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The value on the dice you roll after you rolled it is the result of your roll, in case you didn't know.

Having now slept on the issue, I've realised what's been irking me about these rules, and Blackfang your post above post about the Charge Move's nicely illustrates this.

It's like rather then having rules writers do their thing, and then having an editor look over the final product, they've instead had a lawyer who writes EULA's come in and reword everything in the most inane way possible. It's all superduper carefully worded that there's no room for misunderstanding and wrongful interpretation (which lets be honest, is a good thing), but it's been done in the worst most convoluted way possible.
When I look at these leaked rules and at the rules articles WarCom have posted, my eyes start to gloss over and I stop actually paying attention to what I read. Which is exactly what happens when I have to read privacy polices, EULA's, and other such works of legalese.

Could GW have taken the concept of a "Rules Lawyer" too literally?

Genuinely, yes!

Look at that blurb about making charge moves. It's eye wateringly asinine in the way it's written.

It's not like this is exactly a new phenomenon in their rules writing either, It's been going this way for a while now. Just some of these rules are particularly egregious though.

See in one way its a good thing; but the issue is unlike say Magic the Gathering, where the Rules are broadly the same all the time and just tweaked; because GW reboots everything chances are these rules will never get to a point where the concept is both tight and simple to write at the same time.

Cause they'll change something somewhere somehow



But yeah its a VERY convoluted and wordy way to describe something.
It's like how they've been simplifying warscrolls/dataslates by moving data off them and into other spots - it creates a system that's actually harder to learn and play because the info is difficult to egnage with

 Overread wrote:
Could GW have taken the concept of a "Rules Lawyer" too literally?

Well, we know GW loves lawyers!

 BorderCountess wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Could GW have taken the concept of a "Rules Lawyer" too literally?

Well, we know GW loves lawyers!

 Snrub wrote:
It's like rather then having rules writers do their thing, and then having an editor look over the final product, they've instead had a lawyer who writes EULA's come in and reword everything in the most inane way possible. It's all superduper carefully worded that there's no room for misunderstanding and wrongful interpretation (which lets be honest, is a good thing), but it's been done in the worst most convoluted way possible.

When I saw all the capitalised words the first thing that struck me was that it looked like a legal document where someone had gotten a bit carried away with the defined terms. It does all seem rather heavy-handed.

As for whether the rules are excessively worded, the way GW have done it might be intended to make it clearer what the intent behind the rules is.

Having seen Warcom's article on the new force organisation rules, and had a look at how my own army lists would be affected, I am more positive about how they will work. The starting point seems to be that we will need more HQ models in order to field the variety units that we will want. I am fine with having more independent characters - in fact, I like having individual models as they add a lot of flavour to the army. The question for me will be whether the points will be adjusted so these additional HQs don't knock out too many other units. We may still end up with horrendous lists; that will depend a lot on things like how Line works, points values, and army-specific special rules.

 lord_blackfang wrote:


The value on the dice you roll after you rolled it is the result of your roll, in case you didn't know.

"After all Volley Attacks and Overwatch Reactions have been resolved, the Charging Player rolls 2 Dice, with the highest single Dice result being the Charge Distance. Move the Charging Models the Charge Distance"

I could make it:
"After all Volley Attacks and Overwatch Reactions have been resolved, the Charging Player rolls 2 Dice. Move the Charging Models the highest single Dice Result rolled."


Mod edit - removed.

 Waaagh_Gonads wrote:

"After all Volley Attacks and Overwatch Reactions have been resolved, the Charging Player rolls 2 Dice, with the highest single Dice result being the Charge Distance. Move the Charging Models the Charge Distance"

I could make it:
"After all Volley Attacks and Overwatch Reactions have been resolved, the Charging Player rolls 2 Dice. Move the Charging Models the highest single Dice Result

"You can't modify your charge distance since the rules say you move equal to the Dice result, nothing else!!!!"

Than any modifier would apply to the dice result
And the original text misses the information that the result of the charge roll is the value you are moving your models during the charge move (while explaining the single terms in detail it doesn't make the connection that the charge roll gives you the distance for the charge move)

And hands up who now doesn’t know how to determine your charge roll?


Becuase I get whinging into the void is apparently the in-thing right now. But sounding like a broken record?

If you understand the rule, the wording is fine.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And hands up who now doesn’t know how to determine your charge roll?


Becuase I get whinging into the void is apparently the in-thing right now. But sounding like a broken record?

If you understand the rule, the wording is fine.

If it takes 500 words to say "roll 2 dice and pick the highest" then the writing is awful even if the rule is perfectly legible.

Don't get me wrong, im not saying 40k is well written, but it's a lot more to the point and digestible.

But they hear HH players love complexity and crunch, so word count must go up!

If the intent and mechanics of the rule is understood, the writing of said rule cannot be bad.

People want clear rules. They get clear rules.

People get clear rules “why so many words”.

It really does feel like folk are just desperate for something, anything, to whine about.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If the intent and mechanics of the rule is understood, the writing of said rule cannot be bad.

People want clear rules. They get clear rules.

People get clear rules “why so many words”.

It really does feel like folk are just desperate for something, anything, to whine about.

Because clarity does not necessitate verbosity in every circumstance. Do you consider the fact they used 5 full pages of A4 without using any diagrams for "how to make a melee attack" reasonable? Bear in mind those pages actually refer you off to another section on the how to hit roll, the wound roll, i had to reread strike groups about 6 times to work out what the point was.

The "make an armour save or damage mitigation roll" is half a full side of A4 and an extra paragraph and designers note on the following page. Oddly it doesnt actually tell you how to make an armour save, it simply tells you to do it and discard the dice.

How is this not excessive?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If the intent and mechanics of the rule is understood, the writing of said rule cannot be bad.

People want clear rules. They get clear rules.

People get clear rules “why so many words”.

It really does feel like folk are just desperate for something, anything, to whine about.

It's simple to create something complicated. And it's complicated to create something simple.

I think that's from Mikhail Kalashnikov.

GW is taking the lazy route of writing a lot of lines for something that's not that hard. There are whole games out there that have fewer pages than just the shooting section of GW rules.

 Waaagh_Gonads wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:


The value on the dice you roll after you rolled it is the result of your roll, in case you didn't know.

"After all Volley Attacks and Overwatch Reactions have been resolved, the Charging Player rolls 2 Dice, with the highest single Dice result being the Charge Distance. Move the Charging Models the Charge Distance"

I could make it:
"After all Volley Attacks and Overwatch Reactions have been resolved, the Charging Player rolls 2 Dice. Move the Charging Models the highest single Dice Result rolled."


Mod edit - removed.

All you've done is remove where they have defined and then used" Charge Distance", presumably this is so they can use Charge Distance elsewhere in the rules.

You've saved 7 words and your version isn't really any clearer.

Strike Groups?

It’s like for like batch rolling.

All my models with I4 and CCW form one strike group.

All my models with I4 and Power Weapons form one strike group.

As per the rules, those should be rolled for separately, no doubt to clearly delineate which batch of dice might benefit from say, Shred, or other traits/abilties.

Of course, if you’ve sets of differently coloured dice, one could roll more than one strike group at the same time by assigning a colour to each.

But the rules writers can’t assume you’ll have that facility, and so they went with Strike Groups.

As mentioned above, it’s entirely possible there’ll be other groups which impact Strike Groups. Off the top of my head and purely for example? Perhaps a defensive nerf which allows me to force a given Strike Group to fight last, or halve its overall attack dice or reduce its strength, without affecting other Strike Groups.

It could be a paragraph. It could be five pages. It could be 27 volumes and an index plus 4 supplements.

Do you, or do you not, understand what the rule does, when it does, and how it does, having read the whole of the thing?

Yes or No.

Because to revisit Shred (the one I’ve memorised) does exactly that, whilst also explaining why it doesn’t apply - that is, simply rolling the Shred target number won’t necessarily cause a wound,

Always keep in mind that any rulebook will be someone’s first rulebook. People coming to the game with no existing experience. We might look at Shred or Strike Groups and perhaps wonder “why so many words”. But to someone with no pre-conceived or pre-acquired experience should come to the same understanding of that specific rule as we do.

Because, regardless of the length of text, the rules are clearly written.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If the intent and mechanics of the rule is understood, the writing of said rule cannot be bad.
People want clear rules. They get clear rules.
People get clear rules “why so many words”.

It really does feel like folk are just desperate for something, anything, to whine about.

I know how to do a charge roll and when to do it
But I am not sure what to use it for. What to I do with the number from the Charge Roll?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Strike Groups?

It’s like for like batch rolling.

All my models with I4 and CCW form one strike group.

All my models with I4 and Power Weapons form one strike group.

As per the rules, those should be rolled for separately, no doubt to clearly delineate which batch of dice might benefit from say, Shred, or other traits/abilties.

Of course, if you’ve sets of differently coloured dice, one could roll more than one strike group at the same time by assigning a colour to each.

But the rules writers can’t assume you’ll have that facility, and so they went with Strike Groups.

As mentioned above, it’s entirely possible there’ll be other groups which impact Strike Groups. Off the top of my head and purely for example? Perhaps a defensive nerf which allows me to force a given Strike Group to fight last, or halve its overall attack dice or reduce its strength, without affecting other Strike Groups.

It could be a paragraph. It could be five pages. It could be 27 volumes and an index plus 4 supplements.

Do you, or do you not, understand what the rule does, when it does, and how it does, having read the whole of the thing?

Yes or No.

Because to revisit Shred (the one I’ve memorised) does exactly that, whilst also explaining why it doesn’t apply - that is, simply rolling the Shred target number won’t necessarily cause a wound,

Always keep in mind that any rulebook will be someone’s first rulebook. People coming to the game with no existing experience. We might look at Shred or Strike Groups and perhaps wonder “why so many words”. But to someone with no pre-conceived or pre-acquired experience should come to the same understanding of that specific rule as we do.

Because, regardless of the length of text, the rules are clearly written.

No it isn't clearly written, I had to read it 6 times as I noted to understand why it was there. It doesnt tell me how to complete a hit roll even as it simply palms that off onto another page.

A rule that impacts expressly only 1 strike group and not the model owning it would be weird and convoluted would it not? Why would 2 attacks with a consuls power weapon drop 2 strength against 1 target, but not all the other incoming attacks, why would that not impact the consul themselves, why would you not just apply a -2 strength to incoming melee attacks for that mini and avoid strike groups and the weirdness altogether?

So now you’re complaining an extract, which is clearly an extract, doesn’t go beyond being an extract?

It’s step 5 among other steps. I’d imagine the answer you’re looking for might be in step 6.

And this is exactly what I mean when I say it feels like folk are just desperate to find something, anything, to complain about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Dudeface.

If it took you reading it six times to comprehend it? It only took me the one read.

So I’m afraid I don’t know how to help you there. And I’m not saying this to be rude or cheeky. Certainly there’s many times I’ve read things in the past and it’s just not gone in. I might be tired, stressed, something else on my mind etc.

On your final paragraph there? Maybe wait until we’ve seen such examples. Because again, it sounds like you’re just priming yourself to dislike whatever the answer is in advance.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So now you’re complaining an extract, which is clearly an extract, doesn’t go beyond being an extract?

It’s step 5 among other steps. I’d imagine the answer you’re looking for might be in step 6.

And this is exactly what I mean when I say it feels like folk are just desperate to find something, anything, to complain about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Dudeface.

If it took you reading it six times to comprehend it? It only took me the one read.

So I’m afraid I don’t know how to help you there. And I’m not saying this to be rude or cheeky. Certainly there’s many times I’ve read things in the past and it’s just not gone in. I might be tired, stressed, something else on my mind etc.

On your final paragraph there? Maybe wait until we’ve seen such examples. Because again, it sounds like you’re just priming yourself to dislike whatever the answer is in advance.

I'll open by saying thank you for some concern, I am maybe a little rougher round the edges than usual atm due to external factors, so you might be right in that regards. Its always good to remember we're human at the end of the day.

That said, I am happy to be wrong if a sensible application of a modifiers to a strike group is shown. I just feel that its not a concept that thad been needed before, it isn't needed now and its explained in an overly verbose way.

It might be that I wasn't looking for it to exist so the sudden addition caused additional confusion, it might be that admittedly I set out looking for rolling to hit and got sideswiped with all this extra stuff that never existed.

It just feels like long winded scribing of common sense into a rigid text construct.

It maybe fires me up more because I see this daily in the real world. Software brainboxes creating lovely verbose documentation full of technical terms, they make sense if you've prior knowledge and context, but the sheer volume of words and info switch off the delivery guys who consume it.

The two main requests I always have to facilitate from the delivery guys "ok, so that's hard to read, what does it actually do" and "just include the relevant tables where you're talking about them, I don't want to have to keep referring back and forth."

I feel the rules as written are guilty of the same faults, the delivery guys consuming it will find it too heavy and not to the point.

I mean there's lots of people agreeing in here, I'm not in isolation, I'm just likely irrationally agitated by it.

Good to see that legitimate criticism of long winded rules writing is written off as "you must be unwell".

Which isn’t what I said, or its intent. Indeed, the intent of that bit was “so people don’t think I’m subtlety calling him thick”.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Which isn’t what I said, or its intent. Indeed, the intent of that bit was “so people don’t think I’m subtlety calling him thick”.

Even if that was the case, you might simply the brightest in the room, look at it that way.

I am happy that you like these rules and their prose, I do not and will not, think its as simple as that and there's no personal insults intended by anyone Gert.

Not everyone has to conform with everyone's world view, so we'll all have to agree to disagree I think and carry on.

But how do I know what the little pips on the dice mean? The rule should tell you explicitly to count the number of pips on the dice to work out the result. It's somebody's first rulebook after all.


There's only one reason to write rules like this - dickheads who like to say things like "does placing a die count as rolling it".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I guess what I'm saying is there's a spirit to wargaming, and needing to write rules so longwinded that they eliminate all ambiguity while also being difficult to parse is catering to the kind of person who does not embody that spirit and who I'd like to feth off to some other hobby please and stop ruining mine.

Not that we’ve seen from the incomplete images so far, no.

And honestly? That last point is valid. These rules do seem to close up any obvious loopholes, hopefully frustrating those who try to rules lawyer their way to victory.

On a lighter note though I find myself really liking elements of the army building rules, in that taking characters unlocks slots for other things - it's evocative of the source material, the horus heresy novels love throwing a cast of hundreds of minor junior officer characters in to the plot (which is then exciting when one of them transcends either nobly or ignobly) so encouraging lots of rando junior officers on the tabletop is v. cool in my book

Can we all just chill out already please?

I want to thank you all, you've saved me and my friends thousands of dollars by killing any interest in starting Horus Heresy by showing how the rules are so open to misunderstanding, bickering and hostility.