Has 10th Edition drained the soul from 40K?

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**The_Real_Chris**

LunarSol wrote:
This is my take on things. The Deathwatch Vet kit has always been a standout to me. When they dropped you had to somehow scrounge up 30 plus Storm bolters out of kits that provided zero, which was.... a problem. Here's a kit with dozens of options as is and none of them should be taken. I think where I stand is that kit limits on units makes sense, but characters are worth being more open than they currently are. It's pretty clear though that GW aren't really invested in easily swappable parts in general though and until we start seeing gear packs like HH has, I think kitbashing runs afoul of the dynamic posing that has locked a lot of figures into a static look since they shifted to the AoS style design.

That's an interesting example - because storm bolters were Terminator weapons. They were always terminator weapons. There was a load of fluff as to why.

Deathwatch should never have got stormbolters as their standard submachine gun. Their thing was specialty ammo out of bolters, setting them apart from other marines. Giving them stormbolters ruined that somewhat. And then you have the model issue as well.

**PenitentJake**

I was gung-ho on 9th ed Deathwatch, but without combat squadding and the capacity to take 5 of the alternate troops (ie. five termies, or jump troops or bikes in a Proteus team), I haven't given the index a second glance.

If you want me to put a bike or two into an infantry unit so that it can't move like a bike, or three jump troops, so that they can neither jump nor deepstrike, you've got another thing coming.

If I could take five bikes and combat squad, that gives me an actual reason to take bikes: they get to behave LIKE BIKES.

If I can't, there's no point to a Kill Team, and if there's no point to a Kill Team, there's no point to Deathwatch.

Indomitor and Spectrus KT's make more sense because the auxiliary types for those teams aren't as restricted by unit coherency. Sure, Inceptors might be restricted in the same way as Jump troops, but I think Inceptors are some of the worst models GW has ever made, and I wouldn't field them even if their rules were game breaking, their fluff was worthy of a Hugo award and you paid me to play them- so it's a moot point for me.

**kodos**

chaos0xomega wrote:
or only seen in more obscure and niche titles away from mass market, etc.

everything except 40k is away from the mass market
but this does not change that GW was not innovative for a decade now but just combining random stuff from other (with the result that more often than not the combination does not work, or they don't understand why the rules were there in the original)

and the whole anti/devastating/lethal/critical hit/wound system is GW finally catching up with the 90ies, and with that speed 40k will use alternate unit activation in 2050 and than people will claim that GW invented these and it is something totally new

**H.B.M.C.**

LunarSol wrote:
When they dropped you had to somehow scrounge up 30 plus Storm bolters out of kits that provided zero, which was.... a problem. Here's a kit with dozens of options as is and none of them should be taken. I think where I stand is that kit limits on units makes sense, but characters are worth being more open than they currently are. It's pretty clear though that GW aren't really invested in easily swappable parts in general though and until we start seeing gear packs like HH has, I think kitbashing runs afoul of the dynamic posing that has locked a lot of figures into a static look since they shifted to the AoS style design.

I mean, you didn't have to. You chose to.

**The_Real_Chris**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
LunarSol wrote:
When they dropped you had to somehow scrounge up 30 plus Storm bolters out of kits that provided zero, which was.... a problem. Here's a kit with dozens of options as is and none of them should be taken. I think where I stand is that kit limits on units makes sense, but characters are worth being more open than they currently are. It's pretty clear though that GW aren't really invested in easily swappable parts in general though and until we start seeing gear packs like HH has, I think kitbashing runs afoul of the dynamic posing that has locked a lot of figures into a static look since they shifted to the AoS style design.
I mean, you didn't have to. You chose to.

You kinda did - the game was (vaguely) balanced for that sort of take the optimal option stuff. If you didn't you just got used to losing a bunch. My opponents back then were happy to accept my pre plastic kit deathwatch had stormbolters to keep the balance up, but no everyone would.

**Slipspace**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
LunarSol wrote:
When they dropped you had to somehow scrounge up 30 plus Storm bolters out of kits that provided zero, which was.... a problem. Here's a kit with dozens of options as is and none of them should be taken. I think where I stand is that kit limits on units makes sense, but characters are worth being more open than they currently are. It's pretty clear though that GW aren't really invested in easily swappable parts in general though and until we start seeing gear packs like HH has, I think kitbashing runs afoul of the dynamic posing that has locked a lot of figures into a static look since they shifted to the AoS style design.
I mean, you didn't have to. You chose to.

Exactly. I did the same thing, but fully aware the likelihood was GW would swing the pendulum back towards regular bolters, or some other combo at some point. If you chase the meta at any point you need to be prepared to have your choices reduced in effectiveness later. Of course, it would be nice if GW could find a middle ground between "this is currently broken-good" and "this now sucks" so all options were roughly equivalent, but it's a little disingenuous to say you had to find a bunch of storm bolters for your Deathwatch.

**Hellebore**

ccs wrote:
H.B.M.C. wrote:
Because people love officialdom. And they want the newest things... some of which don't have rules in the old style... and people love officialdom. And they want the newest things... some of which don't have rules in the old style... and people love officialdom...

I somewhat suspect that you knew that already ccs, and were going for a "gotcha!". But look at the tournament scene. They'll drop whatever the current hotness is for the new hotness the moment GW gives Malibu Stacy an official new hat.

So apparently the community DID need/want something from GW....
And they were really just treading water while waiting on new content - be it revised rules, new models, increased interest from potential BB players due to the game being back on shelves, etc.

Anyways I asked because you seem oddly upset that GW, once again, made a new version of one of thier games. (It IS what they do you know.) And that people responded positively to them doing so.
Why are you holding that against them?
Are you going to be cranky when the day comes that BFG, Man-O-War, or something gets a refresh?

BTW, your claim that BB was unsupported & left in the hands of the fans for decades is incorrect. Looking it up?
The longest stretch looks to have been 7 years (2009-2016) when annual pdf update support for 4th ed was ended.

No they weren't treading water, they weren't waiting for anything. But the owner of the game coming back into the scene throwing things around makes it more visible and disrupts the status quo. It's impossible for people to maintain fan communities in the face of that.

The options are, go extinct as the higher visibility of GW's new version directs all new blood, or step back into the GW ecosystem.

This isn't a positive outcome for the fan community. It's the equivalent of the End Times throwing out the old player's game and replacing it with a new one.

If GW had never come in with a new one, the fan community would have continued to thrive. But GW doesn't want that, it wants to control the ecosystem and player spending and this is how they do it. No fan community can compete with that, regardless of the quality of their offering.

**Wyzilla**

On the topic of weapon options and 10e's choices regarding them, I feel like most of the problem is GW implemented this shift in the most ass backwards, dumbass manner imaginable compared to other wargames. Let's just look at the basic Tactical Marine squad for example here, in terms of weapons they have had over the years.

Spoiler:

Well that is an awful lot. Now we could be incredibly stupid and declare some of these weapons to be illegal, unsupported, or otherwise restrict what you can model. Or, using two braincells and trying to make a functioning wargame... what is the purpose of grav and plasma in the first place, or heavy bolters for that matter? You know what would trim down options, limit bloat, while maintaining modelling support and purposes for all of these weapons? Consolidate them into weapon roles with THOSE getting the rules. Why on earth are different models of bolters individually statted? They, Gauss Flayers, and any other gun punchier than small arms but not quite an HMG role should just get called a 'heavy small arms' weapon and have rules slapped on for that as a USR, no different than how all great weapons are great weapons in WHFB.

Thus you'd have a sensible trend of retaining options and support for everything, but removing the sheer minutia of largely meaningless details without quite doing something stupid like all combi weapons just critting on a 6 or something. Instead your Combi Plasma would just be AHI - 'Anti Heavy Infantry' weapon, or your Meltagun and Lascannon both being 'Anti Armor Armor Piercing' or something along those lines, with distinction and point cost based on the range difference of short and long. In addition to USR weapons you can also just have USR's for models that affect their weapons, such as Space Marines giving all heavy small arms rapid fire 1 or the like. Y'know, sensible rules.

**insaniak**

That's an option certainly. The other one would have worked better before they switched to single-pose models for so much of the range... but releasing the troops as a basic set, and selling a sprue of upgrade weapons in a similar way to what they did for Necromunda, would have made it easier to keep all of the options accessible without having to cram 47 different weapons into each marine squad box.

When I started out, it was taken for granted that some options needed to be converted or built from scratch. Over the years, that's shifted to a desire to have everything usable out of the box to make things easier for newcomers or those who don't want to convert. And that's fine... but should have been accompanied by GW finding ways to make those options available to players rather than removing them and inconveniencing the players already using them.

**H.B.M.C.**

I mean they're doing it for HH. What's stopping that from being done in 40k?

**Not Online!!!**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
I mean they're doing it for HH. What's stopping that from being done in 40k?

Bigger community,bad ip law experience and it's status as cashcow.

**H.B.M.C.**

Not Online!!! wrote:
Bigger community,bad ip law experience and it's status as cashcow.

I don't see how any of those prevent 40k weapon packs for Marines.

**Overread**

If anything being a cash-cow means that weapon packs could be very profitable! More so than weapon packs for Necromunda (which have already made it into being made in plastic not just resin!)

I'm actually surprised that over the years GW has never done an upgrade/addon/weapon/doodads expansion set for various factions. The absolute perfect way to customise bases and models even without considering tactical advantages.

I think the only time I recall them doing it was a bizzar expansion for 4 or 5 factions where each faction got 1 or 2 bits for a vehicle. I think it was for a narrative campaign GW were running, but even so it basically meant you paid for a full sprue where most people would have got 1 or 2 parts for the army they collected and a bunch of bits for other armies that they likely did not collect unless they were a massive player and collector.

Oh wait except for mountains of marine shoulder pads. GW sells those as upgrade parts, but not a whole lot else. Noise marines perhaps as upgrade parts, but those are super old and very likely to be retired as soon as GW does a big update for the Marine and Mortal followers of Slaanesh

**Slipspace**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
I mean they're doing it for HH. What's stopping that from being done in 40k?

The models. 40k is moving towards completely monopose, where having a universal upgrade for all models isn't possible because even the weapon arms are highly specific to each model. It's a stupid reason, because it's a self-inflicted wound form GW, but that's the main difference between 40k and HH models.

**Not Online!!!**

Overread wrote:
If anything being a cash-cow means that weapon packs could be very profitable! More so than weapon packs for Necromunda (which have already made it into being made in plastic not just resin!)

I'm actually surprised that over the years GW has never done an upgrade/addon/weapon/doodads expansion set for various factions. The absolute perfect way to customise bases and models even without considering tactical advantages.

I think the only time I recall them doing it was a bizzar expansion for 4 or 5 factions where each faction got 1 or 2 bits for a vehicle. I think it was for a narrative campaign GW were running, but even so it basically meant you paid for a full sprue where most people would have got 1 or 2 parts for the army they collected and a bunch of bits for other armies that they likely did not collect unless they were a massive player and collector.

Oh wait except for mountains of marine shoulder pads. GW sells those as upgrade parts, but not a whole lot else. Noise marines perhaps as upgrade parts, but those are super old and very likely to be retired as soon as GW does a big update for the Marine and Mortal followers of Slaanesh

Nooooooo

Just because it "would sell" doesn't mean that it'd make enough money opportunity cost wise. Cash cow means that you MILK the product / IP, and invest the bare minimum for maximum profit. Believe me but someone in accounting did the numbers and that is what is dictating if you get weapons access from how the sprues are designed to how many kits there are. New kit = expensive investment. Cash cow status means less likely that that happens.

Also someone in accounting did the numbers for what kodos called the z, or average player retention and decided that every 3 years we need a new edition.

**Karol**

Peachy had an interesting series of interview with a guy that was higher up in GW sales, and the dude said that if something doesn't generate at least 100k gain for GW, then GW is not going to be interested in the thing. And that goes for everything, models , books, tools etc.

**H.B.M.C.**

And yet they made plastic weapon packs for Necromunda, a market far smaller than Space Marines.

**Not Online!!!**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
And yet they made plastic weapon packs for Necromunda, a market far smaller than Space Marines.

With less logistical cost associated with it, smaller rules production cost and not with the onus of carrying the company on it's back.

**Overread**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
And yet they made plastic weapon packs for Necromunda, a market far smaller than Space Marines.

And I'd also argue one that is far more used to using proxies.

The whole 100K thing doesn't sound too daft for a company of GW's size and market reach. I do wonder though if that came from the Kirby days. They gave a distinct impression that only high-selling items ever got attention. Current GW seems to be a touch more willing to invest into other lines and spread itself out a bit more. Without knowing individual model sales rates (which I don't think even get reported on much in the shareholder meetings barring one or two high fliers); its hard to know if that 100K value would have been an old value or a modern one.

**Deadnight**

Gw manufacturing capacity can only do so much. Basically, there are only so many sprues they csn make in a year. They want to sell as much of that for aa much as possible and leave as little lying around as possible.

Wouldn't suprise me in the least if they've done the math/statistics on thst manufacturing capacity/sales and figured the most costeffective/profitable compromise of cash cow stuff (ie MARINES!!!!!) and other niche lines that they have. I bet they wouldn't look at a project of its not estimated to return x amount, even if said project would be a lucrative goldmine in comparison for any other company.

(Like, marines are their big seller. But they can't just sell marine stuff. People will get bored, if for no other reasons. People want a break from marines. That's why we hsve other factions. And why other games exist if we need a break from 40k(plus, you know, deny the competitors a niche!). But yoy don't just sell necromunda and dark.eldar sprues for a year because they simply don't have the sellability of marines. Therefore the whole gig will be finding the right ratio of everything to ship out the door. And like I said, I bet they've hired a couple of statistician consultants to come in and do the math for them so they can maximise their value.

Cynical? You bet. But that's business

**aphyon**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
And yet they made plastic weapon packs for Necromunda, a market far smaller than Space Marines.

remember back in the day when GW had an official bits ordering service, and then when they took it away the war store broke down official kits into bits for the same purpose and GW sent him a cease and desist notice? there was a time where the gaming/hobby side was important to GW not just buy a separate kit to get primaris LT number 6s weapon loadout.

**shortymcnostrill**

aphyon wrote:
H.B.M.C. wrote:
And yet they made plastic weapon packs for Necromunda, a market far smaller than Space Marines.

remember back in the day when GW had an official bits ordering service, and then when they took it away the war store broke down official kits into bits for the same purpose and GW sent him a cease and desist notice? there was a time where the gaming/hobby side was important to GW not just buy a separate kit to get primaris LT number 6s weapon loadout.

I really loved those days, back when it felt like gw was just a couple of nerds in an attic that were more passionate about the games they were making than they were about optimizing profit margins. Not that everything was perfect then (my glasses aren't that rose-tinted), but the feel of it was awesome.

**Sgt. Cortez**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:
Bigger community,bad ip law experience and it's status as cashcow.
I don't see how any of those prevent 40k weapon packs for Marines.

I think in GWs view that's exactly what's happening with the Kill Team kits right now. You can have CSM without upgrade sprue, you can have them with a generic upgrade sprue and a Nightlords upgrade sprue is coming as well.
It's not a very customer friendly way of doing it and of course It's very unpredictable who is getting those sprues, but in the end the Nightlords kill Team is "40k weapon upgrades pack in 2023", seen from the eyes of GW management.

**catbarf**

The_Real_Chris wrote:
H.B.M.C. wrote:
LunarSol wrote:
When they dropped you had to somehow scrounge up 30 plus Storm bolters out of kits that provided zero, which was.... a problem. Here's a kit with dozens of options as is and none of them should be taken. I think where I stand is that kit limits on units makes sense, but characters are worth being more open than they currently are. It's pretty clear though that GW aren't really invested in easily swappable parts in general though and until we start seeing gear packs like HH has, I think kitbashing runs afoul of the dynamic posing that has locked a lot of figures into a static look since they shifted to the AoS style design.
I mean, you didn't have to. You chose to.

You kinda did - the game was (vaguely) balanced for that sort of take the optimal option stuff. If you didn't you just got used to losing a bunch. My opponents back then were happy to accept my pre plastic kit deathwatch had stormbolters to keep the balance up, but no everyone would.

That's a balance issue, specifically a failure to adequately design the game to support the kits. I mean, if people buy the kits and then have to cobble together bits from other units to make it functional in-game, then the designers have really screwed up.

And if you find that players are scrounging special weapons to fully equip a squad, and your options are:
1. Make the loadouts provided in the box useful and desirable
2. Just forbid players from using anything else

It seems pretty short-sighted to opt for 2.

I can think of a number of options over the years that weren't included in kits but also weren't necessary to field the unit. It wasn't hurting anyone that IG Veterans could take shotguns but no bits were provided, or that Termagants got legacy rules for spike rifles and stranglewebs. Someone up for a conversion could use those rules, or you could just field the unit with the bits provided in the standard kits. Nobody was missing out- unless, I guess, the mere existence of options that weren't exercisable out of the box was offensive on principle.

**mrgusta**

I had my disappointment from 10th edition, but I've spent a long time, trying to figure out the exact reasons of my frustrations and this thread helped me with realizations of my problems. I've decided to also repost my thoughts here, as it may help somebody to understand their frustrations as well.

Spoiler:

**Dai**

mrgusta wrote:
I had my disappointment from 10th edition, but I've spent a long time, trying to figure out the exact reasons of my frustrations and this thread helped me with realizations of my problems. I've decided to also repost my thoughts here, as it may help somebody to understand their frustrations as well.

Spoiler:

So, many people have been disappointed with 10th edition, including myself. I know, there have already been enough boring rant posts, but here is the catch: I had no idea why I was dissatisfied with 10th!

Before going into details, a couple of quick disclaimers:

Firstly, if you and your group are enjoying your experience with the current edition of 40k, good for you. I am not here to tell you that you're doing anything wrong.

Secondly, not my first language. Terribly sorry for any made mistakes, hope I could bring my thoughts clearly enough.

I'm not the old guard of 40k, but I've been actively playing the beginning of 7th edition, around 2015, so, I guess, I have enough experience to discuss this game. Over the years, I've generally been positive about 40k, I've enjoyed my time in 7th (despite it's being quite... bizarre), and always preferred narrative games, only stopping playing at the end of 9th, where I decided to take a break after our campaign ended, rules got bloated, and, you know, the whole real world tried to collapse.

So, the new edition came by, and I've rushed to test it. I had a couple of games and, to my surprise, it felt extremely off! Not because of balance issues or anything, I never cared about this stuff much, but something was definitely wrong with the game. I've been struggling to point the exact reason, so, okay, I though, it's a start of the edition, just wait for the first patches and releases, game would fix itself. And after a couple of months, I tried again and had the same results: the gameplay itself was fine, but playing it wasn't fun at all.

And then I started to think, what could cause such reactions. On paper, it should be the best edition ever, and I really want to have fun with it. But why did I find previous editions to be enjoyable, even the 7th, and not the 10th? No doubt, there was a problem in the game itself, in some aspect, that could be fixed. But the more I thought about possible core problems of 10th, the less they made sense! So, let's dive into them together.

"Obvious" problems of 10th edition:

Balance issues?

My main armies are three eldar factions, and I'm a narrative player. I have never been offended by the balance state of this game, so not my case. Next.

Gameplay issues?

There goes all the complaints about battle-shock being redundant, fly being broken, overwatch, etc. Nothing that can't be ignored, or fixed with simple home rules and it was much worse before. Stop whining about it. Next.

Missing loadout options, strict unit sizes and units moving to Legends?

Probably a painful topic for somebody, but, again, Craftworld's eldar never had wargear loadouts in the first place, and 90% of my stuff made into the index, so I'm also good here. Next.

Missions?

We literally now have the best version of mission deck ever. Next.

List building and wargear costs?

Here is at least something. Yes, I deeply dislike the current list building part of the game. It's unengaging, and shallow, but there is a small issue. The "list building" part of the game is not the "gameplay" I disliked, and, to be honest, you can play with mostly the same rosters as before, so, despite, in my opinion, being the weakest part of this edition, list building is not the issue, that drove me away. Next.

Removal of psychic phase?

Mages were an important part of my army, so you would think the loss of the phase, dedicated solely to my shenanigans, would hurt. But no, it's a big loss, but, at the end of the day, it's not that important. We lost many cool rules moving from 7th to 8th edition, and I still find 8th the most fun for me. You can have a cool game even without deep magic systems.

Factions losing their identity?

Okay, this may be it. Fluff is important to me, and factions being shallow and bland are not something I want to see. And, indeed, while playing 10th edition, I never felt like I was leading a "Eldar warhost of Ulthwe", but more like some random units from my shelf I've put together for a 2000-point list. And I cannot even point on indexes of 8th; they were also lacking, in comparison to the datasheets we've got in 9th, but even playing them, I had this deep inexplicable feeling of connection to my faction*.* But why? Is it because of a number of special rules, unique to this faction, and their absence from 10th? Maybe it's about characters and how they are more shallow and give less abilities to your army?

Let's look at one example: Chaos space marines, our favorite boys, that stayed almost the same for many, many editions. Currently, they have only one special rule, on top of the Dark pacts, it's the Veterans of the Long War, giving them some re-rolls in melee. Not very imaginative, right? Especially, comparing it to the long list of cool marines-only abilities in 9th.

But what if we venture back in time even more? How cool they were in 6th/7th? And the cool special rules they had are... None. Squad sergeant could have blessings, but for marines themselves? Nothing. All right, well, what about Chaos Lord? What cool interaction did he have with his squad? Surely, it's more interesting, than a free stratagem, that we have now?

He granted his squad a Fearless rule.

I have nothing to add there, it's not the lack of rules either, let's move on.

Nostalgia?

This is my last shot. I really don't have any other ideas, other than I had succumbed to the "it was better before" way of thoughts. At this point, I stumbled on a Horus Heresy rulebook, which I generally liked a lot, and, finally, had my revelation. It has one important rule, I want to quote here:

The Spirit of the game

(HH) may be somewhat different to any other game you have played. Above all, it's important to remember that the rules are just the framework to support an enjoyable game. Whether a battle ends in victory or defeat, your goal should always be to enjoy the game. What's more, (HH) calls on a lot from you, the player. Your responsibility isn't just to follow the rules, it's to add your own ideas, drama and creativity to the game. Much of the appeal of this game lies in the freedom and open-endedness this allows; it is in this spirit that the rules have been written.

The Spirit of MY game

With a sudden realization, I understood, that my problems with 10th lies not in the edition itself, which is fine on its own, but within myself, it was about my expectations, about asking the game to be something it isn’t. I was used to Warhammer, having it’s "spirit" as described above, but 10th edition is not that. It designed differently, with different goals in mind. It's not about freedom and open-endedness, as rules are extremely restrictive and have only one correct way to be interpreted. It does not burden players with the responsibility to add drama and creativity, the game provides everything you need, to have the intended player experience.

And 10th edition is not a framework to support your game. It's the "game" itself, with built-in ways to play and goals to achieve. It might be easier to understand, if you're used to playing tabletop RPGs, like DnD, where the rules are your instruments, and serve as a way to create your own goals and scenarios, in comparison to more similar to traditional board games, like Monopoly, where your goals and ways to interact with the game are pre-determined.

10th edition is designed to be played this way. This is why datasheets are not designed to solely reflect the fluff of the units, but instead what role they have in the game, and how they interact with missions, objectives and your army rule. Their own special rules are there not because they necessarily make sense from a lore perspective, but rather to make them unique from other datasheets in your codex/index.

The design philosophy of this edition changed. The Spirit of the game changed. I wanted rules, that support my storytelling. 10th edition gave me a predetermined goals and ways to interact with the game. Now scoring points is the intended way to play, and you "win" not by telling a good story with your opponent, but by playing by the rules, as any "roleplay" attempts would be considered funny, but silly and unimportant to the overall experience, or even disrespectful to your opponent, when you would make "narratively correct" decision, by charging your unit out from the objective, but it would obviously be incorrect tactical choice, that denies your opponent from having his fun of fairly outplaying you.

And this is why I couldn't engage with this edition.

So, is 10th bad?

Absolutely not! It's a great game, definitely better than 7th. It's (somewhat) balanced, tense, quickly patched, and allows much in terms of tactical decisions and the whole "competitive" side of play, that I'd never invested myself into. It works excellent as a game, and it’s much friendlier to the newer players.

But what do you do, if you, yourself, with your buddies, want to have a more of a narrative experience? In all seriousness, go play other editions or other games, they would handle this job better. New Horus Heresy is cool. I’ve heard that 3th edition was awesome. And Necromunda is even better. But what if you really, really want to play this edition?

How to fix 10th edition?

I believe, that with enough love and time, you can turn 10th into a good narrative playground. It's like D&D 4e once again, to be honest. It has a good foundation, and you should be able to build anything you want on top of it.

Other supplements

There are a bunch of 40k books out there on your shelves. It's time to check them out. Try cool old narrative missions, but with 10th rules. Find old "chapter approved" books with some pre-crusade stuff in there, like hero progression tables, and roll them before the game. There are tons of cool stuff to be rediscovered, and it's entertaining to see, how this edition could handle old missions and mechanics.

Add more structure to your games

List building is kind of broken and most of the times, for me, at least, army lists didn’t feel like “armies” of 40k, just a bunch of units. You can easily change it, by talking with your group and creating a set of rules for list building. Simplest solution would be to return to add some requirements, like having min 3 battle line units in army, or use older “detachments” rules to build forces. Also, make sure to use wysiwyg, everything is “free” now, so just play your models as they are. Surely, you didn’t just slap a hunter killer missile to your every Sentinel for advantage, right?

Find your way to engage with the game

For the last couple of years, 40k taught us to use only “correct” rules and models, that are written in obsessively jurisdictionally style. But it shouldn’t be this way. It’s your plastic dudes, at the end of the day, and as long as you and your opponents have a clear common understanding of rules of the game, you can do with them anything you want. So why shouldn’t you try something new? Wild 2v2 or FFA matches were always fun. Mix rules from different editions, use older warlord traits and relics. If you are a CSM player from 8th or later, you definitely should try Chaos Boons from 6/7th codex!

You need to understand, what exactly do you want from 40k and how to get it from 10th. For me, it was a storytelling experience, and a new homemade campaign with a bunch of old style rules on top would get the job done. And after you finally would find your fun from games, you would start to enjoy even other, normal games of 10th edition.

Thank you for your attention.

Very good post, a lot to think about there.

**Eilif**

Been popping in and out to follow this thread as it develops and I think my opinion has changed.

Even though I have near zero interest in the 10th edition and from what I've read there are myriad rules that I don't like, I don't think it's really the rules that make the "soul" of the game.

Soul comes from the gamers. Maybe really bad rules can be soul-crushing, but after nearly 30 years as a wargamer, almost regardless of how good or bad the rules are, the Soul in my wargaming has almost always come from how the players incorporate scenarios, write/adapt/embrace fluff, paint and customize their miniatures, create great terrain, etc, etc...

In my experience, that magical stuff that elevates a game to an experience is rarely mostly due to the rules themselves, it's almost always the rest of the elements that the players bring to the table.

Thank goodness I have a club of like minded gamers who don't give a poop what GW's latest offering is. However, I reckon that if I had to move to a place where I could never get a game other 10th Edition 40k, I'd still be able to learn the rules, find some good players and through the elements described above, inject some great soul into our gaming.

**Dai**

I have been thinking about mrgustas post. "The most important rule" or The Spirit of the Game were oft mocked things back in the day but ultimately I did think it affected how both the designers and players approached things.

Now we have a game, possibly a good game I don't know. But I just think I prefer the social, sandbox approach personally so that is what I look for and rarely play current editions of GW games.

**Karol**

Eilif wrote:
Been popping in and out to follow this thread as it develops and I think my opinion has changed.

Even though I have near zero interest in the 10th edition and from what I've read there are myriad rules that I don't like, I don't think it's really the rules that make the "soul" of the game.

Soul comes from the gamers. Maybe really bad rules can be soul-crushing, but after nearly 30 years as a wargamer, almost regardless of how good or bad the rules are, the Soul in my wargaming has almost always come from how the players incorporate scenarios, write/adapt/embrace fluff, paint and customize their miniatures, create great terrain, etc, etc...

In my experience, that magical stuff that elevates a game to an experience is rarely mostly due to the rules themselves, it's almost always the rest of the elements that the players bring to the table.

Thank goodness I have a club of like minded gamers who don't give a poop what GW's latest offering is. However, I reckon that if I had to move to a place where I could never get a game other 10th Edition 40k, I'd still be able to learn the rules, find some good players and through the elements described above, inject some great soul into our gaming.

See this is a view you can only have, if you have been in wargaming for 30 years. A new players, especialy a young teen or kid, who started this edition does not care, which army has to be "punished" for being too good in X edition and which faction gets favoured treatment from the design studio. They spent a no small amount of money and they expect to have fun playing the game. They don't want to be told that they have to wait X years, so that maybe GW will fix the problems of their army. Or that they need learn to like side activities or else they are going to have a really bad time. A 35-40y old players with tens of armies, for different systems, may find w40k faction bad, or an edition, to be an annoying thing. But it pales in comperation to teen who saved for 2-3 years, bought an army, and had it legended or has it been unfun to play. For a game focused old player being told he need to update his army or switch an army, is something he can do. For someone who has 2000pts, telling them that now in order to keep playing, and not necessarly have a good time, they now have to spend 200-300$, paint it etc can be a huge barrier. The so called "extra elements" are only important, when the basic stuff is no longer a worry. And for new players, the main problem is not that, potentialy, their opponents can be "mean" or that the game requires basic math. Their problem is stuff like, I bought and painted a WS army and now I can't use them, or I bought 30 custodes guard and now I can't use them. People first being made to buy 4-6 boxes of a unit to make a working army, intended to run in their army by GW, to have them nurtered 3-4 months later. Now I understand that someone with a yearly income of 100k $ probably won't care much, especialy if he has no wife or kids. But someone with a regular salary does, even a western one. And for everyone outside of the west, GW policy, the way it is now, pro activly encourages people to use recasts. Because playing w40k on a 500-550$ monthly salary, as an adult, just does not work with what GW expects from players to field and play with.

**JNAProductions**

Karol wrote:
Eilif wrote:
Been popping in and out to follow this thread as it develops and I think my opinion has changed.

Even though I have near zero interest in the 10th edition and from what I've read there are myriad rules that I don't like, I don't think it's really the rules that make the "soul" of the game.

Soul comes from the gamers. Maybe really bad rules can be soul-crushing, but after nearly 30 years as a wargamer, almost regardless of how good or bad the rules are, the Soul in my wargaming has almost always come from how the players incorporate scenarios, write/adapt/embrace fluff, paint and customize their miniatures, create great terrain, etc, etc...

In my experience, that magical stuff that elevates a game to an experience is rarely mostly due to the rules themselves, it's almost always the rest of the elements that the players bring to the table.

Thank goodness I have a club of like minded gamers who don't give a poop what GW's latest offering is. However, I reckon that if I had to move to a place where I could never get a game other 10th Edition 40k, I'd still be able to learn the rules, find some good players and through the elements described above, inject some great soul into our gaming.

See this is a view you can only have, if you have been in wargaming for 30 years. A new players, especialy a young teen or kid, who started this edition does not care, which army has to be "punished" for being too good in X edition and which faction gets favoured treatment from the design studio. They spent a no small amount of money and they expect to have fun playing the game. They don't want to be told that they have to wait X years, so that maybe GW will fix the problems of their army. Or that they need learn to like side activities or else they are going to have a really bad time. A 35-40y old players with tens of armies, for different systems, may find w40k faction bad, or an edition, to be an annoying thing. But it pales in comperation to teen who saved for 2-3 years, bought an army, and had it legended or has it been unfun to play. For a game focused old player being told he need to update his army or switch an army, is something he can do. For someone who has 2000pts, telling them that now in order to keep playing, and not necessarly have a good time, they now have to spend 200-300$, paint it etc can be a huge barrier. The so called "extra elements" are only important, when the basic stuff is no longer a worry. And for new players, the main problem is not that, potentialy, their opponents can be "mean" or that the game requires basic math. Their problem is stuff like, I bought and painted a WS army and now I can't use them, or I bought 30 custodes guard and now I can't use them. People first being made to buy 4-6 boxes of a unit to make a working army, intended to run in their army by GW, to have them nurtered 3-4 months later. Now I understand that someone with a yearly income of 100k $ probably won't care much, especialy if he has no wife or kids. But someone with a regular salary does, even a western one. And for everyone outside of the west, GW policy, the way it is now, pro activly encourages people to use recasts. Because playing w40k on a 500-550$ monthly salary, as an adult, just does not work with what GW expects from players to field and play with.

Glad to see you changed your mind on punishing armies for past successes.