I was mulling this over and wanted to get a wider consensus on something that mainly stemmed from a recent discussion in another thread (I believe it was the 'State of 40k thread'). It seems like many people are turned off by what is commonly described as the increasing bloat in 9th Edition, however this is also commonly countered by the "at least it's better/not as bloated as 7th" card.
Is this actually true?
It's important to state I don't have any particular leg in this discussion as I've stepped away from the gaming aspect of the hobby for the time being but I've seen it come up often enough that I thought it might merit a focussed discussion in the form of 2 questions.
So firstly, which core ruleset was better to play with (i.e. the rules as presented in the BRBand Faction Codices only). Then, which had the worse "bloat" and by extension what is the differences in said "bloat" between 7th and 9th and why do some prefer one to the other?
With regards to 7th for the sake of consistency (even though it may not be fair) the comparison is between current 9th and the end of 7th. If anyone has a specific anecdote with regards to the timeline of bloat in 7th please feel free to share.
The core rules were much better in 7th, but the codexes were TERRIBLY balanced. Aside from a few problems and outliers like invisibility I enjoyed the over all play experiences in 7th. An 8th edition that took those outliers into account probably would have been a much better long term game.
8th actually wasn't terrible in the index phase, but once codexes came out it became IMPOSSIBLE to know much of anything about how your opponents army plays without also reading their codex. 8th put almost all of the real game design in the codexes themselves.
There were issues with 7th but I think the main issue came from the actual codexes.
With 9th I'm finding I'm being rather put off by how wordy the rules are being, which I presume is to keep rules-lawyering to a minimum. With the reintroduction of books like Charadon, I'm wondering if it'll just be a repeat of 7th except more boring as most rules are now just "This does Mortal Wounds", or "This give you a 6+ FNP"
I wish to stress before I begin that 7th was absolutely a janky bloated mess. There were many things about the core rules and the Codexes that rendered bits of the game irrelevant (overly-generous Ignores Cover, the D table, bad hull point allocation), slowed play to a crawl (Look Out, Sir!, spammable blasts), or made the game too random (rolling for psychic powers known). There is a reason I play 30k or my own patched version of 7th rather than playing straight unmodified 7th.
That said 7th had for me a number of very key advantages over 8th/9th with regards to bloat:
-It was far, far better-organized. 8th/9th have chosen to shrink the core rules by taking all the stuff that would have been USRs or unit types in 7th and doing bespoke versions of them on every datasheet; while Codex 8th and 9th have gotten more consistent than Index 8th you still need to read every Codex to discover whether their version of (say) the Bike type is slightly different than yours. People can and do complain about USR bloat in 7th, and they're often right (you may notice 30k and my patched 7th both have very different USR lists than the original), but the existence of unit types and USRs made the game far more consistent and far easier to play, because you knew what your opponent's stuff could do without needing to memorize every Codex.
-It was much easier to eyeball the value of a unit from its own profile. If you're playing 8th/9th units are often powerful with a specific support stack and unplayable without it, which means if you want to understand an army/whether you should buy a given unit you need to understand the whole design space of possible support stacks available to the faction. This also has the effect of making units more or less playable depending on what colour you paint them. You may like the fact that you'll only ever see some units in one sub-faction. I don't.
-Proportionately way more of the stuff that mattered was the stuff on the table. Threats to my armour in 7th/30k look like threats to my armour; they're big monsters, or packing recognizable anti-armour guns, or fast people with meltabombs. In 8th/9th a threat to my armour could look like anything; if you're lucky enough to be in a faction with extreme enough buff stacks basic rifles, anti-infantry grenades, and dudes with knives are all capable of taking down Knights. The bloat has moved off the table and the minis have become less relevant as a result.
-8th/9th's efforts to 'simplify' the core rules have often made the game worse by ignoring the consequences of simplification. The loss of vehicle facings has made maneuver and positioning way less relevant, and left fast shooty units (Vyper, Land Speeder, Piranha, etc.) with no role. Antenna-to-antenna line of sight has made modeling-for-advantage arguments much stupider and provided a game incentive for less cool-looking models. The loss of scatter and Reserves rolls has completely removed the downsides to Deep Strike, and turned it into an invincible automatic alpha-strike trick. The unified profiles and the loss of blasts has made anti-infantry weapons incredibly efficient anti-armour, and entrenched the spammable anti-everything gun as a fact of life. Many of these problems absolutely existed in 7th. Hull points made spammable mid-Str better AT than the real AT, proliferation of vehicle INVs and equal front/side armour hurt maneuver, and there were Drop Pods. 8th/9th have made all of these worse, however, by trying to simplify the rules without considering the consequences of doing so.
7th rules were fine. In fact 7th was perfect if you just removed 2 super OP powers and Characters joing squads en mass.
It had some OP army builds. But those were actually kinda fun just implemented poorly.
9th is straight garbage. Stratagems are unbalanced beyond reason. Units have WAY too many free rules. Toughness and strength ratios are way off. Way too many invune saves. Not to mention - the game has never had such terrible cross eddition rules (we are playing with basically 3 edditions rules right now) 8th/8.5/9th - all had different power levels of balance.
Other.
I didn't play 7th. (I'm told I did. That I played 1 game. But I had no idea the edition had flipped, nobody realized I was using the previous codex, & there was apparently no rules conflicts....)
What I noticed upon returning to 8th in fall 2018?
1) The rules had been simplified to the point a toddler could manage. And the overall community heralded this super simplified abstraction as the best thing evvaar.
2) how many GD re-rolls do you all need?
Evidently in the 6 or so years I'd largely been away this game had become the refuge for people who licked lead minis & now found the concept of left/right etc "too complicated". And evidently they couldn't handle missing....
Yet the same people who can't manage L/R can somehow grok 10k strats etc.
Core rules? Worse.
Bloat? Same as always pretty much. Though it's very annoying that in order to run my SW I now need two codex books vs just one. Sure, I get it from a sales/Co. PoV. I don't get the love for that community wise (but what should I expect from people who can't handle the concepts of Left%Right....)
Community? Outside my own circles it seems to have degraded.
I said this in another thread, but I think 9th, despite its problems, is the best rule set. Now, could you take the rules from 3-7th (aka vehicle facings, armor value, blasts etc.) and refine them to make a better game than any of those editions or 9th? Especially if you assume GW would give it the same support for FAQ, points reviews, speedy codex releases as 8th and 9th? I think you could.
However a one to one comparison, 7th was a hot mess. It almost made me quit the hobby (I actually didn't play the second half of 7th which was worse I hear). Also I think the rules from 3-7th are not very well suited to larger Lord of War models and Flyers were always a mess. The D weapon fix for the strength cap was ok in Apoc games, but when put into the main rules it was ridiculously powerful. Also, all those more detailed rules for vehicles, blasts etc. were really meant for small games. I mean in 3rd edition, a 1500 point game was pretty standard and 2000 was considered a big game. It wasn't until 6th edition that you really even saw regular 1750 or 1850 games.
I actually like the clarity of the rules in 9th. They are more wordy, but I also don't like having multiple discussions during a game as to how a rule works. Again, part of the issue for 7th is GW didn't do speedy FAQs etc, so maybe if they did it would have helped. Finally, didn't a lot of people complain that 8th was to simple and not detailed enough, then GW adds some layers, and now it is rules bloat? And again if the "rules bloat" is about having multiple FAQs, points changes, etc., I would much rather have mulitiple sources of rules then go back to when stuff would be broken for years on end. Just my thoughts on the matter.
I really believe most people that complaints about the complexity of 8th and 9th spends more time in the forums complaining than actually playing the game. And the game looks more complex, bloated and cumberstone to them because they just don't play it or played it much less than older editions they are much more used too. And this is clear as someone that played a TON of 8th edition from start to finish, when they praise the Index as any kind of "superior" form of warhammer. I mean. They were neat, for the time. They were the worst state of 8th just superseeded by 8.5 Iron Hands.
I was never capable of playing 6th or 7th edition. The amount of cross referencing between books was enormous, I had no fething idea what any unit did because all the rules were in the rulebook or in other parts of the codex, all the weapons had profiles composed of numbers and rules i had to look in the rulebook, the rules for each small thing were extremely complicated and full of diagrams, I didn't even knew how much any unit moved without looking at the general rulebook, looking the 12 pages about movement, and then looking for all the special rules about movement the unit had.
With 8th, I teached how to play warhammer to 8 friends using TTS, and 6 of them never played a wargame before. I needed just two tutorials to teach the,.
The first one was a 4vs4 game. I told them to use the Warhammer COmmunity roster creator, chose the faction they liked, and pick a 10 PL army composed of 1 HQ, 1 troop, and whatever they could take with the rest PL. In that first game they had a blast and we used the normal unit rules and basic rules.
The second tutorial we used a couple stratagems, the subfaction rules of their faction, a WL, and a Relic. They also had a blast, and boom. They were ready to play.
We jumped to play a narrative campaing and now 6 of those friends have bought physical miniatures and are playing in their stores.
When you put all the rules written in "OMG LOOK AT HOW MANY BUFFS A REPENTIA CAN HAVE" it looks worse than what it really is playing. Is like trying to teach, in written form, all the rules of football. Just take the ball and start kicking it, man. It is not that difficult once you are on the game.
Core rules for 7th were fine, but the core rules for 9th are perfect for me, I don't remember licking any lead paint, but I have a poor memory so I cannot rule it out.
When I re-did most of the codexes for my group I re-structured things down to 1 source, but even when playing the real 7th edition I feel like supplements were rare, some armies had them, most did not. Now, it's the rule rather than the exception that you have a supplement. You don't just need a supplement to do something weird and out there, you need it to start to play.
The Baal Necron formations were meh, some were decent options but none were mandatory to play the game in the same way that Ritual of the Damned is necessary to play GK because you get free always-on rules. If it was just Specialist Detachments like in 8th then there'd be an argument.
7th edition Formations was basically just a different way of handing out chapter tactics and combat doctrines, but there were no Stratagems. So more bloat today.
Stuff like having unique wording for every deep strike ability is also a kind of bloat, you probably index it in your head as deep strike the same way I do, because otherwise it'd be impossible to remember.
@Galas you didn't teach them the game, you taught them the basics of the game, because teaching the whole game all at once is impossible because there are dozens of Stratagems for every faction. You didn't tell your friends to go look up all their Stratagems, WL traits and everything because that is what is making the game bloated. You were essentially teaching them Index 40k. I have taught a good number of people 8th, I know how easy that is, way better for getting people into the game because the bloat is easy to leave out. But stepping on from learning the game to knowing the game is difficult and between those two is a lot of studying or getting gotcha'd.
Xenomancers wrote: 7th rules were fine. In fact 7th was perfect if you just removed 2 super OP powers and Characters joing squads en mass.
It had some OP army builds. But those were actually kinda fun just implemented poorly.
9th is straight garbage. Stratagems are unbalanced beyond reason. Units have WAY too many free rules. Toughness and strength ratios are way off. Way too many invune saves. Not to mention - the game has never had such terrible cross eddition rules (we are playing with basically 3 edditions rules right now) 8th/8.5/9th - all had different power levels of balance.
I mean I like 7th far more than 8th/9th but I don't think 7th was anywhere near close to perfect. It had a lot of smaller issues that could compound into bigger issues.
7th needed some bloat trim in it's BRB and desperately needed a balance pass to close some exploits and refine some things like the psychic phase to not become broken because somebody spams psykers. That said its core rules allowed for gameplay depth and made the game have a lot more going on than just move, shoot, stab, die.
The codexes on the other hand are the primary source for a lot of the woes of the 7th edition timeline as things started off kinda weak (Orks and Dark Eldar being very punishing for the actual armies themselves and less so for the opponent). Eventually the Necron codex introduced the Decurion detachment which basically showcased the new design doctrine that GW went with for the rest of the edition which was MASSIVE POWER CREEP AND STACKING BONUSES. By the end of 7th it was a massive arms race of OP formations with OP detachment bonuses doing crazy crap against each other while the early 7th and stuck on 6th edition codexes where heavily outclassed. Again this is a codex problem far more than a core ruleset issue.
7th (and most past editions) was basically fire and forget for GW as they never really attempted to balance patch things so once a glaring weakness was found in the rules we where stuck with it. 7th certainly had a some big issues with certain rules that could of easily been fixed with a patch (invis, rerolling 2+ saves, lack of perils when throwing 20+ deny the witch dice at a single cast, certain USRs potentially not being intended as being shared with the entire unit, attaching independent characters to other battle brother faction units) but GW didn't operate in such a way so none of the wrinkles could of been ironed out. "Best" we got was the big FAQ which was a staggering level of incompetency and really highlighted just how bad at game balance GW was/is.
I will say that formations where 20% broken OP mess but the other 80% contained a lot of fluffy ways to field and play your armies which actually had some cool gameplay mechanics going on. A lot of times these got ignored because it wasn't as strong as the OP gak like Riptide Wing which is a shame as it really changed how parts of your army could function (unlike the uninspired stratagems that do dumb crap like +1 to wound or attack twice... hurray )
I say all of this after playing more of 7th after being fed up with 8th being a boring slog and 9th doing next to nothing to address the things I desperately wanted from the game. 7th for me was and still is fun and that is coming from somebody who played Orks the most in 7th (arguably one of the bottom 3 codexes in the game). It took a lot of organization to ensure a fair fight. The codexes made it so you had to do some preliminary work to come up with a roughly fair matchup but when a fairly even matchup was established then the games would be a blast to play (unlike 8th/9th dreadfully boring gameplay loop).
@Galas you didn't teach them the game, you taught them the basics of the game, because teaching the whole game all at once is impossible because there are dozens of Stratagems for every faction. You didn't tell your friends to go look up all their Stratagems, WL traits and everything because that is what is making the game bloated. You were essentially teaching them Index 40k. I have taught a good number of people 8th, I know how easy that is, way better for getting people into the game because the bloat is easy to leave out. But stepping on from learning the game to knowing the game is difficult and between those two is a lot of studying or getting gotcha'd.
I'm sorry but I disagree. Learning is an organic experience were we learn more as we are using them and need them. Is stupid to teach any kind of game, not just wargame, explaining a new player literally ALL the options and interactions and rules of a game. We humans don't work like that. They learned what are stratagems, what are relics and warlords games ,and how to use them. Once they know how the rules work, they'll learn all the options organically by using them.
Making a arbitrary definition of what "teaching" a game is to arguee that one can't learn proper 40k because for that you need to INSTANTLY FROM THE GET GO KNOW ALL THE RULES OF THE GAME doesn't make any sense.
You are gonna get gotcha'd as a new player virtually anywhere, because theres always rules, combos, tactics, or movements even in sport fighting of stuff you don't know until you experience it. Thats natural. And I'm not defending warhammer as some kind of good or clever game, but critizism should be reasonable and realistic, and I cannot take seriously most people that critizise warhammer by comparing it with itself but in older editions because if theres a constant is how horrible GW rules writting for 40k and fantasy have always been. They just change the form in how horrible they are. The changes in quality are so horizontal than one can hardly call some renditions better or worse.
And I'll say that is totally fine to not like a edition. I stopped enyojing AoS so I jumped to other games, for example. And TBH, I liked the games of 4th I played, if I don't play it more is because my armies lack 60% of my collection of units or they just don't exist like custods.
Xenomancers wrote: 7th rules were fine. In fact 7th was perfect if you just removed 2 super OP powers and Characters joing squads en mass.
It had some OP army builds. But those were actually kinda fun just implemented poorly.
9th is straight garbage. Stratagems are unbalanced beyond reason. Units have WAY too many free rules. Toughness and strength ratios are way off. Way too many invune saves. Not to mention - the game has never had such terrible cross eddition rules (we are playing with basically 3 edditions rules right now) 8th/8.5/9th - all had different power levels of balance.
I mean I like 7th far more than 8th/9th but I don't think 7th was anywhere near close to perfect. It had a lot of smaller issues that could compound into bigger issues.
7th needed some bloat trim in it's BRB and desperately needed a balance pass to close some exploits and refine some things like the psychic phase to not become broken because somebody spams psykers. That said its core rules allowed for gameplay depth and made the game have a lot more going on than just move, shoot, stab, die.
The codexes on the other hand are the primary source for a lot of the woes of the 7th edition timeline as things started off kinda weak (Orks and Dark Eldar being very punishing for the actual armies themselves and less so for the opponent). Eventually the Necron codex introduced the Decurion detachment which basically showcased the new design doctrine that GW went with for the rest of the edition which was MASSIVE POWER CREEP AND STACKING BONUSES. By the end of 7th it was a massive arms race of OP formations with OP detachment bonuses doing crazy crap against each other while the early 7th and stuck on 6th edition codexes where heavily outclassed. Again this is a codex problem far more than a core ruleset issue.
7th (and most past editions) was basically fire and forget for GW as they never really attempted to balance patch things so once a glaring weakness was found in the rules we where stuck with it. 7th certainly had a some big issues with certain rules that could of easily been fixed with a patch (invis, rerolling 2+ saves, lack of perils when throwing 20+ deny the witch dice at a single cast, certain USRs potentially not being intended as being shared with the entire unit, attaching independent characters to other battle brother faction units) but GW didn't operate in such a way so none of the wrinkles could of been ironed out. "Best" we got was the big FAQ which was a staggering level of incompetency and really highlighted just how bad at game balance GW was/is.
I will say that formations where 20% broken OP mess but the other 80% contained a lot of fluffy ways to field and play your armies which actually had some cool gameplay mechanics going on. A lot of times these got ignored because it wasn't as strong as the OP gak like Riptide Wing which is a shame as it really changed how parts of your army could function (unlike the uninspired stratagems that do dumb crap like +1 to wound or attack twice... hurray )
I say all of this after playing more of 7th after being fed up with 8th being a boring slog and 9th doing next to nothing to address the things I desperately wanted from the game. 7th for me was and still is fun and that is coming from somebody who played Orks the most in 7th (arguably one of the bottom 3 codexes in the game). It took a lot of organization to ensure a fair fight. The codexes made it so you had to do some preliminary work to come up with a roughly fair matchup but when a fairly even matchup was established then the games would be a blast to play (unlike 8th/9th dreadfully boring gameplay loop).
I think overall the formations were cool but not implemented well - balance wise. They were enjoyable though. No version of this game had perfect balance. I just liked the way the game played most out of all the editions.
Vankraken wrote: ...I will say that formations where 20% broken OP mess but the other 80% contained a lot of fluffy ways to field and play your armies which actually had some cool gameplay mechanics going on. A lot of times these got ignored because it wasn't as strong as the OP gak like Riptide Wing which is a shame as it really changed how parts of your army could function (unlike the uninspired stratagems that do dumb crap like +1 to wound or attack twice... hurray )...
Rites of War in 30k read to me like what formations always ought to have been. You get one (two, if you're playing a big enough game and took a Master of the Legion for your allied detachment), they sometimes modify what goes in what slot but don't offer as much of the "spam the stuff that you were taking anyway more efficiently" mess lots of the 7e formations did, and they have downsides/restrictions so they feel a lot fairer and fluffier.
Galas wrote: I really believe most people that complaints about the complexity...
No, stop. The game isn't complex. Its INCREDIBLY shallow and simple, which is a lot of the problem. Its simple rule stacked upon simple rule and figuring it all out is dull because none of it results in any meaningful gameplay. Its all just in the name of killing some dudes better than the other guy can.
Warmahordes(Mk2 at least) is all about utilising lots of interacting rules (unit rules, unit attachments, solos, warcaster spells/upkeeps/feats etc) with different effects (opponent debuff, unit buff, combined attacks, knockdown, charge range modifiers etc) and it leads to a great decision making process because its rewarding to pull off a great turn. One of my favourite warcasters to play orientated around using my whole army to set up one all or nothing move. Alternatively you could use her to control the board state and play a long game because there was a depth there.
40k has none of that its just a race to see who can kill the most guys first so they can control the objectives easier. Its why I quit playing in 7th and 9th. The game was dull and an effort to play. I enjoyed the social interaction far more than the game, so I played games that gave me both.
Galas wrote: I really believe most people that complaints about the complexity...
No, stop. The game isn't complex. Its INCREDIBLY shallow and simple, which is a lot of the problem. Its simple rule stacked upon simple rule and figuring it all out is dull because none of it results in any meaningful gameplay. Its all just in the name of killing some dudes better than the other guy can.
I'll arguee warhammer is very complex and complicated. But it is not a deep game.
I dislike games like Warmahordes. And TBH, a little of modern warhammer, because they are games. The options and "tactics" don't are tactics born of any kind of coherence but about the interactions of the gamey rules of the game. Thats why I never liked warmahordes.
MESBG in the other hand, having streamlined and simple rules, works in a way where you play around proper tactics, and you make natural formations that work much better than anything in old fantasy. Spearwalls work as you expect, cavalry is very satisfactory to use. Yeah you have some "game" mechanics like heroic actions but those add a little spice and resource management.
Comparing 7th- to 8th+ (which I'll be using in this broad strokes comparison to refer to the 7th and earlier (well, third to seventh ed really) paradigm vs the 8th-9th paradigm) I do have to say the core rules of 8th+ I drastically prefer but the current state of bloat in 9th is fairly dire and possibly on par with the state of bloat in late 7th.
My problems with 7th- can be mostly summed up by it being, overall, a binary, "brittle" wargame system, where the fact that it was a 'bucket of d6s' structure was undermined by the fact that nearly every rule structure was a binary yes/no state.
For any given model, the differene in one single point of AP resulted in either getting your full value from your save stat, or zero value.
For most given models, the difference in one single point of strength resulted in either getting your full value from your Wounds stat, or zero value.
One special rule resulted in the total mitigation of the Morale system
One special rule resulted in the total mitigation of the Cover system.
One roll-off at the end of combat (unless morale was mitigated, which was common) resulted in the complete, utter destruction of one of the two fighting units.
Snap Shots meant that a number of conditions would result in you getting absolutely zero value out of the points you paid for your model's ballistic skill, and charging into terrain/unwieldy meant you got zero value for the points you paid for your model's Initiative stat.
For most of 7th-, one roll on a table determined whether a penetrating hit resulted in the instantaneous destruction of a vehicle model, or whether a penetrating hit had nearly no effect.
That's looking at the core system of rules, but when you look at the specifics, it got even worse with how binary it was. Multiwound infantry was few and far between, so a single 1 on a save would result in the death of a whole ass Terminator. And most vehicles except for the very toughest had a rear armor value of 10, which meant in many editions of 7th-, coming into any kind of close combat contact resulted in the person controlling the vehicle getting zero value out of the points they paid for having higher armor values.
8th+ features a much smoother curve of effectiveness in the power of both weaponry and defenses. No longer do you end up in the situation where an AP4 pie plate landing on a squad of marines kills less than 1/3 while an AP3 pie plate landing on them will very commonly obliterate the entire squad. Damage occurs in a way that I think is more intuitively familiar to the modern nerdy person who has played a lot of video games, where things have a 'health bar' that goes down linearly and the unit dies when it loses its last wound, rather than the more old-school wargame structure where it's very common for an attack to either fail entirely, or the target is completely destroyed. The only real mechanic that cleaves to that in 8th+ is mortal wounds, which surprise surprise, appear to be something of a "Feels Bad" feature to many players.
Now, onto the bloat of the two systems.
9th has, in my opinion, approximately equivalent levels of bloat to 7th. It takes about an equivalent level of mental real estate to track the major stratagems, subfactions, and capabilities of units as it did for me in 7th to follow along with formations decurions supplements etc.
The reason I prefer the bloat of 9th to the bloat of 7th is, to me, it feels more siloed.
In 7th any psyker model would have access to typically at least 3-4 different power lists, listbuilding structure could result in various identical units having very wildly distinct power levels and special abilities that drastically changed their functionality, and I could only really stay on top of it by being very intimately involved in the meta.
Currently, I know...next to nothing about many factions in the game, and I regularly play against them. I had a game recently against the new death guard stuff, and with just a quick couple of warnings about the capabilities of my opponent's central units, I was able to go in fairly blind and have a perfectly good time.
9th is a better ruleset than 7th (and I enjoyed 7th).
I find 'rules bloat' in 9th is only really an issue if you're playing Chaos soup of some kind. For my Custodes, I just need the Custodes, I can include Psychic Awakening if I want those goodies, and the GT booklet (since the rules are in there too). Pretty easy (especially since they're digital).
For my DEldar it's a little more annoying since they're not digital, but still, it's Codex + Booklet mandatory and optional supplement if I want to use Cult of Strife goodies. Not a big deal.
Most factions are in similar boats. Soup is where the bloat is. If I want to run DEldar + Ynnari soup, I need to add in a Psychic Awakening. Add in Craftworld Eldar Codex too if I'm really souping. If I'm Imperial and I want an Inquisitor/Assassin or an Imperial Knight allied in, that's even more books.
Soup. Soup is what gives you bloat. Rules for mono-faction are helping to make it so people who don't want to deal with bloat don't have to soup and that helps quite a bit.
*I don't consider the FAQ's bloat. Just about every boardgame has FAQ's. The Munitorum book is only used for list building and does not need to accompany for actual play.
I'll also say that most people is vastly overvaluing how knowing the specific stratagems your opponent has access ingame affects the outcome of the battle.
For example, I'll ask my opponent stuff like "Do you have a stratagem to shoot me when I enter from deepstrike?" or "Can you retreat and shoot and then charge?"
But all the +1 to wound, reroll X, mortal wounds, etc... stratagems all come down to the same thing: I know, If I left a unit exposed , it is gonna die. Maybe I don't know exactly how, but when we play we aren't doing mental calculus (In most cases), like "IF I EXPOSE THIS THEN MY OPPONENT WILL LACK THE FIREPOWER BECAUSE 30 SHOTS AT 3+ REROLLING WOUNDS AVERAGES..."
In a game, I exposed a DG drone to a squad of celestials with a multimelta and a cannoness nearvy. I knew that DG wasn't gonna survive one turn in the oppen agaisnt my opponen list.
I didn't know he had a stratagem that made celestials reroll all to hit and all to wounds rolls, and a stratagem that gave them +1 to wound for having a flamer, melta and bolter. But did it really mattered or changed the outcome? I made a risky play with my drone, it didn't go well for me, and I knew it was gonna die. I would have played exactly the same knowing my opponent had those two stratagems.
7th had the worst ruleset in this game's history and trying to use the 7e codices as a scapegoat is laughable because all the BS in those books were only possible due to the core ruleset.
The potency of the psychic powers was awful. The USR system was trash. Vehicle system was clunky, templates were clunky, shooting was way too powerful. Formations were a terrible idea, summoning was a terrible idea. Don't miss it at all.
Mixzremixzd wrote: I was mulling this over and wanted to get a wider consensus on something that mainly stemmed from a recent discussion in another thread (I believe it was the 'State of 40k thread'). It seems like many people are turned off by what is commonly described as the increasing bloat in 9th Edition, however this is also commonly countered by the "at least it's better/not as bloated as 7th" card.
Is this actually true?
It's important to state I don't have any particular leg in this discussion as I've stepped away from the gaming aspect of the hobby for the time being but I've seen it come up often enough that I thought it might merit a focussed discussion in the form of 2 questions.
So firstly, which core ruleset was better to play with (i.e. the rules as presented in the BRBand Faction Codices only). Then, which had the worse "bloat" and by extension what is the differences in said "bloat" between 7th and 9th and why do some prefer one to the other?
With regards to 7th for the sake of consistency (even though it may not be fair) the comparison is between current 9th and the end of 7th. If anyone has a specific anecdote with regards to the timeline of bloat in 7th please feel free to share.
7th was a nightmare in every way a game can become a nightmare. Not only was the power level so bullgak that it would make pre-nerf Ironhands blush, just about every unit you could come across would require a dozen different codexes and supplements in addition to the 300 page core rules to know anything about what they did.
People complain about rules bloat because you have to know a handful of stratagems and army special rules per faction, completely ignoring the fact that in 7th edition just moving a model into terrain required memorizing THIRTY-FIVE pages of rules.
7th's CORE rules were more bloated than 9th all together.
I honestly don't understand the point of this thread. Is 9th better or worse on several axes than the worst edition the game ever saw? Talk about a low bar...
Galas wrote: I really believe most people that complaints about the complexity...
No, stop. The game isn't complex. Its INCREDIBLY shallow and simple, which is a lot of the problem. Its simple rule stacked upon simple rule and figuring it all out is dull because none of it results in any meaningful gameplay. Its all just in the name of killing some dudes better than the other guy can.
Warmahordes(Mk2 at least) is all about utilising lots of interacting rules (unit rules, unit attachments, solos, warcaster spells/upkeeps/feats etc) with different effects (opponent debuff, unit buff, combined attacks, knockdown, charge range modifiers etc) and it leads to a great decision making process because its rewarding to pull off a great turn. One of my favourite warcasters to play orientated around using my whole army to set up one all or nothing move. Alternatively you could use her to control the board state and play a long game because there was a depth there.
40k has none of that its just a race to see who can kill the most guys first so they can control the objectives easier. Its why I quit playing in 7th and 9th. The game was dull and an effort to play. I enjoyed the social interaction far more than the game, so I played games that gave me both.
Warmahordes isn't anymore tactical or complex than 40k is, it just hides it's 'l337 haxors mega combos' behind 500 pages of rules and games being 60% lining things up with a laser pointer.
It's like the original Demon Souls. It was incredibly difficult and punishing because that was the only way to hide the fact that it was about a 2 hour game otherwise.
BlaxicanX wrote: 7th had the worst ruleset in this game's history and trying to use the 7e codices as a scapegoat is laughable because all the BS in those books were only possible due to the core ruleset.
The potency of the psychic powers was awful. The USR system was trash. Vehicle system was clunky, templates were clunky, shooting was way too powerful. Formations were a terrible idea, summoning was a terrible idea. Don't miss it at all.
So you prefer stratagems that let units shoot twice...every army getting formation bonuses for free entirely in the form of "doctrines' / "imperatives" ect?
yukishiro1 wrote: I honestly don't understand the point of this thread. Is 9th better or worse on several axes than the worst edition the game ever saw? Talk about a low bar...
Well I like polls and quantitative data sets
But on a more serious note, the only agenda I had behind the thread was really for the sets of people that complain about 9th bloat and 7th being a better ruleset to hopefully articulate themselves better.
In 7th the bloat was already in the Core rules (vehicle rules, unit types, not-so-universal special rules, useless stats like WS and Initiative, terrible psychic phase etc.) and it got only more messed up with formations.
In 9th... Bloat is in some DLC books you don't even need to play (book of rust, tournament books).
I feel like I've never met someone IRL who actually thought 7th had anything going for it at all (cue everyone who says "Once you eliminate these 5 codices, cut those 15 pages from the BRB, dissalow these 13 units, cancel these 4 powers, prevent these 19 combos, and pretty much FAQ everything, 7th isn't half bad). It ended two different game stores in my area and almost ended 40k. Even the core rules were ... rough. Agree that the codices made it 10x's worse, but they wouldn't have been able to do that if the core rules were not deeply flawed to being with. It was the very height of the "roll this many dice to see how many dice you roll" type of mechanics, and I'll never understand anyone who felt it was "organized". Right - ok, my character has "Chaotic Death Spasms of His Holy Light", lemme just look that up in the ol' USR sect ... right, that's 12 pages long ... one second here .... ok - I see it grants .... 8 other USRs .... Ok, so um, one sec here, .... etc etc. NO F'ING WAY. And don't even get me started on codex organization ....
It was pure drek. Start to finish.
9th has it's warts to be sure, but I still maintain the only reason anyone liked 8th was because it came immediately after 7th. 7th was just that bad. So, so bad ....
Galas wrote: I really believe most people that complaints about the complexity...
No, stop. The game isn't complex. Its INCREDIBLY shallow and simple, which is a lot of the problem. Its simple rule stacked upon simple rule and figuring it all out is dull because none of it results in any meaningful gameplay. Its all just in the name of killing some dudes better than the other guy can.
Warmahordes(Mk2 at least) is all about utilising lots of interacting rules (unit rules, unit attachments, solos, warcaster spells/upkeeps/feats etc) with different effects (opponent debuff, unit buff, combined attacks, knockdown, charge range modifiers etc) and it leads to a great decision making process because its rewarding to pull off a great turn. One of my favourite warcasters to play orientated around using my whole army to set up one all or nothing move. Alternatively you could use her to control the board state and play a long game because there was a depth there.
40k has none of that its just a race to see who can kill the most guys first so they can control the objectives easier. Its why I quit playing in 7th and 9th. The game was dull and an effort to play. I enjoyed the social interaction far more than the game, so I played games that gave me both.
Warmahordes isn't anymore tactical or complex than 40k is, it just hides it's 'l337 haxors mega combos' behind 500 pages of rules and games being 60% lining things up with a laser pointer.
It's like the original Demon Souls. It was incredibly difficult and punishing because that was the only way to hide the fact that it was about a 2 hour game otherwise.
Hyperbole is always a good way to make yourself look super clever.
#1 the main rules
#2 my codex
#3 my psychic awakening book to even think about being competitive
#4 the current FAQ's
#5 the current chapter approved book
That is bloat off the scales.
I don't see how people can think this is acceptable.
#1 the main rules
#2 my codex
#3 my psychic awakening book to even think about being competitive
#4 the current FAQ's
#5 the current chapter approved book
That is bloat off the scales.
In 7th you would have needed that plus several weekly White Dwarfs. The bloat IS bad right now, but it's still better than it was ....
Sim-Life wrote: Hyperbole is always a good way to make yourself look super clever.
Maybe, but I think you are giving Warmahordes way too much credit.
Its much the same thing. You have to learn the combos. Then you learn how they interact. Then you are back to just letting dice do the talking.
Now admittedly the perk of Warmahordes is that a "gotcha" (i.e. X+Y=Z) could result in the game being over in under 20 minutes - in which case you can just reset and go again - rather than a game of 40k (especially in 7th!) often being almost certainly over from deployment but still taking 3 hours to play through (because there's always a chance the dice will intervene.)
BlaxicanX wrote: 7th had the worst ruleset in this game's history and trying to use the 7e codices as a scapegoat is laughable because all the BS in those books were only possible due to the core ruleset.
The potency of the psychic powers was awful. The USR system was trash. Vehicle system was clunky, templates were clunky, shooting was way too powerful. Formations were a terrible idea, summoning was a terrible idea. Don't miss it at all.
So you prefer stratagems that let units shoot twice...every army getting formation bonuses for free entirely in the form of "doctrines' / "imperatives" ect?
Absolutely yes, because the rule book strategems are perfectly balanced whereas the egregious ones are codex specific. So instead of having to deal with 80% of the armies in the game abusing invisibility for the entire edition I only have to deal with a specific faction being overbearing, and then it will get nerfed in 6 months anyway.
Absolutely yes, because the rule book strategems are perfectly balanced whereas the egregious ones are codex specific. So instead of having to deal with 80% of the armies in the game abusing invisibility for the entire edition I only have to deal with a specific faction being overbearing, and then it will get nerfed in 6 months anyway.
That is the benefit of decentralizing the rules.
Not only that, but now, in 6 months when that problem strat gets addressed, it won't unintentionally nerf 5 other units (who share the same USR) into the ground for no reason.
#1 the main rules
#2 my codex
#3 my psychic awakening book to even think about being competitive
#4 the current FAQ's
#5 the current chapter approved book
That is bloat off the scales.
I don't see how people can think this is acceptable.
Sim-Life wrote: Hyperbole is always a good way to make yourself look super clever.
Maybe, but I think you are giving Warmahordes way too much credit.
Its much the same thing. You have to learn the combos. Then you learn how they interact. Then you are back to just letting dice do the talking.
Now admittedly the perk of Warmahordes is that a "gotcha" (i.e. X+Y=Z) could result in the game being over in under 20 minutes - in which case you can just reset and go again - rather than a game of 40k (especially in 7th!) often being almost certainly over from deployment but still taking 3 hours to play through (because there's always a chance the dice will intervene.)
Keep in mind I'm directly comparing Warmachine (mostly Mk2) to 40k. The bredth of decision making in WMH is far greater and more interesting. In WMH you have to actually think about movement beyond just "move closer to objective" for example.
#1 the main rules
#2 my codex
#3 my psychic awakening book to even think about being competitive
#4 the current FAQ's
#5 the current chapter approved book
That is bloat off the scales.
I don't see how people can think this is acceptable.
Oh man. I forgot about the data slates! But like I said earlier, you'd also need whatever weekly WD had the rules you needed for whatever else it was you were running. 7th was truly peak bloat.
Oh yeah the dataslates. In 7th GW was charging money for little PDF downloads that each contained a few extra formations you could use in your army. DLC.
I think I still have the 3 tyranid ones on my hard drive somewhere.
Ignoring super doctrine ridiculous nonsense and free stuff, 7th core rules were better and for a minute it seemed that 8th would reawaken 2nd from the ashes of 7th but then... now 9th is built from that nast. Bloat here is putrid rank and begins with restartes rubicon rubbish. 7th was maybe worse at the end but at least something good could have come from it. Shadow war, if that would have been the style of the new boxes and restartes arrived as new weenie models, then they would have had me. After 8th, 9th is simply going farther in the wrong direction. Can’t see that as a good thing. Burn 9th in a dumpster fire and this is the difference, nothing good will be left but dusty air. At least with 7th we’d find a blast and flamer template in the ashes.
Ignoring super doctrine ridiculous nonsense and free stuff, 7th core rules were better
Because the 7th core rules were just the 6th edition core rules and a few pages of errata (and the hands-down-worst magic system WFB ever had repackaged as the psychic phase). The problem was the 'everything else' and there was a lot of everything else.
And the basic principle that it was unacceptable to re-sell people the exact same thing a couple years later.
#1 the main rules
#2 my codex
#3 my psychic awakening book to even think about being competitive
#4 the current FAQ's
#5 the current chapter approved book
That is bloat off the scales.
I don't see how people can think this is acceptable.
I haven't brought my BRB to a game ever, because the CA book has everything I need. My FAQs are a quick print off if there is something I can't put to memory. Since I got a free code I don't even need to bring my codex and I have cards for the strats anyway. So I'd be bringing two books if I had a PA book, but I don't so I bring one.
Sim-Life wrote: Hyperbole is always a good way to make yourself look super clever.
Maybe, but I think you are giving Warmahordes way too much credit.
Its much the same thing. You have to learn the combos. Then you learn how they interact. Then you are back to just letting dice do the talking.
Now admittedly the perk of Warmahordes is that a "gotcha" (i.e. X+Y=Z) could result in the game being over in under 20 minutes - in which case you can just reset and go again - rather than a game of 40k (especially in 7th!) often being almost certainly over from deployment but still taking 3 hours to play through (because there's always a chance the dice will intervene.)
Keep in mind I'm directly comparing Warmachine (mostly Mk2) to 40k. The bredth of decision making in WMH is far greater and more interesting. In WMH you have to actually think about movement beyond just "move closer to objective" for example.
You actually have to think about movement in 40K, too, but people like to pretend that all you do is move towards the objectives.
I really want a return of universal special rules. The only issue with them was that GW didn't add them to a units data sheet, so you had to keep flipping between rulebook and codex.
Now that we have abilities on every unit datasheet USR's would be fine. Saves from every faction having their own rule for the same thing.
Every faction having their own rules for the same thing is good because it prevents a domino effect from buffing/nerfing individual units or armies. There are some rules that are completely fine on one unit or army but overpowered or useless on another. The granularity of units having their own rules allows for tweaking at will without effecting others.
It's also why unit types being a core rule was trash. Since "infantry" had to move 6'' you were stuck with units like Eldar and daemonettes moving at the same speed as Ogryn and Necrons.
BlaxicanX wrote: Every faction having their own rules for the same thing is good because it prevents a domino effect from buffing/nerfing individual units or armies. There are some rules that are completely fine on one unit or army but overpowered or useless on another. The granularity of units having their own rules allows for tweaking at will without effecting others.
It's also why unit types being a core rule was trash. Since "infantry" had to move 6'' you were stuck with units like Eldar and daemonettes moving at the same speed as Ogryn and Necrons.
That's a completely unrelated problem- ditching the Move characteristic. It has nothing to do with unit types or USRs.
It's the exact same game mechanic as unit types and USRs. Any argument that applies to rigid BRB-defined movement characteristics is going to logically apply to BRB-defined USRs and unit types as well.
#1 the main rules
#2 my codex
#3 my psychic awakening book to even think about being competitive
#4 the current FAQ's
#5 the current chapter approved book
That is bloat off the scales.
I don't see how people can think this is acceptable.
You misspelled "the GT minibook, the codex, and battlescribe"
BlaxicanX wrote: It's the exact same game mechanic as unit types and USRs. Any argument that applies to rigid BRB-defined movement characteristics is going to logically apply to BRB-defined USRs and unit types as well.
Only if you're devolving the argument down to 'they're all rules in books,' but that applies to literally everything.
#1 the main rules
#2 my codex
#3 my psychic awakening book to even think about being competitive
#4 the current FAQ's
#5 the current chapter approved book
That is bloat off the scales.
I don't see how people can think this is acceptable.
You misspelled "the GT minibook, the codex, and battlescribe"
As opposed to just needing Battlescribe to play 7th?
Absolutely yes, because the rule book strategems are perfectly balanced whereas the egregious ones are codex specific. So instead of having to deal with 80% of the armies in the game abusing invisibility for the entire edition I only have to deal with a specific faction being overbearing, and then it will get nerfed in 6 months anyway.
That is the benefit of decentralizing the rules.
Not only that, but now, in 6 months when that problem strat gets addressed, it won't unintentionally nerf 5 other units (who share the same USR) into the ground for no reason.
This is the biggest thing. The fact that no longer if something gets changed in the USR's a bunch of unrelated units to the issue unit gets completely and unintentionally screwed for years on end.
Absolutely yes, because the rule book strategems are perfectly balanced whereas the egregious ones are codex specific. So instead of having to deal with 80% of the armies in the game abusing invisibility for the entire edition I only have to deal with a specific faction being overbearing, and then it will get nerfed in 6 months anyway.
That is the benefit of decentralizing the rules.
Not only that, but now, in 6 months when that problem strat gets addressed, it won't unintentionally nerf 5 other units (who share the same USR) into the ground for no reason.
This is the biggest thing. The fact that no longer if something gets changed in the USR's a bunch of unrelated units to the issue unit gets completely and unintentionally screwed for years on end.
Which isn’t really a issue in a competent rule set.
It’s funny how often 40k is if you go by the lowest bar possible, it’s Ok.
40k just used USRs like they do most other rules in the worst and most bloated way, and I think it’s why so many people always brush it’s difficulty with balance as being such a complex and big game.
When really it’s just bad planing and use of tools that have had the game in bad states constantly over the years.
Ignoring super doctrine ridiculous nonsense and free stuff, 7th core rules were better and for a minute it seemed that 8th would reawaken 2nd from the ashes of 7th but then... now 9th is built from that nast. Bloat here is putrid rank and begins with restartes rubicon rubbish. 7th was maybe worse at the end but at least something good could have come from it. Shadow war, if that would have been the style of the new boxes and restartes arrived as new weenie models, then they would have had me. After 8th, 9th is simply going farther in the wrong direction. Can’t see that as a good thing. Burn 9th in a dumpster fire and this is the difference, nothing good will be left but dusty air. At least with 7th we’d find a blast and flamer template in the ashes.
"Ignoring half the game, the game wasn't so bad!"
The 7th edition core was GARBAGE regardless of what you compare it to. You could compare them to Candyland and they'd still be trash.
7th edition rulebook was 300 pages and 200 of those had to memorized before you could even start to play a game, and another 60 pages of FAQs before you could play the game with only moderately exploitative rules interpretations. It's crazy that people forget that. The core rules of 7th were more bloated than the 9th core rules PLUS the FAQs, plus TWO codexes.
7th edition, from beginning to end, was the second worse ruleset GW ever created. 6th was worse but it was only around for like 6 weeks so it doesn't get as much hate, but there was not a single redeemable aspect of 7th.
As opposed to just needing Battlescribe to play 7th?
You live in a different reality it seems.
I don't remember ever bringing another book besides the BRB and my codex. The only time i remember people bringing in other books was imperial armor, which really doesn't even count.
As opposed to just needing Battlescribe to play 7th?
You live in a different reality it seems.
I don't remember ever bringing another book besides the BRB and my codex. The only time i remember people bringing in other books was imperial armor, which really doesn't even count.
Not going to get involved in a rules debate (I'm learning!). But I do have a funny point to make about 7th that should bring some levity. Bit of back ground:
My buddy had Rogue trader and I think we played one small game, but it didn't hook me. Space Hulk rocked my world, and then 2nd let me play "Stealers in 40k! (As in GSC, not nids). Off to the races!
Sisters came out near the end of 2nd, and I wanted them, but didn't have a chance to buy in before 3rd. When it dropped, GSC were gone, which crushed me, but I pivoted to sisters and ended up enjoying that edition too.
And then fourth dropped, and sisters were ignored- I think I was able to play a few games using the Witch Hunter dex, and even into fifth. But sisters kept getting worse, or merely being ignored, and GSC did not return. I think it was 6th ed's WD Sisters dex that killed it for me. Ignored the whole edition- one army I liked had been trashed, the other just vanished.
One day I peaked into a GW and saw a GSC dex; after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I bought the dex on sight- didn't have a BRB, hadn't played since 5th, but damn I wanted to read that dex.
Never did get around to buying in though, because 8th was announce mere months after GSC dropped. But I watch Clestine play a critical role in the Gathering Storm edition transition saga and then boom!
8th dropped everything I needed to buy in; I hated indexes- found them boring and simplistic, flavourless and empty. But I had kept my minis, and I could field them ALL by purchasing a mere 3 indexes. I knew codices were on the way and flavour would return an army at a time, and I was going to get to field GSC and Sisters with excellent models in the same edition! It was almost the only thing that mattered.
I bought into 8th HARD; there was talk of ever edition (a lifelong dream btw- I HATE edition changes in every game I've ever played, from D&D to World of Darkness, but 40k was the wo rst).
When 9th dropped, I was furious, because 8th had been such a special thing for me. I almost made a Youtube protest video of me burning all my books! A few people on the forums managed to mitigate my anger long enough that I decided to follow 9th and see how it was going to play out. I bought the BRB and Crusade got under my skin.
The Space Marine parade almost killed me. In the end, the only to cope was to cobble together the marines from the other halves of all the boxes I had bought to get GSC and make a Death Watch team; to me, they'll always be the Chamber Militant of Ordo Xenos rather than Space Marines, which makes them interesting.
I had started collecting Drukhari at the end of 8th because I'd always wanted to play them, and the capacity to build an army entirely from boxed sets to save PILES of cash was just too much to resist.
And then, once the Space Marine noise died down, they announced that Drukhari were up, and their dex was fabulous! It wasn't the OP nature of it that I found fabulous either- it was the Master Level Hq's, the favoured retinues and Crusade... Damn, the Crusade rules in the book exceeded my expectations so much that I have a hard time putting it into words.
And then they told me sisters were coming! And damn that Crusade preview rocked.
Now I'm convinced that 9th is going to be my ever edition, just like 5th is an ever edition to the Dakkanaughts who put in the work like they need it to work.
Until 8th, there had never in the history of the game been an edition with a dex for every faction I want to play. Drukhari didn't exist in RT and 2nd; GSC were gone by third, and sisters sucked and were ignored to varying degrees from 4th until 7th.
Which means that for me, regardless of rules, there was no way I could ever have liked any edition as much as eighth. If an edition didn't contain a dex for Sisters, GSC and Drukhari, no matter how good the rules were, it could never be as fun for me as 8th was.
Now there is a cautionary tale here; what makes editions great for me is faction parity. Back in the day, whole editions could go buy with entire factions getting NOTHING! Sometimes no models, sometimes no dexes, sometimes neither. Regardless of balance or mechanics, I fail to comprehend how anyone could be nostalgic about that (well, except for space marine players, who have never had to go without anything).
And we aren't through 9th yet; my nightmare is that they return to a system where an edition can pass without all factions getting SOMETHING. It is unlikely, given the financial success of 8th and 9th, but it is possible.
Once I have my 9th GSC, Chaos, Guard and CWE books, if they are of the calibre of seen so far, I will rest easy. I want Emperor's Children; I'd like Traitor Guard; I might buy a small force of GK so I can field all 3 chambers militant. I'll buy any Inquisitor they make. But all those are Nice to Haves, not Need to Haves.
And I would LOVE this to actually be a persistent edition- for me, it will be. If they announce a 10th, I'll just keep playing 9th- I'm buying in enough that I can unplug completely and be content that I have enough to keep me painting and playing for the rest of my life.
Sorry for the off topic stroll down memory lane; having never played seventh, I can't comment on it, but I am eternally grateful it gave me back my GSC.
Now y'all are free to continue barking about the minutiae of which ruleset was better, knowing full well you'll never change anyone's mind nor have yours changed by them, and yet continue to bark just the same.
Only 14 hours and 15 minutes til sisters preorder.
As opposed to just needing Battlescribe to play 7th?
You live in a different reality it seems.
From the one where people needed to memorize 450 pages of rules to play a game rendered unplayable by charts that somehow had Chapter Approved the edition before GW brought the "Chapter Approved" name back and was entirely made up of things that were simultaneously 2++ deathstars and armed only with D-weapons, yes, clearly.
As opposed to just needing Battlescribe to play 7th?
You live in a different reality it seems.
I don't remember ever bringing another book besides the BRB and my codex. The only time i remember people bringing in other books was imperial armor, which really doesn't even count.
Why does Imperial Armour "not count"?
Because imperial armor isn't a requirement to play the game. They were optional rules, for specialist models that in themselves were exorbitantly more expensive than their standard counterparts. If you wanted to play with IA they were mandatory, but were in no way shape or form required to play for any faction. If you wanted to play competitively and engage in the ultra super serious list building waac meta death stars, sure, but most people did not have IA.
Were they apart of the bloat? Yes. Were they as necessary? No.
Psychic awakening is different in my opinion as well, as that was an expansion for a codex. Something that for many is considered necessary, especially if you want to stay competitive with the current 9th edition codices as compared to a languishing 8th edition one.
Imperial armor was kind of outside of all of this except for tournament play.
BlaxicanX wrote: It's the exact same game mechanic as unit types and USRs. Any argument that applies to rigid BRB-defined movement characteristics is going to logically apply to BRB-defined USRs and unit types as well.
Only if you're devolving the argument down to 'they're all rules in books,' but that applies to literally everything.
They're all rules in the BRB that are designed to be "one-size-fits-all" mechanics for determining how a unit behaves.
Which creates a cascading effect of problems for balancing the game.
If you don't understand what my point is just say so and I can break it down for you. Trying to play the semantics game with me is a losing battle for you.
As opposed to just needing Battlescribe to play 7th?
You live in a different reality it seems.
I don't remember ever bringing another book besides the BRB and my codex. The only time i remember people bringing in other books was imperial armor, which really doesn't even count.
Why does Imperial Armour "not count"?
Because imperial armor isn't a requirement to play the game. They were optional rules, for specialist models that in themselves were exorbitantly more expensive than their standard counterparts. If you wanted to play with IA they were mandatory, but were in no way shape or form required to play for any faction. If you wanted to play competitively and engage in the ultra super serious list building waac meta death stars, sure, but most people did not have IA.
Were they apart of the bloat? Yes. Were they as necessary? No.
Psychic awakening is different in my opinion as well, as that was an expansion for a codex. Something that for many is considered necessary, especially if you want to stay competitive with the current 9th edition codices as compared to a languishing 8th edition one.
Imperial armor was kind of outside of all of this except for tournament play.
You do realize that some factions had all of their rules in IA, don't you? The R&H rules in IA13 were the best rules gw wrote since 3.5. And the additional units it gave for CSM were just as important as any PA book, because that was all we got, as we were stuck with the garbage 6th edition codex, except for that short period of time at the end of 7th when we had Traitor Legions. IA13 was the only thing that kept me playing through 7th, because it actually had units I liked, instead of the stuff that the main studio tried to cram down our throats in their formations. The work fw turned out in 6th and 7th was hands down above anything gw proper did. And it had nothing to do with "WAAC tournament play". I never played tournaments and I still.
Jarms48 wrote: I really want a return of universal special rules. The only issue with them was that GW didn't add them to a units data sheet, so you had to keep flipping between rulebook and codex.
Now that we have abilities on every unit datasheet USR's would be fine. Saves from every faction having their own rule for the same thing.
They are getting better about standardizing the effects, but yes standardizing the names as well would be nice if only to smooth conversation when discussing what units do.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BlaxicanX wrote: Every faction having their own rules for the same thing is good because it prevents a domino effect from buffing/nerfing individual units or armies. There are some rules that are completely fine on one unit or army but overpowered or useless on another. The granularity of units having their own rules allows for tweaking at will without effecting others.
It's also why unit types being a core rule was trash. Since "infantry" had to move 6'' you were stuck with units like Eldar and daemonettes moving at the same speed as Ogryn and Necrons.
I think the point is more than if you have a rule that ignores wounds call it "Feel No Pain" in every place in comes up so people know what it is at a glance. We don't need USRs to be our only source of rules, but commonly repeated rules should share common names.
Daedalus81 wrote: ...You actually have to think about movement in 40K, too, but people like to pretend that all you do is move towards the objectives.
I mean, in 9th you occasionally have to move to get range on someone, I guess?
Movement ties heavilly into line of sight and melee. I mean it's the main foundation that allows for creative play with move blocking, working with line of sight and threat ranges, and even melee.
It's simple which gives it a lot of freedom for creative application. Plus movement as a stat we got away from a list of USRs and unit types that you had to know to know how far things could move. Now it's just on the datasheet so there is less obfuscation to learning what something does.
As opposed to just needing Battlescribe to play 7th?
You live in a different reality it seems.
I don't remember ever bringing another book besides the BRB and my codex. The only time i remember people bringing in other books was imperial armor, which really doesn't even count.
Why does Imperial Armour "not count"?
Because imperial armor isn't a requirement to play the game. They were optional rules, for specialist models that in themselves were exorbitantly more expensive than their standard counterparts. If you wanted to play with IA they were mandatory, but were in no way shape or form required to play for any faction. If you wanted to play competitively and engage in the ultra super serious list building waac meta death stars, sure, but most people did not have IA.
Were they apart of the bloat? Yes. Were they as necessary? No.
Psychic awakening is different in my opinion as well, as that was an expansion for a codex. Something that for many is considered necessary, especially if you want to stay competitive with the current 9th edition codices as compared to a languishing 8th edition one.
Imperial armor was kind of outside of all of this except for tournament play.
You do realize that some factions had all of their rules in IA, don't you? The R&H rules in IA13 were the best rules gw wrote since 3.5. And the additional units it gave for CSM were just as important as any PA book, because that was all we got, as we were stuck with the garbage 6th edition codex, except for that short period of time at the end of 7th when we had Traitor Legions. IA13 was the only thing that kept me playing through 7th, because it actually had units I liked, instead of the stuff that the main studio tried to cram down our throats in their formations. The work fw turned out in 6th and 7th was hands down above anything gw proper did. And it had nothing to do with "WAAC tournament play". I never played tournaments and I still.
Chaos had rules, you just didn't like them. That's Ok, and I feel for you. Chaos has been treated terribly in 40k, and by GW, but IA was not necessary to the same degree as psychic awakening is to a codex. It was something that contributed to the bloat in a much more optional way.
I think the point is more than if you have a rule that ignores wounds call it "Feel No Pain" in every place in comes up so people know what it is at a glance.
That is emphatically not the argument being asserted ITT.
Also, having the same name for a rule that might not work the same across all factions is a terrible idea, especially considering that these days the rule is often more faction-specific in how it comes into play then it used to.
I think the point is more than if you have a rule that ignores wounds call it "Feel No Pain" in every place in comes up so people know what it is at a glance.
That is emphatically not the argument being asserted ITT.
Also, having the same name for a rule that might not work the same across all factions is a terrible idea.
But do they work differently because they're MEANT to work differently, or because of shoddy writing? Sorta like the old Chapter Master rerolls versus Cawl rerolls.
Not to mention, let's say Unit X is totally broken with Rule Y, but Unit Z has Rule Y and is fine. Here's what you can do!
"Unit X no longer has Rule Y. It instead has Rule W," where Rule W is a similar, but notably weaker version of Rule Y.
Also, one could have technical names in addition to the fluffy names-so old Disgustingly Resilient could be "Ignore Wounds (5+)-Digsutingly Resilient"
New DR could be "Damage Reduction (-1)-Disgustingly Resilient"
I think the point is more than if you have a rule that ignores wounds call it "Feel No Pain" in every place in comes up so people know what it is at a glance.
That is emphatically not the argument being asserted ITT.
Also, having the same name for a rule that might not work the same across all factions is a terrible idea, especially considering that these days the rule is often more faction-specific in how it comes into play then it used to.
Well then I misunderstood the argument and that's my fault.
Not wanting to argue the same topic yet again, I'll just answer to the OP:
I think you should have split the poll into separate threads (or used a poll tool that's not as bad as dakka's) since you are kind of missing some factors that made 7th as bad as it was.
If I had to list the factors that made 7th bad, it would be these: - Core Rules were not horribly flawed, but flawed. Outside of technical writing issues, challenges were better than 6th but still a horrible thing, USR were badly implemented especially in combination with ICs, removing casualties from the front and the deny mechanic not accounting for psyker armies are just a few examples of the things that cannot be reasonable considered "good" rules. These were just from the top of my head, if I went through the book, I could probably find more. - Low quality releases with zero playtesting. The absolutely did not give a feth about the quality of some of the released books. Especially the supplement which shall not be named clearly showed that no one, not a single person, had bothered to play the rules and formations in that book even once. They just wrote that gakky book at their desk and tossed it to printing without picking up a single ork model. Similar things happened to a lot of other armies. Especially fun in combination with bloat, terrible balance and no FAQ. - Terrible balance. Some of the codices were just ridiculously powerful while others at the same time barely could build a coherent army at all. And no matter how bad issues in 8th/9th were, GW at least acknowledged those problems and fixed them. In 7th GW did jack. - No FAQs or Errata whatsoever. The writing was much worse than it is now and many rules were genuinely unclear and required house-rulings. There were situations in the game which simply weren't handled by the rules. - Bloat, so much bloat. Codex, supplements, campaign books with formations, expansions with formations and unit upgrades, books full of psychic powers, paid and free PDF downloads with formations, apocalypse books, white dwarf rules and more. I once counted over 40 separate rules sources just for Space Marines, not counting things like GK or LotD. Anyone claiming that 8th with its maximum of 5 books per army (many just 2 or 3) is even remotely in the same ballpark is a hypocrite and/or an idiot. - Clear intention to rip off customers affecting ruleswriting. Not just the Wraithknight story is proof of this, but also things like a separately sold datasheet for some units or how every ork formation required you to buy more models than any sane person would already have from previous editions.
TL;DR: Core rules weren't great and bloat was bad, but neither made 7th the worst edition ever.
As opposed to just needing Battlescribe to play 7th?
You live in a different reality it seems.
From the one where people needed to memorize 450 pages of rules to play a game rendered unplayable by charts that somehow had Chapter Approved the edition before GW brought the "Chapter Approved" name back and was entirely made up of things that were simultaneously 2++ deathstars and armed only with D-weapons, yes, clearly.
Daedalus81 wrote: ...You actually have to think about movement in 40K, too, but people like to pretend that all you do is move towards the objectives.
I mean, in 9th you occasionally have to move to get range on someone, I guess?
This mostly just tells people that you're not very good at the game...
I'm terrible at the game. I insist on using models I like rather than buying a new army every six months, which means I deserve whatever I get.
Right. Because we see so many games where we hear about the winning player's masterful outmanuevering of thier opponent ... Oh wait no. We don't. When tables were big enough, and units were slow enough that you could get caught out of position, movement mattered. In the days where a deployment mistake, or an error in an early movement phase could potentially leave a unit out of the fight or unable to get to an objective, movement mattered. Now? No. Not so much. Everything can get to everything and you pretty much know where things are going. It's almost impossible to truly get "out of position" for most armies, and even then, you have a lot of strats to fix it. It's about jamming midfield and controlling the objectives, and by the time that's happening there's often not enough room to truly manuever anyway. What matters in 9th is absolutely not movement. It's TIMING. Too many are getting the two confused IMO.
Right. Because we see so many games where we hear about the winning player's masterful outmanuevering of thier opponent ... Oh wait no. We don't. When tables were big enough, and units were slow enough that you could get caught out of position, movement mattered. In the days where a deployment mistake, or an error in an early movement phase could potentially leave a unit out of the fight or unable to get to an objective, movement mattered. Now? No. Not so much. Everything can get to everything and you pretty much know where things are going. It's almost impossible to truly get "out of position" for most armies, and even then, you have a lot of strats to fix it. It's about jamming midfield and controlling the objectives, and by the time that's happening there's often not enough room to truly manuever anyway. What matters in 9th is absolutely not movement. It's TIMING. Too many are getting the two confused IMO.
Because whole games are not won or lost on a singular maneuver. This isn't a massive battlefield where sweeping behind the enemy line disrupts the supply chain.
I played a game where I anchored a side of the board with a C'Tan against 10 terminators and some support. The C'Tan was also WWSWF. I didn't move him out. When he was close to my objective I moved out to block and slow him for another turn. Meanwhile across the board I operated with the rest of my army. Once the C'Tan was dead the terminators were so out of position ( even for a homer ) that they would never draw a line of sight on the rest of my army.
So, I baited the unit by leaving my objective open and placing a high value and dangerous unit on that side. I restrained my desire to "earn points back" to tie up 35% of his army with 15% of mine. I made use of terrain to prevent him from drawing LOS to my other units once his unit was free to come after them.
Not every game plays like that and what happens depends on the opponent, their list, and terrain.
The only reason you got caught 'out of position' in older editions was because there was no pre-measuring and the person better at using other info to determine range fared better. That or their army was simply faster or had things like assault grenades to make your position pointless.
BlaxicanX wrote: It's the exact same game mechanic as unit types and USRs. Any argument that applies to rigid BRB-defined movement characteristics is going to logically apply to BRB-defined USRs and unit types as well.
This makes absolutely no sense given that movement is now a datasheet characteristic. Sure back in 7th and prior it's a valid argument, but not anymore.
So, I baited the unit by leaving my objective open and placing a high value and dangerous unit on that side. I restrained my desire to "earn points back" to tie up 35% of his army with 15% of mine. I made use of terrain to prevent him from drawing LOS to my other units once his unit was free to come after them.
And there's nothing inherent to your example that is specific to this edition (this edition being the one where "movement finally matters"), except possibly the smaller board size allowing for better blocking. But again, even that was possible in other editions.
The only reason you got caught 'out of position' in older editions was because there was no pre-measuring and the person better at using other info to determine range fared better. That or their army was simply faster or had things like assault grenades to make your position pointless.
That's certainly ONE reason why it might happen. One among MANY other possibilities. The simple fact is, movement matters considerably more when there aren't multiple objectives everywhere, that pretty much every unit can (easily) get to, and mistakes are legitimately punishing. In 9th, you can pretty much reach everything you need, it's very hard to make a mistake that takes a unit out of the battle (due to movement errors - forced or otherwise). Timing is what really matters in 9th. That's fine to a point. It's not necessarily negative. It's just different.
As opposed to just needing Battlescribe to play 7th?
You live in a different reality it seems.
I don't remember ever bringing another book besides the BRB and my codex. The only time i remember people bringing in other books was imperial armor, which really doesn't even count.
Why does Imperial Armour "not count"?
Because imperial armor isn't a requirement to play the game. They were optional rules, for specialist models that in themselves were exorbitantly more expensive than their standard counterparts. If you wanted to play with IA they were mandatory, but were in no way shape or form required to play for any faction. If you wanted to play competitively and engage in the ultra super serious list building waac meta death stars, sure, but most people did not have IA.
Were they apart of the bloat? Yes. Were they as necessary? No.
Psychic awakening is different in my opinion as well, as that was an expansion for a codex. Something that for many is considered necessary, especially if you want to stay competitive with the current 9th edition codices as compared to a languishing 8th edition one.
Imperial armor was kind of outside of all of this except for tournament play.
....Lol, what?
How are you allowing yourself to draw this line between "IA is only optional, only necessary if you're a WAAC tournament bro" but "buying PA is necessary and needed if you ever want to play a functional game!!!"
Almost all the rules introduced in PA are completely, fully optional. The only ones that arguably were not, were the ones you just got for free, and if you didnt lose them you were leaving stuff on the table, like the GK's Tides of the Warp.
Everything else was something you'd take in place of stuff you could just do out of the codex. going through the armies I own:
-Drukhari - Blood of the Pheonix added custom traits. I did not use those custom traits - i continued to use the codex traits. Then, when my codex did come out, I had the custom traits there in the book. Yippee, I went and saved myself buying that PA book by....not using the optional thing in it.
-GSC - PA added custom traits, psychic powers, and new stratagems. I did not use either of those things, kept using the regular traits out of the codex, selected my powers from the regular list in the codex, and didn't bother memorizing the new stratagems to use them, just spent my CP on the codex strats. Funnily enough, I've never had any problems managing to run out of CP in a GSC list in 9th, so they weren't necessary.
-Thousand Sons - PA added "mini-subfactions" that you could take to add a warlord trait, a psychic power, some stratagems, and a relic. now this one I did bu-nope, I didn't, I went on youtube and wrote down the rules with a piece of paper and pencil for free. All told they took nearly the back and front of an 8.5x11 sheet of paper.
-Deathwatch - I don't think PA added anything, honestly? I don't think Dw were in PA. If they were, I totally missed it. Guess that content wasn't necessary to keep playing them, huh?
-Admech - again I didnt actually track it. I think it was like weird warlord traits, some new strats, and rules for the new models. I didnt pick up any of the new stuff so I didnt buy the PA. Bizarre how I was still able to play the admech army I have.
-Harlequins - rules came in a white dwarf for seven bucks, which did meet the "worth it" threshold for this consumer, so I dutifully went out and voted with my wallet for good, substantial white dwarf rules for xenos factions! Good rules too. But also optional, everything harlequins got from PA you coud just...choose to not use and spend your army's resources of CP/relics/traits elsewhere.
This is like a DnD supplement thing to me. Just because I play a druid, and a new book comes out with new spells for druids and a new druid subclass doesnt mean I'm REQUIRED to buy that book. I have more than enough druid spells to fill me up to capacity, and i'm already using a subclass right now, so unless I want to make a change I'm unlikely to buy the thing for that...
Tycho wrote: That's certainly ONE reason why it might happen. One among MANY other possibilities. The simple fact is, movement matters considerably more when there aren't multiple objectives everywhere, that pretty much every unit can (easily) get to, and mistakes are legitimately punishing. In 9th, you can pretty much reach everything you need, it's very hard to make a mistake that takes a unit out of the battle (due to movement errors - forced or otherwise). Timing is what really matters in 9th. That's fine to a point. It's not necessarily negative. It's just different.
I remember a vast number of 5th-7th games where most of my opponent's army wasn't moving at all outside of lining up shots.
As someone playing two low-ranged armies with base movement 5", I can also assure you that I can't reach everything on the board, at least not until the game ends. A unit of deathshrouds, boyz or plague marines deployed in a bad position might not contribute anything to the battle until it's essentially over. Even units with 10" like scrapjets or winged daemon princes can't just be anywhere at will.
Of course, things like bikes or fast vehicles can be anywhere, but that's kind of the point of them, right? I think perception gets warped a bit from how many of those units are currently very popular in tournament games. But many of those units were at least as fast, if not faster in previous editions, so the point is kind of moot.
There's no reason Universal Special Rules need to be restricted to 12 pages of solid rules.
Star Wars Legion uses USRs, each unit datacard has both the USR and it's wording (unless there's not enough space to write out the rule, in which case they focus on the more niche ones).
That's a great way of doing things, and it's what 40k could do.
When it comes to USRs, it's absolutely possible to have our cake and eat it too.
34 people think 9th is more bloated than 7th 36 people think 9th is just as bloated as 7th 83 people think 9th is less bloated than 7th
So while the majority of the people think that 9th is better regards to bloat, a high number of people feel like it didn't do a better job than 7th.
48 people say 7th had the better core rules 12 people say the core rules were equally good 93 people say 9th has the better core rules
This is a lot less close, almost twice as many people think that 9th than people who think 7th is better. The high number of people preferring 7th's core rules also makes sense - quite a few people are sorely missing armor facings, templates and other things that had a long tradition in 40k.
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kirotheavenger wrote: There's no reason Universal Special Rules need to be restricted to 12 pages of solid rules.
Star Wars Legion uses USRs, each unit datacard has both the USR and it's wording (unless there's not enough space to write out the rule, in which case they focus on the more niche ones). That's a great way of doing things, and it's what 40k could do.
When it comes to USRs, it's absolutely possible to have our cake and eat it too.
I think the USR topic has been discussed to death.
The general consensus is that the best solution is having all the rules on the datasheets anyways, but with unified names and keywords for things that work the same. Meanwhile, they should avoid rules that are only slightly different than others for no real reason but being different.
A central register of USR is unneeded and counter-productive as long as GW insists on selling books.
Tycho wrote: That's certainly ONE reason why it might happen. One among MANY other possibilities. The simple fact is, movement matters considerably more when there aren't multiple objectives everywhere, that pretty much every unit can (easily) get to, and mistakes are legitimately punishing. In 9th, you can pretty much reach everything you need, it's very hard to make a mistake that takes a unit out of the battle (due to movement errors - forced or otherwise). Timing is what really matters in 9th. That's fine to a point. It's not necessarily negative. It's just different.
I remember a vast number of 5th-7th games where most of my opponent's army wasn't moving at all outside of lining up shots.
As someone playing two low-ranged armies with base movement 5", I can also assure you that I can't reach everything on the board, at least not until the game ends. A unit of deathshrouds, boyz or plague marines deployed in a bad position might not contribute anything to the battle until it's essentially over. Even units with 10" like scrapjets or winged daemon princes can't just be anywhere at will.
Of course, things like bikes or fast vehicles can be anywhere, but that's kind of the point of them, right? I think perception gets warped a bit from how many of those units are currently very popular in tournament games. But many of those units were at least as fast, if not faster in previous editions, so the point is kind of moot.
Gun lines were a problem inherent to the codexes and not so much to the core rules, but even then, I played a really mobile Tau army all the way through 5th and 6th. No gunlines for me.
I play the same armies as you in 9th. I am not having the same problems getting things to the places I need them. It's just so much easier than it ever has been. I mean sure, if you're deploying Terminators that move 5" to your backline and expecting them to get ... anywhere ... that's a problem. But that's not really how they should be played either is it?
34 people think 9th is more bloated than 7th
36 people think 9th is just as bloated as 7th
83 people think 9th is less bloated than 7th
So while the majority of the people think that 9th is better regards to bloat, a high number of people feel like it didn't do a better job than 7th.
48 people say 7th had the better core rules
12 people say the core rules were equally good
93 people say 9th has the better core rules
This is a lot less close, almost twice as many people think that 9th than people who think 7th is better. The high number of people preferring 7th's core rules also makes sense - quite a few people are sorely missing armor facings, templates and other things that had a long tradition in 40k...
I'd love another poll where you asked these people whether they actually played 7th. I'm reasonably convinced that the people who pop into threads to tell me you needed to memorize 450 pages of rules to play 7th and there were Chapter Approved points updates didn't actually play 7th.
34 people think 9th is more bloated than 7th
36 people think 9th is just as bloated as 7th
83 people think 9th is less bloated than 7th
So while the majority of the people think that 9th is better regards to bloat, a high number of people feel like it didn't do a better job than 7th.
48 people say 7th had the better core rules
12 people say the core rules were equally good
93 people say 9th has the better core rules
This is a lot less close, almost twice as many people think that 9th than people who think 7th is better. The high number of people preferring 7th's core rules also makes sense - quite a few people are sorely missing armor facings, templates and other things that had a long tradition in 40k...
I'd love another poll where you asked these people whether they actually played 7th. I'm reasonably convinced that the people who pop into threads to tell me you needed to memorize 450 pages of rules to play 7th and there were Chapter Approved points updates didn't actually play 7th.
I mean how many people that keeps complaining about how bad is 9th (and was 8th) in this forum has played more than 5 games of any one of the two editions? I think it would be a non insignificant number of posters.
Galas wrote: I mean how many people that keeps complaining about how bad is 9th (and was 8th) in this forum has played more than 5 games of any one of the two editions? I think it would be a non insignificant number of posters.
Kind of a pointless metric given that for most of 9th's life cycle people haven't been able to play.
34 people think 9th is more bloated than 7th
36 people think 9th is just as bloated as 7th
83 people think 9th is less bloated than 7th
So while the majority of the people think that 9th is better regards to bloat, a high number of people feel like it didn't do a better job than 7th.
48 people say 7th had the better core rules
12 people say the core rules were equally good
93 people say 9th has the better core rules
This is a lot less close, almost twice as many people think that 9th than people who think 7th is better. The high number of people preferring 7th's core rules also makes sense - quite a few people are sorely missing armor facings, templates and other things that had a long tradition in 40k...
I'd love another poll where you asked these people whether they actually played 7th. I'm reasonably convinced that the people who pop into threads to tell me you needed to memorize 450 pages of rules to play 7th and there were Chapter Approved points updates didn't actually play 7th.
I mean how many people that keeps complaining about how bad is 9th (and was 8th) in this forum has played more than 5 games of any one of the two editions? I think it would be a non insignificant number of posters.
Gotta disagree in that you don't need to have a ton of games of 8th/9th to be able to give a valid opinion about aspects of the edition. For example every game of 8th I've played has been dreadfully dull, shallow, and I didn't have fun with the game regardless of winning, losing, or even a "close" battle and that's with running multiple games with multiple armies (Orks, Tau, Space Marine, IoMInq + Scions). The 10th time playing the game didn't make my opinion when playing the 2nd game that 8th feels as shallow as a puddle any more or less valid. 9th didn't make nearly any changes to the things that I didn't like about 8th so I don't need to bang my head against that wall X number of times to know that it's probably not the kind of experience that I'm looking for.
I don't say that one has to play 8th or 9th to know it is bad, or where it is bad.
At the end of the day, once you have played a couple of wargames you can know just by reading the rules the general feeling of a game even if the more subtle aspects are just shown when actually playing it. Like with videogames.
But it was a reply to AnomanderRake trying to discredit the criticism of 7th based in how many games people played of it.
Galas wrote: I don't say that one has to play 8th or 9th to know it is bad, or where it is bad.
At the end of the day, once you have played a couple of wargames you can know just by reading the rules the general feeling of a game even if the more subtle aspects are just shown when actually playing it. Like with videogames.
But it was a reply to AnomanderRake trying to discredit the criticism of 7th based in how many games people played of it.
Fair enough.
I will say that a lot of people on the internet go about describing 7th as being nothing but a hellscape of meta WAAC lists stomping people into the ground. Personal experience of playing during that era was never such an extreme environment. I mean the power imbalance was quite real but most people seemed to be mindful enough to not try and curb stomp newbies, fluffy lists, and weaker faction armies. It does make me wonder if some of the hatred of 7th is clouded by other people's opinions more than their own experiences.
Galas wrote: I don't say that one has to play 8th or 9th to know it is bad, or where it is bad.
At the end of the day, once you have played a couple of wargames you can know just by reading the rules the general feeling of a game even if the more subtle aspects are just shown when actually playing it. Like with videogames.
But it was a reply to AnomanderRake trying to discredit the criticism of 7th based in how many games people played of it.
Fair enough.
I will say that a lot of people on the internet go about describing 7th as being nothing but a hellscape of meta WAAC lists stomping people into the ground. Personal experience of playing during that era was never such an extreme environment. I mean the power imbalance was quite real but most people seemed to be mindful enough to not try and curb stomp newbies, fluffy lists, and weaker faction armies. It does make me wonder if some of the hatred of 7th is clouded by other people's opinions more than their own experiences.
Peoples opinions may be clouded by their opinions, more at 11.
34 people think 9th is more bloated than 7th
36 people think 9th is just as bloated as 7th
83 people think 9th is less bloated than 7th
So while the majority of the people think that 9th is better regards to bloat, a high number of people feel like it didn't do a better job than 7th.
48 people say 7th had the better core rules
12 people say the core rules were equally good
93 people say 9th has the better core rules
This is a lot less close, almost twice as many people think that 9th than people who think 7th is better. The high number of people preferring 7th's core rules also makes sense - quite a few people are sorely missing armor facings, templates and other things that had a long tradition in 40k.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
kirotheavenger wrote: There's no reason Universal Special Rules need to be restricted to 12 pages of solid rules.
Star Wars Legion uses USRs, each unit datacard has both the USR and it's wording (unless there's not enough space to write out the rule, in which case they focus on the more niche ones).
That's a great way of doing things, and it's what 40k could do.
When it comes to USRs, it's absolutely possible to have our cake and eat it too.
I think the USR topic has been discussed to death.
The general consensus is that the best solution is having all the rules on the datasheets anyways, but with unified names and keywords for things that work the same. Meanwhile, they should avoid rules that are only slightly different than others for no real reason but being different.
A central register of USR is unneeded and counter-productive as long as GW insists on selling books.
So... USR? You literally just described USR, and they can still be on datasheets.....
But back on topic, 9th is for sure missing some key rules that almost all other editions had, the problems with 7th can easier be changed with a few hours of work. I would rather have a updated better 7th with balances to armies. You can still remove templates and have some updates that did work in 9th even.
9th truly just feels like chess with giant units, every unit that matters is so freaking hyper strong they remove a unit, then I remove a unit, etc... taking away Invis and formations (played like that a lot) made 7th very fun actually, HH is just 7th still as well.
As opposed to just needing Battlescribe to play 7th?
You live in a different reality it seems.
From the one where people needed to memorize 450 pages of rules to play a game rendered unplayable by charts that somehow had Chapter Approved the edition before GW brought the "Chapter Approved" name back and was entirely made up of things that were simultaneously 2++ deathstars and armed only with D-weapons, yes, clearly.
Daedalus81 wrote: ...You actually have to think about movement in 40K, too, but people like to pretend that all you do is move towards the objectives.
I mean, in 9th you occasionally have to move to get range on someone, I guess?
This mostly just tells people that you're not very good at the game...
I'm terrible at the game. I insist on using models I like rather than buying a new army every six months, which means I deserve whatever I get.
Right. Because we see so many games where we hear about the winning player's masterful outmanuevering of thier opponent ... Oh wait no. We don't. When tables were big enough, and units were slow enough that you could get caught out of position, movement mattered. In the days where a deployment mistake, or an error in an early movement phase could potentially leave a unit out of the fight or unable to get to an objective, movement mattered. Now? No. Not so much. Everything can get to everything and you pretty much know where things are going. It's almost impossible to truly get "out of position" for most armies, and even then, you have a lot of strats to fix it. It's about jamming midfield and controlling the objectives, and by the time that's happening there's often not enough room to truly manuever anyway. What matters in 9th is absolutely not movement. It's TIMING. Too many are getting the two confused IMO.
40ks core rules from 7th to 9th have never really been about maneuver. In 7th maneuvering was more important due to higher limitations on mobility and deep strike which made getting into and controlling a field of fire more important, but ultimately your maneuvering wasn't as impactful as I'd like to think it was 7th at it's core was really just a dice rolling game with tabletop tactics that were pretty rudimentary and vastly overpowered by the sheer output or durability of units as a whole. 8th and 9th basically remove that whole paradigm out of the game in favor of making placement automatic (this is literally one of, if not the worse part of 8th and 9th IMO).
What 40k lacks are mechanics that emphasize development and maneuver such as pinning, flanking, and morale.
I also believe that it's just going to be much, much, harder to make a good sci fi game based on outmaneuvering your opponent in 28mm. The Boards are just too small to accommodate the size of our forces to realistically give them access to the ranges and tactics used on a battlefield. 40k on an 6x4 board really shouldn't be any larger than a platoon sized game if we're looking for it to represent that. I think melee is a big kink in the machine. As it has been since 7th, maneuvering toward a melee unit is SUICIDE. If an enemy has a melee unit, there is practically no incentive to move toward the enemy. Melee stops the entire idea of an infantry advance in it's tracks because you'll only be punished for doing so.
I'd like to see 40k move toward a maneuver game, but it's not ever going to happen officially. I'm pretty much just praying that there will be a fan made or 3rd party game designed entirely around that for the intended use with 40k miniatures.
As it stands now Epic Armageddon is essentially that game.
Galas wrote: ...But it was a reply to AnomanderRake trying to discredit the criticism of 7th based in how many games people played of it.
I'm attempting to question whether the "7th was an unplayable shithole" crowd played 7th because the kinds of things I hear from them are the furthest from my experience of any anecdotes I hear on this website. I don't agree with people who like 8th/9th, but we're more often than not disagreeing on opinion over what's fun while with the anti-7th crowd we're often disagreeing on some pretty fundamental facts like "how big the rulebook was". I'm not trying to claim that nobody's criticism of 7th is fair, I'm questioning whether criticizing 7th for consisting entirely of armies of D-weapons, 2++ deathstars, and free transports run with five hundred pages of rules that you couldn't even attempt to play without memorizing is criticizing 7th at all, or some hypothetical worst-case edition that bears only a superficial resemblance to 7th.
Galas wrote: ...But it was a reply to AnomanderRake trying to discredit the criticism of 7th based in how many games people played of it.
I'm attempting to question whether the "7th was an unplayable shithole" crowd played 7th because the kinds of things I hear from them are the furthest from my experience of any anecdotes I hear on this website. I don't agree with people who like 8th/9th, but we're more often than not disagreeing on opinion over what's fun while with the anti-7th crowd we're often disagreeing on some pretty fundamental facts like "how big the rulebook was".
The problem with 7th was that the edge cases BROKE the game. The edge cases in 8th/9th are powerful, but they don't fundamentally change the way that the entire game system is interacted with on the same level that some of the SHENANIGANS in 7th were.
My community had little problems with the absolute HORSE gak death stars and unintentional rules interactions because we shut them down. It was so much easier to spot the people breaking the game.
The design philosophy for 7th was solid. The implementation was BAD. Whereas 8th and 9th are the exact opposite. Bad game design executed to a much better degree.
Galas wrote: ...But it was a reply to AnomanderRake trying to discredit the criticism of 7th based in how many games people played of it.
I'm attempting to question whether the "7th was an unplayable shithole" crowd played 7th because the kinds of things I hear from them are the furthest from my experience of any anecdotes I hear on this website. I don't agree with people who like 8th/9th, but we're more often than not disagreeing on opinion over what's fun while with the anti-7th crowd we're often disagreeing on some pretty fundamental facts like "how big the rulebook was".
The problem with 7th was that the edge cases BROKE the game. The edge cases in 8th/9th are powerful, but they don't fundamentally change the way that the entire game system is interacted with on the same level that some of the SHENANIGANS in 7th were.
My community had little problems with the absolute HORSE gak death stars and unintentional rules interactions because we shut them down. It was so much easier to spot the people breaking the game.
The design philosophy for 7th was solid. The implementation was BAD. Whereas 8th and 9th are the exact opposite. Bad game design executed very well.
See, I like this kind of discussion. I disagree, because I'd prefer to take the reasonable foundation executed badly and fiddle with it rather than the bad foundation that I don't think I can fix, but we're both expressing opinions based on facts rather than throwing out ludicrous hyperbole about how 7th had vastly more bloat than it actually did or that 9th has vastly more bloat than it actually does.
7ths largest failings were all because its codex's often did not mesh well with the basic rules, so GW essentially put the rules into the codexes. This has the benefit of preventing a single special rule, psychic power, or relic from unintentionally breaking the game, but it removes a lot of the complexity and the depth of the rule system. In many ways the system becomes the codex. Rules interactions become internal rather than external and we can see this illustrated with buff stacking and stratagems. The problem with this is that it makes it much harder to know the game as a whole, and to develop tactics around it. The game becomes increasingly unknowable, because the rules are more like guidelines rather than rules. It becomes a game about how your codex interacts with itself rather than how to use the terrain and knowledge of your enemy to destroy them. This is why the game itself feels like a listbuilding filter.
Speaking of comparisons to old editions, something I wonder is if we went back to how older editions handled weapons would make movement feel more important as it becomes a trade off with shooting. I mean this was how 3rd generally handled it and this image still lives in my brain:
ClockworkZion wrote: Speaking of comparisons to old editions, something I wonder is if we went back to how older editions handled weapons would make movement feel more important as it becomes a trade off with shooting. I mean this was how 3rd generally handled it and this image still lives in my brain:
Spoiler:
Limiting fire on the move like that just rewards defensive play. Providing incentives for small arms infantry to get better shots, and / or more shots is a better way to get players to engage in that kind of behavior. It also really doesn't solve the issue with assault units essentially destroying the idea of an infantry advance with small arms. An advance should be just as dangerous as it is beneficial.
ClockworkZion wrote: Speaking of comparisons to old editions, something I wonder is if we went back to how older editions handled weapons would make movement feel more important as it becomes a trade off with shooting. I mean this was how 3rd generally handled it and this image still lives in my brain:
Spoiler:
Limiting fire on the move like that just rewards defensive play. Providing incentives for small arms infantry to get better shots, and / or more shots is a better way to get players to engage in that kind of behavior. It also really doesn't solve the issue with assault units essentially destroying the idea of an infantry advance with small arms. An advance should be just as dangerous as it is beneficial.
Fair point. 3rd lives rent free in my head a lot of the time so I guess it just crossed my mind if the more movement focus on 9th's missions trading with less shooting might see the game take a step down in lethality.
ClockworkZion wrote: Speaking of comparisons to old editions, something I wonder is if we went back to how older editions handled weapons would make movement feel more important as it becomes a trade off with shooting. I mean this was how 3rd generally handled it and this image still lives in my brain:
Spoiler:
Limiting fire on the move like that just rewards defensive play. Providing incentives for small arms infantry to get better shots, and / or more shots is a better way to get players to engage in that kind of behavior. It also really doesn't solve the issue with assault units essentially destroying the idea of an infantry advance with small arms. An advance should be just as dangerous as it is beneficial.
I think narratively 40k handles it’s close combat badly, to many army’s are sorta all or nothing and rather than have real support built into there faction to get troops there they fight against the rules and just plant units into CC and roll dice.
And for lots of the game, a shooting unit getting stuck into CC becomes a wall and that’s about it.
Pistols becoming usable in CC was great, but again we had so many models that didn’t have them when they really should.
Warmachine has gunfighter and I think 40k should have a rule similar on a lot of units as a start, I forget if they are doing this now as none of my army’s can >.< damn brain.
But also, terrain can be huge for making CC work, have buildings as a presence on the battlefield that units can enter and fight within. But be relatively protected from outside fire unless the building comes down also makes assault units far more valuable.
When dealing with Sci fi you just have to start thinking about close assault over Brawls and how it’s used.
Terrain rules could be used a long way to go about this, but GW would need to put some effort in and make sure all factions can play the game outside of LoL Rule of Cool..
ClockworkZion wrote: Speaking of comparisons to old editions, something I wonder is if we went back to how older editions handled weapons would make movement feel more important as it becomes a trade off with shooting. I mean this was how 3rd generally handled it and this image still lives in my brain:
Spoiler:
Limiting fire on the move like that just rewards defensive play. Providing incentives for small arms infantry to get better shots, and / or more shots is a better way to get players to engage in that kind of behavior. It also really doesn't solve the issue with assault units essentially destroying the idea of an infantry advance with small arms. An advance should be just as dangerous as it is beneficial.
Fair point. 3rd lives rent free in my head a lot of the time so I guess it just crossed my mind if the more movement focus on 9th's missions trading with less shooting might see the game take a step down in lethality.
The lethality of 9th has to do with guaranteed deep strike positioning, the smaller play area, the inability to react to your opponent at all ( also a 7th issue), and in general higher output weaponry.
I actually do think an 8x5 foot table with suitable terrain would actually help in a lot of ways. Take out guaranteed deep strike and you have a board that at least allows for minimal development.
ClockworkZion wrote: Speaking of comparisons to old editions, something I wonder is if we went back to how older editions handled weapons would make movement feel more important as it becomes a trade off with shooting. I mean this was how 3rd generally handled it and this image still lives in my brain:
Spoiler:
Limiting fire on the move like that just rewards defensive play. Providing incentives for small arms infantry to get better shots, and / or more shots is a better way to get players to engage in that kind of behavior. It also really doesn't solve the issue with assault units essentially destroying the idea of an infantry advance with small arms. An advance should be just as dangerous as it is beneficial.
I think narratively 40k handles it’s close combat badly, to many army’s are sorta all or nothing and rather than have real support built into there faction to get troops there they fight against the rules and just plant units into CC and roll dice.
And for lots of the game, a shooting unit getting stuck into CC becomes a wall and that’s about it.
Pistols becoming usable in CC was great, but again we had so many models that didn’t have them when they really should.
Warmachine has gunfighter and I think 40k should have a rule similar on a lot of units as a start, I forget if they are doing this now as none of my army’s can >.< damn brain.
But also, terrain can be huge for making CC work, have buildings as a presence on the battlefield that units can enter and fight within. But be relatively protected from outside fire unless the building comes down also makes assault units far more valuable.
When dealing with Sci fi you just have to start thinking about close assault over Brawls and how it’s used.
Terrain rules could be used a long way to go about this, but GW would need to put some effort in and make sure all factions can play the game outside of LoL Rule of Cool..
implementing a closing "volley" mechanic in the assault phase during overwatch could be a really cool mechanic.
But back on topic, 9th is for sure missing some key rules that almost all other editions had, the problems with 7th can easier be changed with a few hours of work. I would rather have a updated better 7th with balances to armies. You can still remove templates and have some updates that did work in 9th even.
9th truly just feels like chess with giant units, every unit that matters is so freaking hyper strong they remove a unit, then I remove a unit, etc... taking away Invis and formations (played like that a lot) made 7th very fun actually, HH is just 7th still as well.
Maybe we played a different game. In 7th even without formations lethality (especially alpha strike) was much higher than in 9th. HH somehow conunters that because all the armies are basically the same thing.
7th was very fun only by using pre-arranged lists. 9th has definitely much more freedom in listbuilding before breaking the game.
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ClockworkZion wrote: Speaking of comparisons to old editions, something I wonder is if we went back to how older editions handled weapons would make movement feel more important as it becomes a trade off with shooting. I mean this was how 3rd generally handled it and this image still lives in my brain:
Spoiler:
It was great. Not being able to fire or being forced to hit on 6 it unit moves also reduced the dice rolling and/or lethality. Now there are even tools to bypass the rapid fire range limitation and fire max shots everytime.
I actually prefer the bigger limitations in both movement and firepower (Not as much as the power of shooting because shooting has always been bananas in 40k but in how and where you could use it) of older editions than new 40k.
But I don't know. Theres something about how new rules are writtend and presented in both the base rules and the new unit datasheets that has make the game much, much easier for me (And literally anybody I have taught to play 8th and 9th).
For me the most positive change to any old edition of warhammer would be:
-8th/9th wound allocation. Stop this removing from the front or jumping wounds. Assume the heavy weapons are passed onto other guys or the ones in the back take the place of the ones in the front like in fantasy. Is easier, strait forward and causes 0 problems
-8th/9th style datasheets. Let me see all the rules and weapon profiles of a unit in his unit card. Some generic army wide rules can be summarized, but I prefer to have deep strike written in each single unit entry than to keep flipping pages to try and remember what exactly was the difference between furious charge, zealot, hatred, and whatever.
ClockworkZion wrote: Speaking of comparisons to old editions, something I wonder is if we went back to how older editions handled weapons would make movement feel more important as it becomes a trade off with shooting. I mean this was how 3rd generally handled it and this image still lives in my brain:
Spoiler:
TBH I love this. But I always tought the penalty to heavy weapons was too much. When most units have 2-3 turns to achieve anything in a game is hard to justify the investment of heavy weapons in basic infantry squads. And thats why you saw heavy weapons on vehicles or in units that had some way to mitigate the penalty. (But TBH now firing heavy weapons on the move is just a -1 and most people consider that taking that penalty makes any heavy weapon infantry model unusable crap. If they cannot fire at full balistic skill all the time, they aren't worth it)
Galas wrote: ...But it was a reply to AnomanderRake trying to discredit the criticism of 7th based in how many games people played of it.
I'm attempting to question whether the "7th was an unplayable shithole" crowd played 7th because the kinds of things I hear from them are the furthest from my experience of any anecdotes I hear on this website. I don't agree with people who like 8th/9th, but we're more often than not disagreeing on opinion over what's fun while with the anti-7th crowd we're often disagreeing on some pretty fundamental facts like "how big the rulebook was". I'm not trying to claim that nobody's criticism of 7th is fair, I'm questioning whether criticizing 7th for consisting entirely of armies of D-weapons, 2++ deathstars, and free transports run with five hundred pages of rules that you couldn't even attempt to play without memorizing is criticizing 7th at all, or some hypothetical worst-case edition that bears only a superficial resemblance to 7th.
I'm one of those people. 7th was an unplayable shithole. I ran into unkillable deathstars regularly, knights, phantoms, baneblades were commonly used models with D weapons because people just owned those things and wanted to run them. I watched people roll on various psychic disciplines for hours of my lifetime, denying any power I would dare to cast with a dozen dice. Melee was broken beyond repair, challenges took away entire army's ability to kill things in melee, pages and pages of rules that are unclear and non-functional gak that would never receive an errata or FAQ. First and second turn tablings were more common than ever before and after, moral was ignored by everyone and any unit or army that was affected by moral was useless, some armies could do deep strikes that were more reliable than the ones we have in 9th now. Eternal warrior, having to parse the USRs for the word "conferring", non-independent characters being worthless. People were carrying binders around with print-outs of all the formations, extra psychic powers, relics and FW rules they needed to run their army,
Granted, I only know about the gladius formation and its exploits from tales, but I also never once complained about it. Do you know why I never ran into it? 7th was such a gakky edition, I actually quit the game and put my army up for auction.
So, no more accusing people of not knowing what they are talking about when their are giving valid criticsm.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It's also quite telling that those in favor of 7th are using this thread to discuss things that need fixing in 40k which already have been fixed in 9th...
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Sledgehammer wrote: The lethality of 9th has to do with guaranteed deep strike positioning, the smaller play area, the inability to react to your opponent at all ( also a 7th issue), and in general higher output weaponry.
Not meaning to offend you Sledgehammer, but this line just telegraphs that you have not played a serious game of 9th in your life.
Different groups approach 40k very differently, which will affect what those were bringing in 7th.
Some groups approach every game as practice for their tournament(s), I was playing in those in 7th and every game was the cheesiest cheese going.
Other groups don't care and actively discourage that sort of thing so you'd be unlikely to encounter quite the same cheese.
Instead of reacting to anyone, I'm just going to give my personal thoughts on the issue.
7th:
Let's not beat about the bush, 7th was an absolute mess. The core rules started badly and then the codices, supplements, mid-edition codices (where the design philosophy changed completely), lack of FAQs etc. made things spiral completely out of control.
In terms of the core rules, there was a lot of bloat - not least because it refused to reverse the disastrous changed wrought by 6th edition (with the inclusion of super-heavies and fliers being the most egregious). Hence, we had to have whole sections for new types of units, basically detailing how they follow no rules whatsoever and can do whatever the hell they want, whenever they want. Awesome. This totally didn't read like someone trying to insert their badly-written, Mary-the-Mechwarrior Sue fanfiction into a game that was already ill-suited for it.
But for as bad as those rules were, they were by no means the only issue with 7th. In fact, quite a few of 7th issues seemed to stem from someone on the design team (you know who you are) having the bright idea to just lift swathes of 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle rules and ram them into 40k. This was most evident with 7th's magic (sorry Psyker) system, which had all the same nonsense as 8th edition - right down to the 'random to determine the random thus seeing whether you'll random or randomly get randomed in the face' and the utterly broken spells. However, even leaving aside the fact that 8th edition WHFB's magic system was a colossal pile of pigswill, at least that game system was built with magic as a core element. Hence, every race either had wizards of its own (generally costing roughly the same) or else had significant countering/dispelling ability (like with Dwarves). In contrast, 40k races have vastly different accessibilities when it comes to psykers and counters to psykers - ranging from entire armies of psykers to armies with no psykers whatsoever (and also with very few tools to counter such). So while WHFB's terrible magic system was at least somewhat balanced by roughly equal access, 40k's attempt at the same didn't even have that modicum of balance. Instead, if a Tau or Necron or DE player (or even a player who'd foolishly brought only one or two psykers) was up against GKs or Daemons, he might as well go and make himself a sandwich while they conduct their psychic phase.
And because I'm not done ragging on the psychic phase, now would probably be a good time to bring up 7th's commitment to 'balance by random'. As in, it doesn't matter if one psychic power is useless and another is game-winning because you have to roll for them! Presuming your brain is located in your skull and not your rectum, you can probably see the flaw in that particular line of reasoning. Alas, GW did not. And so not only was this policy applied to psychic powers, it was also applied to other areas of army construction such as Warlord Traits (because who'd want to give a character a thematic trait, right?). Naturally, it meant that there was a ton of pre-game nonsense that had to be rolled for at the start of every game.
Then you've got the endless litany of time-wasting mechanics - the terrible wound-allocation rules, the entire Challenge system, the pointless special rules (Soulfire anyone?).
And you've got the final problem which was that the layout of the core rulebook was absolutely atrocious. Nothing seemed to flow logically, so that you'd have the rules for vehicles in one section, except for a certain type of vehicle which is found in an entirely different section because reasons. Or the USRs that you look up only to find that all they do is give a unit two different USRs. It meant that any sort of rules debate immediately brought the game to a grinding halt as players struggled to even find the right section in the convoluted mess of a rulebook.
So what about 9th?
Well, it certainly made some improvements. The rulebook is better laid out . . . though this seems to have been achieved primarily by just throwing most of the content in the bin. Indeed, I think the biggest flaw with 8th/9th is that it threw far too much good stuff out, along with the bad.
USRs are gone and instead each model has a different name (and sometimes even description) for what amounts to the same ability. This makes the game very awkward in a number of ways.
- It makes it much harder to remember what a given rule does (there's a reason people still talk in the language of USRs).
- It makes it much harder to spot when a similar-looking rule differs from a common one. In the past, a model with a different Deep Strike ability would have either an ability with a different name (so you'd know immediately that it was different) or else Deep Strike but with a second rule to amend it. Now, though, every model has a different name for deep strike, so it's easily to skim read such rules with the assumption that it's just another deep strike rule, and inadvertently miss a small but important difference.
- It makes it much more awkward to write rules that refer to what were once common rules. e.g. in the past you could have referred specifically to FNP or Deep Strike, now you have to refer to 'rules that let a model ignore wounds' or 'rules that let a model deploy on the table after the first battle turn' or some other very awkward language.
- It means that there's often no common language. In the past, you'd know that FNP meant FNP. Now, though, you often end up looking at two rules with very similar wording and trying to work out whether the difference is intentional or just the result of them being written by different writers without any sort of agreed language/format for rule text.
In short, it creates far more problems than it could ever hope to solve, whereas most of the original problems with USRs could have been solved by just writing out the text on each model's datasheet.
The psychic phase has been simplified but perhaps a little too much (probably because it just pinched yet another magic system from Fantasy - this time the heavily trimmed-down AoS one). All the different weapon profiles are gone, now it's mortal wounds and more mortal wounds. It's better than the ridiculousness of spells like Invisibility but it doesn't leave much room for creativity. Also, the system is quite weird in that you just throw two dice and hope to achieve the target number. No resources are expended beyond an arbitrary cast limit per turn and there are almost no choices to be made. At least with the 7th edition system you could add more dice, increasing the chance of succeeding but also increasing the chance of Perils. Now spells have different cast values but you can't do anything about it because your dice are always fixed anyway. All things considered, I find myself wondering why we need to have a psychic phase at all - it seems you could have just as easily gone back to the pre-7th model, where units just make a Ld test to cast a psychic power.
Initiative is gone completely and instead we have a mess of 'always strikes first' and 'always strikes last'. Resolving combats without those rules is even worse, as you have ludicrous situations where selecting a unit to fight causes an entirely different unit, in an entirely different combat, to fight more slowly. But apparently this is an improvement for some reason.
Morale is basically gone, with Pinning and Falling Back being gone entirely. Now when a unit fails a morale test some of its members just vanish into the aether.
Transports can't deploy passengers when they move, thus negating the point of most transports even existing (plus fire-points are inexplicably gone - so either your transport is open-topped or else its just a mobile brick).
Stratagems, Dear, God, stratagems. If there is anything current 40k did not need, it was Stratagems. I note that this idea came, as so many seem to, from importing yet more stuff from Age of Sigmar. Except that Age of Sigmar took the wise decision to make Command Points usable by HQs for specific command abilities. 40k on the other hand decided that HQs would be entirely divorced from CPs (why would HQs have any strategic or command role, after all?) and so instead tied CPs to a card game that feels entirely disconnected from anything in the rulebook or on the table. It also gives us even more ludicrous scenarios - like one unit being unable to throw their grenades because a different unit threw theirs.
What's worse is that Stratagems also seem to have eaten a not insignificant chunk of what used to be actual options and wargear. So now many units have few options and instead rely on specific stratagems for that purpose, thus restricting the ability to personalise individual units.
Speaking of which, 8th removed character's being able to join squads and instead made characters very hard to target. The main issue was that the arbitrary cut-off limit meant monster-characters could hide behind basic infantry, since it was based on wounds and the wounds characteristic had almost no relation to the actual size of a given model. 9th ""fixed"" this not by using a different statistic (such as strength or toughness or one of the billion keywords that has been added to the game) but instead by requiring characters to be stupidly close to a unit in order to gain any protection. This means stuff like Death Jesters and other characters that are meant to be lone-snipers or lone-hunters now can't act as they're supposed to. But hey, at least Guilliman can still hide behind guardsmen, and that's all that matters.
Cover is still negligible, especially as there's no longer any penalty for firing at an obscured target. Combined with fewer penalties for movement and smaller boards, this typically means units can just shoot at whatever the hell they want with zero regard for intervening models and even intervening terrain.
I should say that it's by no means all bad. 9th at least doesn't have random psychic power selection or warlord trait selection. The wound allocation system is vastly better (though I do think it would be wise to future-proof it, so that the game doesn't break if a unit has more than one wounded model at a given time). And all in all it's at least a more functional game than 9th was (as it doesn't require significant house-ruling before you can even play).
However, I fear that in an effort to get away from 7th, 8th/9th ended up throwing out a lot of stuff that was actually functional (or which required only some minor tweaks to make it functional). Not that it's necessarily a worse game in and of itself, just I think it represents a bad direction for 40k to be heading in - especially as the game seems to be increasingly getting away from what's happening on the table being the key factor in who wins. Especially with the advent of stratagems, it seems we're really not far off from just turning 40k into a full-on card game and abandoning the board and minis entirely.
The core rules in 7th were fine by GW's norm, the problem was in the codexes and the existence of Formations. You can see this by how well Age of Darkness works when only juggling the much smaller varieties of armies - far, far from perfect but definitely a much less cumbersome version of 7th.
9th at it's core is still a less cumbersome and bloated ruleset, but it suffers from the amount of 'DLC bloat' much worse than what 7th became, where we're less than a year in and already have multiple splat books several armies are required to lug around with them.
]Instead of reacting to anyone, I'm just going to give my personal thoughts on the issue.
7th:
Let's not beat about the bush, 7th was an absolute mess. The core rules started badly and then the codices, supplements, mid-edition codices (where the design philosophy changed completely), lack of FAQs etc. made things spiral completely out of control.
In terms of the core rules, there was a lot of bloat - not least because it refused to reverse the disastrous changed wrought by 6th edition (with the inclusion of super-heavies and fliers being the most egregious). Hence, we had to have whole sections for new types of units, basically detailing how they follow no rules whatsoever and can do whatever the hell they want, whenever they want. Awesome. This totally didn't read like someone trying to insert their badly-written, Mary-the-Mechwarrior Sue fanfiction into a game that was already ill-suited for it.
But for as bad as those rules were, they were by no means the only issue with 7th. In fact, quite a few of 7th issues seemed to stem from someone on the design team (you know who you are) having the bright idea to just lift swathes of 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle rules and ram them into 40k. This was most evident with 7th's magic (sorry Psyker) system, which had all the same nonsense as 8th edition - right down to the 'random to determine the random thus seeing whether you'll random or randomly get randomed in the face' and the utterly broken spells. However, even leaving aside the fact that 8th edition WHFB's magic system was a colossal pile of pigswill, at least that game system was built with magic as a core element. Hence, every race either had wizards of its own (generally costing roughly the same) or else had significant countering/dispelling ability (like with Dwarves). In contrast, 40k races have vastly different accessibilities when it comes to psykers and counters to psykers - ranging from entire armies of psykers to armies with no psykers whatsoever (and also with very few tools to counter such). So while WHFB's terrible magic system was at least somewhat balanced by roughly equal access, 40k's attempt at the same didn't even have that modicum of balance. Instead, if a Tau or Necron or DE player (or even a player who'd foolishly brought only one or two psykers) was up against GKs or Daemons, he might as well go and make himself a sandwich while they conduct their psychic phase.
And because I'm not done ragging on the psychic phase, now would probably be a good time to bring up 7th's commitment to 'balance by random'. As in, it doesn't matter if one psychic power is useless and another is game-winning because you have to roll for them! Presuming your brain is located in your skull and not your rectum, you can probably see the flaw in that particular line of reasoning. Alas, GW did not. And so not only was this policy applied to psychic powers, it was also applied to other areas of army construction such as Warlord Traits (because who'd want to give a character a thematic trait, right?). Naturally, it meant that there was a ton of pre-game nonsense that had to be rolled for at the start of every game.
Then you've got the endless litany of time-wasting mechanics - the terrible wound-allocation rules, the entire Challenge system, the pointless special rules (Soulfire anyone?).
And you've got the final problem which was that the layout of the core rulebook was absolutely atrocious. Nothing seemed to flow logically, so that you'd have the rules for vehicles in one section, except for a certain type of vehicle which is found in an entirely different section because reasons. Or the USRs that you look up only to find that all they do is give a unit two different USRs. It meant that any sort of rules debate immediately brought the game to a grinding halt as players struggled to even find the right section in the convoluted mess of a rulebook.
So what about 9th?
Well, it certainly made some improvements. The rulebook is better laid out . . . though this seems to have been achieved primarily by just throwing most of the content in the bin. Indeed, I think the biggest flaw with 8th/9th is that it threw far too much good stuff out, along with the bad.
USRs are gone and instead each model has a different name (and sometimes even description) for what amounts to the same ability. This makes the game very awkward in a number of ways.
- It makes it much harder to remember what a given rule does (there's a reason people still talk in the language of USRs).
- It makes it much harder to spot when a similar-looking rule differs from a common one. In the past, a model with a different Deep Strike ability would have either an ability with a different name (so you'd know immediately that it was different) or else Deep Strike but with a second rule to amend it. Now, though, every model has a different name for deep strike, so it's easily to skim read such rules with the assumption that it's just another deep strike rule, and inadvertently miss a small but important difference.
- It makes it much more awkward to write rules that refer to what were once common rules. e.g. in the past you could have referred specifically to FNP or Deep Strike, now you have to refer to 'rules that let a model ignore wounds' or 'rules that let a model deploy on the table after the first battle turn' or some other very awkward language.
- It means that there's often no common language. In the past, you'd know that FNP meant FNP. Now, though, you often end up looking at two rules with very similar wording and trying to work out whether the difference is intentional or just the result of them being written by different writers without any sort of agreed language/format for rule text.
In short, it creates far more problems than it could ever hope to solve, whereas most of the original problems with USRs could have been solved by just writing out the text on each model's datasheet.
The psychic phase has been simplified but perhaps a little too much (probably because it just pinched yet another magic system from Fantasy - this time the heavily trimmed-down AoS one). All the different weapon profiles are gone, now it's mortal wounds and more mortal wounds. It's better than the ridiculousness of spells like Invisibility but it doesn't leave much room for creativity. Also, the system is quite weird in that you just throw two dice and hope to achieve the target number. No resources are expended beyond an arbitrary cast limit per turn and there are almost no choices to be made. At least with the 7th edition system you could add more dice, increasing the chance of succeeding but also increasing the chance of Perils. Now spells have different cast values but you can't do anything about it because your dice are always fixed anyway. All things considered, I find myself wondering why we need to have a psychic phase at all - it seems you could have just as easily gone back to the pre-7th model, where units just make a Ld test to cast a psychic power.
Initiative is gone completely and instead we have a mess of 'always strikes first' and 'always strikes last'. Resolving combats without those rules is even worse, as you have ludicrous situations where selecting a unit to fight causes an entirely different unit, in an entirely different combat, to fight more slowly. But apparently this is an improvement for some reason.
Morale is basically gone, with Pinning and Falling Back being gone entirely. Now when a unit fails a morale test some of its members just vanish into the aether.
Transports can't deploy passengers when they move, thus negating the point of most transports even existing (plus fire-points are inexplicably gone - so either your transport is open-topped or else its just a mobile brick).
Stratagems, Dear, God, stratagems. If there is anything current 40k did not need, it was Stratagems. I note that this idea came, as so many seem to, from importing yet more stuff from Age of Sigmar. Except that Age of Sigmar took the wise decision to make Command Points usable by HQs for specific command abilities. 40k on the other hand decided that HQs would be entirely divorced from CPs (why would HQs have any strategic or command role, after all?) and so instead tied CPs to a card game that feels entirely disconnected from anything in the rulebook or on the table. It also gives us even more ludicrous scenarios - like one unit being unable to throw their grenades because a different unit threw theirs.
What's worse is that Stratagems also seem to have eaten a not insignificant chunk of what used to be actual options and wargear. So now many units have few options and instead rely on specific stratagems for that purpose, thus restricting the ability to personalise individual units.
Speaking of which, 8th removed character's being able to join squads and instead made characters very hard to target. The main issue was that the arbitrary cut-off limit meant monster-characters could hide behind basic infantry, since it was based on wounds and the wounds characteristic had almost no relation to the actual size of a given model. 9th ""fixed"" this not by using a different statistic (such as strength or toughness or one of the billion keywords that has been added to the game) but instead by requiring characters to be stupidly close to a unit in order to gain any protection. This means stuff like Death Jesters and other characters that are meant to be lone-snipers or lone-hunters now can't act as they're supposed to. But hey, at least Guilliman can still hide behind guardsmen, and that's all that matters.
Cover is still negligible, especially as there's no longer any penalty for firing at an obscured target. Combined with fewer penalties for movement and smaller boards, this typically means units can just shoot at whatever the hell they want with zero regard for intervening models and even intervening terrain.
I should say that it's by no means all bad. 9th at least doesn't have random psychic power selection or warlord trait selection. The wound allocation system is vastly better (though I do think it would be wise to future-proof it, so that the game doesn't break if a unit has more than one wounded model at a given time). And all in all it's at least a more functional game than 9th was (as it doesn't require significant house-ruling before you can even play).
However, I fear that in an effort to get away from 7th, 8th/9th ended up throwing out a lot of stuff that was actually functional (or which required only some minor tweaks to make it functional). Not that it's necessarily a worse game in and of itself, just I think it represents a bad direction for 40k to be heading in - especially as the game seems to be increasingly getting away from what's happening on the table being the key factor in who wins. Especially with the advent of stratagems, it seems we're really not far off from just turning 40k into a full-on card game and abandoning the board and minis entirely.
Very good post, enjoyed reading it, especially the perspective of what things came over from AoS and WHFB. I don't agree with everything, but that's mostly a matter of opinion.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Arbitrator wrote: The core rules in 7th were fine by GW's norm, the problem was in the codexes and the existence of Formations. You can see this by how well Age of Darkness works when only juggling the much smaller varieties of armies - far, far from perfect but definitely a much less cumbersome version of 7th.
9th at it's core is still a less cumbersome and bloated ruleset, but it suffers from the amount of 'DLC bloat' much worse than what 7th became, where we're less than a year in and already have multiple splat books several armies are required to lug around with them.
This has been proven to be objectively wrong multiple times. Neither theoretical maximum number of rule sources you need, nor the number of rule sources the average person needs in real games is more than what you needed in 7th under the same circumstances.
7ed had some great ideas, unfortunately they dint roll out well. 9Th has some issues and it’s not perfect. But overall it’s a very solid rules set, the brb is layer out better then any other edition, no room for well I read it that way arguments. So that’s a great thing, my only complaint is with the huge amount of stragems, makes it feel slight bloated and can add a lot of gotcha moments (but it’s not a game breaker).
vipoid wrote: Instead of reacting to anyone, I'm just going to give my personal thoughts on the issue.
7th:
Let's not beat about the bush, 7th was an absolute mess. The core rules started badly and then the codices, supplements, mid-edition codices (where the design philosophy changed completely), lack of FAQs etc. made things spiral completely out of control.
In terms of the core rules, there was a lot of bloat - not least because it refused to reverse the disastrous changed wrought by 6th edition (with the inclusion of super-heavies and fliers being the most egregious). Hence, we had to have whole sections for new types of units, basically detailing how they follow no rules whatsoever and can do whatever the hell they want, whenever they want. Awesome. This totally didn't read like someone trying to insert their badly-written, Mary-the-Mechwarrior Sue fanfiction into a game that was already ill-suited for it.
But for as bad as those rules were, they were by no means the only issue with 7th. In fact, quite a few of 7th issues seemed to stem from someone on the design team (you know who you are) having the bright idea to just lift swathes of 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle rules and ram them into 40k. This was most evident with 7th's magic (sorry Psyker) system, which had all the same nonsense as 8th edition - right down to the 'random to determine the random thus seeing whether you'll random or randomly get randomed in the face' and the utterly broken spells. However, even leaving aside the fact that 8th edition WHFB's magic system was a colossal pile of pigswill, at least that game system was built with magic as a core element. Hence, every race either had wizards of its own (generally costing roughly the same) or else had significant countering/dispelling ability (like with Dwarves). In contrast, 40k races have vastly different accessibilities when it comes to psykers and counters to psykers - ranging from entire armies of psykers to armies with no psykers whatsoever (and also with very few tools to counter such). So while WHFB's terrible magic system was at least somewhat balanced by roughly equal access, 40k's attempt at the same didn't even have that modicum of balance. Instead, if a Tau or Necron or DE player (or even a player who'd foolishly brought only one or two psykers) was up against GKs or Daemons, he might as well go and make himself a sandwich while they conduct their psychic phase.
And because I'm not done ragging on the psychic phase, now would probably be a good time to bring up 7th's commitment to 'balance by random'. As in, it doesn't matter if one psychic power is useless and another is game-winning because you have to roll for them! Presuming your brain is located in your skull and not your rectum, you can probably see the flaw in that particular line of reasoning. Alas, GW did not. And so not only was this policy applied to psychic powers, it was also applied to other areas of army construction such as Warlord Traits (because who'd want to give a character a thematic trait, right?). Naturally, it meant that there was a ton of pre-game nonsense that had to be rolled for at the start of every game.
Then you've got the endless litany of time-wasting mechanics - the terrible wound-allocation rules, the entire Challenge system, the pointless special rules (Soulfire anyone?).
And you've got the final problem which was that the layout of the core rulebook was absolutely atrocious. Nothing seemed to flow logically, so that you'd have the rules for vehicles in one section, except for a certain type of vehicle which is found in an entirely different section because reasons. Or the USRs that you look up only to find that all they do is give a unit two different USRs. It meant that any sort of rules debate immediately brought the game to a grinding halt as players struggled to even find the right section in the convoluted mess of a rulebook.
So what about 9th?
Well, it certainly made some improvements. The rulebook is better laid out . . . though this seems to have been achieved primarily by just throwing most of the content in the bin. Indeed, I think the biggest flaw with 8th/9th is that it threw far too much good stuff out, along with the bad.
USRs are gone and instead each model has a different name (and sometimes even description) for what amounts to the same ability. This makes the game very awkward in a number of ways.
- It makes it much harder to remember what a given rule does (there's a reason people still talk in the language of USRs).
- It makes it much harder to spot when a similar-looking rule differs from a common one. In the past, a model with a different Deep Strike ability would have either an ability with a different name (so you'd know immediately that it was different) or else Deep Strike but with a second rule to amend it. Now, though, every model has a different name for deep strike, so it's easily to skim read such rules with the assumption that it's just another deep strike rule, and inadvertently miss a small but important difference.
- It makes it much more awkward to write rules that refer to what were once common rules. e.g. in the past you could have referred specifically to FNP or Deep Strike, now you have to refer to 'rules that let a model ignore wounds' or 'rules that let a model deploy on the table after the first battle turn' or some other very awkward language.
- It means that there's often no common language. In the past, you'd know that FNP meant FNP. Now, though, you often end up looking at two rules with very similar wording and trying to work out whether the difference is intentional or just the result of them being written by different writers without any sort of agreed language/format for rule text.
In short, it creates far more problems than it could ever hope to solve, whereas most of the original problems with USRs could have been solved by just writing out the text on each model's datasheet.
The psychic phase has been simplified but perhaps a little too much (probably because it just pinched yet another magic system from Fantasy - this time the heavily trimmed-down AoS one). All the different weapon profiles are gone, now it's mortal wounds and more mortal wounds. It's better than the ridiculousness of spells like Invisibility but it doesn't leave much room for creativity. Also, the system is quite weird in that you just throw two dice and hope to achieve the target number. No resources are expended beyond an arbitrary cast limit per turn and there are almost no choices to be made. At least with the 7th edition system you could add more dice, increasing the chance of succeeding but also increasing the chance of Perils. Now spells have different cast values but you can't do anything about it because your dice are always fixed anyway. All things considered, I find myself wondering why we need to have a psychic phase at all - it seems you could have just as easily gone back to the pre-7th model, where units just make a Ld test to cast a psychic power.
Initiative is gone completely and instead we have a mess of 'always strikes first' and 'always strikes last'. Resolving combats without those rules is even worse, as you have ludicrous situations where selecting a unit to fight causes an entirely different unit, in an entirely different combat, to fight more slowly. But apparently this is an improvement for some reason.
Morale is basically gone, with Pinning and Falling Back being gone entirely. Now when a unit fails a morale test some of its members just vanish into the aether.
Transports can't deploy passengers when they move, thus negating the point of most transports even existing (plus fire-points are inexplicably gone - so either your transport is open-topped or else its just a mobile brick).
Stratagems, Dear, God, stratagems. If there is anything current 40k did not need, it was Stratagems. I note that this idea came, as so many seem to, from importing yet more stuff from Age of Sigmar. Except that Age of Sigmar took the wise decision to make Command Points usable by HQs for specific command abilities. 40k on the other hand decided that HQs would be entirely divorced from CPs (why would HQs have any strategic or command role, after all?) and so instead tied CPs to a card game that feels entirely disconnected from anything in the rulebook or on the table. It also gives us even more ludicrous scenarios - like one unit being unable to throw their grenades because a different unit threw theirs.
What's worse is that Stratagems also seem to have eaten a not insignificant chunk of what used to be actual options and wargear. So now many units have few options and instead rely on specific stratagems for that purpose, thus restricting the ability to personalise individual units.
Speaking of which, 8th removed character's being able to join squads and instead made characters very hard to target. The main issue was that the arbitrary cut-off limit meant monster-characters could hide behind basic infantry, since it was based on wounds and the wounds characteristic had almost no relation to the actual size of a given model. 9th ""fixed"" this not by using a different statistic (such as strength or toughness or one of the billion keywords that has been added to the game) but instead by requiring characters to be stupidly close to a unit in order to gain any protection. This means stuff like Death Jesters and other characters that are meant to be lone-snipers or lone-hunters now can't act as they're supposed to. But hey, at least Guilliman can still hide behind guardsmen, and that's all that matters.
Cover is still negligible, especially as there's no longer any penalty for firing at an obscured target. Combined with fewer penalties for movement and smaller boards, this typically means units can just shoot at whatever the hell they want with zero regard for intervening models and even intervening terrain.
I should say that it's by no means all bad. 9th at least doesn't have random psychic power selection or warlord trait selection. The wound allocation system is vastly better (though I do think it would be wise to future-proof it, so that the game doesn't break if a unit has more than one wounded model at a given time). And all in all it's at least a more functional game than 9th was (as it doesn't require significant house-ruling before you can even play).
However, I fear that in an effort to get away from 7th, 8th/9th ended up throwing out a lot of stuff that was actually functional (or which required only some minor tweaks to make it functional). Not that it's necessarily a worse game in and of itself, just I think it represents a bad direction for 40k to be heading in - especially as the game seems to be increasingly getting away from what's happening on the table being the key factor in who wins. Especially with the advent of stratagems, it seems we're really not far off from just turning 40k into a full-on card game and abandoning the board and minis entirely.
Exalted.
Perhaps GW is seeing the writing on the wall regarding 3D printing and its actual and future potential impact on GW's business model. For years GW used to say "we are a model company first" implying that the rules for its games took a backseat in its priorities. But with the rise of 3D printing and the continued success of the Magic The Gathering card game (which really keeps most FLGS in business), maybe the shift in GW's games towards more of a "card game" format with ongoing "supplements/expansions" has been intentional with the end result being games where GW's plastic models ("expensive chits" to quote a post from another recent discussion) are really no longer necessary. In the past decade GW has made some significant changes and legal defenses to its IP. It is my belief that they see a shift from a business model focused primarily on selling model kits to a business model focused on selling gaming rules, cards, books (including recent comic books), movies, and TV shows utilizing their IP.
I think I disagree with most of what Vipoid laid out, but he's right on USRs, transports and morale. Those are really the only things that have been done better in the past and not been replaced by something more elegant.
Especially the psychic phase since 8th is a relief, it was a total mess in 7th right in the core rules and remarkable for the bloat of that edition: Lots of roling, incredibly unbalanced (hello invisibility), 0 player interaction (because let's face it, you could only ever deny with a yahtzee) and every psyker was reduced to a battery for some other psyker in your army. There could be more powers you can cast more than once like smite in 9th, but that's more a problem of psyker heavy armies or games with 3000+ points.
Galas wrote: ...But it was a reply to AnomanderRake trying to discredit the criticism of 7th based in how many games people played of it.
I'm attempting to question whether the "7th was an unplayable shithole" crowd played 7th because the kinds of things I hear from them are the furthest from my experience of any anecdotes I hear on this website. I don't agree with people who like 8th/9th, but we're more often than not disagreeing on opinion over what's fun while with the anti-7th crowd we're often disagreeing on some pretty fundamental facts like "how big the rulebook was". I'm not trying to claim that nobody's criticism of 7th is fair, I'm questioning whether criticizing 7th for consisting entirely of armies of D-weapons, 2++ deathstars, and free transports run with five hundred pages of rules that you couldn't even attempt to play without memorizing is criticizing 7th at all, or some hypothetical worst-case edition that bears only a superficial resemblance to 7th.
None of my core frustrations with 7th (besides the obvious frustration with Formations as blatantly overpowered sales tactics that got unevenly spread through the various armies while many armies got totally left in the dust with next to none) have anything to do with these weird generalizations, so maybe you'd be interested in responding to some of those.
1) too many mechanics resulted in immediate breakpoints with incredible spikes in effectiveness
'doubling out' against a multiwound target would immediately double or triple the effectiveness of a gun. A strength 7 weapon was three times less effective than a strength 8 weapon against tyranid warriors, to cite a common example.
the entire AP system meant that armor was an increasingly 'brittle' stat. Ap5 was so common that sv values of 5+ or 6+ were effectively worthless, while sv values of 3+ or 2+ resulted in the exact same hyper-spike in effectiveness, where a weapon that paid for AP4 got absolutely nothing against a target with sv3+, while a weapon with AP3 killed it essentially no fuss no muss. Given 40k's endemic uncreativity with statlines, that meant that MOST ap3 weaponry would remove something like a space marine with no save roll on a 2+
The cover save system coupled with the very common Ignores Cover USR meant cover was similarly binary. You either always get a 4+ (maybe you could get a 5+ from Light Cover or something, honestly I don't recall because 7th ed was an "Everything Counts As One Terrain Type" edition of 40k) or you get nothing, you are dead, good day sir.
The vehicle damage table coupled with hull points resulted in two instant breakpoints for vehicles. Hull point values were very low, so a high-rof weapon that could eek out a glance on a 6 meant that weapon would become IMMENSELY more powerful vs just one point of strength lower, where it was totally, utterly useless, could not hurt the target no way no how. And then when you look at dedicated AT weaponry, you'd roll on yet another table of 'mildly inconvenienced, or instantantly dead.'
Once you hit the level of 300pts, you became a "super heavy" which got you rules bonuses so collossal that a model that juuuuust eked over that bar could just absolutely wipe the fething floor with 3-4 enemy models that juuuust came in under that bar. A single imperial knight with its D-strength sword, immunity to the VDT, ability to fall back and shoot, and stomps could absolutely clobber several Gorkanauts with their strength 10 weaponry and very good odds of being summarily kaboomed at several points during the Knight's attacks.
All these many breakpoints resulted in main problem number 2 that I had with 7th ed:
2) way too many units paid for way too many easily invalidated stat numbers or worthless weapons.
high initiative models with no assault grenades. multiwound models with low toughness. any model with a 5+ or 6+sv. Shortrange high-sv infantry who ended up riding around in transports 99% of the time because they had the lifespan of a snowflake in a desert if you tried to walk them up the field with an enemy obviously salivating at the prospect of getting to ace them on a 2+ to wound with their anti-elite weaponry. Weapons you pay for that were worthless because you either always just fired your special/heavy weapon out of the hatch of your transport, or because you couldn't split fire and you HAD to pay for weapons with different roles (Defiler, anybody?). Vehicles like leman russes that had huge front armor who could just get instantly booped by a single powerfist in melee because they have av10 in the back.
3) highly variable random rolls played a massive role in who won and who lost
And people think first turn in 9th is bad! 7th featured the 'fun' choice of missions between Eternal War with such hits as Emperor's Tie and whatever the kill points one was called AKA "is one player playing a horde army and the other playing an elite army? Either roll up another mission or the second guy instantly wins!", or you could play Maelstrom of War and just...hope you drew the cards for the objectives on your side of the board while your opponent drew the cards for your side as well.
You also randomly rolled for warlord traits, and randomly rolled for psychic powers. Will my psyker in this game be casting Invisibility, rendering his unit immune to all template attacks and making all to-hit rolls only work on a 6? or will I be working with Mental Fortitude, allowing my statistically probably already immune to morale unit to...regroup automatically should they fail morale? THIS D6 ROLL PRE-GAME SHALL DECIDE!
And then at the end of the game, assuming of course the battle wasn't already won or lost by tabling turn 4-5 like most games were, you generally just...determined the winner by the results of random game length. Just a good ol, d6 roll at the end of the game to see who wins, that's pretty satisfying.
4) the unfairness between armies was just more...fundamental.
Some armies got to have bonuses for formations. Others had complete, total ass formations, or just none at all. Some got to layer those formations together in decurion super-detachments. Some...could not. A couple armies got army-wide rule bonuses that worked like subfaction traits do now that they...very, very dubiously "Paid For" (that was marines, and later on in the edition chaos marines) while every other army didn't get that. One army at the tail end of the edition got to attack twice just as a core thing they got to do, and paid the same points for the units that they got to mix'n'match from other armies.
Those are the four main reasons I prefer 9th ed structurally over 7th.
Do these seem like disingenuous complaints from someone who never played it? Because I would say I'm probably comfortably in the 99th percentile of 'humans who played the most games of 7th edition 40k on the planet.' I basically played weekly like clockwork all the way straight through the entire life of the edition.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Note: Disagree with vipoid on a lot of stuff, but I have to agree with a lot of what they wrote. Good analysis of what I would like 9th ed to do better, and what I disliked about 7th. If I wanted to create my perfect, ideal edition of 40k, I would start with the core of 9th, not with the core of 7th.
basically I'd port in old-style morale, but keep the new school policy of 'not everybody and their brother gets a blanket morale exception', I'd rework transports to actually function, make the boards way bigger, add in a simplified flanking mechanic and hugely buff cover/reduce LOS to make maneuver matter more, cut out or greatly reduce stratagems and re-introduce the capabilities leached from units by strats into unit datasheets as limited use abilities. I'd also rework various rules to get rid of a lot of mortal wounds - reworking damaging psychic powers to just....be...basically regular attacks for the most part, because why can't they just be that?
The core ways that units move around on the board, interact with each other, the way stats interact, the save system, all that I vastly prefer to previous editions of the game and the way theyve handled that. I think buffing up cover and cutting out strats would go a massively long way to making 9th ed's deadliness problem go away on its own, and increasing board sizes (with corresponding buffs to transports to allow them to get units where they need to be) would allow higher range to mitigate some of the issues 9th has currently with the hyper-power of suicidal close range units.
I played 4 games of 7th.
1 was against a Space Marine player that brought a "normal" list, it was fun.
3 were against the bestest cheese, Wraithknights in one, Tzeentch summon chaining, and Whitescars/Knights buddies.
In those three games I killed one Eldar jetbike (if you discount summoned daemons) and got tabled every game.
Yeah, 7th was bad.
basically I'd port in old-style morale, but keep the new school policy of 'not everybody and their brother gets a blanket morale exception', I'd rework transports to actually function, make the boards way bigger, add in a simplified flanking mechanic and hugely buff cover/reduce LOS to make maneuver matter more, cut out or greatly reduce stratagems and re-introduce the capabilities leached from units by strats into unit datasheets as limited use abilities. I'd also rework various rules to get rid of a lot of mortal wounds - reworking damaging psychic powers to just....be...basically regular attacks for the most part, because why can't they just be that?
The core ways that units move around on the board, interact with each other, the way stats interact, the save system, all that I vastly prefer to previous editions of the game and the way theyve handled that. I think buffing up cover and cutting out strats would go a massively long way to making 9th ed's deadliness problem go away on its own, and increasing board sizes (with corresponding buffs to transports to allow them to get units where they need to be) would allow higher range to mitigate some of the issues 9th has currently with the hyper-power of suicidal close range units.
As you say, we don't always agree, but I certainly think your suggestions here would make for a marked improvement to the current game.
Also, thanks for reminding me about some of the other issues with 7th that I'd forgotten about.
I believe one of the biggest reasons people seems 8th and 9th in a more positive light is that , at least now, you wait at best 1-3 years for your new codex or codex expansion, GW actually puts FAQ's that fix things, and they make regular balance patches.
I have never, a single time, had a rule discusion playing 8th or 9th, and the couple of gray areas, were generally know by the community or easy to reference.
I don't know how it was in 7th because I didn't played 40k that much in that age, but I remember fantasy 6-7-8 editions, and it was a mess. You didn't had a tournament without people yelling at each other about a rule dispute.
Of course, 7th was the death rattle of an edition cycle, whereas 9th is relatively early on; which hardly bodes well...
Only reason 7th had decent core rules is they were 5th's with more crap bolted on.
Something that has crossed my mind is that the reason GW has split the USRs the way they did was to allow them to better tweak individual units as needed. We're seeing that with weapons as well with things like Artificer Storm Bolters for Sisters that allow them to be treated differently than normal ones. It does add tons more possible sources of clunk to the game, but it also gives them more levers to pull when making adjustments.
I didn't actually like the old morale system.
It was too binary, you would either be pinned or you wouldn't, and there was no in between.
Other games with a morale mechanic seem much more procedural.
For example, in Legion or Dust, every time you get shot you get a pinned marker. You get adverse effects when those start to pile up and exceed your leadership.
Firstly, that means you feel like you've achieved something even if your attack did little damage - you gave them a pinned token.
But it also allows you to represent brave units with high leadership values without them just laughing off the mechanic entirely.
Only reason 7th had decent core rules is they were 5th's with more crap bolted on.
Yes.
ClockworkZion wrote: Something that has crossed my mind is that the reason GW has split the USRs the way they did was to allow them to better tweak individual units as needed. We're seeing that with weapons as well with things like Artificer Storm Bolters for Sisters that allow them to be treated differently than normal ones. It does add tons more possible sources of clunk to the game, but it also gives them more levers to pull when making adjustments.
GW have been very upfront about telling us why they cut so much out of the core rulebook - simply to make the core rules shorter - 'accessibility, preciseness and mechanical robustness'.
basically I'd port in old-style morale, but keep the new school policy of 'not everybody and their brother gets a blanket morale exception', I'd rework transports to actually function, make the boards way bigger, add in a simplified flanking mechanic and hugely buff cover/reduce LOS to make maneuver matter more, cut out or greatly reduce stratagems and re-introduce the capabilities leached from units by strats into unit datasheets as limited use abilities. I'd also rework various rules to get rid of a lot of mortal wounds - reworking damaging psychic powers to just....be...basically regular attacks for the most part, because why can't they just be that?
The core ways that units move around on the board, interact with each other, the way stats interact, the save system, all that I vastly prefer to previous editions of the game and the way theyve handled that. I think buffing up cover and cutting out strats would go a massively long way to making 9th ed's deadliness problem go away on its own, and increasing board sizes (with corresponding buffs to transports to allow them to get units where they need to be) would allow higher range to mitigate some of the issues 9th has currently with the hyper-power of suicidal close range units.
As you say, we don't always agree, but I certainly think your suggestions here would make for a marked improvement to the current game.
Also, thanks for reminding me about some of the other issues with 7th that I'd forgotten about.
Well, if your group is amenable to houserules, flanking, better cover and morale are three things its incredibly easy to slot in...and half my games these days are with folks who haven't played in ages. I just start out the game by asking 'hey, I know its been a while for both of us, you wanna just not play with command points?' and I end up playing without them most of the time.
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kirotheavenger wrote: I didn't actually like the old morale system.
It was too binary, you would either be pinned or you wouldn't, and there was no in between.
Other games with a morale mechanic seem much more procedural.
For example, in Legion or Dust, every time you get shot you get a pinned marker. You get adverse effects when those start to pile up and exceed your leadership.
Firstly, that means you feel like you've achieved something even if your attack did little damage - you gave them a pinned token.
But it also allows you to represent brave units with high leadership values without them just laughing off the mechanic entirely.
I think part of the problem is morale as a concept has always been kind of 'weird' in warhammer. So many things are described as basically fearless, emotionless, mindless, indoctrinated, fanatical, etc. Its like a trait of 3/4 of the armies in the game.
The best morale systems ive ended up playing with have always been in historical games, where its' an accepted fact that everyone involved is a regular human, with regular human fears and psychology. Like the WW2 game I've been playing most recently, where breaking a unit and getting htem to fall back is equivalent victory-point wise to killing a unit, and you always have the option to take suppressive fire - which will very very rarely cause any damage, but doesn't require you to successfully spot the opposing unit, just shoot in their general direction and cause pinnng/morale failure. That results in a wargame where skirmishes and battles very very rarely involve a side getting wiped off the map, and much more commonly a 'beaten' detachment is totally pinned down, hunkering in foxholes not doing anything useful.
Perhaps GW is seeing the writing on the wall regarding 3D printing and its actual and future potential impact on GW's business model. For years GW used to say "we are a model company first" implying that the rules for its games took a backseat in its priorities. But with the rise of 3D printing and the continued success of the Magic The Gathering card game (which really keeps most FLGS in business), maybe the shift in GW's games towards more of a "card game" format with ongoing "supplements/expansions" has been intentional with the end result being games where GW's plastic models ("expensive chits" to quote a post from another recent discussion) are really no longer necessary. In the past decade GW has made some significant changes and legal defenses to its IP. It is my belief that they see a shift from a business model focused primarily on selling model kits to a business model focused on selling gaming rules, cards, books (including recent comic books), movies, and TV shows utilizing their IP.
3D printing isn't going to match the scale of production nor will it be able to anticipate new releases. 60% of GW's sales are new releases. It also competes with secondary market, alternate manufacturers, 15 to 20% discounts, and time/impatience.
GW have been very upfront about telling us why they cut so much out of the core rulebook - simply to make the core rules shorter - 'accessibility, preciseness and mechanical robustness'.
And to make people buy multiple books instead of one or two per edition. Why sell a marine player one book, when you can make him buy 2 for the army rules and then additional ones for core rules, patch and FAQ/Errata etc It is good for business.
GW have been very upfront about telling us why they cut so much out of the core rulebook - simply to make the core rules shorter - 'accessibility, preciseness and mechanical robustness'.
And to make people buy multiple books instead of one or two per edition. Why sell a marine player one book, when you can make him buy 2 for the army rules and then additional ones for core rules, patch and FAQ/Errata etc It is good for business.
They were flogging a small librarium's worth of books to each player long before they reduced the core rules to four pages.
I put "7th's core rules were better, but the bloat was worse".
Because the bloat really was gak in 7th. Like it's bad in 9th, but 7th was TRASH. HH is much better, anchored in a slightly altered set of core rules but without ANY of the bloat.
That said, I recognize that some people want a (war)GAME out of 40k, rather than a WAR(game), so they didn't like the rules. That's fair, but I prefer WARgaming in my wargames.
HH is much better, anchored in a slightly altered set of core rules but without ANY of the bloat.
There are (/have been) how many HH black/red books now..?
Two for all the legions, one for mechanicum, one including militia, auxilia, and knights wrapped into one book. So four books total of the "gamer" redbooks.
Custodes are in a black book, along with the other Talons units (Sisters of Silence). Daemons are in a black book.
So you have four red books and two black books, if you want to know all the armies in the game.
There's a smattering of datasheets in other black books too, which is a problem I agree. But they're only on Book 8, and the red books were released after Book 5, so you'd really only need Books 6, 7, and 8 for those units. Custodes and Daemons are in that group, so you're really just looking at 3 black books instead of 2.
So for everything you'd need for the entirety of every faction in the game, you'd need 3 black books and 4 red books. OH, and the main rule book.
GW have been very upfront about telling us why they cut so much out of the core rulebook - simply to make the core rules shorter - 'accessibility, preciseness and mechanical robustness'.
And to make people buy multiple books instead of one or two per edition. Why sell a marine player one book, when you can make him buy 2 for the army rules and then additional ones for core rules, patch and FAQ/Errata etc It is good for business.
That has zero to do with the core rules reductions. The rules bloat happens independently of the core book. At least with the current rules, you can download the free core rules PDF and skip the BRB.
HH is much better, anchored in a slightly altered set of core rules but without ANY of the bloat.
There are (/have been) how many HH black/red books now..?
Two for all the legions, one for mechanicum, one including militia, auxilia, and knights wrapped into one book. So four books total of the "gamer" redbooks.
Custodes are in a black book, along with the other Talons units (Sisters of Silence).
Daemons are in a black book.
So you have four red books and two black books, if you want to know all the armies in the game.
There's a smattering of datasheets in other black books too, which is a problem I agree. But they're only on Book 8, and the red books were released after Book 5, so you'd really only need Books 6, 7, and 8 for those units. Custodes
and Daemons are in that group, so you're really just looking at 3 black books instead of 2.
So for everything you'd need for the entirety of every faction in the game, you'd need 3 black books and 4 red books. OH, and the main rule book.
I'd argue that books 1 to 5 need to be counted too, since they were required before being superseded.
Now, obviously that's better than 40K has been for many editions (and current Necromunda etc.); but for a game which is still in it's first edition, and with so few factions (Marines only count as one!), that's still a huge number of books!
Lord Damocles wrote: ...I'd argue that books 1 to 5 need to be counted too, since they were required before being superseded.
Now, obviously that's better than 40K has been for many editions (and current Necromunda etc.); but for a game which is still in it's first edition, and with so few factions (Marines only count as one!), that's still a huge number of books!
It's in its second edition (it was originally published for the 6e core rules). As for claiming you should count books 1-5 because they were required at one point that is in no way true; if that's your measuring standard you have to at minimum double every Codex required for an edition of 40k because you needed the 8e book before the 9e book was released.
Mind also that depending on how you count that's eight books for either seven factions (SM, Mechanicum, Militia, Solar Auxilia, Questoris, Talons, Daemons) or 27 factions (18 Legions, Blackshields, Taghmata, Reductor, Cybernetica, Militia, Solar Auxilia, Questoris, Talons, Daemons), by comparison to 40k's ~40 books for ~30 factions (counting sub-factions as separate "factions" only if they have distinct datasheets not shared with the core list.)
(I'm not counting Knights-Errant, Inquisition, Assassins, etc. as 'factions' because that would be silly.)
HH is much better, anchored in a slightly altered set of core rules but without ANY of the bloat.
There are (/have been) how many HH black/red books now..?
Two for all the legions, one for mechanicum, one including militia, auxilia, and knights wrapped into one book. So four books total of the "gamer" redbooks.
Custodes are in a black book, along with the other Talons units (Sisters of Silence).
Daemons are in a black book.
So you have four red books and two black books, if you want to know all the armies in the game.
There's a smattering of datasheets in other black books too, which is a problem I agree. But they're only on Book 8, and the red books were released after Book 5, so you'd really only need Books 6, 7, and 8 for those units. Custodes
and Daemons are in that group, so you're really just looking at 3 black books instead of 2.
So for everything you'd need for the entirety of every faction in the game, you'd need 3 black books and 4 red books. OH, and the main rule book.
I'd argue that books 1 to 5 need to be counted too, since they were required before being superseded.
Now, obviously that's better than 40K has been for many editions (and current Necromunda etc.); but for a game which is still in it's first edition, and with so few factions (Marines only count as one!), that's still a huge number of books!
If we are counting superseded books, should we could all prior superseded 40k codexes as well?
Plus, of course it is in its first edition. And counting marines as all one faction is a bit disingenuous. It is like treating Soviets and Germans as all one faction because their basic infantry and tanks are mostly the same.
Alpha Legion vs Space Wolves is not a mirror matchup.
Galas wrote: I believe one of the biggest reasons people seems 8th and 9th in a more positive light is that , at least now, you wait at best 1-3 years for your new codex or codex expansion, GW actually puts FAQ's that fix things, and they make regular balance patches.
Massive double edged sword. GW's 40k books aren't worth the paper they're printed on. Even less so if they get replaced in two years (the cards and other extraneous bull gak only makes it worse).
Galas wrote: I believe one of the biggest reasons people seems 8th and 9th in a more positive light is that , at least now, you wait at best 1-3 years for your new codex or codex expansion, GW actually puts FAQ's that fix things, and they make regular balance patches.
Massive double edged sword. GW's 40k books aren't worth the paper they're printed on. Even less so if they get replaced in two years (the cards and other extraneous bull gak only makes it worse).
At this point I'd like them to shift to the books being lore books filled with past art and AoS style painting guides (heck throw in some narrative missions too for good measure) and just move all the datasheets online for free.
(I mean, they already do, sure, but putting all the rules up for free minus the points is a dick move with AoS, and it'd be a dick move with 40k as well)
H.B.M.C. wrote: And then the points costs would cost you money.
(I mean, they already do, sure, but putting all the rules up for free minus the points is a dick move with AoS, and it'd be a dick move with 40k as well)
Yeah, making points free is needed too. The lower the bar to get into the game, the more people will play as well as pick up new armies.
I'm just one dude. And you can see the difference- I've ALREADY bought two more books than I would have if rules were free. Don't get me wrong; I like the idea in a pure ideal world, but if they did it for 10th it would be a death spiral that ensured that if 11th edition ever happened at all, it might be the 5 faction game that some of the more balance focussed players seem to want.
Because once profit drops enough that people sell shares, investors won't bank on IP, so licensing starts to die too.
PenitentJake wrote: I don't do polls, but I think GW would be lucky to keep 25% of their book sales if dexes were fluff, painting guides art and photos alone.
The point was that the books could be more Black Library products instead of being banked on being a key part of their profit margin. But who knows, maybe codex sales really are an important part of the sales strategy.
Of course, 7th was the death rattle of an edition cycle, whereas 9th is relatively early on; which hardly bodes well...
Only reason 7th had decent core rules is they were 5th's with more crap bolted on.
And to be honest, almost every single thing they bolted on made it worse than 5th.
If someone argued 5th was a better edition than 9th? Sure, I can get behind that. If they wrote rules as well as they do today, almost all of 5ths problems would disappear?
But 7th? Feth no, worst edition with no competition.
Galas wrote: I believe one of the biggest reasons people seems 8th and 9th in a more positive light is that , at least now, you wait at best 1-3 years for your new codex or codex expansion, GW actually puts FAQ's that fix things, and they make regular balance patches.
Massive double edged sword. GW's 40k books aren't worth the paper they're printed on. Even less so if they get replaced in two years (the cards and other extraneous bull gak only makes it worse).
Are you implying that 7th edition's books were worth the paper they were printed on? Because I would respectfully have to disagree
Not at all. It's just less so now because of the life cycle of how quickly they are replaced.
I bought four sets of cards in 8th Ed, secure in the fact that Chaos and Marines had just got a Codex, they weren't going to re-do the Ultramarines, and Tyranids were a long way off.
The Marine ones aren't valid anymore, and it only took a few months for that to happen. Last time I buy their damned cards.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Not at all. It's just less so now because of the life cycle of how quickly they are replaced.
I bought four sets of cards in 8th Ed, secure in the fact that Chaos and Marines had just got a Codex, they weren't going to re-do the Ultramarines, and Tyranids were a long way off.
The Marine ones aren't valid anymore, and it only took a few months for that to happen. Last time I buy their damned cards.
Yeah, I totally agree with that - I'm always using those cards to keep track of stratagems and powers and when they weren't updated with PA it annoyed me to no end.
And it would be so ridiculously easy to keep them up to date. Just throw small packs of updated cards in the white dwarf that go with the semi-annual big FAQs, or maybe just sell them from the store directly.
Yes, that's an exaggeration, but the amount of extra widgets and doohickeys with 40k is worrisome. We're no where near FFG's token madness, but I'd rather we not start down that path.
I still have that box of all those tokens made from the same material as necron green rods you needed to keep track of unit status in 5th (falling back, pinned, smoke, wrecked, etc)
kirotheavenger wrote: I imagine codexes are a pretty significant part of GW's sales.
It's basically an extra box that everyone playing that faction has to buy.
But if people didn't have to buy codices, do you think they'd spend less on 40k or just buy more models instead?
I don't know about you but I don't give myself a separate budget for 40k models and 40k books.
kirotheavenger wrote: I imagine codexes are a pretty significant part of GW's sales.
It's basically an extra box that everyone playing that faction has to buy.
But if people didn't have to buy codices, do you think they'd spend less on 40k or just buy more models instead?
I don't know about you but I don't give myself a separate budget for 40k models and 40k books.
This. Many people just pay for what they consider necessary, they don't spend a fixed amount of money every month regardless of what they actually feel they need.
If I wanted some specific models I'd get them anyway, just maybe not from day 1. If I could save money from a book I won't definitely invest the same amount of cash into something I don't need/want.
I'll admit that I buy one codex for each of my armies because I like to have them in my bookshelf. And for that, 8th ones were better than 9th ones because they had "bestiaries" and more fluff.
I have the 9th rulebook because I bought indomitus. Thats the only rulebook I have bought for this edition. I didn't bought any PA book.
I played my farsight enclaves list with PA rules for months without a problem.
Yeah yeah "yo oh yo oh! And a bottle of rum!" but I sleep without any kind of problem. I pay good money for my miniatures to GW or GW 3rd parties. And then for the books I feel are worth it. But GW is not gonna trap me in their paper release cycle designed to milk their customers.
I have never encountered a single person, tournament TO, player, judge, that told me anything for not having a physical copy of the rules in all this years. I made the mistake of buying a physical book to play my AoS khorne in a AoS tournament and then no one asked to see if I had it and I have never even used it once to reference any kind of rule.
When I'm on my PC, I'll ratter open the PDF files of one of my codex to look for a rule, or go to wahapedia, etc... than get off my chair and take the physical book from the bookshelf. Is just so much more convenient.
Jidmah wrote: I still have that box of all those tokens made from the same material as necron green rods you needed to keep track of unit status in 5th (falling back, pinned, smoke, wrecked, etc)
Those worked better than vehicle damage dice at least.
I used to keep three armies - Chaos, Orks, Tyranids - up to date. Bought a pamphlet-format faction rules volume that lasted years, and a unit or two. Played games with people who were building armies from nothing, taught new and returning players how to play.
The churn rate of these A4 hardcover art books is so rapid that it’s simply not viable for me to bother trying to keep up with them any more. It’s like a subscription model, but with coffee table Banksy catalogues you’re expected to throw into your figure case. The sourcing of a transnational corporation’s product testing work to volunteers is making rules systems that feel massively distorted towards “competitive” play, with “balancing” mechanisms that make me feel punished for maining a Daemons & Mortals list because someone once won a tournament nobody remembers with a coalition of space marines and guardsmen.
I’ve started adapting my Word Bearers to 30K. I’ll play that until GW’s addiction to bloat creeps in to that and runs it into the ground.
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