With all the speculation regarding GWs announcement regarding some unspecified Index choices being relegated to non-tournament play, is anyone more strongly considering returning to an older edition or possibly more seriously considering a fan-made “9th Age” style game format?
I’ve seen a few different attempts to fix things that are generally considered problematic. People playing with alternating activations, D10s/12s for greater granularity to balance units and some greater overhauls to the system. I would put it in terms of Call of Duty, I think they really topped out with Modern Warfare 2 and would love a remaster of that game, just a couple of tweaks and then every single map released for all the Modern Wafare games.
In that vein, I really liked the customization available in the 3rd Edition (I believe, please correct me if I’m wrong) codices but haven’t played enough editions to know best what edition rule set might fill my needs. So, if you’re less inclined to seriously seek out fan made options, what would be your preferred combination of rule set and codices and why?
**EDIT** For clarification and furthering the discussion for those who have not read into the thread as yet.
For those who seem to understand what I'm getting at, as admittedly my OP wasn't the clearest, Maybe I should break things down a bit more:
What rule set would you prefer to have for the breakdowns of troop types?
Would you prefer... -5th for vehicles? -8th for Characters/HQ? -3rd for Troops?
If a fan-made rule set was to be made, how would you structure the basics according to editions? With the obvious caveat that some points and rules tweaks would be in order to balance the amalgamation of rule sets. The overall idea would be total inclusivity of past and future units with updates for new units as they come out.
Returning wholesale to a previous edition would:
*Mean that we'd lose access to more recent cool models - the exact problem people with Index units (might) face now, just in reverse.
*Mean that we'd have to house-rule those newer models a stat block.
*Make joining a new group rather difficult as you'd have to relearn/learn who-knows how many versions + changes.
In the end? For the duration of the edition I think it'd just be best if the only time you paid attention to GWs (or anyone elses) tourney rules/suggestions when you were actually in a tourney.
ccs wrote: In the end? For the duration of the edition I think it'd just be best if the only time you paid attention to GWs (or anyone elses) tourney rules/suggestions when you were actually in a tourney.
Except those are generally accepted elsewhere either. I would bet most play 1500 or 2000 pts matched play with Ro3 in use for example. Guess what? Tournament rules.
Looking back at older editions, I might be tempted to play 5th again, or 4th with something other than Guard (a seriously nonfunctional army in that edition), but probably not any others. Absolutely not 6th or 7th ever again, nothing of value was lost when that particular era ended (and GW's loss of market share proved it rather decisively). 3rd had a lot of wonkiness that I'm not sure I'd want to deal with in general, playing 2E or RT is essentially a different game entirely.
An increasingly large problem with older editions is that so much new stuff has come out that there's no rules for, and no scale to fit a lot of it, so lots of people's collections don't necessarily work, you lose a lot more going back to any significantly older edition than you gain from retaining any sunsetting Index units. In some ways thats not necessarily a bad thing, but does narrow a lot of things.
As much as I'd like to say I'd want to consider playing a fan-made 9th age format, unless there was significant local support and a venue behind it, can't say I'd be terribly interested.
From a technical perspective, IMO 5th edition has been the best to date, although it needed some tweaking to wound allocation and the vehicle rules.
Having said that, I'm currently setting things up to revisit 2nd edition with a mate. It was clunky and silly, but was, for us, the most fun edition.
And yes, that will mean making up some house rules for things that didn't exist back then, like my Thunderwolves. Vehicle variants are slightly easier, since Dark Millenium have points values for swapping weapons in and out...
insaniak wrote: From a technical perspective, IMO 5th edition has been the best to date, although it needed some tweaking to wound allocation and the vehicle rules.
I've played around with a few 5e re-writes, there is a fair bit of work involved in cost matching the books for vehicles and wargear but 4e costed rhinos/razorbacks/chimeras takes the bite out of the parking lot lists when using pre-5e books with the 5e system.
A lot of missing units with the 4e books though. I'd personally retrofit a consolidated DH/WH codex rather than trying to fix the grey knights and roll all other marine books towards the 5e marine costing structure. Orks, Daemons, Nids, DE, Eldar, and Tau need general balancing and updates while newcrons and 5e guard are more work.
I was playing 3rd last week since it's the furthest I could get from 3rd while still having access to basic units of most factions, and even some Forgeworld stuff.
It was a ton of fun and my friends and I will definitely be playing more. Getting to see your 8E units in a completely different game system is a fantastic experience.
ccs wrote: Returning wholesale to a previous edition would:
*Mean that we'd lose access to more recent cool models - the exact problem people with Index units (might) face now, just in reverse.
*Mean that we'd have to house-rule those newer models a stat block.
*Make joining a new group rather difficult as you'd have to relearn/learn who-knows how many versions + changes.
In the end? For the duration of the edition I think it'd just be best if the only time you paid attention to GWs (or anyone elses) tourney rules/suggestions when you were actually in a tourney.
Or in some peoples case they get full armies back.... like Corsiars
I fell out of love with 40K around 6th edition, 5th was my favourite so far for all that it had it's weird quirks.
Have not tried 8th, in fairness, but it does not look like my kind of game.
I am really interested in playing Grimdark Future with my models and am working on getting some very easy intro game set ups made for my role playing friends who have never played a wargame. Grimdark Future has the advantage of staying current with releases from GW, being very simple and therefore easy to houserule if there are any issues, and also including fan favourites like Space Dwarves.
ccs wrote: Returning wholesale to a previous edition would:
*Mean that we'd lose access to more recent cool models - the exact problem people with Index units (might) face now, just in reverse.
*Mean that we'd have to house-rule those newer models a stat block.
*Make joining a new group rather difficult as you'd have to relearn/learn who-knows how many versions + changes.
In the end? For the duration of the edition I think it'd just be best if the only time you paid attention to GWs (or anyone elses) tourney rules/suggestions when you were actually in a tourney.
Or in some peoples case they get full armies back.... like Corsiars
Renegades and heretics... 603pts for nine earthshakers and 108 wounds at toughness 7, or 360pts for 12 quad launchers putting out 48 S5 blast markers per turn _as troops choices_ capable of firing into ongoing close combat.
For those times when 5e guard gunlines didn't have enough dakka.
I don't get the OPs point, GW is moving some old units they no longer produce into legends, (thus giving a bare minimum amount of support for something that realisticly would have been squatted even not that long ago) the down side is legends units won't likely be alowed in tournies, so his solution is to play an older edition... which likely won't be supported by any tournies?
I thought 3rd was the best edition and would definitely play it again, just getting rid of rubbish like variable charge ranges, guaranteed deepstrike, overwatch, moving out of combat with no penalty etc. would be great.
I think Legends is a good thing for 8th though, cool units like Ork buggies and rough riders that have fallen out of favour will have freely available rules which is great!
Renegades and heretics... 603pts for nine earthshakers and 108 wounds at toughness 7, or 360pts for 12 quad launchers putting out 48 S5 blast markers per turn _as troops choices_ capable of firing into ongoing close combat.
For those times when 5e guard gunlines didn't have enough dakka.
Wrong, that was in 7th formation cancer with the vraks supplement to renegades. And the purge formation.
Which were broken to the point of idioticy.
No i just want the IA 13 or vraks list propperly back.
Not Online!!! wrote: Wrong, that was in 7th formation cancer with the vraks supplement to renegades. And the purge formation.
Which were broken to the point of idioticy.
That was without the formation rules (purge gave persistent templates on top of all the rest), but it was 7e era 'balance'.
I remember there being an intermediary R&H update but couldn't find the file.
BrianDavion wrote: the down side is legends units won't likely be alowed in tournies, so his solution is to play an older edition... which likely won't be supported by any tournies?
Does sound rather like and unhelpful approach, doesnt it.
If you wanted to play an older edition, because older models are being relegated to "non-tournament", surely sticking with the current edition and not playing tournaments is just the same thing, only you already have rules and dont have to make up your own.
Would seem more logical to make sure you play with people that let you use Legends in their games, rather than those that start braying like a bunch of Beastmen about "recommendations being absolute rules in all non-Tournament games".
BrianDavion wrote: I don't get the OPs point, GW is moving some old units they no longer produce into legends, (thus giving a bare minimum amount of support for something that realisticly would have been squatted even not that long ago) the down side is legends units won't likely be alowed in tournies, so his solution is to play an older edition... which likely won't be supported by any tournies?
Depends on community. Fans got pissed at GW and made FB 9th edition on their own producing superior product that is now played in tournaments.
Would be nice for players to say screw it for GW and take over rule producing. Maybe get something even remotely decent ruleset eventually.
It's ironic that all the people who want to play their "fluffy" units are suddenly tournament players who are concerned with their list being legal in the most competitive setting.
ccs wrote: In the end? For the duration of the edition I think it'd just be best if the only time you paid attention to GWs (or anyone elses) tourney rules/suggestions when you were actually in a tourney.
Except those are generally accepted elsewhere either. I would bet most play 1500 or 2000 pts matched play with Ro3 in use for example. Guess what? Tournament rules.
Ultimately it is about finding friends who are willing to play and share the same vision you have for the game. As individuals stuck on this galaxy travelling mothball it comes down to us to find like minded individuals to share a story or two. To establish camaraderie with other journeying souls and experience the deep sense of wonder life can provide when you look in the right places.
For life is nothing without fellow travelers willing to take to the road alongside with us.
Ishagu wrote: It's ironic that all the people who want to play their "fluffy" units are suddenly tournament players who are concerned with their list being legal in the most competitive setting.
It isn't like the tournament suggestions have also impacted casual or is that not the case?
If so, which it is, how about go to another thread instead of bothering this one?
Fictional wrote: Would seem more logical to make sure you play with people that let you use Legends in their games, rather than those that start braying like a bunch of Beastmen about "recommendations being absolute rules in all non-Tournament games".
Problem is that you assume people wanting to play with same ruleset are braying like bunch of beastmen. But thing is people want to play on same page. If players are playing on different rules then that's kind of hard to play then. Ergo pickup games tends to be under standard rules. Easiest which is tournament rules. If you want to play under non-tournament rules it's basically having to set up ahead. If you go to FLGS and pick up random game often opponent has tournament styled army because that's the general standard. So you wanting different standard is not convenient. Army list needs to be changed. He might not even have models with him to suit that if he just took his standard army with him.
Nothing is stopping people from arranging and discussing a game in non-tournament settings.
Yes. good if you know in advance. If you show up at FLGS and want pick up game? That's then going to take time. And not everybody has unlimited time so that eats time. I have ~3h max to play. Period. No going over. And that's assuming opponent shows up when I show or is there already. 8th ed(being slowest edition GW has ever done) not being fast it means I'm not happy about having to spend time hashing up in advance under what bloody ruleset we are supposed to be playing. Then work out army list. Then start playing. Fun fun fun. Valuable time ticking away. And when that 3h comes up I'm out there. Doesn't matter what stage game is when I have to pack up.
Ishagu wrote: Try 8th before you decide if it's for you or not
Nah, I had a read through it and watched some games, I am happy with my choice. I think my choice will suit my needs better. In any case, I do not have anyone to play with and would have to rebase my collection to play against strangers, so it is not really an option. I think 8th is over complicated to teach new people, so I would rather a simpler game.
I think 8th looks like it is a lot better than what came before it, and it is probably a pretty fun game. But it isn't really my thing. I am not hating on it. 6th and 7th kicked me out of the GW bubble and now that I am outside I feel less like I "have" to play 40K with my 40K minis, and am more interested in finding something that is closer to exactly what I want.
I would go back to 3rd or 5th edition and play either of those, though with cleaned up codices. For example, I have no interest in playing on a table with 5th edition grey knights or space wolves if they aren't tweaked back into line with the rest of the armies. I got really tired of the color grey back then, and not grey plastic, but everyone running grey knights or space wolves because of their power level compared to everything else.
Ishagu wrote: It's ironic that all the people who want to play their "fluffy" units are suddenly tournament players who are concerned with their list being legal in the most competitive setting.
This is because the competitive scene impacts what is played in casual. If people have the models, they want to play them in the most recent iteration of the rules, fluffy and competitive players share this. I wouldn't call that ironic.
I've been to quite a few gaming clubs now and I don't think I've encountered anyone who didn't want to play with the most recent rules, but that's anecdotal, and doesn't hold up to much.
auticus wrote: I would go back to 3rd or 5th edition and play either of those, though with cleaned up codices. For example, I have no interest in playing on a table with 5th edition grey knights or space wolves if they aren't tweaked back into line with the rest of the armies. I got really tired of the color grey back then, and not grey plastic, but everyone running grey knights or space wolves because of their power level compared to everything else.
Wolves were a relatively easy fix - take out the freebies/wargear discounts and rein in the nid-invalidating jaws power and you are mostly done.
GK were an abomination best fixed by updating the DH/WH books and forgetting it existed.
Guard and Crons (and some forgeworld stuff) were the other big offenders of the edition but a few targetted changes would fix the worst of it.
Ishagu wrote: Try 8th before you decide if it's for you or not
Nah, I had a read through it and watched some games, I am happy with my choice. I think my choice will suit my needs better. In any case, I do not have anyone to play with and would have to rebase my collection to play against strangers, so it is not really an option. I think 8th is over complicated to teach new people, so I would rather a simpler game.
I have been bringing people to the game since 5th and I assure you that this has never been easier than now. You need nothing but the battle primer and the datasheets of the units you have on the board to play your first games. It doesn't get any easier than that.
I'm curious, why do you need to rebase your units?
Ever since it came out I've thought that Warlords of Erehwon would be a good starting point for the 'Fantasy battles in Space' vibe that exemplifies Warhammer 40K.
auticus wrote: I would go back to 3rd or 5th edition and play either of those, though with cleaned up codices. For example, I have no interest in playing on a table with 5th edition grey knights or space wolves if they aren't tweaked back into line with the rest of the armies. I got really tired of the color grey back then, and not grey plastic, but everyone running grey knights or space wolves because of their power level compared to everything else.
Wolves were a relatively easy fix - take out the freebies/wargear discounts and rein in the nid-invalidating jaws power and you are mostly done.
GK were an abomination best fixed by updating the DH/WH books and forgetting it existed.
Guard and Crons (and some forgeworld stuff) were the other big offenders of the edition but a few targetted changes would fix the worst of it.
How does that fix anything for GK players and their armies. SoB are cheaper, so no one would ever run GK. It would be the death of the faction, plus if they really removed a lot of the option, there may be even fewer units to build a GK around then it is now.
Kroem wrote: Ever since it came out I've thought that Warlords of Erehwon would be a good starting point for the 'Fantasy battles in Space' vibe that exemplifies Warhammer 40K.
Would be relatively easy to make Beyond the Gates of Antares work for that I would say.
Da Boss wrote: They changed the base size of units while not changing the impact of base size on the rules, so people get cranky if you do not rebase.
I think it looks quite easy, yes, but not as easy as the game I have chosen. I am pretty happy with it.
I have 120+ models on old bases. We have some people still playing their daemons with square bases. Ignore people that bitch about it, because the actual impact is much lower than anyone thinks.
Kroem wrote: Ever since it came out I've thought that Warlords of Erehwon would be a good starting point for the 'Fantasy battles in Space' vibe that exemplifies Warhammer 40K.
Would be relatively easy to make Beyond the Gates of Antares work for that I would say.
Whilst I'm sure that's true, I've never played that one!
As far as I understand it Bolt Action, Gates of Antares and Warlords of Erehwon all use the same system with Warlords being the latest refinement of the idea.
Karol wrote: How does that fix anything for GK players and their armies. SoB are cheaper, so no one would ever run GK. It would be the death of the faction, plus if they really removed a lot of the option, there may be even fewer units to build a GK around then it is now.
Not so much fix the GK as not break the game for everyone else.
Daemonhunters was a very different kind of faction to the power sword wielding ultramarines that 5e gave us, though it certainly was the weakest in 5th. A merger with WH giving them faith points (rebranded word of the emperor or some such) would immediately close most of that gap IMO, especially if some of the parking lot issues of 5th were addressed (+1 to damage rolls while immobile for instance).
Interceptors are really just PAGK with jump packs, paladins and purifiers were just codex creep, all fliers should die, and that just leaves the baby carrier to deal with. It's a lot less work that trying to rewrite the GK book after half the faction was stuffed into a single unit and the 'daemon'hunters became specialist power armour hunters who struggled against things with invulnerable saves... like daemons for instance.
Fictional wrote: Would seem more logical to make sure you play with people that let you use Legends in their games, rather than those that start braying like a bunch of Beastmen about "recommendations being absolute rules in all non-Tournament games".
Problem is that you assume people wanting to play with same ruleset are braying like bunch of beastmen.
Not at all, I assume nothing of the sort.
I assume that there are varying levels of people, I just happen to mention the 2 extreme ends, those that are fine with it and those that take all "recommended" rules are absolutely mandatory in all circumstances. Rules such as the "recommended for Tournaments" Rule of 3.
There are also a great many people in between those two groups, but they don't require me to individually identify them.
Actually, the extreme opposite wouldn't "is fine with it". It would be "braying like a bunch of Beastmen because their opponent asked if they were ok with using that recommendation".
Here's what's really interesting about 40k editions: Pretty much everybody agrees on the biggest flaws of them in retrospect. 3rd edition had gonzo sweeping advance and rhino rush, 4th edition overcompensated with making transports death traps, 5th edition had deeply unsatisfying wound allocation, and 6th/7th were just too complicated. there are plenty of additional problems, but virtually everybody agrees about what was bad in the past.
However... complaints about new or current editions tend to be incredibly specific. Discounting evergreen complaints like balance, the things that people are most passionate about hating in the current edition are all over the place.
So that's why going back to an old edition, or creating a new edition, seems so simple: people conflate what we all agree upon with retrospect with what we would change now. Look at this thread: people dislike things that have high approval ratings in the community overall, like changes in deepstrike. Hell, I've seen people argue for firing arcs back.
My point is, it's easy to point out what you don't like, and it's actually not all that hard to come up with new rules. It's very tough to thread the needle of making enough people happy that people accept it though.
My "favorite edition" is probably 5th, when I started. However I can absolutely confirm that it's exclusively because of nostalgia goggles for the games I played at the time with the units I and my friends had; I would not enjoy playing 5th so much with much of the things present in modern 40k [like Riptides]. I miss the days where it was Vanquishers vs. Hammerheads in tank duels, when having multiple wounds was like a strange Tyranid thing [and being a monster as opposed to a tank was a liability rather than a strength]. But even if we went back to 5th today, those games won't return.
I can confidently say that as far as things go, 8th is by far the best edition I've played.
Yeah, while 5th would probably be my edition of choice to go back to if I had to, it was certainly no perfect ruleset.
Dumb wound allocation rules, the entire stupid concept of Kill Points (as opposed to the earlier Victory Points) began there, vehicle damage rules that meant gun tanks were shut down any time anything met the armor value but left Rhinos to ignore 5/6 glancing and 50% of penetrating results, vehicle shooting rules that turned gun tanks into stationary pillboxes, No Retreat rules that were monstrously punitive, etc. EDIT: forgot 4+ cover for everything all the time
Lots of stuff wrong with that edition, just...less so than other editions
Vaktathi wrote: Looking back at older editions, I might be tempted to play 5th again, or 4th with something other than Guard (a seriously nonfunctional army in that edition), but probably not any others. Absolutely not 6th or 7th ever again, nothing of value was lost when that particular era ended (and GW's loss of market share proved it rather decisively). 3rd had a lot of wonkiness that I'm not sure I'd want to deal with in general, playing 2E or RT is essentially a different game entirely.
An increasingly large problem with older editions is that so much new stuff has come out that there's no rules for, and no scale to fit a lot of it, so lots of people's collections don't necessarily work, you lose a lot more going back to any significantly older edition than you gain from retaining any sunsetting Index units. In some ways thats not necessarily a bad thing, but does narrow a lot of things.
As much as I'd like to say I'd want to consider playing a fan-made 9th age format, unless there was significant local support and a venue behind it, can't say I'd be terribly interested.
I would absolutely go back to 5th in a heartbeat. My Daemons wouldn’t suffer any major losses except
Shalaxi would be a regular KoS, Syll’Esske would be a regular DP and the epitome and enrapturess would have to be regular heralds/mounted heralds. No other changes at all. 5th would be a welcome return!
Problem is that you assume people wanting to play with same ruleset are braying like bunch of beastmen. But thing is people want to play on same page. If players are playing on different rules then that's kind of hard to play then. Ergo pickup games tends to be under standard rules. Easiest which is tournament rules. If you want to play under non-tournament rules it's basically having to set up ahead. If you go to FLGS and pick up random game often opponent has tournament styled army because that's the general standard. So you wanting different standard is not convenient. Army list needs to be changed. He might not even have models with him to suit that if he just took his standard army with him.
What? Any army adhering to tournament suggestions is perfectly legal under the normal matched play rules, as those suggestions merely add additional limitations. So you play with your non-tournament list and they play with their tournament list and it works just fine. No one needs to change their list, there literally is no problem.
ccs wrote: In the end? For the duration of the edition I think it'd just be best if the only time you paid attention to GWs (or anyone elses) tourney rules/suggestions when you were actually in a tourney.
Except those are generally accepted elsewhere either. I would bet most play 1500 or 2000 pts matched play with Ro3 in use for example. Guess what? Tournament rules.
Ultimately it is about finding friends who are willing to play and share the same vision you have for the game. As individuals stuck on this galaxy travelling mothball it comes down to us to find like minded individuals to share a story or two. To establish camaraderie with other journeying souls and experience the deep sense of wonder life can provide when you look in the right places.
For life is nothing without fellow travelers willing to take to the road alongside with us.
Also, legends are MUCH more likely to be considered legal than going non-ro3. I doubt even all tournaments will ban legends.
My guess is it will end up like Maelstrom of War. Not everyone likes it and some people hate it, but it's ultimately considered a perfectly acceptable way to play the game.
Vaktathi wrote: Yeah, while 5th would probably be my edition of choice to go back to if I had to, it was certainly no perfect ruleset.
Dumb wound allocation rules, the entire stupid concept of Kill Points (as opposed to the earlier Victory Points) began there, vehicle damage rules that meant gun tanks were shut down any time anything met the armor value but left Rhinos to ignore 5/6 glancing and 50% of penetrating results, vehicle shooting rules that turned gun tanks into stationary pillboxes, No Retreat rules that were monstrously punitive, etc.
Lots of stuff wrong with that edition, just...less so than other editions
I mean, Wound Allocation in 5th had issues but it was still miles ahead of 6th and 7th.
I actually liked Wound Allocation in 5th...it kept units going longer. Plus, Bloodcrushers were actually playable back then with their armor and wound shenanigans.
ccs wrote: *Mean that we'd lose access to more recent cool models - the exact problem people with Index units (might) face now, just in reverse.
You say that as if losing access to Mary Sue Marines and Baby Carriers is a bad thing.
If those are the models you own it is. If those are the models your friend has it is. If those are the models the new guy who just joined has it is.
My stance is, has always been, & always will be, in favor of you being able to use the models you own.
I don't care if they're the new gak looking hotness fresh out of the box yesterday or date from the RT days.
The only reason you should stop using a model you own is because you choose to.
So yeah, going backwards? We'd lose more than we'd gain.
That's kind of a pointless argument though isn't it?
If you don't own minis from an older edition then surely you wouldn't go back and play that edition? I doubt very highly anyone has the means to force you to do so.
I still play 2nd edition on occasion, and my buddy has a new Primaris army. It doesn't mean I simply won't play him (if anything he's one of the few people I'll bother playing 8th with).
I am surprised yet amused that the 5th edition is high up on the list as the edition to go to these days for a classical game for a lot of people. I would have thought that 2nd would have been it given the support on other sites for it.
Personally I am a fan of the 5th. On the issue of wound allocation, I always assumed that a guy would "pick up" what the guy that got shot left. So in my mind, a space marine would pick up the flamer when his battle brother was wounded too much to go on and start at the same point. That is pretty common in modern military history, likewise that is why most military personnel get some training on M-2's, SAW's, etc during training,(Basic or Advanced) if not fully qualified to use said weapons. Why would that be different 38K years from now?
For models that were made post 5th or really any edition that you are playing but still want to, I would compare the points of existing units to see what the point inflation or deflation is from edition to edition. For instance I would look at a Land Raider, or Predator for any of the new vehicles that came out for Space Marines in the past few editions i.e. Stormtalons, etc. Now I am well aware that this is not perfect, but it is better than nothing, and subject to tweaking of course.
Support for 2nd is always disappearing simply because of age. How many people on Dakka have really been doing 40K for 20 years or more? I'd argue not a ton.
If you go to an Oldhammer site or community you'll see tons of support for it, but what does the average 25-30 year old even know about 2nd edition? Not much if anything.
ERJAK wrote: No. 6th and 7th were terrible and Legends only matters for a percentage of tournament play.
Also, Call of duty 4 was the best one. By modern warfare two it was pretty crap.
7th wasnt bad honestly, a few to many special rules (which you could get rid of some of them) but the worst part was the bloat of formations and power creep, its by far one of the my fun editions if you didnt play with D weapons/Formations.
I'm really hoping 9th goes back to USR's, Fly, DS, Scout, etc.. there should be at least a good handfull of USR to make balancing and changing/updating things much easier/more balanced, example right now Walkers (all of them) and MC's NEEDS a USR to let them fallback and shoot, let them fight ruins up to 2nd floor, etc... Do you think a Trygon can not hit you 10ft off the ground? The damn thing is 20ft tall FFS
Elbows wrote: Support for 2nd is always disappearing simply because of age. How many people on Dakka have really been doing 40K for 20 years or more? I'd argue not a ton.
If you go to an Oldhammer site or community you'll see tons of support for it, but what does the average 25-30 year old even know about 2nd edition? Not much if anything.
My first game back in 8th since 2nd ip played an ork player. I related a story about how my Squats had killed an actual WAAARGH's worth of Orks. The kid looked at me and said "what's a Squat"? At that point I had to tell him about where the term "Squatting" came from, he thought it was just a saying.
I'm always down to play some RT. The modern game is really missing a GM.
But I guess it would be more like kill team with all the tables to roll on....to see which table you roll on.
For those who seem to understand what I'm getting at, as admittedly my OP wasn't the clearest, Maybe I should break things down a bit more:
What rule set would you prefer to have for the breakdowns of troop types?
Would you prefer... -5th for vehicles? -8th for Characters/HQ? -3rd for Troops?
If a fan-made rule set was to be made, how would you structure the basics according to editions? With the obvious caveat that some points and rules tweaks would be in order to balance the amalgamation of rule sets. The idea would be total inclusivity for past and future units and updates for units as they come out.
purplkrush wrote: For those who seem to understand what I'm getting at, as admittedly my OP wasn't the clearest, Maybe I should break things down a bit more:
What rule set would you prefer to have for the breakdowns of troop types?
Would you prefer...
-5th for vehicles?
-8th for Characters/HQ?
-3rd for Troops?
If a fan-made rule set was to be made, how would you structure the basics according to editions? With the obvious caveat that some points and rules tweaks would be in order to balance the amalgamation of rule sets. The idea would be total inclusivity for past and future units and updates for units as they come out.
I think vehicles are better in Apoc, the 2 types of weapons is really nice, and you can balance the game better when you separate the two. I didnt like them in 5th at all, actually i HATED 5th vehicles, when you can shoot 10 lances at a rhino and it not die, thats stupid.
I also like HQ's not being in units between 8th and AoS 2.0 its kinda nice, it also stops some of the deathstar mechanics
I like detachments, BUT i wish you had to take either a 1 Patrols for every 1k points or 1 Battalion for every 2k points (PS, chance the CP system first), and then you can pick 1 of any of the other detachments. I also want allies back, 1 detachment for allies limited to 500pts.
For troops? That should be up to the codex to change that like in 5th/6th/7th
purplkrush wrote: For those who seem to understand what I'm getting at, as admittedly my OP wasn't the clearest, Maybe I should break things down a bit more:
What rule set would you prefer to have for the breakdowns of troop types?
Would you prefer...
-5th for vehicles?
-8th for Characters/HQ?
-3rd for Troops?
If a fan-made rule set was to be made, how would you structure the basics according to editions? With the obvious caveat that some points and rules tweaks would be in order to balance the amalgamation of rule sets. The idea would be total inclusivity for past and future units and updates for units as they come out.
I think vehicles are better in Apoc, the 2 types of weapons is really nice, and you can balance the game better when you separate the two. I didnt like them in 5th at all, actually i HATED 5th vehicles, when you can shoot 10 lances at a rhino and it not die, thats stupid.
I also like HQ's not being in units between 8th and AoS 2.0 its kinda nice, it also stops some of the deathstar mechanics
I like detachments, BUT i wish you had to take either a 1 Patrols for every 1k points or 1 Battalion for every 2k points (PS, chance the CP system first), and then you can pick 1 of any of the other detachments. I also want allies back, 1 detachment for allies limited to 500pts.
For troops? That should be up to the codex to change that like in 5th/6th/7th
purplkrush wrote: For those who seem to understand what I'm getting at, as admittedly my OP wasn't the clearest, Maybe I should break things down a bit more:
What rule set would you prefer to have for the breakdowns of troop types?
Would you prefer... -5th for vehicles? -8th for Characters/HQ? -3rd for Troops?
If a fan-made rule set was to be made, how would you structure the basics according to editions? With the obvious caveat that some points and rules tweaks would be in order to balance the amalgamation of rule sets. The idea would be total inclusivity for past and future units and updates for units as they come out.
I think vehicles are better in Apoc, the 2 types of weapons is really nice, and you can balance the game better when you separate the two. I didnt like them in 5th at all, actually i HATED 5th vehicles, when you can shoot 10 lances at a rhino and it not die, thats stupid.
I also like HQ's not being in units between 8th and AoS 2.0 its kinda nice, it also stops some of the deathstar mechanics
I like detachments, BUT i wish you had to take either a 1 Patrols for every 1k points or 1 Battalion for every 2k points (PS, chance the CP system first), and then you can pick 1 of any of the other detachments. I also want allies back, 1 detachment for allies limited to 500pts.
For troops? That should be up to the codex to change that like in 5th/6th/7th
Lance are -4ap, Rhino gets no saves, 10 shots, 7 hits, 4 wounds, 4D6 = 14 wounds.
But, even if only 9 damage does go through in 5th that MEANS NOTHING, at least i know the next wound will kill it unlike in 5th, you can still have the same chance to not ill it even if you do wound it. In 5th wounding it doesnt mean anything, you still need to get that 5 on the chart (unless you have rules that says otherwise)
4th Edition is my favorite edition, I think. 4th had the most customizations for armies, and was pre true-LOS rules, pre Ward, pre Knights/Fliers, and pre AP-inflation. Imo it was the last edition that focussed on infantry. It had different 'levels' of play, with Omega being the best.
2nd is also great, I've been playing some of that recently.
TinyLegions wrote: Personally I am a fan of the 5th. On the issue of wound allocation, I always assumed that a guy would "pick up" what the guy that got shot left
The problem with 5e wound allocation was the multiwound wargear rules which made it possible to spread damage around without removing models. You had to put 11 wounds on a nob biker squad before the first model died for instance.
And it was a little slow - honestly allowing players to remove what they want so long as injured multiwound models (excluding characters) are removed first would have served well enough.
purplkrush wrote: What rule set would you prefer to have for the breakdowns of troop types?
Would you prefer...
-5th for vehicles?
-8th for Characters/HQ?
-3rd for Troops?
If a fan-made rule set was to be made, how would you structure the basics according to editions? With the obvious caveat that some points and rules tweaks would be in order to balance the amalgamation of rule sets. The idea would be total inclusivity for past and future units and updates for units as they come out.
IMO 5e books (sans GK) and 5e rules, with normalised points for imperial/chaos shared stuff and psychic abilities.
Ditch fliers, add forgeworld on a select basis, simplify wound allocation, tweak cover saves (5+ for soft cover, negated by blasts), and adjust the vehicle damage rules (+1 to damage rolls when immobilised and the first shaken result temporarily knocking out one weapon rather than all of them as a starter).
Replace the mission scoring rules entirely.
Beyond that it's mostly just small tweaks to USRs (i.e. MCs taking d3/d6 wounds from instant death and having rending 2+ rather than armourbane), moral (i.e. units above half strength having the option to go to ground rather than flee), and the notable offenders amongst wargear, faction rules, and unit composition.
YMMV on foc shenanigans, squadrons and platoons, and characters with unique buffs available to some factions. It's entirely possible to trim/pad all of the 5e factions to around two dozen core unit entries.
No addition has been perfect and some much less perfect than others but I have fairly decent memories of 5th being a solid edition.
Enjoying 8th too if getting a touch stale with the shooting-heavy / alpha-strike aspect to it.
Nothing from the 3rd - 7th era please. That is basically the game at its worst. Play 2nd edition or even Rogue Trader over it.
In fact they didn't ditch enough of the junk added during it when making 8th, where the core rules (that is the main rulebook set) are actually the strongest and most coherent they've ever been.
8th edition is fascinating, because the core rules are the simplest (and arguably best) they've ever been. The actual unit rules have become dazzlingly complicated though. Wide open detachment rules, plenty of options for soup, more codices than ever, subfaction rules, bespoke psychic powers and strategems, and increasingly complicated auras and buffs allow some armies to play like it's warmachine.
Look at an ultramarines gunline: it gets chapter tactics, tactical doctrines, and a combat doctrine. Most units will be in auras for rerollin hits and wounds of one, and as many models as possible will be in a bubble for shooting after death. Plus, you can add psychic powers and chaplain prayers, as well as strategems. and a warlord trait. Oh, and if they're part of a specialist detachment they can take a second chapter tactic. A single unit can easily have over a half dozen buffs layered onto it. That's very complex.
Polonius wrote: 8th edition is fascinating, because the core rules are the simplest (and arguably best) they've ever been.
Simplicity came at the cost of so much though. Not just armour penetrating weapons being good against concealment, small arms being effective against tanks, and flamers being ideal against aircraft but whole strategic aspects of the game that were removed in terms of positioning the models.
Things that were risky like flinging artillery close to friendly units or teleporting into a tightly packed area became a sure thing, while charging an opponent or determining game victory conditions became a game of dice.
I remember my first impression of it being that it had become more like a computer game. For the most part units could have been boiled down to a single model being worn away by enemy fire RTS style - point, click, accumulate damage.
If a tactical squad was one guy with 10 wounds that rolled twice their remaining wounds to attack, with a couple of 'special' dice on the side if you took upgrades like a plasmagun, would the game really change? Some rules like bodyguard even work quite explicitly this way.
Well, at a minimum, he'd have smaller footprint. So he'd be easier to hide out of LOS and easier to keep in Cover. If Charged, less models would be able to get CC attacks on him as well.
Polonius wrote: 8th edition is fascinating, because the core rules are the simplest (and arguably best) they've ever been.
Simplicity came at the cost of so much though. Not just armour penetrating weapons being good against concealment, small arms being effective against tanks, and flamers being ideal against aircraft but whole strategic aspects of the game that were removed in terms of positioning the models.
Things that were risky like flinging artillery close to friendly units or teleporting into a tightly packed area became a sure thing, while charging an opponent or determining game victory conditions became a game of dice.
I remember my first impression of it being that it had become more like a computer game. For the most part units could have been boiled down to a single model being worn away by enemy fire RTS style - point, click, accumulate damage.
If a tactical squad was one guy with 10 wounds that rolled twice their remaining wounds to attack, with a couple of 'special' dice on the side if you took upgrades like a plasmagun, would the game really change? Some rules like bodyguard even work quite explicitly this way.
I never really interpreted having a cover save as being hidden, so much as having some concrete between you and the the person shooting at you covering your torso, in which case a lascannon having the penetration to blow through the chest high wall without question seems very reasonable, and at the least more reasonable than Aegis Barricade being as proof against a Autogun as it is against a Baneblade Cannon.
I'm of two mind on the loss of armor facing. With many models that don't have a coherent front-side-rear arc removing facing removes a lot of discussion. It arguably didn't add a whole lot most of the time anyway. In addition, in order to really matter, a vehicle has to have either limited fire arcs or restricted movement options for armor facings to matter.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: I'm of two mind on the loss of armor facing. With many models that don't have a coherent front-side-rear arc removing facing removes a lot of discussion. It arguably didn't add a whole lot most of the time anyway. In addition, in order to really matter, a vehicle has to have either limited fire arcs or restricted movement options for armor facings to matter.
Positioning to threaten from two angles could make a big difference. Something like a predator was three times more vulnerable to missile fire from the side and a frontal exchange of fire between russes, battlewagons, and other AV14 was a slow affair - but one squad sneaking into the rear arc even with just small arms could knock them out of action.
In 8e you just dump your vehicle in whatever position it balances best on the scenery and clump your squads up tightly in the face of artillery to maximize LoS blocking. All that matters is getting into range.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: I'm of two mind on the loss of armor facing. With many models that don't have a coherent front-side-rear arc removing facing removes a lot of discussion. It arguably didn't add a whole lot most of the time anyway. In addition, in order to really matter, a vehicle has to have either limited fire arcs or restricted movement options for armor facings to matter.
Positioning to threaten from two angles could make a big difference. Something like a predator was three times more vulnerable to missile fire from the side and a frontal exchange of fire between russes, battlewagons, and other AV14 was a slow affair - but one squad sneaking into the rear arc even with just small arms could knock them out of action.
In 8e you just dump your vehicle in whatever position it balances best on the scenery and clump your squads up tightly in the face of artillery to maximize LoS blocking. All that matters is getting into range.
Ha, that's a good one! The only thing that outflanks Leman Russ tanks to their rear are things that had a special rule that just hit rear armor.
If a unit is getting legitimate shots on the rear armor of your Leman Russ, you've already lost the game and then some. The frontal arc is approximately wide enough that actually getting into the side arc of the tank is basically in my deployment area, and even then the side arc is AV13 and the rear arc isn't even a space on the table.
I do miss the relative balance between tanks and the things that infantry carried that could hurt them of editions gone by [read: "tanks didn't care about gakky little infantry grunts with bazookas"], and the premier decider of battles between me and my friend was the Vanquishers and the Hammerheads, but that balance won't return again if we went back to 5th edition. There are Riptides now, half of everybody has monstrous creatures that happily ignore cannons that would tear a turret off a tank, and we all own a greater pool of models than we did at the time.
Polonius wrote: 8th edition is fascinating, because the core rules are the simplest (and arguably best) they've ever been.
Simplicity came at the cost of so much though. Not just armour penetrating weapons being good against concealment, small arms being effective against tanks, and flamers being ideal against aircraft but whole strategic aspects of the game that were removed in terms of positioning the models.
Things that were risky like flinging artillery close to friendly units or teleporting into a tightly packed area became a sure thing, while charging an opponent or determining game victory conditions became a game of dice.
I remember my first impression of it being that it had become more like a computer game. For the most part units could have been boiled down to a single model being worn away by enemy fire RTS style - point, click, accumulate damage.
That's pretty accurate, but it's also been forced by the scale the game wants to play at and the types of weapons and units the game has pushed. Extreme levels of abstraction are required when you design a game to essentially cover every possible scale and type of unit all playing on a relatively flat 6'x4' board.
Insectum7 wrote: 4th Edition is my favorite edition, I think. 4th had the most customizations for armies, and was pre true-LOS rules, ...
4th edition wasn't 'pre-true-LOS'... Every previous edition of 40K, back to Rogue Trader used true LOS, with varying levels of abstraction to deal with area terrain. 4th edition still used true LOS, it just had slightly more regimented abstract LOS rules for area terrain than other editions.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: I'm of two mind on the loss of armor facing. With many models that don't have a coherent front-side-rear arc removing facing removes a lot of discussion. It arguably didn't add a whole lot most of the time anyway. In addition, in order to really matter, a vehicle has to have either limited fire arcs or restricted movement options for armor facings to matter.
Positioning to threaten from two angles could make a big difference. Something like a predator was three times more vulnerable to missile fire from the side and a frontal exchange of fire between russes, battlewagons, and other AV14 was a slow affair - but one squad sneaking into the rear arc even with just small arms could knock them out of action.
In 8e you just dump your vehicle in whatever position it balances best on the scenery and clump your squads up tightly in the face of artillery to maximize LoS blocking. All that matters is getting into range.
Ha, that's a good one! The only thing that outflanks Leman Russ tanks to their rear are things that had a special rule that just hit rear armor.
If a unit is getting legitimate shots on the rear armor of your Leman Russ, you've already lost the game and then some. The frontal arc is approximately wide enough that actually getting into the side arc of the tank is basically in my deployment area, and even then the side arc is AV13 and the rear arc isn't even a space on the table.
I do miss the relative balance between tanks and the things that infantry carried that could hurt them of editions gone by [read: "tanks didn't care about gakky little infantry grunts with bazookas"], and the premier decider of battles between me and my friend was the Vanquishers and the Hammerheads, but that balance won't return again if we went back to 5th edition. There are Riptides now, half of everybody has monstrous creatures that happily ignore cannons that would tear a turret off a tank, and we all own a greater pool of models than we did at the time.
I liked firing arcs, as they rewarded mobile firepower. Outflanking scout bikes could unload into the back of gunlines, land speeders could drift into the side arc to slam a few missiles around the front plate. Even a humble tactical squad could move up in a rhino for a better angle.
All that said, I don’t miss them that much. A lot of time was spent trying to figure out angles, what side you were on, etc. It was more tactically deep, but not without cost.
--
Every edition was broken in different ways. Pick your poison for what edition suits you best. Best thing to do is find a group of people with a similar mindset and have fun. But rose tinted glasses are a real thing. I have fond memories of early 3rd. But it could be horribly abused. And the rules bloat of late 3rd would shock those who think it’s bad these days...
BrianDavion wrote: I don't get the OPs point, GW is moving some old units they no longer produce into legends, (thus giving a bare minimum amount of support for something that realisticly would have been squatted even not that long ago) the down side is legends units won't likely be alowed in tournies, so his solution is to play an older edition... which likely won't be supported by any tournies?
Depends on community. Fans got pissed at GW and made FB 9th edition on their own producing superior product that is now played in tournaments.
Would be nice for players to say screw it for GW and take over rule producing. Maybe get something even remotely decent ruleset eventually.
With none of the new releases incorporated. 9th Age is doomed to die a very slow death.
I think it is true that we remember the best from editions rather than the worst.
2nd: I mostly remember the excitement of this new hobby, getting the rules wrong but having so much fun anyway, and getting all my friends around for giant multiplayer games that were completely ridiculous. Plus, I still have my Blood Angels from back then, slathered in paint by an enthusiastic but very unskilled 12 year old Da Boss who could not wait til the undercoat dried, so a lot of them are still pink.
3rd: My favourite time was playing this when it was new with my Orks, which I had just started, a mix of 2nd edition Deathskull metals, Blood Axe Commandos and Gorkamorka Orks. The basic army lists were really fun to play against each other, and the new turn structure and simplified rules seemed revolutionary to me. I was disappointed by the army books, which seemed really lacklustre compared to the 2nd edition ones, but excited to get new units for my Orks, and I loved the Brian Nelson miniatures to death.
4th: Played my first tournaments in this edition and ran a big gaming club during. My main memory of this edition is waiting forever to get my Orks updated while a million marine variant armies came out. I did not really like this edition, but I felt that the Chaos Codex that came out was nearly as good as the old one and allowed for some pretty amazing themed armies. Was the Armageddon global campaign in this edition? That was awesome too.
5th: Probably my favourite edition. I was playing pretty much weekly with my Orks and they finally had a book that was a fun read and allowed a variety of interesting builds that could compete with other armies, even if they were not the most overpowered thing ever. I had a lot more fun games in this edition than the others and bought a lot more stuff as a consequence. Started a Crimson Fists army just because I had bought the starter set a bunch of times. The codices were pretty variable in quality though, and few were as good as the 2nd edition ones.
6th: Bought the starter, read the rules, tried a couple of games and fell sharply out of love with the game. Just did not like how the aspects of 5th I did not like seemed to become more and more part of the core game, and kinda signed out of the system.
7th: Barely interacted with it, I saw it as a nakedly cynical ploy given how short the time was between 6th and this.
8th: Heard good things about it, came back to see what the fuss was about. I can see why people like it, and I think it is a big improvement on 6th and 7th, but there is a lot about it that niggles at me and I cannot see myself playing it. Some awesome stuff released though, Mechanicus and Genestealer cults really brings back the 2nd edition nostalgia.
Weird how 5th seems to be the consensus edition people would go back to. It seems like 5th and 8th are both pretty decent, with some love for 3rd and 2nd.
Jidmah wrote: I did a poll on who like which edition most and 5th was the most liked legacy edition, but still outclassed about 5:1 by 8th.
Least liked edition was 6th.
I'm a fan of 8e (at least relatively speaking), but devils advocate: surely people who vote on the poll will more likely be current players (I know there are many around here who don't play, but it will surely tend towards more active players), and surely people who currently play will skew towards 8e fans.
Therefore the poll is likely to miss out a lot of people who left the game due to not liking the state of it, whether that was 8e, or maybe they left 7e or earlier but didn't come back.
Possible, but that contradicts the other signs of 8ths incredible success, like GW's business numbers, facebook activity, multiple fan sites (B&C, dakka) reporting an all-time high in user activity and massive increases in organized event participants. On top you have the subjective effect of huge amounts of people coming back to the game that have not played in decades. Most people unhappy with 8th seem to be those who enjoyed 7th, because they signed up for a completely different game.
As many people as ever are playing WH40k, and the vast majority of them would rather play 8th than any other edition.
As many people as ever are playing WH40k, and the vast majority of them would rather play 8th than any other edition.
Sign me up for 8th over others. Started in 2nd and ignoring any rose-tinted views I have found 8th edition the most engaging version yet. Ton of people playing it and everybody around me is having fun. Except maybe for GK players.
Legends is good terminology, personally I think every game I'll play will be a Legends allowed game, I might make my opponent pay another 10-50 pts if it's busted compared to modern costs and he's trying to game the system in two or three years.
I liked 7th, it was not good out the box but it had some good things going for it. Wound allocation worked nicely, except for Characters, I'd use the most modern 8th rules for those. Blasts also made a lot of sense most of the time, even if they were hell to resolve once in a while. I don't think any of the factions were playable and fun out of the box so you'd have to rewrite every codex.
I'm not sure about my thoughts on Decurion Detachments, I like the idea of pushing people in the direction of a combined arms force, but not everyone had access to the same levels of broken detachments which made things unfun. 3x Battalion or 2x SupCom + 1x Battalion isn't really any better in terms of army composition and single Force Org was too restrictive IMO. I prefer CP as formation benefits compared to special rules.
Necrons were too busted for my liking in 6th and 7th and 7th ed RP was stupid, late 5th edition would probably be my go-to if I was not allowed to make any rules interventions if I felt like going back, but I don't usually because I love 8th.
8th is super good, I especially like Stratagems, but I do get nostalgic about firing lines, wrecks and blast markers once in a while. What I hate the most about 8th is vehicles only getting -1 when they move 12" and only for heavy weapons, on top of that they only get D6 inches for advancing, it seems there is very little granularity with how far vehicles move this edition.
Cover gives the wrong incentives in terms of Guard benefitting less from cover than Marines which is another thing I dislike.
Removing models from anywhere to the point where you don't even need to be in coherency is dumb. Aura abilities are kind of dumb, I'd prefer if there were only entirely within abilities, no patching up 90 Grots at once with one Painboy.
I don't feel the need to make homebrew rules for 8th except to accommodate my opponents and for fun. But that's mostly due to GW making an effort otherwise I'd have to homebrew fixes for all the mistakes of 8th or maybe play with something ITC came out with.
If I was given free reign of writing and infinite time and playtests every codex then 7th is a good system. I might go even further on the simulationist side and make tanks have to turn like blocks of infantry in WHFB. I might also remove Overwatch and go back to punishing movement more heavily for shooting units. Hit on 6s for heavy weapons or RF weapons at longe range when moving.
I think there's an overabundance of Stratagems in 8th for some factions, I'd like for people to have a far smaller number. Something like 0-5 for faction, 1-3 for sub-faction, 2-5 per Specialist Detachment, with a half dozen generic Specialist Detachments if you wanted to go that route. Even if you created 100 Specialist Detachments you'd only have to look through your opponents 6-15 Stratagems before the game begins, looking through 30-60 is way too much.
Alternatively, just 25ish generic Stratagems that everyone gets or picks a number from that they get to use with each army. In my perfect world, each army list has access to less than 10 Stratagems, giving opponents plenty opportunity to read their opponent's every Stratagem without dragging the game out too much. I also dislike Chapter Tactics, it's a completely unnecessity in a world with Stratagems and only invalidates countless armies because it'll be much less efficient to run Blood Angels Predators than Raven Guard Predators. If it just came down to a Stratagem or two that BA Preds didn't have access to I think the punishment for taking a BA Pred would be or at least feel less severe, depending on how OP those Stratagems were of course.
I hope that Legends unit points are slightly too high, like many of the Index units are now because they haven't been updated - then there would be no reason to disallow them anywhere, even if other points values change over the years. I would personally just like the opportunity to use all of my models and don't mind if it puts me at a slightly disadvantage. If it puts me at an advantage instead, then it wouldn't feel right to use them.
Jidmah wrote: Possible, but that contradicts the other signs of 8ths incredible success, like GW's business numbers, facebook activity, multiple fan sites (B&C, dakka) reporting an all-time high in user activity and massive increases in organized event participants.
On top you have the subjective effect of huge amounts of people coming back to the game that have not played in decades. Most people unhappy with 8th seem to be those who enjoyed 7th, because they signed up for a completely different game.
As many people as ever are playing WH40k, and the vast majority of them would rather play 8th than any other edition.
To paraphrase Mark Hamill, it doesn't need to be good, it just needs to make money. People like bad things all the time.
Jidmah wrote: Possible, but that contradicts the other signs of 8ths incredible success, like GW's business numbers, facebook activity, multiple fan sites (B&C, dakka) reporting an all-time high in user activity and massive increases in organized event participants.
On top you have the subjective effect of huge amounts of people coming back to the game that have not played in decades. Most people unhappy with 8th seem to be those who enjoyed 7th, because they signed up for a completely different game.
As many people as ever are playing WH40k, and the vast majority of them would rather play 8th than any other edition.
To paraphrase Mark Hamill, it doesn't need to be good, it just needs to make money. People like bad things all the time.
You realize that this paraphrasing is perhaps the worst counterpoint to any argument? I mean, it is a completely empty statement that mounts to a very verbose "nuh-uh" response.
I mean, I get it. You personally really dislike 8th. Nothing wrong with that. Doesn't make your opinion more or less valid than other people's opinion. Except mine of course.
Jidmah wrote: Possible, but that contradicts the other signs of 8ths incredible success, like GW's business numbers, facebook activity, multiple fan sites (B&C, dakka) reporting an all-time high in user activity and massive increases in organized event participants.
On top you have the subjective effect of huge amounts of people coming back to the game that have not played in decades. Most people unhappy with 8th seem to be those who enjoyed 7th, because they signed up for a completely different game.
As many people as ever are playing WH40k, and the vast majority of them would rather play 8th than any other edition.
To paraphrase Mark Hamill, it doesn't need to be good, it just needs to make money. People like bad things all the time.
You realize that this paraphrasing is perhaps the worst counterpoint to any argument? I mean, it is a completely empty statement that mounts to a very verbose "nuh-uh" response.
I mean, I get it. You personally really dislike 8th. Nothing wrong with that. Doesn't make your opinion more or less valid than other people's opinion. Except mine of course.
By what metric? People are having fun, the game is popular, GW is making money on it. No 8th might be subjectively bad if you go by the metrics of a well-written and tight ruleset getting tighter and tighter. But an objective metric of how good a game is would almost inevitably have to include 8th edition or else exclude games that most people agree are good games. Gameplay is fun. Story is degrading, but given its long history much of the story of the overall work is still super good. Difficulty is low, debth is high. Complexity is expanding rapidly, but most of that complexity is optional, you'll have to work quite hard to justify how optional content is objectively bad, rather than subjectively bad because you don't like it personally. Even if you haven't read all the added rules you can ask 3-5 questions and weedle out the most important information you need about them if your opponent is using them.
By what metric? People are having fun, the game is popular, GW is making money on it. No 8th might be subjectively bad if you go by the metrics of a well-written and tight ruleset getting tighter and tighter. But an objective metric of how good a game is would almost inevitably have to include 8th edition or else exclude games that most people agree are good games. Gameplay is fun. Story is degrading, but given its long history much of the story of the overall work is still super good. Difficulty is low, debth is high. Complexity is expanding rapidly, but most of that complexity is optional, you'll have to work quite hard to justify how optional content is objectively bad, rather than subjectively bad because you don't like it personally. Even if you haven't read all the added rules you can ask 3-5 questions and weedle out the most important information you need about them if your opponent is using them.
Objectively 'badly designed' game, he meant to say.
[He? Probably a he. Do cat bugs have a gender? Does bacon?]
It's got some great marketing and very pretty minatures, though.
Not sure it's really defendable when you go, 'In order to play this game you will require two people, two thousand pounds, a large table, paint, glue, clippers, over one hundred paper printed documents, a rulebook, two yearly updates to the rulebook, two faction specific rulebooks, along with possibly another suppliment, access to Dakka's 'you make da call' online forum, and a dice for when you still disagree what any of these rules mean.'
That's not great design, and if anyone thinks that's the only way to make a playable wargame and this is good design, then I honestly don't know what to say.
I don't think GW would dispute that, their attitude is basically that the game is there to give people something to do with their plastic army men, which are the real product. As long as it's passable for that purpose, that suits GW and most players.
And, to be fair, on those lines, 8E is probably the most functional ruleset GW has ever produced.
Jidmah wrote: Possible, but that contradicts the other signs of 8ths incredible success, like GW's business numbers, facebook activity, multiple fan sites (B&C, dakka) reporting an all-time high in user activity and massive increases in organized event participants.
On top you have the subjective effect of huge amounts of people coming back to the game that have not played in decades. Most people unhappy with 8th seem to be those who enjoyed 7th, because they signed up for a completely different game.
As many people as ever are playing WH40k, and the vast majority of them would rather play 8th than any other edition.
To paraphrase Mark Hamill, it doesn't need to be good, it just needs to make money. People like bad things all the time.
You realize that this paraphrasing is perhaps the worst counterpoint to any argument? I mean, it is a completely empty statement that mounts to a very verbose "nuh-uh" response.
I mean, I get it. You personally really dislike 8th. Nothing wrong with that. Doesn't make your opinion more or less valid than other people's opinion. Except mine of course.
8th is an objectively bad game.
If many people enjoy it and a company makes a ton of money off it, you are objectively wrong about that.
By what metric? People are having fun, the game is popular, GW is making money on it. No 8th might be subjectively bad if you go by the metrics of a well-written and tight ruleset getting tighter and tighter. But an objective metric of how good a game is would almost inevitably have to include 8th edition or else exclude games that most people agree are good games. Gameplay is fun. Story is degrading, but given its long history much of the story of the overall work is still super good. Difficulty is low, debth is high. Complexity is expanding rapidly, but most of that complexity is optional, you'll have to work quite hard to justify how optional content is objectively bad, rather than subjectively bad because you don't like it personally. Even if you haven't read all the added rules you can ask 3-5 questions and weedle out the most important information you need about them if your opponent is using them.
Objectively 'badly designed' game, he meant to say.
[He? Probably a he. Do cat bugs have a gender? Does bacon?]
It's got some great marketing and very pretty minatures, though.
Not sure it's really defendable when you go, 'In order to play this game you will require two people, two thousand pounds, a large table, paint, glue, clippers, over one hundred paper printed documents, a rulebook, two yearly updates to the rulebook, two faction specific rulebooks, along with possibly another suppliment, access to Dakka's 'you make da call' online forum, and a dice for when you still disagree what any of these rules mean.'
That's not great design, and if anyone thinks that's the only way to make a playable wargame and this is good design, then I honestly don't know what to say.
I agree that it's badly designed, badly playtested, badly patched etc. etc. But at the end of the day, it's still fun. I don't believe in wrong fun, Cookie Clicker is a good game, Ludo is a good game, Monopoly is a good game, hordes of people have had fun with those games so they are good, a game can also be good if a minority have fun with them, but if a lot of people play them and have fun then you can't really call it a bad game. You could argue it's just marketing and buyers remorse forcing people to play, but I don't believe that to be the case, even if they are all badly designed, they still strike a chord on some level that make them enjoyable and re-selling 40k still yields a 30-90% return on investment. Now if you had games that produce literally no enjoyment or negative enjoyment, then I think we can agree on a game being bad.
To be fair, a game is just something that provides enjoyment to those playing it. So, strictly speaking, as long as people ARE enjoying 8th edition, it is a good game, because it's fulfilling this objective.
flandarz wrote:To be fair, a game is just something that provides enjoyment to those playing it. So, strictly speaking, as long as people ARE enjoying 8th edition, it is a good game, because it's fulfilling this objective.
I'm pretty confident that if enough people enjoy a game, they are the ones in the unique position to determine if it is one of quality.
BCB is apparently incapable of making objective observations(or at least confusing sub/objective). Especially how the popularity of 8th and the record profits associated with it, reflect how the general player population perceives the game. It doesn't reflect the narrative that they've been pushing since 8th dropped. One where GW is "incompetent and terrible at game design"(paraphrasing from innumerable posts) & couldnt design their way out of a paper bag.
Low quality things sell all the time. The Transformers movies made bank despite it being rather brain dead and all eye candy. Fast food is popular and yet very few would say its high quality food. At least in the US the most commonly played board games are stuff made by Milton Bradly and almost all of those games are mindlessly simple to play (Stratego is good stuff at least).
I think its safe to say that 8th edition is objective a less complex game than 4th, 5th, 6th, or 7th edition. Subjectively I would say 8th is too simplistic and plays a bit too much to a lower common denominator. It helps make the game be more accessible to those who like an easier entry point, beer and pretzel, or less complex game to play. What it doesn't do is provide the depth of mechanics to those who enjoy more complexity in their table top games. Its a trade off that goes against what I want from the game but I get why they went that route (same reason why Transformers, McDonalds, and MB make a lot of money). That isn't to say I am some board gaming elitist but that I'm a obsessive nerd who loves digging into hundreds of niche use rules and having loads of factors to consider when making decisions in a game. 8th wasn't designed for people like me where as past editions played more towards the rules nerd crowd.
Even now I still find myself loving 7th edition despite its horrific balance choices. It takes work to tailor a game to have a good matchup (finding the right armies and lists to go against each other) but when you get a good matchup its something magical to play. There is so much that could of been done to fix up the balance and adjust some of the core rules but the foundation for game mechanics was there for great gameplay to be had.
I think its safe to say that 8th edition is objective a less complex game than 4th, 5th, 6th, or 7th edition.
When you are just considering the rules, I'd say you're right, and I think your assessment is absolutely fair.
Where 8th gains it's richness isn't it's rule set. It's the fact that for the first time, EVERY faction has unique subgroups that are represented by rules designed to reflect their background. It's the interactions of scale and the potential for campaign building. The integration of Blackstone, Kill Team, and Apocalypse has never been so smooth, and GW just keeps making it more seamless. Example- thus far, BSF has had the poorest integration. BUT the Escalation expansion that was just released introduces the concept of retinue characters.
See the bridge to Kill Team? Because once you're into Kill Team, the transition to 40k and onto Apocalypse is seamless.
So now you're a new player- you play a board game. Your character completes missions, earns rep, attracts a retinue. Guess what?
You've already got rules for the board game models that you already own for Kill Team. And now your whole team is being defined; the character you started with was already a legend from BSF, but the character's retinue is green. Kill Team fleshes that out, allowing each retinue member to grow his or her own story. +And suddenly you meet another Kill Team and you're a detachment! And again, you've already got rules for the models you own, as you prepare to take a Blackstone Hero into a third game system, and his retinue into the second.
Yeah, we lost things like firing arcs for vehicles and some cover rules that people really liked, and quite a few other things that did make former rule sets more complex. But sweet Emperor almighty, look at what we have gained!
If you've always enjoyed competitive solo games, whether in a tournament setting or just casually, and you are disappointed with the current state of the the game, before you throw in the towel, I would just suggest trying a narrative escalation campaign before you write this edition off as simple.You don't have to start at the micro BSF level if none of the available characters appeal to you, but seriously- grow an army from a kill team to a detachment to an army to an apocalypse force, unlocking the capacity to incorporate allied detachments as you explore and conquer territories.
I like inventing these campaigns myself, so Urban Conquest was my tool. But if you don't want to do the world building part yourself, no problem because you can just get the stuff from Vigilus and the background is done for you. Vigilus was small- it was only two books. A teaser to test proof of concept. Psychic Awakening is going to make it look like Blackstone Fortress looks like through the lens of Apocalypse.
There is an ocean of content that has never existed in this game's considerable history. For example, I'm working on designs to build 40k scale vessels as both 40k terrain and playable game boards for the mini-games. The Truehawk from Kill Team: Rogue Trader is my proof of concept piece, because I have a floor plan to work with; the lack of images of the ship's exterior does propose a challenge, but given the floor plan, I think it's easier than building something like the Clarion from BSF, where you have the exterior without the floor plan.
So, yeah... The Euclidian Starstriders could literally land on a 40k battlefield and become a detachment within an army if the combined force can survive the mission. And once that event occurs, they can stick with the army until it grows to Apocalypse, cuz you already got the free download for using them in that game too.
Just wait until next July when the Sisters of St Katherine's Aegis are on the verge of being wiped out by a Genestealer Cult and suddenly, the Clarion lands in the middle of the battlefield, and Taddeus the Purifier, Pious Vorne, Gotfret de Montbard lead retinues of frothing crusaders, death cult assassins and arcoflagellants that have been gathered over the course of the dozens of kill team battles that took place as they made their way from the Blackstone Fortress back to more familiar Imperial Territory.
Do I miss a few old rules every now and again? Honestly? Sometimes.
I think its safe to say that 8th edition is objective a less complex game than 4th, 5th, 6th, or 7th edition.
When you are just considering the rules, I'd say you're right, and I think your assessment is absolutely fair.
Where 8th gains it's richness isn't it's rule set. It's the fact that for the first time, EVERY faction has unique subgroups that are represented by rules designed to reflect their background. It's the interactions of scale and the potential for campaign building. The integration of Blackstone, Kill Team, and Apocalypse has never been so smooth, and GW just keeps making it more seamless. Example- thus far, BSF has had the poorest integration. BUT the Escalation expansion that was just released introduces the concept of retinue characters.
See the bridge to Kill Team? Because once you're into Kill Team, the transition to 40k and onto Apocalypse is seamless.
So now you're a new player- you play a board game. Your character completes missions, earns rep, attracts a retinue. Guess what?
You've already got rules for the board game models that you already own for Kill Team. And now your whole team is being defined; the character you started with was already a legend from BSF, but the character's retinue is green. Kill Team fleshes that out, allowing each retinue member to grow his or her own story. +And suddenly you meet another Kill Team and you're a detachment! And again, you've already got rules for the models you own, as you prepare to take a Blackstone Hero into a third game system, and his retinue into the second.
Yeah, we lost things like firing arcs for vehicles and some cover rules that people really liked, and quite a few other things that did make former rule sets more complex. But sweet Emperor almighty, look at what we have gained!
If you've always enjoyed competitive solo games, whether in a tournament setting or just casually, and you are disappointed with the current state of the the game, before you throw in the towel, I would just suggest trying a narrative escalation campaign before you write this edition off as simple.You don't have to start at the micro BSF level if none of the available characters appeal to you, but seriously- grow an army from a kill team to a detachment to an army to an apocalypse force, unlocking the capacity to incorporate allied detachments as you explore and conquer territories.
I like inventing these campaigns myself, so Urban Conquest was my tool. But if you don't want to do the world building part yourself, no problem because you can just get the stuff from Vigilus and the background is done for you. Vigilus was small- it was only two books. A teaser to test proof of concept. Psychic Awakening is going to make it look like Blackstone Fortress looks like through the lens of Apocalypse.
There is an ocean of content that has never existed in this game's considerable history. For example, I'm working on designs to build 40k scale vessels as both 40k terrain and playable game boards for the mini-games. The Truehawk from Kill Team: Rogue Trader is my proof of concept piece, because I have a floor plan to work with; the lack of images of the ship's exterior does propose a challenge, but given the floor plan, I think it's easier than building something like the Clarion from BSF, where you have the exterior without the floor plan.
So, yeah... The Euclidian Starstriders could literally land on a 40k battlefield and become a detachment within an army if the combined force can survive the mission. And once that event occurs, they can stick with the army until it grows to Apocalypse, cuz you already got the free download for using them in that game too.
Just wait until next July when the Sisters of St Katherine's Aegis are on the verge of being wiped out by a Genestealer Cult and suddenly, the Clarion lands in the middle of the battlefield, and Taddeus the Purifier, Pious Vorne, Gotfret de Montbard lead retinues of frothing crusaders, death cult assassins and arcoflagellants that have been gathered over the course of the dozens of kill team battles that took place as they made their way from the Blackstone Fortress back to more familiar Imperial Territory.
Do I miss a few old rules every now and again? Honestly? Sometimes.
But was it worth it to get all this? Hell yeah!
Its absolutely fantastic that you get that much excitement and a rich experience from how GW has developed 8th and its associated game types.
For me though the fun is found in making my list, fielding it, executing my strategy/tactics, and playing out a battle that is complex. With that 8th fails to be fun because it lacks all the depth of mechanics that I find fun to play. All the integration of games into each other to carry over one thing to another would be good if the actual act of playing the game wasn't just so boring. I wish i could share in that enjoyment but playing 8th is just so dreadfully dull where as playing 7th still feels fun and exciting. I legit went into 8th (while hating primaris) with some degree of excitement as to how i can field my armies and make them work. Played probably a dozen games of 8th and i find myself always being bored. If the sum total of the time spent playing a game is boredom and feeling tedious then its not worth the time.
5th edition was/is my favorite since I believe it was the best edition for what I want 40k to be, which is each side having a few squads of infantry back by some monsters or vehicles depending on the faction.
The only significant changes I would make is having vehicles being a bit less durable (I had rhinos that could eat half an armies worth of shooting and that's a bit much for a 35 point vehicle) and clean up the wound allocation to stop things like nob bikers not losing a model until it's 11th wound. Other wise it was a solid rule set until codex creep set in.
My main gripe with 8th isn't really the rules themselves but all that GW has added to since 5th ended. Flyers and super heavies in standard games break the scale unless GW moves away from the D6 and make having any real chance of balance a hell of a task.
A game that is trying to have fair rules for a grot and a titan and everything in between just isn't going to pan out.
Its absolutely fantastic that you get that much excitement and a rich experience from how GW has developed 8th and its associated game types.
For me though the fun is found in making my list, fielding it, executing my strategy/tactics, and playing out a battle that is complex. With that 8th fails to be fun because it lacks all the depth of mechanics that I find fun to play. All the integration of games into each other to carry over one thing to another would be good if the actual act of playing the game wasn't just so boring. I wish i could share in that enjoyment but playing 8th is just so dreadfully dull where as playing 7th still feels fun and exciting. I legit went into 8th (while hating primaris) with some degree of excitement as to how i can field my armies and make them work. Played probably a dozen games of 8th and i find myself always being bored. If the sum total of the time spent playing a game is boredom and feeling tedious then its not worth the time.
I would say that most of my fun is also found in planning my list and executing my strategy to secure victory over my foes.
However, I would say it's because of that that I find 8th so much more fun than previous editions. For the most part, everything feels balanced and stable mechanically, barring a few odd exceptions, with a considerable amount of strategic and tactical decisions to be made that can make or break the game from the very fine to the very broad and a lot of places in between, far more-so than 7th.
One criticism is that 8th is far more abstracted than previous editions. 7th had false depth from vehicle facings and arcs: they were there to keep track of, but they didn't really contribute meaningfully to the tactics or strategy of the game, they were just sort of there to manage. While they're largely insignificant from the adding tactical and strategic depth perspective and add a lot of ambiguity and bookkeeping, they do add a character and level of simulationism that make a wargame enjoyable than a highly abstract game like Chess.
I would say I'm very happy with 8th. The only edition I would go back to would be 5th; but as I said, I have no delusions that what I enjoyed about 5th would return in the days of Riptides, Primarchs, [and of course, a changed playgroup].
TinyLegions wrote: Personally I am a fan of the 5th. On the issue of wound allocation, I always assumed that a guy would "pick up" what the guy that got shot left
The problem with 5e wound allocation was the multiwound wargear rules which made it possible to spread damage around without removing models. You had to put 11 wounds on a nob biker squad before the first model died for instance.
And it was a little slow - honestly allowing players to remove what they want so long as injured multiwound models (excluding characters) are removed first would have served well enough.
You are right, that is a quirk in the rules that should be amended. If you are getting multiple wounds, than something should be killed after that.
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HoundsofDemos wrote: 5th edition was/is my favorite since I believe it was the best edition for what I want 40k to be, which is each side having a few squads of infantry back by some monsters or vehicles depending on the faction.
The only significant changes I would make is having vehicles being a bit less durable (I had rhinos that could eat half an armies worth of shooting and that's a bit much for a 35 point vehicle) and clean up the wound allocation to stop things like nob bikers not losing a model until it's 11th wound. Other wise it was a solid rule set until codex creep set in.
My main gripe with 8th isn't really the rules themselves but all that GW has added to since 5th ended. Flyers and super heavies in standard games break the scale unless GW moves away from the D6 and make having any real chance of balance a hell of a task.
A game that is trying to have fair rules for a grot and a titan and everything in between just isn't going to pan out.
No argument with the supers. IMHO They don't belong in a standard game, and honestly, I don't use any supers so no love lost if they get axed all together. However I don't see a problem with flyers in a standard game, especially since they had them in the 5th with IG. My problem is how the rules were put together for flyers since then. I have to re-read how they handled flyers in the 5th, but for subsequent editions I agree that they needed to do something different other than sell you another vehicle for Air Defense. SM Flak missiles were a nice touch in the 6th.
Yeah, we lost things like firing arcs for vehicles and some cover rules that people really liked, and quite a few other things that did make former rule sets more complex. But sweet Emperor almighty, look at what we have gained!
From what I understand GK lost most of their rules, lost a ton of stuff that made some of their stuff good in prior edtions, got a rule set that punishs the GK playstyle in 8th ed, followed by bad update and FAQ and CA nerfs. I don't think there are many people playing GK left in 8th ed, and from people seem to be telling me, they were already on a down turn as new players go in prior edtions too, as GW seems to have some hate against them making them worse every edition since like 4th or 5th ed.
Am not sure that 8th suddenly made the game better. It maybe made the game better for people who were lucky enough to have good armies for it. Or which got good updates and new model lines from GW. And it is not like this is just a GK thing. What is necron player suppose to be happy about in 8th ed?
flandarz wrote: No longer auto-losing the match because 75% of your army was beaten seems like something Necrons would be happy about.
It made more sense in the context of the 3e game/era.
If you had a blob of 20 3e necrons sitting on an objective and shot all of them off the board then 10 of them would stand back up that turn and any that failed would get to roll again in later turns. If you had a monolith nearby you'd get back 15 of those 20 models. These rolls were made before calculating phase out. Unfortunately resurrection was conditional to other identical model types being nearby leading to later cron lists often being blocks of warriors and monoliths.
I am very tempted to go back to 3rd edition and just use the army lists in the back of the book. No Codexes. This means a lot of the current models wouldn't make an apperance... This isn't a bad thing.
If not there is always One Page Rules Grim Future, which is a cracking little system.
8th is the worst system GW have put out... even Battlemasters had more tactical depth.
flandarz wrote: No longer auto-losing the match because 75% of your army was beaten seems like something Necrons would be happy about.
Never had a problem with it. It seemed like a fair trade off for the advantages my Necrons enjoyed. It also made for a challenge. Also made the Necrons unique in how they played.
I preferred 4th to 5th because it didn't suffer as much from size creep, and because it had clear and well-defined rules for terrain and LOS rather than just saying "kneel down and eyeball it". Transports need some kind of happy medium between 4th (Penetrating Hit = unit disembarks and is Pinned, so nobody used non-skimmer transports) and 5th (parking lots of 35pt Rhinos that required a penetrating hit and a 6 to actually destroy), and consolidate-into-new-combat in 4th was really punishing to some armies, but it felt more like a wargame and less like a cartoon than anything that's come after.
AnomanderRake wrote: Transports need some kind of happy medium between 4th (Penetrating Hit = unit disembarks and is Pinned, so nobody used non-skimmer transports) and 5th (parking lots of 35pt Rhinos that required a penetrating hit and a 6 to actually destroy)
Some or all of -
-'all pintle weapons, including missiles' becomes a valid choice for weapon destroyed, rather than picking off one stormbolter at a time
-add +1 to all damage rolls (glancing or penetrating) against immobilised vehicles, with a 7+ glance wrecking the vehicle
-any penetrating non-explodes results to an unarmed, immobilized vehicle wrecks it
-(game wide) basic obscurement is a 5+ cover save, and infantry cannot obscure vehicles.
-if using 4e books, roll shared vehicle costs back to 4e (50pt rhinos, etc)
At the other end of the scale a shaken vehicle should probably be allowed to move or shoot, but not both. Tanks were somewhat prone to being shaken out of games by low quality glancing hits.
Consolidating through combat might not have been so bad if there was a counter-play to it such as falling back away from a consolidation, shooting into combat, or otherwise breaking the chain. It was the usual 40k situation of one brave grot holding up the rampaging bloodthirster, or else one annoying grot preventing the ork horde from shooting said bloodthirster depending on who had the next turn.
I think its safe to say that 8th edition is objective a less complex game than 4th, 5th, 6th, or 7th edition.
When you are just considering the rules, I'd say you're right, and I think your assessment is absolutely fair.
Where 8th gains it's richness isn't it's rule set. It's the fact that for the first time, EVERY faction has unique subgroups that are represented by rules designed to reflect their background.
Factions' representation rules wise is largely illusory. Most special rules in 8th are 6-12 concepts with tiny tweaks by different names. Wheras other games utilize a more player-driven approach, focusing on taking actions with units, GW games just fiddle with the math, aside from few exceptions like GSC. 40k gives us "Your guys get a - to hit against my guys 'cause they're stealthy." Not "I chose a stealth/mobile force of scouts and assault marines. My scouts can move through terrain easier, and are good at pinning enemy units. The assault guys are fast and can make drive-by-attacks." Chapter Tactics and their ilk are poor band-aids attempting to compensate for an overly-simplistic ruleset that doesn't provide room to simply build an army that suits a play-style, and play that out on the tabletop. A better-written ruleset would allow players to build forces that operate differently from the same codex, without rerolls, + or - to hit, shooting/fighting twice, etc.
It's the interactions of scale and the potential for campaign building. The integration of Blackstone, Kill Team, and Apocalypse has never been so smooth, and GW just keeps making it more seamless. Example- thus far, BSF has had the poorest integration. BUT the Escalation expansion that was just released introduces the concept of retinue characters.
See the bridge to Kill Team? Because once you're into Kill Team, the transition to 40k and onto Apocalypse is seamless.
So now you're a new player- you play a board game. Your character completes missions, earns rep, attracts a retinue. Guess what?
You've already got rules for the board game models that you already own for Kill Team. And now your whole team is being defined; the character you started with was already a legend from BSF, but the character's retinue is green. Kill Team fleshes that out, allowing each retinue member to grow his or her own story. +And suddenly you meet another Kill Team and you're a detachment! And again, you've already got rules for the models you own, as you prepare to take a Blackstone Hero into a third game system, and his retinue into the second.
So BSF/KT/40k/Apoc have some sort of ladder system, where you can take one force to the next 'tier" of the game, and so on? That's great in principle, although I would think BSF would be a rather poor starter product considering its cost, KT as well for that matter.
But, in your own words, the "richness" of 40k 8th edition (I disagree that it is rich, but let's suppose that this is true) is in fluff rules and the ability to progress from one product to another. Not in the gameplay. Why don't you have a problem with this? Isn't the whole point to put our toys on the table and have fun with them?
Yeah, we lost things like firing arcs for vehicles and some cover rules that people really liked, and quite a few other things that did make former rule sets more complex. But sweet Emperor almighty, look at what we have gained!
If you've always enjoyed competitive solo games, whether in a tournament setting or just casually, and you are disappointed with the current state of the the game, before you throw in the towel, I would just suggest trying a narrative escalation campaign before you write this edition off as simple.You don't have to start at the micro BSF level if none of the available characters appeal to you, but seriously- grow an army from a kill team to a detachment to an army to an apocalypse force, unlocking the capacity to incorporate allied detachments as you explore and conquer territories.
I like inventing these campaigns myself, so Urban Conquest was my tool. But if you don't want to do the world building part yourself, no problem because you can just get the stuff from Vigilus and the background is done for you. Vigilus was small- it was only two books. A teaser to test proof of concept. Psychic Awakening is going to make it look like Blackstone Fortress looks like through the lens of Apocalypse.
There is an ocean of content that has never existed in this game's considerable history. For example, I'm working on designs to build 40k scale vessels as both 40k terrain and playable game boards for the mini-games. The Truehawk from Kill Team: Rogue Trader is my proof of concept piece, because I have a floor plan to work with; the lack of images of the ship's exterior does propose a challenge, but given the floor plan, I think it's easier than building something like the Clarion from BSF, where you have the exterior without the floor plan.
So, yeah... The Euclidian Starstriders could literally land on a 40k battlefield and become a detachment within an army if the combined force can survive the mission. And once that event occurs, they can stick with the army until it grows to Apocalypse, cuz you already got the free download for using them in that game too.
Just wait until next July when the Sisters of St Katherine's Aegis are on the verge of being wiped out by a Genestealer Cult and suddenly, the Clarion lands in the middle of the battlefield, and Taddeus the Purifier, Pious Vorne, Gotfret de Montbard lead retinues of frothing crusaders, death cult assassins and arcoflagellants that have been gathered over the course of the dozens of kill team battles that took place as they made their way from the Blackstone Fortress back to more familiar Imperial Territory.
Do I miss a few old rules every now and again? Honestly? Sometimes.
But was it worth it to get all this? Hell yeah!
Was it worth it? Hell no!
Okay, snark aside, much of what you describe are rules made by you and your group. Writing house rules or campaigns is not unique to 40k. I want to play 40k the war-game, not 40k the do-it-yourself RPG. (A "proper" role-playing game could be fun, Wrath&Glory isn't it.)
Some things that could improve gameplay:
Upgrade from IGOUGO to AA. Instead of turns and phases, units "activate," opening up possibilities for hit-and-run, suppressive fire and so on.
Remove superheavy vehicles, gargantuan creatures and perhaps flyers from "normal" infantry-based 40k.
Eliminate fixed to-hit rolls in most cases. Roll BS and WS into one stat, compare this stat with evasion to determine minimum roll required to succeed. Essentially use the old to-wound chart for hitting as well as wounding.
Eliminate armor saves, no longer necessary to give the opponent "something to do" on your turn. Keep invulns (40k wouldn't be right without them) and FNP.
Give every unit front and rear firing arcs. New bases have notches, older models can just have markings painted on their bases.
Clearly define arcs for vehicle weapons.
Armor facings return in the form of front and rear toughness values.
Abandon rolling for psychic powers. I don't think this has ever contributed to the game in a meaningful way since I've been into 40k.
Rejigger morale from battleshock's "models die because models died" approach to affect unit behavior. I like the MEDGe method of making an activation check, and units that fail that check take a compulsory action based on their level of suppression, but that's just one option.
I think they've done a little of this, but embrace turn-by-turn scoring of victory points, adopt something like schemes and strategies in Malifaux. Asymmetrical objectives make things more interesting, and if some objectives are unknown to the opponent, even better.
Command Points could even remain, in a different form. Give units/models like captains, chaplains etc. a command value. Each game turn, players generate a number of CP equal to the total command values among models/units +the turn number. Instead of MTG "combat trick" style stratagems, these could be used to reduce suppression on units, and or give them order s to enable special actions they otherwise could not take. Yes, orders have been guard's "thing," but this is probably the best way to implement cp.
With armor saves gone, change cover to increase units' evasion, or something. I like how some games have cover values, and the defending player can discard hits equal to that number, but this may not work for 40k's scale.
Some of 8th is better than other editions but, let's face it, 40k has always had problems. Just think of what 40kcould be if we could push GW to make big meaningful changes (almost certainly via our wallets).
