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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The 3rd Ed rules might be wordy, but they do work.

The wording is unhinged tho and has nothing to do with being airtight

My current theory is that the team actually made a nice, pretty streamlined game (we know they culled USRs, cut down on page flipping, etc) and then some middle manager came in and said "oh, no no no, mon cheri, the rulebook can't be shorter than the previous one, it will lose prestige, FIX IT NOW" and the team just asked a chatbot to rephrase everything to be twice as long without changing meaning.

I’m not arguing they’re not wordy. But once you’ve properly digested them? There’s not much, if any, wiggle room.

Could it have been written more succinctly? Possibly! I dunno. I only read rules (and laws and regulations). I don’t write the buggers.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m not arguing they’re not wordy. But once you’ve properly digested them? There’s not much, if any, wiggle room.

Could it have been written more succinctly? Possibly! I dunno. I only read rules (and laws and regulations). I don’t write the buggers.

Repeating myself, I don't think it's a problem for rules to have a bit of wiggle room if there's an FaQ clarifying stuff in case of different opinions.
I'm trying to give a made up example of how GW rules feel these days. I'll totally admit it's more based on my 40K 10th edition experience and not on HH, but I've read previews and reviews of HH 3 and the problems seem to be the same.

"If this unit is eligible to shoot in the shooting phase, after choosing your target but before rolling your dice, you may use this ability to give this unit the "Grimdark Despoilers" special rule.
If a unit has the "Grimdark Despoilers" special rule, it may reroll failed wound rolls."

How should stuff like that be worded?
"When shooting, you may reroll your failed wound rolls."

You know, just word it like people do in every review of new rulebooks.
Now, you could say, why not just word it clearly in the first place instead of clarifying everything in FaQs, well, most players aren't rules lawyers and are totally fine with rules, that are just on point and don't need to rehash every time how the basic rules work.

Difference in that wording is when you commit.

You declare Grimdark Despoilers immediately after declaring your Target.

Now, granted in your example there no explicit or implied cap on the usage of Grimdark Despoilers. So yes, your more succinct version works. It’s essential “this unit may always re-roll failed wound rolls”.

But what if it’s something (40K) that’s a CP cost? Your initial wording is clear - no holding it back to see you if ultimately whiff your hits or wounds.

Both have the important caveat of re-rolling failed Wound rolls. That stops me fishing for say, Rending, as I can’t re-roll every to wound dice that isn’t a 6.

The minutiae does matter.

I’ll freely grant there’s a difference between precise and succinct wording.

But in my field? I’ve seen enough laws, rules and regulations that despite verbosity remain frustratingly vague.

Quick example? The use of “Force” to open a door. Now it’s not my specific area, so I will be paraphrasing.

Insurance companies tend to interpret “force” to mean violence. As in, your door was only “forced” if someone booted it in.

But there was a decision which set out that where a policy doesn’t define “force”? It can be mean any unorthodox manner of opening the door. Craftily bent coathook through the letterbox? That’s “force”, because the door isn’t designed to be opened in that way.

Likewise the legal definition of “reasonable force” for self defence is very floaty. If you called me a knob, and I struck you? That’s not reasonable (even for Teeside!). But if you pulled a gun on me and I smacked you in the teeth with a brick? That could be Reasonable Force.

So, to get back to my point after some whimbriling? The minutiae does matter.

Granted 3rd Ed Heresy is something of a slog to learn. But its lack of wiggle room is still welcome.

You know, we are neither lawyers nor insurance companies when playing with our tiny plastic boyz.
It has just been my experience in newer GW rules that it tends to go like this:
"Oh wait, this unit has an ability when shooting, but let me look it up! When ... bla bla, ah, here, it gets, oh, it gets bla bla and then... ah, down there, it can reroll wounds, that's it. Grr, why can't it say that right away?!"
It brings up memories of using the Tank stock rule in 6th/7th edition (I wonder how that reads in HH3, as it was already overly complicated with little effect back then), which we had to reread every time we used it and losing time in a game that already takes up a lot of time.

I even understand what you're saying about the minutiae in this case and I agree, it can matter. But I think that's more the weakness of my made-up example.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But in my field? I’ve seen enough laws, rules and regulations that despite verbosity remain frustratingly vague.

The 3rd Edition rules are actually better written than many insurance policies. Except the list building rules - that's a case of taking something relatively simple (more HQs = more detachments) and making it absurdly clunky.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yet it has driven demand.

The 3rd Ed rules might be wordy, but they do work.

To be facetious for a moment, it has definitely driven demand in 3rd edition YouTubers! As an example I watched a 15 minute special discussing and trying to explain how the Medic rule works, which is an indication of how things are there, and you will not hear a single comment that these rules are well composed. The game itself is not overly complex, but the quality of the rules writing damned well tries to make you think this is the case. It is awful, and I ask that you just look at any other rulebook (even many of those published by GW, if you don't want to go outside that sphere)

I think it also shows a lack of understanding by GW about the community that exists for this game, in that it doesn't need to be written like insurance T&Cs. The HH event community is, compared to most, generally very tight and well organised. We have seen already events that have changed the way the Vanguard rule works (to stop defending units 'stepping back' so the Vanguard unit can't get victory points) and also consolidated terrain rules for each game. The narrative event and slow growth leagues (not game score-only) that are the core community for this game would have managed with 25% of the word count, so the whole thing of trying to write what was an attempt at bullet-proof rules (and doesn't actually even completely succeed at that, because no ruleset ever will) wasn't even required.

Instead you now have a rulebook that is massively off-putting to newcomers, and sucks the life out of what should be a fun and engaging experience. HH will succeed because of the setting, the wonderful range of miniatures, the strong community - despite the rulebook, which in my view is probably the most poorly written that GW has ever published.