With 10th edition likely in the works by now (if not in playtesting) the thought about what I want to see from the game has been percolating in my brain for a while so I thought I'd share what's in my mind and see what others are wishlisting for. This is less a wishlist of how 40k as a whole should be designed and more one based on the framework of 9th that the game should operate on.
For starters I want to see a vast reduction in strats. We've seen GW invalidate parts of AoS books with the edition change (taking away the battalions in the old books) so it's not like this is impossible for them to do. Ideally I'd prefer if they adopted AoS 2.0's approach and limit stratagems to being on character sheets and the core rulebook. This would let characters work as force multipliers in ways beyond "re-roll dice" as well as create interesting avenues for design.
I also want a drastic reduction in the use of tgehe Core keyword. Preferably I would like to see.it be limited to only troops with different HQ characters giving it to different units if they're the army's warlord. This would encourage builds around army archetypes involving that warlord.
Named characters should count as the warlord for the purpose of having their warlord trait, even if they're not the warlord. This is to pair with the above core change to allow people to build armies that lean into specific builds while still letting them bring named characters like Ghaz, Abbadon or Guilliman who may not strictly fit that build but can bemefit the army in other ways.
Lastly bring back retinue upgrades for characters instead of the current bodyguard rule. Let the character lose the character rule and gain ablative wounds (while keeping any auras limited to their model alone) as an alternatice to the rather janky way bodyguard functions.
So those are the big changes to the game I want to see next edition, and I'm sure people won't agree with everything here, but I'm interested in what's been percolating in other people's brains for how they want the game to shape up next edition.
Remove secondaries, no Chapter Doctrine or "purity" style rules, cut way back on strats, rework aura abilities to only effect models in range not units, rework [Core] to be more thematic, more thematic rules than +1 to this or reroll that. Probably rework mortal wounds to be psychic phase because they just feel like they're being thrown onto any old thing to make it extra super awesome, instead of representative of anything.
Mostly just strip out the bloat and bring back thematic special rules instead of generic tourney player pleasing rules that should be easy to balance but are beyond GWs ability to do so. I would rather have a fun unbalanced game than a bland unbalanced game.
Less focus on tournaments and more focus on narrative play. Build on the Crusade system and maybe even do specific battles/scenarios, even ones with asymmetrical balance. Even bring back legacy conflicts like Badab, Vraks, Cadia, Baal, and the like. Give us new stuff too.
More focus in articles on building narratively themed armies.
If GW isn't going to balance armies fairly anyways, may as well make the game itself fun enough to override the balance issues.
ClockworkZion wrote: With 10th edition likely in the works by now (if not in playtesting) the thought about what I want to see from the game has been percolating in my brain for a while so I thought I'd share what's in my mind and see what others are wishlisting for. This is less a wishlist of how 40k as a whole should be designed and more one based on the framework of 9th that the game should operate on.
For starters I want to see a vast reduction in strats. We've seen GW invalidate parts of AoS books with the edition change (taking away the battalions in the old books) so it's not like this is impossible for them to do. Ideally I'd prefer if they adopted AoS 2.0's approach and limit stratagems to being on character sheets and the core rulebook. This would let characters work as force multipliers in ways beyond "re-roll dice" as well as create interesting avenues for design.
I also want a drastic reduction in the use of tgehe Core keyword. Preferably I would like to see.it be limited to only troops with different HQ characters giving it to different units if they're the army's warlord. This would encourage builds around army archetypes involving that warlord.
Named characters should count as the warlord for the purpose of having their warlord trait, even if they're not the warlord. This is to pair with the above core change to allow people to build armies that lean into specific builds while still letting them bring named characters like Ghaz, Abbadon or Guilliman who may not strictly fit that build but can bemefit the army in other ways.
Lastly bring back retinue upgrades for characters instead of the current bodyguard rule. Let the character lose the character rule and gain ablative wounds (while keeping any auras limited to their model alone) as an alternatice to the rather janky way bodyguard functions.
So those are the big changes to the game I want to see next edition, and I'm sure people won't agree with everything here, but I'm interested in what's been percolating in other people's brains for how they want the game to shape up next edition.
Specifically commenting on the bodyguard changes: The problem with that as far as bodyguard goes is that it makes it largely pointless for any character that already benefits from Look out Sir!. You'll very rarely be in a situation where you aren't benefiting from LoS but ARE benefiting from the bodyguard Ablatives. Especially since there really aren't any meaningful sniper units around anymore.
This is fine if that's what you're going for, but leaves some units that currently rely on the bodyguard rule to be worth their points (SoB Sacresancts probably being the seminal example) in the lurch. A sacresanct is 16pts with the bodyguard rule allowing Celestine to make her full movement and still be untargetable. Without the bodyguard rule as-is the model probably isn't worth the 14 it was before.
Then you have units like the regular Celestians that are terrible even WITH the OP bodyguard rule. Without it, they might as well not even exist in the codex.
For 10th edition: If they're aggressive about their next balance pass, I'd like to see it wait 2 years from the last codex to release (supplement books and boxset models should be fine). If they pull another CA2022+February Balance pass, there's no reason to wait on it.
I'd like them to cull all of the unused stratagems. Every book has probably 10+ strats that never get used. Just cut them. Any stratagems that only work on a specific unit should become once per game abilities.
Remove CORE. It's a failed mechanic that offers nothing but an arbitrary nerf to some (but not all) vehicles.
Everything else I want out of the game is mostly army specific. Specifically nerfs to Tau.
Alternative activations or a reaction mechanic like rumored in HH would be needed for me to buy into a new edition, my group otherwize decided to stick to 9th or grimdark future.
They should just refine 9th though. True narrative scenario support instead of the overly generic mission style, Updated digital datasheets to the worst excesses of no models no rules (Plague Marines etc), toning down lethality (change cap on modifiers for example).
A new head of rules writing from outside the company.
Otherwise you just keep going round and round in circles. "Oh look they introduced some new sensible mechanics for 10th! Boy, it sure would be a shame if the same lazy hacks ruin it half way through the edition as usual. Gee whiz, guess what happened?"
Hmm. Specifics aside (though I'd be happy if they walked away from 8e/9e), they absolutely definitely need a design document for the entire edition and the ability to stick to it for the duration.
What are the goals? Expected outputs? Damage, durability, all of that. It must be set in stone before any writing gets done (codex or core rules), and it has to be drilled into the heads of anyone writing a book for the edition, whether its day 1 or the last day.
Arcanis161 wrote: Less focus on tournaments and more focus on narrative play. Build on the Crusade system and maybe even do specific battles/scenarios, even ones with asymmetrical balance. Even bring back legacy conflicts like Badab, Vraks, Cadia, Baal, and the like. Give us new stuff too.
More focus in articles on building narratively themed armies.
If GW isn't going to balance armies fairly anyways, may as well make the game itself fun enough to override the balance issues.
Mostly just strip out the bloat and bring back thematic special rules instead of generic tourney player pleasing rules that should be easy to balance but are beyond GWs ability to do so. I would rather have a fun unbalanced game than a bland unbalanced game.
I wish I lived in whatever magical wonderland you guys are from where GW does things that are good for tournament play. As a tournament player, I absolutely don't see anything GW have done (except MAYBE the missions) that is significantly favorable for tournament play.
Voss wrote: Hmm. Specifics aside (though I'd be happy if they walked away from 8e/9e), they absolutely definitely need a design document for the entire edition and the ability to stick to it for the duration.
What are the goals? Expected outputs? Damage, durability, all of that. It must be set in stone before any writing gets done (codex or core rules), and it has to be drilled into the heads of anyone writing a book for the edition, whether its day 1 or the last day.
This. Codex creep is a plague. Make a plan, stick with it.
I might come back and do a more specific list later, just this point I think needed to be reinforced.
Generally I think we needs less bloat and less lethality. Fewer exceptions to exceptions.
Otherwise you just keep going round and round in circles. "Oh look they introduced some new sensible mechanics for 10th! Boy, it sure would be a shame if the same lazy hacks ruin it half way through the edition as usual. Gee whiz, guess what happened?"
Voss wrote: Hmm. Specifics aside (though I'd be happy if they walked away from 8e/9e), they absolutely definitely need a design document for the entire edition and the ability to stick to it for the duration.
What are the goals? Expected outputs? Damage, durability, all of that. It must be set in stone before any writing gets done (codex or core rules), and it has to be drilled into the heads of anyone writing a book for the edition, whether its day 1 or the last day.
^^^^This.
Also, instead of "cutting back" or "curtailing" strategems, just get rid of them. Zilch, zero, nada. None. Interesting idea, but it didn't work. Put the wargear and unit abilities back on the units themselves, and if anything is "too powerful to be there all of the time", then it's too powerful to be there any of the time. Just don't do those.
Arcanis161 wrote: Less focus on tournaments and more focus on narrative play. Build on the Crusade system and maybe even do specific battles/scenarios, even ones with asymmetrical balance. Even bring back legacy conflicts like Badab, Vraks, Cadia, Baal, and the like. Give us new stuff too.
More focus in articles on building narratively themed armies.
If GW isn't going to balance armies fairly anyways, may as well make the game itself fun enough to override the balance issues.
Mostly just strip out the bloat and bring back thematic special rules instead of generic tourney player pleasing rules that should be easy to balance but are beyond GWs ability to do so. I would rather have a fun unbalanced game than a bland unbalanced game.
I wish I lived in whatever magical wonderland you guys are from where GW does things that are good for tournament play. As a tournament player, I absolutely don't see anything GW have done (except MAYBE the missions) that is significantly favorable for tournament play.
Focus on a thing does not automatically mean the things betterment. I never said tournament play was good, just that it was the focus.
I'd like to see a cutting-back on the amount of layered rules you need to remember- subfaction traits, purity bonus, relics, WLTs, faction-specific army-wide effects, and stratagems.
Tying in with that, I'd like to see more design effort put into gameplay aids. The codices are crap for quick-reference, so I'd like to see some quick reference sheets, cards to represent army-wide abilities and selected WLTs and relics, stuff like that.
Everything just reset and rules release all at once so we don't have codex after codex bloat and power creep.
Also I'd be happy with KT or Apocalypse unit by unit activation vs having to wait a whole hour to do anything. I don't know what genius decided watching someone play for 30min to an hour at a time would be entertaining but I'd like to have a word with him.
Otherwise you just keep going round and round in circles. "Oh look they introduced some new sensible mechanics for 10th! Boy, it sure would be a shame if the same lazy hacks ruin it half way through the edition as usual. Gee whiz, guess what happened?"
this!
they need a professional balance team
That costs money. Good designers don't come cheap, and there's a massive brain drain of English-speaking ones to the US.
Otherwise you just keep going round and round in circles. "Oh look they introduced some new sensible mechanics for 10th! Boy, it sure would be a shame if the same lazy hacks ruin it half way through the edition as usual. Gee whiz, guess what happened?"
this!
they need a professional balance team
That costs money. Good designers don't come cheap, and there's a massive brain drain of English-speaking ones to the US.
Ah, if only GW weren't a non-profit and could make enough to afford hiring more designers!
Spoiler:
Yes, I'm aware it's more involved than simply "hav munny buy desiner", and no, I don't think you're saying that in the spirit of "it costs money therefore it can't/won't/shouldn't happen", but still...
They dont need to invest in good designers and good balance. Nine editions have shown us that people will backdrop truckloads of cash to their door regardless of bad balance. Why change the equation and spend money on better balance when its obviously not needed / wanted?
At this point i REALLY want 5 things to happen (realistic things), personally A 6th that will never happen
Better stratagem system
Better terrain rules
Better Moral system
USR system again
Unit types
Stratagems - are way to over powered, too many or too easily have gotcha moments, and too much to remember for every army, they need to be limited somehow.
Terrain - is just hard to work with right now and many times feels like only Dense and Obscuring even matters, make things like Barricades or Industrial give you a unmodified armor save (that way ignore invul don't work ad ignore cover still works)
Moral - needs to matter almost every turn and not just a sometimes Kill more mechanic. I want checks to make units scared to go do stuff and always needing to make those checks, examples, cold lose ObSec, could not be able to Action, or Advance, must shoot/charge the closest unit, etc... Make the Checks easier to fail as well, maybe 2D6, and -2 if you are under 1/2 strength or something. I want to see a a check fail almost every turn and make it actually scary to fail the check. Make the opponents want to go for failing checks and not just killing only.
USR - is heavily needed, we already have to know all the rules anyways, this will just help balance, example Bodyguard rule can be faqed, Fight first, Fight Last, etc... . We don't need Melta as a USR for example. Just the core 15-20 rules that every army has and could be a problem. aka Fly, Fight First, last, +1atks on charge/charged/HI, Aura rr's, Core, FnP, Ignore Cover, etc... it doesn't need to be much but enough.
Unit Type - rules needs to be larger, we already have them (Infantry, beast, Bike, Vehicle, Monstrous Creature, Walker, Titan, Aircraft) Just add a couple rules to them in this section. This way we can have units like some more balance if we need it.
6th not likely - Damage at the end of the Battle round like APOC.
Arcanis161 wrote: Less focus on tournaments and more focus on narrative play. Build on the Crusade system and maybe even do specific battles/scenarios, even ones with asymmetrical balance. Even bring back legacy conflicts like Badab, Vraks, Cadia, Baal, and the like. Give us new stuff too.
More focus in articles on building narratively themed armies.
If GW isn't going to balance armies fairly anyways, may as well make the game itself fun enough to override the balance issues.
Mostly just strip out the bloat and bring back thematic special rules instead of generic tourney player pleasing rules that should be easy to balance but are beyond GWs ability to do so. I would rather have a fun unbalanced game than a bland unbalanced game.
I wish I lived in whatever magical wonderland you guys are from where GW does things that are good for tournament play.
If the focus on tournament play was good I wouldn't want it changed.
My dream for GW since '93 was a persistent edition, so I don't want a 10th at all. I've always thought that edition churn was the worst thing for any and every game I've played. Whatever I gain from the coolness of a new ruleset (which is by no means a guarantee) never quite makes up for the rage at having to buy everything AGAIN so that nothing new ever actually gets made.
auticus wrote: They dont need to invest in good designers and good balance. Nine editions have shown us that people will backdrop truckloads of cash to their door regardless of bad balance. Why change the equation and spend money on better balance when its obviously not needed / wanted?
Given that GW has been in dire straits in the past- to the point of rebooting 40K's rules- I think the evidence is against the notion that nothing GW does will impact their bottom line. They may be a lot more cushioned against bad decisions than a smaller company with less inertia, but continuing negative trends will undoubtedly have the same effect it did back in 7th.
For one thing, with how frequently I've seen people using Wahapedia or Battlescribe for rules reference, I have to wonder just how well the constant churn of codices and paid rules patches is actually selling.
auticus wrote: They dont need to invest in good designers and good balance. Nine editions have shown us that people will backdrop truckloads of cash to their door regardless of bad balance. Why change the equation and spend money on better balance when its obviously not needed / wanted?
Given that GW has been in dire straits in the past- to the point of rebooting 40K's rules- I think the evidence is against the notion that nothing GW does will impact their bottom line. They may be a lot more cushioned against bad decisions than a smaller company with less inertia, but continuing negative trends will undoubtedly have the same effect it did back in 7th.
For one thing, with how frequently I've seen people using Wahapedia or Battlescribe for rules reference, I have to wonder just how well the constant churn of codices and paid rules patches is actually selling.
Not that well I'd imagine. Hell, 8th ed's book churn broke my book collecting tendency.
auticus wrote: They dont need to invest in good designers and good balance. Nine editions have shown us that people will backdrop truckloads of cash to their door regardless of bad balance. Why change the equation and spend money on better balance when its obviously not needed / wanted?
Given that GW has been in dire straits in the past- to the point of rebooting 40K's rules- I think the evidence is against the notion that nothing GW does will impact their bottom line. They may be a lot more cushioned against bad decisions than a smaller company with less inertia, but continuing negative trends will undoubtedly have the same effect it did back in 7th.
For one thing, with how frequently I've seen people using Wahapedia or Battlescribe for rules reference, I have to wonder just how well the constant churn of codices and paid rules patches is actually selling.
Tons of people were using Army Builder back in the early 2000s. Pirated pdfs and Army Builder were more common than army books and codices all throughout the 2000s where I was. It got so bad in the mid to late 2000s that the indy GT circuit had to start putting a no pdf or photocopied rules rule in effect for many of the big regionals. This was about the time that GW was going to die any day for their greed according to sites like this one and portent / warseer.
I have had several GW managers cite that selling books is just frosting on the cake. I have seen the slides from sales meetings in Dallas that they do every year where they talk about that subject as well.
GW could literally take a giant crap and put it into special effects paint pots, and sell it for $20 an ounce, and dudes would be buying it and selling stores out of it and ebay would have scalpers selling it for $50 an ounce.
They could literally take 40k and distil it down to 4 pages of ridiculousness and sell that pamphlet for $100 and it would be scooped up and sell out. The special edition could come with gilt plastic edges for $225 and be limited edition tourney official and it would be gone in the day.
Take a human turd, slap googly eyes on it and give it a bolter and removable space marine chapter badges, put it in a blister, amp its rules up to 11 and sell it for $40 as a special edition character Sergeant Hanky the Awesome Marine and it would be on ebay that weekend scalped because it sold out.
The ONLY thing gw cannot do... is to make a system with no points. That is the one thing that the community has demonstrated they will stop at. Send rules out with no points and people can't handle that. Anything else, they'll sell their liver and kidney for.
An end to trying to tie Command Points to Army Building. If you make a battleforged army, you get X, if you don't you get Zip. I get they're trying to enforce fluffy, but they suck at it an end up more often punishing fluffy.
An end to veteran infantry who began their (per the fluff) lives as basic Troops Infantry yet who have forgotten how to secure an objective.
Terminators is to Tacticals, Veteran Intercessors is to Intercessors, Aspect Warriors is to Guardians, Just about any regurgitated and reassimilated Tyranid organism is to Hive Mind -
Otherwise you just keep going round and round in circles. "Oh look they introduced some new sensible mechanics for 10th! Boy, it sure would be a shame if the same lazy hacks ruin it half way through the edition as usual. Gee whiz, guess what happened?"
this!
they need a professional balance team
Problem with that is: It hurts profit.
GW makes too much money from imbalance that changes to not keep doing it. You think GW hates money? They will keep pushing "I print money" button.
I think that GW needs to stop this long slow ongoing release schedule that they seem to use in the future, I get they make a ton of money from it but they can make some changes.
#1 (big point)
The should release all of the codex for all of the armies at the same time, or in large batches at the start of a new edition. (9th edition was released July 2020 …. 2 years later and we are still waiting for codices with some not even announced for release yet).
And why were the digital releases stopped? When covid hit, they should have used digital releases to skip the codex supply chain issues.
#2 (small point)
…. I guess that brings me to FIRE THE MANGER IN CHARGE OF CODEX RELEASES
#3 (small point)
Since fourth edition GW seem to release a new edition every 2-4 years (gap between 6-7 was 2 years). Baring in mind that most editions are typically around for 3-4 years and we are currently still waiting for all of the codex to be released 2 years into 9th that would give us little time to actually play with all armies in 9th edition.
If they are planning to release 10th 3 years after 9th, they may as well skip some armies altogether in this edition and release them all in 10th.
#4 (big point)
Set up a set timetable to release the editions, it might help the company if people can predict and know when the editions are released, I don’t care if its every 5 years, or synced with the Olympics or synced with the moon. Just come up with a large scale time line and try to stick to it.
#5 (small point)
I don’t mind them releasing the models or campaigns later at different dates afterwards to keep the releases going or the new models coming. Would be more interested in warhammer+ if the entertainment videos matched the releases of campaigns also, with choose an ending to match your games.
#6 (big point)
PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD we have enough SM captains and lieutenants and special characters, if they want to release more unique models or characters then please expand into the other armies, they could get really creative that way. Perhaps linking the releases and theme of them with the campaigns (so that way we do get non SM models too).
#7 (small point)
On the subject of special models, the models for a limited time only available in store should also be available online (don’t care if they decide to bump the cost up 10%) not everybody has access to a shop and should be offered a chance to buy them.
#8 (small point)
Don’t be stingy with the dice / accessories for sale, it seems that they sell dice in packs of 20 (maybe ok for kill team) while encouraging you to get into situations where you may need more dice in 40K, so provide more, or a discount offer buy one get next one half price, bump it to 30 or 40 and while they are at it throw in a faction specific wound counter dice or whipping stick (measure stick) to match your faction specific dice.
#9 (big point)
I know this is a big thing for a lot of people, offer all of the parts in the kit to build all variants of that kit that you can field in the rules (affects tau crisis suits for example).
Limitations on strats (and a reduction in strats in new books).
No more reroll auras.
More variation in the missions, preferably with less player control over the missions. Secondaries should not get you as many points as the primary, I feel a 2:1 ratio would be a lot better.
Allow stacking modifiers again, as long as they come from different sources. Moving with a heavy weapon AND firing into terrain should get you a -2.
Morale to be a thing again. Just bring back the rules from 3-5: leadership checks, pinning tests, etc.
first: no 10th, fix 9th. Basically stop edition churn and burn.
Secondly: USR, bespoke rules are fine if they are the exception. USR should be in the rulebook AND in the codex if they are found on units in the codex.
Thirdly: Talking about rules? Free up to date PDF for the rulebook and codices. Make dexes actual collectors items worth their current price tag or let it be.
Fourth: 40k was a wargame once, bring back fundamental mechanics, like armour values, etc. Heavy rework of the wounding and to hit charge, nvm terrain. Right now its heavy infantry that wants to hog cover whilest light infantry anyways with or without cover gets shafted.
Fifth: the smaller boards are not working, T1 charges etc are not a mechanic that should in its current form exist. The room to manouvre is laughably restrictive.
Sixth: Faction love / balanced approach. See SM are the thing of 40k, but when you have an HQ section larger than some armies roster it is time to stop (yes you can apply filthy frank meme here)
Seventh: 40k was also always about your dudes in the grim darkness, not about data sheets with specific loadouts. Bring back actual customizability to the forces, instead of datasheet soup. Sanitising the gaming ecosystem with no model no rules is only hurting your own bottomline GW, because it also makes it easier to make competent 3rd party miniatures whilest missing out on conversion model sales. cue warbika warbosses being built out of multiple kits f.e.. it also severly diminishes the spectacle that was 40k on the table. Also the recent indications about the CSM dex are just the icing of the cake, there are armies that should be determined by charachters crippling their customizability severly diminishes the reason why people play said army. Same with archons, same will happen with exalted champions.
Eigth: Start actually propper communication with the community, not just sales pitches. Its nice that GW has now a FB page, but when the behaviour exhibited on there amounts to sales pitches and the deleting of uncomforftable questions like why legends needs to exist then yeah.
Ninth: the complete ban on fanwork / animations needs to fall down.
This won't happen - but I'd just nerf the damage on basically everything.
There were major - major - fundamental problems with Index 8th. But the majority of Datasheets (beyond those we all learned to hate) did about 25% of their damage in points to each other.
We are now at the point where there are datasheets that expect to do 45% of their points values in damage - and then gain army special rules, chapter tactics, stratagems and characters buffs etc (so the reality is they can be well over 70% or something) - but are considered "too weak" or "not relevant" for the tournament scene. Which I think says a lot about how ludicrously lethal the game has become. We could just ditch the models and play checkers for all the interactivity - and narrative forging - this entails.
This can admittedly be reached by various ways. You could nerf the damage output on datasheets. You could strip out the 9th purity bonuses, chapter tactics, character buffs and stratagems. I actually kind of like the second aesthetically though so would prefer the former - but I don't really mind.
If you're relying on 40k - let alone GW - to provide a better moral system, you have larger issues than a new edition of 40k.
Though, if we're lucky, they may manage an improved morale system.
bedivere wrote: #2 (small point)
…. I guess that brings me to FIRE THE MANGER IN CHARGE OF CODEX RELEASES
"Away with the manger, no crib(sheet) for a bed..."
+ + +
There are quite a few ideas in here I'd agree with, and some I'd disagree with, but here's one that's been a personal bugbear since 8th dropped - expand the keyword system to cover weapons. Things like BOLT, PLASMA, MELTA, FLAMER, etc, could be used, so that even when the name doesn't make it clear what something is, we have that information. It could also allow for the return of interactions that depend on weapon type - such as the Avatar being resilient against FLAMER, PLASMA and MELTA weapons - and allow certain rules to be future-proofed by using the type rather than a list of weapons (looking at you, original version of Bolter Discipline).
These don't necessarily have to be USR hooks for a standard effect - though I can see the appeal of something like MELTA(D6+2) as a shorthand - but I feel it is something that strengthens the framework of the game.
Focusing on more minor changes that I can actually see being possible...
I would like strategems to be dramatically reduced in scope.
Only about half a dozen per faction, perhaps focusing around characters to give some sense of them actually leading.
More intuitive and impactful terrain rules. +1 save clearly doesn't cut it.
In principle I like the more abstract approach of Obscuring, but they need to go all in and not be quite so weird about it.
I want GW to actually hire a few competitive Ork players to help write rules and specifically the Ork codex. I am tired of having to "HOPE" that GW accidentally gives us a good unit or two as opposed to having a vision for the codex and moving everything in that direction in order to make it competitive in the general sense against everyone else.
Look at the Stompa, the Morkanaut/Gorkanaut, Burna's, lootas, Mekz, Big Mek with SAG, Big mek with KFF, Flashgitz, Boyz, Grots, Nobz, Painboss, Painboy, wurrboy, Nob with WAAAGH banner, Tankbustas, the entirety of the snakebites and badmoonz kultures. Look at how often GW wrote rules for orkz that were literally illegal or which violated their own purpose (Trukk boyz not being allowed in trukkz) and then tell me with complete sincerity that someone who knows and understand the ork faction wrote that codex.
Keeping in mind, I openly and wholeheartedly admit this is the best codex they've come out with since 3rd/4th edition. But that isn't exactly a hard bar to clear since we only got 1 in 7th which was the worst ever, one in 8th and none in 5th or 6th.
I would also want those rules writers on the team that helps write CA and Errata's so they answer real questions we have and so they don't nerf barely competitive units or even non-competitive units while giving out minor buffs that don't really change the power level of things that were in need of a hefty bump.
kirotheavenger wrote: Focusing on more minor changes that I can actually see being possible...
I would like strategems to be dramatically reduced in scope.
Only about half a dozen per faction, perhaps focusing around characters to give some sense of them actually leading.
Problem is you can't do that unless either invalidating all the codexes and releasing an index for everyone or letting some players use their 30+ stratagems from their older but still legal codex while players with the new codex can only use their half dozen. It would be bad in both cases.
Best option would be putting a hard cap (like 1 or 2) on the number of stratagems that a player can use per turn.
I'm fairly certain all of the things I'd want GW to do for 10th, they wouldn't want to do.
Top of the list would be a hard reset of the whole system at this point, from the ground up. I simply don't like the core mechanics in 8th and 9th edition, and changing many of those (e.g. no vehicle-specific rules, the whole morale system, the command point system, the terrain/cover system, huge leeway in shooting whatever you want, etc.) into something better would likely not be compatible with current codexes. Then again, maybe a hard reset IS financially sound so they can sell everything to everyone a 10th time
That said, I don't see them striping back on the layering of rules (e.g. reducing strats, faction traits, doctrines, etc.) without doing a hard reset. Once you've given someone something, it's hard to take it back.
I'd like to see a much more diverse mission set focused on shared objectives. More asynchronous missions, varied objectives, more narrative-flair. If they have a "competitive" mission set that's all symmetrical, leave it as a sub-type of missions or a separate mission pack. It shouldn't be the driving mission type for normal play.
There's a pretty high bar to clear (waha) if they want to go full digital and succeed at it.
Imho it should be the direction to go, but who knows when they'll realize it?
For 10th I'd settle for a .5 version of the current edition, with all the current general FAQs/Erratas condensed in the core rules.
The wet dream would be the reintroduction of USRs, at least for the most common effects:
- deep strike
- forward deploy
- pre-game move
- autoadvance X"
- reroll 1s or all hit or wound rolls
- sniper shots
- bodyguard rules (if they still exist)
- transhuman to hit, to wound, ...
- hard to hit
- extra save in cover
- etc
Have these USRs be defined in the core book and then copy them in full in each datasheet as well. But at least it would make them consistent across different books.
first: no 10th, fix 9th. Basically stop edition churn and burn.
Secondly: USR, bespoke rules are fine if they are the exception. USR should be in the rulebook AND in the codex if they are found on units in the codex.
Thirdly: Talking about rules? Free up to date PDF for the rulebook and codices. Make dexes actual collectors items worth their current price tag or let it be.
Fourth: 40k was a wargame once, bring back fundamental mechanics, like armour values, etc. Heavy rework of the wounding and to hit charge, nvm terrain. Right now its heavy infantry that wants to hog cover whilest light infantry anyways with or without cover gets shafted.
Fifth: the smaller boards are not working, T1 charges etc are not a mechanic that should in its current form exist. The room to manouvre is laughably restrictive.
Sixth: Faction love / balanced approach. See SM are the thing of 40k, but when you have an HQ section larger than some armies roster it is time to stop (yes you can apply filthy frank meme here)
Seventh: 40k was also always about your dudes in the grim darkness, not about data sheets with specific loadouts. Bring back actual customizability to the forces, instead of datasheet soup. Sanitising the gaming ecosystem with no model no rules is only hurting your own bottomline GW, because it also makes it easier to make competent 3rd party miniatures whilest missing out on conversion model sales. cue warbika warbosses being built out of multiple kits f.e.. it also severly diminishes the spectacle that was 40k on the table. Also the recent indications about the CSM dex are just the icing of the cake, there are armies that should be determined by charachters crippling their customizability severly diminishes the reason why people play said army. Same with archons, same will happen with exalted champions.
Eigth: Start actually propper communication with the community, not just sales pitches. Its nice that GW has now a FB page, but when the behaviour exhibited on there amounts to sales pitches and the deleting of uncomforftable questions like why legends needs to exist then yeah.
Ninth: the complete ban on fanwork / animations needs to fall down.
Armor values were just toughness values that didn't matter. They weren't fundamental to anything. People try to claim that it made it more tictactic-y because vehicles were slightly stronger from the front sometimes, but in reality no one bothered with positioning because it only took 1 melta shot to kill a tank anyway. Also, the majority of vehicles that had high AV were high AV all around anyway so it was functionally exactly the same as it is now.
Smaller boards don't actually impact T1 charges much. The No Man's Land in Dawn of war and Hammer and Anvil is exactly the same size as it's always been. It's these goofy deployment maps that actually allow easy turn 1 charges. If it wasn't for GW being cute with deployment, the only effects the smaller board would have would be on corner camping and deepstrike. Room to maneuver is only really restricted by the missions funneling everyone onto objectives. Most games end up with huge empty tracks of land at the corners still.
If it doesn't come in the box, it shouldn't have rules. Forcing an ADDITIONAL arts and crafts project on your players because the best gun in the unit has to be made out of greenstuff and disappointment is asinine. The correct way to go about it would be to ADD those options to the kits, obviously. But barring that, I do not miss needing to cobble together a LasPlas AT ALL.
ERJAK wrote: If it doesn't come in the box, it shouldn't have rules. Forcing an ADDITIONAL arts and crafts project on your players because the best gun in the unit has to be made out of greenstuff and disappointment is asinine. The correct way to go about it would be to ADD those options to the kits, obviously. But barring that, I do not miss needing to cobble together a LasPlas AT ALL.
I broadly agree with you on all three points - even if I feel its all the usual divides of dakka. Its perhaps the above that's so often not said.
We are meant to sympathize (and I do, kinda) with someone who has bought a dozen boxes, or scrounged up the bitz, or dabbled in Greenstuff and Disappointment only for GW to turn up and says "eh, not in the kit, not in the rules."
But really, I think that arguably makes for a better experience for players in general than "what's actually in the box is second best".
Even if other people find things like the Plague Marine datasheet a thing of Cthuluesque horror. (To be fair, that kit seems... uniquely weird.)
While I'd largely agree with Voss's first post I'm also leaning more into the "rip it up and start again" camp.
9th just has a lot of fundamental problems that are enshrined in the Codices and core rules and I think we'll only be able to fix them properly with a complete reboot. If that's not possible the absolute minimum would be:
1. Most important of all: create a design document for the entire edition and stick to it. Any designer who strays from the framework laid out in the document gets fired, no exceptions. I'm sick and tired of seeing mid-edition changes to the entire design paradigm.
2. Reduce stratagem use dramatically. Either make it part of army building to select strats, or tie them to HQs/characters as AoS does, or restrict them all to one use only. Anything to tone them down.
3. Reduce lethality. This ties into #1 above. GW need to decide what an acceptable damage output is for a given points investment and carry that through to all units. That output should never approach 100%. I'd really like it if some of my units could do more than one thing in a game before being removed. It's telling that most competitive players value the ability to "trade up" with units because it's now universally accepted that anything that exposes itself will be dead next turn. This also encompasses changes to morale so it's not just another kill-more mechanic.
4. Go digital. At least let us buy Codices digitally like we used to and push updates through for free. As part of this, stop charging for balance and mission updates via Chapter Approved.
There's a lot more but those are the main ones. I'm under no illusions that GW will be able to do any of this though.
dreadblade wrote: I want to see 10th not arrive for a good long while!
This. I'm ok with the current game and another un-needed edition would give me headache. Just slow down the codex release cycle instead.
Edit: I've see the "leaked" balance document.
I do wishlist something: 0-1 and 0-2 limitations. 0-3 only to troops and dedicated transports. 0-2 for uncommon stuff (basically the cheapest FA, HS and Elite units) and 0-1 to the most rare units (aka all the expensive stuff and all the characters). Such limitations should of course be arbitrary since some armies have tons of datasheets and others don't, and points costs and efficiency might be completely different between the units' "counterparts" across the codexes.
They should release the Guard codex as the first one, alongside a mass of new models. It can rule supreme for about 6 months, then be nerfed and eclipsed by every other new codex, resulting in a glut of said new models onto secondary market.
I think 40k has an identity crisis in a way, and there needs to be a serious assessment of how they want certain units to weigh against others, how selections are supposed to perform in game, and how much those things should line up with the narrative. Obviously it was never perfect and never will be, as some degree of compromise must be made for the sake of gameplay, but this is the worst I have seen things since I started playing in 5th.
dreadblade wrote: I want to see 10th not arrive for a good long while!
This. I'm ok with the current game and another un-needed edition would give me headache. Just slow down the codex release cycle instead.
Edit: I've see the "leaked" balance document.
I do wishlist something: 0-1 and 0-2 limitations. 0-3 only to troops and dedicated transports. 0-2 for uncommon stuff (basically the cheapest FA, HS and Elite units) and 0-1 to the most rare units (aka all the expensive stuff and all the characters). Such limitations should of course be arbitrary since some armies have tons of datasheets and others don't, and points costs and efficiency might be completely different between the units' "counterparts" across the codexes.
No limitations on troops, none on dedicated transports with the caveat of you only get transports from troop slots, not all the other ones, and I can get behind that, as long as there’s some stuff to count certain things as troop options. So just old force org chart lmao.
A list building system that’s based on ratios of units (accounting for size of units) would be awesome, gotta field a lot of guys to have 3 commanders. Too bad gw would feth it up before even getting to variations due to subfaction.
It's such a back handed cludge to fix broken units.
Unless you're pinning 0-1 on rare units like Cataphractii Terminators or something.
I'd make 0-1 things like eradicators, bladeguard veterans, meganobz, flash gitz, all kinds of termies, talos, pretty much every heavy vehicle, etc... .
0-2 would be cheaper specialists and light vehicles such as scouts, dreads and lighter walkers of all types, bikes of all types, speeders/equivalents, regular veterans of all kinds, kommandos, burnaboyz, etc...
Basically what they already did with flyers (like all other light vehicles) and ork buggies (those would be 0-2 typically but 0-1 for orks is ok since they have 5 datasheets of the same thing).
No limitations on troops, none on dedicated transports with the caveat of you only get transports from troop slots, not all the other ones, and I can get behind that, as long as there’s some stuff to count certain things as troop options. So just old force org chart lmao.
I'm against the old force chart instead. With limitations players could still field a bit of everything, they just can't spam stuff. And armies with squadrons of expensive stuff such as dreads or tanks wouldn't mock the FOC limitations. I can't accept that 9 deff dreads (9 boxes) or 9 buggies of the same type (also 9 boxes) respect the FOC while a buggy, 3 koptas, 5 stormboyz and 3 bikes (4 boxes in total) or a dread, 3 killa kanz, a wagon and 5 lootas (also 4 boxes) don't, therefore are illegal under the FOC. Or that an army can bring 9 tanks just because it can squadron them and another one can't bring 4 of their counterparts.
It entirely made sense you could squadron russes but not a rhino, that’s just kinda how things work. I think the Horus heresy force org system is my favorite, with the addition of rites of war.
The_Real_Chris wrote: They should release the Guard codex as the first one, alongside a mass of new models. It can rule supreme for about 6 months, then be nerfed and eclipsed by every other new codex, resulting in a glut of said new models onto secondary market.
I'm sure you said that as a joke, but feth me if the thought of the next IG 'dex following exactly the same path as every other codex prior doesn't fill me with despair. I thought we'd had enough of that by the end of 7th.
Focus less on using codecies to drive the meta and model sales and more on bring them out as a timely set of coherent rules with the edition. Use balance updates to do the periodic meta spicing and model promotions. The key intent being not leaving armies playing as prior editions (guard) languishing for years while everyone else gets to play the new edition.
The only thing I'd add is there's something unfortunate about making my opponent wait while I roll 120 shots of rapid fire frfsrf from conscripts that only results in a total of 4 wounds to a marine squad. Kind of fluffy but also cumbersome.
1) Better terrain / line of sight rules. The terrain/los rules have been getting worse since the high point of 4th.
2) Alternate Activation, or at the least something like I hear Apocalypse did with taking casualties at the end of a turn.
3)Bring back USR. 15-30 tightly worded ones should really give enough life to things. Instead of 10 different bodyguard rules, just do "Bodyguard X+" where they take a hit for a character on whatever X is in that rule. Same with the multitude of "-1 damage" abilities and the like that show up. Each codex can still have its own special rules, and even some specific units can have unique ones, but having a core of universal special rules to fall back on makes things much simpler.
4) Make all named characters specific builds of a generic character. Give characters lots of fun rule options they can purchase so you can say run the unit cheap, bling them out with gear, or buy up some special rules or buffs to them. Reduce auras (they can live on, just not be as prevalent as they are), make it so characters can say impart a USR onto one or two units. Hell, let characters actually take fun options. A guard Company Commander can take a power fist or a plasma pistol, but cannot take a meltagun that is in the same kit? Why not, its not like it would be gamebreaking.
5) Stratagems. They are getting tiring figuring out just what is what, and wargear being tied to stratagems, etc. I'd say get rid of them entirely, but even just cutting down the number severely would help.
6) Make leadership matter. Self explanatory, with each edition it has meant less and less. Give it some importance. I'm not saying go back to 4ths way of only being able to shoot closest enemy without passing a roll, but bringing suppression into the mix could help.
Personally, I’m tired of seeing the smallest figures on the table hit as often as the largest?
I’d like a BS vs Size mechanic, similar to the S vs T for wounding. eg, BS 4 vs Human Size (4) hits on 4; vs Swarm Size (2) hits on 6; vs Titan Size (8) hits on 2.
Moriarty wrote: Personally, I’m tired of seeing the smallest figures on the table hit as often as the largest?
I’d like a BS vs Size mechanic, similar to the S vs T for wounding. eg, BS 4 vs Human Size (4) hits on 4; vs Swarm Size (2) hits on 6; vs Titan Size (8) hits on 2.
Happy to lose the ‘Leadership’ stat for ‘Size’.
I suggested something similar to that a while ago. Bring back the Initiative stat and make competitive stats. WS vs WS and BS vs Initiative.
4) Make all named characters specific builds of a generic character.
Meh. Even if you don't count the unique wargear - I'm kind of fond of the Nameds being wonky with a bespoke or two that match their history. Sicarius giving a USR to a squad for example because he's a Marine's Marine Captain. Uriel Ventris getting Unorthodox Strategist. I'm also fond of centerpiece characters getting centerpiece rules - Guilliman, Morty, Ghaz - or going completely off track with stuff like Old One Eye an HQ Character Carnifex.
I'd like to see More Troops, and better Blast.
Make Troops units cheaper than Elites etc. 10 Intercessors are 100 points(ish), 10 Hellblasters are 200(ish)
Maybe Blast1/10 Blast2/5 Blast 1/6etc. So you get one attack per (number) of models in the unit up to the second number.. i.e. most Blast are D6 Heavy sorts of things, so that'd be Blast 1 you get one hit ROLL per model in the unit up to 6. Plasma is usually D3 so you get one hit roll per 2 models in the unit. Rarely you might see something like:
Earthshaker
Ground burst: Blast 1/6 with higher S/T/AP/D
Airburst: Blast 1/10 with lower S/T/AP/D
I'd also spread out the multiple profiles. LRBT (and other battlecanons) would get a HEAT profile with a small blast similar to Plasma, or a Sabot that doesn't have a blast but does well against other tanks etc. Thunderfire Canons getting similar to the Earthshaker like when they were first introduced.
Make Troops units cheaper than Elites etc. 10 Intercessors are 100 points(ish), 10 Hellblasters are 200(ish)
Make 10 intercessors 200ish and 10 hellblasters 300ish .
Incentivizing troops is awesome as long as the rules give them purpose other than being a tax to unlock something (like CPs) or make something better (like chaper specialists).
Otherwise armies with good troops would benefit a lot from this, while others could suffer terribly. I remember in 8th the only way to play orks even in semi-competitive metas was to bring 6-9 troops, which meant either fielding an horde of cheap gretchins just to make the toys work or bringing the green tide, no middle ground and no flexibility. I even missed 7th edition orks thanks to that nonsense and I was extremely relieved when 8th finally ended.
A solid fix to troops could be allowing troops to do stuff that only troops can do. Some actions for example or some unique ways to score. This way people would bring troops for what they can offer in terms of tactics but they wouldn't be completely screwed if their troops are awful, giving them a plan B.
In Horus Heresy only Troops can score, at all. Other units can deny the enemy scoring, but they cannot score that objective.
Some units - namely Terminators and Veterans, have a special rule allowing them to score anyway.
That really encourages people to take a core of scoring units, otherwise it's easy to go all-in on Dreadnoughts and fancy bodyguards and such.
I still think it's important that even troops represent a useful battlefield component though - they need to be more than objective scorers there to die.
4) Make all named characters specific builds of a generic character. Give characters lots of fun rule options they can purchase so you can say run the unit cheap, bling them out with gear, or buy up some special rules or buffs to them. Reduce auras (they can live on, just not be as prevalent as they are), make it so characters can say impart a USR onto one or two units. Hell, let characters actually take fun options. A guard Company Commander can take a power fist or a plasma pistol, but cannot take a meltagun that is in the same kit? Why not, its not like it would be gamebreaking.
What I Want to see won't happen, a rule set without so much bloat it crushes my enjoyment, costs that won't make me throw up in my mouth a little when I see the codex and an end to the ceaseless burn and churn now set in seasonal doses of pain.
I won't see any of that, instead I'll get empty promises of better and ceaseless crowing how no matter how bad it gets it's the best its ever been.
A complete removal of stratagems, including command rerolls - some unit specific stratagems could be converted into once-per-battle/once-per-round abilities on the datasheets.
Cover system back to a standalone type of a save like it used to be, to make it more useful for lightly armored enemies and less useful for marines. The current system is terrible and directly leads to AP inflation.
And with less inflated armor saves it would be possible to reduce AP modifiers across the board.
kirotheavenger wrote: In Horus Heresy only Troops can score, at all. Other units can deny the enemy scoring, but they cannot score that objective.
Some units - namely Terminators and Veterans, have a special rule allowing them to score anyway.
That really encourages people to take a core of scoring units, otherwise it's easy to go all-in on Dreadnoughts and fancy bodyguards and such.
I still think it's important that even troops represent a useful battlefield component though - they need to be more than objective scorers there to die.
Well part of it is Grenades suck. One model makes 1 attack. Why bother? Its hard to have versatile troops when they don't have versatile offense/defense. Give all the "troops" - which may not be limited to troops i.e elites etc - an attack that works on vehicles, and an attack that works on infantry - SM are an easy example because they already have them- frag and krak grenades. 10 Tacticals throwing 10 S6 -3 D2 grenades that can only target vehicles or monsters makes that much better - and yeah I'm just pulling that out of the air not balancing the thing. Most troops need a boost to do everything the "toys" can do just not as well. The "toys" should only be attractive as an emphasis to what your army already does well (Blood Angels with Vanguard Vets, Sanguinary Guard, Death Company, etc) or to patch a hole your army doesn't do well - Kroot in a Tau army.
I'd like to see a return of Leadership from Characters - i.e. within X inches of a captain you can use his leadership.
I'd like to see Orks get a Ld bonus -especially during morale. I'd borrow the mechanic Bretonians used Boys can only lead Grots, Nobs/etc can lead boys or Grots, and so on until Warbosses can lead everyone. And Orks get a LD modifer of 1/2/3 depending on unit size. This modifier goes different ways for different LD tests. It gets added to Morale, nullifies other mods on Attrition, gets subtracted from "Shoot the other guys!" (see below)
I'd like to see a return to shoot the closest either/or Vehicle or Infantry(for everyone but the example is Orks), take a LD test to shoot something else. Possibly also can only charge what you shoot (unless it's dead)
So the 20 Orks (ld 7) next to the Warboss (ld 9) being told to shoot the Devastators 20" away instead of the Tactical Squad 9" away or the Land Raider 6" away (-2 to LD) have to pass a LD7 test.
Tau can shoot the 9" distant Tacticals, the 6" distant Land Raider, or if they pass a Ld8 test the 20" Devastators.
Some units would get a USR "ignore this" like snipers(eliminators, Ratlings), Heavy Weapon infantry (Lootas, Devastators) Indirect Fire Artillery(Basilisks, Biovores)
I quite like that not every unit has firepower to deal with every target.
The real problem is that basic small arms don't cut the mustard. The humble Bolter is pretty ineffective against enemy Astartes - a 10 Man Tactical Squad is likely to only kill one of their contemporaries.
Lasguns are so massively ineffective it's literally not even worth rolling the dice if you have any sort of time constraint.
That's horrible game design.
Stuff like 2W Astartes or T5 Orks was/is a mistake, it makes small arms so ineffective you need special weaponary to achieve anything.
kirotheavenger wrote: I quite like that not every unit has firepower to deal with every target.
Most of the Troops Units should have the ability to deal with almost every target. The specialist toys should do it BETTER, certainly.
10 Krak Grenades, even as improved as I made them is not as effective as 10 Melta Rifle Shots.
The real problem is that basic small arms don't cut the mustard. The humble Bolter is pretty ineffective against enemy Astartes - a 10 Man Tactical Squad is likely to only kill one of their contemporaries.
Lasguns are so massively ineffective it's literally not even worth rolling the dice if you have any sort of time constraint.
That's horrible game design.
Stuff like 2W Astartes or T5 Orks was/is a mistake, it makes small arms so ineffective you need special weaponary to achieve anything.
The Lasgun sees no difference between a T4 Ork and a T5 Ork. And yes, the basic bolter/etc. on the troops probably needs an upgrade. I'm still laughing at Bolters going AP- so that Bolt Rifles could be AP-1. With that said, they're closer to right than they are closer to broken.
I don't agree
I think there should be a little rock/paper/scissors. If you leave your Tactical Marines unsupported by AT they should get rolled over by a battle tank.
I agree that Bolters are what they should be imo, problem is everything else is way above what I think they should be.
So regardless of where I would put the ideal level - there's a major difference between bolters and pulse rifles for example.
Pulse Rifles are more level with on-going durabilities in the game.
Have Montka, a markerlight and a nearby commander (not exactly the biggest hardship).
Into basic 20 point Primaris.
2*2/3*7/6*2/3*7/6*2/3=0.806. *10 points=8~ points return. From an 8 point unit. So average dice, 100% return. More if you roll hot. Say you have to spend a few points on marker lights and its still ludicrous.
You really don't need "special weapons" to deal with Orks or basic Marines with this sort of stuff around.
The competitive community are claiming Guardians are overcosted - because I mean with say Black Guardians and a nearby Archon, they *only* get a 66% points return into Intercessors. I mean how can you even get out of bed with such rookie numbers?
Regular Guardsmen are bad - but that's because they haven't got the 150%~ damage buff you get for being a 9th edition codex. When a Guardsman gets 4 shots with +1 to hit and AP-1 because someone in a big hat is standing vaguely nearby, and they are in "remember Cadia doctrine" they'll mysteriously suddenly do just fine.
Or at least they will be, until Marines get "ignore all AP" and bolters become 3 shots, S5 AP-3 because there are no brakes on this train.
I think the fundamental way they release things is broken. They start an edition with one idea, and by the time they get to the end of the edition they've changed AND the codexes aren't all out. By the time 10th comes out the first codex of 9th will be so weak and pathetic since the design ideas are different.
I guarantee we wont even get all the armies codexes out before they reset. They're that incompetent. Or maybe the never complete edition is their plan, which is pure evil.
My wishful thinking is more focus on casual narrative play than tournament scene. Most of the mechanics and restrictions I dont like are direct responses to people abusing something in a tournament scene.
But I'm sure, like 9th edition, the ink won't even be cold on the last codex before 10th is rolling out.
They'll cover it with "the new codex was written with the design paradigms of 10th in mind" but we'll all know that was a total lie as soon as we actually see 10th edition.
It is interesting, because twice now the 'written with the next edition in mind' books for AoS very much have been, and work quite well in the new edition. They haven't been able to nail down the same thing in 40k.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It is interesting, because twice now the 'written with the next edition in mind' books for AoS very much have been, and work quite well in the new edition. They haven't been able to nail down the same thing in 40k.
I mean AoS has Phil Kelly on the team, and had Jervis Johnson as well until his retirement. Those two are talented games designers who brought a lot of experiance into that team, even if Phil is doing lore and Jervis wasn't really taking a front seat on the design front.
I'd like to see Orks get a Ld bonus -especially during morale. I'd borrow the mechanic Bretonians used Boys can only lead Grots, Nobs/etc can lead boys or Grots, and so on until Warbosses can lead everyone. And Orks get a LD modifer of 1/2/3 depending on unit size. This modifier goes different ways for different LD tests. It gets added to Morale, nullifies other mods on Attrition, gets subtracted from "Shoot the other guys!" (see below)
I'd like to see a return to shoot the closest either/or Vehicle or Infantry(for everyone but the example is Orks), take a LD test to shoot something else. Possibly also can only charge what you shoot (unless it's dead)
So the 20 Orks (ld 7) next to the Warboss (ld 9) being told to shoot the Devastators 20" away instead of the Tactical Squad 9" away or the Land Raider 6" away (-2 to LD) have to pass a LD7 test.
This is wrong/silly in relation to the ork rules for a host of reasons. Number 1 being orkz can't shoot ANYTHING 20' away because GW gave us 18 guns and only on the ranged troop choice which is functionally useless for how piss poor it is compared to ANY other troop choice in the game!....sorry, except for Grots who are somehow even worse. 2 being, nothing about what you are proposing would buff already piss poor ork shooting, in fact its a straight nerf and reduces tactical flexability. So congrats on coming up with a way to nerf orkz more.
This is wrong/silly in relation to the ork rules for a host of reasons. Number 1 being orkz can't shoot ANYTHING 20' away because GW gave us 18 guns and only on the ranged troop choice which is functionally useless for how piss poor it is compared to ANY other troop choice in the game!....sorry, except for Grots who are somehow even worse. 2 being, nothing about what you are proposing would buff already piss poor ork shooting, in fact its a straight nerf and reduces tactical flexability. So congrats on coming up with a way to nerf orkz more.
because gun stats never change and an example is set hard and fast in stone. The Land Raiders will ALWAYS be 6" away from every Ork unit, and so on.
One thing I'd like to see in 10th is for extra relics and warlord traits not to be locked in when list building. Have those be kind of a "sideboard" for your list. It would make some of the relic options in the various books more useful, as they could be your flex picks in certain matchups (e.g. some relics are good into a psyker-heavy list and useless against anything else). Your main Warlord's trait and your free relic should be locked in, but the others could be matchup specific.
The other thing I'd like to see is a way to make vehicles more relevant. It sucks that so many people's awesome tanks are doing shelf duty these days.
ZergSmasher wrote: One thing I'd like to see in 10th is for extra relics and warlord traits not to be locked in when list building. Have those be kind of a "sideboard" for your list. It would make some of the relic options in the various books more useful, as they could be your flex picks in certain matchups (e.g. some relics are good into a psyker-heavy list and useless against anything else). Your main Warlord's trait and your free relic should be locked in, but the others could be matchup specific.
That's treating the symptom not the disease. These things should always be useful - First every army should be encouraged to take a little of everything so everyone who has a psyker takes a psyker but maybe not 20 of them. (and the McGuffin - be it a relic, or a secondary or a bespoke rule - is good enough for just the one psyker) Edit to add what I forgot: Second, the macguffin can be thematically based on Hatred:Tyranids etc but applies all the time i.e. Tyrranic War Veterans when facing Monsters or Walker Vehicles (they'd have to readd the Walker keyword to Dreads,Wraith*, etc) then Tyrranic War Vets can (do whatever they do - attack in close combat with grenades, reroll the hit/wound etc) Tycho's Abhor the Beast might turn into "Driven by his hatred, and years of savage fighting against the orks has given this model +1S and +1A in the fight phase. Something thematic that would apply against every army - or at least some part of it based on a thematic keyword(s) more universal than a Faction keyword like Orks or Tyranids.
The other thing I'd like to see is a way to make vehicles more relevant. It sucks that so many people's awesome tanks are doing shelf duty these days.
This is more symptom of the same disease. Between the rules already being bad for most vehicles, and terrain being even worse for them - I'd rather see them fix the datasheets so taking a little of everything is USUALLY the way to go. I still like the fluffy Ravenwing/Deathwing/WIldHost/SpiritHost/SpearOfMacragge etc lists. But I'd like to see: Primary Objectives score more than Secondary score more than a new set of Tertiary - And I'd make the tertiary very easy to score as long as you built to make it possible.in list building by including some of everything
So you get say... five categories of Secondaries based off of Keywords - Character, Fly, Vehicle/Monster combined, Transport, Aircraft, whatever. - these are just examples and shouldn't be taken as HARD AND FAST details just as a theme to give the gist of the idea.
If you're within 6" of Objective A with (Keyword) score 3VP
If you're within 6" of Objective B with (Different Keyword) Gain 3 VP.
If your Aircraft starts with 6" of one Objective and ends within 6" of another gain 3 VP Perform a Deny The Witch against Objective Y within X" of Objective Y
And so on - You pick or even better randomly generate one Tertiary from each category.
Potentially I might even make them as ridiculously easy as within 6" of ANY objective, or giving them an action that can't really be stopped, and can be done while doing another action or shooting or fighting, and so on. The point is to give a significant enough points chunk to "reward" taking a wide variety list within the constraints of the Faction/Subfaction, The Deathwing/Ravenwing list gets to choose between Terminators/Gravis, Characters, Bikers, Fly, and Vehicles for example - in some cases one unit may double up - for example Belial is a Character and a Terminator, Sammael is a Character and FLY so maybe you allow it, maybe you have to pick one column for them to count as, I don't know - playtesting would be necessary for that but I hope you get the general idea. We're already giving VP stuff like painted models, and CP for Battleforged lists.. lets give some goodies for "fluffy" lists.
Who the hell looks at 9th edition and thinks "what this needs is more stuff stacked on top of all this stuff"?
tertiary objectives? seriously?
40k needs less bloat, not more.
Less strats.
USR instead of 20 almost identical rules with tiny variations in wording to make them more confusing.
less faction, sub-faction and detachment rules.
I should be able to look at a unit stat and weapon profile and maybe a special rule and know 90% of what that unit does.
Ordana wrote: Who the hell looks at 9th edition and thinks "what this needs is more stuff stacked on top of all this stuff"?
tertiary objectives? seriously?
40k needs less bloat, not more.
Less strats.
USR instead of 20 almost identical rules with tiny variations in wording to make them more confusing.
less faction, sub-faction and detachment rules.
I should be able to look at a unit stat and weapon profile and maybe a special rule and know 90% of what that unit does.
I don't think 5 "objectives" you could probably complete on Turn 1 because most of the work was done by listbuilding is going to add that much bloat. But sure. I do enjoy the cycling complaints though - I remember when we had USR and everyone complained about that too. But really, don't worry GW is nothing if not equally cyclical. They'll bring them back soon, and get rid of something else.
The reasons people were complaining about USRs were, ironically, everything that GW doubled down on by making them a million separate rules.
People were saying there too many special rules that did arbitrarily different things - eg Stealth, Shrouded, and Shrouded and Stealth.
How did GW solve it? Every unit gets their bespoke version of the rule!
Or "this Soulblaze rule is utterly pointless and a faff to resolve". How did GW solve that? "this buggy has a special rule allowing it to shoot a grot pistol" IE even more utterly pointless and a waste of time to resolve.
(Horus Heresy 2.0 seems to be solving this correctly, with numerical values like Shrouded (2)).
I want to reduce the amount of the game that's solved in list building. That's boring.
An extra 5 objectives I need to plan for and execute turn 1 is firstly a whole bunch of homework pre-game I don't want to have to deal with, and also means the PvP aspect of the game becomes less and less relevant. We'll just be two guys occupying the same board doing our own pre-planned thing.
I'd like to see approximately half or more situations in the game have their rules creatively rewritten, so that their outcome relies on players' decisions and choices instead of a dumb dice roll. In other words, I'd like "WH40K: the Upkeep Phase" changed into "WH40K: an Actual Game".
Ordana wrote: Who the hell looks at 9th edition and thinks "what this needs is more stuff stacked on top of all this stuff"?
tertiary objectives? seriously?
40k needs less bloat, not more.
Less strats.
USR instead of 20 almost identical rules with tiny variations in wording to make them more confusing.
less faction, sub-faction and detachment rules.
I should be able to look at a unit stat and weapon profile and maybe a special rule and know 90% of what that unit does.
I don't think 5 "objectives" you could probably complete on Turn 1 because most of the work was done by listbuilding is going to add that much bloat. But sure. I do enjoy the cycling complaints though - I remember when we had USR and everyone complained about that too. But really, don't worry GW is nothing if not equally cyclical. They'll bring them back soon, and get rid of something else.
People complained about IC giving units special rules through USR and dumb USR that said "see 2 other USR to actually know what this USR does"
The game doesn't need 6 version of Infiltrate, 20 versions of Deepstrike and 8 Fight Last, all with slightly different wording that doesn't actually change what they do.
Ordana wrote: Who the hell looks at 9th edition and thinks "what this needs is more stuff stacked on top of all this stuff"?
tertiary objectives? seriously?
40k needs less bloat, not more.
Less strats.
USR instead of 20 almost identical rules with tiny variations in wording to make them more confusing.
less faction, sub-faction and detachment rules.
I should be able to look at a unit stat and weapon profile and maybe a special rule and know 90% of what that unit does.
I don't think 5 "objectives" you could probably complete on Turn 1 because most of the work was done by listbuilding is going to add that much bloat. But sure. I do enjoy the cycling complaints though - I remember when we had USR and everyone complained about that too. But really, don't worry GW is nothing if not equally cyclical. They'll bring them back soon, and get rid of something else.
Adding objectives that are then pretty much automatically done isn't good. No good reason to add then in the first place.
If you want to encourage variety better idea to fix balance. But gw doesn't want balance nor want variety. Gw wants you to spam broken stuff, then change list spamming other.
GW designers have shown they don't "want" spam with their reactions to the tournament scene. The problem is they never found a good incentive structure that encourages people to not spam multiples of something that fits said people's playstyle.
Closest we got was makind weapon diversity important via the wider range of damage profiles but that always seems to result in people hunting for the singular most efficient option they have over making some kind of Highlander list.
Digital rules, i have no interest in books which cost 50€ and are recycling paper after 6 months because of frequent rules changes
A working 40k app which gets updated with new FAQs and errata, working army builder
D10 based hit/wound system
Overall less dice rolls
Turn based activations
Overall less complexity, less CP, less stratagems
Invs and MW should be the exception, not a standard for everyone
USRs Less terrain rules
kirotheavenger wrote: The reasons people were complaining about USRs were, ironically, everything that GW doubled down on by making them a million separate rules.
Nope. The only complaint I ever had with USRs was that they weren't in dexes. It's the most common complaint about USRs I've seen.
Love strats or hate them, they did solve that problem.
Oh, sorry... There was one other thing I hated about USRs- the ones where a USR was just two other USRs combined.
Strats solved that problem too- though there are some abilities that confer virtual access to strats or change their cost, there are, as (of yet) no strats which are simply a combination of other strats.
Strats and USRs are very different things though.
I do agree that USRs being just combinations of other USRs was a problem.
The only reason we technically don't have that anymore is because every special is different. There are some SRs that do essentially the same thing as two other SRs elsewhere though.
Although surely equipment that doesn't do anything except give you access to a strategem is exactly the same problem though? Even worse because the equipment doesn't explicitly tell you it gives you access to the Strategem, it just says you gain a keyword and you've got to go scrambling for where that keyword might be relevant.
kirotheavenger wrote: The reasons people were complaining about USRs were, ironically, everything that GW doubled down on by making them a million separate rules.
Oh, sorry... There was one other thing I hated about USRs- the ones where a USR was just two other USRs combined.
Why are you saying that like it was common. Wasn't it basically just Zealot?
kirotheavenger wrote: The reasons people were complaining about USRs were, ironically, everything that GW doubled down on by making them a million separate rules.
Oh, sorry... There was one other thing I hated about USRs- the ones where a USR was just two other USRs combined.
Why are you saying that like it was common. Wasn't it basically just Zealot?
And some unit types.
But yeah, USRs are vastly better than the current mess.
ClockworkZion wrote: GW designers have shown they don't "want" spam with their reactions to the tournament scene. The problem is they never found a good incentive structure that encourages people to not spam multiples of something that fits said people's playstyle.
Closest we got was makind weapon diversity important via the wider range of damage profiles but that always seems to result in people hunting for the singular most efficient option they have over making some kind of Highlander list.
As is tradition, I expect to see GW ransack T'au Empire mechanics and distribute them among the masses in 10th edition, for the greater good of all (and often, alas, a blandening of Tau mechanics).
In particularly, I'm wondering if GW will implement for Units to have a similar escalating point structure that Crisis Suit weapons have - The first is the cheapest, the second is a bit (or a lot) more expensive, and the third is more expensive still.
You wouldn't really need a Rule of Three anymore, frankly, since any unit that people take 4 or more of under that escalating structure is either broken good (and can be swiftly nudged back to reasonable efficiency) or inefficient for the units taken after the 2nd.
It strongly encourages build diversity, too. Finding efficient use of a diverse array of units helps.
Troops would need to be excluded from this increase, of course (because Troops are the only thing GW wants you to spam, and it would be silly to limit them in the same way). Some armies have a shallow depth of datasheets(Custodes, Harlies, Knights, probably others), and that's a wrinkle that would need solving somehow. Space Marines have a depth of datasheets that makes the Marianna Trench look like a plow furrow, and that might also cause issues. Further, GW would probably need to shift the point changes based on the size of the battle - escalation that's appropriate for 2000 points might not be meaningful at 500, and might be too punishing at 3000 (not that GW has ever been particularly good at balancing different point levels).
I would like to see a return to a more traditional product. I want a proper rulebook again with USRs. I also want to see stratagems toned down considerably. A codex doesn't need three pages of strats. These should be fun additions, not something to build lists around. It was a good idea, but it's gotten out of hand when guys are taking detachments just to get CP to power a Deathstar combo. I think a better way to add flavour would be to do something like Rites of War in 30K where you have some generic ones available and then maybe each codex could have one or two. Of course this would mean you'd have to do something about the FO chart, which imo is a mess right now with detachments. These need cleaned up big time. It's nuts that we have all these stackable FO charts, which is basically what they are. There should be one or two FO charts for everyone to use and then again, one or two in the codices to provide faction flavour. Like why don't Dark Eldar have an option to have an all Fast Attack army or something like that?
I think 8th and 9th gave us a lot of good ideas, but I'm tired of playing aura blobs and trying to make every turn a gotcha moment with fiddly stratagem tricks. I'm also tired of being told how unique everything is with a hundred different names for the same USR.
I'll also add that I would love it if GW grabbed a brain about Primaris and fixed their lore so that Belisarius Cawl just spent the last 10k years making better weapons and armour. That will never happen I know, but then again they did hard reset Fantasy Battles and they still sell AoS models so anything is possible.
Hairesy wrote: Like why don't Dark Eldar have an option to have an all Fast Attack army or something like that?
You can do that with the Force Org system. There are detachment types that allow for full armies of whatever Force Org slots you want plus 1 HQ, you just don't get the Command Points refunded as they aren't core detachments (ones similar to 1 HQ, 2 Troops kind of deal). I prefer it over the 8th version where taking more detachments got you extra CP so armies that were dirt cheap could easily rack up silly amounts of CP. It's possible the idea behind the 9th version was to prevent certain types of skewed lists but obviously that didn't work.
For Drukhari specifically, though, their Raiding Force and Realspace Raid detachments are brilliant and allow for really fun ways to play the army that also accurately follow the army background.
1. Alternating activations
2. Smaller armies.
3. Less deadly weapons.
I just really dislike how 3/4 of my army is always dead by the end of the game. I'd much rather have smaller armies and games that are fundamentally about maneuvering and objectives rather than just kill kill kill.
I want strats to be tied to game size (Combat Patrol, Incursion, Strike Force, Onslaught) so depending on the size of the game you get Core Strats + X Strats from your own book.
Cut down the actual strats by 2/3rds (including removing all equipment strats by making them equipment again, and any gotcha 'suddenly this unit is more durable for no reason!' strats), and then you choose what of your remaining strats you add to your basic 'Core' strats.
And yes, I fully realise that a very "deck building" style mechanic, but I'll take it over "39 strats in 7 broad categories" being the norm. Combat Patrol? 2 strats + Core. It's an Incursion game? Ok. You get 4 strats + Core. And so on.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I want strats to be tied to game size (Combat Patrol, Incursion, Strike Force, Onslaught) so depending on the size of the game you get Core Strats + X Strats from your own book.
Cut down the actual strats by 2/3rds (including removing all equipment strats by making them equipment again, and any gotcha 'suddenly this unit is more durable for no reason!' strats), and then you choose what of your remaining strats you add to your basic 'Core' strats.
And yes, I fully realise that a very "deck building" style mechanic, but I'll take it over "39 strats in 7 broad categories" being the norm. Combat Patrol? 2 strats + Core. It's an Incursion game? Ok. You get 4 strats + Core. And so on.
I'd take deck building over playing monoblue unlimited hand size nonsense for every army.
Cut rules bloat. Mainly by dialing back on things not on data-sheets. I don’t really like pure build bonuses (doctrines,protocols, whatever) Stratagems need to be dialed back significantly. Cutting sub-faction relics and warlord traits would be nice.
I’d just get rid of CORE as well. The theory behind it was sorta ok, but all’s it done in practice is make non-core units not usable.
Also either change it so either infantry can’t go through walls without problems, or make it so other units can go through walls. Maybe a tank can run though a wall but takes 3 MW when failing a 4+ save. Both of this and CORE changes are here to make vehicles, beasts, and Calvary more takable
For thing that I want, but will never happen. Far-less staggered releases. It’s never going to happen because GW knows rules sells models. Specifically, better rules than what came before them. You can’t codex creep, when all codex’s come out at once, leaving GW with little effective ways to shift old product without creep.
As an example, there’s no way custodes or Tau would sell as well if GW did non-staggered codex schedule.
For things I don’t want, many of the suggestions on this thread.
If I’d trusted GW with universal rules, I’d say that. Problem is GW can’t help themselves to make needless specific versions of U rules for new books.
AV just like Core was a good in theory rule, bad in practice. The “tourney players are ruining 40k” crowd has a slight point that blasts got removed because of us, but I still saw arguments even in casual settings.
Cut rules bloat. Mainly by dialing back on things not on data-sheets. I don’t really like pure build bonuses (doctrines,protocols, whatever) Stratagems need to be dialed back significantly. Cutting sub-faction relics and warlord traits would be nice.
Have you thought of taking your models to one of those giant chessboards in a strip mall? Use some apocalype moving trays? Intercessors can be the pawns, Repulsors can be the rooks, Outriders can be the Knights, Justiciar's can be bishops, the Chaplain the queen, the Captain the King...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Things I'd like to see:
1) Deep Dive on all the codex and supplements to fix the stupid things, oversights, and non-standard builds: I know Marines best so I'll use examples from there:
Add a Phobos Chaplain - With Reiver and Incursor Build
Make Lieutenant in Phobos Armor Infiltrate, make the Lieutenant in Reiver Armor Deep Strike.
Give the Phobos Captain a Reiver Alt Build
Let Reivers(etc) with both Graps and Gravs 12" FLY like Assault/Vanguard.
Gravis Lieutenant
Gravis Deathwing.
Get rid of the 3 and only 3 or 3-6 unit sizes for 5-10.
Give Bladeguard Veterans the bodyguard ability - People playing all Primaris but not Ultras needs a bodyguard squad - Retune Victrix with this in mind - mastercraft the sword, and heavy boltpistol.
Change Impulsors/Repulsors to Transport:12 (i.e. squad of 10 + 2 Characters) instead of 6.
A lot of the above can be boiled down to finish/fix/retcon the Primaris roll out.
After that: go back to the forgotten units - this can mean squat the firstborn or fix them.
End the Segretation on transports.
Make the Thunderfire Canon fun again.
Drastically retune the Firestrike turrets.
Then do the same with the other codex and supplements. For the Orks I'd probably even start from scratch on their doctrines.Especially with a new name that doesn't sound like a subtle shout out to a certain group from US History.
"Revive" Hive Fleets that have been "defeated" - and make it more clear that even though the Hive Fleet might be defeated in one location, there are other groups of that Hive Fleet elsewhere. I'd feel kind of stupid making a Hive Fleet Behemoth today when it was supposedly destroyed and what little was left created non-Behemoth Splinter Fleets in the fluff. It would be like creating a Firehawks Chapter then finding out they were lost in the warp before becoming the Legion Of the Damned in the current era.
In that same theme, do something with Tycho finally - resurrect or Legend and Replace the guy. Move Cassius to the Deathwatch again/permanently and create a new UM Chaplain Master of Sanctity.
Create some specialty Dets for Ravenwing, Deathwing, Wild Hunt, Speedkult, etc that either moves their signature units to Troops, or otherwise makes their units count as troops for everything - Objectives, Strats, whatever where the wording SHOULD allow/prevent something but doesn't on a technicality.
Have you thought of taking your models to one of those giant chessboards in a strip mall? Use some apocalype moving trays? Intercessors can be the pawns, Repulsors can be the rooks, Outriders can be the Knights, Justiciar's can be bishops, the Chaplain the queen, the Captain the King...
Strawman is not a valid argument.
Reducing the number of dumb rules doesn't dumb the game down, it's quite the opposite. If a rule doesn't ask players to make an interesting and relevant decision it should be cut, plain and simple.
Cut rules bloat. Mainly by dialing back on things not on data-sheets. I don’t really like pure build bonuses (doctrines,protocols, whatever) Stratagems need to be dialed back significantly. Cutting sub-faction relics and warlord traits would be nice.
Have you thought of taking your models to one of those giant chessboards in a strip mall? Use some apocalype moving trays? Intercessors can be the pawns, Repulsors can be the rooks, Outriders can be the Knights, Justiciar's can be bishops, the Chaplain the queen, the Captain the King...
What a ridiculous argument. All the things listed there are relatively new, some as new as 8th edition. There were multiple editions of 40k that included none of those things, or very heavily curtailed versions of them and they worked just fine.
1) I want to see someone who actually cares about orks writes 10th edition's codex. 2) I want the game to be less deadly. A lot less. If the game worked like it does now, but everything just did half as much damage it would be a pretty cool game. I don't even care how they do it.
3) Less stratagems. There are like five stratagems any given list regularly uses, but players unfamiliar with the army still have to read the other 30 to find them.
4) No more than two layers of rules on anything, for no reason. Having an interesting army rule (waaagh, PfP, contagions, custodes kung-fu, miracle dice) and sub-faction rules (clans, chapters, legions, septs) is more than enough to make army choices matter. If an army needs those buffs to function now, just improve their datasheets.
5) Quality of life improvements on crusade. Crusade with all the parts GW has added to it is a great toolbox for narrative play, but it could use some FAQ'ing and adjustments here and there. Matched play and codices have been polished and adjusted over and over again, however crusade rules have remained unchanged since the start of 9th no matter how good or bad they work.
That's all really. Make the game less deadly, cut down on complexity and go the extra mile to make orks and crusade great instead of just ok. Everything else is just nice to have.
Cut rules bloat. Mainly by dialing back on things not on data-sheets. I don’t really like pure build bonuses (doctrines,protocols, whatever) Stratagems need to be dialed back significantly. Cutting sub-faction relics and warlord traits would be nice.
Have you thought of taking your models to one of those giant chessboards in a strip mall? Use some apocalype moving trays? Intercessors can be the pawns, Repulsors can be the rooks, Outriders can be the Knights, Justiciar's can be bishops, the Chaplain the queen, the Captain the King...
What a ridiculous argument. All the things listed there are relatively new, some as new as 8th edition. There were multiple editions of 40k that included none of those things, or very heavily curtailed versions of them and they worked just fine.
Also love how he is implying that 40k moving closer to chess is the worst thing ever. I don’t want 40k to become chess, but there is clear middle group between chess and the bloated mess that 40k is now.
- a wargame using my favourite models and background
What I will get
- MtG using my favourite models and background.
At this point it is painful switching from playing a game of EpicA to 40k and I am increasingly baffled at friends that like the game as it moves ever further away from being a 'traditional' wargame. It is telling though how many at the GW fanatics club I go to are playing Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Epic, BFG and Warmaster instead.
I'm sure you said that as a joke, but feth me if the thought of the next IG 'dex following exactly the same path as every other codex prior doesn't fill me with despair. I thought we'd had enough of that by the end of 7th.
At this point I can only see 2 options - it is underpowered or like the rest overpowered. But only for a few months, then the next edition rolls out... (assuming it comes out before that edition of course).
The only thing I'd add is there's something unfortunate about making my opponent wait while I roll 120 shots of rapid fire frfsrf from conscripts that only results in a total of 4 wounds to a marine squad. Kind of fluffy but also cumbersome.
it is Psyops. Do that enough and they lose the will to win. And probably live.
What a ridiculous argument. All the things listed there are relatively new, some as new as 8th edition. There were multiple editions of 40k that included none of those things, or very heavily curtailed versions of them and they worked just fine.
You are absolutely right, prior to stratagems there was never an ability called the Power Of The Machine Spirit that allowed damaged... oh I don't know, lets say Land Raiders to shoot better after it had been damaged. I've definitely never heard of a Subterranean Burst with a Tremor effect for Thunderfire Canons either. What is Skilled Riders? What are these new-fangled things called meltabombs? Hunter Killer Missiles? And who ever heard of giving a veteran sergeant a relic (i.e. Wargear Card)? Many of these things are not new. Doctrines definitely aren't. They started with the Generic Space Marines in what, 5th? 6th? Moved to All Marines an edition later? The Dial-A-Doctrine strat was originally the bonus given to Generic Marines for having to share Doctrines with the Bespoke Marines. Stealth Suits hopping out of sight after shooting in some sort of Strike And Fade?Endless Swarm for 2CP that used to be 3 points per model? The names change. Sometimes. Everything else gets recycled.
The list was:
(doctrines,protocols, whatever) Stratagems need to be dialed back significantly. Cutting sub-faction relics and warlord traits would be nice
So aside from where they move/attack, what's left for you to have options after list building?
There is a very clear and distinct difference between current Strategems and the rules many of them derive from.
Same can be said of doctrines and purity bonuses.
In a proper wargame moving and attacking (and morale, a useful mechanic in those games) is interesting enough that they don't need lots of special gak layered on top to create some semblence of gameplay.
Reducing the number of dumb rules doesn't dumb the game down, it's quite the opposite. If a rule doesn't ask players to make an interesting and relevant decision it should be cut, plain and simple.
It was Reductio Ad Absurdum. Did you mean Interesting and relevant choices like whether to spend 1 or more precious command points on a reroll or an extra movement, or a defensive hail mary? Or even to spend them pregame to stack an Everybody gets ObSec, and Core with Obsec count as +1 models warlord traits? The abilities to change the course of the game are some of the most interesting and relevant decisions.
kirotheavenger wrote: There is a very clear and distinct difference between current Strategems and the rules many of them derive from.
Same can be said of doctrines and purity bonuses.
In a proper wargame moving and attacking (and morale, a useful mechanic in those games) is interesting enough that they don't need lots of special gak layered on top to create some semblence of gameplay.
Is that clear and distinct difference more clear and distinct than 3 Points per model out of 2000 or so vs 2 CP out of 15 or so? Or Move, shoot, move vs move, Pay CP, shoot, move?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lord Clinto wrote: Personally, as much as I know it will never happen, I'd like them to move away from the d6 and into either the d10 or d12.
And, way way way less Strats.
They used to do that. The rumor is/was they went away from it due to some sort of Dungeons and Dragons Satanic Parental fears. But I'd load that up with a grain of salt. Still, it could get pretty comical. A medium armor rating (for vehicles) might be 20. And a set of powerfists had an armor penetration of D6+D20+8 or some such. Rolling a 6 on the D6 and a 1 on the D20 was memorable. If you're ever bored, try looking for something called a Thudd Gun Template. They made a template just for the one gun. Maybe there was another like it out there. Well they gave you most of the materials, and you had to get some brass pins/tacks and put it together.
Is that clear and distinct difference more clear and distinct than 3 Points per model out of 2000 or so vs 2 CP out of 15 or so? Or Move, shoot, move vs move, Pay CP, shoot, move?
Yes, because one of those is derived from an inherent ability of the unit and the other is derived from a limited use overarching "meta currency"
If I run two units of stealthsuits; only one of them can move shoot move. Is the second all tuckered out just watching first lot go?
Breton wrote: Still, it could get pretty comical. A medium armor rating (for vehicles) might be 20. And a set of powerfists had an armor penetration of D6+D20+8 or some such. Rolling a 6 on the D6 and a 1 on the D20 was memorable. If you're ever bored, try looking for something called a Thudd Gun Template. They made a template just for the one gun. Maybe there was another like it out there. Well they gave you most of the materials, and you had to get some brass pins/tacks and put it together.
Spoiler:
Thudd gun. Awesome stuff. The above was 2nd edition (of course the best edition...), but using different dice for damage was a holdover of the games roleplay roots and was in 1st and 2nd edition (was it in 3rd?) before they decided to standardise on D6 (lots of D6 - but that is Andy Chamber's fault).
Nomeny wrote: Maybe the Horus Heresy game is a preview of 10th edition, depending what works (and what doesn't).
Doubtful, they'll probably steal stuff back and forth, but even when Fantasy and 40K were running at the same time most of the basic rules were different - for example 40K dumped Psychology rules in a hurry.
It was Reductio Ad Absurdum. Did you mean Interesting and relevant choices like whether to spend 1 or more precious command points on a reroll or an extra movement, or a defensive hail mary? Or even to spend them pregame to stack an Everybody gets ObSec, and Core with Obsec count as +1 models warlord traits? The abilities to change the course of the game are some of the most interesting and relevant decisions.
So 40k lacks a lot of what wargames good/fun/challenging at its core. The use of strategems/CPs/list building is to put a tactical framework over that so players have choices to make in game.
It seems to be popular - as I and others have said it is like many modern card games and a departure from a more wargaming background, which is also fine because 40k grew out of roleplay skirmish. I just think the more the game become about what you have in your hand and the less about what models can predictably do on the tabletop the more you push those that like the wargaming approach away. Now GW has good wargame systems (Warmaster has probably been ported into more settings than anything else), and the Heresy game is more like the older style of model statelines and abilities being important, not strategic use of cards and gotcha's. So maybe you will see the two camps be offered something different and be happy, or maybe they will double down on pushing 40k underworlds and see where it gets them.
What a ridiculous argument. All the things listed there are relatively new, some as new as 8th edition. There were multiple editions of 40k that included none of those things, or very heavily curtailed versions of them and they worked just fine.
You are absolutely right, prior to stratagems there was never an ability called the Power Of The Machine Spirit that allowed damaged... oh I don't know, lets say Land Raiders to shoot better after it had been damaged. I've definitely never heard of a Subterranean Burst with a Tremor effect for Thunderfire Canons either. What is Skilled Riders? What are these new-fangled things called meltabombs? Hunter Killer Missiles? And who ever heard of giving a veteran sergeant a relic (i.e. Wargear Card)? Many of these things are not new. Doctrines definitely aren't. They started with the Generic Space Marines in what, 5th? 6th? Moved to All Marines an edition later? The Dial-A-Doctrine strat was originally the bonus given to Generic Marines for having to share Doctrines with the Bespoke Marines. Stealth Suits hopping out of sight after shooting in some sort of Strike And Fade?Endless Swarm for 2CP that used to be 3 points per model? The names change. Sometimes. Everything else gets recycled.
The list was:
(doctrines,protocols, whatever) Stratagems need to be dialed back significantly. Cutting sub-faction relics and warlord traits would be nice
So aside from where they move/attack, what's left for you to have options after list building?
Right, so you just don't understand the difference between strats/WL traits/relics etc and...rules with the same or similar names? Seems like you've spectacularly missed the point. All the things you mention are distinctly different to the things being complained about. Free WL traits and relics, are a very different beast to big wargear lists or wargear cards you have to pay for, for example. I could go on but I get the feeling there's not much point.
I think the point is that in ye olden days a marine with a boltgun was a marine with a boltgun.
Now he's a [Chapter A] Marine with a boltgun - benefiting also from [Doctrine B] and [Super Doctrine C] with [Character Aura D] and [Warlord Trait/Relic E] and [Stratagems F, G and/or H.] (Marines actually are perhaps not the most complicated - but working out all the possible buffs up with say Ad Mech need cards or a flowchart.)
Personally this doesn't hugely bother me at a mechanics level - I just dislike that the above results everything killing everything in 2 turns - unless you in turn break out defensive buffs J, K and L.
At this point I feel like stratagems need to be completely expelled from the game.
Power Levels also need to go. This continues to be a lost cause.
The Command Point system should be for army construction, unit requisition and perhaps also for triggering character abilities.
Spoiler:
For example, CP's could be used in addition to points to add unique characters and rare units to a detachment. The Keyword system could be used to denote unit rarity... Uncommon, Rare, Mythic, Legendary and depending on the keyword there would be a CP cost associated to include it in the army.
Most Aura's (e.g. ones buffing or de-buffing units) should be an ability used in the Command Phase that selects/targets a single unit and maybe costs CP's.
What a ridiculous argument. All the things listed there are relatively new, some as new as 8th edition. There were multiple editions of 40k that included none of those things, or very heavily curtailed versions of them and they worked just fine.
You are absolutely right, prior to stratagems there was never an ability called the Power Of The Machine Spirit that allowed damaged... oh I don't know, lets say Land Raiders to shoot better after it had been damaged. I've definitely never heard of a Subterranean Burst with a Tremor effect for Thunderfire Canons either. What is Skilled Riders? What are these new-fangled things called meltabombs? Hunter Killer Missiles? And who ever heard of giving a veteran sergeant a relic (i.e. Wargear Card)? Many of these things are not new. Doctrines definitely aren't. They started with the Generic Space Marines in what, 5th? 6th? Moved to All Marines an edition later? The Dial-A-Doctrine strat was originally the bonus given to Generic Marines for having to share Doctrines with the Bespoke Marines. Stealth Suits hopping out of sight after shooting in some sort of Strike And Fade?Endless Swarm for 2CP that used to be 3 points per model? The names change. Sometimes. Everything else gets recycled.
The list was:
(doctrines,protocols, whatever) Stratagems need to be dialed back significantly. Cutting sub-faction relics and warlord traits would be nice
So aside from where they move/attack, what's left for you to have options after list building?
The game worked perfectly well for over a decade with the only choices at the table being where to move or attack.
40k doesn't need to pretend to be MtG to survive and thrive.
I'd like to see stratagems get changed to being bought before the game, during list building phase. a Normal 2,000 pts game has 12 CP, you use that pool to buy detachments for your list, and stratagems to use during the battle. Take away all the CP generation stuff, or make it a special ability for a character that would give like 2 or 3 extra points during list building. This would basically give another stratagem to the player. With most strats costing 2 to 3 CP most players would end up with 4 maybe 5. Leave the main rulebook ones in there for free, so every player has access to those. Keep the 1 time use per phase limit to prevent spaming them in one go, but they're available the entire game, not just 1 use and they're gone ( a 1 time use per game would be a hard-core version of this). Make sure both players can see/read the other's choices to help eliminate "gotcha!" moments. I think that would take away a lot of, "let me check" moments that slow down games, and also help with the massive amounts of reading materials each player has to go through. Digital rules would be the 2nd big thing I'd ask from 10th. Why doesn't GW license tablet shells that use the GW stuff, like an Stormcast or Slaves to Darkness shell for a tablet? How about something simple like Space Marine Chapter symbols/reliefs on those fold out triangle stands/screen protectors? I'm not sure how the logistics/licensing would work on that though.
Tyel wrote: I think the point is that in ye olden days a marine with a boltgun was a marine with a boltgun.
Now he's a [Chapter A] Marine with a boltgun - benefiting also from [Doctrine B] and [Super Doctrine C] with [Character Aura D] and [Warlord Trait/Relic E] and [Stratagems F, G and/or H.] (Marines actually are perhaps not the most complicated - but working out all the possible buffs up with say Ad Mech need cards or a flowchart.)
I can't even say that's complicated at all. Especially given how rarely all of those come into play at the same time.
Personally this doesn't hugely bother me at a mechanics level - I just dislike that the above results everything killing everything in 2 turns - unless you in turn break out defensive buffs J, K and L.
I kind of suspect it's because we're all packing into the same "threat range" - likely because varied builds don't have the same oomph. The things you take for Marines are the same things you take for Meganobs, Warbikers, Tyranid Warriors, Most of the Tau suits. Basically all the heavy infantry and light vehicles with T4-5, and 2-6 wounds along with a bunch of close-enough outliers. If Harlequins shape up like people are expecting maybe that changes. Priorities for them are much different than Marines. Vs Marines you want a medium number of S5-7 shots with high AP and 2D. If I'm going against Harlequins I want Whirlwinds, Thunderfires, Assault Canons, Hurricane Bolters, and so on - I want to max as many S4+ shots as I can - and I don't care if it has AP or not. This would have been accomplished if the "horde" builds were more valid, but sadly they're not really. Harlequins, improving Green Tide, Bug Rugs, Guard, Vehicle/Cover and Blast would do far more for the health of the game. I think it started with Knights, a skew army, which made other especially large vehicles less attractive - and then snowballed from there. No big tanks/transports means more bikes, speeders, and other fast movers(think Jump Packs and small vehicles). Bikes are generally +1T +1W, Speeders/etc are light vehicles usually T5-6 6-8 wounds Blast punches down on large units without giving an offsetting bonus. This pushes people into the good small size units.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mr.Pickels wrote: I'd like to see stratagems get changed to being bought before the game, during list building phase. a Normal 2,000 pts game has 12 CP,
17 - you get 1 per Command Phase for being Battle Forged.
you use that pool to buy detachments for your list,
I'd like it if they finally learned their Loyal 32 lesson and totally detached Command Points from List Building via Detachments: neither Paying nor Earning
and stratagems to use during the battle. Take away all the CP generation stuff, or make it a special ability for a character that would give like 2 or 3 extra points during list building. This would basically give another stratagem to the player. With most strats costing 2 to 3 CP most players would end up with 4 maybe 5. Leave the main rulebook ones in there for free, so every player has access to those. Keep the 1 time use per phase limit to prevent spaming them in one go, but they're available the entire game, not just 1 use and they're gone ( a 1 time use per game would be a hard-core version of this). Make sure both players can see/read the other's choices to help eliminate "gotcha!" moments. I think that would take away a lot of, "let me check" moments that slow down games, and also help with the massive amounts of reading materials each player has to go through. Digital rules would be the 2nd big thing I'd ask from 10th. Why doesn't GW license tablet shells that use the GW stuff, like an Stormcast or Slaves to Darkness shell for a tablet? How about something simple like Space Marine Chapter symbols/reliefs on those fold out triangle stands/screen protectors? I'm not sure how the logistics/licensing would work on that though.
They did E-books but I'm not sure why they stopped. Well technically they didn't stop, now you can put a code into their system but it's not very good and their history suggests they won't have the patience to fix it and see it through to a success.
I would like to see Stratagems gone entirely from the game because they are antithetical to the whole idea of a wargame.
The units on the table and their respective positions should be the important factor - not a pile of what might as well be spell cards, which exist entirely independently of anything happening on the battlefield.
Not only are they a horrible mechanic to begin with, they're also devouring other, better mechanics. We've already seen weapons and wargear disappear into the globular mass of stratagems, where good game design goes to die. And with every codex it seems even more weapons, wargear etc. is fed into the ever-expanding mass, that increasingly resembles the blob-monster from an 80s B-movie.
Breton wrote: Still, it could get pretty comical. A medium armor rating (for vehicles) might be 20. And a set of powerfists had an armor penetration of D6+D20+8 or some such. Rolling a 6 on the D6 and a 1 on the D20 was memorable. If you're ever bored, try looking for something called a Thudd Gun Template. They made a template just for the one gun. Maybe there was another like it out there. Well they gave you most of the materials, and you had to get some brass pins/tacks and put it together.
Spoiler:
Thudd gun. Awesome stuff. The above was 2nd edition (of course the best edition...), but using different dice for damage was a holdover of the games roleplay roots and was in 1st and 2nd edition (was it in 3rd?) before they decided to standardise on D6 (lots of D6 - but that is Andy Chamber's fault).
3rd edition was when things went to being all the D6...
vipoid wrote: I would like to see Stratagems gone entirely from the game because they are antithetical to the whole idea of a wargame.
The units on the table and their respective positions should be the important factor - not a pile of what might as well be spell cards, which exist entirely independently of anything happening on the battlefield.
Not only are they a horrible mechanic to begin with, they're also devouring other, better mechanics. We've already seen weapons and wargear disappear into the globular mass of stratagems, where good game design goes to die. And with every codex it seems even more weapons, wargear etc. is fed into the ever-expanding mass, that increasingly resembles the blob-monster from an 80s B-movie.
I agree that the current implementation is hot garbage, but I wonder if there might be a way to make Stratagems worth including if GW completely reworked them to be...well, actual stratagems. Maybe something where you have to write down a plan ahead of time, and then pay a cost to implement it or choose to forgo it - ie, "I will pay 2 Command and Control Points to have Squads Pliny and Tertullian feign a withdrawal from Hill 218 if assaulted, only to turn and re-engage their assailants on their next game turn (provided they pass a Ld test [and assuming that the game would not normally allow this])."
There's no way you can rules lawyer something as vague as that, unfortunately.
Closest you could get is something like "Squads Pliny and Tertullian may fall back and still charge once per game" would be as close as you'd get.
Ultimately that's more pre-battle planning, which I want to avoid.
No plan survives contact with the enemy, so what I want to wargame is how I handle that friction. Setting it all up before hand is homework I don't want to do.
CSM, Daemons, Chaos Knights and possibly World Eaters need to be released before we can understand what the real problems are.
The main things I'd like to see improved are charge / combat mechanics. Bring back multicharges, don't make units fail a charge because they can't hit both units. Charging units should always fight first. And allow all units to add +3" to charge rolls. This last one is because (IMHO) mid-range melee armies depend on it so much compared to shooting armies, it should be easier to get them into combat.
The problem is stratagems are tied to such a gamey mechanic at this point its hard to think of them *not* as a unit in an rts game with a cool down.
When in my minds eye I think of a stratagem I think more of an overarching plan, not "unit X can shoot harder suddenly so units Y and Z cannot do that now." It doesn't help that things that would actually make sense as strategies either already exist in the game (a forced march is basically advancing - the unit gives up certain actions to move up farther) or don't exist at all (digging into a defensive position), or are under the domain of a single faction (crossfire). If "stratagems" were reconceptualized in the context of...blanking on an actually good term so for lack of a better one demeanor, of a unit, that could at least make some sense. Say like "standard", "offensive", "defensive" and "forced march" as just examples. You declare the strategy of each unit at the start of your turn, then begin implementing your actions based on what your plan is. Could work with both I go you go and alternate activation - maybe if command points must still be a thing, they can be used to force change a demeanor mid turn in reaction to what your opponent does in an AA setting, but with the limit of command points you can only do it so often.
kurhanik wrote: The problem is stratagems are tied to such a gamey mechanic at this point its hard to think of them *not* as a unit in an rts game with a cool down.
When in my minds eye I think of a stratagem I think more of an overarching plan, not "unit X can shoot harder suddenly so units Y and Z cannot do that now." It doesn't help that things that would actually make sense as strategies either already exist in the game (a forced march is basically advancing - the unit gives up certain actions to move up farther) or don't exist at all (digging into a defensive position), or are under the domain of a single faction (crossfire). If "stratagems" were reconceptualized in the context of...blanking on an actually good term so for lack of a better one demeanor, of a unit, that could at least make some sense. Say like "standard", "offensive", "defensive" and "forced march" as just examples. You declare the strategy of each unit at the start of your turn, then begin implementing your actions based on what your plan is. Could work with both I go you go and alternate activation - maybe if command points must still be a thing, they can be used to force change a demeanor mid turn in reaction to what your opponent does in an AA setting, but with the limit of command points you can only do it so often.
Quite a lot of games have that sort of thing. Call it "stances", "orders", or "actions" or whatever.
There's lots of directions you can take it.
In Titanicus, you need to take a command test to issue a titan an order other than the default. When a titan fails their command test, you've lost your grip and can't attempt to issue any more that phase. Orders modify how they act. They might get to shoot a gun in the movement phase at the penalty of not moving at all, or they might get to repair extra at the penalty of not shooting.
In Epic, (I think), you issue every unit an order at the beginning of the phase, then alternating activating a unit to carry out their order. Orders might be to move twice, move and shoot, or even triple move (but be vulnerable to attack).
It's definitely something that could work well for 40k I feel. Ripping from titanicus would be the best option without overhauling the turn sequence.
I feel that there should be less Stratagems available during the game - give people access to core Stratagems, then pick 4-6 to have access to from your faction's list, and you can't use the rest during your game. That way people aren't overwhelmed with options. You could even have certain Stratagems be mutually exclusive with each other. Make what Stratagems you bring to the field an actual choice with tradeoffs.
You can port Epic to 40k scale easily enough. Call cm's inches, each base of infantry is one figure, a unit of (number) vehicles is one/more vehicles with (number) 'hit points'.
Hecaton wrote: I feel that there should be less Stratagems available during the game - give people access to core Stratagems, then pick 4-6 to have access to from your faction's list, and you can't use the rest during your game. That way people aren't overwhelmed with options. You could even have certain Stratagems be mutually exclusive with each other. Make what Stratagems you bring to the field an actual choice with tradeoffs.
I had a similar thought. something like one stratagem for ever 500 points in your army. If that's too much than maybe something like every stratagem in a once per game use no exceptions.
Honestly this edition is extremely overwhelming once all the layers ar in use. the rules are easy enough but there's just too much extra stuff.
What I want for 10th.
I don't exactly know but I'll know it when I see it.
If I add more I'd just end up complaining about 9th.
Why not just have strategems tied to a unit and add a point cost to the unit. Limit it to one use of a stratagem per army (so no stratagem can be used by two units). Allow a person to stack as many stratagems on a unit as they can afford. I know that if I saw a unit that was really beefed up with strats then I would certainly either single it out for damage or avoid it altogether (whichever is more appropriate). This way everyone knows from turn 1 what unit can do what. No gotchas and no changing which unit can do what. It's all fixed and part of list building.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Why not just have strategems tied to a unit and add a point cost to the unit. Limit it to one use of a stratagem per army (so no stratagem can be used by two units). Allow a person to stack as many stratagems on a unit as they can afford. I know that if I saw a unit that was really beefed up with strats then I would certainly either single it out for damage or avoid it altogether (whichever is more appropriate). This way everyone knows from turn 1 what unit can do what. No gotchas and no changing which unit can do what. It's all fixed and part of list building.
Notionally I'd prefer weaker stratagems. We seem to have inflation there as with everthing else. If something is going to be powerful have it cost say 5-6 CP so you are really spending resources.
But I fear having fewer will just mean faction A always uses Stratagem B as much as they can. Which, to be fair, basically happens now. I don't think the game would be improved by pruning "never used stratagems C & D".
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Why not just have strategems tied to a unit and add a point cost to the unit. Limit it to one use of a stratagem per army (so no stratagem can be used by two units). Allow a person to stack as many stratagems on a unit as they can afford. I know that if I saw a unit that was really beefed up with strats then I would certainly either single it out for damage or avoid it altogether (whichever is more appropriate). This way everyone knows from turn 1 what unit can do what. No gotchas and no changing which unit can do what. It's all fixed and part of list building.
so like wargear upgrades? yes
Yes, that was my idea. Treat them like unique wargear.
Tell you what I did not want to see, and that's 6-10pt flying troops with S5 ranged attacks that can be taken in groups of 10-20. NO. This is wrong GW.
Hecaton wrote: I feel that there should be less Stratagems available during the game - give people access to core Stratagems, then pick 4-6 to have access to from your faction's list, and you can't use the rest during your game. That way people aren't overwhelmed with options. You could even have certain Stratagems be mutually exclusive with each other. Make what Stratagems you bring to the field an actual choice with tradeoffs.
warhead01 wrote: I had a similar thought. something like one stratagem for ever 500 points in your army. If that's too much than maybe something like every stratagem in a once per game use no exceptions.
That's basically what I want to see for strats, like I said on the last page, although I would use the existing mechanics of game size (Combat Patrol, Incursion, Strike Force, Onslaught) rather than just per X-points.
And then on top of that remove all equipment and 'gotcha' strats.
kirotheavenger wrote: There's no way you can rules lawyer something as vague as that, unfortunately.
Closest you could get is something like "Squads Pliny and Tertullian may fall back and still charge once per game" would be as close as you'd get.
Ultimately that's more pre-battle planning, which I want to avoid.
No plan survives contact with the enemy, so what I want to wargame is how I handle that friction. Setting it all up before hand is homework I don't want to do.
I'd guess that would be a smaller issue to solve than the long pause after setup to work out where and when these Strats would be deployed.
"Ok, I'm going to shoot that unit." "Ha! Transhuman! Now they're tougher for no apparent reason!"
That kind of strat. There should be reactionary strats, but not like that. Not one that just makes a unit of Primaris Marines (or Cadians, FFS... ) suddenly tougher out of no where.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Why not just have strategems tied to a unit and add a point cost to the unit. Limit it to one use of a stratagem per army (so no stratagem can be used by two units). Allow a person to stack as many stratagems on a unit as they can afford. I know that if I saw a unit that was really beefed up with strats then I would certainly either single it out for damage or avoid it altogether (whichever is more appropriate). This way everyone knows from turn 1 what unit can do what. No gotchas and no changing which unit can do what. It's all fixed and part of list building.
Because a lot of them started out that way, nobody took them - or they didn't do anything, and GW figured this would be another way to get them used. Land Raider Assault Launchers, Hunter Killer Missiles, Hellfury Bolts, Haywire, Starhawk/Flakk, and so on. These things were usually in this no-man's-land where during list building you looked at it and said not worth the points - then in a game every so often - Man wouldn't it be funny if I had that now. - for example the Flakk/Starhawk missiles and such. Facing an aircraft in a random game is too unlikely to dedicate points to, but when you do, you wish you had them. Now maybe they just give the AA missile to Missile Launcher troops free with Frag and Krak. And all tanks get a free Hunter Killer Missile, etc. But that just feeds the power creep.
GW has its own version of Death and Taxes: They absolutely LOVE some Ideas they can't make work, and they break a lot of things that used to work in their quest for those things they love.
Thudd Gun to Thunderfire Canon (multi-barreled field artillery piece with a WWI/Civil War vibe)
Tarantula to Firestrike (Two Heavy Gun Turrety Thing)
Land Raider Assault Launchers
Auto Launchers/Smoke Screens
People who have played other armies for a long time can probably list more things from their armies. Many of these things are somewhat a catch-22. They're not good enough to charge for, and too good for free.
"Ok, I'm going to shoot that unit."
"Ha! Transhuman! Now they're tougher for no apparent reason!"
That kind of strat. There should be reactionary strats, but not like that. Not one that just makes a unit of Primaris Marines (or Cadians, FFS... ) suddenly tougher out of no where.
That's not much of a gotcha. Maybe we're using Gotcha differently. And its basically a squad version of the Armor Indomitus. How many books don't have something like this? Lightning Fast Reactions in CWE -1 to hit when selected as a target - Veterans Of The Long War is similar just going the other direction +1 to Wound when selecting a target. Exceptional Proficiency +1 to hit. Unbridled Carnage, Hit 'Em Harder and so on. If we should have reactive strats, but not ones that make units tougher, accurate, agile, or mobile what do they react with?
Automatically Appended Next Post: I kind of wonder what it would look like if we went back to 2nd Edition List Building.
I think it was 0-25% on characters, 25%+ on Squads, and 0-50% on Support. - that's mostly self explanatory - Independent Characters were Characters, Squads were the Elite, FA, Troops, and Heavy Support that are.. Squads. Support was your vehicles, soup, and so on - they've already been moving that direction ever since the strict Formations relaxing into several pretty customizable detachments that can avoid Troop choices entirely.
I don't really think that's the answer, but maybe some sort of hybrid. I just started wondering what it would look like. Knights would need some sort of special rule, but they already do. I was just wondering what it would look like.
That's not much of a gotcha. Maybe we're using Gotcha differently.
Nah, it's a Gotcha, just because everyone knows it doesn't make it not one. Personally in terms of reactionary Gotchas I'd define a Gotcha as something that invalidates or weakens an opponents choice of action that they can't do anything about. So in the case of Transhuman if an opponent chooses to use his expensive points sink unit and sinks several CP into making it even better and the opponent uses a Strat to turn into a suboptimal choice then I'd say thats a Gotcha. There is no way to work around the Strat such as baiting it out earlier in the phase or negating it somehow.
That's not much of a gotcha. Maybe we're using Gotcha differently.
Nah, it's a Gotcha, just because everyone knows it doesn't make it not one. Personally in terms of reactionary Gotchas I'd define a Gotcha as something that invalidates or weakens an opponents choice of action that they can't do anything about. So in the case of Transhuman if an opponent chooses to use his expensive points sink unit and sinks several CP into making it even better and the opponent uses a Strat to turn into a suboptimal choice then I'd say thats a Gotcha. There is no way to work around the Strat such as baiting it out earlier in the phase or negating it somehow.
Isn't that the point of a reactionary Strat? Wouldn't NOT having these then make the opponent's choice of action a Gotcha?
That's not much of a gotcha. Maybe we're using Gotcha differently.
Nah, it's a Gotcha, just because everyone knows it doesn't make it not one. Personally in terms of reactionary Gotchas I'd define a Gotcha as something that invalidates or weakens an opponents choice of action that they can't do anything about. So in the case of Transhuman if an opponent chooses to use his expensive points sink unit and sinks several CP into making it even better and the opponent uses a Strat to turn into a suboptimal choice then I'd say thats a Gotcha. There is no way to work around the Strat such as baiting it out earlier in the phase or negating it somehow.
Isn't that the point of a reactionary Strat? Wouldn't NOT having these then make the opponent's choice of action a Gotcha?
You know what you in the past also could do, when we had no strats? for a unit that needed to be tougher to survive?
USR: going to ground / take cover. And you know what the cost was associated to it, less accuracy and movement.
An actual cost, not limited to 1 unit and an actual decision, save the unit but sacrifice movement / firepower for another time, or attempting to weather the storm but risk the unit being obliterated.
That's not much of a gotcha. Maybe we're using Gotcha differently.
Nah, it's a Gotcha, just because everyone knows it doesn't make it not one. Personally in terms of reactionary Gotchas I'd define a Gotcha as something that invalidates or weakens an opponents choice of action that they can't do anything about. So in the case of Transhuman if an opponent chooses to use his expensive points sink unit and sinks several CP into making it even better and the opponent uses a Strat to turn into a suboptimal choice then I'd say thats a Gotcha. There is no way to work around the Strat such as baiting it out earlier in the phase or negating it somehow.
Invalidate and weaken are completely different cases though. Transhuman is not really a gotcha, since it just turns the roll into a slightly worse one and people should expect not to get average results everytime. Transhuman is basically the equivalent to roll a bit more poorly than expected, and despite all the ways to fix the results and the amount of dice involved we're still playing a dice game.
A gotcha is when an impossible result is achieved out of that unexpected tool. Like charging more than 12'' for example, or getting/removing Obj sec for a turn and score differently thanks to that. With this definition of gotchas I don't think there are that many gotchas combinations at the moment.
I kind of wonder what it would look like if we went back to 2nd Edition List Building.
I think it was 0-25% on characters, 25%+ on Squads, and 0-50% on Support. - that's mostly self explanatory - Independent Characters were Characters, Squads were the Elite, FA, Troops, and Heavy Support that are.. Squads. Support was your vehicles, soup, and so on - they've already been moving that direction ever since the strict Formations relaxing into several pretty customizable detachments that can avoid Troop choices entirely.
I don't really think that's the answer, but maybe some sort of hybrid. I just started wondering what it would look like. Knights would need some sort of special rule, but they already do. I was just wondering what it would look like.
Nah, factions with good options in all army roles would be much better than others then. Just allow troops to do unique and rewarding activities so the players might be incentivized to take them but they'd also get a plan B in case their troops are not worthy and rely on different tactics. Otherwise divide the roster into Generals, Core, Rare, Super Rare with basically all the infantries and bikers (except models in heavy armour and some expensive specialists) into the core section, like WHFB. This would give enough flexibility even if it forces players to invest X% of points into specific categories.
A gotcha is when an impossible result is achieved out of that unexpected tool. Like charging more than 12'' for example, or getting/removing Obj sec for a turn and score differently thanks to that. With this definition of gotchas I don't think there are that many gotchas combinations at the moment.
The ObSec is getting more popular - between giving ObSec away to Non Troops, Making Units/Models who already have it count as 1 more - and the Teaser about the Parasite of Mortrex. They're slow about it, but they appear to making sure their mechanics have ways for you to manipulate them - i.e. counting more or less on Objectives.
Blackie wrote: A gotcha is when an impossible result is achieved out of that unexpected tool. Like charging more than 12'' for example, or getting/removing Obj sec for a turn and score differently thanks to that. With this definition of gotchas I don't think there are that many gotchas combinations at the moment.
I kind of like this definition, although I'd possibly go even further.
To my mind gotchas are trap cards. The best examples are interception stratagems. (Forewarned with Eldar, Auspex Scan for Marines etc). You deepstrike within a certain range, I can shoot you outside of sequence, and because damage is ludicrous, there's a good chance your DSed unit is just deleted before getting to do anything. If you get "caught" it tends to feel bad - because you had other immediate options - often just putting you models a few inches over which wouldn't have made much difference (in a casual game anyway). Some heroic intervention stratagems can fall into the same space. If you are used to playing by intent with some mild take backs if your intention didn't quite match up it feels a bit jarring to be told "haha, I got you, gg no re".
To a degree this applies to things like turning Obsec on and off, or charging more than 12" - but at least in some instances (more casual games perhaps) this wouldn't necesarilly instantly impact how you play.
Like charging into a unit which can make you fight last. Its obviously annoying - but what was the alternative? Just standing there waiting to be charged/shot in your turn? You just have to learn that said unit can do that.
Certainly calling things like Transhuman a gotcha seem to be stretching it. To my mind that's not far off going "if I'd known Custodes were T5 2+ I wouldn't have shot them with my bolters". I mean maybe that would be true but its not obvious you were "got".
Certainly calling things like Transhuman a gotcha seem to be stretching it. To my mind that's not far off going "if I'd known Custodes were T5 2+ I wouldn't have shot them with my bolters". I mean maybe that would be true but its not obvious you were "got".
How is that different than "If I'd known you could shoot reinforcements within 12 inches I would have placed them 13 inches (and outside the Good Melta Distance) away."? I mean at a certain point any of the ones we choose to delete or keep can be worked into that sentence.
How is that different than "If I'd known you could shoot reinforcements within 12 inches I would have placed them 13 inches (and outside the Good Melta Distance) away."? I mean at a certain point any of the ones we choose to delete or keep can be worked into that sentence.
I feel "I didn't realise unit X was so strong/tough/fast" is different to "I didn't realise that ability even existed in the game".
To a degree yes, you can say "you just have to learn" - but some things are more of a trap than others.
Sim-Life wrote: There is no way to work around the Strat such as baiting it out earlier in the phase or negating it somehow.
If your opponent only has one unit of troops that can use it, this is sort of true.
A lot of folks say that 9th doesn't have strategy or tactics; what they mean by that is that strategies and tactics don't fit their definition of what strategies and tactics are. Doing this kind of thing- teasing a transhuman out of someone- IS a strategy or a tactic.
So first- you want to force a player to use it early in the game so you can whack them with an Agents of Vect or equivalent, which will make Transhuman more expensive for the rest of the game- this is one way to guarantee you see it less.
Then you have to attack a unit that qualifies to use it which ISN'T the unit you really want to take out. The trick is it has to LOOK like the unit you want to take out. So it should be a unit whose disappearance would give you an edge. And if your opponent doesn't declare transhuman right away, you want to drop a strat on it to sweeten the deal.... But not the strat you're saving for your real target.
Now I get that this doesn't feel the same as using facings or positioning or suppressive fire, or all the other stuff that people say IS strategy or tactics. But there is strategy at work.
BTW, if gotcha strats are terrible, than wouldn't suppression fire be a gotcha tactic? There's even less you can do to mitigate it than there is that you can do to mitigate transhuman. So why does everyone love one and hate the other?
(I already know the answer- it's because one feels like it SHOULD be associated with a miniature game and the other feels like it should be associated with a card game- but it's crazy to me that people don't actually mind GOTCHA, as long as it's their particular flavour of GOTCHA)
Sim-Life wrote: There is no way to work around the Strat such as baiting it out earlier in the phase or negating it somehow.
If your opponent only has one unit of troops that can use it, this is sort of true.
A lot of folks say that 9th doesn't have strategy or tactics; what they mean by that is that strategies and tactics don't fit their definition of what strategies and tactics are. Doing this kind of thing- teasing a transhuman out of someone- IS a strategy or a tactic.
So first- you want to force a player to use it early in the game so you can whack them with an Agents of Vect or equivalent, which will make Transhuman more expensive for the rest of the game- this is one way to guarantee you see it less.
Then you have to attack a unit that qualifies to use it which ISN'T the unit you really want to take out. The trick is it has to LOOK like the unit you want to take out. So it should be a unit whose disappearance would give you an edge. And if your opponent doesn't declare transhuman right away, you want to drop a strat on it to sweeten the deal.... But not the strat you're saving for your real target.
Now I get that this doesn't feel the same as using facings or positioning or suppressive fire, or all the other stuff that people say IS strategy or tactics. But there is strategy at work.
BTW, if gotcha strats are terrible, than wouldn't suppression fire be a gotcha tactic? There's even less you can do to mitigate it than there is that you can do to mitigate transhuman. So why does everyone love one and hate the other?
(I already know the answer- it's because one feels like it SHOULD be associated with a miniature game and the other feels like it should be associated with a card game- but it's crazy to me that people don't actually mind GOTCHA, as long as it's their particular flavour of GOTCHA)
Transhuman at most is tactics, and no it isn't realistically. NVM that some factions don't get the options to bait something out with strats.
Contrast that with how most games actually are handling surpressive fire and that you CAN play around, e.g use weapons like a mortar to remove an mg, or infiltrating units etc. whilest the other is just inconsistent on demand bs that has nothing to do with tactics in a wargame.
I think I would throw out all the strats the way the are and replace them with strats that ae focused on the larger battle taking place not the individual units. So things like Orbital strike would stay but better represent an orbital strike.
I'd bring back, from 2nd, virus outbreak as I feel that under the current system it would be reasonable or at least more reasonable than it was back in 2nd due to the current method of scoring. We'd need about 20 to choose from and the game would need more cleaning up to make these fit. Even something as simple as "Smoke screen", giving a -1 or -2 to hit again ever unit in an area as a strat. remember I'm thinking larger than a single unit so like an 12 in radius or maybe as large as 18 inches. not sure. I'm sure it wouldn't be that difficult to come up with more. Even a reinforcement strat to replace a destroyed unit or two would be fine.
Over all I don't care for the current game. I want it to feel more like a wargame and less like a card game with models and or a pc game gone analog.
Overall I have no positive expectations from more Nu-hammer editions. Living rule book games are just no fun for the very casual player, didn't like it with bloodbowl don't like it with 40K.
Really 10th edition would be amazing if it wasn't at all an editions but more of a surprise! we're rereleasing ever edition with faq's and support and oh by the way ever new model we make will have rules for ever edition.
But that's asking way too much in this digital age.
I want as i have wanted for years balance through algorithm. to that end 10th includes an app where you input game into and keep track of lists and games results. let the players provide more granular data if they want to keep track of it all there but a simple list vs list and game result score would be enough.
I would also like to see alternate unit activation by phase but that seems unlikely. i think that would actually help vs the now top codexes of Tau, Eldar, Harlie and Custodes as many other armies with mroe units to activate could counter move to thier firepower or moves into assault range.
I would not eliminate strategems, but some would just be built into the game. any unit charged could either overwatch or set to defend as an example. Only let them overwatch one unit charging in the order charged as an example.
Sim-Life wrote: There is no way to work around the Strat such as baiting it out earlier in the phase or negating it somehow.
If your opponent only has one unit of troops that can use it, this is sort of true.
A lot of folks say that 9th doesn't have strategy or tactics; what they mean by that is that strategies and tactics don't fit their definition of what strategies and tactics are. Doing this kind of thing- teasing a transhuman out of someone- IS a strategy or a tactic.
So first- you want to force a player to use it early in the game so you can whack them with an Agents of Vect or equivalent, which will make Transhuman more expensive for the rest of the game- this is one way to guarantee you see it less.
Then you have to attack a unit that qualifies to use it which ISN'T the unit you really want to take out. The trick is it has to LOOK like the unit you want to take out. So it should be a unit whose disappearance would give you an edge. And if your opponent doesn't declare transhuman right away, you want to drop a strat on it to sweeten the deal.... But not the strat you're saving for your real target.
Now I get that this doesn't feel the same as using facings or positioning or suppressive fire, or all the other stuff that people say IS strategy or tactics. But there is strategy at work.
BTW, if gotcha strats are terrible, than wouldn't suppression fire be a gotcha tactic? There's even less you can do to mitigate it than there is that you can do to mitigate transhuman. So why does everyone love one and hate the other?
(I already know the answer- it's because one feels like it SHOULD be associated with a miniature game and the other feels like it should be associated with a card game- but it's crazy to me that people don't actually mind GOTCHA, as long as it's their particular flavour of GOTCHA)
Sure, I'll get right on making those key strats more expensive with my Necron army...no, wait, my Blood Angels...still no? How about my Deathwatch?
Everything else you write here is literally just relying on your opponent being bad at maths or the game in general. The problem with strats is you can just count up your resources, figure out what you need to keep alive and apply the strat you need where you need it. That's because everything is already known ahead of time barring dice rolls (and they're becoming less and less variable too). I know what your secondaries are and what the current board state means for both primary and secondary points. I might plan to Transhuman Unit A and you may want to kill them so you target Unit B. It's really not difficult for me to look at the expected damage and make a decision about whether to change my plan given the resources you've already committed. You may then get to destroy Unit A, but I know that's a possibility so you haven't really baited out anything.
Now consider even a minor change to strats that meant you had to draw them from a pre-built deck. I might be fairly certain Transhuman is in the deck, but I don't know if you have it available. Furthermore, if each strat is only useable once, even if you do have it, you may decide it's not optimal to play it yet. There's much more uncertainty there. Compare that to how it is now, where a SM player not using Transhuman during your turn is more than likely doing something wrong.
I think people are getting hung up on the idea of a "gotcha strat" as if we're speaking strictly in tournament terms. If you're playing in a tourney you should probably know most of what an opponent can throw at you and similarly you should probably know what your friends codices can do in friendly games after awhile. That being said I don't have a friend for each different codex and I haven't played in a tourney in years, so yeah there are still plenty of moments where I get surprised by something new. I think the issue isn't so much that these strats allow one to trick an opponent so much as it's another layer of gimmick that can be fudged with edition to edition to provide an appearance of change or "balance". Someone mentioned CP tanks from 8th and I think that's a prime example of how you can go wrong with stratagems and how they can negatively effect the game. How many people actually enjoyed the Loyal 32? I mean really enjoyed it and made a cool army around the concept. One? Two? That creepy guy who paints swastikas on his toys?
GW listened to valid complaints and took action.
Removal of no model, no rules.
Clean, not a mess of if/and/or/thans.
Points neatly in the sidebar for easy reference.
Having played both points and PL I can see the pros/cons to both. Both can be abused. I prefer points, but that’s the gritty wargamer in me. PL has it’s charm, but i think would need much better internal balance to stand alone. Why not just take ALL the upgrades and the best options? Points give a little more granularity to help balance. Although GW still messes that up most of the time.
The only way I would like points to be replaced wholly with power if they leant into it as a mechanic.
- all upgrades were roughly equal in usefulness, but with a distinct niche. Chainswords are for hordes of weak enemies, powerfists are for smashing individual powerful targets, power weapons are the middle road.
- Before a game, after seeing your opponent's army and units, you can select which options your models have. See your up against Nids? Take a flamer. Space Marines? Swap it out for a plasmagun.
I would like this system because it reduces how "skewy" armies can be.
Armies in 40k generally skew one way or another inherently. You'll never see horde infantry in a Custodes list, for example.
This is what creates the drive for weapons like plasma to be able to pivot and deal with any type of target, because often you'll be up against armies that simply don't have your chosen weapon's ideal target.
If you were able to choose your weapons based on your opponent, that wouldn't be a problem.
It'd have it's own problems. Magnets would become really important, or otherwise buying extra models to have swap-outs.
kirotheavenger wrote: The only way I would like points to be replaced wholly with power if they leant into it as a mechanic.
- all upgrades were roughly equal in usefulness, but with a distinct niche. Chainswords are for hordes of weak enemies, powerfists are for smashing individual powerful targets, power weapons are the middle road.
- Before a game, after seeing your opponent's army and units, you can select which options your models have. See your up against Nids? Take a flamer. Space Marines? Swap it out for a plasmagun.
I would like this system because it reduces how "skewy" armies can be.
Armies in 40k generally skew one way or another inherently. You'll never see horde infantry in a Custodes list, for example.
This is what creates the drive for weapons like plasma to be able to pivot and deal with any type of target, because often you'll be up against armies that simply don't have your chosen weapon's ideal target.
If you were able to choose your weapons based on your opponent, that wouldn't be a problem.
It'd have it's own problems. Magnets would become really important, or otherwise buying extra models to have swap-outs.
Or armies without significant upgrades.
Daemons and Necrons, for instance, don't have a ton of customization.
GW listened to valid complaints and took action.
Removal of no model, no rules.
Clean, not a mess of if/and/or/thans.
Points neatly in the sidebar for easy reference.
GW listened to valid complaints and took action. Removal of no model, no rules. Clean, not a mess of if/and/or/thans. Points neatly in the sidebar for easy reference.
This over all the codexes.
now they only need to change it for
plague marines blightlords skitarii etc.
No arguments here. Bring back the freedom to model. Make your guys yours. Equipment and options based on game balance and lore, not what’s in the box.
I think this is the first win against NMNR, and probably due to WHC upselling cross compatibility, and the guy on the cover of the codex being an illegal build.
my issue with points is exclusive to 9th. Far too often I spend them on upgrades which are never used or really never had the chance to be used so I simply stop throwing points away on things I will never get to use. So what's the point of paying extra for them if I/we/you never get to even use them? Especially when there is already a mechanism for bringing those upgrades with out micro managing my wasted points. I hope this makes sense. Unless we move to a far more granular points system with half point and quarter points, I just see it as a waste of time and energy. If we're using a purely digital army building platform then we could easily move to a fractional system.
In 9th I have just never seen any unit upgrade make enough difference to think it would swing a game for me.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Yes someone could pile on all the good stuff, obviously. Some wysiwyg stuff for that should be in some way enforce in such a system. Or some other mechanic for a new system.
All the FAQs incorporated directly into the updated rules along with improved clarity and wording
Use of rules Keywords to clean up the repetitive use of text in too many unit rules
Rules that reward large squads than more than compensates for the rules that punish them
Army construction rules that reward bringing an army that more closely matches the core background force rather than the farce we see in too many tournament list
H.B.M.C. wrote: Well the first step to the large squad thing is to make it so what constitutes a "horde" starts at 11 models, not 6.
Pretty sure the whole 6 thing has more to do with the number of models you can cram under a small blast template on average over it defining a "horde". Though I agree that it should start at 11 models as well, but on the flip-side large units should get some kind of incentive for people to want to take them despite the increased damage from blasts. And no, strat efficiency doesn't really do it when you can still get good results at 10 as well with no additional risk.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Well the first step to the large squad thing is to make it so what constitutes a "horde" starts at 11 models, not 6.
I'm amused that one of the hive fleet traits is 'count as half the number of models when determining the number of attacks due to blast' Sucks if they still roll a 6 though.
Though, honestly that's their adaptive trait, so you trade it away for something useful instead.
ClockworkZion wrote: Pretty sure the whole 6 thing has more to do with the number of models you can cram under a small blast template on average over it defining a "horde". Though I agree that it should start at 11 models as well, but on the flip-side large units should get some kind of incentive for people to want to take them despite the increased damage from blasts. And no, strat efficiency doesn't really do it when you can still get good results at 10 as well with no additional risk.
I've said this in the past, but any number you choose as the start point for hordes will be arbitrary. It doesn't matter if it's 6 models, or 11 models, or 21 models, or whatever. You're always going to end up with that weird situation where, assuming 11+, 10 models is not a horde and right next to them 11 models are. This is unavoidable.
My reason for saying that it should be 11+ (or at least 11+) is that units of 10 are the basic building block for most races in the game. So many races cap out at 10, or start at 10. It's the core (not 'Core') of their unit structure, and I don't think units should be punished simply for being taken in either their minimum state (Ork Boyz, Termagants, Cultists, etc.) or their 'Codex' standard state (a 10-man Tac Squad, a 10-woman Sisters unit, a squad of Guard that is always 10 strong).
That leads into the other issue, being the Coherency issue. With 6 strong being that start points for needing two models within 2", you get messed up situations where 5 Jetbikes or Destroyers can stretch out to max coherency in a big long line, but you add a 6th, and suddenly they all have to huddle together because their bases are so big.
11+ is an imperfect compromise. It is arbitrary, but it resolves the two problems above.
ClockworkZion wrote: Pretty sure the whole 6 thing has more to do with the number of models you can cram under a small blast template on average over it defining a "horde". Though I agree that it should start at 11 models as well, but on the flip-side large units should get some kind of incentive for people to want to take them despite the increased damage from blasts. And no, strat efficiency doesn't really do it when you can still get good results at 10 as well with no additional risk.
I've said this in the past, but any number you choose as the start point for hordes will be arbitrary. It doesn't matter if it's 6 models, or 11 models, or 21 models, or whatever. You're always going to end up with that weird situation where, assuming 11+, 10 models is not a horde and right next to them 11 models are. This is unavoidable.
My reason for saying that it should be 11+ (or at least 11+) is that units of 10 are the basic building block for most races in the game. So many races cap out at 10, or start at 10. It's the core (not 'Core') of their unit structure, and I don't think units should be punished simply for being taken in either their minimum state (Ork Boyz, Termagants, Cultists, etc.) or their 'Codex' standard state (a 10-man Tac Squad, a 10-woman Sisters unit, a squad of Guard that is always 10 strong).
That leads into the other issue, being the Coherency issue. With 6 strong being that start points for needing two models within 2", you get messed up situations where 5 Jetbikes or Destroyers can stretch out to max coherency in a big long line, but you add a 6th, and suddenly they all have to huddle together because their bases are so big.
11+ is an imperfect compromise. It is arbitrary, but it resolves the two problems above.
I was agreeing that it should start at 11, I was just saying why I think they chose 6 (and really they should have made "Small Blast" and "Large Blast" separate rules with Small Blast triggering at 6 and Large Blast triggering at 11), and saying that there needs to be some kind of incentive structure in place to encourage people to run units over the cut off point or else people will just avoid taking those larger units.
Just as people avoid taking 6 models when they can take 5 now. It's frustrating, especially as a Tyranid player where base-6 has been a building block for so long (Gaunt broods should top out at 36, not 30! ).
We've seen that - if this unit has X models it gains Y rule. I perhaps wouldn't tie it to models so much as "Whilst this unit is a Horde it gains X, Y, Z!", and then define what a Horde is. That way we avoid the temptation of more bespoke nonsense - when this unit has 20 models it's a horde, but when this unit has 15 models its a horde, and so on.
Yeah, defining hordes would have likely helped a lot.
As much as I like the move away from the fiddly problems of templates on the table, I do tho k GW should have spent some more time on ths rule in question because it causes a push to MSU playstyle that saps some of the flavor out of the game.
The Blast thresholds should be 11+ and 21+ rather than the current 6+ and 11+.
Currently there's no point in fielding 20+ man squads unless a faction has an extremely powerful stratagem, or an alternative tool, to significantly enhance that squad. Orks for example don't have anything like that so 20 man squads (or even 11+ ones) simply don't exist.
Blackie wrote: The Blast thresholds should be 11+ and 21+ rather than the current 6+ and 11+.
Currently there's no point in fielding 20+ man squads unless a faction has an extremely powerful stratagem, or an alternative tool, to significantly enhance that squad. Orks for example don't have anything like that so 20 man squads (or even 11+ ones) simply don't exist.
20 strong Necron Warrior squads, to maximize their potential to get back up.
Blackie wrote: The Blast thresholds should be 11+ and 21+ rather than the current 6+ and 11+.
Currently there's no point in fielding 20+ man squads unless a faction has an extremely powerful stratagem, or an alternative tool, to significantly enhance that squad. Orks for example don't have anything like that so 20 man squads (or even 11+ ones) simply don't exist.
20 strong Necron Warrior squads, to maximize their potential to get back up.
They have a powerful built-in ability that is massively more rewarding on a large squad. Pretty rare thing I'd say.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Well the first step to the large squad thing is to make it so what constitutes a "horde" starts at 11 models, not 6.
Pretty sure the whole 6 thing has more to do with the number of models you can cram under a small blast template on average over it defining a "horde". Though I agree that it should start at 11 models as well, but on the flip-side large units should get some kind of incentive for people to want to take them despite the increased damage from blasts. And no, strat efficiency doesn't really do it when you can still get good results at 10 as well with no additional risk.
Does AoS still give discounts for large units? That would be a way to do it, tho you might have to do points slightly differently. Aka 10 hormogaunts for 80 points, may add another 10 for 60 points.
Not anymore. Now you are limited on how many times you can up the unit size and how many units you can up instead. Ie for unit size 5 you can in 2k either make 4 units 10 strong(rest minimum sized) or if battleline(the required minimum) can triple the size but takes 2 points out of the 4 from cap.
Ordana wrote: Does AoS still give discounts for large units? That would be a way to do it, tho you might have to do points slightly differently. Aka 10 hormogaunts for 80 points, may add another 10 for 60 points.
Horus Heresy actually has a good system for this imo.
It might be 150pts for the base squad of 10 (a nominal 15pts apiece), then you can add up to another 10 at 10pts apiece.
That means you're getting a discount and are encouraged to run larger squads.
tneva82 wrote: Not anymore. Now you are limited on how many times you can up the unit size and how many units you can up instead. Ie for unit size 5 you can in 2k either make 4 units 10 strong(rest minimum sized) or if battleline(the required minimum) can triple the size but takes 2 points out of the 4 from cap.
Point wise no difference.
Not true, you still have to pay points for those models, it's just in chunks of 5 or 10 or whatever the minimum size of the unit is for each of those enhancements because you're still buying models.
- Before a game, after seeing your opponent's army and units, you can select which options your models have. See your up against Nids? Take a flamer. Space Marines? Swap it out for a plasmagun.
It'd have it's own problems. Magnets would become really important, or otherwise buying extra models to have swap-outs.
Something which has come up periodically, and its a simple tourney rule, is why GW hasn't said in its GT rules that you bring 2000/2500 point forces and get to swap in and out 500 point blocks for a 1500 point game. (So in effect you have a 1000 points core and 2-3 500 point options.)
They want to sell more models, they want games to be relatively quick, they are having problems with on table survivability when trying to achieve reasonably quick games. Even gives the illusion of strategy and people get to obsess over lists more which is a big bit of the game for some people.
Allow every trooper in a squad to throw a grenade in the same turn (Frag, Krak, etc.). If this turns out to be too powerful then you can add a "Cooldown" (ability not available in the next X turns) rule of one turn to it. This obviously means you need to use unit cards for all models on the table and indicate the status of units with tokens.
I played a while ago a scenario of 2nd and it added to the gameplay. Only allowing a single member to throw a grenade feels gamey/awkward.
A lot of folks say that 9th doesn't have strategy or tactics; what they mean by that is that strategies and tactics don't fit their definition of what strategies and tactics are. Doing this kind of thing- teasing a transhuman out of someone- IS a strategy or a tactic.
(I already know the answer- it's because one feels like it SHOULD be associated with a miniature game and the other feels like it should be associated with a card game- but it's crazy to me that people don't actually mind GOTCHA, as long as it's their particular flavour of GOTCHA)
Yes that's it exactly. I used to in 8th explain all my strats and orders to the oppo before a game to ensure nothing I id was a surprise. In a tourney you would (unreasonably) expect the oppo to know them all. Now there are so many that is impossible for the majority of us, so there is always going to be an element of 'surprise!' when something gets done. And because the game is in theory open to both sides with assumed perfect knowledge that doesn't come across as fun.
Now in a sprawling card game like magic you might expect that. In a wargame as we play with transparency on both sides we don't expect it. And we are primed to accept some surprises as fair as the concept generally exists (e.g. flank march from the side of the table or terminators deep striking in). I don't know how players would react to genuinely surprising military events (hmm, maybe you set up your army on table 1 only to find the enemy is attacking on table 5 ), but this type of surprise isn't 'fun'.
Strg Alt wrote: Allow every trooper in a squad to throw a grenade in the same turn (Frag, Krak, etc.). If this turns out to be too powerful then you can add a "Cooldown" (ability not available in the next X turns) rule of one turn to it. This obviously means you need to use unit cards for all models on the table and indicate the status of units with tokens.
I played a while ago a scenario of 2nd and it added to the gameplay. Only allowing a single member to throw a grenade feels gamey/awkward.
I mean previous editions didn't even let you throw grenades instead having them confer specific rules instead.
Strg Alt wrote: Allow every trooper in a squad to throw a grenade in the same turn (Frag, Krak, etc.). If this turns out to be too powerful then you can add a "Cooldown" (ability not available in the next X turns) rule of one turn to it. This obviously means you need to use unit cards for all models on the table and indicate the status of units with tokens.
I played a while ago a scenario of 2nd and it added to the gameplay. Only allowing a single member to throw a grenade feels gamey/awkward.
I think the problem there is some armies literally don't have grenades, so to make it work they would in some cases need to increase cost of some grenade equipped models slightly or decrease others without grenades. i guess alternatively they could just give everybody grenades some bio grenades for tyranids and scarab grenades for necrons to name a few.
Also in theory with grenades not sure every member of the unit would have enough to throw them every turn, a universal stratagem might be cool though to just have whole squads throw them
Ordana wrote: Does AoS still give discounts for large units? That would be a way to do it, tho you might have to do points slightly differently. Aka 10 hormogaunts for 80 points, may add another 10 for 60 points.
Horus Heresy actually has a good system for this imo.
It might be 150pts for the base squad of 10 (a nominal 15pts apiece), then you can add up to another 10 at 10pts apiece.
That means you're getting a discount and are encouraged to run larger squads.
This was a huge attraction for me when i was getting started with HH. So I have 3 maxed out tac squads and 1 maxed out assault squad. I really like the baked in points discount because I like the book covers from the novels with all the mass troop formations. and that was one of the reason I wanted to play HH to begin with.
I would love this for Orks, Guard and everything else under the current system. I'd like this for 10th.
I want 10th 40k to be split into 2 distinct formats.
Matched (tournament/competitive) play which follows the current structure that 8th/9th established. Casual (narrative/open/pick up game) play which has more robust ruleset that isn't designed to be gamed and can allow for inherently broken things. USR's, return of WS/BS paradim that pre-8th had, AV facings etc. Basically HH ruleset brought into the fold and marketed as the "Role playing" format. The "tournament" format can keep the bland boring rules they got in 8th/9th
I don't understand why the current answer to "narrative" play is yet more rules bloat on top of the 9th core rules that are designed for competitive play. Just support both pre 7th/HH ruleset as narrative, and the new paradigm as matched. Done.
Matched (tournament/competitive) play which follows the current structure that 8th/9th established. Casual (narrative/open/pick up game) play which has more robust ruleset that isn't designed to be gamed and can allow for inherently broken things. USR's, return of WS/BS paradim that pre-8th had, AV facings etc. Basically HH ruleset brought into the fold and marketed as the "Role playing" format. The "tournament" format can keep the bland boring rules they got in 8th/9th
I don't understand why the current answer to "narrative" play is yet more rules bloat on top of the 9th core rules that are designed for competitive play. Just support both pre 7th/HH ruleset as narrative, and the new paradigm as matched. Done.
I guess I'm confused as to the how. How is HH or why would we, consider HH a "role playing" format ? I don't get that at all. My group plays it as a wargame. I don't grok where the role playing comes in.
Please elaborate.
Nevelon wrote: I’d rather have one guy per squad throw grenades than spend 1ppm for frags and 2ppm for kracks.
I would like to see them being used in melee again. Melta bombs and krack grenades should be able to be used on the big guys knives can’t scratch.
i don't think it would have to be that high points wise or even effect the points cost of some models. with infantry some models are at the top of what a points increase would make vs others at the lower end. as an example i think guardsmen are at the top of what a 5 point per model unit can be so give em each a grenade throw and need to go to 6 points (the codex needs lot sof help otherwise, only comparing it to other 5 point per model units). firstborn marines on the other hand in tac squads are barely worth 9 points a model as is, so might stay 9 points with being abel to throw grenades. Would be on GW to balance though so if they did it i imagine they would just slap it on for free to everythign and leave some armies without grenades as they currently are
Nevelon wrote: I’d rather have one guy per squad throw grenades than spend 1ppm for frags and 2ppm for kracks.
I would like to see them being used in melee again. Melta bombs and krack grenades should be able to be used on the big guys knives can’t scratch.
Here's a thought: Skip the "thrown grenades" profile. It's fundamentally a skirmish mechanic that GW decided really needed to be in their company-scale wargame for no good reason. In all the discussions of all the things right and wrong about the game in the ten years of 3rd-6th I cannot remember anyone ever saying "wouldn't it be great if thrown grenades had their own shooting attack profile?," and the way blast weapons work now the circumstances in which you care enough to throw a frag grenade are so narrow they're just eating rules space/book space to no purpose. (Grenades as melee attacks, sure, but make them a specialist tool you do have to pay points for rather than an automatic always-on-every-squad thing.)
Nevelon wrote: I’d rather have one guy per squad throw grenades than spend 1ppm for frags and 2ppm for kracks.
I would like to see them being used in melee again. Melta bombs and krack grenades should be able to be used on the big guys knives can’t scratch.
i don't think it would have to be that high points wise or even effect the points cost of some models. with infantry some models are at the top of what a points increase would make vs others at the lower end. as an example i think guardsmen are at the top of what a 5 point per model unit can be so give em each a grenade throw and need to go to 6 points (the codex needs lot sof help otherwise, only comparing it to other 5 point per model units). firstborn marines on the other hand in tac squads are barely worth 9 points a model as is, so might stay 9 points with being abel to throw grenades. Would be on GW to balance though so if they did it i imagine they would just slap it on for free to everythign and leave some armies without grenades as they currently are
Those are the points from memory when we last had to buy them as upgrades. Which was 3-4th? Been a while. I think assualt marines might have got free frags. I never paid for them; better things to do with the points.
AnomanderRake wrote:
Nevelon wrote: I’d rather have one guy per squad throw grenades than spend 1ppm for frags and 2ppm for kracks.
I would like to see them being used in melee again. Melta bombs and krack grenades should be able to be used on the big guys knives can’t scratch.
Here's a thought: Skip the "thrown grenades" profile. It's fundamentally a skirmish mechanic that GW decided really needed to be in their company-scale wargame for no good reason. In all the discussions of all the things right and wrong about the game in the ten years of 3rd-6th I cannot remember anyone ever saying "wouldn't it be great if thrown grenades had their own shooting attack profile?," and the way blast weapons work now the circumstances in which you care enough to throw a frag grenade are so narrow they're just eating rules space/book space to no purpose. (Grenades as melee attacks, sure, but make them a specialist tool you do have to pay points for rather than an automatic always-on-every-squad thing.)
Back when frags were just assault grenades that helped you when charging into cover I remember a lot of people complaining that it made no sense, and that they wanted to throw them and blow things up. Part of the flavor lost from 2nd, that was gradually added back. Might have been local to the circles I was in, but there were arguments on how grenades should be done.
Back when frags were just assault grenades that helped you when charging into cover I remember a lot of people complaining that it made no sense, and that they wanted to throw them and blow things up. Part of the flavor lost from 2nd, that was gradually added back. Might have been local to the circles I was in, but there were arguments on how grenades should be done.
Wasn't just your group. We often had people wanting to throw grenades/wondering why they couldn't. Especially krak grenades. :IG player: "I don't want to charge those SM, I just want to lob krak grenades at them."
Strg Alt wrote: Allow every trooper in a squad to throw a grenade in the same turn (Frag, Krak, etc.). If this turns out to be too powerful then you can add a "Cooldown" (ability not available in the next X turns) rule of one turn to it. This obviously means you need to use unit cards for all models on the table and indicate the status of units with tokens.
I played a while ago a scenario of 2nd and it added to the gameplay. Only allowing a single member to throw a grenade feels gamey/awkward.
I think the problem there is some armies literally don't have grenades, so to make it work they would in some cases need to increase cost of some grenade equipped models slightly or decrease others without grenades. i guess alternatively they could just give everybody grenades some bio grenades for tyranids and scarab grenades for necrons to name a few.
Also in theory with grenades not sure every member of the unit would have enough to throw them every turn, a universal stratagem might be cool though to just have whole squads throw them
Only units who used grenades in the past would get them. Otherwise you would need to create new units for a faction. This means Tyranids and Necrons would miss out. It´s kinda like with horses in WHFB. Dwarfs and Skaven never had access to them which was fine to make clear distinctions between factions.
Nevelon wrote: I’d rather have one guy per squad throw grenades than spend 1ppm for frags and 2ppm for kracks.
I would like to see them being used in melee again. Melta bombs and krack grenades should be able to be used on the big guys knives can’t scratch.
i don't think it would have to be that high points wise or even effect the points cost of some models. with infantry some models are at the top of what a points increase would make vs others at the lower end. as an example i think guardsmen are at the top of what a 5 point per model unit can be so give em each a grenade throw and need to go to 6 points (the codex needs lot sof help otherwise, only comparing it to other 5 point per model units). firstborn marines on the other hand in tac squads are barely worth 9 points a model as is, so might stay 9 points with being abel to throw grenades. Would be on GW to balance though so if they did it i imagine they would just slap it on for free to everythign and leave some armies without grenades as they currently are
Those are the points from memory when we last had to buy them as upgrades. Which was 3-4th? Been a while. I think assualt marines might have got free frags. I never paid for them; better things to do with the points.
AnomanderRake wrote:
Nevelon wrote: I’d rather have one guy per squad throw grenades than spend 1ppm for frags and 2ppm for kracks.
I would like to see them being used in melee again. Melta bombs and krack grenades should be able to be used on the big guys knives can’t scratch.
Here's a thought: Skip the "thrown grenades" profile. It's fundamentally a skirmish mechanic that GW decided really needed to be in their company-scale wargame for no good reason. In all the discussions of all the things right and wrong about the game in the ten years of 3rd-6th I cannot remember anyone ever saying "wouldn't it be great if thrown grenades had their own shooting attack profile?," and the way blast weapons work now the circumstances in which you care enough to throw a frag grenade are so narrow they're just eating rules space/book space to no purpose. (Grenades as melee attacks, sure, but make them a specialist tool you do have to pay points for rather than an automatic always-on-every-squad thing.)
Back when frags were just assault grenades that helped you when charging into cover I remember a lot of people complaining that it made no sense, and that they wanted to throw them and blow things up. Part of the flavor lost from 2nd, that was gradually added back. Might have been local to the circles I was in, but there were arguments on how grenades should be done.
GW wanted to force players using the basic guns of their troops each turn. That´s why the "throw grenade" mechanic was discarded. Another factor was the need for dumbing down the game and thus robbing the player of options. Back in the day you would lob grenades at near opponents and blast foes farther away with your bolters. It just spiced up the game.
Matched (tournament/competitive) play which follows the current structure that 8th/9th established. Casual (narrative/open/pick up game) play which has more robust ruleset that isn't designed to be gamed and can allow for inherently broken things. USR's, return of WS/BS paradim that pre-8th had, AV facings etc. Basically HH ruleset brought into the fold and marketed as the "Role playing" format. The "tournament" format can keep the bland boring rules they got in 8th/9th
I don't understand why the current answer to "narrative" play is yet more rules bloat on top of the 9th core rules that are designed for competitive play. Just support both pre 7th/HH ruleset as narrative, and the new paradigm as matched. Done.
7th edition was bad. Narratively, competitively, role-playingly, it was bad. No reason to put any effort into preserving it. Last I heard, even HH was abandoning it for a better redone ruleset. I do love the idea that 'roll a 3 to kill the tank instead of a 2 if you hit it from the front' is somehow not 'bland and boring'. BS works exactly like it does now, it just made you refer to a chart instead of just telling you what your hit roll was(oh but BS 7 let you...blah blah blah, no one cares. Like 3 units in the game had BS 7+ and 2 of those didn't have guns). WS didn't have a 'paradigm' either. It ALSO just had a chart. 'My number high so I need 3, your number low so you need 5' wasn't exactly revolutionizing anything.
Also, I've said this many times before and I'll say it again. 40k is not AT ALL designed for competitive play. Just because YOU don't like certain decisions they made doesn't automatically make them 'competitive' or 'tournament' based.
Ordana wrote: Does AoS still give discounts for large units? That would be a way to do it, tho you might have to do points slightly differently. Aka 10 hormogaunts for 80 points, may add another 10 for 60 points.
Horus Heresy actually has a good system for this imo.
It might be 150pts for the base squad of 10 (a nominal 15pts apiece), then you can add up to another 10 at 10pts apiece.
That means you're getting a discount and are encouraged to run larger squads.
This was a huge attraction for me when i was getting started with HH. So I have 3 maxed out tac squads and 1 maxed out assault squad. I really like the baked in points discount because I like the book covers from the novels with all the mass troop formations. and that was one of the reason I wanted to play HH to begin with.
I would love this for Orks, Guard and everything else under the current system. I'd like this for 10th.
Horde units are arse. There's a reason AoS basically removed having more than 1 maxed out unit.
ERJAK wrote: 40k is not AT ALL designed for competitive play. Just because YOU don't like certain decisions they made doesn't automatically make them 'competitive' or 'tournament' based.
Well, the fact that the entire mission pack and secondary scoring system in the core rulebook were lifted straight from ITC would seem to suggest that the rules for 9th were designed with competitive play in mind.
What else is it supposed to be? Coincidence?
Not to mention how originally tournament-specific rules like RO3 got baked directly into the core rules. It's pretty clear that if you're playing Matched Play, GW assumes you're playing in a tournament or a competitive environment.
"Watch out boys, i'm gonna frag these dudes that we're fighting in hand to hand"
You can't take the game mechanics of assault that literally without running into all sorts of problems.
'Sorry, Brother Tacitus, you can't shoot your missile launcher at that stationary battlewagon because Brother Fisticus and an Ork are having a fistfight a hundred yards away. Please consolidate a few yards closer and wait until the entire squad is out of hand-to-hand combat before you may shoot.'
Stratagem should be much more limited and be used as a form of "Combat Ruse" or something like that.
Like having 2-3 for the whole game, one use only, and something like "Ha! I call an artillery strike!" or "I'm jamming your radars and communications for this phase/turn" or "My tyranids are raining acid making movement slower" as some kind of trap cards.
Galas wrote: Stratagem should be much more limited and be used as a form of "Combat Ruse" or something like that.
Like having 2-3 for the whole game, one use only, and something like "Ha! I call an artillery strike!" or "I'm jamming your radars and communications for this phase/turn" or "My tyranids are raining acid making movement slower" as some kind of trap cards.
That would be fun. It's a pity 40k is designed around something different rn.
"Watch out boys, i'm gonna frag these dudes that we're fighting in hand to hand"
There was a mini-story of Ragnar Blackmane either thrusting a krak grenade or melta bomb into the throat of a Carnifrx or Hive Tyrant while fighting it in hand-to-hand combat. There is nothing wrong about using a magnetic grenade or bomb vs. a vehicle in close combat either.
There was also a rule in 2nd that allowed models using grenades/bombs vs. vehicles to move away a few inches to avoid the resulting explosion.
Matched (tournament/competitive) play which follows the current structure that 8th/9th established. Casual (narrative/open/pick up game) play which has more robust ruleset that isn't designed to be gamed and can allow for inherently broken things. USR's, return of WS/BS paradim that pre-8th had, AV facings etc. Basically HH ruleset brought into the fold and marketed as the "Role playing" format. The "tournament" format can keep the bland boring rules they got in 8th/9th
I don't understand why the current answer to "narrative" play is yet more rules bloat on top of the 9th core rules that are designed for competitive play. Just support both pre 7th/HH ruleset as narrative, and the new paradigm as matched. Done.
I guess I'm confused as to the how. How is HH or why would we, consider HH a "role playing" format ? I don't get that at all. My group plays it as a wargame. I don't grok where the role playing comes in.
Please elaborate.
Personally, I would like to see the narrative side of the rules move more to a "DnD" style rule set. Most people do not play tabletop RPGs to "Win" but rather to design an interesting scenario that will be fun to play out.
For narrative games, completely move away from points or power level being balanced entirely. Use it as a way to suggest balance for an encounter, but it is not a hard and fast limit. Encourage players to design lists in tandem with your opponent and scenario that would make for an interesting game.
Rather than have set missions and set rewards for winning, have rules for designing your own missions or even chains of missions to create a campaign. Have suggestions for designing missions with more than 2 players that are not just divide into teams and fight. For example, one player has a huge swarm of Tyranids, while 3-4 players with a handful of marines try to fight their way through to an evac point and survive.
At most stores I have played at, there is usually a crew of people who want to play 40k like chess and some who want to play it like DnD. Some people will only play 1v1 2k matched play games. The other crew will say "hey we got 5 players here today, lets put 1 objective in the middle of the table, everyone gets like 500 points of whatever and all fight over it".
40k has always been in that weird in-between place where the competitive rules need to cater to all the fluff and flavor while the narrative rules also need to have balance.
Let the competitive/matched play rules get stripped back and lose flavor for the sake of balance.
Let the narrative rules have flavor and story without needing to worry about balance.
I think that most of this discussion has been about this dichotomy. The matched play rules are bloated with stratagems and wargear that only really serve narrative functions. The narrative side of the game is hampered by the rules being made somewhat for competitive balance.
Matched (tournament/competitive) play which follows the current structure that 8th/9th established. Casual (narrative/open/pick up game) play which has more robust ruleset that isn't designed to be gamed and can allow for inherently broken things. USR's, return of WS/BS paradim that pre-8th had, AV facings etc. Basically HH ruleset brought into the fold and marketed as the "Role playing" format. The "tournament" format can keep the bland boring rules they got in 8th/9th
I don't understand why the current answer to "narrative" play is yet more rules bloat on top of the 9th core rules that are designed for competitive play. Just support both pre 7th/HH ruleset as narrative, and the new paradigm as matched. Done.
I guess I'm confused as to the how. How is HH or why would we, consider HH a "role playing" format ? I don't get that at all. My group plays it as a wargame. I don't grok where the role playing comes in.
Please elaborate.
Personally, I would like to see the narrative side of the rules move more to a "DnD" style rule set. Most people do not play tabletop RPGs to "Win" but rather to design an interesting scenario that will be fun to play out.
For narrative games, completely move away from points or power level being balanced entirely. Use it as a way to suggest balance for an encounter, but it is not a hard and fast limit. Encourage players to design lists in tandem with your opponent and scenario that would make for an interesting game.
Rather than have set missions and set rewards for winning, have rules for designing your own missions or even chains of missions to create a campaign. Have suggestions for designing missions with more than 2 players that are not just divide into teams and fight. For example, one player has a huge swarm of Tyranids, while 3-4 players with a handful of marines try to fight their way through to an evac point and survive.
At most stores I have played at, there is usually a crew of people who want to play 40k like chess and some who want to play it like DnD. Some people will only play 1v1 2k matched play games. The other crew will say "hey we got 5 players here today, lets put 1 objective in the middle of the table, everyone gets like 500 points of whatever and all fight over it".
40k has always been in that weird in-between place where the competitive rules need to cater to all the fluff and flavor while the narrative rules also need to have balance.
Let the competitive/matched play rules get stripped back and lose flavor for the sake of balance.
Let the narrative rules have flavor and story without needing to worry about balance.
I think that most of this discussion has been about this dichotomy. The matched play rules are bloated with stratagems and wargear that only really serve narrative functions. The narrative side of the game is hampered by the rules being made somewhat for competitive balance.
This split already exists, nothing stops you from designing lists in tandem with your opponent with 'unbalanced' sides.
Nothing stops you from making narrative missions with different teams working together.
Open play and Matched play are already split.
Your split would accomplish nothing that is not already possible and would suffer the exact same thing that happens now, when 'strangers' meet at a club to play pick-up games they will gravitate to an easy set format that doesn't require discussion.
Your 'DnD' style rules were languish just as badly as the Open and Narrative rules do now.
The 'competitive' rules that are played everywhere are played for a very good reason. You can walk up to a complete stranger with a 40k army and say "2k points game?" and you can play with both sides knowing what the rules are without any further discussion.
You dont want to play like that, and that is fine. You want to talk and make interesting story driven games created by talking together to make something fun. That is fine, so go do it. Talk to people and have those games, the rules already allow you to do that.
The person telling you "No I only play 2k Nachmund games" is still going to turn you down after the rules are split.
Ordana wrote: This split already exists, nothing stops you from designing lists in tandem with your opponent with 'unbalanced' sides.
Nothing stops you from making narrative missions with different teams working together.
Open play and Matched play are already split.
Your split would accomplish nothing that is not already possible and would suffer the exact same thing that happens now, when 'strangers' meet at a club to play pick-up games they will gravitate to an easy set format that doesn't require discussion.
Your 'DnD' style rules were languish just as badly as the Open and Narrative rules do now.
The 'competitive' rules that are played everywhere are played for a very good reason. You can walk up to a complete stranger with a 40k army and say "2k points game?" and you can play with both sides knowing what the rules are without any further discussion.
You dont want to play like that, and that is fine. You want to talk and make interesting story driven games created by talking together to make something fun. That is fine, so go do it. Talk to people and have those games, the rules already allow you to do that.
The person telling you "No I only play 2k Nachmund games" is still going to turn you down after the rules are split.
I guess I mean that I would like to see GW design the rules more with this split in mind. When players complain about rules bloat, I feel that a lot of the bloat comes from rules that do not do a lot game play wise, but are important flavor wise.
eg. the discussion on grenades. Should the rules be bloated with another entire weapon type just for a situational weapon? Should grenades be a stratagem or wargear that costs points? or could the competitive side of the game not have grenades at all for simplicity and have optional rules for grenades for narrative games.
eg. the discussion on stratagems and how many there should be. Should every codex have a ton of situational stratagems so that famous old quotes or wargear have a place in the current game? (such as "power of the machine spirit" or "smoke launchers") or could the competitive side of the game only have a small number of specific strats and then more of the situational stratagems are moved to the narrative rules.
I agree that the split does already exists, and that most pick up games will always be played with the matched play rules as a default as that is a better way to play with strangers. I think that games workshop has basically ignored this split and has tried to make a single ruleset that works for both sides of it, rather than recognize that split and lean into it rather than fight it.
Well, I just spent about 3 hours typing out an essay on this topic. A topic that I have wanted to discuss for ages. But I hit the wrong button on mobile and lost it all. So long story short.
40k (IMHO) has been garbage since 4th edition came out. I hate pretty much everything about 40k at this point and don't think anything can be done except completely redesigning everything from the ground up. Company, game and lore.
Ordana wrote: This split already exists, nothing stops you from designing lists in tandem with your opponent with 'unbalanced' sides.
Nothing stops you from making narrative missions with different teams working together.
Open play and Matched play are already split.
Your split would accomplish nothing that is not already possible and would suffer the exact same thing that happens now, when 'strangers' meet at a club to play pick-up games they will gravitate to an easy set format that doesn't require discussion.
Your 'DnD' style rules were languish just as badly as the Open and Narrative rules do now.
The 'competitive' rules that are played everywhere are played for a very good reason. You can walk up to a complete stranger with a 40k army and say "2k points game?" and you can play with both sides knowing what the rules are without any further discussion.
You dont want to play like that, and that is fine. You want to talk and make interesting story driven games created by talking together to make something fun. That is fine, so go do it. Talk to people and have those games, the rules already allow you to do that.
The person telling you "No I only play 2k Nachmund games" is still going to turn you down after the rules are split.
I guess I mean that I would like to see GW design the rules more with this split in mind. When players complain about rules bloat, I feel that a lot of the bloat comes from rules that do not do a lot game play wise, but are important flavor wise.
eg. the discussion on grenades. Should the rules be bloated with another entire weapon type just for a situational weapon? Should grenades be a stratagem or wargear that costs points? or could the competitive side of the game not have grenades at all for simplicity and have optional rules for grenades for narrative games.
eg. the discussion on stratagems and how many there should be. Should every codex have a ton of situational stratagems so that famous old quotes or wargear have a place in the current game? (such as "power of the machine spirit" or "smoke launchers") or could the competitive side of the game only have a small number of specific strats and then more of the situational stratagems are moved to the narrative rules.
I agree that the split does already exists, and that most pick up games will always be played with the matched play rules as a default as that is a better way to play with strangers. I think that games workshop has basically ignored this split and has tried to make a single ruleset that works for both sides of it, rather than recognize that split and lean into it rather than fight it.
Ok yes GW could do more for non-matched play games then just putting out some crusade rules every codex. Bring out an open play supplement with fun scenario's, asynchronous battles and creative stratagems ect.
"Watch out boys, i'm gonna frag these dudes that we're fighting in hand to hand"
There was a mini-story of Ragnar Blackmane either thrusting a krak grenade or melta bomb into the throat of a Carnifrx or Hive Tyrant while fighting it in hand-to-hand combat. There is nothing wrong about using a magnetic grenade or bomb vs. a vehicle in close combat either.
There was also a rule in 2nd that allowed models using grenades/bombs vs. vehicles to move away a few inches to avoid the resulting explosion.
thats what melta bombs are for, throwing a nade in combat against infantry is dumb as feth
To be fair, if you are clad head to toe in power armor and are standing in a carpet of rippers, dropping a frag grenade at you feet has a low change of doing anything bad to you, and is going to clear out a large number of those pesky gribbles.
There are sooo many things I want to quote on this page of comments that it would take forever. So instead of doing that, I'll just address as much of the stuff as possible.
First: There are a lot of people who only play matched that assume a lot of the rules they use are "baked into to the game" or are "core rules."
In many cases, they aren't- rather they are clearly identified as Matched Play rules, and the most recent ones are actually "Nachmund Matched Play" rules. This includes Ro3, mono-subfactions, the air cavalry ban and I'm sure there others besides.
Next: When talking about the "split" in game modalities, I agree that improving that split is possible, and something GW should consider... But it's important to think about who you are serving and how.
From what I've read online, MOST matched players seem to want strats severely curtailed; most would also like a far more flexible set of load-out options because they far prefer customization via weapons with associated points costs than customization via layered rules like stacking traits, strats, auras and purity rules. Some matched players want it to go further than that: there are folks who want to do away with subfaction rules to varying degrees, but I think if you curtailed strats and gave them old style equipment customization, most would be really, really happy, and some of the other things which bother them would matter less in a world where the biggest problems were dealt with.
With narrative play, it's a bit more complex to satisfy people because most of us want the customizable equipment, and just because we're narrative, it doesn't always mean we love strats either... Though we do tend to like sub-faction content. I think the thing about narrative players is that we're less likely to feel the need to know exactly how all the strats of every conceivable enemy work so we can win MOAR, which likely makes a lot of us more tolerant of strats, even if they aren't our favourite mechanic.
In terms of some of the suggestion for improving narrative play, I think a big book of How To Campaign has a lot of potential. How to design asymmetrical, themed, linked missions; rules for generating theatres of war; maps to figure out where in the galaxy factions and subfactions are located for those who like to keep it cannon, and of course different campaign systems. The key here is that a lot of us already know how to do all that stuff, so they have to be careful to give us enough crunch to be useful, but not too much because it's yet another layer.
Crusade is a great system, but I think it's important to point out that there should be narrative content that can be used with or without the progression system- and some of the stuff mentioned as material for the Big Book of Campaign Mojo would fit that bill, so they should write it in such a way that everything in it CAN work with Crusade, but none of it NEEDS Crusade... while all of it is 100% narrative.
Now about Crusade specifically: the recent rules for Armies of Faith and the White Dwarf Torchbearer rules were phenomenal, and this is something that Crusade needs more of for non Imperial factions. Chaos and Eldar in particular are excellent candidates for these kind of hybrid faction/ sub-faction combos. To a lesser extent, Tau/Kroot, GSC/Guard, GSC/Nids could also get some of this; Crons and Orks have it rougher.
Finally, Open Play needs more love. A deck that could be combined with the existing Open War deck in various ways to spice it up a bit, or a mission pack where the missions interact with the deck(s). "Build Your Own..." type rules really fit open too- it could become the haven for kitbashers and scratch builders because it's philosophy is pretty much "Use it if you got it." This would be very different than the building we see in Crusade, which tends to be linked to the progression system.
I was going to write more... but this is enough for now- it's already a wall of text.
PenitentJake wrote: In many cases, they aren't- rather they are clearly identified as Matched Play rules, and the most recent ones are actually "Nachmund Matched Play" rules. This includes Ro3, mono-subfactions, the air cavalry ban and I'm sure there others besides.
Which, at this stage, is a distinction without a difference.
The most common method of playing the game is pick up games, thus matched play is the default, therefore things like Rule of Three are the standard and default. We don't have to like it, but that is the way the game is played in most instances.
"Watch out boys, i'm gonna frag these dudes that we're fighting in hand to hand"
That's not how they were used. Frags were thrown on the way to CQB, which should be pretty intuitive.
And then you could plant melta, krak, and sometimes frag (4th) on vehicles (occasionally monsters) in CC.
I mean, I'm also down for some throwing rules too. Just sayin that the 3-6 paradigm also works. 7th bungled it by limiting CC attacks to just one per squad. Dummies.
A perfect 10th edition, to me, would be a another reboot.
Refocus games around smaller forces. Not skirmish scale, but maybe more 1000-1500 instead of the more commonplace 1750/1850/2000pt games. Reduce the scale focus, maybe don't worry so much about making Primarchs and entire factions of Superheavy walkers and leave that to rules systems that can more appropriately address that scale where I'm not also worrying about a single grot with their blaster too as an individual game piece.
Expand the statlines or take different approaches to things like T and W. If 90% of infantry in the game are T3/4, and there's almost nothing T1/2, maybe we rethink that stat's purpose/existence/function.
Reduce unit counts, whiz-bang rules/wargear/etc (we don't need 40 different kinds of bolter), etc.
Drop the current Stratagem concept in its entirety. It's a dumpster fire and there's really not a lot to salvage there.
I miss being able to play 40k and carry all the current books in a backpack (including FW, and without snapping my spine or dropping 4 digits on books), and being able to memorize pretty much all the game/unit/faction rules. The single largest impediment to playing currently is dealing with a huge volume of rules and customized wargear, from a gazillion sources, at astronomical prices, with increasingly silly naming conventions. Too much stuff and complexity that doesn't really add any depth and reduces playability.
Refocussing games around smaller forces has nothing to do with the rules. There already are rules for smaller games. Blame the people who want to play with their entire collections and/or love huge utterly expensive centerpiece models.
Everyone seems to have forgotten the times when half this forum was complaining about how death guard being able to throw 10 plage grenades in one shooting phase was utterly broken.
Strg Alt wrote: Allow every trooper in a squad to throw a grenade in the same turn (Frag, Krak, etc.). If this turns out to be too powerful then you can add a "Cooldown" (ability not available in the next X turns) rule of one turn to it. This obviously means you need to use unit cards for all models on the table and indicate the status of units with tokens.
I played a while ago a scenario of 2nd and it added to the gameplay. Only allowing a single member to throw a grenade feels gamey/awkward.
Cool down wouldn't be much of a drawback in game that's decided in general turns 2 and maybe 3...And where often exposed unit gets deleted right away anyway. "woo can't use grenade next turn. Who cares? I'm dead anyway"
Better solution if it's too good: Up the point cost.
A lot of folks say that 9th doesn't have strategy or tactics; what they mean by that is that strategies and tactics don't fit their definition of what strategies and tactics are. Doing this kind of thing- teasing a transhuman out of someone- IS a strategy or a tactic.
(I already know the answer- it's because one feels like it SHOULD be associated with a miniature game and the other feels like it should be associated with a card game- but it's crazy to me that people don't actually mind GOTCHA, as long as it's their particular flavour of GOTCHA)
Yes that's it exactly. I used to in 8th explain all my strats and orders to the oppo before a game to ensure nothing I id was a surprise. In a tourney you would (unreasonably) expect the oppo to know them all. Now there are so many that is impossible for the majority of us, so there is always going to be an element of 'surprise!' when something gets done. And because the game is in theory open to both sides with assumed perfect knowledge that doesn't come across as fun.
Now in a sprawling card game like magic you might expect that. In a wargame as we play with transparency on both sides we don't expect it. And we are primed to accept some surprises as fair as the concept generally exists (e.g. flank march from the side of the table or terminators deep striking in). I don't know how players would react to genuinely surprising military events (hmm, maybe you set up your army on table 1 only to find the enemy is attacking on table 5 ), but this type of surprise isn't 'fun'.
So rather than actual tactics you just want to win by gotcha's.
Ok...so you basically admit you are noob smasher level. Can win vs noob, lose when playing somebody who knows your strategy.
Okay...guess it's fun to admit you suck as a player and rely on opponent being noob...dunno appeal on that one but each to his own.
tneva82 wrote: So rather than actual tactics you just want to win by gotcha's.
Ok...so you basically admit you are noob smasher level. Can win vs noob, lose when playing somebody who knows your strategy.
Okay...guess it's fun to admit you suck as a player and rely on opponent being noob...dunno appeal on that one but each to his own.
I don't know how you interpreted that from the post you replied to.
The game assumes perfect information. Your opponent's stats, stratagems, and list are available to you all the time. Getting blindsided by special abilities or stratagems is the result of not knowing the rules, rather than intentional concealment of information as a gameplay principle. But there is just too much bs in the game to actually explain it all to your opponent before the game starts.
I've had much the same experience. I'm not trying to catch my friends out with a 'gotcha', but I cannot convey every single capability that my army has, particularly when even I have trouble remembering it all and need to use cheat-sheets and Wahapedia to remember.
The person you replied to isn't a seal clubber. Someone who really likes this paradigm may be, wielding superior game knowledge to their advantage.
Also, I'll disagree with PenitentJake on one major point here: The reason this paradigm feels dissatisfying isn't because it's not 'wargamelike', it's because imperfect knowledge is a byproduct of the game's sprawling complexity and utter lack of play aids rather than an intended part of the experience. It's decidedly not like most card games, where hidden information (not knowing the composition of an opponent's deck, what's in their hand, or what they're about to draw next) is a deliberate design.
The_Real_Chris wrote:
Insectum7 wrote: That's not how they were used. Frags were thrown on the way to CQB, which should be pretty intuitive.
Well that was German frags... Allied frags were defensive weapons with larger blast radius.
A grenade being categorized as 'defensive' just means it produces an injury radius greater than you can throw it due to fragmentation. They're still used offensively, but you need to either throw them into hard cover to contain the blast, or from a position where you can take cover after throwing.
Which is pretty much how 40K used to model frag grenades when they were an abstract mechanic rather than a statted weapon- they were used to flush the enemy out of cover and ignore their terrain benefits when charging, rather than just another weapon you could huck while shooting.
IMO an abstracted mechanic like that works much better for the scale that 40K currently operates at, but as long as this is still a system where we care what caliber the officer's personal sidearm is, I guess thrown grenades having a weapon profile makes sense.
Jidmah wrote: Everyone seems to have forgotten the times when half this forum was complaining about how death guard being able to throw 10 plage grenades in one shooting phase was utterly broken.
theres a difference between a frag grenade and a Blight grenade.
Frag : D6, 3, 0, 1
Blight: D6, 3, 0, 1 with these buffs :
+1 Strength, +1 Damage, Mortals on 6, +1 to wound, reroll 1's, full reroll on wounds, AP4 on 6's to wound
pretty HUUUUGE difference. And those were basically the only time shooting grenades was worth it
We've gone back and forth on this a bunch of times with ProHammer, and recently decided to take grenade throwing out again. The advantage of the classic editions though is that grenades served a purpose outside of them being "thrown as a shooting attack." Offensive/defensive grenades and their equivalent served a purpose in affecting melee, or could be used as a melee attack against vehicles etc. With the changes in 8th/9th, those reasons don't inherently exist anymore. The other consideration is that if it makes sense to throw a bunch of grenades at close range because the damage output is higher, what does that say about the balance and quality of the main weapon? Offensively, grenades are used used to negate cover or attack from out of LoS or as area denial. If your target is standing in the open in LoS, shooting them directly should be the faster and more direct option.
Jidmah wrote: Everyone seems to have forgotten the times when half this forum was complaining about how death guard being able to throw 10 plage grenades in one shooting phase was utterly broken.
theres a difference between a frag grenade and a Blight grenade.
Frag : D6, 3, 0, 1
Blight: D6, 3, 0, 1 with these buffs :
+1 Strength, +1 Damage, Mortals on 6, +1 to wound, reroll 1's, full reroll on wounds, AP4 on 6's to wound
pretty HUUUUGE difference. And those were basically the only time shooting grenades was worth it
I would agree, if not for the fact that one or two of those buffs were plenty to remove most units that weren't a fully buffed Magnus and that every faction can slap two or three similar buffs onto at least a few of their grenade-armed squads. For example, marines can easily get extra AP, +1 to hit and wound and re-rolls to hit on a squad of intercessors, and that is just the buffs I remember from memory.
When DG still had that stratagem I regularly blew up harlequin troupes by lobbing 7 plague grenades at them without any buffs whatsoever.
If you wanted to allow all members of a squad to throw grenades, your would have to reduce their power significantly.
If you wanted to allow all members of a squad to throw grenades, your would have to reduce their power significantly.
Well lots of the grenades are fairly naff. At this point why bother with frag on say Imperial guard? It has one use - at close range for a basic sergeant who is stuck with a las pistol. Otherwise lasguns with FRFSRF shoot 4 times on average compared to a grenades 3.5. I suppose vs a horde it would be 6 times? Yay....
We've gone back and forth on this a bunch of times with ProHammer, and recently decided to take grenade throwing out again. The advantage of the classic editions though is that grenades served a purpose outside of them being "thrown as a shooting attack." Offensive/defensive grenades and their equivalent served a purpose in affecting melee, or could be used as a melee attack against vehicles etc. With the changes in 8th/9th, those reasons don't inherently exist anymore. The other consideration is that if it makes sense to throw a bunch of grenades at close range because the damage output is higher, what does that say about the balance and quality of the main weapon? Offensively, grenades are used used to negate cover or attack from out of LoS or as area denial. If your target is standing in the open in LoS, shooting them directly should be the faster and more direct option.
It worked beautiful in 2nd. I don´t understand where the problem is. One thing though: Templates should be mandatory and models whose bases are touched by the template are also automatically hit in order to buff the grenade and speed up play.
Only time I remember using grenades being good was throwing a full squad of tankbusta bombs with more dakka put on em cause full rerolls to hit exploding 5’s and 6’s if you were throwing at a knights.
Okay, I am going to go all out and put out my full wish-list of things I would like changed. Now that I started thinking about it I can't stop and need to get these ideas out of my head.
1) Rules Deployment
Core rules: A book that you buy
Competitive missions: A book that you buy, released yearly/seasonally. Includes the competitive missions and secondary objectives. I would charge for the missions to lower the barrier to entry for beginning players by not charging for the "competitive rules" below.
"Competitive rules"/"Basic rules": Digital rule set. This would include stat blocks for units, some stratagems/relics/traits, and other army wide rules. Go digital so that the rules can be updated at a regular pace beyond simple fixes or point adjustments. Do not charge for these so a player can come to the store, buy a box of cool models, and play right away, rather than needing to commit to a $50 codex to get the rules for the models they bought.
"Narrative Codex": A book that you buy. In addition the large sections of short stories, art work and fluff have "Optional" rules for designing narrative games. for example: Sub-factions and armies of renown. Rules for progression between missions (ie. crusade). Faction specific secondary objectives. More granular wargear and stratagems. ect. These books would essentially be evergreen as the rules are added to the base rules for the faction. A section on how to design narrative missions and campaigns for this faction in particular. What do they want? How would that look on a tabletop? Could be updated to a new version every few years without invalidating the older version per se. as these rules are not used in competitive games.
GW still gets to sell you a paper codex for $50-$60 bucks, but also gets to have digital rules that they can regularly update so there can be an attempt at competitive balance. I would charge the more enfranchised players for rules (competitive missions) while making the base unit/faction rules free to lower the barrier to entry for the hobby.
I really dislike the fact that "Fight First" rules do not work. I charge into a unit with fight first, I get to activate my unit first, and the unit that literally has the rule "Fight First" does not fight first, but actually fights second. I think that this style of combat phase has favored glass cannon style combat units, as when they charge, they are guaranteed to fight first if there is only one combat on the board. It also punishes players for charging with multiple units, as you give your opponent a chance to interrupt, unless you have a way to apply fight last.
Move to a simultaneous combat system, similar to how initiative levels used to work in previous editions, but simplified.
Essentially have 3 initiative levels, Fight First, Normal, Fight Last. Any units that Charged, or have the fight first rule all attack "at the same time". determine who can fight and make attacks before removing models. (The stratagem to Interrupt would just move a unit up one initiative level. Form normal to Fight First, or from Fight Last to Normal) repeat for fight normal and fight last, Just like currently, Fight Last and Fight First cancel each other out and become fight normal.
Right now, many of the top armies have units that can charge and wipe a unit with no chance for the opponent to respond, in combat. Simply being able to spend 2CP to interrupt and deal some damage back would encourage more durability in the combat phase and move the game away from high damage and fight last being the end all be all in the combat phase.
"Watch out boys, i'm gonna frag these dudes that we're fighting in hand to hand"
There was a mini-story of Ragnar Blackmane either thrusting a krak grenade or melta bomb into the throat of a Carnifrx or Hive Tyrant while fighting it in hand-to-hand combat. There is nothing wrong about using a magnetic grenade or bomb vs. a vehicle in close combat either.
There was also a rule in 2nd that allowed models using grenades/bombs vs. vehicles to move away a few inches to avoid the resulting explosion.
thats what melta bombs are for, throwing a nade in combat against infantry is dumb as feth
If we consider melee a fist fight or sword duel then grenades don't make much sense, but if we mean close combat then why not? House clearing has grenades thrown at very close range. "Posting" a grenade into a trench involves getting to within a few feet (and perhaps closer) to the enemy while someone else keeps their heads down with fire. Having said that, I am not sure that most grenades really belong at the scale of 40K? Well, except Vortex Grenade and Virus Grenades of course. Any maybe Anti-Plant grenades? They all belong.
What would I like to see for 10th Ed? Thanks for asking!
- I like faction flavour, but remove Combat Doctrines and all the equivalents. Make weapons -1AP if you mean to. Keep Chapter Tactics etc, but strip out the doctrine layer.
- I like Stratagems, but perhaps make it so that a unit cannot receive more than one Strat a phase.
- Cap all MW powers/strats/attacks at 3 MWs.
- Reduce non-interactive moments. Reign in non-LOS shooting. It should not be all that effective.
- Make melee alternating like AoS.
- Add a Strat for "Reaction Fire." You have to declare when targeted without knowing the results of the enemy fire, but the selected/targeted unit could fire with simultaneous results. The unit could not fire in the following player turn. Or something like that. Not a game designer.
- Occupants of a transport are killed on a DR of 1-3 when their vehicle is destroyed. Yes - I played 2nd Ed where occupants were destroyed automatically. Get off my lawn Drukahri/Harlies!
TangoTwoBravo wrote: - Occupants of a transport are killed on a DR of 1-3 when their vehicle is destroyed. Yes - I played 2nd Ed where occupants were destroyed automatically. Get off my lawn Drukahri/Harlies!
You want to turn transports into deathtraps that no one will ever use, or you just have a thing against transports and don't want people to use them?
TangoTwoBravo wrote: - Occupants of a transport are killed on a DR of 1-3 when their vehicle is destroyed. Yes - I played 2nd Ed where occupants were destroyed automatically. Get off my lawn Drukahri/Harlies!
You want to turn transports into deathtraps that no one will ever use, or you just have a thing against transports and don't want people to use them?
Guilty. I admit it!!!! Although I do have transports and do field them from time to time.
You do not lead with mounted infantry against a threat with anti-armour weapons, unless you want to lose those infantry with the vehicle. Just saying. You plays the game you takes your chances.
There were many things wrong with 3rd Ed, and the new-fangled transport rules were among them. Not as bad as the FOC mind you.
Well that's the first time I've seen someone longing for the days of "Do I put my minis in this transport, or should I just smash them with a hammer to simulate what will happen to them if I do?" from 2nd Ed...
H.B.M.C. wrote: Well that's the first time I've seen someone longing for the days of "Do I put my minis in this transport, or should I just smash them with a hammer to simulate what will happen to them if I do?" from 2nd Ed...
Glad to be able to brighten your day with a surprise! Surprise, we must never forget, is a principle of war.
So is not leading with mounted infantry. Fire baaad! No, seriously, it is.
Oh, I forgot one request. Make Assault Cannons Damage D6. And I want a cup holder with heated seats.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Well that's the first time I've seen someone longing for the days of "Do I put my minis in this transport, or should I just smash them with a hammer to simulate what will happen to them if I do?" from 2nd Ed...
The flipside was that things like a Rhino made the occupants invulnerable to lighter weapons, and fast. Also you could still fire (and throw grenades) out of the Rhino on the move with 6(?) models.
And they were cheap. A Rhino was 50 pts to a Tac Squads 360ish with Special and Heavy.
Oh, and you could plow through swarms of smaller models.
There were lots of interesting tactics you could pull with Transports. Much fun.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Well that's the first time I've seen someone longing for the days of "Do I put my minis in this transport, or should I just smash them with a hammer to simulate what will happen to them if I do?" from 2nd Ed...
The flipside was that things like a Rhino made the occupants invulnerable to lighter weapons, and fast. Also you could still fire (and throw grenades) out of the Rhino on the move with 6(?) models.
And they were cheap. A Rhino was 50 pts to a Tac Squads 360ish with Special and Heavy.
Oh, and you could plow through swarms of smaller models.
There were lots of interesting tactics you could pull with Transports. Much fun.
I don't always agree with Insectum7, but when I do, its about Transports.
My greatest transport memory from 2nd Ed was a game where Marneus Calgar and Commissar Yarrick were constantly stealing the same Rhino over and over again (the crew were dead), and running one another over with it.
If you wanted to allow all members of a squad to throw grenades, your would have to reduce their power significantly.
You would have to reduce/control their scaling. As has been pointed out some grenades don't do enough(although they glossed over blast on Frag), and some would do too much. "Fixing" Grenades would probably involve fixing a lot of other things as well.
First thing to fix is Blast, Morale, and Squad sizes. There is almost never a benefit to taking a squad that risks Blast if one doesn't have to. Give the larger squad sizes a benefit to offset the drawback of Blast so it's a tough choice not a no-brainer - to use examples most people will be familiar with:
10 Intercessors vs 2x5 Intercessors
2 Sergeants, same cost.
Avoids the first level of Blast
Seriously diminishes Morale/Attrition.
10 Intercessors can combat squad into 2 groups of 5 - but still only the 1 sergeant - plus the 10 don't fit in the basic transport anyway, but if they did, they still would as two combat squads.
2x5 Intercessors can take the same two AuxGL's 1x10 can
2x5 Tactical can take two specials, two heavies, or one of each. 1x10 can only take 1 of each.
The only time its even close to a wash, let alone an advantage is on the variable cost strats. 1CP for 5, 2CP for 10 - you're not getting a discount, but you do get to hit "two" squads instead of 1. I know its still one squad, but its "two" squads worth of models.
Once Frags hit the first level of Blast they're equaling 4 shots vs 4 in FRFSRF - and potentially surpassing Rapid Fire 1 for Marines/Sisters etc. At that point you can start tweaking the grenades to make them better than FRFSRF to offset their limited range while keeping an eye on Marines and Sisters. No need to create some memes where the power armor runs up to 5.9" away and lobs grenades then spends the rest of the game trying to stay in that sweet spot.
After that, you'll want to fix vehicles in general so they're worth taking and can do something. Then tweak the Krak grenades with a vs Vehicle/vs Monster escalator and/or requirement. Infantry with anti-tank grenades within 6" should be about as scary to to a tank as a tank is 36" away from infantry on Planet Bowling Ball.
Once you have both of those, the faction specific grenades Plasma, Blight, Haywire, etc - can use the main two as a guide.
Finally make sure vs Character is take care of. Krak Grenades against a Tank Commander or Old One Eye should still be fairly dangerous. Krak Grenades against a Phoenix Lord, or an Apothecary not so much.
I think thrown grenades fit fine at 40k's scaling, and in fact I think the basic frag/krak are about right.
It absolutely makes sense that grenades thrown at short range are more lethal than small arms - that certainly tracks with real warfare.
But it's best if they're just a little bit better, and perhaps a little specialised.
The only time whole units throwing grenades has been a problem is when the grenades themselves have been too powerful for that.
This is a problem with grenades normally being "use one only", so the devs bump up the stats to make one grenade useful, which becomes too good when everyone does it.
No one would mind if a full squad of Astartes threw frag grenades.
There were lots of interesting tactics you could pull with Transports. Much fun.
One of the biggest problems transports currently have is that many units don't need a ride at all. With easy access to deepstrike, flying units, high range weapons, etc.... and the smaller tables, lots of stuff that in theory could benefit from a ride actually doesn't need it. Now I'm all in favor of smaller tables since it made home games much easier, but to give transports a purpose an interesting solution could be halving all the ranges, except transports M stats. This way first 1-2 turns would be mostly invested in positioning, spreading the game to all 5 turns much more frequently and transports with 10ish'' M would help a lot infantries with 3'' or 4'' M, D6 charge range, and/or 6''-12'' range for their weapons which would be the common and average values.
If you wanted to allow all members of a squad to throw grenades, your would have to reduce their power significantly.
Well lots of the grenades are fairly naff. At this point why bother with frag on say Imperial guard? It has one use - at close range for a basic sergeant who is stuck with a las pistol. Otherwise lasguns with FRFSRF shoot 4 times on average compared to a grenades 3.5. I suppose vs a horde it would be 6 times? Yay....
The issue is that you are comparing an unbuffed weapon to one that has been buffed to double its efficiency.
At the same range, a grenade is already significantly better than a lasgun and almost as good as FRFSRF lasguns. With their current profiles there would never be a reason to use your regular gun at short range instead of lobbing all the grenades all the time.
It would be historically based though. Turkish infantry would often use hand guns from range and switch to grenades at closer range.
Why shouldn't IG use lasguns at ranges where they can not use grenades. In fact I find it funny that in melee a comissar or Lt armed with a plasma pistol has to try to poke a hive tyrant or a dread, instead of blasting him at close range with his pistol.
Karol wrote: It would be historically based though. Turkish infantry would often use hand guns from range and switch to grenades at closer range.
Why shouldn't IG use lasguns at ranges where they can not use grenades. In fact I find it funny that in melee a comissar or Lt armed with a plasma pistol has to try to poke a hive tyrant or a dread, instead of blasting him at close range with his pistol.
Pistols can be fired in melee.
Read your rulebook.
Karol wrote: It would be historically based though. Turkish infantry would often use hand guns from range and switch to grenades at closer range.
Why shouldn't IG use lasguns at ranges where they can not use grenades. In fact I find it funny that in melee a comissar or Lt armed with a plasma pistol has to try to poke a hive tyrant or a dread, instead of blasting him at close range with his pistol.
Indeed. That´s why units were allowed in 2nd to use pistol profiles to deal damage in hth.
TangoTwoBravo wrote: - Occupants of a transport are killed on a DR of 1-3 when their vehicle is destroyed. Yes - I played 2nd Ed where occupants were destroyed automatically. Get off my lawn Drukahri/Harlies!
You want to turn transports into deathtraps that no one will ever use, or you just have a thing against transports and don't want people to use them?
Transports were supposed to be used in turn 1 transporting troops while avoiding firing lanes of the opponent during 2nd. If your troops ride inside the vehicle straight towards the opposition (3rd Rhino rush era and later editions) then they all deserve to die in the most horrible manner because of sheer stupidity. Rules back in the day for transport vehicles were fine. Just don´t play on planet bowling ball.
Transports are important in a scenario where units move on the board from the table edge during deployment, and when they effect reserves. Thats not at all normal in ninth edition.
The elephant in the room is that in a game where your basic troops can fire clear across the board, run onto the objective in two turns at most, and need to be fighting on turn 1 or turn 2 at the latest, you don't really need transportation; at most you need a mobile pillbox to safeguard a vulnerable unit against enemy shooting until they can disembark and do their thing.
The rules have to treat a transport as sacrificial protection that allows its occupants to waltz out unharmed when it blows up, or otherwise light vehicles like Rhinos struggle to find a purpose. A transport IRL is a deathtrap when anti-armor is in play, but you can't make transports play like that in 40K or there is zero reason to take them.
Having to get out before a transport moves really hurts them as a means of moving up the board. And vehicles are simply not survivable enough to rush forward and sit there for a turn.
You need to be able to get out after the transport moves forward.
Ordana wrote: Having to get out before a transport moves really hurts them as a means of moving up the board. And vehicles are simply not survivable enough to rush forward and sit there for a turn.
You need to be able to get out after the transport moves forward.
Agreed.
Tau Devilfish are considered very good transports, largely because they have a strategem to disembark after moving. This means they can actually fulfill their role as mobility for the infantry in a manner that's actually useful to the 40k design space.
On the other hand, delivering 3 squads of plasma shotguns, with buffs, right in the enemy's face turn 1 has it's own problems for the play of the game. But you can't win everything
alextroy wrote: Reducing gun ranges in half while units can move 6” and charge up to 12” is not something I would call interesting.
I'd enjoy it. i want positioning and maneuvring to actually matter in the game
It would be extremly punishing to some armies. For example marines, and very good for armies with fast moving open topped transports and vehicles. Most of the time they don't have to care about ranges anyway, because if they have to they will open fire at point blank range.
alextroy wrote: Reducing gun ranges in half while units can move 6” and charge up to 12” is not something I would call interesting.
I'd enjoy it. i want positioning and maneuvring to actually matter in the game
It would be extremly punishing to some armies. For example marines, and very good for armies with fast moving open topped transports and vehicles. Most of the time they don't have to care about ranges anyway, because if they have to they will open fire at point blank range.
i'm not saying it wouldn't, but thats a good way to make these fast units have a better identity by making them squishy.
All of this is assuming the game switched to AA tho
In Star Wars Legion standard gun ranges is 18", the longest range weapons in the game are 30" (except the occasional orbital bombardment which is technically an infinite range shooting attack).
It does this despite standard movement range being roughly the same 6".
It does it because actions available to people are far more limited.
In 40k you can move and shoot without penalty, often even advance and shoot!. Then you can charge without penalty and fight for free.
If we translate that to SWL, that's 5 actions; move, move again (advance), shoot, move again (charge), fight.
In Starwars Legion you only get 2 actions, and charging doesn't even let you fight for free (although most actual melee units get a special rule to do so).
That means you quite often want to stand still and aim if you want to shoot. Or that if you try and double move into melee you won't be able to attack immediately.
40k would really benefit from this change IMO. It makes the table feel a lot larger, staying out of enemy weapon range is a very practical consideration.
It also does it because a long movement stat will only be 9-10", and that's rare. As opposed to many things getting 12 or 14" in 40k.
If 40k toned down the ranges and distances the board wouldn't feel so tiny - SWL's is only 6x3'
alextroy wrote: Reducing gun ranges in half while units can move 6” and charge up to 12” is not something I would call interesting.
I'd enjoy it. i want positioning and maneuvring to actually matter in the game
It would be extremly punishing to some armies. For example marines, and very good for armies with fast moving open topped transports and vehicles. Most of the time they don't have to care about ranges anyway, because if they have to they will open fire at point blank range.
i'm not saying it wouldn't, but thats a good way to make these fast units have a better identity by making them squishy.
All of this is assuming the game switched to AA tho
GW had ample opportunity to introduce AA into 40K and they chose not to do it.
In Star Wars Legion standard gun ranges is 18", the longest range weapons in the game are 30" (except the occasional orbital bombardment which is technically an infinite range shooting attack).
It does this despite standard movement range being roughly the same 6".
It does it because actions available to people are far more limited.
In 40k you can move and shoot without penalty, often even advance and shoot!. Then you can charge without penalty and fight for free.
If we translate that to SWL, that's 5 actions; move, move again (advance), shoot, move again (charge), fight.
In Starwars Legion you only get 2 actions, and charging doesn't even let you fight for free (although most actual melee units get a special rule to do so).
That means you quite often want to stand still and aim if you want to shoot. Or that if you try and double move into melee you won't be able to attack immediately.
40k would really benefit from this change IMO. It makes the table feel a lot larger, staying out of enemy weapon range is a very practical consideration.
It also does it because a long movement stat will only be 9-10", and that's rare. As opposed to many things getting 12 or 14" in 40k.
If 40k toned down the ranges and distances the board wouldn't feel so tiny - SWL's is only 6x3'
I didn't read ten pages of back and forth, but:
I'm reasonably happy with the core rules. I have a handful of small quibbles, but not a lot that need major restructuring. I really like the majority of the changes from 8th to 9th, so most of my complaints with the *core rules* stem from old issues - No universal special rules, I miss armor facings, etc.
So, I don't really have things I want to see from '10th edition', I just want to see better core design from GW when it comes to their codices and general releases. Some general things:
Accessibility. Right now, building a list is a pain in the if you try and actually manage it with the books on hand. Everything is incredibly clunky, to the point where I'd say that the game is almost unplayable without apps like Battlescribe. Having to cross-reference several books and possibly an FAQ or two for points updates, gear options, what's legal to take, etc., is bad codex design.
Armor facings, sort of. We don't necessarily need full armor facings like in older editions, but a special rule that grants +1 Toughness to a vehicle unless the attacking model can draw a straight line from its base to the rear of the target vehicle without passing through any other part of the vehicle (or if it's being attacked in melee) would be really cool to have. It'd help with vehicles being too fragile at the moment, make flanking more important, and generally be easier to manage than older editions of armor facings were, where you could easily get into arguments about which quadrant a firing model *technically* was standing in. This rule wouldn't have to be applied to all vehicles - Land Raiders and Monoliths and other tanks which are equally armored on all fronts wouldn't need to change, and it's the same for vehicles like Trukks which are just as fragile from the front as the back. It could be a special rule, like Feel No Pain, that gets applied to certain vehicles.
alextroy wrote: Reducing gun ranges in half while units can move 6” and charge up to 12” is not something I would call interesting.
Then reduce also movement and charge range along the way.
Or you can just play on a bigger table. Same results.
I would actually say do both. Even in 8th on 6x4 range wasn't a huge issue and first turn charges were a thing.
For the super intellectual players, making the space bigger seems very important. You get effectively 25% more space by reducing movement by 20%. It would take an extra two turns to reach the opponents board edge from your own DZ. And reducing the ability to just “deploy” instead of move on from the edge would reduce those early game charges.
The problem is that even though it’s not even very fluffy in the purest sense, there are all-cc armies and close range rokkit/shoota boys, so people get disturbed by this kind of change, and GW certainly isn’t going to do a better fix for world eaters, daemons, black templars, or orks. Like IMO orks are a shooting army and should properly be a much more balanced mid/long range army than they are popularly thought of, but as they’ve been on TT for the past 20 years you’ve borked them when making the board bigger.
It’s really a much bigger table if you use metric tape measures and change all the ranges to 12cm move, 48cm bolt guns, all the numbers doubled. That’s like 4.8” moves and 19” range bolters. The problem is that for popular consumption, it sucks due to peoples existing collections being oriented toward everything charging straight line into the opponents dz by turn 2-3
alextroy wrote: Reducing gun ranges in half while units can move 6” and charge up to 12” is not something I would call interesting.
Then reduce also movement and charge range along the way.
Or you can just play on a bigger table. Same results.
Most people don't have the kind of room in their home to have an 6x4 table, let alone an 8x4. Lowering ranges and movement across the board would be my preference.
A lot of people in the world don't have a table to play on at all, and they play what ever there is at the local store or club, if they are lucky to have one. And stores and clubs tend to have more tables suited for events, which thanks to GW are of the wierd size we have right now.
i'm not saying it wouldn't, but thats a good way to make these fast units have a better identity by making them squishy.
All of this is assuming the game switched to AA tho
that would require some drastic rewriting of codex. Because the DE , harlis and eldar vehicles in general, are only squishy in the lore. But who knows maybe the impulsor is going to be open topped, as it should be, and primaris get access to squad weapons or hellblasters get a points down grade. And then we start seeing fleets of them loaded to the brim with plasma weapons.
alextroy wrote: Reducing gun ranges in half while units can move 6” and charge up to 12” is not something I would call interesting.
I'd enjoy it. i want positioning and maneuvring to actually matter in the game
Positioning and maneuvering should be the most important things in a war game. I’d also like to reduce range. I think range only helps a minuscule amount with positioning and maneuvering though, it’s not as important as actual positioning rules.
If you see a boxing match the fighters are always circling and facing each other. They never end up punching the side or back of their opponent. There’s just one dimension: too far, close enough, and too close. With any range, 40k still mostly has that one dimension. Short range and cc units try to get close, long range units try to stat at stand off distance.
To actually get positioning, you need the crossfire rules that Genestealer cults have and that people always site Epic as having even though they’ve never played it. You also need rules that give a reward for being bubblewrapped, the way that WHFB units used to be able to march fast if they weren’t near an enemy, and you’d fast units just to March block the enemy backfield and not even enter combat. Those are entire dimensions that 40k doesn’t have even if your basic move is 4” and basic shooting is 16.”
A lot of people report that side and rear vehicle shots were really rare when vehicles had facings, and so that’s the reason you’d need more room on the board / shorter range values. The ranges are an enabler for the positioning rules though, I don’t think they do much by themselves.
it sucks due to peoples existing collections being oriented toward everything charging straight line into the opponents dz by turn 2-3
Part of the problem as I see it is that this war themed-"game" rewards that type of tactic.
To me that should exist but absolutely should be something difficult to pull off in a world with the ranged weaponry that exists on that battlefield.
I'm also going to throw in my obligatory +1 to alternate activation of some kind, because the straight IGO-UGo where you go into my face while I stand there doing nothing but removing models is not a fun war themed "game" experience.
pelicaniforce wrote: Transports are important in a scenario where units move on the board from the table edge during deployment, and when they effect reserves. Thats not at all normal in ninth edition.
Nor would they be especially helpful in 9th given current terrain sets we've been seeing. On here we recently took a look at the Hammerfall bunker map/math from Goonhammer and tried to guestimate it for transport moving. If even moderately large Vehicles don't fly, they don't move.
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VladimirHerzog wrote: Yeah, guns that can shoot from one deployment to another should be rare, not the norm
From edge to edge should be rare, but from deployment zone to deployment zone should be the norm. I always looked at the deployment zone as the No Man's Land in WWI trench warfare, we just have WWII shelled out buildings instead of trenches. So that 24" or so between deployment zones is the usual distance the armies can creep up on each other before the infantry weapons start coming into play.
pelicaniforce wrote: Transports are important in a scenario where units move on the board from the table edge during deployment, and when they effect reserves. Thats not at all normal in ninth edition.
Nor would they be especially helpful in 9th given current terrain sets we've been seeing. On here we recently took a look at the Hammerfall bunker map/math from Goonhammer and tried to guestimate it for transport moving. If even moderately large Vehicles don't fly, they don't move.
As an addendum - This got me playing with Battlescribe trying to make a semi-decent mechanized infantry list. It just doesn't work with Primaris Marines. There are a host of issues - capacity caps and combined points costs just don't mesh well especially in Primaris.
About the only chapter that does mesh well in Primaris is Black Templar with Repulsors like they did with Land Raider Crusaders.
Splitting Squads/characters into two Impulsors has potential but realistically will run into issues similar to Guard - they start eating real estate fast.
Aeldari/Drukhari between FLY the keyword, and flying stem bases probably have it easiest being able to fudge moving/standing over/under etc in addition to better points per value.
Ghost Arks may be one of the most restrictive for usefulness. Can only carry Warriors or characters, but the min size for Warriors precludes any characters to begin with.
Tyranids don't really have one - just a Drop Pod type.
In addition most transports/units suffer from the same drawbacks:
Losing a valuable turn while embarked for the shooting units unless the transport is opentopped, or otherwise special like the Chimera.
Losing a valuable turn for the assault units after disembarking before being able to charge on the ones that even allow disembarking after moving.
High Points cost for a model that only counts as 1 non-Obsec model that frequently doesn't have the high offensive capacity of "real" vehicles you spend similar points on.
ObSec has long needed some fixing beyond transport value.
In the same time period a Transport can stop for loading, and drive away a Transport that already had people loaded can stop and let people off - so Embark OR Disembark on the same turn Before OR after Moving should be possible. Charge after Disembark should be allowed.
More transports need firing ports when/if they aren't Open Topped or built in bespoke like Chimera.
Transport Capacity needs a revamp for squad sizes/character support.
but that 24" no mans land is actually atleast 30, if not closer to 36.
Once upon a time you could shoot 24" if you stayed still, not enough to reach your opponents DZ, or you could move and shoot 12". Again, not enough. So turn 1 most of your army, even completely in the open was actually safe from light fire. The amount of weapons that could reach into your opponents DZ turn 1 were limited.
Now you can move and shoot to full effect so even a 24" weapon can reach 6" into the opponents DZ. Plus more weapons reach beyond that 24". Even basic weapons. And heavy weapons that reach the entire table are also much much more common in an army.
I would love to see a return of USRs, we still use deep strike and FNP to describe what bespoken rules say.
Further the WS, BS and T values should be expended in usage, why stop and have no WS 1+ or T 8+?
With the changes to a lot of army specific rules remove the +/- cap.
Add or change (e.g. defensible) a terrain rule to remove 1AP from all attacks melee and ranged.
Further change the restriction of how forests interact with Models, besides Titans they should help everyone. E.g. tie it to the titanic key word and change the Titanic keyword to Knight or similar to distinguish between Knight size and true titans
Edit: Oh and I would split the matched play rules.
Tournament: Only the most recent Codex and Boxes are allowed.
Legacy: All models are allowed and online Rules updated for each new iteration that is released, e.g. Version of Codex or BRB. Maybe similar to the vehicle construction rules but still you would have a heaven for all the conversions and the regular games
They took much from MTG, different game modes should be on the table as well
alextroy wrote: Reducing gun ranges in half while units can move 6” and charge up to 12” is not something I would call interesting.
Then reduce also movement and charge range along the way.
Or you can just play on a bigger table. Same results.
Most people don't have the kind of room in their home to have an 6x4 table, let alone an 8x4. Lowering ranges and movement across the board would be my preference.
Hmm... Building an entire new table or changing the stats of the minis. I wonder which approach is easier to pull off.
In addition most transports/units suffer from the same drawbacks:
Losing a valuable turn while embarked for the shooting units unless the transport is opentopped, or otherwise special like the Chimera.
Losing a valuable turn for the assault units after disembarking before being able to charge on the ones that even allow disembarking after moving.
High Points cost for a model that only counts as 1 non-Obsec model that frequently doesn't have the high offensive capacity of "real" vehicles you spend similar points on.
And that's not considering that the changes with things like Line of Sight and such, they don't even make an effective meat shield anymore. If even a toe of it's cargo is sticking out the group is now at risk. Before if you squeezed everyone behind the transport, it could cop one, maybe two turns if you're lucky of shooting before the squad becomes at risk.
I started 40k in 7th with KDK, and have picked up a few other armies over 8th and 9th too. There are aspects of all armies and editions that I've enjoyed but at the moment the bloat is unreal. For me, the things I'd change are:
1. Go back to a steeper strength v toughness wounding chart. Make the jump from S6 to S7 feel like it actually matters.
2. Bring back the other version of weapon skill, or alternatively have rolls to see who wins the fight ala MESBG. I've recently started playing that and really enjoy how the combat system works. My elves are squishy and will die if they lose combat, but it's their skill with a blade that keeps them alive.
3. Alternating activations/priority rolls is another thing I would like to see (in theory) in 40k. It might be great, it might be terrible, but I'd be interested to see how it worked.
4. Get rid of strats, they are stupid. Equipment should be something you pay points for rather than some arbitrary incorporeal resource once per phase or turn. I also don't enjoy things becoming tougher or killier for a phase "just because". The only way I'd want them kept in the game is if they were tied to HQs or other characters as a means of increasing their influence on the battlefield.
5. Chill out with the codex/edition churn, for the love of god.
alextroy wrote: Reducing gun ranges in half while units can move 6” and charge up to 12” is not something I would call interesting.
I suggested reducing ALL the ranges in half, rounding up or down. 1'' ranges which would stay 1'' of course.
Transports could keep their M stat or something close to it to have a purpose. Moving 10-12'' can be very useful when units on foot move 3'', run D3, have D6 charge range, fire 6''-12'' typically.
It's also a way to make use of all 5 turns, instead of calling the game top of 3 as usual.
).
), but this type of surprise isn't 'fun'.
if you try and actually manage it with the books on hand. Everything is incredibly clunky, to the point where I'd say that the game is almost unplayable without apps like Battlescribe. Having to cross-reference several books and possibly an 