So this is a rant, if you don't like reading monotonous rants kindly ignore this post, but I felt like I had to stress some points and ask for feedback from the community - especially from others who have switched from 5th to 6th edition and how they feel about the points below; I've spent some time dabbling with 6th and got some games in, and the only thing that I really like about the new edition are the warlord traits, the various special rules concerning things on the battlefield itself (terrain, rivers, forests, ammo dumps etc.), more standard missions than 5th edition had (6 vs. 3) and the secondary battlefield objectives.

Primarily, the following things make 6th edition a real mess for me:

1) Allies. The whole unfluffy chart (Grey Knights allying with Necrons, Black Templars with Eldar...), not to mention the ridiculous combos you can field, such as Space Marine armies backed up by 9 xv-88 broadside battlesuits with high-yield missile pods and skyfire, or Imperial Guard adding an Eldar Avatar as secondary HQ to tear up the enemy in close combat and whatnot. No thanks. There are some combos that make sense, like Eldar and Tau or IG and Space Marines, but you could technically already field these in 5th edition, you merely had to take 2 Force Organization Charts. Compared to 6th, that would mean 1 more troops choice and the permission of your opponent.

2) Psychic disciplines. Fluffwise, I liked how in 5th edition each psyker had his own set of powers that made sense. Now, in addition to that psykers can specialise all across the board, and you have those cards cluttering your table. Also, the fact that you have to roll for, and receive random psychic powers doesn't sit with me. It makes the game less tactical and more luck oriented.

3) The whole "buy your own terrain and bring it to the battlefield" concept. Oh and no, not just any terrain. That godawful looking aegis defence line is selling like hotcakes now because of the new rules.

4) Flyers. In 5th edition, as fast skimmers, they were already balanced. Now they got boosted to kingdom come just because GW wants them to sell. Remember when in the Necron codex, the Night Scythe and the Ghost Ark were competing with each other, but the latter only slightly winning because of its regenerative capacity? Well it's pretty one sided now, isn't it?

5) Speaking of one-sided, the rule that irks me most is the fact that rapid-fire weapons are now completely overpowered, rendering assault weapons useless ("but you can still assault with them" *slow clap*). Now you can move 6" and fire a bolter to its full range? That makes Dire Avengers useless. It also means that as a Tau player, I can spam Firewarriors and have them either advance, effectively having a 36" threat range (akin to costlier, stationary snipers!), or retreat and keep firing, denying advancing Space Marines or Guard to even get off a single shot, while they are being mowed down in turn. In 5th edition if I ran back with Tau Warriors I could only shoot at upto 6" from where I originally stood, while now it is 24". It just breaks the game and it doesn't surprise me that too many 12 year olds with their ultramarine armies were whining that their super soldiers cant shoot their guns at the enemy's face when they moved, so Mama GW fixed it for them.

6) The new ruling on power weapons. The fact that regular power weapons now only work upto and including AP3 means Terminators got that much of a boost. Back in 5th, Eldar Banshees (and regular Grey Knights and their Death Cult Assassins) were a unit to be feared. In 6th, Banshees are cannon fodder - T3, 4+ save, costs as much as a marine, occupies an Elite slot, needs a transport to be effective - all these weaknesses were remedied in 5th in that they could jump out of a stationary transport, move, fleet, assault and tear up a terminator squad in close combat, given they get to strike first and the termies have to rely on their measly 5+ inv. save to survive. The Banshees still need 5s to wound T4 enemies though, but they usually managed to do this with their plethora of attacks. Now in 6th, their power weapons are about as effective as a bunch of guardsmen in close comat against the same terminator squad. It was already bad enough that close combat termies carrying storm shields were boosted from 4+ inv. in CC to 3+ inv. even at range when the 5th ed SM codex came out (3+ inv. in cc would have been fair), but that was a long time ago and we've accepted it. But this...this is just wrong. If an AP3 weapon would reduce a 2+ save to a 4+ or something it would be fair...but nope.

The Banshees vs. Striking Scorpions debate is also now completely one-sidedly settled. In 5th, you had to choose between 3+ armor save, +1S, +1A and infiltration ability OR striking first in CC, completely ignoring armor saves, and having fleet-of-foot (move + run + assault) as well as the Exarch fielding a S5 power weapon. And even then the Scorps were slightly better since they didn't need a transport (infiltrate) and their Exarch could carry an armor save ignoring scorpion claw, albeit it struck last. But now the banshees are completely out of the picture. Especially with the 6th edition Eldar codex not beefing them in any way and in turn, making the Striking Scorp Exarch's Scorp Claw strike at normal Initiative.

While I agree that it does make artificier armor, sempiternal weave, iridium armor and such a viable choice (nobody would take them in 5th because you could get an iron halo or other inv. save granting equipment for your commander for about the same amount of points), it still makes power weapons (incl. ICs fielding them) nigh useless, given that everyone can field termies now and not have to worry about (almost) anything, except short-ranged demolisher cannons, plasma weaponry and single shot AT-weapons to take out termies while they still get their inv. save.

7) new codices now cost almost as much as the hardcover rulebook. Sure, they are hard back and in full color but does this justify their cost? Escpecially when you are collecting multiple armies, this drives the cost of just keeping up with the game really high. Other game manufacturers actually offer army books and such at reduced cost or sometimes even free, because their marketing strategy says giving rules to players will convince them of starting new armies. At the current price rate, if I were a new player I doubt I would field more than 2 armies simply because the cost for the rules alone discourage me.

8) supplements now cost as much as the new codex and you'll need to buy both if you want to use the supplement. Thankfully, supplements are crap in that they are 10% new rules and the rest only background, special missions or artwork / army showcase.

9) the new wound allocation rules. Your special weapon guy has to make a save for getting hit and failed it? Too bad, he is dead. While I agree that this makes *not* fielding special weapons, i.e. barebones squads, a sensible choice now (literally everyone would load up on special weapons and such in 5th edition), I still think that it takes the fun out of the game when you have to constantly keep your special weapon guys in the back ranks or risk it and lose them prematurely. There are already enough variables to worry about when playing a game of 40k, do we now also need to micromanage our miniatures' position within their squad at all times???

10) random assault charge ranges....seriously? Sure, this means the average assault range is 7" now, but still...I'd hate to roll snake eyes and watch my squad not only receive the mandatory overwatch barrage, but also get shot to bits in the enemy turn's shooting phase even though I didn't charge through difficult terrain at all. Assault armies already have a tough time by being forced to take the fight to the enemy halfway across the battlefield while the defending player gets to sit back and shoot at them, but now also being denied the charge AND being the victim of (multiple) overwatch? That's too much.

11) Challenges. Oh, how I hate these. This makes taking out Independent Characters and/or Monstrous Creatures who are characters in close combat next to impossible. Back in 5th edition, if my Space Marine squad had a sergeant with powerfist, the thought of being charged by a Wraithlord wasn't so bad - he would have to munch through 9 of my marines and all the while my sergeant would be able to wound it. Granted, if I had an independent character with a powerfist, then of course I would be forced to go to base contact with the Wraithlord to be able to deliver my attacks, and the Wraithlord could choose to directly attack me instead, but usually my IC would have access to invulnerable save wargear and would also be better in CC that the sergeant. Now in 6th, because the Wraithlord is a character, it can declare a challenge to my sarge and either make him useless in CC (if he doesnt accept it) or if he accepts it, insta-kill him because the 'Lord will strike before his Powerfist is able to. And without the sarge, the Space Marine squad is useless. So really....powerfists became utterly useless against ICs now, unless your own IC with an inv. save is wielding one. This just takes the fun out of the game when you know that you won't be able to kill enemy ICs no matter how hard you try, because against ranged fire they have Lookout, Sir! and against close combat special weapons, they can issue a challenge and take your sarge out with extreme ease. Thanks for ruining the game balance, GW. It's not like it was ever cheap to buy a powerfist for a ranged infantry squad, given that its use was so situational, but it was insurance against being charged by big bad guys, now there is no point to it at all.

12) Drop Pod Assault. Granted, this was already introduced in mid to late 5th edition but now that Black Templars have FAQ'd access to it in 6th, as a BT player I can smell the ridiculous cheese half a mile away. For 35 points, guaranteeing that one of my 10 man Crusader Initiate squads will arrive as close to the enemy as possible on turn 1 itself? That's plain nasty. Especially since it means they only have to wither 1 turn of enemy fire instead of 2 (or 3 if the opponent got 1st turn!) before going into CC means Drop-pods are a MUST now in every assault oriented space marine army from 500 points all the way up to 2k or more. Granted, only half of the pods you have in your army benefit from the Drop Pod Assault, but since this is rounded up, 1 is all you need to make sure that at least one of your squads won't get hurt.

It gets even better when you drop-pod a venerable dread with a multi-melta next to the tank. That's a very good chance of getting rid of a 150+ point vehicle that would have made life hell for your guys if it could get its shots off. Once this is done, the drop-podded Dread can use its HF to fry infantry.

If the drop pods costed twice as much as they currently do, it would be fairer, but right now I don't see any point whatsoever in ever taking Rhinos for my BT army, since 6th edition doesnt allow me to assault on the same turn as I disembark, even if I didn't move the transport (back in 5th I would move out of cover 12" with the Rhino on my turn 1, then an additional 12" on turn 2 and pop smoke, and disembark and charge on turn 3. So even if the enemy went first, it would only give him 2 turns to take out the rhino (during one of which the rhino has a 50% chance to negate all incoming hits) either way making my guys more survivable than if they were footslogging.

13) All over again. And by that I mean - at the close of 5th ed, all armies had either updated 5th ed. codices, or 4th edition ones, with erratas and everything, as well as Planetstrike, Planetary Empires and Battle Missions to round off the 5th ed experience in terms of supplements. It felt complete. Done. Now that we are in 6th, you feel dissatisfied again because all armies need to get updated to 6th, not to mention that the new codices look and feel different to the old ones who had pretty similar layouts. First, there was a stream of errata that defined how many hull points vehicles of each codex etc. got and so on. Then, the actual new codices arrived (at huge costs, mind you). As a player of 6 armies (Eldar, BT, Tau, IG, GK and Necrons), it is really difficult for players like me to "keep up" with the progression of the game given that it is - at the end of the day - a hobby and not a collectible card game, but if you dont keep spending money to update your stuff, you get left out.

I wish GW would host in their stores - at least once a month or so - a game type for veterans where you could play previous editions with previous codices. Like a "5th edition veterans' night" or even a 2nd edition one if you really have retro rulebooks and such in your collection. The card game Magic the gathering does this with their vintage and legacy format, so why not 40k?

I dont like the fact that all your previous rulebooks can essentially be thrown in the bin or collect dust for all eternity once the new codices are released, and then it's the same deal all over again 4 years from now. That fancy hardcover £50.00 rulebook you just bought? Yeah, it will be useless in 4 years when the game gets updated again. And in terms of 40k gaming time, 4 years can pass quite fast. That's less than 12 games for some of us, if we manage to find time for a game every 3 months.

 Sir Arun wrote:
I wish GW would introduce a game type for veterans where you could play previous editions with previous codices.

Why do you need GW's approval to do this? If you have the books and appropriate models available there's nothing stopping you from playing a game with a previous edition of the rules.

 Sir Arun wrote:


I wish GW would introduce a game type for veterans where you could play previous editions with previous codices. Like a "5th edition veterans' night" or even a 2nd edition one if you really have retro rulebooks and such in your collection. The card game Magic the gathering does this with their vintage and legacy format, so why not 40k?

They don't need to, though. You can do that all on your own! Grab a couple of friends who feel the same way, set up the board, and go nuts. The thing to remember is that it's a game - and as such, it's only subject to the rules that you and the people you are playing with agree to. GW supplies the framework, but the rest is what you make of it.

EDIT: I like to think I type pretty quickly, but apparently I can't compete with something that dives over 200 miles an hour...

"That godawful looking aegis defence line is selling like hotcakes now because of the new rules. "

I for one like that ADL. aesthetics wise.

If its there event, its there event.

Nothing is stoping you from playing a pickup game at there store with an older rule set other than the mananger.
Im fairly certain corporate couldn't care less. (have you asked them?)

I meant an event hosted at their store so you can meet new buddies who might also stick to an edition instead of updating every couple years.

The ADL thematically only fits to Guard and SMs. Every other army looks silly buying one for their troops at least in terms of aesthetics.

 Sir Arun wrote:
I meant an event hosted at their store so you can meet new buddies who might also stick to an edition instead of updating every couple years.

The ADL thematically only fits to Guard and SMs. Every other army looks silly buying one for their troops at least in terms of aesthetics.

So...how is that GW preventing you from doing it? Organize your own events.

As for the ADL, conversions?

Had to check the post date to see if this thread was necro'd. It's like travelling back in time.

I disagree with the OP on rapid fire weapons here. Rapid Fire weapons have been under-utilized for years because they were ineffective. They do not horn in on "assault" type weapons now that they are effective, and certainly do not make Dire Avengers useless, the RF gun is only getting one shot at over 12" ever versus the 2 shots of the Catapult (not to mention with Battle Focus you can typically match total range).

 Sir Arun wrote:
I meant an event hosted at their store so you can meet new buddies who might also stick to an edition instead of updating every couple years.

Honestly, why would you want to play in a GW store? Aren't there any good independent stores in your area?

And GW is never going to host that kind of event because GW stores are about selling you models and nothing more. If an "event" isn't directly leading to you buying something they're not interested, and an event with old OOP rulebooks is obviously not making them any new sales. If you want that kind of fun event you need to find a good independent store or organize a non-store gaming club.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
I wish GW would introduce a game type for veterans where you could play previous editions with previous codices.

Why do you need GW's approval to do this? If you have the books and appropriate models available there's nothing stopping you from playing a game with a previous edition of the rules.

I had to kinda stop at that one too, lol.


As far as the gripes, I agree with some of them.

Flyers don't belong in 40K. The scale is too small. Right now, flyers "zoom" around the battlefield at ridiculously slow speeds, and yet still are arbitrarily nigh-impossible to hit for most units. There was a game for flyers. It was called Epic. Flyer rules are horribly done, but I get why they were added in... $$$

Allies were poorly executed. It isn't like Allies are a new thing in 40K. They're just bringing them back. And I like the theory because we used allies back in the day just fine. The execution has been... poor, and it allows for some pretty ridiculous combos, both fluff-wise, and WAAC-wise.

Challenges. Challenges are stupid. There is no argument with this.


Some aren't issues with the new rules, but the game system itself.

Power weapons, for example. It's not a problem with the rules for power weapons. It's a problem with the way armor saves are handled in 3+ Edition. No modifiers means AP is an all or nothing thing. The problem with Power Weapons being AP2 or better is it makes the power weapons way, way too powerful. AP3 makes the heavy armor way too powerful. Those of us who remember the old save modifiers remember back when power weapons were well balanced against armor. This is a ruleset issue, and there's no perfect way to do it.



Some of your gripes are ludicrous.

Rapid fire rules changes. Thank god for this. 40K was a joke when the guy on the battlefield with a rifle was the weakest guy out there. There was never supposed to be a huge gap between regular weapons and assault weapons, and more importantly, there shouldn't be. Having "Assault" as a trait is a minor advantage to a weapon, nothing more.

Wound allocation. It's back to where it makes sense. If your guy with the special weapon is in a vulnerable spot, he's going to die. If you're charging at the enemy and get hosed down, the guys in front are going to die first. Duh. Do you need to micromanage your mini positions? Yes. Good lord, it's a war game. And 40K is ridiculously simple. If you can't handle that, well, uh, maybe you need to play checkers.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Wound allocation. It's back to where it makes sense. If your guy with the special weapon is in a vulnerable spot, he's going to die. If you're charging at the enemy and get hosed down, the guys in front are going to die first. Duh. Do you need to micromanage your mini positions? Yes. Good lord, it's a war game. And 40K is ridiculously simple. If you can't handle that, well, uh, maybe you need to play checkers.

No, it really doesn't make any sense. Even conscripts can figure out things like "ignore the guy in terminator armor tanking all your shots and shoot the guy next to him that's aiming a lascannon at your tank". You have the absurd situation of all of your troops being expert marksmen that can always hit the one fingertip of the closest model that is poking out from behind cover instead of taking shots at the model slightly farther away that has half its body out of cover. And then of course you get the stupidity of barrage sniping, where a Basilisk is a better sniper weapon than an expert sniper with a rifle. Or of blocking LOS to all but one model in a squad with spare transports so that everyone gets to snipe the single target model out of the squad.

As for micromanaging, no, it doesn't make sense. Nitpicking the exact placement of every model would make sense in a skirmish-scale game where there are only a few models on the table and all of them are separate "characters". It doesn't make sense in a 40k-scale game where units matter and models are just parts of units, and where you have potentially hundreds of models on the table. When you have to measure precisely to see which model is 0.1" closer (and then argue about it) just so you can see which meatshield takes a wound, or obsess over whether the melta gun is in the exact perfect spot to avoid taking a wound, the system is broken.

In short, the current wound allocation system is the worst of both worlds. As a "realistic" method it's just stupid, and as an abstracted method it's tedious and overcomplicated.

Wall of text crits YOU for 50,000 damage!

Seriously, if you want to play 5th edition play 5th edition. Heck, house rule with your friends and change what you don't like.

If you want to get others to play with those rules, run a tourney and use that ruleset.

 Sir Arun wrote:
I dont like the fact that all your previous rulebooks can essentially be thrown in the bin or collect dust for all eternity once the new codices are released, and then it's the same deal all over again 4 years from now.

Tell me about it... I spent years trying to collect all the 2nd edition codex books, I was just waiting on Codex Squats for my collection to be complete. But instead we got 3rd edition. Which made all my books, all my cards and press outs from WD, My whole Squat army that I'd had to lovingly build mostly via mailorder , and a good few of my other miniatures. All obsolete.

I've only bought one codex book since then (now also obsolete of course), and that was about 50% copy and paste from my 2nd edition book. I certainly won't be making that mistake again.

I find the whole revamps a little ironic. RT was a great skirmish game, with a whole universe of room for creativity. 2nd edition really polished that into something more balanced and accessible, without loosing the RP touch. 3rd edition was an unnecessarily reckless oversimplification of the original game, which I believe failed to address almost all of what really needed fixing. Since then they seem to be slowly adding back all the stuff they cut from 2nd ed. Things like Overwatch and now Psychic cards. I wish they would do more. The old save modifiers and damage dice made much more sense, and had a much better armour/weapon balance gradient for shooting and CC. The AP system isn't as good, and when you throw in stuff like rending, instant death, eternal warrior, etc... and having a whole different system for CC, It probably ends up being more complicated.

I agree with the flyers one and the challenges nonsense. The rest I think is just a progression of complexity in the rules and the specific abstractions used to represent damaged caused during the conflict.

Personally I think the randomness associated with psychic powers does lead to a more tactical experience as you have to be able to work your force in different ways depending on the precise buffs gained on psykers. This compared to the strategic challenge from the previous edition when choosing powers was a fundamental part of list building. Additionally psyker buffs are only a small part of the game (except for Eldar I guess, but my understanding was that they do it a bit differently anyway).

 pretre wrote:
Had to check the post date to see if this thread was necro'd. It's like travelling back in time.

*checks his back yard for the Delorean* "Nope, still there."

Yeah, this seems like an odd rant what... a year and a half in? I did the same double-take on the OP date.

I always hear people screaming to go back and play old editions, but then I'm told that the older editions weren't even that great. I started in 5th edition, and quit when 6th dropped, I suppose I missed the good editions. Nothing stopping you from playing an older edition.

As for all the other stuff, that's pretty standard anger. But Flyers was the #1 on my list for why I quit playing. Now they aren't quite so bad, but early 6th? Get out of here.

In a world of space heroism, i think challenges work well.
its not really that complex, and you can make great stories out of it. lol my scout Sergent managed to punch a DP to death yada yada.

Flyers though i agree.

as well random psychic powers.

Since everyone is complaining. My one complaint in this game is the over abundance of high LD all around. as well ATSKNF and fearless and stuff.

It makes great ideas like pinning worthless. and psychic powers almost guaranteed.

I can't really agree with much of your hate. I've played 4th, 5th, and now 6th Edition and find 6th to be the best of the lot. Is it perfect, no, but I think its the best I've seen.

Yes, the allies matrix is poorly written, but allies are a great idea. I wish most of the Battler Brothers besides some of the core Imperium books and Supplements were Allies of Convenience instead, it'd fix alot.

Terrain choice is good, but GW needs to be better about spelling out how much LOS blocking terrain is critical for good games.

Flyers were a huge mechanic change, and IMO not the best implementation but as the edition moves and grows it seems to be coming into it own and Flyers are less king than they were.

Old Rapid Fire rules sucked, seriously.

Blanket ignore cover on Powerweapons was just bad. I'm not a fan of the AP system in general, but I see this as a relative improvement for CC.

Everyone hates the cost of the books.

Wound allocation is good, much more tactical. I agree, challenges aren't great, but I've seen much much worse.

40k is ever evolving and changing, that is a good thing for the game. Of course, much of that is driving by sales and profit, but hey, its the beast we've got and for the first time I've ever seen we are going to have every army updated in a single edition, with supplements. IMO, that is pretty impressive and a huge improvement over the past. I'd prefer refinement and balancing before moving on in editions with reprints or extensive erratas, but that is too much to ask for.

If you only play one game every three months, maybe this isn't the game for you. And you can alwasy play an older edition with your friends, or house rule things as you please.

 Flinty wrote:
I agree with the flyers one and the challenges nonsense. The rest I think is just a progression of complexity in the rules and the specific abstractions used to represent damaged caused during the conflict.

Personally I think the randomness associated with psychic powers does lead to a more tactical experience as you have to be able to work your force in different ways depending on the precise buffs gained on psykers. This compared to the strategic challenge from the previous edition when choosing powers was a fundamental part of list building. Additionally psyker buffs are only a small part of the game (except for Eldar I guess, but my understanding was that they do it a bit differently anyway).

The only problems with the current randomly generated psychic powers are:
1. GW wussed out and half-arsed the whole thing... Just bring back the Psychic Phase please.

2. Divination is God-tier because only SW's can reliably stop Blessings. Hence why GW should have just brought back a full-on phase for casting/dispelling powers.
Conversely, Pyromancy is so laughably worthless it isn't even funny anymore, while Biomancy spam on MC's is again reaching into OTT levels of way too good.

3. Power generation should work like Spell generation in Fantasy. (ie: no doubling-up on non-Primaris powers unless you have rule like Loremaster which gives you knowledge of the entire spell lore, or else your model/unit has a set spell/s list)
Good-bye to the above problems of facing 3-4+ MC's all toting Ironarm, or multiple Tzheralds throwing 4+ invulns everywhere, or half a Slaanesh army gaining Invisibility, etc...

6th is the least gak edition since the mistake that was 3rd came out. I can only hope that 7th will be even less gak when it comes out.

My main gripe with sixth is how needlessly complicated the rules are. The book basically lists a ton of rules and then the exceptions to that rule. Then the codices tell you further exceptions to the rule and how to override other exceptions. On top of that, you have to memorize in which case an exception is valid and if there is an exception to that.

For example, the save system. You get your basic save but there are weapons that deny you it. Fair enough, not all armor is equal. But not so fast! There is the cover save which kinda makes sense since walls can save you. Though how a concrete wall will save you from a shot that went through termie armor is anyones guess. Okay, so you have the wall of safety but there are guns thatll wreck your wall and ignore cover. Which weapons do that is sort of strange. On top of that, these guns can somehow shoot better at night since night fighting provides a cover save. But not so fast! You can only shoot out to 36 inches. Okay. Well if your armor wont save you and the wall wont then your shields will! And nothing can stop that! However, if your shields dont work you can always just pretend you didnt feel it. But no so fast! Weapons that are strong enough will make you realize that hurt. Why that wasnt obvious before is a question best left unanswered.

And then you get to apocalypse.

 Zagman wrote:
I can't really agree with much of your hate. I've played 4th, 5th, and now 6th Edition and find 6th to be the best of the lot. Is it perfect, no, but I think its the best I've seen.

Yes, the allies matrix is poorly written, but allies are a great idea. I wish most of the Battler Brothers besides some of the core Imperium books and Supplements were Allies of Convenience instead, it'd fix alot.

Terrain choice is good, but GW needs to be better about spelling out how much LOS blocking terrain is critical for good games.

Flyers were a huge mechanic change, and IMO not the best implementation but as the edition moves and grows it seems to be coming into it own and Flyers are less king than they were.

Old Rapid Fire rules sucked, seriously.

Blanket ignore cover on Powerweapons was just bad. I'm not a fan of the AP system in general, but I see this as a relative improvement for CC.

Everyone hates the cost of the books.

Wound allocation is good, much more tactical. I agree, challenges aren't great, but I've seen much much worse.

40k is ever evolving and changing, that is a good thing for the game. Of course, much of that is driving by sales and profit, but hey, its the beast we've got and for the first time I've ever seen we are going to have every army updated in a single edition, with supplements. IMO, that is pretty impressive and a huge improvement over the past. I'd prefer refinement and balancing before moving on in editions with reprints or extensive erratas, but that is too much to ask for.

If you only play one game every three months, maybe this isn't the game for you. And you can alwasy play an older edition with your friends, or house rule things as you please.

This guy pretty much summed it up for me. The only thing I would add in are random charge ranges are stupid. Give a set amount and be done with it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
My main gripe with sixth is how needlessly complicated the rules are. The book basically lists a ton of rules and then the exceptions to that rule. Then the codices tell you further exceptions to the rule and how to override other exceptions. On top of that, you have to memorize in which case an exception is valid and if there is an exception to that.

For example, the save system. You get your basic save but there are weapons that deny you it. Fair enough, not all armor is equal. But not so fast! There is the cover save which kinda makes sense since walls can save you. Though how a concrete wall will save you from a shot that went through termie armor is anyones guess. Okay, so you have the wall of safety but there are guns thatll wreck your wall and ignore cover. Which weapons do that is sort of strange. On top of that, these guns can somehow shoot better at night since night fighting provides a cover save. But not so fast! You can only shoot out to 36 inches. Okay. Well if your armor wont save you and the wall wont then your shields will! And nothing can stop that! However, if your shields dont work you can always just pretend you didnt feel it. But no so fast! Weapons that are strong enough will make you realize that hurt. Why that wasnt obvious before is a question best left unanswered.

And then you get to apocalypse.

and that is just 1 mechanic of this lovely game!

If 7th edition returns to 2nd edition save modifiers, I will happily cheer. I miss those modifiers so...

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
If 7th edition returns to 2nd edition save modifiers, I will happily cheer. I miss those modifiers so...

Yet further complicating a game that some people complain is already too complicated....

Let's be honest, not everyone will like anything GW does.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
If 7th edition returns to 2nd edition save modifiers, I will happily cheer. I miss those modifiers so...

I wish we could do away with the AP mechanic in favor of a Save modifier mechanic.

AP1 could be save -5
AP2 could be save -4
AP3 could be save -3
AP4 could be save -2
AP5 could be save -1
AP6/- would be save -0

Then take Invulnerable Saves after armor.

 Zagman wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
If 7th edition returns to 2nd edition save modifiers, I will happily cheer. I miss those modifiers so...

I wish we could do away with the AP mechanic in favor of a Save modifier mechanic.

AP1 could be save -5
AP2 could be save -4
AP3 could be save -3
AP4 could be save -2
AP5 could be save -1
AP6/- would be save -0

Then take Invulnerable Saves after armor.

I'm sure that would not cause any more complaints about the game at all.

Oh wait.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm not against the idea, but I just know we'd hear so much complaining it's not funny.

Plus Stormshields would need to be more than double their cost then.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
My main gripe with sixth is how needlessly complicated the rules are. The book basically lists a ton of rules and then the exceptions to that rule. Then the codices tell you further exceptions to the rule and how to override other exceptions. On top of that, you have to memorize in which case an exception is valid and if there is an exception to that.

For example, the save system. You get your basic save but there are weapons that deny you it. Fair enough, not all armor is equal. But not so fast! There is the cover save which kinda makes sense since walls can save you. Though how a concrete wall will save you from a shot that went through termie armor is anyones guess. Okay, so you have the wall of safety but there are guns thatll wreck your wall and ignore cover. Which weapons do that is sort of strange. On top of that, these guns can somehow shoot better at night since night fighting provides a cover save. But not so fast! You can only shoot out to 36 inches. Okay. Well if your armor wont save you and the wall wont then your shields will! And nothing can stop that! However, if your shields dont work you can always just pretend you didnt feel it. But no so fast! Weapons that are strong enough will make you realize that hurt. Why that wasnt obvious before is a question best left unanswered.

And then you get to apocalypse.

I feel that most of that is really a symptom of the mechanics being oversimplified. On the face of it the shooting rules are easier than they were in 2nd ed. They got rid of to hit modifiers, armor modifiers, damage, sustained fire dice etc... because all that stuff was complicated. But unfortunately a lot of it was kind of necessary to accurately describe weapons, and how something like an Assault cannon differs from a lascannon. So they have to add in extra rules and exceptions to make it work again. Which I think actually made the game more complicated, because before the rules were complicated, but they were largely consistent and intuitive, now they seem to inconsistent and messy.

Second edition was consistent and intuitive? Yikes.

 pretre wrote:
Second edition was consistent and intuitive? Yikes.

Well 3rd was an unorganized mess that was rushed out the door to try and make 40k "tournament compatible". We can still see the ramifications of that mess, so in a way it might have been somewhat?

Because practically everything had at least a -1 armour save in 2nd edition, to all intents and purposes Marines had a 4+ or worse save. They were also twice the points they are now leading to them generally being outnumbered 3 to 1, unlike the current 1.5 to 1.

Generally 2nd edition consisted of buying as many mooks with guns as possible, and shooting the enemy to death before they got close. Guardians with shuriken catapults (S4, -2 save, 1 sustained fire dice (0-3 shots) 24 inch range) were brutal.

The AP system as it stands now is roughly akin to how modern body armour actually works, either the armour is rated to stop the bullet, in which case you get a save, or it goes straight through, in which case you don't. The armour modification system in fantasy, where strength modifies your save, is probably a fair representation of how a blunt instrument affects armour made of steel plate or steel rings.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Second edition was consistent and intuitive? Yikes.

Well 3rd was an unorganized mess that was rushed out the door to try and make 40k "tournament compatible". We can still see the ramifications of that mess, so in a way it might have been somewhat?

I think this is remembering things a bit rosily.

3rd was rough at the start but was good towards the end. But 2nd being all 'consistent and intuitive' not so much. A better skirmish game than 3rd? Sure.

3rd and 2nd really aren't comparable. They are different games entirely. IMO, 40k had 'the skirmish years' Pre-3rd and 'the wargame years' post-3rd.

 pretre wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Second edition was consistent and intuitive? Yikes.

Well 3rd was an unorganized mess that was rushed out the door to try and make 40k "tournament compatible". We can still see the ramifications of that mess, so in a way it might have been somewhat?

I think this is remembering things a bit rosily.

I never played 2nd, so I wasn't stating it to be true, just pointing out that 3rd was a mess that has hurt the game in the long run. Sure things got better, but only after it spent some time down in the ICU.

 pretre wrote:
3rd was rough at the start but was good towards the end. But 2nd being all 'consistent and intuitive' not so much. A better skirmish game than 3rd? Sure.

Yeah, 40k doesn't really do "skirmish" outside of Kill Teams anymore.

We really need a patrol mission back again.

 pretre wrote:
3rd and 2nd really aren't comparable. They are different games entirely. IMO, 40k had 'the skirmish years' Pre-3rd and 'the wargame years' post-3rd.

You forgot 40k: the RPG years.

2nd edition had more rules abuses than almost any other table top game I've seen. Remember the HTH? WS was a godly stat.

I think the problem there was the fact that there were no bonuses to the armor save across the board. Here is how I wouls handle the save system.

There is no cover and armor save nor fnp. Instead you get a flat save and bonuses to indictate resiliency. For instance, plague marines get a +1 to their save making them a 2+ save base. You also get bonuses from being shot wt night etc to maximum of 1+. However, the ap system decreases your save. A boltgun has a -2 save for example.

Cover, in addition to giving bonuses, also decreases the BS of the attacker. Flamers deny all cover bonuses as do blast weapons. Ignore cover weapons simply allow the shooter to fire at full BS.

Then there are last ditch saves. These are emergency shields and other such things. They can be boosted but only up to a 4+.

Now obviously this needs fine tuning and would be abused to hell by the gee dubs dev tea...

You know what, maybe the current system is as good as we are going to get with the current devs

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Zagman wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
If 7th edition returns to 2nd edition save modifiers, I will happily cheer. I miss those modifiers so...

I wish we could do away with the AP mechanic in favor of a Save modifier mechanic.

AP1 could be save -5
AP2 could be save -4
AP3 could be save -3
AP4 could be save -2
AP5 could be save -1
AP6/- would be save -0

Then take Invulnerable Saves after armor.

I'm sure that would not cause any more complaints about the game at all.

Oh wait.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm not against the idea, but I just know we'd hear so much complaining it's not funny.

Plus Stormshields would need to be more than double their cost then.

Obviosly its a rough idea, but would lead to a much more granular distribution. It would take a large overhaul and the reason we don't get major overhauls is the staggered release dates. Hell, look at the outrage to Flyers, and that is an addition, not a rework of a base mechanic.

in defence of the new codexes, i actually really, really like them. They feel like intrinsically beautiful things that are a real pleasure to own, the coloured artwork is sublime. I can see why people would be concerned by them being easily damaged through wear and tear though...never been a problem for me but then i'm never short on space.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
If 7th edition returns to 2nd edition save modifiers, I will happily cheer. I miss those modifiers so...

That's funny. Those modifers were things that made marines near useless. Do you remember they had to let terminators roll 2d6 for their saves because the modifiers were so bad?

A bolter was a -2 IIRC, which means that the model went from a 66.67% save to a 33.33% save, or twice as likely to fail. It was a bad mechanic that punished good saves and gave buffs to xenos armies -- something we don't need any more of at this time.

6th edition still has its bugs, but its by far the best edition of warhammer 40k to date. Earlier editions were much more clunky and entire threads could be written on the flaws within.

 Zagman wrote:
I wish we could do away with the AP mechanic in favor of a Save modifier mechanic.

AP1 could be save -5
AP2 could be save -4
AP3 could be save -3
AP4 could be save -2
AP5 could be save -1
AP6/- would be save -0

Then take Invulnerable Saves after armor.

I actually like this mechanic. But I prefer my own concoction where an armor save is only reduced by 1 if it becomes the target of a weapon with 1 AP higher.

E.g. an AP4 weapon does not modify a 2+ armor save in any way, but an AP3 weapon raises it by +1. Apply similar logic to AP5 weapons and 3+ armor saves and AP4 weapons. Etc.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
My main gripe with sixth is how needlessly complicated the rules are. The book basically lists a ton of rules and then the exceptions to that rule. Then the codices tell you further exceptions to the rule and how to override other exceptions. On top of that, you have to memorize in which case an exception is valid and if there is an exception to that.

For example, the save system. You get your basic save but there are weapons that deny you it. Fair enough, not all armor is equal. But not so fast! There is the cover save which kinda makes sense since walls can save you. Though how a concrete wall will save you from a shot that went through termie armor is anyones guess. Okay, so you have the wall of safety but there are guns thatll wreck your wall and ignore cover. Which weapons do that is sort of strange. On top of that, these guns can somehow shoot better at night since night fighting provides a cover save. But not so fast! You can only shoot out to 36 inches. Okay. Well if your armor wont save you and the wall wont then your shields will! And nothing can stop that! However, if your shields dont work you can always just pretend you didnt feel it. But no so fast! Weapons that are strong enough will make you realize that hurt. Why that wasnt obvious before is a question best left unanswered.

And then you get to apocalypse.

Um....what? You just listed the basic shooting mechanic of 40k that hasnt been changed since the past three editions.

My personal gripe with 6th is that it is more complicated than 5th (I dont think anyone will disagree with me here). You have a truckload of more rules you need to remember that differ from the more straightforward 5th (Hammer of Wrath, Concussive, Lookout Sir, Soulblaze, Fear, Smash, Swooping, Gliding, Grounded Tests, Dive, Snapshots, Skyfire, Interceptor, Evade, Get Him Boss, Glorious Intervention, Sweep Attack, Beam, Nova, Maelstrom, Witchfire, Deny The Witch, Warp Charges, Precision Shots, Gunslinger, Wall of Death, Focus Fire, Salvo, Vector Strike, Blind, Disordered Charge, etc.) None of these existed in 5th, making the game easier as you didnt have to remember a bucketload of special rules new to this edition.

The AP system is total garbage.

Either your attacks wipe the enemy out or basically bounce right off. what kind of dumb game mechanic is that? The balance of it is terrible, just like the rest of the game/game balance.

apparently they forgot about save modifiers. or maybe they think their customers are too stupid to subtract or add numbers.

kb305 wrote:
The AP system is total garbage.

Either your attacks wipe the enemy out or basically bounce right off. what kind of dumb game mechanic is that? The balance of it is terrible, just like the rest of the game/game balance.

apparently they forgot about save modifiers. or maybe they think their customers are too stupid to subtract or add numbers.

Or it was an attempt at streamlining things for tournament play they haven't reversed yet.

The whole paper-scissors-rock nature of the game is pretty disappointing to me.

Fliers are hard countered into the ground by skyfire. Terminators get shat on by AP2. Tanks get reamed by lance and melta. Etc etc.

It's just like buying a dozen little papers and a dozen little rocks and pretending to play war with them. The real deal is a hell of a lot faster and cheaper IMO, and more balanced as well =/

 Dakkamite wrote:
The whole paper-scissors-rock nature of the game is pretty disappointing to me.

Fliers are hard countered into the ground by skyfire. Terminators get shat on by AP2. Tanks get reamed by lance and melta. Etc etc.

It's just like buying a dozen little papers and a dozen little rocks and pretending to play war with them. The real deal is a hell of a lot faster and cheaper IMO, and more balanced as well =/

That's how real war works though too. Your enemy designs something, you design something to counter it, and then they try and counter your counter and so on. It's just one endless game of rock, paper scissors.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
The whole paper-scissors-rock nature of the game is pretty disappointing to me.

Fliers are hard countered into the ground by skyfire. Terminators get shat on by AP2. Tanks get reamed by lance and melta. Etc etc.

It's just like buying a dozen little papers and a dozen little rocks and pretending to play war with them. The real deal is a hell of a lot faster and cheaper IMO, and more balanced as well =/

That's how real war works though too. Your enemy designs something, you design something to counter it, and then they try and counter your counter and so on. It's just one endless game of rock, paper scissors.

and then they built nukes that could destroy the whole planet. what is your point again? sorry but your argument is pretty irrelevant. it's a game.

kb305 wrote:
and then they built nukes that could destroy the whole planet. what is your point again? sorry but your argument is pretty irrelevant. it's a game.

and then America built Star Wars

 Sir Arun wrote:

kb305 wrote:
and then they built nukes that could destroy the whole planet. what is your point again? sorry but your argument is pretty irrelevant. it's a game.

and then America built Star Wars

didnt read all that but isnt that project generally regarded as a FAIL?

does the interceptor missile somehow suck up all the radiation too and sprinkle rainbows and butterflies instead?

kb305 wrote:
The AP system is total garbage.

Either your attacks wipe the enemy out or basically bounce right off. what kind of dumb game mechanic is that? The balance of it is terrible, just like the rest of the game/game balance.

apparently they forgot about save modifiers. or maybe they think their customers are too stupid to subtract or add numbers.

there are three possible results actually, or at least three different outcomes. First, whether or not the armour is capable enough of stopping tne shot in the first place. That is reflected in the ap value of weapons. The second 'branch' of outcomes is the chance of the shot hitting the armour and being stopped, or missing the armour and getting the fleshy bits underneat (or at least, the weak points as in space marines' power armour).

You could re-write the rules to give armour two seperate values - coverance and strength, and the outcome would be the same. I actually quite like it as a system, though i'd like to see it added to somehow. Armour should have some special rules, iirc they had this in 2nd. I remember imperial guard had a 6+ armour save, 5+ vs blast.

Tldr; i have many problems with 6th but the armour save mechanic isn't one of them.

 Sir Arun wrote:

12) Drop Pod Assault. Granted, this was already introduced in mid to late 5th edition but now that Black Templars have FAQ'd access to it in 6th, as a BT player I can smell the ridiculous cheese half a mile away. For 35 points, guaranteeing that one of my 10 man Crusader Initiate squads will arrive as close to the enemy as possible on turn 1 itself? That's plain nasty. Especially since it means they only have to wither 1 turn of enemy fire instead of 2 (or 3 if the opponent got 1st turn!) before going into CC means Drop-pods are a MUST now in every assault oriented space marine army from 500 points all the way up to 2k or more. Granted, only half of the pods you have in your army benefit from the Drop Pod Assault, but since this is rounded up, 1 is all you need to make sure that at least one of your squads won't get hurt.

It gets even better when you drop-pod a venerable dread with a multi-melta next to the tank. That's a very good chance of getting rid of a 150+ point vehicle that would have made life hell for your guys if it could get its shots off. Once this is done, the drop-podded Dread can use its HF to fry infantry.

If the drop pods costed twice as much as they currently do, it would be fairer, but right now I don't see any point whatsoever in ever taking Rhinos for my BT army, since 6th edition doesnt allow me to assault on the same turn as I disembark, even if I didn't move the transport (back in 5th I would move out of cover 12" with the Rhino on my turn 1, then an additional 12" on turn 2 and pop smoke, and disembark and charge on turn 3. So even if the enemy went first, it would only give him 2 turns to take out the rhino (during one of which the rhino has a 50% chance to negate all incoming hits) either way making my guys more survivable than if they were footslogging.

You get to drop half your pods turn one, shoot some stuff and then get whiped out because you took on the entire enemy army with half of yours. Drop Pods are viable, but if you don't know what you're doing (or scatter into a gakky position) you're going to die. Drop Pods really aren't OP when the things in them don't live that long. Had it been stuff like Paladin Deathstars or Seer Councils coming out of them they'd have been OP, but the hardiest Drop Pod unit I can think of is Honour Guard, and it's an awful lot of points that can't assault on the turn they arrive.

and then they try and counter your counter and so on

40k is lacking this aspect of the arms race. Weapons get better, but defenses do as well - in 40k, the weapons got better, then all the scientists shrugged their shoulders and went to lunch for 10,000 years

That's because GW does not like change.

Look at games like battletech. The battletech game 20 years ago is dramatically different than the last version. They evolved the game.

GW has forced their universe to be as stagnant as star wars. Grav guns are their latest big advancement. Before that was ... tau?

1) Allies. I started in 2nd edition, so allies aren't such an out-there concept... most armies had the ability to add allies back then. Some of the choices on the allies matrix are a little peculiar, though, and others (like the lack of a guard/tyranid team up to allow for Genestealer Cults) are disappointing.



2) Psychic disciplines. - Yeah, random psychic powers are one of the things from 2nd edition that I liked losing in later versions of the game. I don't have a problem with everyone having access to a pool of identical powers, given that they also have the specialised powers for each faction. It's just the random generation that bugs me.


3) Fortifications - the big problem with fortifications is just the half-assed rules for them. With adequate rules to allow them to function, I have no problem with allowing people to buy fortifications. And the number of ADLs on the field will drop off once everyone has access to anti-air through their own codexes. So 7th or 8th edition, probably...


4) Flyers. - Related to the above... the issue with flyers isn't with the flyers themselves, but with the fact that pre-6th ed codexes have trouble dealing with them. So the real problem here is GW's insistence on taking 8 years to update all of their armies.


5) Rapid FIre - I actually love the change to rapid fire weapons, as they make a lot of Troop options a little more attractive.


6) Power Weapons - Terminators needed a boost. No problem with these rules, other than the 'just go by what's ont he model' idea, and the silliness that ensues for models like Death Cultists, where there is no point taking two of the same weapon, and every reason to mix them.


7) Codex Price - yeah, I have complained about this at length elsewhere. GW's refusal to include the cheaper softcover as an option is mind-boggling, and has resulted in me going from buying every codex since 2nd edition to buying one 6th edition codex new, so far. Anything else I need I will be picking up second hand.


8) supplements - this was a bad idea from the get go, as GW should have been well aware from the commotion caused by them in 3rd edition. If they had just been released as collectable fluff books, they would be awesome. But including 4 pages of rules and then charging as much as a codex for a book that will be useless when the codex is redone... yeah, that's an awesome plan!


9) Wound Allocation - Yeah, not a fan. 5th ed's version was open to abuse in units with mixed armour and multiple wounds, but I can't help thinking that there was a better solution than 'closest guy always dies first'.


10) random assault charge ranges - this as a necessary balance for being able to measure distances whenever you want. They should have left a minimum distance in there, though... at the very least, you should always be able to charge as far as your normal movement, regardless of how you roll.


11) Challenges. - Yeah, as an option they would be great. But the idea of everyone being penalised for refusing them is just stupid. It should be completely optional, and refusal should only have a downside for specific units.


12) Drop Pod Assault. - this has never been as nasty as it seems on paper. Too many things that can go wrong.

And who takes Venerable dreads in 6th edition...?


13) All over again. - welcome to GW.

I wish GW would host in their stores - at least once a month or so - a game type for veterans where you could play previous editions with previous codices. Like a "5th edition veterans' night" or even a 2nd edition one if you really have retro rulebooks and such in your collection. The card game Magic the gathering does this with their vintage and legacy format, so why not 40k?

You don't need GW to host that. If you want to play previous editions, just do it.

huh? didnt they introduce stormravens and stormtalons before grav weapons?

or dynastic necrons before that?

or xenophile grey knights (in regard to wargear) before that?

or the golden throne's life support systems failing before that?

or hive fleet leviathan heading straight towards terra before that?

 insaniak wrote:
So the real problem here is GW's insistence on taking 8 years to update all of their armies.

Have you noticed the schedule release of GW lately.
This is how many codex's have been released in just over a year.
- CSM
- DA
- CD
- Eldar
- Tau
- C:SM
- SoB
At this rate they will have all the codex's covered in 2.5 years. Gone are the days of waiting 8 years for an update.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sir Arun wrote:
huh? didnt they introduce stormravens and stormtalons before grav weapons?

or dynastic necrons before that?

or xenophile grey knights (in regard to wargear) before that?

or the golden throne's life support systems failing before that?

or hive fleet leviathan heading straight towards terra before that?

Ok, I retract my sarcastic comment

 labmouse42 wrote:
At this rate they will have all the codex's covered in 2.5 years.

You're assuming they will keep up that release rate.

Once they have worked through their backlog of pre-prepared books, past experience suggests that it will slow down. Dramatically.

 Dakkamite wrote:

and then they try and counter your counter and so on

40k is lacking this aspect of the arms race. Weapons get better, but defenses do as well - in 40k, the weapons got better, then all the scientists shrugged their shoulders and went to lunch for 10,000 years

Waveserpent and shield eternal...there I proved that wrong. Defense are always more costly than more offense, that is pretty realistic actually.

shield eternal is just a storm shield glued to an adamantine mantle with adamantium will thrown in as a freebie.

 insaniak wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:
At this rate they will have all the codex's covered in 2.5 years.

You're assuming they will keep up that release rate.

Once they have worked through their backlog of pre-prepared books, past experience suggests that it will slow down. Dramatically.

that doesn't bother me so much, what with the release of digital codexes/uppliments. Even after they update your book there are going to be other things you're into, you'll no longer have to spend an entire edition waiting for something new to drool over.

I think a force commander would bring the psyker that knew the power that would work best with his force, to start with. He doesn't roll randomly to see what units he takes to battle. (should I delete that quickly? don't blame me!)

Random charges are a wargaming holdover from horse and musket games that mimic the reluctance of horses to charge a wall of pointy things that hurt. There's no reason why a unit of SM or Eldar, etc wouldn't know if they are in range of an enemy unit or not, before charging. It's what they do!

Challenges. <puke> Sorry, had to get that off my che..., er, stomach. This should have stayed in Fantasy.

Flyers and Allies, meh.

Grim Dark wrote:
I think a force commander would bring the psyker that knew the power that would work best with his force, to start with. He doesn't roll randomly to see what units he takes to battle.

Yes and no. A general won't always have any control over the units at his disposal for a given battle.

That being said, in a system that allows you to choose the rest of your force, having a psyker who randomly forgets and remembers particular powers from battle to battle is just irritating.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Zagman wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
If 7th edition returns to 2nd edition save modifiers, I will happily cheer. I miss those modifiers so...

I wish we could do away with the AP mechanic in favor of a Save modifier mechanic.

AP1 could be save -5
AP2 could be save -4
AP3 could be save -3
AP4 could be save -2
AP5 could be save -1
AP6/- would be save -0

Then take Invulnerable Saves after armor.

I'm sure that would not cause any more complaints about the game at all.

Oh wait.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm not against the idea, but I just know we'd hear so much complaining it's not funny.

Plus Stormshields would need to be more than double their cost then.

Why? It would work out almost the same, no save and having to take you 3++ like it is now for ap1/2

I still like the idea of giving armor a re roll if a weapon is not within so many AP factors of the armor. Say 2. So bolters and such going against 2+ armor, the armor gets a reroll on each unsaved wound.

Martel732 wrote:
I still like the idea of giving armor a re roll if a weapon is not within so many AP factors of the armor. Say 2. So bolters and such going against 2+ armor, the armor gets a reroll on each saved wound.

I will second this.

kb305 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
The whole paper-scissors-rock nature of the game is pretty disappointing to me.

Fliers are hard countered into the ground by skyfire. Terminators get shat on by AP2. Tanks get reamed by lance and melta. Etc etc.

It's just like buying a dozen little papers and a dozen little rocks and pretending to play war with them. The real deal is a hell of a lot faster and cheaper IMO, and more balanced as well =/

That's how real war works though too. Your enemy designs something, you design something to counter it, and then they try and counter your counter and so on. It's just one endless game of rock, paper scissors.

and then they built nukes that could destroy the whole planet. what is your point again? sorry but your argument is pretty irrelevant. it's a game.

Point was that for a game it actually does something right when simulating war.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

kb305 wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:

kb305 wrote:
and then they built nukes that could destroy the whole planet. what is your point again? sorry but your argument is pretty irrelevant. it's a game.

and then America built Star Wars

didnt read all that but isnt that project generally regarded as a FAIL?

does the interceptor missile somehow suck up all the radiation too and sprinkle rainbows and butterflies instead?

IIRC the program was acually a bluff to get the Soviets to spend themselves broke trying to counter it.

Freman Bloodglaive wrote:
The AP system as it stands now is roughly akin to how modern body armour actually works, either the armour is rated to stop the bullet, in which case you get a save, or it goes straight through, in which case you don't. The armour modification system in fantasy, where strength modifies your save, is probably a fair representation of how a blunt instrument affects armour made of steel plate or steel rings.

But that is assuming the bullet hits the armour where it is supposed to. Some armour still leaves areas exposed. And even power armour has joints and weak points where someone might get lucky. It stands to reason that an Assault Cannon is far more likely to bring down a MEQ than a lasgun. Even though it might not be powerful enough to penetrate the the thick plates. With the old system that could be expressed by it having more shots, and those shots reducing the armour value more. With the AP system an Assault Cannon and a Lasgun are indistinguishable, which is silly, So they have to patch on a new rule 'rending' to make it work.

An Auto-Cannon used to do D6 damage, so no matter how tough a character is, if you beat their toughness, you do D6 wounds. However they got rid of damage... But then awkwardly fudged it straight back in as the special rule 'instant death'. But instant death isn't as good because again there is no scaling. The damage leaps from 1 to infinite across one point of toughness.

Also with regards to fantasy armour. Armour works differently depending on the weapon. Chainmail is almost impervious to sharp slashing weapons like swords and knives, but it's rubbish against blunt force weapons, and compounds the damage done by bullets. Having a one size fits all system is never going to be truly representative of a variety of weapons.

I think this is remembering things a bit rosily.

I'm not trying to say 2nd ed was better at all. It had a lot of problems (many of which are still with us in fact). But some of the mechanics worked well and were worth keeping. I really miss the wargear book, it was like a nerds wet dream to behold. Did damage values and sustained fire really slow down the game?. Top of my list for things that needed fixing would have been things like the turn order (all my units shoot first), the slowness of having to measure movement and range for every model. Targeting and cover has always been a bit shifty, and I've never been overly keen on morale checks at certain %. Yet these things have largely gone unchanged though every edition.

Regarding the save sytem I want to see it moved to after the hits are rolls. Roll to hit, roll to save vs anything with the best save you can (so ap would still work the same) roll to wound. Only real other change is Rending would need to lose the AP value or make the target reroll successful saves or something to balance it out a bit.

1. I think Allies are the best thing to happen to this game. Not only does it allow you more opportunities to experiment and come up with new compositions, keeping the game fresh, they allow people to expand into new armies without having to drop a fortune, since you can buy a single troop and HQ and have a detachment you can legitimately field with your existing army. It's a great way to encourage army expansion, and I couldn't be more excited about it! I've started four new armies since 6th edition came out, and haven't had to deal with purchasing 1500 point forces for each one before being able to realistically show up with them to the games store.

2. I used to agree with you, but I've recently come around on this. While the random powers might seem at first like they take the focus off of tactics and put it onto luck, they actually force you to be MORE tactically minded, since you have to be able to adapt your tactics depending on what powers your psyker gets. The best lists are the ones that incorporate multiple roles for the psyker and/or his unit depending on the powers generated.

3. The ability to pick up fortifications as part of your force was something the game needed to have long ago. I look forward to seeing more rules focused around the armies that specialize in the use/destruction of fortifications.

4. For the most part, I agree. (For the most part.) Fliers are a mechanic I felt didn't need to be added.

5. Sorry, this point doesn't even sound like a legitimate argument. I don't think that the new Rapid Fire rules broke anything. Yes, it does afford new opportunities for Tau (although I don't think it makes Dire Avengers 'useless' by any stretch of the imagination) but it hardly makes them invincible.

6. The power weapon rules were a game-changer, I admit. But in a game system where we all knew going in that we were signing up for cyclical rules, there is always going to be an unexpected change or two with new editions. Now I admit that we have to adapt and change our tactics (I've had to relegate Vulcan away from his previous job as a character-killer to a troop weed-whacker, a job the new rules make him a little better suited to) but that isn't always a bad thing, and the added variety making power weapons no longer an all-or-nothing thing is something that definitely adds more than it subtracts.

7. Couldn't agree with you more. While the new dexes are awesomely put together, they are vastly overpriced. I would prefer the old, non-indexed, paperback codexes to the current offerings. I'll go you one better: with the ability to offer e-books at a fraction of the cost, I think it's ludicrous for GW to charge as much as they do for their online versions of the same texts.

8. ^ - Second verse, same as the first.

9. The position micromanagement you describe is indeed time-consuming, but it gets easier over time. I think this is vastly preferable to the silly way we used to do it, where the last guy alive is magically the guy the enemy would be most fervently trying to kill!

10. On the fence about this. It's something that makes Assault oriented armies a little less powerful than they used to be, which is hardly a bad thing. Personally, I think it forces you to give a little more thought to your moves and your charges, which leads to greater forethought, and a richer game. Overall, I like this change, although I too know the heartache of a snake-eyes charge roll.

11. I don't think challenges are that bad. It's been rare for me to see a situation where I received a challenge I had no chance to win, and where denying it screwed me over horribly. I admit it adds a new dimension to close combat, but again, I think it's a change that enriches the game.

12. Drop Pods are an unusual army, which means that they are hard to learn how to beat. Once you learn the appropriate tactics to fighting them, then a balanced list does just fine against them. This is one of those situations where inexperience creates a false perception of something being overpowered. Then again, I play Drop Pods, so I'm hardly impartial. Speaking of, if you're having that much difficulty against pods, feel free to PM me, I would be happy to provide any help I could!

13. Sorry, but a consistent rules cycle is pretty much required to maintain a miniatures company. That or a never-ending cycle of miniatures, ala Heroclix. And I vastly prefer the first option. The rules-cycle is slow enough in 40k to get several years out of your books, which is far better than you see in most games with cyclical rules (like Magic, for instance). In point of fact, we're getting consistent updates now, in a seemingly fixed schedule, which is better than what we used to get, so things are looking up! If we could get some meaningful FAQs, then I would be really stoked!

To sum up: the game is cyclical. Consistent rules updates lead to a game which is constantly being refined to be a better game. If, however, you prefer an older edition, there's no reason you can't just play that with your friends. In any event, I hope it all works out for you, one way or another.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Regarding the save sytem I want to see it moved to after the hits are rolls. Roll to hit, roll to save vs anything with the best save you can (so ap would still work the same) roll to wound. Only real other change is Rending would need to lose the AP value or make the target reroll successful saves or something to balance it out a bit.

What exactly would be the point of that, besides a bit of extra effort in passing the dice back and forth? Rolling hit -> save -> wound is exactly the same as rolling hit -> wound -> save, except that now instead of just picking up your failed hits and rolling the rest of the dice to wound you have to count the hits, have your opponent roll saves, count the saves, then roll to wound.

 Jimsolo wrote:
1. I think Allies are the best thing to happen to this game. Not only does it allow you more opportunities to experiment and come up with new compositions, keeping the game fresh, they allow people to expand into new armies without having to drop a fortune, since you can buy a single troop and HQ and have a detachment you can legitimately field with your existing army. It's a great way to encourage army expansion, and I couldn't be more excited about it! I've started four new armies since 6th edition came out, and haven't had to deal with purchasing 1500 point forces for each one before being able to realistically show up with them to the games store.

The problem with allies is that it also lets you ally Tau with Tau, put the most powerful psykers in every imperial army, etc, and completely negates the design concept of having armies be good at some things and bad at others. Allies should have been left to casual/story games where you say "hey, can I play my Ultramarines with my Cadians?" like it was in 5th.

2. I used to agree with you, but I've recently come around on this. While the random powers might seem at first like they take the focus off of tactics and put it onto luck, they actually force you to be MORE tactically minded, since you have to be able to adapt your tactics depending on what powers your psyker gets. The best lists are the ones that incorporate multiple roles for the psyker and/or his unit depending on the powers generated.

So would you support things like random heavy/special weapons to add "tactics" to the game? Maybe even random unit sizes? Random special characters? And hey, you could even have different disciplines for weapons. IG could have 5/6 of their special weapons be grenade launchers, Ultramarines could choose a melta or plasma gun on a 2+, and Tau could just get railguns on everything and re-roll their heavy weapons.

6. The power weapon rules were a game-changer, I admit. But in a game system where we all knew going in that we were signing up for cyclical rules, there is always going to be an unexpected change or two with new editions.

Which is incredibly bad game design. Changes should be made because they improve the game, not because it's time for changes. And power weapons were change for the sake of change. They add pointless complexity to the game and nerf a long list of units for no good reason.

I think this is vastly preferable to the silly way we used to do it, where the last guy alive is magically the guy the enemy would be most fervently trying to kill!

At least that system worked in a very straightforward and unambiguous way instead of generating constant arguments about which model is 0.0000001" closer or having the even worse stupidity of barrage sniping. At least with "last guy to die is always the melta gunner" you can imagine that fluff-wise the melta gun is the most valuable equipment in the squad so when the gunner dies someone else picks it up and continues to shoot.

11. I don't think challenges are that bad. It's been rare for me to see a situation where I received a challenge I had no chance to win, and where denying it screwed me over horribly. I admit it adds a new dimension to close combat, but again, I think it's a change that enriches the game.

Challenges are bad because they assume that every army is made up of noble warrior heroes who love to show off in honorable duels. My IG don't care about your challenge, if you're stupid enough to lower your guard to issue one we'll just pretend to accept and stab you in the back. If challenges had to be in the game at all (and they really didn't, most of the time they're just a way to keep a character out of combat) there should have been an option to dishonor the duel and kill the idiot issuing the challenge.

To sum up: the game is cyclical. Consistent rules updates lead to a game which is constantly being refined to be a better game.

Which would in theory be a good idea, but GW isn't refining the game. They just keep introducing change for the sake of change and adding more pointless rules to the bloated mess.

 Peregrine wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Regarding the save sytem I want to see it moved to after the hits are rolls. Roll to hit, roll to save vs anything with the best save you can (so ap would still work the same) roll to wound. Only real other change is Rending would need to lose the AP value or make the target reroll successful saves or something to balance it out a bit.

What exactly would be the point of that, besides a bit of extra effort in passing the dice back and forth? Rolling hit -> save -> wound is exactly the same as rolling hit -> wound -> save, except that now instead of just picking up your failed hits and rolling the rest of the dice to wound you have to count the hits, have your opponent roll saves, count the saves, then roll to wound.

Mostly reflects armor better than the current system does, and it engages both players more since you don't have to just sit and watch while they roll and reroll dice and then tell you how many saves to roll. It doesn't really change the odds (and if it does, it's not likely much) but keeping both players engaged is always a good thing, is it not?

Overall Sir Arun, I’d say we think alike!

1) Allies ~ not a bad concept, but implemented rather poorly. Steps all over both the fluff and the “balance” in one fell swoop.

2) Psychic Disciplines ~ not fond of this change either, though it could have been done to make it OK. The random element makes it ridiculous (same for Warlord traits). I for one was glad 3rd Ed. dumped the ponderous Psychic Phase of 2nd. I want a sci-fi feel with a bit of magic sprinkled in, not fantasy with, oh yeah, guns. Unfortunately the outlook is grim.

3) Bring your terrain ~ not a bad idea but again poorly implemented with an eye for the almighty cash grab. Simpler chunks of terrain (perhaps 10 points for say 6” of razor wire) would be much more sensible and useful.

4) Flyers ~ I get it, another cash cow. Don’t hate the idea of an occasional flyer but the rules are a joke.

5) Rapid-fire rules ~ gotta disagree with that one, but my group of players is thinking of boosting the stormbolter to 3 shots at half range for what it’s worth.

6) Power weapons ~ I don’t hate the changes and see some merit, but as a group my fellow gamers felt the changes didn’t justify the added complication, especially having to re-tool so many models. This in itself isn’t a game-breaker, until GW changes the rules again that is. Like you, I run 6 armies.

7) Book costs ~ these will grate with almost everybody, but it’s not so much the cost as it is the limited shelf life and questionable quality of what is written inside. After so many changes for change’s sake, why continue riding the roller coaster?

8) Supplements ~ no opinion here as I have no desire to ever purchase one.

9) New wound allocation rules ~ yes, they suck. But 5th Ed. sucked even harder. I prefer something based on 4th Ed. where the owning player removes the models, but with a better option for the attacking player to occasionally allocate hits.

10) Random assault range ~ I’ve read many attempts to defend this stupid aspect of the game with many unconvincing arguments. Some prefer it; that’s fine. I don’t.

11) Challenges ~just like the random (a powerful theme with 6th Ed.) assault range, this topic has also been bolstered with arguments with their foundation in sand. Instead of the “cinematic” effect GW pretends to crave we have sergeants challenging bloodthirsters to single combat. Yeah, right.

12) Drops pods are too accurate, but in my experience they haven’t been OP.

13) Recycle, rinse and repeat. Yes, it’s the GW model in making money. So many argue that it the only reasonable thing for a company to do. To some degree that is true, but it seems to me GW is trying to expand its customer base at the expense of its oldest adherents. This may make some sense in the shorter run but I think after time it will cost GW in other ways and their market share will dwindle. In fact I think their allies rules actually harmed GW’s most precious commodity – their IP. We will see, I guess.

There are other things about GW’s rules I could gripe about but I just wanted to address your rant.


YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Mostly reflects armor better than the current system does, and it engages both players more since you don't have to just sit and watch while they roll and reroll dice and then tell you how many saves to roll. It doesn't really change the odds (and if it does, it's not likely much) but keeping both players engaged is always a good thing, is it not?

Rolling dice isn't being engaged, it's just making me do the work to resolve your attacks. In fact, I'd prefer it if GW replaced saves with a roll to beat a save (with the same odds of stopping a wound) so I can go get lunch while you take your turn. I'm not making any meaningful decisions either way, so why not just let each player have a break between turns?

Now, if you want meaningful engagement you need to get rid of the IGOUGO system, but we all know that will never happen.

 Peregrine wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Mostly reflects armor better than the current system does, and it engages both players more since you don't have to just sit and watch while they roll and reroll dice and then tell you how many saves to roll. It doesn't really change the odds (and if it does, it's not likely much) but keeping both players engaged is always a good thing, is it not?

Rolling dice isn't being engaged, it's just making me do the work to resolve your attacks. In fact, I'd prefer it if GW replaced saves with a roll to beat a save (with the same odds of stopping a wound) so I can go get lunch while you take your turn. I'm not making any meaningful decisions either way, so why not just let each player have a break between turns?

Now, if you want meaningful engagement you need to get rid of the IGOUGO system, but we all know that will never happen.

Honestly I don't see a different system working as well at 40k's scale as IGUGO, and I guess we just see things differently on what counts for actually being an active part of things.

 ansacs wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:

and then they try and counter your counter and so on

40k is lacking this aspect of the arms race. Weapons get better, but defenses do as well - in 40k, the weapons got better, then all the scientists shrugged their shoulders and went to lunch for 10,000 years

Waveserpent and shield eternal...there I proved that wrong. Defense are always more costly than more offense, that is pretty realistic actually.

No you didn't, you pointed out one tank that got a shield, unlike the other 99% of units in the game which did not. When weapons evolve, defenses evolve too, but 40k did away with the latter and turned the wars of the far future into "who can bring the most guns"

 Dakkamite wrote:
No you didn't, you pointed out one tank that got a shield, unlike the other 99% of units in the game which did not. When weapons evolve, defenses evolve too, but 40k did away with the latter and turned the wars of the far future into "who can get the most recent balance mistake"

Fixed that for you.

I agree with the original poster on everything except rapid fire. Rapid fire NEEDED a boost. I really miss 5th...

I only dislike TWO things about 6th ed.

1. The rules.
2. The codices.

I have played 3 games of 6th ed - one each with my 3 armies. They all ended the same way (v necrons). Tabled in turn 2.

It's not the game I want to play anymore. It was never going to be the game I always played (there's never been one of them), but it has spent a long time as my "other game" - now that other game has fallen to Firestorm Armada.

 chromedog wrote:
I only dislike TWO things about 6th ed.

1. The rules.
2. The codices.

I have played 3 games of 6th ed - one each with my 3 armies. They all ended the same way (v necrons). Tabled in turn 2.

It's not the game I want to play anymore. It was never going to be the game I always played (there's never been one of them), but it has spent a long time as my "other game" - now that other game has fallen to Firestorm Armada.

Necrons are a 5th edition book, so the problem with that is with the 5th edition codices technically.

 amanita wrote:
Overall Sir Arun, I’d say we think alike!

5) Rapid-fire rules ~ gotta disagree with that one, but my group of players is thinking of boosting the stormbolter to 3 shots at half range for what it’s worth.

Funny you should bring that up. My local group is thinking of adding a new universal rule for space marines. Would go something like - Stand and Deliver - any nonvehicle space marine that did not move in the movement phase and is equipped with a bolter, bolt pistol, stormbolter, heavy bolter, hurricane bolter, or assault cannon may fire an additional shot. Space marine dreadnoughts also gain this rule. So bolters could be fired 3 times in a round, a hurricane bolter on a centurion/dreadnought would give 9 shots. Help make up for the perceived weakness in space marine tactical squad shooting.

Would go something like - Stand and Deliver - any nonvehicle space marine that did not move in the movement phase and is equipped with a bolter, bolt pistol, stormbolter, heavy bolter, hurricane bolter, or assault cannon may fire an additional shot. Space marine dreadnoughts also gain this rule. So bolters could be fired 3 times in a round, a hurricane bolter on a centurion/dreadnought would give 9 shots. Help make up for the perceived weakness in space marine tactical squad shooting.

So a DA land raider crusader with a dakka banner would be doing 20+shots per turn at max range , after movment ?

I agree on most points, however I don't think Drop Pod assault is too powerful. You can always reserve your juicier targets to deny melta alpha strike. AP3 power weapons don't bother me either, since Terminators are still kinda crap.

What is starting to gripe me has nothing to do with 6th per say, but rather the nature of the game as a whole. Or more precisely the turn-based nature. With the amount of dakka newer armies are able to dish out the first turn is just way too important and can decide the outcome of the whole battle more often than not.

Sure a IGUGO system would change the nature of the game dramatically, but that would also make the game more engaging and not so heavily dependant on getting the first turn. Now it's mostly just a matter of idling while your opponent does his thing.

I also hate that I roll too many 1's, hopefully GW will buff my luck with dice.

My main complaint with 6th is that they never took the opportunity to overhaul the turn system.

Player A moves all their units, then shoots with everything, then assaults, while Player B does little but roll saving throws and yawn. Then they trade places.

Epic Armageddon did things much better with this approach:

Player A picks a single unit and moves / shoots / assaults with it

Player B picks a single unit and moves / shoots / assaults with it

Player A picks a single unit and moves / shoots / assaults with it

etc...
Then when all units have been used, a new turn begins. There was also the option to use 2-3 units in a row in a combination attack, but it came with a risk, making its use a tactical gamble.

That allowed for much better strategy as your try to predict and counter each move, helps keep both players engaged in the game and the whole process generally flows smoother.

It also vastly reduces the impact of a shooting-heavy army getting first turn and wiping out swathes of units before they're even used.

I did not know about this you-go-I-go system in Epic.. of course I also do not know anything about epic. That does sound like a cool way to do things... but again it would add another degree of complexity to a game that is driving complexity beyond reason.

I watched a game of War Machine the other day, and I couldn't believe how simple the mechanic seemed compared to 40K. From another thread, I may have to retract a statement. I MAY be able to learn another game and like it...

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
If 7th edition returns to 2nd edition save modifiers, I will happily cheer. I miss those modifiers so...

Yet further complicating a game that some people complain is already too complicated....

Let's be honest, not everyone will like anything GW does.

Basic addition and subtraction is complicated?

But yes, I would just prefer something besides straight: Either you pen, or you don't, otherwise we get issues where Berzerkers are supposed to be really good in CC, are pretty terrible at it.

Unless of course they bring back weapons that -1/-2 saves again.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
If 7th edition returns to 2nd edition save modifiers, I will happily cheer. I miss those modifiers so...

Yet further complicating a game that some people complain is already too complicated....

Let's be honest, not everyone will like anything GW does.

Basic addition and subtraction is complicated?

But yes, I would just prefer something besides straight: Either you pen, or you don't, otherwise we get issues where Berzerkers are supposed to be really good in CC, are pretty terrible at it.

Unless of course they bring back weapons that -1/-2 saves again.

Adding and subtracting isn't complicated (for some) but I've seen enough to know that people have a hard time keeping all the rules in their heads as is, and it'd only get worse with adding something like that.

Maybe if the game got a major overhaul.

I've been playing 40k since 3rd edition. I've never really been bothered by any particular edition. I have looked at each edition since then as having some good and some bad rules and then next edition the process repeats. The rules need to be changed every few years or so in order to keep the game fresh and interesting. I just take the good with the bad each edition. The way I look at it is the glass is both half full and half empty at the same time. Here are the points in this edition that I both dislike and like:

Dislikes:

1) The dominance of shooting in the game. I would prefer a nice balance between shooting and assault. I play both types of armies, so I'm not just whining about my BA assault marines. I play Tau and find shooting with them to be incredibly effective and footslogging troops have very little chance to get across the board in this edition. Flying MCs are a different matter though.

2) Sergents and challenges. I don't like the fact that squad sergents can be challenged. I would prefer that challenges were something left to HQ characters. This is compounded by the fact that most basic squads are reduced to only the sergent having access to specialist combat weapons.

3) Closest model taking the wound. Don't really like this. Too easy to kill off specialist weapons. You can position your guys all you want but if your opponent gets precision shots then those specialist guys are dead.

4) Don't like not being able to assault from vehicles. They should try and strike a nice balance with this instead of a no you can't or yes you can type of answer. i.e. You can do it but put a limitation in place. I remember one person suggested a difficult terrain test when trying it.

Likes:

1) Allies. I actually like the ally system. It helps you build up a new army. Although I will admit some grumbles about some of the combinations.

2) Psykers. I like the idea of psychic disciplines. Its a bit rubbish that you can't choose your powers but overall I like the system in most part. It only makes sense that there should be some core abilities that psykers would be able to perform across the board. Yes some species of psykers will be able to do some things that others can't but I think this is nicely represented by codices having powers for unique armies in addition to the rulebook ones.

3) Hull points. I actually like these. Sure its easier to glance some vehicles to death but its also a bit more difficult to instant kill a vehicle with one shot. I think its a nice balance to things. I didn't like the fact that a glancing shot could blow up a vehicle in the past. Its a lot better that it takes several glancing shots to do it.

4) Special rules. I like the fact that the game is getting more special rules. It makes units more unique and individual with different capabilities. Some people say it makes the game more complicated but as far as I am concerned this isn't meant to be an easy game. It should be complicated and appeal to adults as well as children.

Actually about hull points, it might've been better had they added say, more hull points.


Say with 3-4 being the bare minimum (for say like Dark Eldar open topped AV10 vehicles)

With about 10+ for land raider types.

Walkers being about 6-8 due to needing to be durable to defend the person inside, and having to protect it in melee combat.

Etc.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Regarding the save sytem I want to see it moved to after the hits are rolls. Roll to hit, roll to save vs anything with the best save you can (so ap would still work the same) roll to wound. Only real other change is Rending would need to lose the AP value or make the target reroll successful saves or something to balance it out a bit.

What exactly would be the point of that, besides a bit of extra effort in passing the dice back and forth? Rolling hit -> save -> wound is exactly the same as rolling hit -> wound -> save, except that now instead of just picking up your failed hits and rolling the rest of the dice to wound you have to count the hits, have your opponent roll saves, count the saves, then roll to wound.

Mostly reflects armor better than the current system does, and it engages both players more since you don't have to just sit and watch while they roll and reroll dice and then tell you how many saves to roll. It doesn't really change the odds (and if it does, it's not likely much) but keeping both players engaged is always a good thing, is it not?

One issue with the Hit - Save - Wound system would be that it will potentially slow the game down due to different Armor Savees and AP. If I shoot at a Grey Hunter Squad with a wolf guard terminator in it with 10 Hot shot Lasguns. Say I roll 5 hits and there are 2 Grey Hunters in front of the wolf guard. How do I resolve this. Since I get no save on the Grey Hunter do you then roll wounds until you make 2 then I remove those guys then I start making saves on the terminator....

As for the UGOIGO system. The issue with the Epic system is that it greatly favors MSU builds, as they can move fodder units to force the opponent into moving all their units prior to moving their key units.

As for the OP

1.) I like allies more than I dislike them. I do think they could have been better implemented. Perhaps even remove a lot of the battle brother mechanics, but I think they make the game more varied.

2.)Psychic disciplines: Mostly like them because it prevents armies from really getting screwed with bad psychic powers (see 5th Ed Dark Angels as an example), I might have prefered if you spend points on them as it would better balance the system, but for the most part it is fine. Also randomness makes it harder than point buy to achieve broken combos.

3.)Fortifications are fine more or less. I do wish though that they had more for other races.

4.)NO real issue with Flyers, they have really been toned down as the edition progressed.

5.)Rapid Fire Change was needed. The old rule where if I backed up I could no longer shoot you was dumb, and really hurt armies like Tau because they could not effectively run from assault armies.

6.)I'm not a big AP fan in general (if my gun can blow up a land raider why would it not go through a marines power armor...), consistency is better overall. The larger issue was needing to rearm models to use the varied weapons.

7.)I feel like the cost for quality is fine...but I do wish they offered a lower cost (and quality alternative) similar to the old dexes....maybe even go with just rules and shortened fluff or something (a gamers edition if you will.)

8.)Supplements are a good idea...not sure they have taken great advantage of it yet but I like the possibilies here.

9.)Wound Allocation is tricky any way you do it. I'd rather see closest model if in question controlling player chooses.

10.)Random Charge range....indifferent to this one. I used to hate it but most of the time it is ok. But you really need fleet to be great at assaulting. I think I would have prefered something like a constant Value +D6" could be initiative + D6 or 6+d3 or something. Overall I think adding back the movement stat would be good for the game in this respect.

11.) Challanges are dumb, I think there are ways they could work, I'd prefer to just see a penalty for refusing challanges (maybe strike at I1 or something) than not striking at all. IT essentially makes Wraithlords kill hordes of orks who can never win because of challenging out the power klaw.

12.) Drop pods are a non-issue you just need to learn to play against them.

13.) GW needs to make money some how, that is either by changing rules or adding models. I have no issue with updates.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
I agree with the original poster on everything except rapid fire. Rapid fire NEEDED a boost. I really miss 5th...

No, it didn't. Back in 5th I had to decide between Heavy Gauss Flayers and Tesla Weapons. Or Pulse Rifles and Pulse Carbines.

Now, everybody is kicking themselves in the nads for having modeled their guys with Tesla or Carbines instead of the vastly superior Rifles.

In the previous edition, rapid-fire weapons were the only type of trooper weapons that had comparatively long range (only outranged by snipers). There was a reward for sitting back and shooting. If you started moving, you joined the club of 12" assault weapons like my Guardians' Shuricats. And snipers, who had longer range, lost everything if they moved, so it was balanced.

I dont see anyone complaining in 6th that snipers are just as "bad" as back in the previous edition now, do I?

I like the fact that 6th edition has introduced Snapshots when you move with heavy weapons and such.

 Sir Arun wrote:
So this is a rant, if you don't like reading monotonous rants kindly ignore this post, but I felt like I had to stress some points and ask for feedback from the community - especially from others who have switched from 5th to 6th edition and how they feel about the points below; I've spent some time dabbling with 6th and got some games in, and the only thing that I really like about the new edition are the warlord traits, the various special rules concerning things on the battlefield itself (terrain, rivers, forests, ammo dumps etc.), more standard missions than 5th edition had (6 vs. 3) and the secondary battlefield objectives.

Primarily, the following things make 6th edition a real mess for me:

 Sir Arun wrote:

1) Allies. The whole unfluffy chart (Grey Knights allying with Necrons, Black Templars with Eldar...), not to mention the ridiculous combos you can field, such as Space Marine armies backed up by 9 xv-88 broadside battlesuits with high-yield missile pods and skyfire, or Imperial Guard adding an Eldar Avatar as secondary HQ to tear up the enemy in close combat and whatnot. No thanks. There are some combos that make sense, like Eldar and Tau or IG and Space Marines, but you could technically already field these in 5th edition, you merely had to take 2 Force Organization Charts. Compared to 6th, that would mean 1 more troops choice and the permission of your opponent.

I agree about the unfluffiness of the Allies chart. I am not against allies because it adds some spice to the game and opens up cool scenario possibilities such as traitor guard or Planetary force under Tau control, two brother chapters fighting side by side.

 Sir Arun wrote:

2) Psychic disciplines. Fluffwise, I liked how in 5th edition each psyker had his own set of powers that made sense. Now, in addition to that psykers can specialise all across the board, and you have those cards cluttering your table. Also, the fact that you have to roll for, and receive random psychic powers doesn't sit with me. It makes the game less tactical and more luck oriented.

I am also a little bummbed but I can live with it...in general. What pisses me the most is the Ultramarines librarian. Access to ALL disciplines, re-rolls for his powers and a bunch of other rules? And Eldar the master psychic race has...not even half of that. Still not having psychic powers in a reliable manner makes it hard to build a list around a power in particular or a concept.

 Sir Arun wrote:

3) The whole "buy your own terrain and bring it to the battlefield" concept. Oh and no, not just any terrain. That godawful looking aegis defence line is selling like hotcakes now because of the new rules.

I think it adds some flavor to the game. Not sold on the Skyshield but bastions and ADL? Sure. As for being godawful looking, my Eldar ADL is pretty spiffy. I will just agree to disagree.

 Sir Arun wrote:

4) Flyers. In 5th edition, as fast skimmers, they were already balanced. Now they got boosted to kingdom come just because GW wants them to sell. Remember when in the Necron codex, the Night Scythe and the Ghost Ark were competing with each other, but the latter only slightly winning because of its regenerative capacity? Well it's pretty one sided now, isn't it?

At first I was a bit bothered but now? Not so much. As Codex come out with valuable ways to combat flyers they can become a risky investment. I think it adds a different tactical element and evolves the game into having to consider a different aspect of your strategy.

 Sir Arun wrote:

5) Speaking of one-sided, the rule that irks me most is the fact that rapid-fire weapons are now completely overpowered, rendering assault weapons useless ("but you can still assault with them" *slow clap*). Now you can move 6" and fire a bolter to its full range? That makes Dire Avengers useless. It also means that as a Tau player, I can spam Firewarriors and have them either advance, effectively having a 36" threat range (akin to costlier, stationary snipers!), or retreat and keep firing, denying advancing Space Marines or Guard to even get off a single shot, while they are being mowed down in turn. In 5th edition if I ran back with Tau Warriors I could only shoot at upto 6" from where I originally stood, while now it is 24". It just breaks the game and it doesn't surprise me that too many 12 year olds with their ultramarine armies were whining that their super soldiers cant shoot their guns at the enemy's face when they moved, so Mama GW fixed it for them.

Honestly this is a delicate question. From playing the first days of 6th with my Space Wolves I would get cut down chasing my opponents. The SM needed the boost but not the Tau. And Dire Avengers should have had their range upgraded to 24" to be on par with Bolters. My humble opinion.

 Sir Arun wrote:

6) The new ruling on power weapons. The fact that regular power weapons now only work upto and including AP3 means Terminators got that much of a boost. Back in 5th, Eldar Banshees (and regular Grey Knights and their Death Cult Assassins) were a unit to be feared. In 6th, Banshees are cannon fodder - T3, 4+ save, costs as much as a marine, occupies an Elite slot, needs a transport to be effective - all these weaknesses were remedied in 5th in that they could jump out of a stationary transport, move, fleet, assault and tear up a terminator squad in close combat, given they get to strike first and the termies have to rely on their measly 5+ inv. save to survive. The Banshees still need 5s to wound T4 enemies though, but they usually managed to do this with their plethora of attacks. Now in 6th, their power weapons are about as effective as a bunch of guardsmen in close comat against the same terminator squad. It was already bad enough that close combat termies carrying storm shields were boosted from 4+ inv. in CC to 3+ inv. even at range when the 5th ed SM codex came out (3+ inv. in cc would have been fair), but that was a long time ago and we've accepted it. But this...this is just wrong. If an AP3 weapon would reduce a 2+ save to a 4+ or something it would be fair...but nope.

The Banshees vs. Striking Scorpions debate is also now completely one-sidedly settled. In 5th, you had to choose between 3+ armor save, +1S, +1A and infiltration ability OR striking first in CC, completely ignoring armor saves, and having fleet-of-foot (move + run + assault) as well as the Exarch fielding a S5 power weapon. And even then the Scorps were slightly better since they didn't need a transport (infiltrate) and their Exarch could carry an armor save ignoring scorpion claw, albeit it struck last. But now the banshees are completely out of the picture. Especially with the 6th edition Eldar codex not beefing them in any way and in turn, making the Striking Scorp Exarch's Scorp Claw strike at normal Initiative.

While I agree that it does make artificier armor, sempiternal weave, iridium armor and such a viable choice (nobody would take them in 5th because you could get an iron halo or other inv. save granting equipment for your commander for about the same amount of points), it still makes power weapons (incl. ICs fielding them) nigh useless, given that everyone can field termies now and not have to worry about (almost) anything, except short-ranged demolisher cannons, plasma weaponry and single shot AT-weapons to take out termies while they still get their inv. save.

I have mixed feelings on the terminators. On one hand there was little reason to take them in the past because whatever could cut down a regular SM would cut down a Terminator. Why pay the extra for a save you won't get to use? Making all power weapons AP3 was not a bad thing. SOME should have remained AP2 to maintain usefulness. Banshees being one. I died a little bit when the new Eldar Codex came out and the Bashees were nerfed and now next to useless. Striking Scorpions afre finally useful or more useful. Can't say I am disappointed as they are one of my favorite aspect. If the Banshees had an Exarch power that allowed them to charge out of a vehicule they would have been useful but now...they are good for painting practice.

 Sir Arun wrote:

7) new codices now cost almost as much as the hardcover rulebook. Sure, they are hard back and in full color but does this justify their cost? Escpecially when you are collecting multiple armies, this drives the cost of just keeping up with the game really high. Other game manufacturers actually offer army books and such at reduced cost or sometimes even free, because their marketing strategy says giving rules to players will convince them of starting new armies. At the current price rate, if I were a new player I doubt I would field more than 2 armies simply because the cost for the rules alone discourage me.

I fully agree

 Sir Arun wrote:

8) supplements now cost as much as the new codex and you'll need to buy both if you want to use the supplement. Thankfully, supplements are crap in that they are 10% new rules and the rest only background, special missions or artwork / army showcase.

I fully agree

 Sir Arun wrote:

9) the new wound allocation rules. Your special weapon guy has to make a save for getting hit and failed it? Too bad, he is dead. While I agree that this makes *not* fielding special weapons, i.e. barebones squads, a sensible choice now (literally everyone would load up on special weapons and such in 5th edition), I still think that it takes the fun out of the game when you have to constantly keep your special weapon guys in the back ranks or risk it and lose them prematurely. There are already enough variables to worry about when playing a game of 40k, do we now also need to micromanage our miniatures' position within their squad at all times???

I somewhat agree. Sometimes it would take ages for the guy top decide which model to take out.

 Sir Arun wrote:

10) random assault charge ranges....seriously? Sure, this means the average assault range is 7" now, but still...I'd hate to roll snake eyes and watch my squad not only receive the mandatory overwatch barrage, but also get shot to bits in the enemy turn's shooting phase even though I didn't charge through difficult terrain at all. Assault armies already have a tough time by being forced to take the fight to the enemy halfway across the battlefield while the defending player gets to sit back and shoot at them, but now also being denied the charge AND being the victim of (multiple) overwatch? That's too much.

My Wolves took a big blow from that. Hell they took a big blow from all the assault nerfs. Not assaulting out of an immobile vehicule, not assaulting from reserves. And yes Tau combined overwatch is a pain.

 Sir Arun wrote:

11) Challenges. Oh, how I hate these. This makes taking out Independent Characters and/or Monstrous Creatures who are characters in close combat next to impossible. Back in 5th edition, if my Space Marine squad had a sergeant with powerfist, the thought of being charged by a Wraithlord wasn't so bad - he would have to munch through 9 of my marines and all the while my sergeant would be able to wound it. Granted, if I had an independent character with a powerfist, then of course I would be forced to go to base contact with the Wraithlord to be able to deliver my attacks, and the Wraithlord could choose to directly attack me instead, but usually my IC would have access to invulnerable save wargear and would also be better in CC that the sergeant. Now in 6th, because the Wraithlord is a character, it can declare a challenge to my sarge and either make him useless in CC (if he doesnt accept it) or if he accepts it, insta-kill him because the 'Lord will strike before his Powerfist is able to. And without the sarge, the Space Marine squad is useless. So really....powerfists became utterly useless against ICs now, unless your own IC with an inv. save is wielding one. This just takes the fun out of the game when you know that you won't be able to kill enemy ICs no matter how hard you try, because against ranged fire they have Lookout, Sir! and against close combat special weapons, they can issue a challenge and take your sarge out with extreme ease. Thanks for ruining the game balance, GW. It's not like it was ever cheap to buy a powerfist for a ranged infantry squad, given that its use was so situational, but it was insurance against being charged by big bad guys, now there is no point to it at all.

I am not against challenges and actually like the mechanic. It is fun and fluffy though sometimes severely one-sided. What I hate is the 2+ Look Out Sir. That over-protects already powerful characters.

 Sir Arun wrote:

12) Drop Pod Assault. Granted, this was already introduced in mid to late 5th edition but now that Black Templars have FAQ'd access to it in 6th, as a BT player I can smell the ridiculous cheese half a mile away. For 35 points, guaranteeing that one of my 10 man Crusader Initiate squads will arrive as close to the enemy as possible on turn 1 itself? That's plain nasty. Especially since it means they only have to wither 1 turn of enemy fire instead of 2 (or 3 if the opponent got 1st turn!) before going into CC means Drop-pods are a MUST now in every assault oriented space marine army from 500 points all the way up to 2k or more. Granted, only half of the pods you have in your army benefit from the Drop Pod Assault, but since this is rounded up, 1 is all you need to make sure that at least one of your squads won't get hurt.

It gets even better when you drop-pod a venerable dread with a multi-melta next to the tank. That's a very good chance of getting rid of a 150+ point vehicle that would have made life hell for your guys if it could get its shots off. Once this is done, the drop-podded Dread can use its HF to fry infantry.

If the drop pods costed twice as much as they currently do, it would be fairer, but right now I don't see any point whatsoever in ever taking Rhinos for my BT army, since 6th edition doesnt allow me to assault on the same turn as I disembark, even if I didn't move the transport (back in 5th I would move out of cover 12" with the Rhino on my turn 1, then an additional 12" on turn 2 and pop smoke, and disembark and charge on turn 3. So even if the enemy went first, it would only give him 2 turns to take out the rhino (during one of which the rhino has a 50% chance to negate all incoming hits) either way making my guys more survivable than if they were footslogging.

Nasty yes but almost a must considering all the other nerfs to assault. We learn and adapt out strategies.

 Sir Arun wrote:

13) All over again. And by that I mean - at the close of 5th ed, all armies had either updated 5th ed. codices, or 4th edition ones, with erratas and everything, as well as Planetstrike, Planetary Empires and Battle Missions to round off the 5th ed experience in terms of supplements. It felt complete. Done. Now that we are in 6th, you feel dissatisfied again because all armies need to get updated to 6th, not to mention that the new codices look and feel different to the old ones who had pretty similar layouts. First, there was a stream of errata that defined how many hull points vehicles of each codex etc. got and so on. Then, the actual new codices arrived (at huge costs, mind you). As a player of 6 armies (Eldar, BT, Tau, IG, GK and Necrons), it is really difficult for players like me to "keep up" with the progression of the game given that it is - at the end of the day - a hobby and not a collectible card game, but if you dont keep spending money to update your stuff, you get left out.

I wish GW would host in their stores - at least once a month or so - a game type for veterans where you could play previous editions with previous codices. Like a "5th edition veterans' night" or even a 2nd edition one if you really have retro rulebooks and such in your collection. The card game Magic the gathering does this with their vintage and legacy format, so why not 40k?

I dont like the fact that all your previous rulebooks can essentially be thrown in the bin or collect dust for all eternity once the new codices are released, and then it's the same deal all over again 4 years from now. That fancy hardcover £50.00 rulebook you just bought? Yeah, it will be useless in 4 years when the game gets updated again. And in terms of 40k gaming time, 4 years can pass quite fast. That's less than 12 games for some of us, if we manage to find time for a game every 3 months.

Well this is the cycle of the game you chose. Not much I can say or do to change that. That's less than 12 games for you but for some of us 4 years is 200+ games. I hope that 6th ed will last a while.

Breng77 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Regarding the save sytem I want to see it moved to after the hits are rolls. Roll to hit, roll to save vs anything with the best save you can (so ap would still work the same) roll to wound. Only real other change is Rending would need to lose the AP value or make the target reroll successful saves or something to balance it out a bit.

What exactly would be the point of that, besides a bit of extra effort in passing the dice back and forth? Rolling hit -> save -> wound is exactly the same as rolling hit -> wound -> save, except that now instead of just picking up your failed hits and rolling the rest of the dice to wound you have to count the hits, have your opponent roll saves, count the saves, then roll to wound.

Mostly reflects armor better than the current system does, and it engages both players more since you don't have to just sit and watch while they roll and reroll dice and then tell you how many saves to roll. It doesn't really change the odds (and if it does, it's not likely much) but keeping both players engaged is always a good thing, is it not?

One issue with the Hit - Save - Wound system would be that it will potentially slow the game down due to different Armor Savees and AP. If I shoot at a Grey Hunter Squad with a wolf guard terminator in it with 10 Hot shot Lasguns. Say I roll 5 hits and there are 2 Grey Hunters in front of the wolf guard. How do I resolve this. Since I get no save on the Grey Hunter do you then roll wounds until you make 2 then I remove those guys then I start making saves on the terminator....

It doesn't really slow things down much in most cases, just like it doesn't know for mixed saves. Easiest fix would be take the majority save, or a change to wound allocation (like it always picks off the basic troopers first because even if it killed a guy with equipment his buddy just picks it up, dusts it off and away they go).

It's not like the current system isn't a bit too complicated as is anyways.

I wouldnt have so much of a gripe with the new codices (as they do look great, now that I own a couple) if it werent for GW STILL filling them with bucketloads of spelling mistakes.

I mean...seriously. Ever book from the bookstore has less spelling mistakes in its...what? 350 average pages, than a 140 page 6th edition Codex.

It's really hard for me to understand why GW still doesnt have the sort of professional editors needed to proofread their books, especially when this isnt some niche Black Library publication, but an official army codex bought and played by tens of thousands of people across the world. At £30 you'd think they would see to it...


And finally, a small (personal) gripe I have with the 6th ed BRB is that it is filled with doodles reminiscent of the 80s grimdark Rogue Trader art. I preferred the cleaner look of the 5th edition rulebook, that wasnt framed with weird spidery doodles on every page, but had a nicer, cleaner, more modern and neat gothic theme.

 Sir Arun wrote:
I wouldnt have so much of a gripe with the new codices (as they do look great, now that I own a couple) if it werent for GW STILL filling them with bucketloads of spelling mistakes.

I mean...seriously. Ever book from the bookstore has less spelling mistakes in its...what? 350 average pages, than a 140 page 6th edition Codex.

It's really hard for me to understand why GW still doesnt have the sort of professional editors needed to proofread their books, especially when this isnt some niche Black Library publication, but an official army codex bought and played by tens of thousands of people across the world. At £30 you'd think they would see to it...


And finally, a small (personal) gripe I have with the 6th ed BRB is that it is filled with doodles reminiscent of the 80s grimdark Rogue Trader art. I preferred the cleaner look of the 5th edition rulebook, that wasnt framed with weird spidery doodles on every page, but had a nicer, cleaner, more modern and neat gothic theme.

I spent nearly $500 on textbooks for the semester and they're all full of spelling errors (and sometimes actual errors too), so really it's not just GW. Just about every book I've ever read had at least a few errors in there.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Regarding the save sytem I want to see it moved to after the hits are rolls. Roll to hit, roll to save vs anything with the best save you can (so ap would still work the same) roll to wound. Only real other change is Rending would need to lose the AP value or make the target reroll successful saves or something to balance it out a bit.

What exactly would be the point of that, besides a bit of extra effort in passing the dice back and forth? Rolling hit -> save -> wound is exactly the same as rolling hit -> wound -> save, except that now instead of just picking up your failed hits and rolling the rest of the dice to wound you have to count the hits, have your opponent roll saves, count the saves, then roll to wound.

Mostly reflects armor better than the current system does, and it engages both players more since you don't have to just sit and watch while they roll and reroll dice and then tell you how many saves to roll. It doesn't really change the odds (and if it does, it's not likely much) but keeping both players engaged is always a good thing, is it not?

One issue with the Hit - Save - Wound system would be that it will potentially slow the game down due to different Armor Savees and AP. If I shoot at a Grey Hunter Squad with a wolf guard terminator in it with 10 Hot shot Lasguns. Say I roll 5 hits and there are 2 Grey Hunters in front of the wolf guard. How do I resolve this. Since I get no save on the Grey Hunter do you then roll wounds until you make 2 then I remove those guys then I start making saves on the terminator....

It doesn't really slow things down much in most cases, just like it doesn't know for mixed saves. Easiest fix would be take the majority save, or a change to wound allocation (like it always picks off the basic troopers first because even if it killed a guy with equipment his buddy just picks it up, dusts it off and away they go).

It's not like the current system isn't a bit too complicated as is anyways.

Majority save is a terrible idea as it makes better saves on characters irrelivant, and by making it alwasy basic troopers you nerf the ability for a better save to tank wounds etc....I could see maybe just letting the controlling player choose but it seems overly complicated.

Breng77 wrote:
Majority save is a terrible idea as it makes better saves on characters irrelivant, and by making it alwasy basic troopers you nerf the ability for a better save to tank wounds etc....I could see maybe just letting the controlling player choose but it seems overly complicated.

I dont think in real life a terminator would ever say "Get behind me boys, I got this". Rather the other way around - your lives mean nothing, the Emperor wants that objective and I am the only one able to take and hold it.

When wound allocation would place a save on the terminator model, then he can use his better armor, as used to be the case in the older edition.

Breng77 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Regarding the save sytem I want to see it moved to after the hits are rolls. Roll to hit, roll to save vs anything with the best save you can (so ap would still work the same) roll to wound. Only real other change is Rending would need to lose the AP value or make the target reroll successful saves or something to balance it out a bit.

What exactly would be the point of that, besides a bit of extra effort in passing the dice back and forth? Rolling hit -> save -> wound is exactly the same as rolling hit -> wound -> save, except that now instead of just picking up your failed hits and rolling the rest of the dice to wound you have to count the hits, have your opponent roll saves, count the saves, then roll to wound.

Mostly reflects armor better than the current system does, and it engages both players more since you don't have to just sit and watch while they roll and reroll dice and then tell you how many saves to roll. It doesn't really change the odds (and if it does, it's not likely much) but keeping both players engaged is always a good thing, is it not?

One issue with the Hit - Save - Wound system would be that it will potentially slow the game down due to different Armor Savees and AP. If I shoot at a Grey Hunter Squad with a wolf guard terminator in it with 10 Hot shot Lasguns. Say I roll 5 hits and there are 2 Grey Hunters in front of the wolf guard. How do I resolve this. Since I get no save on the Grey Hunter do you then roll wounds until you make 2 then I remove those guys then I start making saves on the terminator....

It doesn't really slow things down much in most cases, just like it doesn't know for mixed saves. Easiest fix would be take the majority save, or a change to wound allocation (like it always picks off the basic troopers first because even if it killed a guy with equipment his buddy just picks it up, dusts it off and away they go).

It's not like the current system isn't a bit too complicated as is anyways.

Majority save is a terrible idea as it makes better saves on characters irrelivant, and by making it alwasy basic troopers you nerf the ability for a better save to tank wounds etc....I could see maybe just letting the controlling player choose but it seems overly complicated.

Honestly I hate the idea of sticking your valuable HW model up front to "tank wounds", but that's just me.

Wound allocation is one of those things that needs to be simplified no matter how you slice it honestly.

I think allies are a fantastic way to add flavour to an army that has been collecting dust on a shelf. They also help prevent older codices from getting destroyed by more recent ones as you can bolster your forces with some stop-gap measures.

Allies only become an issue when you get into very competitive play and people try to abuse the system. In which case if you were worried about fluff.... well most tournament lists are extremely unfluffy to begin with even if they are using a single codex.

I'd rather have more options (even if some are quite silly) then be further restricted in the hobby.

My gripe with the allies chart is that it is fluffy in some cases (see tyranids) and quite unfluffy in other cases (BT and Eldar)

If they would have gone for all fluff and no balance or all balance and no fluff I would have been fine with that but they decided to sprinkle a little bit of both in random spots which makes for some nasty combos with other armies being left out.

The Black Templar ally chart is dead. Codex: Space Marines says that in all instances, any references that say to use Codex: Black Templars, you use Codex: Space Marines, but with Black Templars Chapter tactics.

The ally chart says to use the "codex" of your primary detachment to determine allie. There is no Codex: Black Templars anymore.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
The Black Templar ally chart is dead. Codex: Space Marines says that in all instances, any references that say to use Codex: Black Templars, you use Codex: Space Marines, but with Black Templars Chapter tactics.

The ally chart says to use the "codex" of your primary detachment to determine allie. There is no Codex: Black Templars anymore.

However the Primary Detachment when you use Black Templar says to refer to any older publication (Rulebook), have them refer to detachments from Codex: Space Marines using the Black Templar Chapter Tactics.

Thus if you use Black Templar as a Primary Detachment, you still use their old ally chart.

Wasn't there some big thing about this in YMDC?

I love sixth. Flyers are becoming more balanced due to updated codices. There is a wide range of armies that are introduced thanks to allies and I think the game is progressing FORWARD. Relax guy, this edition has only been out for less than a year and a half, and will be around for a little under another 3 years. ALOT of changes have occurred to this edition in the last year, give it a chance. Things will balance out, and at the rate the codices are being released we'll be looking at probably a couple of years of updated armies and tabletop carnage.

No. No you don't.

Some Black Templars players have been unwilling to let go of the fact that they no longer have their own book. But the wording is very clear.

Codex: Space Marines is very explicit about the fact that all references to Codex: Black Templars now being to Codex: Space Marines with Black Templar Chapter Tactics. Chapter tactics are not a codex.

"Some older publications may refer to Codex: Black Templars. For all rules purposes, consider these references to instead refer to detachments from Codex: Space Marines using the Black Templars Chapter Tactics special rule."

The Ally Chart is very explicit about using the Ally Row for the Codex of your primary detachment. There is no spoon, and there is no Codex: Black Templars.


Remember, the order of actions:
Determine the codex.
Find that codex on the chart.

It's not:
Look on the chart.
Find the row for your codex.

"All rules purposes." I mean, I can see where there could be confusion, but the language is explicit. And if that isn't enough, the fluff makes it fairly clear. Black Templars are good buddies with the Sisters, and they no longer hate witches and aliens as much.

If the fluff talks about how much the Sisters and Black Templars are totally friends now instead of being Catholics vs Protestants like they used to be, why would they still use an ally chart that makes them Desperate Allies? They don't.

Makumba wrote:

Would go something like - Stand and Deliver - any nonvehicle space marine that did not move in the movement phase and is equipped with a bolter, bolt pistol, stormbolter, heavy bolter, hurricane bolter, or assault cannon may fire an additional shot. Space marine dreadnoughts also gain this rule. So bolters could be fired 3 times in a round, a hurricane bolter on a centurion/dreadnought would give 9 shots. Help make up for the perceived weakness in space marine tactical squad shooting.

So a DA land raider crusader with a dakka banner would be doing 20+shots per turn at max range , after movment ?

Nobody in our group plays DA, and I don't have access to a DA codex so I don't know the example you give, but since you mention land raider in specific, the rule specifically does not apply to vehicles with the exception of dreadnoughts. And notice it also says if the unit didn't move. Specific number of shot would per model including the effects for rapid fire on bolters would be - bolt pistols 2, boltguns 3, storm bolters 3, heavy bolters 4, hurricane bolters 9, assault cannon 5. Looking at it I think I will suggest we drop assault cannons from the list, assault cannons are already good enough.

strange to make the same weapons work different for different models .

kb305 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
The whole paper-scissors-rock nature of the game is pretty disappointing to me.

Fliers are hard countered into the ground by skyfire. Terminators get shat on by AP2. Tanks get reamed by lance and melta. Etc etc.

It's just like buying a dozen little papers and a dozen little rocks and pretending to play war with them. The real deal is a hell of a lot faster and cheaper IMO, and more balanced as well =/

That's how real war works though too. Your enemy designs something, you design something to counter it, and then they try and counter your counter and so on. It's just one endless game of rock, paper scissors.

and then they built nukes that could destroy the whole planet. what is your point again? sorry but your argument is pretty irrelevant. it's a game.

So you want a game that contains units that have no effective counter??? That sounds like fun....

Also, all this talk about bringing back modifiers is crazy. All modifiers accomplished in 2nd edition was to completely negate the effectiveness of anything less than terminator armour. The vaunted power armour of Space Marines was as effective as tissue paper against the majority of small to medium arms fire. You paid a premium for MEQ level of armour on units, but never got any real benefit from it. While the AP system is simplistic, it is a realistic approach when it comes to a modern warfare style game. Body armour is rated to stop a certain caliber of shot. Anything above that and the armour is ineffective. A failed save represents the shot getting lucky and finding a seam. The real problem is not with the core rules, but it lies at an army level were a select few armies are loaded with AP2 firepower, while other armies have very little.

On a final note, I find it humorous that so many say that 2nd edition 40K was a Skirmish game...while the rules certainly fit the style better than later editions, the games I played were never "skirmish" level. Our FLGS rarely hosted games less than 2000 points with the veterans, and a typical game was higher than that. The model count didn't really get any higher with newer editions, the points for the games just got lower. Now, I normally play 1500-1750 compared to 2000-2500 with 2nd edition.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
While the AP system is simplistic, it is a realistic approach when it comes to a modern warfare style game.

And that there is why it should be scrapped, 40k is in no way related to realistic modern warfare.

 jonolikespie wrote:
And that there is why it should be scrapped, 40k is in no way related to realistic modern warfare.

Did you really just attempt to argue that the AP system should be scrapped because it's too realistic? Why is realism such a bad thing?

If the modifier system came back, I'd quit right there. 2+ armor on non-MCs needs to be strengthened, not weakened due to wound spamming.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:

kb305 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
The whole paper-scissors-rock nature of the game is pretty disappointing to me.

Fliers are hard countered into the ground by skyfire. Terminators get shat on by AP2. Tanks get reamed by lance and melta. Etc etc.

It's just like buying a dozen little papers and a dozen little rocks and pretending to play war with them. The real deal is a hell of a lot faster and cheaper IMO, and more balanced as well =/

That's how real war works though too. Your enemy designs something, you design something to counter it, and then they try and counter your counter and so on. It's just one endless game of rock, paper scissors.

and then they built nukes that could destroy the whole planet. what is your point again? sorry but your argument is pretty irrelevant. it's a game.

So you want a game that contains units that have no effective counter??? That sounds like fun....

Also, all this talk about bringing back modifiers is crazy. All modifiers accomplished in 2nd edition was to completely negate the effectiveness of anything less than terminator armour. The vaunted power armour of Space Marines was as effective as tissue paper against the majority of small to medium arms fire. You paid a premium for MEQ level of armour on units, but never got any real benefit from it. While the AP system is simplistic, it is a realistic approach when it comes to a modern warfare style game. Body armour is rated to stop a certain caliber of shot. Anything above that and the armour is ineffective. A failed save represents the shot getting lucky and finding a seam. The real problem is not with the core rules, but it lies at an army level were a select few armies are loaded with AP2 firepower, while other armies have very little.

On a final note, I find it humorous that so many say that 2nd edition 40K was a Skirmish game...while the rules certainly fit the style better than later editions, the games I played were never "skirmish" level. Our FLGS rarely hosted games less than 2000 points with the veterans, and a typical game was higher than that. The model count didn't really get any higher with newer editions, the points for the games just got lower. Now, I normally play 1500-1750 compared to 2000-2500 with 2nd edition.

I never said that. id like a more balanced game, no more hard counters. everything should be atleast somewhat effective against everything else.

yes i'm well aware that second edition also sucked, all youve highlighted is that they couldnt write rules back then either. i remember the cyclone missile launchers, vortex grenades and other stupid crap of that edition clearly.

this is what im thinking off the top of my head if you must stay with a D6 system (which i would also get rid of right away):

krak missile: -3
plasma: -2 (since it's not quite as good now you can get rid of gets hot)
lascannon: no save
melta: no save
bale drake flamer: -2
power weapons: -2 or maybe -3
autocannon: -1
bolter: nil (maybe give it some other minor special rule to make up for this fact since it's supposed to be a more powerful weapon)
lasgun: nil

 DarthOvious wrote:
The rules need to be changed every few years or so in order to keep the game fresh and interesting.

Campaign books and new armies can keep the game 'fresh and interesting' without the need to drastically change the core rules every few years.

4 years is few enough.

Tried 6th ed, thought it was a complete mess and a blatant money-grabber with the fliers and allies so now I only play 2nd ed, which can be just as bad as 6th but at least I'm not dishing out loads of money on goofy fliers. I play very little 40k now anyway, most of my time and attention is now focused on Dust Tactics and Infinity.

I've been playing since Rogue Trader and 6th is easily my favorite so far. Yes, things change every edition. Some things will get better, others will get worse. Is it perfect? Not hardly. I really dislike fliers and not being able to assault out of vehicles. There are also still some serious balance issues. Over all, I'm pleased with 6th edition.

9) the new wound allocation rules. Your special weapon guy has to make a save for getting hit and failed it? Too bad, he is dead. While I agree that this makes *not* fielding special weapons, i.e. barebones squads, a sensible choice now (literally everyone would load up on special weapons and such in 5th edition), I still think that it takes the fun out of the game when you have to constantly keep your special weapon guys in the back ranks or risk it and lose them prematurely. There are already enough variables to worry about when playing a game of 40k, do we now also need to micromanage our miniatures' position within their squad at all times???

Well, i actually rather like this aspect of the game, makes it much more important to hide my meltagun dudes from fire


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm fine with units having somewhat unbalanced stats, I.E Riptides, because it makes the game rather fun. But i'm not fine with strange and cheesy tactics, if we're going to spam bikers, drakes or pods, at least make them less irritating to play against. Assaulting out of transports would be nice too....

kb305 wrote:


I never said that. id like a more balanced game, no more hard counters. everything should be atleast somewhat effective against everything else.

yes i'm well aware that second edition also sucked, all youve highlighted is that they couldnt write rules back then either. i remember the cyclone missile launchers, vortex grenades and other stupid crap of that edition clearly.

this is what im thinking off the top of my head if you must stay with a D6 system (which i would also get rid of right away):

krak missile: -3
plasma: -2 (since it's not quite as good now you can get rid of gets hot)
lascannon: no save
melta: no save
bale drake flamer: -2
power weapons: -2 or maybe -3
autocannon: -1
bolter: nil (maybe give it some other minor special rule to make up for this fact since it's supposed to be a more powerful weapon)
lasgun: nil

To be fair,wanting soft counters is all well and good - warmachine does it very well (everything is effective) - but a guy with a rifle or a knife shouldn't be 'somewhat' effective against a tank. Especially when he can get a lascannon.

Regarding your suggestion - IMO modifiers can work, but you're doing it wrong. The 40k mechanics don't really work with it - unless you deal with a very small number of -1s across the whole range of weapons like Andy chambers' old starship troopers game, armour becomes worthless. Giving every gun a modifier just means more book keeping for the sake of it. The three roll system doesn't help either, but that's an argument against the resolution mechanics in 40k, as opposed to modifiers in general.

If you ask me, a simpler, and far more elegant solution is to look at infinity, and see how they implement armour and weapon power. Weapons have power, but no silly dual stat of ap.You roll to hit (modified by both distance and cover), and provided you hit, the other guy rolls an armour save against the power if what hit him. Two rolls. Roll to hit. And roll to save.

In 40k terms, it means rather than bob having a 4+ save for example, his armour gives him +1 to his save. (Or more. You'd have to port things over. ) you roll to hit bob with an s4 bolster and hit him. Nob gets his armour save, and saves on a 5+, modified by his armour of +1 so he saves on a 4+. Basically your armour gives the same several of protection against all weapons, but with more powerful weapons having higher str, your overall ability to resist is lessened. Bob will save on a 4+ to a bolter, a 5+ against a pulse rifle and a 6+ against a multilaser.

Forget ap, and simply Roll your saves against the power|strenth|insert term here. No need for modifiers but you still end up with a similar effect.


Check out infinity.

kb305 wrote:

I never said that. id like a more balanced game, no more hard counters. everything should be atleast somewhat effective against everything else.

yes i'm well aware that second edition also sucked, all youve highlighted is that they couldnt write rules back then either. i remember the cyclone missile launchers, vortex grenades and other stupid crap of that edition clearly.

this is what im thinking off the top of my head if you must stay with a D6 system (which i would also get rid of right away):

krak missile: -3
plasma: -2 (since it's not quite as good now you can get rid of gets hot)
lascannon: no save
melta: no save
bale drake flamer: -2
power weapons: -2 or maybe -3
autocannon: -1
bolter: nil (maybe give it some other minor special rule to make up for this fact since it's supposed to be a more powerful weapon)
lasgun: nil

But hard counters ARE a form of balance. How many war games don't have some form of hard counter for various unit types? I'd much prefer specific hard counters that make you choose between anti-armour, anti-infantry, or anti-air before the battle, as opposed to armies just being able to counter any unit with any other unit (which makes for an incredibly dull game). Again, the problem here isn't with the core rules, its with the individual armies. Some armies are designed as a form of hard counter to other armies, and thus makes the game more difficult for those armies being countered.

A modifier system is far more flawed than the AP system, as it makes weak armour more powerful and makes strong armour less so. With your system, an autocannon shell (which is designed to penetrate light tanks) can potentially bounce off an IG troopers flak jacket....and you feel this is a BETTER system? To me, AP combined with To Wound rolls is a more simplistic AND realistic approach as opposed to modifiers.

The only modifiers that should be brought back into the game are To Hit modifiers brought on by cover. To me, if I go through the trouble of getting my unit into cover, the difficulty doing damage to the unit should be on the opponent, not my ability to roll a save. This would also help heavier armoured units because they can actually get benefit from cover for all incoming fire, not just that which negates their base armour. While I certainly understand WHY GW went with the cover save system (how do you determine To Hit modifiers when only a portion of the unit is in cover), I feel it could use some work. Maybe give an extra type of save in the same way as FNP. You get hit/wounded, take your normal armour save, and then take your Cover Save (if necessary).

There's nothing wrong with hard counters. They just shouldn't hard counter 80% of the game like the wave serpent.

I will go out on a limb to state the current AP/armor save system is the best yet. And I have played since back Rouge Trader days. I like the fact that your armor protects you, or the weapon hitting you makes it worthless. Simplicity and realism, I like it!

I disagree with quite a bit of the original posters points. but I have to agree on a couple.

The allies thing is... problematic in so many ways. It is EASY to see why people don't like this mechanic. i have found that the meta is adjusting to it now, but newer players are going to get somewhat baffled in early games by the dizzying array of ways an enemy can come at you and frankly, the cost that necessarily entails to adjust. I am blessed to have made a pretty good living at times and so my collection is enormous and I am somewhat spoiled. all that aside, the other problem is that the fluff just is ridiculous.

so on cost, fluff and the allies thing I think the OP is right on the money. I'd say the rest of it is just failure to adjust. I'm a "tactics guy" and so if anything, a lot of these other changes he mentions added to that and I see them as yet more challenging ways to exert my brain on the subject matter.

Rhino's would be useful if they were considered Assault Vehicles... They aren't... And that's the main reason C:SM players sooner bring Razor Backs and CSM players don't take them unless they are running Plague Marines... and Even then, in a lot of cases it's sometimes better to just foot slog the dirty guys...

I personally hate how in 6th Ed Shooti armies vary in ranged weaponry for their troops... Look at Tau... 30" str 5 rapid fire guns on their troops.. I cannot explain in words the frustration of simply walking back 6" every turn, and still being in range of shooting your opponent wihtout him being able to shoot back at you, with Boltguns.. The most common weapon profile in game... 24" range weapons on models by comparison, costing an arm and a leg to field...

Another problem I have, Is DE venom spam... For no reason can I see, a vehicle being a DT ever being able to get Splinter cannons x 2!!! With the members inside being able to shoot as well as moving their 12" then assault... I call total mouth breather on this... Disembarkation should be maintained within base contact of your vehicle.. 6" is bloody stupid.

Back to Rhino's the fact they aren't assault vehicles means you simply take a 35 point str 4 blast on yourself or what ever troops you decided to bomb-box and put inside the bloody thing... It's AV11, CSM versions can't even get good weaponry nor convert to Razor Backs themselves and your best hope is to simply use it as a cover save or block LOS... 35 points....for repositioning LOS

35 points METUL BAWKSES I see them as terrain pieces like the ADL, but destructible, but repositionable.

I. I agree and disagree with this. A. In for fun games, it can allow you a wider range of models to chose from. B. Do away with battle brothers altogether. C. Remove them from events like tourneys as it is too easily abused.

2. I see your points but to me they aren't as bad to me as they are to you. No insult intended. My thing on them is that you should get a deny the witch roll on ALL psychic test powers instead of just the offensive ones targeting your units.

3. I kinda like this for the coolness value. Instead of only having imperial stuff, sell stuff for other armies or create templates for them to build their own without having to convert imperial stuff. You pay through the nose in points for it so I don't find it a gamebreaker.

4. Meh, I would have no issues with shooting at flyers be at BS2 instead of needing a 6 if the points were lowered a tab for flyers. With the abundance of ways to take them down, I don't find them too op.

5. I haven't really seen this affect games. Of course, I usually only play tourneys so it could be that I just havnt gotten to play against that tactic (although we do have an abundance of taur and necron players.

6.I agree. made me hafta convert axes onto models and made rough riders TOTALLY worthless. lol

7. Totally agree. They could sell the codexes for $10 and still make a hefty profit on each one. Of course, the same goes for the models.

8. Again, I agree.

9. I kinda disagree with you there. That being said, flamers are only usefull in the front so are usually one of the first killed. I'd like a point reduction for that.

10. This actually makes sense. It makes assault armies actually THINK now instead of just assuming the win. Guys trip over rocks (or their own feet), Bob up front gets cold feet and slows down in front of the guys behind him and so forth so is also kinda fluffy.

11. I can take it or leave it.

12. I agree with you on this.

13. TOTALLY agree with this. of course, it keeps people always wanting to buy a new army every time it comes out.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:

kb305 wrote:

I never said that. id like a more balanced game, no more hard counters. everything should be atleast somewhat effective against everything else.

yes i'm well aware that second edition also sucked, all youve highlighted is that they couldnt write rules back then either. i remember the cyclone missile launchers, vortex grenades and other stupid crap of that edition clearly.

this is what im thinking off the top of my head if you must stay with a D6 system (which i would also get rid of right away):

krak missile: -3
plasma: -2 (since it's not quite as good now you can get rid of gets hot)
lascannon: no save
melta: no save
bale drake flamer: -2
power weapons: -2 or maybe -3
autocannon: -1
bolter: nil (maybe give it some other minor special rule to make up for this fact since it's supposed to be a more powerful weapon)
lasgun: nil

But hard counters ARE a form of balance. How many war games don't have some form of hard counter for various unit types? I'd much prefer specific hard counters that make you choose between anti-armour, anti-infantry, or anti-air before the battle, as opposed to armies just being able to counter any unit with any other unit (which makes for an incredibly dull game). Again, the problem here isn't with the core rules, its with the individual armies. Some armies are designed as a form of hard counter to other armies, and thus makes the game more difficult for those armies being countered.

A modifier system is far more flawed than the AP system, as it makes weak armour more powerful and makes strong armour less so. With your system, an autocannon shell (which is designed to penetrate light tanks) can potentially bounce off an IG troopers flak jacket....and you feel this is a BETTER system? To me, AP combined with To Wound rolls is a more simplistic AND realistic approach as opposed to modifiers.

The only modifiers that should be brought back into the game are To Hit modifiers brought on by cover. To me, if I go through the trouble of getting my unit into cover, the difficulty doing damage to the unit should be on the opponent, not my ability to roll a save. This would also help heavier armoured units because they can actually get benefit from cover for all incoming fire, not just that which negates their base armour. While I certainly understand WHY GW went with the cover save system (how do you determine To Hit modifiers when only a portion of the unit is in cover), I feel it could use some work. Maybe give an extra type of save in the same way as FNP. You get hit/wounded, take your normal armour save, and then take your Cover Save (if necessary).

No, hard counters and terrible game balance make for a dull game. many of the match ups are so bad why bother unpacking the models. If even the bad lists had atleast a fighting chance it would still be worth playing. Having counters to stuff is fine, currently its more about broken/overpowered units. A hard counter to 80% of the game isnt a hard counter anymore, it's just broken/unbalanced game design.

Actually if you bothered to read my modifiers it was actually a buff to strong amour. power armour now gets a 5+ against plasma, bale drakes and power weapons.
the guardsman gets what, save on a 6 vs an autocannon? I hardly think that's going to break the game.

@OP, I have just recently come back to 40k after three years.
When I left, I had literally just began to feel comfortable
playing 5th Ed.

Long story short:
I have been in the position recently of
having to learn all the new rules and meta changes, and
obviously forming my own opinions about them along the way...

The ones I agree with:

- hull points
- wound allocation to closest models.
- pre-measuring

The ones I disagree completely with and it makes me depressingly upset:

- warlord traits (there's already enough randomness)
- flyers (belong in epic)
- challenges (belong in role-play)
- psychic everything (magic belongs in warhammer fantasy)
- random assault lengths (there's already enough randomness)
- ADL (should only be for special missions)


I also think the space marine FOC has too many units, but
obviously space marines are like a money tree for GW.
That's what I think it comes down to in the end: as much as we like the game and the hobby, GW is a business and they are trying to make cash-money...

:(

PS I don't think it will be long until we see an entirely new race, with super powerful new units that everyone wants to play (and buy).

Changing the IGOUGO activation system of 40K could turn things in the game on their head in a very positive way.

I have played several games that operate at the scale of 40K that work perfectly fine with alternating activation. From what I hear EPIC had it. And two of my favorite games, despite them being no longer in active print, are AT-43 and Confrontation:Age of Ragnorok.

I regularly take to the field in AT-43 with armies that are the same model count as a 2000-2500pt 40K army, and our games play just as fast as 40K, while at the same time keeping the other player from being bored for the entire time I activate an entire army. And AT-43 even has a system in place that is a bit more complicated that a simple "pick a unit to activate", and that still doesn't make the game last longer than a game of 40K.

One of the other things keeping me out of 6th edition is that I absolutely hate is the giant list of Universal Special Rules. My god.

Also, agree that flyers belong in Epic. Period.

And no, you shouldn't be able to ally with yourself. At least with the allies from 2nd edition, having an Imperial Guard army throw in an Eldar Avater still had to worry about whether that Avatar and their Imperial Guard HQ didn't go over 25% of the army points total. Still janky, but at least it was more of a balance than a simple Force Org slot.

I can honestly say that I could expect to get a casual gamer (like my wife) to learn, play, and enjoy 2nd edition with me much easier than 6th edition, barring the obvious 2nd edition Hand to Hand phase issues. Of course, I worry about the multiple heart attacks a Black Templars player would suffer upon learning that in 2nd edition, they are just vanilla marines, lol.

that may just be me though, but I doubt it. I am well versed in 40K from 2nd edition to 4th edition, and my first look at the 6th edition rules had me with a bewildered look on my face and and muttering "holy crap" to myself while shaking my head at how I would never be able to convince any of my friends or wife to play it with me, let alone delve into it myself.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Changing the IGOUGO activation system of 40K could turn things in the game on their head in a very positive way.

I have played several games that operate at the scale of 40K that work perfectly fine with alternating activation. From what I hear EPIC had it. And two of my favorite games, despite them being no longer in active print, are AT-43 and Confrontation:Age of Ragnorok.

I regularly take to the field in AT-43 with armies that are the same model count as a 2000-2500pt 40K army, and our games play just as fast as 40K, while at the same time keeping the other player from being bored for the entire time I activate an entire army. And AT-43 even has a system in place that is a bit more complicated that a simple "pick a unit to activate", and that still doesn't make the game last longer than a game of 40K.

One of the other things keeping me out of 6th edition is that I absolutely hate is the giant list of Universal Special Rules. My god.

Also, agree that flyers belong in Epic. Period.

And no, you shouldn't be able to ally with yourself. At least with the allies from 2nd edition, having an Imperial Guard army throw in an Eldar Avater still had to worry about whether that Avatar and their Imperial Guard HQ didn't go over 25% of the army points total. Still janky, but at least it was more of a balance than a simple Force Org slot.

I can honestly say that I could expect to get a casual gamer (like my wife) to learn, play, and enjoy 2nd edition with me much easier than 6th edition, barring the obvious 2nd edition Hand to Hand phase issues. Of course, I worry about the multiple heart attacks a Black Templars player would suffer upon learning that in 2nd edition, they are just vanilla marines, lol.

that may just be me though, but I doubt it. I am well versed in 40K from 2nd edition to 4th edition, and my first look at the 6th edition rules had me with a bewildered look on my face and and muttering "holy crap" to myself while shaking my head at how I would never be able to convince any of my friends or wife to play it with me, let alone delve into it myself.

I agree. igougo was outdated and crappy.... 15 years ago.

any other turn based strategy game could be used for ideas.

i was thinking of a system (edit: many turn based strategy games use something like this) where first you would rework the initiative statistic from the ground up and then have units activate in initiative order from highest to lowest. it would not really be alternate activation though. All of someone's units could end up going dead last if that player decided to field all slow units.

Not sure how you would settle a tie though (units with the same initiative). Havnt thought that far ahead.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Changing the IGOUGO activation system of 40K could turn things in the game on their head in a very positive way.

I have played several games that operate at the scale of 40K that work perfectly fine with alternating activation. From what I hear EPIC had it. And two of my favorite games, despite them being no longer in active print, are AT-43 and Confrontation:Age of Ragnorok.

So you want the most successful game in the market to adopt a core mechanic that already bankrupted two competing companies/games?

Really?

Not to diss your enjoyment of AT-43 and/or Confrontation, etc.., but it does sound a lot like somebody telling Apple they should change their products to be more like Blackberry's

1) Allies. The whole unfluffy chart (Grey Knights allying with Necrons, Black Templars with Eldar...), not to mention the ridiculous combos you can field, such as Space Marine armies backed up by 9 xv-88 broadside battlesuits with high-yield missile pods and skyfire, or Imperial Guard adding an Eldar Avatar as secondary HQ to tear up the enemy in close combat and whatnot. No thanks. There are some combos that make sense, like Eldar and Tau or IG and Space Marines, but you could technically already field these in 5th edition, you merely had to take 2 Force Organization Charts. Compared to 6th, that would mean 1 more troops choice and the permission of your opponent.

Yay. Another complaint about "fluff" allies. Alright, as far as GK/crons go, the crons have a fluff temporary alliance with SM. GK use any tech they can get their hands on. Necrons are all tech. Do the math. What should bother is that the SM fluff connection to Crons cant be taken as allies. As far as SM allied with Tau, the points cost alone to take 9XV88+HQ+Troops for the allied detachment is rediculous. If you are playing at that cost level you are better off playing Apoc. Fair enough on the rest.

2) Psychic disciplines. Fluffwise, I liked how in 5th edition each psyker had his own set of powers that made sense. Now, in addition to that psykers can specialise all across the board, and you have those cards cluttering your table. Also, the fact that you have to roll for, and receive random psychic powers doesn't sit with me. It makes the game less tactical and more luck oriented.

Fair enough, but the psychic powers are so much better, and have so much more variation, with the power changes and individual model allowance changes this is far better. Also: See Primaris Power.

3) The whole "buy your own terrain and bring it to the battlefield" concept. Oh and no, not just any terrain. That godawful looking aegis defence line is selling like hotcakes now because of the new rules.

Fair enough...
Don't forget the other godawful terrain pieces... *sigh* If you don't like them ignore them. I don't know of a single person who uses them. They cost too much (both ways) and provide far too little where the points are better invested. I think they are an amazing idea with poor execution.

4) Flyers. In 5th edition, as fast skimmers, they were already balanced. Now they got boosted to kingdom come just because GW wants them to sell. Remember when in the Necron codex, the Night Scythe and the Ghost Ark were competing with each other, but the latter only slightly winning because of its regenerative capacity? Well it's pretty one sided now, isn't it?

With the introduction of skyfire, interceptor, and fliers to the new codices, this is a pretty minor complaint. Sorry mate, but this was something that we needed to add a bit of threat to backlines. They are universally easy to destroy and provide almost no tactical use early game. Also, I am a necron player. Night scythes are garbage. A armor 11 on all sides, glanced to death immediately (they are huge targets, snap shots only hit on 6's but you'd be surprise how often that happens) I take ghost arks over them any day of the week. Also, Necron air force is worthless against any opponent with any kind of tactical thinking.

5) Speaking of one-sided, the rule that irks me most is the fact that rapid-fire weapons are now completely overpowered, rendering assault weapons useless ("but you can still assault with them" *slow clap*). Now you can move 6" and fire a bolter to its full range? That makes Dire Avengers useless. It also means that as a Tau player, I can spam Firewarriors and have them either advance, effectively having a 36" threat range (akin to costlier, stationary snipers!), or retreat and keep firing, denying advancing Space Marines or Guard to even get off a single shot, while they are being mowed down in turn. In 5th edition if I ran back with Tau Warriors I could only shoot at upto 6" from where I originally stood, while now it is 24". It just breaks the game and it doesn't surprise me that too many 12 year olds with their ultramarine armies were whining that their super soldiers cant shoot their guns at the enemy's face when they moved, so Mama GW fixed it for them.

Fair enough. Like I said, necron player... 12" rapid fire gauss s4 ap5 is nice, but worthless against anything with 18 or 24" range. The nerf to assaulting sucks, but it is not as bad as you make it seem.

6) The new ruling on power weapons. The fact that regular power weapons now only work upto and including AP3 means Terminators got that much of a boost. Back in 5th, Eldar Banshees (and regular Grey Knights and their Death Cult Assassins) were a unit to be feared. In 6th, Banshees are cannon fodder - T3, 4+ save, costs as much as a marine, occupies an Elite slot, needs a transport to be effective - all these weaknesses were remedied in 5th in that they could jump out of a stationary transport, move, fleet, assault and tear up a terminator squad in close combat, given they get to strike first and the termies have to rely on their measly 5+ inv. save to survive. The Banshees still need 5s to wound T4 enemies though, but they usually managed to do this with their plethora of attacks. Now in 6th, their power weapons are about as effective as a bunch of guardsmen in close comat against the same terminator squad. It was already bad enough that close combat termies carrying storm shields were boosted from 4+ inv. in CC to 3+ inv. even at range when the 5th ed SM codex came out (3+ inv. in cc would have been fair), but that was a long time ago and we've accepted it. But this...this is just wrong. If an AP3 weapon would reduce a 2+ save to a 4+ or something it would be fair...but nope.

The Banshees vs. Striking Scorpions debate is also now completely one-sidedly settled. In 5th, you had to choose between 3+ armor save, +1S, +1A and infiltration ability OR striking first in CC, completely ignoring armor saves, and having fleet-of-foot (move + run + assault) as well as the Exarch fielding a S5 power weapon. And even then the Scorps were slightly better since they didn't need a transport (infiltrate) and their Exarch could carry an armor save ignoring scorpion claw, albeit it struck last. But now the banshees are completely out of the picture. Especially with the 6th edition Eldar codex not beefing them in any way and in turn, making the Striking Scorp Exarch's Scorp Claw strike at normal Initiative.

While I agree that it does make artificier armor, sempiternal weave, iridium armor and such a viable choice (nobody would take them in 5th because you could get an iron halo or other inv. save granting equipment for your commander for about the same amount of points), it still makes power weapons (incl. ICs fielding them) nigh useless, given that everyone can field termies now and not have to worry about (almost) anything, except short-ranged demolisher cannons, plasma weaponry and single shot AT-weapons to take out termies while they still get their inv. save.

Fair enough.

7) new codices now cost almost as much as the hardcover rulebook. Sure, they are hard back and in full color but does this justify their cost? Escpecially when you are collecting multiple armies, this drives the cost of just keeping up with the game really high. Other game manufacturers actually offer army books and such at reduced cost or sometimes even free, because their marketing strategy says giving rules to players will convince them of starting new armies. At the current price rate, if I were a new player I doubt I would field more than 2 armies simply because the cost for the rules alone discourage me.

I agree with you 150% here. GW double dips the marketplace? Say it isn't so. I get that they're a business and they have a profit margin to keep but it seems like they like to go about it the wrong way. Instead of screwing their players (codex/supplement prices, the yearly price increases, finecast, "package" deals that cost more than the models individually) they should be releasing new models, codices, armies, apps, terrain etc... keep the players they have and bring more in. This attitude of *paraphrasing here* the best part of the hobby is buying GW stuff */paraphrase* is garbage.

8) supplements now cost as much as the new codex and you'll need to buy both if you want to use the supplement. Thankfully, supplements are crap in that they are 10% new rules and the rest only background, special missions or artwork / army showcase.

See above.

9) the new wound allocation rules. Your special weapon guy has to make a save for getting hit and failed it? Too bad, he is dead. While I agree that this makes *not* fielding special weapons, i.e. barebones squads, a sensible choice now (literally everyone would load up on special weapons and such in 5th edition), I still think that it takes the fun out of the game when you have to constantly keep your special weapon guys in the back ranks or risk it and lose them prematurely. There are already enough variables to worry about when playing a game of 40k, do we now also need to micromanage our miniatures' position within their squad at all times???

I think that the commander of the attacking army should be able to allocate wounds. Makes sense, as you're shooting specific targets. If the unit commander is the target of opportunity, my crons would shoot him first.

10) random assault charge ranges....seriously? Sure, this means the average assault range is 7" now, but still...I'd hate to roll snake eyes and watch my squad not only receive the mandatory overwatch barrage, but also get shot to bits in the enemy turn's shooting phase even though I didn't charge through difficult terrain at all. Assault armies already have a tough time by being forced to take the fight to the enemy halfway across the battlefield while the defending player gets to sit back and shoot at them, but now also being denied the charge AND being the victim of (multiple) overwatch? That's too much.

I agree this is garbage. There should be a set charge range. I get the need for randomness to simulate terrain (rubble slows you down, so does terrain unevenness.) But this is rediculous. Between this and overwatch it has destroyed melee armies.

11) Challenges. Oh, how I hate these. This makes taking out Independent Characters and/or Monstrous Creatures who are characters in close combat next to impossible. Back in 5th edition, if my Space Marine squad had a sergeant with powerfist, the thought of being charged by a Wraithlord wasn't so bad - he would have to munch through 9 of my marines and all the while my sergeant would be able to wound it. Granted, if I had an independent character with a powerfist, then of course I would be forced to go to base contact with the Wraithlord to be able to deliver my attacks, and the Wraithlord could choose to directly attack me instead, but usually my IC would have access to invulnerable save wargear and would also be better in CC that the sergeant. Now in 6th, because the Wraithlord is a character, it can declare a challenge to my sarge and either make him useless in CC (if he doesnt accept it) or if he accepts it, insta-kill him because the 'Lord will strike before his Powerfist is able to. And without the sarge, the Space Marine squad is useless. So really....powerfists became utterly useless against ICs now, unless your own IC with an inv. save is wielding one. This just takes the fun out of the game when you know that you won't be able to kill enemy ICs no matter how hard you try, because against ranged fire they have Lookout, Sir! and against close combat special weapons, they can issue a challenge and take your sarge out with extreme ease. Thanks for ruining the game balance, GW. It's not like it was ever cheap to buy a powerfist for a ranged infantry squad, given that its use was so situational, but it was insurance against being charged by big bad guys, now there is no point to it at all.

I love challenges. Let me rephrase that, I love the IDEA of challenges. The execution is piss poor, I agree. A simple fix I'm getting ready to test in my group is the "roll for initiative" in challenges. Each player rolls a d6. High one goes first that round. The characters initiative matters not. The fluff reason: as each side cheers their challenger on, and the challengers circle each other poised to strike... roll a d6. the winner strikes first. Obviously this means nothing in tournaments, but as I don't play in any (the nearest GW store is 2 1/2 hours away) that doesn't matter to me.

12) Drop Pod Assault. Granted, this was already introduced in mid to late 5th edition but now that Black Templars have FAQ'd access to it in 6th, as a BT player I can smell the ridiculous cheese half a mile away. For 35 points, guaranteeing that one of my 10 man Crusader Initiate squads will arrive as close to the enemy as possible on turn 1 itself? That's plain nasty. Especially since it means they only have to wither 1 turn of enemy fire instead of 2 (or 3 if the opponent got 1st turn!) before going into CC means Drop-pods are a MUST now in every assault oriented space marine army from 500 points all the way up to 2k or more. Granted, only half of the pods you have in your army benefit from the Drop Pod Assault, but since this is rounded up, 1 is all you need to make sure that at least one of your squads won't get hurt.

It gets even better when you drop-pod a venerable dread with a multi-melta next to the tank. That's a very good chance of getting rid of a 150+ point vehicle that would have made life hell for your guys if it could get its shots off. Once this is done, the drop-podded Dread can use its HF to fry infantry.

If the drop pods costed twice as much as they currently do, it would be fairer, but right now I don't see any point whatsoever in ever taking Rhinos for my BT army, since 6th edition doesnt allow me to assault on the same turn as I disembark, even if I didn't move the transport (back in 5th I would move out of cover 12" with the Rhino on my turn 1, then an additional 12" on turn 2 and pop smoke, and disembark and charge on turn 3. So even if the enemy went first, it would only give him 2 turns to take out the rhino (during one of which the rhino has a 50% chance to negate all incoming hits) either way making my guys more survivable than if they were footslogging.

Fair enough. I haven't played a DPA army yet so I have no opinion, but it smells of ricotta.

13) All over again. And by that I mean - at the close of 5th ed, all armies had either updated 5th ed. codices, or 4th edition ones, with erratas and everything, as well as Planetstrike, Planetary Empires and Battle Missions to round off the 5th ed experience in terms of supplements. It felt complete. Done. Now that we are in 6th, you feel dissatisfied again because all armies need to get updated to 6th, not to mention that the new codices look and feel different to the old ones who had pretty similar layouts. First, there was a stream of errata that defined how many hull points vehicles of each codex etc. got and so on. Then, the actual new codices arrived (at huge costs, mind you). As a player of 6 armies (Eldar, BT, Tau, IG, GK and Necrons), it is really difficult for players like me to "keep up" with the progression of the game given that it is - at the end of the day - a hobby and not a collectible card game, but if you dont keep spending money to update your stuff, you get left out.

Agreed. How can you be a necron player and value a night scythe over a ghost ark?

 Zweischneid wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Changing the IGOUGO activation system of 40K could turn things in the game on their head in a very positive way.

I have played several games that operate at the scale of 40K that work perfectly fine with alternating activation. From what I hear EPIC had it. And two of my favorite games, despite them being no longer in active print, are AT-43 and Confrontation:Age of Ragnorok.

So you want the most successful game in the market to adopt a core mechanic that already bankrupted two competing companies/games?

Really?

Not to diss your enjoyment of AT-43 and/or Confrontation, etc.., but it does sound a lot like somebody telling Apple they should change their products to be more like Blackberry's

this is your argument against it?

Really?

ill just say that many Microsoft programs suck. and so do apple people

kb305 wrote:


this is your argument against it?

Really?

ill just say that many Microsoft programs suck. and so do apple people

An argument? No. Just pointing out the curious observation of seeing somebody point out "this game, which went broke and this game, that also went broke" as allegedly prime sources for improving the world's bestselling miniature wargame.

There's nothing inherently wrong with IGOUGO. It actually has advantages in itself in playing speed (turn transitions between players do slow things down a little).

The problems occur when things 'break' it like the Combat/running system (immunity to being shot) and ATSKNF, where it becomes to 'gamey' and less like an OTT simulation.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Wound allocation. It's back to where it makes sense. If your guy with the special weapon is in a vulnerable spot, he's going to die. If you're charging at the enemy and get hosed down, the guys in front are going to die first. Duh. Do you need to micromanage your mini positions? Yes. Good lord, it's a war game. And 40K is ridiculously simple. If you can't handle that, well, uh, maybe you need to play checkers.

No, it really doesn't make any sense. Even conscripts can figure out things like "ignore the guy in terminator armor tanking all your shots and shoot the guy next to him that's aiming a lascannon at your tank". You have the absurd situation of all of your troops being expert marksmen that can always hit the one fingertip of the closest model that is poking out from behind cover instead of taking shots at the model slightly farther away that has half its body out of cover. And then of course you get the stupidity of barrage sniping, where a Basilisk is a better sniper weapon than an expert sniper with a rifle. Or of blocking LOS to all but one model in a squad with spare transports so that everyone gets to snipe the single target model out of the squad.

As for micromanaging, no, it doesn't make sense. Nitpicking the exact placement of every model would make sense in a skirmish-scale game where there are only a few models on the table and all of them are separate "characters". It doesn't make sense in a 40k-scale game where units matter and models are just parts of units, and where you have potentially hundreds of models on the table. When you have to measure precisely to see which model is 0.1" closer (and then argue about it) just so you can see which meatshield takes a wound, or obsess over whether the melta gun is in the exact perfect spot to avoid taking a wound, the system is broken.

In short, the current wound allocation system is the worst of both worlds. As a "realistic" method it's just stupid, and as an abstracted method it's tedious and overcomplicated.

Remember how I said in one of the X-Wing threads we rarely agree? I'm 100% with you here. I played my first game of 6th a couple weeks ago and had the opposing player consistently tell me "that model is barely closer, you have to remove it". The game sucked. He was following the rules, and playing correctly. It's the rules that are stupid and should never have been created. You'd think they would follow the fantasy setup for musicians and banner bearers-if they're presumed killed, another model picks up the item and it stays on the board. Somebody is going to argue that it takes skill to fire those special weapons that regular guys don't have. Well, it takes skill to play a trumpet or bang a drum to a tune that can be matched to. Random noise doesn't maintain order. Hence, ruling is stupid. And when I failed a 5 inch charge with 4 inches...I was ready to throw the game. Random charges are stupid. No, I don't care for them in fantasy either.

With the introduction of skyfire, interceptor, and fliers to the new codices, this is a pretty minor complaint. Sorry mate, but this was something that we needed to add a bit of threat to backlines.

You mean after they nerfed outflanking, infiltrating, and other methods of getting to the backfield with assault?

 Zweischneid wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Changing the IGOUGO activation system of 40K could turn things in the game on their head in a very positive way.

I have played several games that operate at the scale of 40K that work perfectly fine with alternating activation. From what I hear EPIC had it. And two of my favorite games, despite them being no longer in active print, are AT-43 and Confrontation:Age of Ragnorok.

So you want the most successful game in the market to adopt a core mechanic that already bankrupted two competing companies/games?

Really?

Not to diss your enjoyment of AT-43 and/or Confrontation, etc.., but it does sound a lot like somebody telling Apple they should change their products to be more like Blackberry's

Spartan Game's games use the 'I move a unit, you move a unit' and they seem to be hugely popular for something that isn't 40k/warmachine.

 Zagman wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
If 7th edition returns to 2nd edition save modifiers, I will happily cheer. I miss those modifiers so...

I wish we could do away with the AP mechanic in favor of a Save modifier mechanic.

AP1 could be save -5
AP2 could be save -4
AP3 could be save -3
AP4 could be save -2
AP5 could be save -1
AP6/- would be save -0

Then take Invulnerable Saves after armor.

Like 2nd ED did? Whats old to be new again? Oh and Term armor rolled 2d6 and added it up!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 pretre wrote:
Had to check the post date to see if this thread was necro'd. It's like travelling back in time.

Agreed, 6th was released June 2012! Rant most have been a saved round...

 jonolikespie wrote:


Spartan Game's games use the 'I move a unit, you move a unit' and they seem to be hugely popular for something that isn't 40k/warmachine.

True. Though Warhammer 40K uses IGO-UGO and it seems to be hugely popular for something that isn't Spartan Games.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Wound allocation. It's back to where it makes sense. If your guy with the special weapon is in a vulnerable spot, he's going to die. If you're charging at the enemy and get hosed down, the guys in front are going to die first. Duh. Do you need to micromanage your mini positions? Yes. Good lord, it's a war game. And 40K is ridiculously simple. If you can't handle that, well, uh, maybe you need to play checkers.

No, it really doesn't make any sense. Even conscripts can figure out things like "ignore the guy in terminator armor tanking all your shots and shoot the guy next to him that's aiming a lascannon at your tank". You have the absurd situation of all of your troops being expert marksmen that can always hit the one fingertip of the closest model that is poking out from behind cover instead of taking shots at the model slightly farther away that has half its body out of cover. And then of course you get the stupidity of barrage sniping, where a Basilisk is a better sniper weapon than an expert sniper with a rifle. Or of blocking LOS to all but one model in a squad with spare transports so that everyone gets to snipe the single target model out of the squad.

As for micromanaging, no, it doesn't make sense. Nitpicking the exact placement of every model would make sense in a skirmish-scale game where there are only a few models on the table and all of them are separate "characters". It doesn't make sense in a 40k-scale game where units matter and models are just parts of units, and where you have potentially hundreds of models on the table. When you have to measure precisely to see which model is 0.1" closer (and then argue about it) just so you can see which meatshield takes a wound, or obsess over whether the melta gun is in the exact perfect spot to avoid taking a wound, the system is broken.

In short, the current wound allocation system is the worst of both worlds. As a "realistic" method it's just stupid, and as an abstracted method it's tedious and overcomplicated.

Remember how I said in one of the X-Wing threads we rarely agree? I'm 100% with you here. I played my first game of 6th a couple weeks ago and had the opposing player consistently tell me "that model is barely closer, you have to remove it". The game sucked. He was following the rules, and playing correctly. It's the rules that are stupid and should never have been created. You'd think they would follow the fantasy setup for musicians and banner bearers-if they're presumed killed, another model picks up the item and it stays on the board. Somebody is going to argue that it takes skill to fire those special weapons that regular guys don't have. Well, it takes skill to play a trumpet or bang a drum to a tune that can be matched to. Random noise doesn't maintain order. Hence, ruling is stupid. And when I failed a 5 inch charge with 4 inches...I was ready to throw the game. Random charges are stupid. No, I don't care for them in fantasy either.

Agreed. The two above rules changes were the dealbreaker for 40k for me. Everything else I could tolerate to varying degrees, even though I think a lot of them are utterly stupid (Flyers, challenges). But random charge distances and the utterly utterly asinine casualty removal rules just make for an absolute chore of a game.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Changing the IGOUGO activation system of 40K could turn things in the game on their head in a very positive way.

I have played several games that operate at the scale of 40K that work perfectly fine with alternating activation. From what I hear EPIC had it. And two of my favorite games, despite them being no longer in active print, are AT-43 and Confrontation:Age of Ragnorok.

So you want the most successful game in the market to adopt a core mechanic that already bankrupted two competing companies/games?

Really?

Not to diss your enjoyment of AT-43 and/or Confrontation, etc.., but it does sound a lot like somebody telling Apple they should change their products to be more like Blackberry's

Really? Really? The alternating activation mechanic was the cause of Rackham's complete and utter commercial ineptitude? Sounds like someone who is still angry about Confrontation being turned into a pre-paint.

Even GW has used a form of alternating activations in their games, like Epic. So do many other companies out there. It's just as viable as IGOUGO, but keeps the momentum of a game alive. I'm not an idiot for using a gaming example that I am familiar with.

Risk is a hugely popular board game and uses the IGOUGO system just to burst the bubble of those that think IGOUGO is silly

I do hate aegis defense lines. But its because of tau going to ground for a 2+ cover save..... Oh well it will pass as things change.

Zweischneid wrote:So you want the most successful game in the market to adopt a core mechanic that already bankrupted two competing companies/games?

False causal attribution is hilarious.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Actually about hull points, it might've been better had they added say, more hull points.


Say with 3-4 being the bare minimum (for say like Dark Eldar open topped AV10 vehicles)

With about 10+ for land raider types.

Walkers being about 6-8 due to needing to be durable to defend the person inside, and having to protect it in melee combat.

Etc.

Perhaps. I mostly like the idea because it always bothered me that a glancing hit could take out a vehicle. What exactly did it glance in order to do that?

The number of hull pts each vehicle is debateable. If I was to give a personal preference then perhaps I would like to see basic vehicles with 4 hull points and then Land Raiders with 5 or 6.

Zweischneid wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Changing the IGOUGO activation system of 40K could turn things in the game on their head in a very positive way.

I have played several games that operate at the scale of 40K that work perfectly fine with alternating activation. From what I hear EPIC had it. And two of my favorite games, despite them being no longer in active print, are AT-43 and Confrontation:Age of Ragnorok.

So you want the most successful game in the market to adopt a core mechanic that already bankrupted two competing companies/games?

Correlation does not equal causation, dude.

A GumyBear wrote:Risk is a hugely popular board game and uses the IGOUGO system just to burst the bubble of those that think IGOUGO is silly

Risk doesn't try to balance a plethora of units and races with widely varying ranged/melee abilities. In fact it only really has one 'unit' that is identical for every player and the only variation is that you can have multiples of them. I've never seen anyone lose a game of risk on the first turn to long range artillery from the other side of the board. I can't really think of a good IGOUGO analogy for 40k, as I haven't really played many non-GW wargames that support so many units/races.

A much better analogy to alternating activation is Chess. It's not perfect of course (both sides are identical, unlike 40k), but it shows the spirit behind trying to constantly predict, counter and react to an opponent with every move.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarthOvious wrote:

Perhaps. I mostly like the idea because it always bothered me that a glancing hit could take out a vehicle. What exactly did it glance in order to do that?

The number of hull pts each vehicle is debateable. If I was to give a personal preference then perhaps I would like to see basic vehicles with 4 hull points and then Land Raiders with 5 or 6.

It always bothered me that you couldn't kill vehicles with glances in earlier editions. Surely with enough weight of fire you'd eventually sever fuel lines, incapacitate crew members, or detonate ammo. I always liked the idea of tanks being slowly incapacitated in this manner rather than forcing people to use things like melta and lascannon constantly.

My only gripe with it is that glances probably shouldn't automatically remove a hull point, making it happen on a 3+/4+ instead would be more balanced.

The big issue with alternating activation and 40k is the major reworking of how the game works. There is a LOT that would need to change to make the game run better than it would straight out of the gate just swapping who does what when.

Also what level of alternating activation would be best? Would all units only activate once a turn? Or would they still have 3 phases and they activate then?

There is a lot to consider beyond a blanket "this would make it all better" statement I think.

 insaniak wrote:

 DarthOvious wrote:
The rules need to be changed every few years or so in order to keep the game fresh and interesting.

Campaign books and new armies can keep the game 'fresh and interesting' without the need to drastically change the core rules every few years.

Weren't there complaints at the end of 5th that the game was getting boring though?

 DarthOvious wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 DarthOvious wrote:
The rules need to be changed every few years or so in order to keep the game fresh and interesting.

Campaign books and new armies can keep the game 'fresh and interesting' without the need to drastically change the core rules every few years.

Weren't there complaints at the end of 5th that the game was getting boring though?

There are always complaints.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
The big issue with alternating activation and 40k is the major reworking of how the game works. There is a LOT that would need to change to make the game run better than it would straight out of the gate just swapping who does what when.

Also what level of alternating activation would be best? Would all units only activate once a turn? Or would they still have 3 phases and they activate then?

There is a lot to consider beyond a blanket "this would make it all better" statement I think.

I don't think it would be as extensive as hull points. GW has to reprint stats for every vehicle in the main rule book to clarify that one.

The biggest issue I can see would be how assault would work. Do you
a) charge with a unit, then resolve the fight immediately, or
b) charge with a unit, then wait until the end of the turn to resolve all melees at once?

The former can make multi-charge complex, as you could end up charging an existing melee and having a unit act twice. The latter leaves the difficulty in keeping track of who charged who.

Many other issues can be solved with simple changes to the main rules. For example, when a unit is under an effect that normally lasts until the beginning of its next turn, it instead lasts until the units next activation.

As for what level of activation, I would treat it as if a unit got a normal turn to itself. It would move, then shoot, then charge as required. Once it has done so, it can't be activated again until the following turn.

So a unit could have potentially three actions in a row uninterrupted? Yeah, I hate to say it but that would be broken pretty fast. Armies like Orks would love it though.

Another issue: the time it'd take the game. Alternating activation tends to lead to slower play as the players are much more concerned with how each move is reacted too.

I'm not saying it can't work, I'm just saying that it doesn't work without some wide changes to the game.

 xttz wrote:

It always bothered me that you couldn't kill vehicles with glances in earlier editions. Surely with enough weight of fire you'd eventually sever fuel lines, incapacitate crew members, or detonate ammo. I always liked the idea of tanks being slowly incapacitated in this manner rather than forcing people to use things like melta and lascannon constantly.

In the case of weapons that didn't have AP1 then you are correct, but it was still possible to destroy a vehicle with a glancing hit. You just wrecked the vehicle instead of exploding it, except in the case of open topped vehicles which could still explode. In my mind a glancing hit is something that catches the vehicle but shouldn't be doing an extraordinary amount of damage, whereas a penetrating hit is what I would consider to be a hit that causes a vehicle damage.

However we probably have a different idea of what we consider to be a glancing it and a penetrating hit. Severing fuel lines is something I would consider to be a penetrating hit rather than a glancing hit. Hence why we view the rules in a different way.

My only gripe with it is that glances probably shouldn't automatically remove a hull point, making it happen on a 3+/4+ instead would be more balanced.

Like I mentioned before I am fairly easy going with the rules and I understand changes are made in a rule set, so the above suggestion wouldn't bother me if it was indeed implemented but also I am fairly ok with the way it currently works as well. Perhaps this could be a suggestion made for a future edition. I would be happy with it as long as it works out in a reasonable way that doesn't cause massive imbalance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
The big issue with alternating activation and 40k is the major reworking of how the game works. There is a LOT that would need to change to make the game run better than it would straight out of the gate just swapping who does what when.

Also what level of alternating activation would be best? Would all units only activate once a turn? Or would they still have 3 phases and they activate then?

There is a lot to consider beyond a blanket "this would make it all better" statement I think.

I agree with this. Changing the system would take a massive overhaul. 40k would be a completely different game. Although I like rules changes and freshing things up every few years I think this would be too much of a massive gamble for GW. The risk of losing interest in players would be too great. I could see it being a massive fail with players dropping interest.

 DarthOvious wrote:
Weren't there complaints at the end of 5th that the game was getting boring though?

There were complaints at the [i]start[/u] of 5th edition that the game was getting boring. As there are every edition. You don't need to rebuild the entire game to get people excited again.

Most of the 'fun stuff' that was added in 6th could just as easily have been added with expansion books in 5th edition. Death From The Skies introduce flyers and anti-air for all armies. A character expansion to introduce Warlord traits, extra psychic powers, and rules for taking a character and a small retinue as allies in other armies. A terrain expansion to add Fortifications and Mysterious terrain. Random objectives could have gone into the Battle Missions book. And so on.

The other big issue with 5th was simply the over-domincance of vehicles. Which could have been fixed without the need for Hull point by simply adding more abilities in codexes for dealing with vehicles.


This cycle of 'release a core rulebook, redo half of the codexes, then release a new core rulebook that completely changes the game and start all over again' is certainly one option for driving sales, but it's most definitely not the only way to keep the game fresh and fun.

I don't agree with any of the 13 gripes in the OP, and neither does Kronk Kronkington I. I've had more fun playing 6th edition than I did 5th edition, and I loved 5th edition.

My gripes are only 5% with the CRB and 95% with the codices. But that's probably true of each edition now that I think about it.

Martel732 wrote:
My gripes are only 5% with the CRB and 95% with the codices. But that's probably true of each edition now that I think about it.

This is a fair complaint.

 DarthOvious wrote:
Weren't there complaints at the end of 5th that the game was getting boring though?

I found 5th Edition boring as hell from beginning to end.

I actually started in 3rd Edition and really enjoyed it. I enjoy sixth also. Why do people say 3rd was so bad?

Brother Gyoken wrote:

 DarthOvious wrote:
Weren't there complaints at the end of 5th that the game was getting boring though?

I found 5th Edition boring as hell from beginning to end.

I think the reason for that was that there weren't enough changes from 4th to 5th. Don't get me wrong the game changed enough to change the gaming meta, but a lot of the rules stayed the same in my opinion with just small tweaks here and there.

For instance they may changed the vehicle damges tables, but all in all it was still the same mechanic with slight tweaks. 6th edition however added the concept of hull points which shook things up a bit more.

I actually started in 3rd Edition and really enjoyed it. I enjoy sixth also. Why do people say 3rd was so bad?

I enjoyed 3rd but then I am a Blood Angels player, so being able to assault from vehicles after it moved 18" up the battle field was in my favour. I think 3rd was good because it was the last edition where assault was dominant.

@DarthOvious

I found CC to be very dominant in 5th ed with GK everywhere with their power weapons and BA assault squad spam with tons of melta and power fists to kill tanks then kill the squishy inside along with cron wraithwing and lychguard. The only shooty army I could think of was IG because even SW had GH squads for counter assaulting things that got too close to long fangs and takibg pot shots with meltas

 A GumyBear wrote:
@DarthOvious

I found CC to be very dominant in 5th ed with GK everywhere with their power weapons and BA assault squad spam with tons of melta and power fists to kill tanks then kill the squishy inside along with cron wraithwing and lychguard. The only shooty army I could think of was IG because even SW had GH squads for counter assaulting things that got too close to long fangs and takibg pot shots with meltas

Once again, I still have no idea people think this. 5th Edition was a Mech Edition where assault often couldn't scratch the paint of vehicles, with melta being the only thing that really could kill vehicles reliably, while IG dominated with shooting, along with Razorback armies with Shooty dreadnoughts.

CC was rather okay in 5th, but couldn't compare to the shooting mech, it's why Tyranids were pretty awful.

Then 6th happened and CC became near useless with the exception of certain deathstar builds.

Meqs were crazy good.

 A GumyBear wrote:
@DarthOvious

I found CC to be very dominant in 5th ed with GK everywhere with their power weapons and BA assault squad spam with tons of melta and power fists to kill tanks then kill the squishy inside along with cron wraithwing and lychguard. The only shooty army I could think of was IG because even SW had GH squads for counter assaulting things that got too close to long fangs and takibg pot shots with meltas

I still think 5th edition was more shooty than assault. Common lists usually ran multiple small units in Razorbacks. The Razorbacks shot at things and the small units claimed objectives and wiped up what was left in combat, but the main damage was done by the shooting. Even the BA players were taking this over DoA. It was commonly thought that Razorback spam was more effective that BA jump pack spam.


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 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Once again, I still have no idea people think this. 5th Edition was a Mech Edition where assault often couldn't scratch the paint of vehicles, with melta being the only thing that really could kill vehicles reliably, while IG dominated with shooting, along with Razorback armies with Shooty dreadnoughts.

CC was rather okay in 5th, but couldn't compare to the shooting mech, it's why Tyranids were pretty awful.

Then 6th happened and CC became near useless with the exception of certain deathstar builds.

Agree with this.

That's because razor spam WAS more effective than DoA. I ripped apart so many DoA lists in 5th. Remember that plain old plasma totally negated FNP in 5th. 5th was a shooting edition. Anyone who says otherwise has never chased around the mech needing "6s" to hit them.

Agree that 5th was more shooty than assault, and that 6th nerfed assault except for mainly certain deathstar builds. Nids weren't bad because shooting was better than CC - nids were bad because their dex was poorly written/edited/playtested. Even with core rules that favour shooting, the nid dex could have ensured that point costs/stats/unit rules, etc, allowed the army to be effective at CC. Just look at the trygon tunnel - a first read of the dex told most people that this ability that I have to pay for would be useless, or that lictors would be useless - having to pop out of hiding, say Boo! while flinging a dinky weapon and wait to be pasted/countered before they could do what they were supposed to do.

With nids coming out soon, I hope they find a way to make all the units decent choices that work and that many have a reasonable chance to get into close combat - to work around some of the nerfs 6th has made to combat and the nerfs they had in the current dex (like assault only units such as hormagaunts and stealers losing their initiative when assaulting into cover).

Challenges, another poorly done mechanic, is another thing I would like to see nids be able to ignore with no penalty. Ideally challenges would just be errata'd away - of course wont happen.

And the Allies thing is a mess and an obvious money grab. Wait for 7th edition when GW removes allies from the rules so that people, with partial armies, may be encouraged to buy the rest of the models for a stand alone army. Allies could always be done among friends anyways but when you allow certain groups to ally you will get the nasty combos to exploit both dexes. Warhammer 40K has steadily become Wallethammer 40k.

 Ventus wrote:
Agree that 5th was more shooty than assault, and that 6th nerfed assault except for mainly certain deathstar builds. Nids weren't bad because shooting was better than CC - nids were bad because their dex was poorly written/edited/playtested. Even with core rules that favour shooting, the nid dex could have ensured that point costs/stats/unit rules, etc, allowed the army to be effective at CC. Just look at the trygon tunnel - a first read of the dex told most people that this ability that I have to pay for would be useless, or that lictors would be useless - having to pop out of hiding, say Boo! while flinging a dinky weapon and wait to be pasted/countered before they could do what they were supposed to do.

Nids still had great assault in 5th. Even with the shoddy rules. That said, assault still sucked. Not as badly as now, but it still sucked. Also, I have never marked a Trygon tunnel. Despite using 2 in every game I played in 5th and 6th.

Allies bar none is the worst thing about 6th. Destroys balance by letting every army shore up its designed weak points.

Martel732 wrote:
That's because razor spam WAS more effective than DoA. I ripped apart so many DoA lists in 5th. Remember that plain old plasma totally negated FNP in 5th. 5th was a shooting edition. Anyone who says otherwise has never chased around the mech needing "6s" to hit them.

I completely agree. Who can forget parking a Land Raider with a minimal assault squad in it on top of an Objective. 5th would have been so much better if units would have had to get out to score objectives.

It was a shooting edition, less so than 6th, but make no mistake, it was a MSU Mech Shooting edition.

Brother Gyoken wrote:

 DarthOvious wrote:
Weren't there complaints at the end of 5th that the game was getting boring though?

I found 5th Edition boring as hell from beginning to end.

I actually started in 3rd Edition and really enjoyed it. I enjoy sixth also. Why do people say 3rd was so bad?

Assault was ridiculous in 3rd (Pac-Man rules). Only somewhat better in 4th (Locked instead of re-assaulted on sweeping advances). in 5th, they got it right and it became a very good game. I really enjoyed 5th. Matt Ward single handedly necessitated the coming of 6th edition though. And 6th has been fun as well.


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Col. Dash wrote:
Allies bar none is the worst thing about 6th. Destroys balance by letting every army shore up its designed weak points.

I agree. Allies was a serious miscalculation. it isn't going anywhere now, but I won't lie: if i could wind back the clock, that's what I would dump. Most of my armies don't use them and i haven't played a single fortification since 6th Edition came out. Ever. Not that I don't see the value. Obviously i do. But it feels contrived that you should have this roaming BASTION or what have you all the time. Or the incongruity of Tau and Space marines fighting alongside one another. It's just sort of...

 Zagman wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That's because razor spam WAS more effective than DoA. I ripped apart so many DoA lists in 5th. Remember that plain old plasma totally negated FNP in 5th. 5th was a shooting edition. Anyone who says otherwise has never chased around the mech needing "6s" to hit them.

I completely agree. Who can forget parking a Land Raider with a minimal assault squad in it on top of an Objective. 5th would have been so much better if units would have had to get out to score objectives.

It was a shooting edition, less so than 6th, but make no mistake, it was a MSU Mech Shooting edition.

Hmm, maybe my meta was just vastly different then the outside world back then, but in 5th if you weren't spaming mech you were spaming CC units or some mixture of both. Whenever I faced parkinglots it was always followed up with a mosh pit of cc regardless of who I was playing bar IG because they more or less just died right away in cc. Whenever I faced a shooty army they kind of just fell apart since the shooting didn't have too huge of an impact at least when when I was observing/playing but maybe that was because of the night fighting cheese that was crons

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Zweischneid wrote:So you want the most successful game in the market to adopt a core mechanic that already bankrupted two competing companies/games?

False causal attribution is hilarious.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Some Black Templars players have been unwilling to let go of the fact that they no longer have their own book. But the wording is very clear.

You complain about false casual attribution when you attribute motives to people in a dismissive manner in the thread, when you're wrong to boot. The statement in the allies matrix doesn't matter, because Codex: Space Marines tells us on page 78 that any older publications that refer to Codex: Black Templars (i.e. the Rulebook Ally Matrix) instead refers to Codex: Space Marines using the Black Templars Chatper Tactics. This has been pointed out to you multiple times and you've not refuted it, and yet you keep claiming that you're right and everyone else is wrong.

Codex: =][= doesn't list Black Templars making it kind of clear that they have to use SM ally rules it seems.

Indeed. The Codex: Black Templars has been rendered obsolete and no longer exists in terms of the active ongoing ruleset. So when page 113 of the BRB says "Find the row of the codex of your primary detachment on the left side of the matrix", a player who uses the Black Templars chapter tactics for his Space Marine detachment has to choose the Space Marines entry, because that is the codex he is getting the rules for his primary detachment from.

kb305 wrote:

 ClassicCarraway wrote:

kb305 wrote:

I never said that. id like a more balanced game, no more hard counters. everything should be atleast somewhat effective against everything else.

yes i'm well aware that second edition also sucked, all youve highlighted is that they couldnt write rules back then either. i remember the cyclone missile launchers, vortex grenades and other stupid crap of that edition clearly.

this is what im thinking off the top of my head if you must stay with a D6 system (which i would also get rid of right away):

krak missile: -3
plasma: -2 (since it's not quite as good now you can get rid of gets hot)
lascannon: no save
melta: no save
bale drake flamer: -2
power weapons: -2 or maybe -3
autocannon: -1
bolter: nil (maybe give it some other minor special rule to make up for this fact since it's supposed to be a more powerful weapon)
lasgun: nil

But hard counters ARE a form of balance. How many war games don't have some form of hard counter for various unit types? I'd much prefer specific hard counters that make you choose between anti-armour, anti-infantry, or anti-air before the battle, as opposed to armies just being able to counter any unit with any other unit (which makes for an incredibly dull game). Again, the problem here isn't with the core rules, its with the individual armies. Some armies are designed as a form of hard counter to other armies, and thus makes the game more difficult for those armies being countered.

A modifier system is far more flawed than the AP system, as it makes weak armour more powerful and makes strong armour less so. With your system, an autocannon shell (which is designed to penetrate light tanks) can potentially bounce off an IG troopers flak jacket....and you feel this is a BETTER system? To me, AP combined with To Wound rolls is a more simplistic AND realistic approach as opposed to modifiers.

The only modifiers that should be brought back into the game are To Hit modifiers brought on by cover. To me, if I go through the trouble of getting my unit into cover, the difficulty doing damage to the unit should be on the opponent, not my ability to roll a save. This would also help heavier armoured units because they can actually get benefit from cover for all incoming fire, not just that which negates their base armour. While I certainly understand WHY GW went with the cover save system (how do you determine To Hit modifiers when only a portion of the unit is in cover), I feel it could use some work. Maybe give an extra type of save in the same way as FNP. You get hit/wounded, take your normal armour save, and then take your Cover Save (if necessary).

No, hard counters and terrible game balance make for a dull game. many of the match ups are so bad why bother unpacking the models. If even the bad lists had atleast a fighting chance it would still be worth playing. Having counters to stuff is fine, currently its more about broken/overpowered units. A hard counter to 80% of the game isnt a hard counter anymore, it's just broken/unbalanced game design.

Actually if you bothered to read my modifiers it was actually a buff to strong amour. power armour now gets a 5+ against plasma, bale drakes and power weapons.
the guardsman gets what, save on a 6 vs an autocannon? I hardly think that's going to break the game.

No, you made it stronger against AP2, everything else you left it as is or made it weaker. With your system, autocannons, heavy bolters, shurican cannons, and other mid-AP high rate of fire weapons that should get a -2 modifier are going to chew through marines. In a modifier system, everybody would just switch to those types of weapons for everything (just like they did in 2nd edition), so then we'd be right back to square one.

I've said it before, there is nothing wrong with the current AP system, the issue is with the individual armies having access to far to much AP2. AP2 should be limited to a handful of weapons, and the vast majority of those should be heavy weapons. You want to fix they system, make rending and all plasma weapons AP3.

I agree; I think rending, grav and plasma should be AP 3. Leave single shot melta AP 2. And maybe kick the poor "krak" rocket up to AP 2. And bust the Riptide down to 3+ armor that can become 3++ if it nova charges. Make 2+ armor mean something.

 Sir Arun wrote:


1) Allies. The whole unfluffy chart (Grey Knights allying with Necrons, Black Templars with Eldar...), not to mention the ridiculous combos you can field, such as Space Marine armies backed up by 9 xv-88 broadside battlesuits with high-yield missile pods and skyfire, or Imperial Guard adding an Eldar Avatar as secondary HQ to tear up the enemy in close combat and whatnot. No thanks. There are some combos that make sense, like Eldar and Tau or IG and Space Marines, but you could technically already field these in 5th edition, you merely had to take 2 Force Organization Charts. Compared to 6th, that would mean 1 more troops choice and the permission of your opponent.

Agreed.

2) Psychic disciplines. Fluffwise, I liked how in 5th edition each psyker had his own set of powers that made sense. Now, in addition to that psykers can specialise all across the board, and you have those cards cluttering your table. Also, the fact that you have to roll for, and receive random psychic powers doesn't sit with me. It makes the game less tactical and more luck oriented.

Agreed

3) The whole "buy your own terrain and bring it to the battlefield" concept. Oh and no, not just any terrain. That godawful looking aegis defence line is selling like hotcakes now because of the new rules.

The only thing bad about the new fortifications is how poorly the rules are written, otherwise they offer a great deal of protection to an edition where shooting recieved massive boosts.

4) Flyers. In 5th edition, as fast skimmers, they were already balanced. Now they got boosted to kingdom come just because GW wants them to sell. Remember when in the Necron codex, the Night Scythe and the Ghost Ark were competing with each other, but the latter only slightly winning because of its regenerative capacity? Well it's pretty one sided now, isn't it?

They where only "OP" when 6th started and basically no one had the means to deal with them, now flyers are pretty much balanced and if they are ruining your game, then I'd seriously question your competance as a plastic general.

5) Speaking of one-sided, the rule that irks me most is the fact that rapid-fire weapons are now completely overpowered, rendering assault weapons useless ("but you can still assault with them" *slow clap*). Now you can move 6" and fire a bolter to its full range? That makes Dire Avengers useless. It also means that as a Tau player, I can spam Firewarriors and have them either advance, effectively having a 36" threat range (akin to costlier, stationary snipers!), or retreat and keep firing, denying advancing Space Marines or Guard to even get off a single shot, while they are being mowed down in turn. In 5th edition if I ran back with Tau Warriors I could only shoot at upto 6" from where I originally stood, while now it is 24". It just breaks the game and it doesn't surprise me that too many 12 year olds with their ultramarine armies were whining that their super soldiers cant shoot their guns at the enemy's face when they moved, so Mama GW fixed it for them.

...Not sure if troll? Are you mental? Seriously, rapid-fire weapons where gak in 5th and the former rules made no sense. Also, Ultramarines whining? xD Space Marines(almost every army actually) played a mech play style, so rapid fire almost never handicapped them. In fact, those armies that got buffed to kingdom with rapid fire are those exact armies you play.

6) The new ruling on power weapons. The fact that regular power weapons now only work upto and including AP3 means Terminators got that much of a boost. Back in 5th, Eldar Banshees (and regular Grey Knights and their Death Cult Assassins) were a unit to be feared. In 6th, Banshees are cannon fodder - T3, 4+ save, costs as much as a marine, occupies an Elite slot, needs a transport to be effective - all these weaknesses were remedied in 5th in that they could jump out of a stationary transport, move, fleet, assault and tear up a terminator squad in close combat, given they get to strike first and the termies have to rely on their measly 5+ inv. save to survive. The Banshees still need 5s to wound T4 enemies though, but they usually managed to do this with their plethora of attacks. Now in 6th, their power weapons are about as effective as a bunch of guardsmen in close comat against the same terminator squad. It was already bad enough that close combat termies carrying storm shields were boosted from 4+ inv. in CC to 3+ inv. even at range when the 5th ed SM codex came out (3+ inv. in cc would have been fair), but that was a long time ago and we've accepted it. But this...this is just wrong. If an AP3 weapon would reduce a 2+ save to a 4+ or something it would be fair...but nope.


The Banshees vs. Striking Scorpions debate is also now completely one-sidedly settled. In 5th, you had to choose between 3+ armor save, +1S, +1A and infiltration ability OR striking first in CC, completely ignoring armor saves, and having fleet-of-foot (move + run + assault) as well as the Exarch fielding a S5 power weapon. And even then the Scorps were slightly better since they didn't need a transport (infiltrate) and their Exarch could carry an armor save ignoring scorpion claw, albeit it struck last. But now the banshees are completely out of the picture. Especially with the 6th edition Eldar codex not beefing them in any way and in turn, making the Striking Scorp Exarch's Scorp Claw strike at normal Initiative.

While I agree that it does make artificier armor, sempiternal weave, iridium armor and such a viable choice (nobody would take them in 5th because you could get an iron halo or other inv. save granting equipment for your commander for about the same amount of points), it still makes power weapons (incl. ICs fielding them) nigh useless, given that everyone can field termies now and not have to worry about (almost) anything, except short-ranged demolisher cannons, plasma weaponry and single shot AT-weapons to take out termies while they still get their inv. save.

Because the old power weapon system was OP maybe? So you are okay with having commissars slaughtering Terminators with little to no defence, while the Terminators has to chew through 20+ wounds to kill the guy with the power weapon... yeah.. no.. The new power weapon system is tons of better and allows for more customization. Have a model with tons of attacks and you want it to deal with horde? Mace is your friend. Got high WS and S? Go for the sword. Can you handle being the one striking blows at I1 and need to hunt TEQ's? Get the axe. Do you have acces to hit&run? Get your jausting fetish on and grab a lance!

7) new codices now cost almost as much as the hardcover rulebook. Sure, they are hard back and in full color but does this justify their cost? Escpecially when you are collecting multiple armies, this drives the cost of just keeping up with the game really high. Other game manufacturers actually offer army books and such at reduced cost or sometimes even free, because their marketing strategy says giving rules to players will convince them of starting new armies. At the current price rate, if I were a new player I doubt I would field more than 2 armies simply because the cost for the rules alone discourage me.

Agreed

8) supplements now cost as much as the new codex and you'll need to buy both if you want to use the supplement. Thankfully, supplements are crap in that they are 10% new rules and the rest only background, special missions or artwork / army showcase.

Again, not sure if troll... The supplements are there for mostly fluff and supplements are crap? What? xD
Farsight Enclave? Inquisition? Imperial Fists? Heck, even Black Legion made CSM somewhat more competetive.

9) the new wound allocation rules. Your special weapon guy has to make a save for getting hit and failed it? Too bad, he is dead. While I agree that this makes *not* fielding special weapons, i.e. barebones squads, a sensible choice now (literally everyone would load up on special weapons and such in 5th edition), I still think that it takes the fun out of the game when you have to constantly keep your special weapon guys in the back ranks or risk it and lose them prematurely. There are already enough variables to worry about when playing a game of 40k, do we now also need to micromanage our miniatures' position within their squad at all times???

Okay, now I have to question your incompetence. I'm sorry, but 40k isn't won by shooting, it's won by movement, deployment and target priority. If you fail at such a simple and basic thing as movement and placing models, then I suggest you play checkers or yahtzee if you just wanna roll dice. Now that premeasuring is allowed, you have no excuse to not have your special weapon in range of your target and 3-5 bodies in front of the guy with the gun.

10) random assault charge ranges....seriously? Sure, this means the average assault range is 7" now, but still...I'd hate to roll snake eyes and watch my squad not only receive the mandatory overwatch barrage, but also get shot to bits in the enemy turn's shooting phase even though I didn't charge through difficult terrain at all. Assault armies already have a tough time by being forced to take the fight to the enemy halfway across the battlefield while the defending player gets to sit back and shoot at them, but now also being denied the charge AND being the victim of (multiple) overwatch? That's too much.

I hate the current overwatch system.

11) Challenges. Oh, how I hate these. This makes taking out Independent Characters and/or Monstrous Creatures who are characters in close combat next to impossible. Back in 5th edition, if my Space Marine squad had a sergeant with powerfist, the thought of being charged by a Wraithlord wasn't so bad - he would have to munch through 9 of my marines and all the while my sergeant would be able to wound it. Granted, if I had an independent character with a powerfist, then of course I would be forced to go to base contact with the Wraithlord to be able to deliver my attacks, and the Wraithlord could choose to directly attack me instead, but usually my IC would have access to invulnerable save wargear and would also be better in CC that the sergeant. Now in 6th, because the Wraithlord is a character, it can declare a challenge to my sarge and either make him useless in CC (if he doesnt accept it) or if he accepts it, insta-kill him because the 'Lord will strike before his Powerfist is able to. And without the sarge, the Space Marine squad is useless. So really....powerfists became utterly useless against ICs now, unless your own IC with an inv. save is wielding one. This just takes the fun out of the game when you know that you won't be able to kill enemy ICs no matter how hard you try, because against ranged fire they have Lookout, Sir! and against close combat special weapons, they can issue a challenge and take your sarge out with extreme ease. Thanks for ruining the game balance, GW. It's not like it was ever cheap to buy a powerfist for a ranged infantry squad, given that its use was so situational, but it was insurance against being charged by big bad guys, now there is no point to it at all.

Again, a L2P issue. You do realise that you cannot challenge or get challenged if you cannot strike any blows? This means if your sergeant is more than 3" away from engaged battle at the start of the combat, before any blows are struck he can't issue a challenge and can accept one. Have your sergeant stand in the back of your blob, tell your oponnent to eat gak when they declare a challenge, move your initiative step and fight with no penalty. I admit that this sometimes is easier said than done but still.

12) Drop Pod Assault. Granted, this was already introduced in mid to late 5th edition but now that Black Templars have FAQ'd access to it in 6th, as a BT player I can smell the ridiculous cheese half a mile away. For 35 points, guaranteeing that one of my 10 man Crusader Initiate squads will arrive as close to the enemy as possible on turn 1 itself? That's plain nasty. Especially since it means they only have to wither 1 turn of enemy fire instead of 2 (or 3 if the opponent got 1st turn!) before going into CC means Drop-pods are a MUST now in every assault oriented space marine army from 500 points all the way up to 2k or more. Granted, only half of the pods you have in your army benefit from the Drop Pod Assault, but since this is rounded up, 1 is all you need to make sure that at least one of your squads won't get hurt.

It gets even better when you drop-pod a venerable dread with a multi-melta next to the tank. That's a very good chance of getting rid of a 150+ point vehicle that would have made life hell for your guys if it could get its shots off. Once this is done, the drop-podded Dread can use its HF to fry infantry.

If the drop pods costed twice as much as they currently do, it would be fairer, but right now I don't see any point whatsoever in ever taking Rhinos for my BT army, since 6th edition doesnt allow me to assault on the same turn as I disembark, even if I didn't move the transport (back in 5th I would move out of cover 12" with the Rhino on my turn 1, then an additional 12" on turn 2 and pop smoke, and disembark and charge on turn 3. So even if the enemy went first, it would only give him 2 turns to take out the rhino (during one of which the rhino has a 50% chance to negate all incoming hits) either way making my guys more survivable than if they were footslogging.

Yeah... No.. Drop Pod lists sucks.. Hate to break it to you.. And 70 points drop pods? What? xD
Also, if you ever drop a dread then for God's sake, atleast make it an Ironclad.

13) All over again. And by that I mean - at the close of 5th ed, all armies had either updated 5th ed. codices, or 4th edition ones, with erratas and everything, as well as Planetstrike, Planetary Empires and Battle Missions to round off the 5th ed experience in terms of supplements. It felt complete. Done. Now that we are in 6th, you feel dissatisfied again because all armies need to get updated to 6th, not to mention that the new codices look and feel different to the old ones who had pretty similar layouts. First, there was a stream of errata that defined how many hull points vehicles of each codex etc. got and so on. Then, the actual new codices arrived (at huge costs, mind you). As a player of 6 armies (Eldar, BT, Tau, IG, GK and Necrons), it is really difficult for players like me to "keep up" with the progression of the game given that it is - at the end of the day - a hobby and not a collectible card game, but if you dont keep spending money to update your stuff, you get left out.

I wish GW would host in their stores - at least once a month or so - a game type for veterans where you could play previous editions with previous codices. Like a "5th edition veterans' night" or even a 2nd edition one if you really have retro rulebooks and such in your collection. The card game Magic the gathering does this with their vintage and legacy format, so why not 40k?

I dont like the fact that all your previous rulebooks can essentially be thrown in the bin or collect dust for all eternity once the new codices are released, and then it's the same deal all over again 4 years from now. That fancy hardcover £50.00 rulebook you just bought? Yeah, it will be useless in 4 years when the game gets updated again. And in terms of 40k gaming time, 4 years can pass quite fast. That's less than 12 games for some of us, if we manage to find time for a game every 3 months.

And what exactly is it that prevents you from hosting an event at your house, call some friends and play your beloved 5th?

 Sir Arun wrote:
Indeed. The Codex: Black Templars has been rendered obsolete and no longer exists in terms of the active ongoing ruleset. So when page 113 of the BRB says "Find the row of the codex of your primary detachment on the left side of the matrix", a player who uses the Black Templars chapter tactics for his Space Marine detachment has to choose the Space Marines entry, because that is the codex he is getting the rules for his primary detachment from.

No, he'd read the note on page 78 that tells him to replace "Codex: Black Templars" with "Codex: Space Marines using the Black Templars Chapter Tactics". As "C:SM you BT CT" is more specific than "Codex: Space Marines", that's the one he'll be using. He's still using the allies chart for the Codex he's playing, it's just a subsection of it created by the Designer's Note on page 78.

Think of it this way: he's not using the allies chart for Codex: Black Templars, he's using the allies chart for Codex: Space Marines with Black Templars Chapter Tactics, just the way the Codex (which overrules the BRB) is telling him to do.

6th is the best in a long time, buck up buttercups.

That being said, over watch when wall of death and 4+ demon flames was worst.

Stormbreed wrote:
6th is the best in a long time, buck up buttercups.

That being said, over watch when wall of death and 4+ demon flames was worst.

I sometimes wonder if I've got a copy of rubbish 6th ed rules and codexes whilst everyone else has the good ones. My 6th ed seems to be malfunctioning.

Why I hate 6th ed in a Nutshell:

All the changes were something mech IG players would whine for every time I steamrolled them with Tyranids.

Aedeagus.

Bartali wrote:

Stormbreed wrote:
6th is the best in a long time, buck up buttercups.

That being said, over watch when wall of death and 4+ demon flames was worst.

I sometimes wonder if I've got a copy of rubbish 6th ed rules and codexes whilst everyone else has the good ones. My 6th ed seems to be malfunctioning.

Have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
Why I hate 6th ed in a Nutshell:

All the changes were something mech IG players would whine for every time I steamrolled them with Tyranids.

Aedeagus.

Erhm.. Didn't 6th nerf the gak out of Melta-vets + Chimera spam, mech lists and cover? But then again, I figure that the fleet nerf, overwatch and nerf to cover must have been hard on the Nids.. I hope the upcoming update will work out for you, I could use something else than Eldar, Eltau, Tau or Taudar.. >_>

Zewrath wrote:

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
Why I hate 6th ed in a Nutshell:

All the changes were something mech IG players would whine for every time I steamrolled them with Tyranids.

Aedeagus.

Erhm.. Didn't 6th nerf the gak out of Melta-vets + Chimera spam, mech lists and cover? But then again, I figure that the fleet nerf, overwatch and nerf to cover must have been hard on the Nids.. I hope the upcoming update will work out for you, I could use something else than Eldar, Eltau, Tau or Taudar.. >_>

1) The outflanks Nerf
2) The Fleet Nerf
3) Random assault distances (with no help from move through cover)
4) The Multi-assault nerf
5) The introduction of a unit which I cannot fight with anything other than one model. (Fliers)
6) Challenges (Tarpit my Character MC's)
7) loss of Armourbane on MC's, forcing me to rely on smash attacks
8) Overwatch

Then, when you consider I also had a DE army focused on Haemonculi coven and Wyche cult,

9) No assaulting out of Webway portals
10) Remove casualties from the front
11) The FNP nerf
12) S4 explosions from open-topped transports
13) No assaulting out of transports that moved
14) No more "MISSILE BARRAGE!" from my Razorwing
15) Power Weapon Nerf

Plus, y'know,

16) Random Everything

And as you can imagine, I am not exactly a fan of 6th ed. The New Tyranid Codex rumours are actually getting me interested in GW for the first time in over a year.

All DE transports are open-topped. Open-topped are assault vehicles. Move 6", disembark 6" and assault 2d6 and DE transport are now faster than ever.

Zewrath wrote:
All DE transports are open-topped. Open-topped are assault vehicles. Move 6", disembark 6" and assault 2d6 and DE transport are now faster than ever.

5th ed-

Move 12"

Disembark 2"

Run d6"

Assualt 6"

Threat Range of 20+d6'

As opposed to 6th ed's 12+2d6 with a re-roll.

So fifth average of 23.5"
sixth average of 19"
That's a 4.5" difference.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
So fifth average of 23.5"
sixth average of 19"
That's a 4.5" difference.

Which is actually pretty significant. Also, minimum assault distance has dropped from 21" to 14", a loss of 7". maximum distance has also fallen by 2", before you factor in the models killed in overwatch. It might not sound like much, but it is a big difference to a fragile assault army.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
So fifth average of 23.5"
sixth average of 19"
That's a 4.5" difference.

Which is actually pretty significant. Also, minimum assault distance has dropped from 21" to 14", a loss of 7". maximum distance has also fallen by 2", before you factor in the models killed in overwatch. It might not sound like much, but it is a big difference to a fragile assault army.

I wasn't disagreeing, I was just trying to give people an idea of the change.

As a side note and a Chaos player: I like challenges. +__+

I'd say "we" like challenges, but I can't speak for my fellow disciples.

I'm sure that's just because we're good in challenges (cause Abby ftw. XD) but I'd like to think I'd be in support otherwise. Something about letting two commanders slug it out, toe to toe screams "Legend" to me. Especially if its' a Sorcerer v. Librarian and they both Insta-gib eachother. lol

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:
I'm sure that's just because we're good in challenges (cause Abby ftw. XD)

Except the time that you charge Abaddon into a squad of Space Marines and the SM sergeant challenges Abaddon and you spend 1 turn having your 200 point character kill a 14 point guy instead of carving through 10 Space Marines.

 Sir Arun wrote:

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:
I'm sure that's just because we're good in challenges (cause Abby ftw. XD)

Except the time that you charge Abaddon into a squad of Space Marines and the SM sergeant challenges Abaddon and you spend 1 turn having your 200 point character kill a 14 point guy instead of carving through 10 Space Marines.

Yeah, that can be a drag, but that only ties up battle for a turn and that Sergeant won't be making that mistake twice. lol. My point is more that it's hard to make a Chaos player refuse a charge and make that IC completely useless. You may stall us for a turn, but in the next round of combat, that difficult decision get's placed on your head instead.

Besides that, you're giving me a free roll on the Chaos Boon Table if you're throwing sergeants in my way, which could help some but could also but your Warlord in a serious bind when Abbadon wraps up his combat and moves on.

Chaos doesn't necessarily "suffer" from challenges. Maybe slowed down, but we're not saying "Nah, I'm gonna sit this one out." Even if we're talking about Chosen and Chaos Lords, we still want that challenge. +__+

We have to accept and issue challenges no matter what, so like I said, not that big of a deal. Especially when we get rewarded for it, unlike that useless Corpse sitting on Terra....drooling on himself like a senile epileptic after having a stroke and a seizure.

XD

Second Edit: There is also one more big strategy for Chaos when we're talking about Challenges that really lets them shine, however in points costed games and FOC based structure, this is a lot harder to pull off. So you wanna throw your Sargeant at Abby? Well I play with multiple IC's (like Chaos Lords and such) so even if you do that and expect Abby to accept, he can instead say "I'm gonna let my Chaos Lord here take this fight, while I drag my Talons down your Mark IV."

THIS is what Challenges were for. So that multiple characters in a squad could decide who was taking what fight, when and where. So you throw a sergeant at me? Abby throws a Champ at you. You throw a Librarian at me? Abby throws a Chaos Lord at you. You actually wanna make this fight real? Abby may step up then. +__+

your last sentence is referring to 400 points worth of characters in one unit. They die just as easily to Centurions nearby only worth half as much.

The point I was making is that when Abaddon kills the sarge, the Space Marine squad has lost the combat by 1, and so has to pass an LD check on a 7 or less, giving them a good chance to break and disengage when in the previous edition Abaddon would have reduced that squad to mince meat the turn he charged them.

i'm always amazed in threads like these how common 6" charges were in peoples' games in fifth. Unless you were only assaulting with a couple of men and/or you got lucky, you'd probably be assaulting through difficult terrain and have to roll up.

Exceot back then if you got a poor roll and only one guy made it b2b, you were screwed. In sixth you get to pile in, meaning more attacks. You also now always get your bonus attacks for charging, not just all who were in range.

I get that people are upset that assaulting got nerfed, but it needed nerfing. There were too many battles that were game, set and match as soon as one unit got within a certain distance.

xruslanx wrote:

I get that people are upset that assaulting got nerfed, but it needed nerfing. There were too many battles that were game, set and match as soon as one unit got within a certain distance.

See my sig.

 Sir Arun wrote:
your last sentence is referring to 400 points worth of characters in one unit. They die just as easily to Centurions nearby only worth half as much.

The point I was making is that when Abaddon kills the sarge, the Space Marine squad has lost the combat by 1, and so has to pass an LD check on a 7 or less, giving them a good chance to break and disengage when in the previous edition Abaddon would have reduced that squad to mince meat the turn he charged them.

There's these cool guys called Aspiring Champions... they even come built-in with every unit bar Spawn/Oblits/Mutilators...
If you can't honestly avoid an unwanted challenge with your 'uber IC, then you're doing it wrong.

As long as your unit chump is alive and kicking, Abby can always just go and happily butcher the Emperor's lapdogs.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
your last sentence is referring to 400 points worth of characters in one unit. They die just as easily to Centurions nearby only worth half as much.

The point I was making is that when Abaddon kills the sarge, the Space Marine squad has lost the combat by 1, and so has to pass an LD check on a 7 or less, giving them a good chance to break and disengage when in the previous edition Abaddon would have reduced that squad to mince meat the turn he charged them.

There's these cool guys called Aspiring Champions... they even come built-in with every unit bar Spawn/Oblits/Mutilators...
If you can't honestly avoid an unwanted challenge with your 'uber IC, then you're doing it wrong.

As long as your unit chump is alive and kicking, Abby can always just go and happily butcher the Emperor's lapdogs.

My last sentence also illustrated how I don't adhere to points as much as most everyone else does, so I can play games with 5 IC choices instead of just 2.

That aside though, what Experiment just said: We get sergeants too. lol

Edit: Currently I have two squads of Chosen with Chaos Lords in them as well (per Dark Vengeance kits), a cultist blob with a Dark Apostle in it and my Warlord Sorcerer is relatively alone. Now, I've got another Sorcerer that I throw in from time to time, but that's the gist of what I mean by getting to pick through who takes a Challenge.

I'm gonna go out and be controversial here and say it, don't like it play another game. It's as simple as that, play another game that is more tailored to what you want, or just play 5th edition, or make house rules, because we all know GW lives in a fairytale land where they chuck rules at us every month before we have time to catch up, but it's fun and it changes.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:
I'm gonna go out and be controversial here and say it, don't like it play another game. It's as simple as that, play another game that is more tailored to what you want, or just play 5th edition, or make house rules, because we all know GW lives in a fairytale land where they chuck rules at us every month before we have time to catch up, but it's fun and it changes.

Pretty much. And as long as you're not making money off of their product, wtf does GW have to say about "unofficial tournaments" and such? Not jack if their models are still being sold. Of course, this is also a fantasy world where people don't try to squeeze blood of rocks either. :\

xruslanx wrote:i'm [sic] always amazed in threads like these how common 6" charges were in peoples' games in fifth. Unless you were only assaulting with a couple of men and/or you got lucky, you'd probably be assaulting through difficult terrain and have to roll up.

Well, see, in 5th ed. move through cover actually affected the assault phase. meaning that a 5 or 6 inch charge was in fact quite feasible for my 'Nids.

xruslanx wrote:
Exceot [sic] back then if you got a poor roll and only one guy made it b2b, you were screwed. In sixth you get to pile in, meaning more attacks. You also now always get your bonus attacks for charging, not just all who were in range.

There was a pile-in thing in 5th as well- except the defender had to pile in a full 6" at the beginning of combat. Also, I do not get bonus attacks when I multi-assault. Because Tyranids overrunning masses of defenders wouldn't be cinematic.

xruslanx wrote:
I get that people are upset that assaulting got nerfed, but it needed nerfing. There were too many battles that were game, set and match as soon as one unit got within a certain distance.

I'm guessing you are one of the guard players I mentioned earlier.

I love me some house rules.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

Zewrath wrote:
All DE transports are open-topped. Open-topped are assault vehicles. Move 6", disembark 6" and assault 2d6 and DE transport are now faster than ever.

5th ed-

Move 12"

Disembark 2"

Run d6"

Assualt 6"

Threat Range of 20+d6'

As opposed to 6th ed's 12+2d6 with a re-roll.

Not talking about charge range. Your movement + flat out is faster than ever before so even with the nerfed range you shouldn't have any problem reaching your opponent what so ever, the only real problem DE has is overwatch.