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What they need to do is have free rules for the models online, then use the codexes as pure art and fluff books for the armies that don't need to be brought to the table. Then whenever there is a new edition EVERY unit gets updated on the online database.

Backwards compatibility between editions is such a stone age concept at this point, I can't think of any other company that tries to do it.

 jonolikespie wrote:
What they need to do is have free rules for the models online, then use the codexes as pure art and fluff books for the armies that don't need to be brought to the table. Then whenever there is a new edition EVERY unit gets updated on the online database.

Backwards compatibility between editions is such a stone age concept at this point, I can't think of any other company that tries to do it.

Don't give them any ideas to lower the barriers to entry to their hobbie. It's fun watching them trying to figure it out for the next 10 years

 jonolikespie wrote:
What they need to do is have free rules for the models online, then use the codexes as pure art and fluff books for the armies that don't need to be brought to the table. Then whenever there is a new edition EVERY unit gets updated on the online database.

Backwards compatibility between editions is such a stone age concept at this point, I can't think of any other company that tries to do it.

Exactly. They position codexes as art books anyways, make them pure fluff, charge an arm and a leg for pretty pictures and glossy pages and a gallery of "amazing Citadel miniatures", and put rules for models with them (a la start collecting boxes) and available online like AoS stuff.

GreyCrow wrote:
Don't give them any ideas to lower the barriers to entry to their hobbie. It's fun watching them trying to figure it out for the next 10 years

This is why we cannot have nice things...
The humor is appreciated but they have dragged this creaky system far longer than it really needed.

 jonolikespie wrote:
What they need to do is have free rules for the models online, then use the codexes as pure art and fluff books for the armies that don't need to be brought to the table. Then whenever there is a new edition EVERY unit gets updated on the online database.

Backwards compatibility between editions is such a stone age concept at this point, I can't think of any other company that tries to do it.

I'm 100% fine with that.

But they'll never do it.

 kronk wrote:
If you define "It" as unbalanced armies/units:

It would require a complete reboot of rules and the invalidation of all existing codecies, supplements, and campaign formations.

So, no. It can't be fixed.

The 2nd and 3rd editions all did this, though. If GW announces a major edition change in advance and maybe even lowers model prices in the meantime I believe that a total overhaul of the game rules would be widely accepted, especially if the rules are actually good. Even more so if they adopt a living edition approach and have all the rules online for free so they can be updated as necessary.

Obviously this would not be without its difficulties but a little pain now to avoid a slow collapse of the game would be worth it. The game is approaching a crisis or is already in one and either you make a choice now or you let it spiral out of control and give you a nasty surprise one day. Hopefully the starter sets and all the boardgames are proof that changes are coming.

People would accept everything from GW, not matter what the rules of the new Edition are.
(as long as it is a new edition and not a new game like it was with AoS)

It can be fixed incredibly easily, if they look to 5th ed, and also to 30k and what FW do.

That means no more formations, that means toning down the lunacy and making the game inclusive by consent, not exclusive by consent.

That means repairing to a state where tourney and, far more importantly pick up games can happen again.

The thing is 2nd edition was broadly in line with what gamers actually asked for.
(Our old games group sent of lots of ideas via snail mail for 2nd ed.And we got a nice letter back from Andy C, for one of them.)

AFAIK, 2nd ed 40k was well received and was very popular.(Despite a bit of over complication here and there. )

Unfortunately 3rd edition was what GW sales department asked for, and resulted in a rushed 11th hour rules set.

This was less well received, and I often think if the 3rd ed skirmish rules were allowed to be published, instead of the rushed 3rd ed battle game.We could well have ended up with 'BtgoA' type skirmish game for 40k.

AND a separate 40k battle game with rules written specifically for it, that were properly developed and play tested over years, instead of rushed out over a few weeks.

What really annoyed me is after the GW sales department interference messed up the rules for 40k, they prevented the game devs from ever fixing the mistakes with a complete re-write.

I am a bit concerned that as most of the actual game development has been pushed aside by short term sales drives.That the current studio team may not be up to the challenge.

But we can live in hope of the devs being allowed to' run free as nature intended' at GW towers one day.

@Lanrak : Are any of these rules leaked somewhere ? And didn't the guy who made them go on to found/work at Warlord games ?

No, he went to Mongoose Puplishing and the game that should have been 3rd Edi 40k became StarshipTroopers. (which could have been a big game if another company would have taken it)

Okay thanks, I'll check these out ! It's true that they could have chosen a better universe than a sci-fi political satire :p

I wonder how much leeway would Forgeworld have to publish a new set of rules. Right now, they seem to have quite the leeway compared to GW in terms of publishing, and players react favourably to the releases of Forgeworld.

The problem is that MP is the perfect company to screw an IP.
Ever heard of the Judge Dredd Skirmish, or Babylon 5 Space Battle game?

If X-Wing would have been produced by MP, the game would have been gone after a year.

But the SST game was not based on the movie but the book, therefore had a third race and 4 different fractions (and an in official 2nd Edition which added more).

The game itself works well on different scales and can be played with 100 bugs a side and 4 marauder suites on the other.
But it need much more terrain and is much faster than 40k (one unit moving 60" per turn is nothing special)

MeanGreenStompa wrote:It can be fixed incredibly easily, if they look to 5th ed, and also to 30k and what FW do.

A lot of people have their nostalgia blinds on - Fifth was pretty terrible in terms of balance. It certainly would not be a good jumping off point.

Lanrak wrote:
This was less well received, and I often think if the 3rd ed skirmish rules were allowed to be published, instead of the rushed 3rd ed battle game.We could well have ended up with 'BtgoA' type skirmish game for 40k.

Thst could have been interesting. It was a shame that Andy c tried to do the same with 4th ed and was made to walk the plank instead (various versions of what actually happened exist, I don't know which is true sadly!)

GreyCrow wrote:@Lanrak : Are any of these rules leaked somewhere ? And didn't the guy who made them go on to found/work at Warlord games ?

Mongoose. What Andy c envisioned as 40k 4th ed (I've instead of what we actually got) eventually went on to become the core DNA of their starship troopers and battlefield evolution games. Alas, it was mongoose, and they were pretty bad at supporting them.

kodos wrote:No, he went to Mongoose Puplishing and the game that should have been 3rd Edi 40k became StarshipTroopers. (which could have been a big game if another company would have taken it)

Yeah, mongoose didn't have the resources or the player base to do a good job, the models were ok at best, and in the end, they didn't do the best job they could have done. to be fair, I don't know where they could have gone with it - starship troopers is incredibly limited as an IP in terms of where you can go (marines, bugs, skinnies)

GreyCrow wrote:Okay thanks, I'll check these out ! It's true that they could have chosen a better universe than a sci-fi political satire :p

Starship troopers is a brilliantly flawed game. Flawed because it had some severely broken mechanics (that were in line to be fixed, but then the game died) and needed some work, along with the previously mentioned very limited scope and produced by a company who couldn't push it as well as a bigger company could have. It was brilliant though because in wargaming terms it was probably ten years ahead of the curve mechanically wise, in terms of how the game was built. It was the first truly 'modern' Wargame if you ask me. I look at it and while its flawed, there is a real gem in there.

Mongoosematt (bigwig over there) who posts here, mainly in the Aos section told me thst their judge dredd game is the spiritual successor to starship troopers, and apparently, a lot of what made it so clever has been incorporated into that game as well. Could be worth a look too.

Deadnight wrote:

Yeah, mongoose didn't have the resources or the player base to do a good job, the models were ok at best, and in the end, they didn't do the best job they could have done. to be fair, I don't know where they could have gone with it - starship troopers is incredibly limited as an IP in terms of where you can go (marines, bugs, skinnies)
[...]
Starship troopers is a brilliantly flawed game. Flawed because it had some severely broken mechanics (that were in line to be fixed, but then the game died) and needed some work, along with the previously mentioned very limited scope and produced by a company who couldn't push it as well as a bigger company could have. It was brilliant though because in wargaming terms it was probably ten years ahead of the curve mechanically wise, in terms of how the game was built. It was the first truly 'modern' Wargame if you ask me. I look at it and while its flawed, there is a real gem in there.

You should look for SSTpK, which is the never done 2nd Edi (there is no fixed rulebook out there, but some sort of Errata/FAQ).
It solved most of the broken stuff, made Skinnies playable and added another Fraction (free colonies).

A lot of people have their nostalgia blinds on - Fifth was pretty terrible in terms of balance. It certainly would not be a good jumping off point.

No Edition of 40k is a good jumping point off.

Thats one of the reasons why it need to be done from scratch. There is nothing from 2nd to 7th that you can take as base to start but just keeping the main elements, add the best ideas from every edition and write a new rulebook

I personally don't think 40k can or will be fixed long as GW is in control. They fix on thing with each edition but create 5 more problems. For example 5th edition people complained vehicle where to tough, so 6th edition adds HP to vehicles which makes them to weak, then adds a broken allied table, wound allocation, fliers, SH vehicles where added, Challenges, ect..
Nothing is going to change as long as accountants tell the rules department what to do. I'm not even going to talk about how bad the army codex are balanced because everyone knows


Don't want to change the subject to Judge Dredd but the rules are free on Warlords games website
http://us-store.warlordgames.com/collections/judge-dredd/books

 kodos wrote:


You should look for SSTpK, which is the never done 2nd Edi (there is no fixed rulebook out there, but some sort of Errata/FAQ).
It solved most of the broken stuff, made Skinnies playable and added another Fraction (free colonies).

I think that rings a bell, actually. I remember, years ago, speaking to a bunch of guys 'in the know', and got terribly excited about its 2nd ed. and then, it just quietly vanished :(

 kodos wrote:

No Edition of 40k is a good jumping point off.
Thats one of the reasons why it need to be done from scratch. There is nothing from 2nd to 7th that you can take as base to start but just keeping the main elements, add the best ideas from every edition and write a new rulebook

Agreed in full.

The reason why so many people pick 5th edition as a starting point is that for all their flaws 4th and 5th -- very similar to each other -- actually were the most popular and widely played editions. This is proved by sales numbers, which increased since 1st/2nd/3rd and decreased in 6th/7th.

Lots of people left the game after 5th thanks to unwelcome changes brought in by 6th and made worse in 7th. These people would rather go back to 5th than play 7th, and naturally they hope that 8th might do that.

Off Topic:

Deadnight wrote:

I think that rings a bell, actually. I remember, years ago, speaking to a bunch of guys 'in the know', and got terribly excited about its 2nd ed. and then, it just quietly vanished :(

I found some of the links for the Errata from one of the guys "in the know", you still need the original core rulebook and it is not complete regarding army lists (everything below is legal and does not offend any IP by MP):

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The reason why so many people pick 5th edition as a starting point is that for all their flaws 4th and 5th -- very similar to each other -- actually were the most popular and widely played editions. This is proved by sales numbers, which increased since 1st/2nd/3rd and decreased in 6th/7th.

Lots of people left the game after 5th thanks to unwelcome changes brought in by 6th and made worse in 7th. These people would rather go back to 5th than play 7th, and naturally they hope that 8th might do that.

And it seems like 30k is the closest we'll ever be to getting back to the glory of 5th. I guess I can live with just playing 30k, the lack of space wizards moving terrain 24 inches is at this point enough to keep me there.

 jonolikespie wrote:
What they need to do is have free rules for the models online, then use the codexes as pure art and fluff books for the armies that don't need to be brought to the table. Then whenever there is a new edition EVERY unit gets updated on the online database.

Backwards compatibility between editions is such a stone age concept at this point, I can't think of any other company that tries to do it.

An always changing rules manual that just tells you where the latest changes were made would really be the future of tomorrow here today kind of a thing and actually be a proper way to solve the issues. Seeing they already have interactive books of all codices (that seem to patch in errata) I can't see why that would be impossible. But here, i believe that sadly it will be the money that talks and the fear of trying something new holding back the rest.

And iI repeat, there is nothing in the world that locks this down to being something that is released by GW, apart from demanding a need to dodge licenses, even though it certainly would be nice if they were the ones to do it if not for anything else but for the sake of simplicity and lowering the bar for entry.

Deadnight wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:It can be fixed incredibly easily, if they look to 5th ed, and also to 30k and what FW do.

A lot of people have their nostalgia blinds on - Fifth was pretty terrible in terms of balance. It certainly would not be a good jumping off point.

Well, you're welcome to that opinion no matter how wrong it may be...

5th was excellent in terms of balance. It was certain codexes that were the problem. The core rules were fine.

 Grimtuff wrote:

5th was excellent in terms of balance. It was certain codexes that were the problem. The core rules were fine.

The 5th was missing a good tank-system and had no rules for flyers which were introduced there. Wound allocation was also a problem because you were doing more damage if you shot less weapons.
So no, if you want to start from something, 5th is not an option.

But compared to the other editions 5th was fine

 kodos wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

5th was excellent in terms of balance. It was certain codexes that were the problem. The core rules were fine.

The 5th was missing a good tank-system and had no rules for flyers which were introduced there. Wound allocation was also a problem because you were doing more damage if you shot less weapons.
So no, if you want to start from something, 5th is not an option.

But compared to the other editions 5th was fine

Wound allocation was only a problem on a handful of (admittedly common, due to being able to exploit it) units. This is a codex problem. Not a problem with the rule itself.

I still don't understand why they changed the 4th Edition wound system and Torrent of Fire.

This article crossed my facebook feed and I found it relevant to this topic as it reads to me of an example of game designers knowing what they are doing and giving their game the treatment 40k has been in desperate need of for at lest 2 editions now: http://privateerpress.com/community/privateer-insider/insider-04-18-2016

They talk about streamlining rules for faster play, removing randomness to make underutilized units more appealing without giving them too much of a boost, clearing clutter (both on the table and in the rules), removing a core mechanic and rebalancing EVERYTHING. All while trying to keep the core 'identity' of the game the same.

 Grimtuff wrote:

Wound allocation was only a problem on a handful of (admittedly common, due to being able to exploit it) units. This is a codex problem. Not a problem with the rule itself.

You didn't get it, the problem was not on the receiving end but by the shooting unit.
A 10 man squad with 2 plasma guns shooting at 10 Bolter Marines had a problem if it also used their standard weapon because than only 1 marine would die without save while using the plasma guns only, up to 4 marines die (if all hit).

It was not the exploit of TWC but that 08/15 dudes become markers for health points only again because shooting with them made the whole unit less effective.

 Grimtuff wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:It can be fixed incredibly easily, if they look to 5th ed, and also to 30k and what FW do.

A lot of people have their nostalgia blinds on - Fifth was pretty terrible in terms of balance. It certainly would not be a good jumping off point.

Well, you're welcome to that opinion no matter how wrong it may be...

5th was excellent in terms of balance. It was certain codexes that were the problem. The core rules were fine.

If there were broken codices, (space wolves long fang spam, ig leaf blower, nob bikers, grey knights etc) then by definition it wasn't 'excellent in terms of balance'. Let's also not forget some of the other ridiculous things that existed at the time such as the wound allocation shenanigans. The game devolved into parking lots and armour hammer, which means, like all editions of 40k, it pushed a particular style over and above others.

Fifth was a refinement of third and fourth but like all the 40k games, it was clunky and unwieldy and a poor framework to build on.

There are two possibvle approaches. One is to modify or refine 40K from the existing rules. For the same of this project, that can include taking 5th edition and modifying it. After all, 6th and 7th editions are only modified versions of 5th, so clearly it's possible. It's also possible to turn 40K into Age of Emporer.

However if you believe all of 40K ever is irretrievably crocked, it would be best to start again from scratch.

This second course is unlikely as it would run a high risk of losing a lot of current players.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

However if you believe all of 40K ever is irretrievably crocked, it would be best to start again from scratch.

This second course is unlikely as it would run a high risk of losing a lot of current players.

You lose players with both (look at fantasy, T9A is based on 8th Edition, all those who did not like that left), but the game does not need to be that much different just because you start from scratch.

Main elements from 2rd to 7th did not change, so keeping IGYG-Phase System, to hit/to wound tables, armour saves and tank armour.
Changes can be to add a movement value, roll back to armour modifications, add generic traits instead of unit types and special rules (the reduce the amount needed) and streamline the reaction rules (bring over watch, intercept and close combat in the line)
New rules can be about air units (complete new system for flyers) and psionic powers.

The changes overall would be on a level like 4th to 5th edition but without taking over some problems by copy & paste an existing edition