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7th vs 9th, which edition had the better core rules and which had the worse bloat?
7th had BETTER Core Rules. Bloat was BETTER than 9th. 14% [ 47 ]
7th had BETTER Core Rules. Bloat was EQUAL to 9th. 13% [ 43 ]
7th had BETTER Core Rules. Bloat was WORSE than 9th. 11% [ 37 ]
7th had EQUAL Core Rules. Bloat was BETTER than 9th. 2% [ 6 ]
7th had EQUAL Core Rules. Bloat was EQUAL to 9th. 4% [ 14 ]
7th had EQUAL Core Rules. Bloat was WORSE than 9th. 3% [ 9 ]
7th had Worse Core Rules. Bloat was BETTER than 9th. 9% [ 30 ]
7th had Worse Core Rules. Bloat was EQUAL to 9th. 9% [ 32 ]
7th had Worse Core Rules. Bloat was WORSE than 9th. 31% [ 103 ]
Other. 5% [ 16 ]
Total Votes : 337
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Made in gb
Freaky Flayed One





Crownworld Astilia

I was mulling this over and wanted to get a wider consensus on something that mainly stemmed from a recent discussion in another thread (I believe it was the 'State of 40k thread'). It seems like many people are turned off by what is commonly described as the increasing bloat in 9th Edition, however this is also commonly countered by the "at least it's better/not as bloated as 7th" card.

Is this actually true?

It's important to state I don't have any particular leg in this discussion as I've stepped away from the gaming aspect of the hobby for the time being but I've seen it come up often enough that I thought it might merit a focussed discussion in the form of 2 questions.

So firstly, which core ruleset was better to play with (i.e. the rules as presented in the BRB and Faction Codices only). Then, which had the worse "bloat" and by extension what is the differences in said "bloat" between 7th and 9th and why do some prefer one to the other?

With regards to 7th for the sake of consistency (even though it may not be fair) the comparison is between current 9th and the end of 7th. If anyone has a specific anecdote with regards to the timeline of bloat in 7th please feel free to share.


The Qarnakh Dynasty - Starting Again From scratch...Once again

 kirotheavenger wrote:
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Made in us
Powerful Pegasus Knight





The core rules were much better in 7th, but the codexes were TERRIBLY balanced. Aside from a few problems and outliers like invisibility I enjoyed the over all play experiences in 7th. An 8th edition that took those outliers into account probably would have been a much better long term game.

8th actually wasn't terrible in the index phase, but once codexes came out it became IMPOSSIBLE to know much of anything about how your opponents army plays without also reading their codex. 8th put almost all of the real game design in the codexes themselves.
   
Made in gb
Lord of the Fleet






London

There were issues with 7th but I think the main issue came from the actual codexes.

With 9th I'm finding I'm being rather put off by how wordy the rules are being, which I presume is to keep rules-lawyering to a minimum. With the reintroduction of books like Charadon, I'm wondering if it'll just be a repeat of 7th except more boring as most rules are now just "This does Mortal Wounds", or "This give you a 6+ FNP"
   
Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter







I wish to stress before I begin that 7th was absolutely a janky bloated mess. There were many things about the core rules and the Codexes that rendered bits of the game irrelevant (overly-generous Ignores Cover, the D table, bad hull point allocation), slowed play to a crawl (Look Out, Sir!, spammable blasts), or made the game too random (rolling for psychic powers known). There is a reason I play 30k or my own patched version of 7th rather than playing straight unmodified 7th.

That said 7th had for me a number of very key advantages over 8th/9th with regards to bloat:
-It was far, far better-organized. 8th/9th have chosen to shrink the core rules by taking all the stuff that would have been USRs or unit types in 7th and doing bespoke versions of them on every datasheet; while Codex 8th and 9th have gotten more consistent than Index 8th you still need to read every Codex to discover whether their version of (say) the Bike type is slightly different than yours. People can and do complain about USR bloat in 7th, and they're often right (you may notice 30k and my patched 7th both have very different USR lists than the original), but the existence of unit types and USRs made the game far more consistent and far easier to play, because you knew what your opponent's stuff could do without needing to memorize every Codex.
-It was much easier to eyeball the value of a unit from its own profile. If you're playing 8th/9th units are often powerful with a specific support stack and unplayable without it, which means if you want to understand an army/whether you should buy a given unit you need to understand the whole design space of possible support stacks available to the faction. This also has the effect of making units more or less playable depending on what colour you paint them. You may like the fact that you'll only ever see some units in one sub-faction. I don't.
-Proportionately way more of the stuff that mattered was the stuff on the table. Threats to my armour in 7th/30k look like threats to my armour; they're big monsters, or packing recognizable anti-armour guns, or fast people with meltabombs. In 8th/9th a threat to my armour could look like anything; if you're lucky enough to be in a faction with extreme enough buff stacks basic rifles, anti-infantry grenades, and dudes with knives are all capable of taking down Knights. The bloat has moved off the table and the minis have become less relevant as a result.
-8th/9th's efforts to 'simplify' the core rules have often made the game worse by ignoring the consequences of simplification. The loss of vehicle facings has made maneuver and positioning way less relevant, and left fast shooty units (Vyper, Land Speeder, Piranha, etc.) with no role. Antenna-to-antenna line of sight has made modeling-for-advantage arguments much stupider and provided a game incentive for less cool-looking models. The loss of scatter and Reserves rolls has completely removed the downsides to Deep Strike, and turned it into an invincible automatic alpha-strike trick. The unified profiles and the loss of blasts has made anti-infantry weapons incredibly efficient anti-armour, and entrenched the spammable anti-everything gun as a fact of life. Many of these problems absolutely existed in 7th. Hull points made spammable mid-Str better AT than the real AT, proliferation of vehicle INVs and equal front/side armour hurt maneuver, and there were Drop Pods. 8th/9th have made all of these worse, however, by trying to simplify the rules without considering the consequences of doing so.

Balanced Game: Noun. A game in which all options and choices are worth using.
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7th rules were fine. In fact 7th was perfect if you just removed 2 super OP powers and Characters joing squads en mass.

It had some OP army builds. But those were actually kinda fun just implemented poorly.

9th is straight garbage. Stratagems are unbalanced beyond reason. Units have WAY too many free rules. Toughness and strength ratios are way off. Way too many invune saves. Not to mention - the game has never had such terrible cross eddition rules (we are playing with basically 3 edditions rules right now) 8th/8.5/9th - all had different power levels of balance.

If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka




NE Ohio, USA

Other.
I didn't play 7th. (I'm told I did. That I played 1 game. But I had no idea the edition had flipped, nobody realized I was using the previous codex, & there was apparently no rules conflicts....)

What I noticed upon returning to 8th in fall 2018?
1) The rules had been simplified to the point a toddler could manage. And the overall community heralded this super simplified abstraction as the best thing evvaar.
2) how many GD re-rolls do you all need?

Evidently in the 6 or so years I'd largely been away this game had become the refuge for people who licked lead minis & now found the concept of left/right etc "too complicated". And evidently they couldn't handle missing....
Yet the same people who can't manage L/R can somehow grok 10k strats etc.

Core rules? Worse.

Bloat? Same as always pretty much. Though it's very annoying that in order to run my SW I now need two codex books vs just one. Sure, I get it from a sales/Co. PoV. I don't get the love for that community wise (but what should I expect from people who can't handle the concepts of Left%Right....)

Community? Outside my own circles it seems to have degraded.
   
Made in us
Twisting Tzeentch Horror





I said this in another thread, but I think 9th, despite its problems, is the best rule set. Now, could you take the rules from 3-7th (aka vehicle facings, armor value, blasts etc.) and refine them to make a better game than any of those editions or 9th? Especially if you assume GW would give it the same support for FAQ, points reviews, speedy codex releases as 8th and 9th? I think you could.

However a one to one comparison, 7th was a hot mess. It almost made me quit the hobby (I actually didn't play the second half of 7th which was worse I hear). Also I think the rules from 3-7th are not very well suited to larger Lord of War models and Flyers were always a mess. The D weapon fix for the strength cap was ok in Apoc games, but when put into the main rules it was ridiculously powerful. Also, all those more detailed rules for vehicles, blasts etc. were really meant for small games. I mean in 3rd edition, a 1500 point game was pretty standard and 2000 was considered a big game. It wasn't until 6th edition that you really even saw regular 1750 or 1850 games.

I actually like the clarity of the rules in 9th. They are more wordy, but I also don't like having multiple discussions during a game as to how a rule works. Again, part of the issue for 7th is GW didn't do speedy FAQs etc, so maybe if they did it would have helped. Finally, didn't a lot of people complain that 8th was to simple and not detailed enough, then GW adds some layers, and now it is rules bloat? And again if the "rules bloat" is about having multiple FAQs, points changes, etc., I would much rather have mulitiple sources of rules then go back to when stuff would be broken for years on end. Just my thoughts on the matter.
   
Made in es
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain




Vigo. Spain.

I really believe most people that complaints about the complexity of 8th and 9th spends more time in the forums complaining than actually playing the game. And the game looks more complex, bloated and cumberstone to them because they just don't play it or played it much less than older editions they are much more used too. And this is clear as someone that played a TON of 8th edition from start to finish, when they praise the Index as any kind of "superior" form of warhammer. I mean. They were neat, for the time. They were the worst state of 8th just superseeded by 8.5 Iron Hands.

I was never capable of playing 6th or 7th edition. The amount of cross referencing between books was enormous, I had no fething idea what any unit did because all the rules were in the rulebook or in other parts of the codex, all the weapons had profiles composed of numbers and rules i had to look in the rulebook, the rules for each small thing were extremely complicated and full of diagrams, I didn't even knew how much any unit moved without looking at the general rulebook, looking the 12 pages about movement, and then looking for all the special rules about movement the unit had.

With 8th, I teached how to play warhammer to 8 friends using TTS, and 6 of them never played a wargame before. I needed just two tutorials to teach the,.

The first one was a 4vs4 game. I told them to use the Warhammer COmmunity roster creator, chose the faction they liked, and pick a 10 PL army composed of 1 HQ, 1 troop, and whatever they could take with the rest PL. In that first game they had a blast and we used the normal unit rules and basic rules.

The second tutorial we used a couple stratagems, the subfaction rules of their faction, a WL, and a Relic. They also had a blast, and boom. They were ready to play.

We jumped to play a narrative campaing and now 6 of those friends have bought physical miniatures and are playing in their stores.


When you put all the rules written in "OMG LOOK AT HOW MANY BUFFS A REPENTIA CAN HAVE" it looks worse than what it really is playing. Is like trying to teach, in written form, all the rules of football. Just take the ball and start kicking it, man. It is not that difficult once you are on the game.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/06/04 16:25:24


 Crimson Devil wrote:

Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.

ERJAK wrote:
Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.

 
   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






Core rules for 7th were fine, but the core rules for 9th are perfect for me, I don't remember licking any lead paint, but I have a poor memory so I cannot rule it out.

When I re-did most of the codexes for my group I re-structured things down to 1 source, but even when playing the real 7th edition I feel like supplements were rare, some armies had them, most did not. Now, it's the rule rather than the exception that you have a supplement. You don't just need a supplement to do something weird and out there, you need it to start to play.

The Baal Necron formations were meh, some were decent options but none were mandatory to play the game in the same way that Ritual of the Damned is necessary to play GK because you get free always-on rules. If it was just Specialist Detachments like in 8th then there'd be an argument.

7th edition Formations was basically just a different way of handing out chapter tactics and combat doctrines, but there were no Stratagems. So more bloat today.

Stuff like having unique wording for every deep strike ability is also a kind of bloat, you probably index it in your head as deep strike the same way I do, because otherwise it'd be impossible to remember.

@Galas you didn't teach them the game, you taught them the basics of the game, because teaching the whole game all at once is impossible because there are dozens of Stratagems for every faction. You didn't tell your friends to go look up all their Stratagems, WL traits and everything because that is what is making the game bloated. You were essentially teaching them Index 40k. I have taught a good number of people 8th, I know how easy that is, way better for getting people into the game because the bloat is easy to leave out. But stepping on from learning the game to knowing the game is difficult and between those two is a lot of studying or getting gotcha'd.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/04 16:32:53


 
   
Made in au
Owns Whole Set of Skullz Techpriests






Versteckt in den Schatten deines Geistes.

7th had better core rules, and the bloat is worse in 8th/9th.

Note: This does not make 7th better. 7th was an cluster feth of epic proportions. Virtually unplayable thanks to the Codices.

But it wasn't a layed omnishambles like 9th is now, which started with all the bloat.

Industrial Insanity - My Terrain Blog
"GW really needs to understand 'Less is more' when it comes to AoS." - Wha-Mu-077

 
   
Made in us
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 Xenomancers wrote:
7th rules were fine. In fact 7th was perfect if you just removed 2 super OP powers and Characters joing squads en mass.

It had some OP army builds. But those were actually kinda fun just implemented poorly.

9th is straight garbage. Stratagems are unbalanced beyond reason. Units have WAY too many free rules. Toughness and strength ratios are way off. Way too many invune saves. Not to mention - the game has never had such terrible cross eddition rules (we are playing with basically 3 edditions rules right now) 8th/8.5/9th - all had different power levels of balance.


I mean I like 7th far more than 8th/9th but I don't think 7th was anywhere near close to perfect. It had a lot of smaller issues that could compound into bigger issues.

7th needed some bloat trim in it's BRB and desperately needed a balance pass to close some exploits and refine some things like the psychic phase to not become broken because somebody spams psykers. That said its core rules allowed for gameplay depth and made the game have a lot more going on than just move, shoot, stab, die.

The codexes on the other hand are the primary source for a lot of the woes of the 7th edition timeline as things started off kinda weak (Orks and Dark Eldar being very punishing for the actual armies themselves and less so for the opponent). Eventually the Necron codex introduced the Decurion detachment which basically showcased the new design doctrine that GW went with for the rest of the edition which was MASSIVE POWER CREEP AND STACKING BONUSES. By the end of 7th it was a massive arms race of OP formations with OP detachment bonuses doing crazy crap against each other while the early 7th and stuck on 6th edition codexes where heavily outclassed. Again this is a codex problem far more than a core ruleset issue.

7th (and most past editions) was basically fire and forget for GW as they never really attempted to balance patch things so once a glaring weakness was found in the rules we where stuck with it. 7th certainly had a some big issues with certain rules that could of easily been fixed with a patch (invis, rerolling 2+ saves, lack of perils when throwing 20+ deny the witch dice at a single cast, certain USRs potentially not being intended as being shared with the entire unit, attaching independent characters to other battle brother faction units) but GW didn't operate in such a way so none of the wrinkles could of been ironed out. "Best" we got was the big FAQ which was a staggering level of incompetency and really highlighted just how bad at game balance GW was/is.

I will say that formations where 20% broken OP mess but the other 80% contained a lot of fluffy ways to field and play your armies which actually had some cool gameplay mechanics going on. A lot of times these got ignored because it wasn't as strong as the OP gak like Riptide Wing which is a shame as it really changed how parts of your army could function (unlike the uninspired stratagems that do dumb crap like +1 to wound or attack twice... hurray )

I say all of this after playing more of 7th after being fed up with 8th being a boring slog and 9th doing next to nothing to address the things I desperately wanted from the game. 7th for me was and still is fun and that is coming from somebody who played Orks the most in 7th (arguably one of the bottom 3 codexes in the game). It took a lot of organization to ensure a fair fight. The codexes made it so you had to do some preliminary work to come up with a roughly fair matchup but when a fairly even matchup was established then the games would be a blast to play (unlike 8th/9th dreadfully boring gameplay loop).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/04 16:48:53


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Made in es
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Vigo. Spain.

Now I'll say crap like the Book of Rust is horrible and it can burn


 vict0988 wrote:


@Galas you didn't teach them the game, you taught them the basics of the game, because teaching the whole game all at once is impossible because there are dozens of Stratagems for every faction. You didn't tell your friends to go look up all their Stratagems, WL traits and everything because that is what is making the game bloated. You were essentially teaching them Index 40k. I have taught a good number of people 8th, I know how easy that is, way better for getting people into the game because the bloat is easy to leave out. But stepping on from learning the game to knowing the game is difficult and between those two is a lot of studying or getting gotcha'd.



I'm sorry but I disagree. Learning is an organic experience were we learn more as we are using them and need them. Is stupid to teach any kind of game, not just wargame, explaining a new player literally ALL the options and interactions and rules of a game. We humans don't work like that. They learned what are stratagems, what are relics and warlords games ,and how to use them. Once they know how the rules work, they'll learn all the options organically by using them.

Making a arbitrary definition of what "teaching" a game is to arguee that one can't learn proper 40k because for that you need to INSTANTLY FROM THE GET GO KNOW ALL THE RULES OF THE GAME doesn't make any sense.

You are gonna get gotcha'd as a new player virtually anywhere, because theres always rules, combos, tactics, or movements even in sport fighting of stuff you don't know until you experience it. Thats natural. And I'm not defending warhammer as some kind of good or clever game, but critizism should be reasonable and realistic, and I cannot take seriously most people that critizise warhammer by comparing it with itself but in older editions because if theres a constant is how horrible GW rules writting for 40k and fantasy have always been. They just change the form in how horrible they are. The changes in quality are so horizontal than one can hardly call some renditions better or worse.

And I'll say that is totally fine to not like a edition. I stopped enyojing AoS so I jumped to other games, for example. And TBH, I liked the games of 4th I played, if I don't play it more is because my armies lack 60% of my collection of units or they just don't exist like custods.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/06/04 17:05:09


 Crimson Devil wrote:

Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.

ERJAK wrote:
Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.

 
   
Made in us
Omnipotent Necron Overlord






 Vankraken wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
7th rules were fine. In fact 7th was perfect if you just removed 2 super OP powers and Characters joing squads en mass.

It had some OP army builds. But those were actually kinda fun just implemented poorly.

9th is straight garbage. Stratagems are unbalanced beyond reason. Units have WAY too many free rules. Toughness and strength ratios are way off. Way too many invune saves. Not to mention - the game has never had such terrible cross eddition rules (we are playing with basically 3 edditions rules right now) 8th/8.5/9th - all had different power levels of balance.


I mean I like 7th far more than 8th/9th but I don't think 7th was anywhere near close to perfect. It had a lot of smaller issues that could compound into bigger issues.

7th needed some bloat trim in it's BRB and desperately needed a balance pass to close some exploits and refine some things like the psychic phase to not become broken because somebody spams psykers. That said its core rules allowed for gameplay depth and made the game have a lot more going on than just move, shoot, stab, die.

The codexes on the other hand are the primary source for a lot of the woes of the 7th edition timeline as things started off kinda weak (Orks and Dark Eldar being very punishing for the actual armies themselves and less so for the opponent). Eventually the Necron codex introduced the Decurion detachment which basically showcased the new design doctrine that GW went with for the rest of the edition which was MASSIVE POWER CREEP AND STACKING BONUSES. By the end of 7th it was a massive arms race of OP formations with OP detachment bonuses doing crazy crap against each other while the early 7th and stuck on 6th edition codexes where heavily outclassed. Again this is a codex problem far more than a core ruleset issue.

7th (and most past editions) was basically fire and forget for GW as they never really attempted to balance patch things so once a glaring weakness was found in the rules we where stuck with it. 7th certainly had a some big issues with certain rules that could of easily been fixed with a patch (invis, rerolling 2+ saves, lack of perils when throwing 20+ deny the witch dice at a single cast, certain USRs potentially not being intended as being shared with the entire unit, attaching independent characters to other battle brother faction units) but GW didn't operate in such a way so none of the wrinkles could of been ironed out. "Best" we got was the big FAQ which was a staggering level of incompetency and really highlighted just how bad at game balance GW was/is.

I will say that formations where 20% broken OP mess but the other 80% contained a lot of fluffy ways to field and play your armies which actually had some cool gameplay mechanics going on. A lot of times these got ignored because it wasn't as strong as the OP gak like Riptide Wing which is a shame as it really changed how parts of your army could function (unlike the uninspired stratagems that do dumb crap like +1 to wound or attack twice... hurray )

I say all of this after playing more of 7th after being fed up with 8th being a boring slog and 9th doing next to nothing to address the things I desperately wanted from the game. 7th for me was and still is fun and that is coming from somebody who played Orks the most in 7th (arguably one of the bottom 3 codexes in the game). It took a lot of organization to ensure a fair fight. The codexes made it so you had to do some preliminary work to come up with a roughly fair matchup but when a fairly even matchup was established then the games would be a blast to play (unlike 8th/9th dreadfully boring gameplay loop).

I think overall the formations were cool but not implemented well - balance wise. They were enjoyable though. No version of this game had perfect balance. I just liked the way the game played most out of all the editions.

If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder 
   
Made in us
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 Vankraken wrote:
...I will say that formations where 20% broken OP mess but the other 80% contained a lot of fluffy ways to field and play your armies which actually had some cool gameplay mechanics going on. A lot of times these got ignored because it wasn't as strong as the OP gak like Riptide Wing which is a shame as it really changed how parts of your army could function (unlike the uninspired stratagems that do dumb crap like +1 to wound or attack twice... hurray )...


Rites of War in 30k read to me like what formations always ought to have been. You get one (two, if you're playing a big enough game and took a Master of the Legion for your allied detachment), they sometimes modify what goes in what slot but don't offer as much of the "spam the stuff that you were taking anyway more efficiently" mess lots of the 7e formations did, and they have downsides/restrictions so they feel a lot fairer and fluffier.

Balanced Game: Noun. A game in which all options and choices are worth using.
Homebrew oldhammer project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/790996.page#10896267
Meridian: Necromunda-based 40k skirmish: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/795374.page 
   
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 Galas wrote:
I really believe most people that complaints about the complexity...


No, stop. The game isn't complex. Its INCREDIBLY shallow and simple, which is a lot of the problem. Its simple rule stacked upon simple rule and figuring it all out is dull because none of it results in any meaningful gameplay. Its all just in the name of killing some dudes better than the other guy can.

Warmahordes(Mk2 at least) is all about utilising lots of interacting rules (unit rules, unit attachments, solos, warcaster spells/upkeeps/feats etc) with different effects (opponent debuff, unit buff, combined attacks, knockdown, charge range modifiers etc) and it leads to a great decision making process because its rewarding to pull off a great turn. One of my favourite warcasters to play orientated around using my whole army to set up one all or nothing move. Alternatively you could use her to control the board state and play a long game because there was a depth there.

40k has none of that its just a race to see who can kill the most guys first so they can control the objectives easier. Its why I quit playing in 7th and 9th. The game was dull and an effort to play. I enjoyed the social interaction far more than the game, so I played games that gave me both.


 
   
Made in es
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain




Vigo. Spain.

 Sim-Life wrote:
 Galas wrote:
I really believe most people that complaints about the complexity...


No, stop. The game isn't complex. Its INCREDIBLY shallow and simple, which is a lot of the problem. Its simple rule stacked upon simple rule and figuring it all out is dull because none of it results in any meaningful gameplay. Its all just in the name of killing some dudes better than the other guy can.


I'll arguee warhammer is very complex and complicated. But it is not a deep game.

I dislike games like Warmahordes. And TBH, a little of modern warhammer, because they are games. The options and "tactics" don't are tactics born of any kind of coherence but about the interactions of the gamey rules of the game. Thats why I never liked warmahordes.

MESBG in the other hand, having streamlined and simple rules, works in a way where you play around proper tactics, and you make natural formations that work much better than anything in old fantasy. Spearwalls work as you expect, cavalry is very satisfactory to use. Yeah you have some "game" mechanics like heroic actions but those add a little spice and resource management.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/04 17:24:21


 Crimson Devil wrote:

Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.

ERJAK wrote:
Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.

 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






Comparing 7th- to 8th+ (which I'll be using in this broad strokes comparison to refer to the 7th and earlier (well, third to seventh ed really) paradigm vs the 8th-9th paradigm) I do have to say the core rules of 8th+ I drastically prefer but the current state of bloat in 9th is fairly dire and possibly on par with the state of bloat in late 7th.

My problems with 7th- can be mostly summed up by it being, overall, a binary, "brittle" wargame system, where the fact that it was a 'bucket of d6s' structure was undermined by the fact that nearly every rule structure was a binary yes/no state.

For any given model, the differene in one single point of AP resulted in either getting your full value from your save stat, or zero value.

For most given models, the difference in one single point of strength resulted in either getting your full value from your Wounds stat, or zero value.

One special rule resulted in the total mitigation of the Morale system

One special rule resulted in the total mitigation of the Cover system.

One roll-off at the end of combat (unless morale was mitigated, which was common) resulted in the complete, utter destruction of one of the two fighting units.

Snap Shots meant that a number of conditions would result in you getting absolutely zero value out of the points you paid for your model's ballistic skill, and charging into terrain/unwieldy meant you got zero value for the points you paid for your model's Initiative stat.

For most of 7th-, one roll on a table determined whether a penetrating hit resulted in the instantaneous destruction of a vehicle model, or whether a penetrating hit had nearly no effect.

That's looking at the core system of rules, but when you look at the specifics, it got even worse with how binary it was. Multiwound infantry was few and far between, so a single 1 on a save would result in the death of a whole ass Terminator. And most vehicles except for the very toughest had a rear armor value of 10, which meant in many editions of 7th-, coming into any kind of close combat contact resulted in the person controlling the vehicle getting zero value out of the points they paid for having higher armor values.

8th+ features a much smoother curve of effectiveness in the power of both weaponry and defenses. No longer do you end up in the situation where an AP4 pie plate landing on a squad of marines kills less than 1/3 while an AP3 pie plate landing on them will very commonly obliterate the entire squad. Damage occurs in a way that I think is more intuitively familiar to the modern nerdy person who has played a lot of video games, where things have a 'health bar' that goes down linearly and the unit dies when it loses its last wound, rather than the more old-school wargame structure where it's very common for an attack to either fail entirely, or the target is completely destroyed. The only real mechanic that cleaves to that in 8th+ is mortal wounds, which surprise surprise, appear to be something of a "Feels Bad" feature to many players.

Now, onto the bloat of the two systems.

9th has, in my opinion, approximately equivalent levels of bloat to 7th. It takes about an equivalent level of mental real estate to track the major stratagems, subfactions, and capabilities of units as it did for me in 7th to follow along with formations decurions supplements etc.

The reason I prefer the bloat of 9th to the bloat of 7th is, to me, it feels more siloed.

In 7th any psyker model would have access to typically at least 3-4 different power lists, listbuilding structure could result in various identical units having very wildly distinct power levels and special abilities that drastically changed their functionality, and I could only really stay on top of it by being very intimately involved in the meta.

Currently, I know...next to nothing about many factions in the game, and I regularly play against them. I had a game recently against the new death guard stuff, and with just a quick couple of warnings about the capabilities of my opponent's central units, I was able to go in fairly blind and have a perfectly good time.

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in us
Damsel of the Lady




9th is a better ruleset than 7th (and I enjoyed 7th).

I find 'rules bloat' in 9th is only really an issue if you're playing Chaos soup of some kind. For my Custodes, I just need the Custodes, I can include Psychic Awakening if I want those goodies, and the GT booklet (since the rules are in there too). Pretty easy (especially since they're digital).

For my DEldar it's a little more annoying since they're not digital, but still, it's Codex + Booklet mandatory and optional supplement if I want to use Cult of Strife goodies. Not a big deal.

Most factions are in similar boats. Soup is where the bloat is. If I want to run DEldar + Ynnari soup, I need to add in a Psychic Awakening. Add in Craftworld Eldar Codex too if I'm really souping. If I'm Imperial and I want an Inquisitor/Assassin or an Imperial Knight allied in, that's even more books.

Soup. Soup is what gives you bloat. Rules for mono-faction are helping to make it so people who don't want to deal with bloat don't have to soup and that helps quite a bit.

*I don't consider the FAQ's bloat. Just about every boardgame has FAQ's. The Munitorum book is only used for list building and does not need to accompany for actual play.
   
Made in es
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain




Vigo. Spain.

I'll also say that most people is vastly overvaluing how knowing the specific stratagems your opponent has access ingame affects the outcome of the battle.

For example, I'll ask my opponent stuff like "Do you have a stratagem to shoot me when I enter from deepstrike?" or "Can you retreat and shoot and then charge?"

But all the +1 to wound, reroll X, mortal wounds, etc... stratagems all come down to the same thing: I know, If I left a unit exposed , it is gonna die. Maybe I don't know exactly how, but when we play we aren't doing mental calculus (In most cases), like "IF I EXPOSE THIS THEN MY OPPONENT WILL LACK THE FIREPOWER BECAUSE 30 SHOTS AT 3+ REROLLING WOUNDS AVERAGES..."


In a game, I exposed a DG drone to a squad of celestials with a multimelta and a cannoness nearvy. I knew that DG wasn't gonna survive one turn in the oppen agaisnt my opponen list.

I didn't know he had a stratagem that made celestials reroll all to hit and all to wounds rolls, and a stratagem that gave them +1 to wound for having a flamer, melta and bolter. But did it really mattered or changed the outcome? I made a risky play with my drone, it didn't go well for me, and I knew it was gonna die. I would have played exactly the same knowing my opponent had those two stratagems.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.

ERJAK wrote:
Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.

 
   
Made in us
Depraved Slaanesh Chaos Lord




Inside Yvraine

7th had the worst ruleset in this game's history and trying to use the 7e codices as a scapegoat is laughable because all the BS in those books were only possible due to the core ruleset.

The potency of the psychic powers was awful. The USR system was trash. Vehicle system was clunky, templates were clunky, shooting was way too powerful. Formations were a terrible idea, summoning was a terrible idea. Don't miss it at all.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/04 18:44:24


 
   
Made in us
Pious Palatine




 Mixzremixzd wrote:
I was mulling this over and wanted to get a wider consensus on something that mainly stemmed from a recent discussion in another thread (I believe it was the 'State of 40k thread'). It seems like many people are turned off by what is commonly described as the increasing bloat in 9th Edition, however this is also commonly countered by the "at least it's better/not as bloated as 7th" card.

Is this actually true?

It's important to state I don't have any particular leg in this discussion as I've stepped away from the gaming aspect of the hobby for the time being but I've seen it come up often enough that I thought it might merit a focussed discussion in the form of 2 questions.

So firstly, which core ruleset was better to play with (i.e. the rules as presented in the BRB and Faction Codices only). Then, which had the worse "bloat" and by extension what is the differences in said "bloat" between 7th and 9th and why do some prefer one to the other?

With regards to 7th for the sake of consistency (even though it may not be fair) the comparison is between current 9th and the end of 7th. If anyone has a specific anecdote with regards to the timeline of bloat in 7th please feel free to share.


7th was a nightmare in every way a game can become a nightmare. Not only was the power level so bullgak that it would make pre-nerf Ironhands blush, just about every unit you could come across would require a dozen different codexes and supplements in addition to the 300 page core rules to know anything about what they did.

People complain about rules bloat because you have to know a handful of stratagems and army special rules per faction, completely ignoring the fact that in 7th edition just moving a model into terrain required memorizing THIRTY-FIVE pages of rules.

7th's CORE rules were more bloated than 9th all together.


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




I honestly don't understand the point of this thread. Is 9th better or worse on several axes than the worst edition the game ever saw? Talk about a low bar...
   
Made in us
Pious Palatine




 Sim-Life wrote:
 Galas wrote:
I really believe most people that complaints about the complexity...


No, stop. The game isn't complex. Its INCREDIBLY shallow and simple, which is a lot of the problem. Its simple rule stacked upon simple rule and figuring it all out is dull because none of it results in any meaningful gameplay. Its all just in the name of killing some dudes better than the other guy can.

Warmahordes(Mk2 at least) is all about utilising lots of interacting rules (unit rules, unit attachments, solos, warcaster spells/upkeeps/feats etc) with different effects (opponent debuff, unit buff, combined attacks, knockdown, charge range modifiers etc) and it leads to a great decision making process because its rewarding to pull off a great turn. One of my favourite warcasters to play orientated around using my whole army to set up one all or nothing move. Alternatively you could use her to control the board state and play a long game because there was a depth there.

40k has none of that its just a race to see who can kill the most guys first so they can control the objectives easier. Its why I quit playing in 7th and 9th. The game was dull and an effort to play. I enjoyed the social interaction far more than the game, so I played games that gave me both.


Warmahordes isn't anymore tactical or complex than 40k is, it just hides it's 'l337 haxors mega combos' behind 500 pages of rules and games being 60% lining things up with a laser pointer.

It's like the original Demon Souls. It was incredibly difficult and punishing because that was the only way to hide the fact that it was about a 2 hour game otherwise.


 
   
Made in us
Omnipotent Necron Overlord






 BlaxicanX wrote:
7th had the worst ruleset in this game's history and trying to use the 7e codices as a scapegoat is laughable because all the BS in those books were only possible due to the core ruleset.

The potency of the psychic powers was awful. The USR system was trash. Vehicle system was clunky, templates were clunky, shooting was way too powerful. Formations were a terrible idea, summoning was a terrible idea. Don't miss it at all.

So you prefer stratagems that let units shoot twice...every army getting formation bonuses for free entirely in the form of "doctrines' / "imperatives" ect?


If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder 
   
Made in gb
Freaky Flayed One





Crownworld Astilia

yukishiro1 wrote:
I honestly don't understand the point of this thread. Is 9th better or worse on several axes than the worst edition the game ever saw? Talk about a low bar...


Well I like polls and quantitative data sets

But on a more serious note, the only agenda I had behind the thread was really for the sets of people that complain about 9th bloat and 7th being a better ruleset to hopefully articulate themselves better.


The Qarnakh Dynasty - Starting Again From scratch...Once again

 kirotheavenger wrote:
People like straws, and they're not willing to give any up even as the camel begins to buckle.
 
   
Made in de
Contagious Dreadnought of Nurgle





In 7th the bloat was already in the Core rules (vehicle rules, unit types, not-so-universal special rules, useless stats like WS and Initiative, terrible psychic phase etc.) and it got only more messed up with formations.
In 9th... Bloat is in some DLC books you don't even need to play (book of rust, tournament books).
   
Made in us
Quick-fingered Warlord Moderatus




I feel like I've never met someone IRL who actually thought 7th had anything going for it at all (cue everyone who says "Once you eliminate these 5 codices, cut those 15 pages from the BRB, dissalow these 13 units, cancel these 4 powers, prevent these 19 combos, and pretty much FAQ everything, 7th isn't half bad). It ended two different game stores in my area and almost ended 40k. Even the core rules were ... rough. Agree that the codices made it 10x's worse, but they wouldn't have been able to do that if the core rules were not deeply flawed to being with. It was the very height of the "roll this many dice to see how many dice you roll" type of mechanics, and I'll never understand anyone who felt it was "organized". Right - ok, my character has "Chaotic Death Spasms of His Holy Light", lemme just look that up in the ol' USR sect ... right, that's 12 pages long ... one second here .... ok - I see it grants .... 8 other USRs .... Ok, so um, one sec here, .... etc etc. NO F'ING WAY. And don't even get me started on codex organization ....

It was pure drek. Start to finish.

9th has it's warts to be sure, but I still maintain the only reason anyone liked 8th was because it came immediately after 7th. 7th was just that bad. So, so bad ....

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/06/04 19:34:29


Edit: I just googled ablutions and apparently it does not including dropping a duece. I should have looked it up early sorry for any confusion. - Baldsmug

Psiensis on the "good old days":
"Kids these days...
... I invented the 6th Ed meta back in 3rd ed.
Wait, what were we talking about again? Did I ever tell you about the time I gave you five bees for a quarter? That's what you'd say in those days, "give me five bees for a quarter", is what you'd say in those days. And you'd go down to the D&D shop, with an onion in your belt, 'cause that was the style of the time. So there I was in the D&D shop..." 
   
Made in ie
Battleship Captain





ERJAK wrote:
 Sim-Life wrote:
 Galas wrote:
I really believe most people that complaints about the complexity...


No, stop. The game isn't complex. Its INCREDIBLY shallow and simple, which is a lot of the problem. Its simple rule stacked upon simple rule and figuring it all out is dull because none of it results in any meaningful gameplay. Its all just in the name of killing some dudes better than the other guy can.

Warmahordes(Mk2 at least) is all about utilising lots of interacting rules (unit rules, unit attachments, solos, warcaster spells/upkeeps/feats etc) with different effects (opponent debuff, unit buff, combined attacks, knockdown, charge range modifiers etc) and it leads to a great decision making process because its rewarding to pull off a great turn. One of my favourite warcasters to play orientated around using my whole army to set up one all or nothing move. Alternatively you could use her to control the board state and play a long game because there was a depth there.

40k has none of that its just a race to see who can kill the most guys first so they can control the objectives easier. Its why I quit playing in 7th and 9th. The game was dull and an effort to play. I enjoyed the social interaction far more than the game, so I played games that gave me both.


Warmahordes isn't anymore tactical or complex than 40k is, it just hides it's 'l337 haxors mega combos' behind 500 pages of rules and games being 60% lining things up with a laser pointer.

It's like the original Demon Souls. It was incredibly difficult and punishing because that was the only way to hide the fact that it was about a 2 hour game otherwise.


Hyperbole is always a good way to make yourself look super clever.


 
   
Made in us
Powerful Pegasus Knight





If I want to play a local pick up game I'd need

#1 the main rules
#2 my codex
#3 my psychic awakening book to even think about being competitive
#4 the current FAQ's
#5 the current chapter approved book

That is bloat off the scales.
I don't see how people can think this is acceptable.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/04 19:36:39


 
   
Made in us
Quick-fingered Warlord Moderatus




If I want to play a local pick up game I'd need

#1 the main rules
#2 my codex
#3 my psychic awakening book to even think about being competitive
#4 the current FAQ's
#5 the current chapter approved book

That is bloat off the scales.


In 7th you would have needed that plus several weekly White Dwarfs. The bloat IS bad right now, but it's still better than it was ....

Edit: I just googled ablutions and apparently it does not including dropping a duece. I should have looked it up early sorry for any confusion. - Baldsmug

Psiensis on the "good old days":
"Kids these days...
... I invented the 6th Ed meta back in 3rd ed.
Wait, what were we talking about again? Did I ever tell you about the time I gave you five bees for a quarter? That's what you'd say in those days, "give me five bees for a quarter", is what you'd say in those days. And you'd go down to the D&D shop, with an onion in your belt, 'cause that was the style of the time. So there I was in the D&D shop..." 
   
 
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