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Less ambiguity and less randomness.

Compile a list of every type of terrain that can be thought of and list each one under the save it gives. Anything not on there would have a generic 4+ save. Area terrain: goes by model, 5+.
Anything that flat out "removes from play" rather than going by T/W/HP should be removed.
Anything that wounds on a value other than T should be removed to speed things up.
Models in reserve at game end should not count as dead.
The game should simply continue if 1 player has all models in reserve at end of turn 1.
General removal of unnecessary random tables from all books.
Make charges a set 6" again.
Difficult terrain halves movement and charges.
Take out allies, D weapons, Lords of War and Unbound altogether and put these in a separate book. Limit to one FOC in a normal game.
Something to speed up CC. I often find it's the slowest phase. Maybe let every model in the combat attack. You'd roll more dice but not have to lean over and work out who was and wasn't in range.
Look Out Sir: immediately declare the model that will block the hit before rolling to wound (any in the unit as long as on the same level) and they make an Initiative test.
Drop Challenges, it's too easy to make these forgone conclusions and they add further steps to CC.
Just drop Daemonology altogether. Too much fluff contradiction and potential to allow one player to keep adding models. In fact, drop anything that allows models not bought with points to be added.
Make Invisibility as it was before.
Remove the psychic phase, have all powers cast at the start of the shooting phase and have 2 durations: instantm(use it and it takes effect and is then over), or until the beginning of your next shooting phase.
Armies that can never take a psyker should be able to Deny the Witch on a 5+.
Models with BS5+ should start getting a bonus to Overwatch. Maybe +1 to OW BS for every point of BS over 4 to a maximum of 5 (so you couldn't reroll OW shots).
Make the table edge when Outflanking something you choose, not roll for.

Just play-test endlessly. If you find anything that has to be able resolved with a house rule, roll-off, compromise etc then rewrite it to make it unambiguous.

 Fezman wrote:
Less ambiguity and less randomness.

Make charges a set 6" again.
Difficult terrain halves movement and charges.
Take out allies, D weapons, Lords of War and Unbound altogether and put there in a separate book. Limit to one FOC in a normal game.
Something to speed up CC. I often find it's the slowest phase. Maybe let every model in the combat attack. You'd roll more dice but not have to lean over and work out who was and wasn't in range.
Look Out Sir: immediately declare the model that will block the hit before rolling to wound (any in the unit as long as on the same level) and they make an Initiative test.
Drop Challenges, it's too easy to make these forgone conclusions.
Just drop Daemonology altogether.
Make Invisibility as it was before.
Remove the psychic phase, have all powers cast at the start of the shooting phase and have 2 durations: instant, or until the beginning of your next shooting phase.
Armies that can never take a psyker should be able to Deny the Witch on a 5+.
Models with BS5+ should start getting a bonus to Overwatch. Maybe +1 to OW BS for every point of normal BS over 4 to a maximum of 5 (so you couldn't reroll OW shots).
Make the table edge when Outflanking something you choose, not roll for.

Just play-test endlessly. If you find anything that has to be able resolved with a house rule, roll-off, compromise etc then rewrite it to make it unambiguous.

That all makes perfect sense, but GW is too busy trying to find ways to make more money. They'll never playtest.

Allow blast weapons to shoot at flyers.
Remove the multiple barrage rule, use the multiple blast rule in its place.
Reintroduce the Movement stat.
Remove AV, vehicles get toughness and wounds.
Bring in ways to inflict mutliple wounds to multiwound models with a single hit, eg tack it on to armorbane and fleshbane.
Cut back the proliferation of rerolls.
Rewrite wound allocation and determining cover to no longer go model by model.

Make charges a set 6" again. No thanks - happy with charges as they are
Difficult terrain halves movement and charges. Sounds good as long as there are ways round it
Take out allies, D weapons, Lords of War and Unbound altogether and put there in a separate book. Limit to one FOC in a normal game. nah there are just as bad Codex things
Something to speed up CC. I often find it's the slowest phase. Maybe let every model in the combat attack. You'd roll more dice but not have to lean over and work out who was and wasn't in range. Nah I love close combat
Look Out Sir: immediately declare the model that will block the hit before rolling to wound (any in the unit as long as on the same level) and they make an Initiative test.
Drop Challenges, it's too easy to make these forgone conclusions. I like challenges
Just drop Daemonology altogether. sounds good if we can ditch the whole new Psychic phase and have a tided up version of 6th ed without the cheesey bits
Make Invisibility as it was before. Ok
Remove the psychic phase, have all powers cast at the start of the shooting phase and have 2 durations: instant, or until the beginning of your next shooting phase. Sounds good
Armies that can never take a psyker should be able to Deny the Witch on a 5+. What does Adamantium Will do? 4+
Models with BS5+ should start getting a bonus to Overwatch. Maybe +1 to OW BS for every point of normal BS over 4 to a maximum of 5 (so you couldn't reroll OW shots). Only if CC units get better chance to hit much weaker opponents like high BS figures get 2+ and re-rolls
Make the table edge when Outflanking something you choose, not roll for.

Just play-test endlessly. If you find anything that has to be able resolved with a house rule, roll-off, compromise etc then rewrite it to make it unambiguous.
Excellent idea

We are also looking at (in our little group) Allowing vehicles to have Overwatch - usual restrictions apply.

To me the most important change to rules is to change the whole philosophy about what purpose they serve. They should not be used to generate money directly through sales of rule books or indirectly to drive sales by overpowering one unit/army while making other, previously great units useless. Instead they should generate money by drawing people into a well constructed, balanced game.

To do this, they should make the rules available online and free. Update the rules on a quarterly basis to continuously fine tune and balance the game.

I don't mind having some armies being better than others because playing with a weaker army can be a fun challenge, but they should be close enough to the others so that they can be competitive.

Return to area terrain. You can't represent a thick jungle, forest etc. that you can place models in without using abstraction. It was so much better when you could put down felt to represent an area of thick vegetation that blocked LOS and actually move models around in it.

1. Remove random charge distance
2. Tweak intercept and overwatch to make assault more viable
3. Tweak charges to make assault less scary and remove the reluctance to make it viable
4. Fix the true line of sight issue that negatively affects so many games

 Mr Morden wrote:

Make charges a set 6" again. No thanks - happy with charges as they are
Difficult terrain halves movement and charges. Sounds good as long as there are ways round it
Take out allies, D weapons, Lords of War and Unbound altogether and put there in a separate book. Limit to one FOC in a normal game. nah there are just as bad Codex things
Something to speed up CC. I often find it's the slowest phase. Maybe let every model in the combat attack. You'd roll more dice but not have to lean over and work out who was and wasn't in range. Nah I love close combat
Look Out Sir: immediately declare the model that will block the hit before rolling to wound (any in the unit as long as on the same level) and they make an Initiative test.
Drop Challenges, it's too easy to make these forgone conclusions. I like challenges
Just drop Daemonology altogether. sounds good if we can ditch the whole new Psychic phase and have a tided up version of 6th ed without the cheesey bits
Make Invisibility as it was before. Ok
Remove the psychic phase, have all powers cast at the start of the shooting phase and have 2 durations: instant, or until the beginning of your next shooting phase. Sounds good
Armies that can never take a psyker should be able to Deny the Witch on a 5+. What does Adamantium Will do? 4+
Models with BS5+ should start getting a bonus to Overwatch. Maybe +1 to OW BS for every point of normal BS over 4 to a maximum of 5 (so you couldn't reroll OW shots). Only if CC units get better chance to hit much weaker opponents like high BS figures get 2+ and re-rolls
Make the table edge when Outflanking something you choose, not roll for.

Just play-test endlessly. If you find anything that has to be able resolved with a house rule, roll-off, compromise etc then rewrite it to make it unambiguous.
Excellent idea

We are also looking at (in our little group) Allowing vehicles to have Overwatch - usual restrictions apply.

Oh, these are just spur of the moment thoughts. Far too many ideas to expect anyone I played against should do them, or for me to even remember half of them. And your replies show how subjective any exercise like this. Though I prefer shooting I'd prefer it more if it and CC could be equally viable instead of "this edition makes shooting better, that one nerfs shooty armies" etc. The fact house rules seem to be so common suggests the rules could be quite a bit tighter.

The way psykers are now I'd happily just make it the same as fantasy magic, that system actually works

This may sound a little crazy, but I like the current rules editions setup. My group and I played fifth till we were all bored of it. We even went several months without playing (before anyone says so, I realize that new armies could have injected more life into our games but I'd rather pay like ~80 every 4ish years for a new rulebook then build a whole new army, I'm poor).

These new editions have injected some new life into the game for me. I like the changes. Its like getting a sequel to a game I love.

My biggest complaint about the rules in general is that GW still seems utterly befuddled by them ther' interwebs. They can't seem to figure out what a HUGE resource they have at their fingertips with the internet. Better FAQ support. Every now and then they could do a live chat with some rules writers.Maybe just an official forum where their rules writers can endorse things like house rules. SOMETHING.

They need to do something to make people want to go through them quick, because with their move to more electronic versions of everything, piracy is an issue they really have to worry about now.

 TNT925 wrote:
This may sound a little crazy, but I like the current rules editions setup. My group and I played fifth till we were all bored of it. We even went several months without playing (before anyone says so, I realize that new armies could have injected more life into our games but I'd rather pay like ~80 every 4ish years for a new rulebook then build a whole new army, I'm poor).

Not even new armies. New campaign or scenario material could have achieved the same goal, if all you wanted was a little something different to make the game more interesting again.

A new edition isn't supposed to be a new game, it's just supposed to fix problems with the previous edition.

 insaniak wrote:

 TNT925 wrote:
This may sound a little crazy, but I like the current rules editions setup. My group and I played fifth till we were all bored of it. We even went several months without playing (before anyone says so, I realize that new armies could have injected more life into our games but I'd rather pay like ~80 every 4ish years for a new rulebook then build a whole new army, I'm poor).

Not even new armies. New campaign or scenario material could have achieved the same goal, if all you wanted was a little something different to make the game more interesting again.

A new edition isn't supposed to be a new game, it's just supposed to fix problems with the previous edition.

Yes but certain things are still going to be dominant in certain editions. 5th had lots of msu spam and transports for example. I do agree with the point about scenarios and such but 7th has really made that sort of thing more easily don't within the ruleset.

Each edition has had its own 'feel' to it is basically what I'm getting at, and I enjoy that.

You don't need a new edition to do that. In starcraft, a small balance change can drastically change the meta, and a new round of ladder maps does the same thing. The game stays the same but the gameplay changes - hopefully for the better. No need to buy a new edition for a sidegrade in gameplay. As Insaniak says, a new edition should fix the previous ones problems. Even the new psychic phase isn't a new mechanic so much as just a change in how the current psykers function.

 TNT925 wrote:
. I do agree with the point about scenarios and such but 7th has really made that sort of thing more easily don't within the ruleset. .

How?

Unbound, the addition of LoW to the foc, warlords, and maelstrom missions all contribute well to running a more narrative/campaign style game. Now obviously these are all things that could have easily been house ruled into the game, but I appreciate that GW has written the rules in such a way that they cater to a style of play that I prefer.

 TNT925 wrote:
Unbound, the addition of LoW to the foc, warlords, and maelstrom missions all contribute well to running a more narrative/campaign style game.

No they don't. LOW were already available if you really needed one for a story, warlord traits hinder the story aspect of the game by replacing characters with random tables (good luck building a coherent narrative around your chapter master who brings a different random skill to each battle), and maelstrom missions are probably the worst possible mission for narrative games. The only thing GW has done to support narrative play recently has been to scream FORGE THE NARRATIVE as often as possible.

 Peregrine wrote:

 TNT925 wrote:
Unbound, the addition of LoW to the foc, warlords, and maelstrom missions all contribute well to running a more narrative/campaign style game.

No they don't. LOW were already available if you really needed one for a story, warlord traits hinder the story aspect of the game by replacing characters with random tables (good luck building a coherent narrative around your chapter master who brings a different random skill to each battle), and maelstrom missions are probably the worst possible mission for narrative games. The only thing GW has done to support narrative play recently has been to scream FORGE THE NARRATIVE as often as possible.

Agreed.
I've been looking at how a mate and I would run a narrative campaign recently, what we keep coming up with are things like chaos marines at kill team scale trying to down a dreadnought in X number of turns as he heroically sacrifices himself in a rearguard action, or guardsmen holding the line until the Astartese drop pod in. Absolutley nothing about running to take hill number 2, then back to bunker number 3, then back to hill 2, then suddenly need to kill the chaos sorcerer.

Well that's fine for you guys. I'm just saying I've found ways to get them to do fun things for my campaign type thingie whats-its. No need for the internet yells haha.

First thing I'd do:
I'd play-test replacing all movement dice rolls with Initiative first and foremost. Less dice rolling to speed things up and create consistency. The random charge winds me up.

For example, run is Initiative value, charge is 6"+initiative, consolidation is Initiative value.

If this doesn't work add a Movement value or equivalent.

Then I'd test consolidation into combat. It's hard enough getting into combat in the first place - playing to try and not win the first round of combat is counterintuitive.

These might not work but I'd test them first.

A handful of tweaks would open up a whole new world of play styles:

Fleet is +D6 to Run / Charge distances instead of a reroll

Charging through terrain is -2 to initiative, unless you have Move Through Cover

Charging from reserve / outflank / infiltrate is allowed, but at half the charge distance rolled

Assault Grenades force re-rolls of successful Overwatch hits (or cancel out twin-linked / rerolls)

You can forgo shooting in your own turn to fire Overwatch at full BS, with Ignores Cover and Twin-linked rules

Smash attacks automatically hit.

 TNT925 wrote:
Unbound, the addition of LoW to the foc, warlords, and maelstrom missions all contribute well to running a more narrative/campaign style game.

And all of those things could have been added in expansions rather than a new edition.


And none of which actually add anything in the way of narrative. You add narrative through actual campaign material, not by adding rules which give your army commander a special ability which he will have forgotten by the start of the next battle he fights. Unless your narrative is that your army commander has had one too many blows to the head, I suppose...

 insaniak wrote:

 TNT925 wrote:
Unbound, the addition of LoW to the foc, warlords, and maelstrom missions all contribute well to running a more narrative/campaign style game.

And all of those things could have been added in expansions rather than a new edition.


And none of which actually add anything in the way of narrative. You add narrative through actual campaign material, not by adding rules which give your army commander a special ability which he will have forgotten by the start of the next battle he fights. Unless your narrative is that your army commander has had one too many blows to the head, I suppose...

Certain characters such as Captain Sicarius come with warlord traits that they can always choose to have. Sicarius always has "The Imperium's Sword".

1) Re-introduce hit modifiers / fix the rubbish of not being able to avail of both cover and armour (Discussed alternative rules on this extensively in my own thread [url]http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/606078.page#7058433
2) Get rid of random run movement and any other glaring random roll silliness that makes the game too swingy and belongs in casually fun boardgames, not competitive battle games.
3) Future codex and rule changes to be made with consideration to existing players of that army. No illegalising weapon loadouts or relegating units unless as a last resort.

Contrary to what some others have posted , I'd like to keep detailed rules, I like playing both skirmishes and large battles, but have little interest in using simplified /mass combat/ epic 40k rules. I like the level of customisation that a squad or character can be given and that even in a 3000pt battle, the difference between giving a squad leader a power sword or an axe can potentially swing something. Losing that level of detail would take the fun out of it the game...for me anyway.

I wouldn´t go full ham on the magic. Twin linked for example is way to overpowered and not to mention the new demonology tree, invisibility etc.
Remove overwatch, why nerf melee when range was already OP.

Infantry in the open should be rightly vulnerable, but infantry in cover (especially hard cover like a ruin) should be hard to dig out and require a lot of concentrated firepower. There is WAY too much "ignores cover" out there.

There should be a "suppressing fire" mechanic, whereby you can reduce the effectiveness of enemy shooting by putting fire on them to keep their heads down.

1. Make all weapons "pinning weapons"
2. Pinning tests only on taking casualties, not wounds
3. Pinning test modifier based on number of casualties sustained (say, -1 Ld per 10%)
4. Being in cover makes you "stubborn"
5. "Ignores cover" negates the "stubborn" rule, not the cover save
6. Simple rule for cover saves: Can it stop a bullet? If yes, 4+; if no, 5+.

Maybe make cover a bonus to your armour save instead of an "either/or" thing? It seems strange that a space marine doesn't gain any additional protection by hiding behind a wall, but I'm not sure this is the solution.

Then, playtest playtest playtest. And when they think they're done, playtest some more. New edition coming out? Advertise for playtesters, make them sign confidentiality agreements if necessary, put them on three month contracts, and then they playtest 8 hours per day. Maybe look at videogame companies and how they do QA, see how it might be adapted to tabletop gaming.

I would probably rewrite the entire ruleset if i'm honest, but keep the basic stuff like shooting phase and ballistic skill. Remove gak like random charge distance (Which i think is gone anyhow) 2+ Invuln and so on :p