems to try and one up the previous one in more dramatic ways.

The long and short is that the game has only gotten more complex with no gain in tactical depth, while the balance is increasingly worse. Its still fundamentally warhammer with cool models and can make for a good time rolling dice with friends, but it is fairly far from the game you remember in 5th.

Tl;dr: The game is gak, GW is gak, prices are higher than ever (and so is the GW design team), the fluff is getting worse, and there is no real hope of improvement.

 Selym wrote:
Tl;dr: The game is gak, GW is gak, prices are higher than ever (and so is the GW design team), the fluff is getting worse, and there is no real hope of improvement.

Indeed, no hope for an improved game (and lower prices). The starter kits are fine but if you want to play a ''full'' army, you will need more specialized units and this will become expensive.

 Peregrine wrote:
They're still failing pretty badly at all that stuff compared to virtually any other game company.

To be fair, GW is a big ship to start turning, and it will not make any quick turns despite the best will in the world. We've seen the first few months of a new person at the wheel and it has started turning. It could end at any time and leave us here, still mostly on course for what it always has been, but we're not wrong to be cautiously optimistic about the future.

Formation spam is a mess. Core rules are a mess. Game balance is non-existant. OP stuff is oozing out of every, possible orifice of current 40K. The only good thing is the support for the hobby, in the form of video games, comics and what not. It's nice that GW started thinking a little outside the box, for a change.

I never jumped onto 7th since from the very beginning i regard it as . I personally came too late (6th) but i very soon got who was GW: moneyful firm not giving a damn about what they're doing anymore, while making the best of people who don't already know how they are... And i'm not going to compain again obout how the poor orks and chaos are desperatly overhelmed while some eldars and SPESS MAREENS! are the rulers...

To cut it short the current state is ridiculosly bad. That's almost funny at this point.

I am having fun again right now. The trick is to accept that 40k has no working point system. I have found two ways for me to enjoy it.
The first one is just to play against other players who like to match their army strength on yours. This gives rise to nice fun games with actual tactical decisions having to be made from time to time. .
The other is to not take it serious and go all crazy, embrace that old apoc mind set. Bring the silliest stuff to the game and expect them to do the same, don't despair when stuff gets shoved off the board in buckets or when something has a 2++ rerollable save. Expect stuff to assault out off deep strike and rain D from the skies, enjoy it and match it with your own sillyness. Don't see tournaments as serious competition see them as a huge Appoc game that re spawns your army each 2-3 hours.

 oldzoggy wrote:
I am having fun again right now.

I think this is still something that's very important to balance all the negativity.

@OP; First of all, This forum and specifically this sub-forum is the most negative place you'll ever find. Don't imagine what everyone here is spewing is the general opinion. They're mainly right about the state of the game, but it doesn't stop it from being thuroughly enjoyable. I was just at a tournament this weekend and while I didn't participate, I sort of wished I did. It had a nice spread of armies with a lot of the bottom feeders that people on here call useless and pointless. We had two Tyranid armies, two CSM armies, an Ork and a bunch of other fun stuff. The single Tau player won, and sure there were a lot of space marine players, but generally it was a lot of fun, and everyone got to face something fun.

I personally am disappointed about the state of the game. I really, really like games that try to balance themselves. And for this, I looked elsewhere (X-wing).

I've taken a few breaks here and there throughout 7th edition. First it was because my 5th edition codex was bland and boring. Then it was because it was too powerful, but the stuff coming out was even more OP and less fun to play against. Then I'd get back into it, only to realize that GW is still giving toys to other armies besides mine.

As said above, the rules are bad, GW favors certain armies, the cost is extremely high, the time required to play is still high (and having a kid on the way, moving into a new apartment, and getting back into WoW right before Legion drops takes up a lot of time).

So, as of now, I enjoy the game in a closed group. Me and a few friends frequently try 2v2s and we try to balance them as well as we can, and just have fun on a Saturday night. I'm trying to limit myself to every other weekend, if that. And that seems to be working.

Long and short not so hot.

As many have said there is a massive rule bloat and every game we need to dig into the rules to see if there is a rule for that, two most notable examples of it. I got a tactical card that said slay a character in a challenge. My challenger did not kill the challengee, but the remaining wounds from the rest of the squad bled into the challenge and killed him, so we were not sure if it counted. Another was disembarking into ruin. The game is just full of rules like this.

Phyker phase is utterly disgusting right now. Which sucks because i love phykers but its really nasty with all the rules and crap.

Armys are super unbalanced at the moment, i still can not get over the fact that armies have access to D weapons in games that are not escalation or apoc size games.

As a recent returnee to 40K (played 1st-4th editions, came back shortly after 7th dropped) I'd say it's much the same as ever, i.e. it's not the tightest game in the word but basically fine as long as you're not trying to play it with someone who's a total melt. That said, I'm not particularly interested in playing with armies of the sort of sizes better suited to Epic, which seems to be the direction GW have pushed it a bit.

 Nazrak wrote:
fine as long as you're not trying to play it with someone who's a total melt.

Sadly, 40k seems to just attract (or possibly make) asshats. Personally, I have seen rather few players who weren't on the side of waac. And even fewer players who didn't just use marines all the time.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
5th was the last time I had fun playing.
Since then things have gone downhill imo.

Yep. Have hated 6th and barely played 7th, ridiculous overblown, overly complex piles of rules and clutter. Added to that the frankly awful codex my orks got... yeah, waiting it out until 8th.

Indeed, the tournament scene worked will in the 5th ed. During the last two incarnations, the scene went downhill. Today, its a big mess. But GW never promoted tournament play. Just the narrative variant. Drop a D2 and see how to resolve the rule mess.

When I want to play a good game of 40K, I play 4th, 5th or 2nd Edition. When I want to play at the local club, I go expecting a hideous annihilation as my poor old armies get slaughtered by ridiculous insanity.

It's not perfect but i'm having fun. In all fairness, there was no balance in 40k. Ever. The most broken part now are allies and psy powers. Even super heavies are not too bad in practice.

There are more ways of breaking the game simply because there are way more options now.

 Gen.Steiner wrote:
When I want to play a good game of 40K, I play 4th, 5th or 2nd Edition. When I want to play at the local club, I go expecting a hideous annihilation as my poor old armies get slaughtered by ridiculous insanity.

Hey what's wrong with 3rd ed.?! Played a few 3rd ed. games with friends at the local GW on Saturday and some of the staff had never even seen 3rd ed. books.

As others have noted, the game is a complete disaster.

If you're playing in a small, tight knit circle of pals that are all willing to play with significant self-imposed restrictions with similar mindsets, then the game can sort of work.

If you're primarily a pickup game player, or looking at events like tournaments or leagues or the like, then the game just does not work. Even for "narrative" play, the game is awful as GW's concept of "narrative" largely boils down to "roll repeatedly on random tables" and doesn't extend much farther than that, and the game is both far too expensive and far too messy and complicated for a "Beer and Pretzels" game.

The game will basically allow you to play any combination of models from any combination of forces and has pre-built "formations" that give you extra bonuses, often including hundreds of points of free units and wargear, to encourage this. There's very little coherence to army building at this point despite it being one of the more complicated parts of the rules.

Even without some of the crazier options the game offers, like allies and superheavies and multiple detachments and formations, GW has dialed the power level up to 11, with things like D-weapon equipped Wraithguard or Eldar Jetbike Troops where every bike gets a Scatterlaser and Space Marine Centurion squads with 30 AP2 Grav shots a turn and large numbers of other such sillyness.

The rules are a mess, the FAQ's GW is currently working through create as many problems as they solve, and the cost has skyrocketed. The game fundamentally doesn't know what it wants to be so it's trying to be everything and is suffering mightily. It has rules details suited to RPG's or skirmish games, but wants to play with units and forces more suited to Epic 6mm scale.

 Vaktathi wrote:
There's very little coherence to army building at this point despite it being one of the more complicated parts of the rules.

I'm still sort of in awe of that. The fact that GW could make throwing rules out the window somehow more complicated and laborious. 7th ed army construction, from hell's heart I stab at thee.

GW could have written army design so simply...

"To form an army, you must either take a Formation (sometimes referred to as a detachment) or make an Unbound list. All armies have access to the Combined Arms formation and the Allied formation.

Combined Arms consists of (FoC) and grants troops choices ObSec. Limitations are that you may not exceed the table.

Allied consists of (AFoC). Benefits are... Restrictions are that this must be taken in addition to at least one other formation, and no model fro this formation may be taken as the Warlord.

If you are making an Unbound list, you may take any selection of units from any codex, and place them in the same army. This has no benefits or restrictions."

And then just delete all that heresy about allies' matrix.

I think a large part of the problem extends from that fact that GW does not understand that new editions of rules are not meant to be, HEY LETS REWRITE EVERYTHING! and should be more of, hey lets fix what was not working in the last editions and accommodate for the new gak we made.

Case in point Vehicles. Tanks and such worked fine in 5th ed, the only thing with it needing a bit of a tweak would be the issue rhinos had where you could not kill them. But then here comes HP and the disaster that is.

Mini rant

IMO GW or at least the last CEO had his head up his gak hole, and utterly destroyed the rules, the new guy seems to be trying to bring it back. Hell i play with one of the old guys, been in the hobby since it launched and even he told me i have to remember some times this game is not what it was 5 years ago. Back when you HAD to follow the CAD. Back when the only time you saw a formation was in Apoc games.

The problem is now, GW tried to accomodate all those people who wanted to use the super cool toys, IE Super heavy walkers, or GMC or MC, in the game, but did not want to either A) play an apoc because they did not want to make the army, or B) Did not want to pay for it. As a result we have standard games (2000 pts below imo) that can field D weapons, massive amounts of AP 2, and other shananaganeries.

If GW wants to fix it they need to change a few things, and even i admit this would effect me:
-Trim core rules down, like AoS
-Make formations cost extra points, like unit cost + 100 pts for the formation
-Get rid of the D on the field, or make it so its D-2.
-Pump the breaks on the amount of near infinite range AP 2 and 1 weapons.


Sorry mini rant over. I just get annoyed when GW tried to turn standard games into Apoc style games.

I'm having fun too, though with a small group of friends. Your experience will be, as with all multiplayer games, what your group makes it.

The game is fun at 1500 points or less, anything more I am finding to be way too much work.

AoS and 30k are actually more fun to play in my opinion....40k is just a hassle anymore, the rule creep is an issue just like it was at the end of 5th.

Some pros:
The armies are much more balanced then they ever were in 5th ed. You can pick from 3-4 really good armies, and like 6-7 decent armies and not go wrong. There are still "bad" armies, but that is not different then any other edition really.

To me it's the time/rule creep, when you cannot even finish 3 turns in a 2000 point game, something is very wrong with the game system.

Hrm, I would argue the scale of the gap between armies is even stronger than in previous editions. Eldar for example, while historically strong in almost every edition (except 5th where they didnt get a codex release), have not been as overwhelmingly powerful as they are now except maybe in 2E.

In 5E you could play the bottom rung armies much more capably. I was able to a least tread water with CSM's in 5E without Lash, but CSM's now without Daemon allies? Forget it