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I really like the emphasis on scoring units as troops, I think it was a clever addition to emphasize the importance of regular units.

I like the removal of ESCALATION.

I like the outflank moves very much, especially when combined with transports.

I like the rules for close combat so any model within 2 inches of models in B2B can be removed as a casualty.

I like LOS shooting, makes for very quick determinations on what gets cover and what doesn't.

I prefer in 5th...

The new setup rules - you setup, I setup, you go first. Way quicker and more fun to me

The new way of determining deployment/mission. The missions...not so great, but the basic idea is better

new vehicle glance/pen table

no forced disembark from a pen

new rules for wounds from a wrecked vehicle

counter charge rules

rules for casualty removal in close combat

rules for shooting saves (no more majority armor save or torrent of fire - takes a little longer sometimes but makes a lot more sense)

outflanking for scouts and infiltrators

new deep strike mishap rules

vehicle obsured saving throws instead of just glance instead of pen

running.

Troops have function beyond their stat-line.

lambadomy wrote:I prefer in 5th...

The new way of determining deployment/mission. The missions...not so great, but the basic idea is better

...rules for shooting saves (no more majority armor save or torrent of fire - takes a little longer sometimes but makes a lot more sense)

...running.

Well said I like these things too, especially running, very cool!

I love objective based missions.

Troops finally have a tactical purpose besides being mandatory.

TLOS solves many problems without cause any (IMHO).

Running and quicker assaults benefit my assault armies.

While balanced with;

No consolidating into units and TLOS benefit my shooting armies.

I like the new scoring unit rules much better than the previous ones (although there is still room for improvement)

I like the new line of sight rules (although area terrain could still use some work)

I like the new vehical rules, a lot.

I love the new deployment rules. Going first isn't 33% of winning a game.

Phoenix wrote:
I love the new deployment rules. Going first isn't 33% of winning a game.

Yes, truely, especially if the enemy didn't deploy anything, I love that. Pretty cool trick! Go 1st, vs,.... NOBODY!

It is a better written game. Things are actually very clear within the rules and it seems as though they've gone to a lot of trouble to ensure that the 'looseness' of the rules is kept to a minimum.

The rules themselves are still a load of nonsense (casualty removal, TLOS that isn't, several steps backwards as far as the vehicle rules are concerned, God-damned fething Kill Points), and it's open to as much abuse as previous editions, but it is a better game, because it has been well crafted compared to previous editions.

BYE

This is an interesting comment that I think warrants more discussion:

Smashotron wrote:Troops finally have a tactical purpose besides being mandatory.

What you've said above is true, troops have been given a tactical purpose besides being mandatory, but don't you think the way it was done is backwards? They haven't made troops useful in the tactical sense, they've just made everything else worthless.

It's forced tactics. The reason you have to use troops now is not because it's a good idea to do so but because you don't have any alternatives.

The question is: Is this bad game design?

Would it not have been better to improve the troops that armies can bring to the table rather than heaping unecessary importance on them via arbitrary changes to the core rules? I'm sorry, but making mandatory troops choices more mandatory isn't an improvement with this game.

BYE

H.B.M.C. wrote: Would it not have been better to improve the troops that armies can bring to the table rather than heaping unecessary importance on them via arbitrary changes to the core rules?

I don't see how improving troops across the board will prevent codex creep, not to mention we only have to get through one whole cycle of codex revisions (40k V7 maybe?). The "troops only scoring" immediately gives every army motivation to bring more than the minimum troops, no changes to codexes required.

Did you have some other rules change in mind?

ptlangley wrote:I don't see how improving troops across the board will prevent codex creep

When did I mention Codex Creep? And what's that got to do with making troops better within the rules rather than changing the core rules to make troops mandatory?

Bedies Codex Creep is design law at GW, not something they're trying to prevent.

ptlangley wrote:The "troops only scoring" immediately gives every army motivation to bring more than the minimum troops, no changes to codexes required.

By forcing their hand. You should bring Troops (and any choice for that matter) because it's a good thing to bring, not because you have to bring them. Was that not clear in my original post?

ptlangley wrote:Did you have some other rules change in mind?

Plenty, and they all involve improving units rather than arbitrary and summary changes to the core rules to force people into changing their armies. But this isn't really the thread for that - that's what the Proposed Rules forum is for - I'm more commenting on one of the failed executions of the 5th Ed ruleset.

BYE

Answering the original question: It's what everyone else around me wants to play.

And I'll agree that it is bad game design. "No one is running lots of troops guys! What do we do? we're losing money on this one!" Says GW lead design. "Hey I've got an idea, the only way to actually win is to use lots of troops! Now how do we do that?" Responds Terry the intern.

H.B.M.C. wrote:This is an interesting comment that I think warrants more discussion:

Smashotron wrote:Troops finally have a tactical purpose besides being mandatory.

What you've said above is true, troops have been given a tactical purpose besides being mandatory, but don't you think the way it was done is backwards? They haven't made troops useful in the tactical sense, they've just made everything else worthless.

I feel it does not force a player to take "bad" Troop choices, nor does it make everything else worthless (in regards to objectives). Though I understand your sentiment, other Codex improvements (like if you take Character A or Rule B then take Good Unit X as Troop, or Elite Unit Y counts as scoring) along with the fact that everything else contests still allows you to take strong tactically-sound choices in your force and accomplish the same goal. Sure your opponent might take 6 Tactical squads (thus technically improving his chances of scoring), but if you select wisely you could potentially field better scoring and/or non-scoring units that will wipe the table with his face.

Answering the original question:

Things I like completely:

I like the vehicle damage changes.

I like (even as an eldar player) the changes to skimmer rules.

I like that infantry can run.

I like the overall design trend towards removal of min-max squads.

I like the change to wound allocation/saves.

I like the setup/deployment rules.

I really like that you can always voluntarily start with anything you want in reserve.

I like that vehicles can get saves.

I like that you cannot deny a living model its attacks.

I like the new blast template rules.

I like the fact that the rules are written more clearly.


There are several other things that I would like, if they were applied consistently, but it's a case where the bad apple spoils the bunch.

H.B.M.C. wrote:This is an interesting comment that I think warrants more discussion:

Smashotron wrote:Troops finally have a tactical purpose besides being mandatory.

What you've said above is true, troops have been given a tactical purpose besides being mandatory, but don't you think the way it was done is backwards? They haven't made troops useful in the tactical sense, they've just made everything else worthless.

It's forced tactics. The reason you have to use troops now is not because it's a good idea to do so but because you don't have any alternatives.

The question is: Is this bad game design?

Would it not have been better to improve the troops that armies can bring to the table rather than heaping unecessary importance on them via arbitrary changes to the core rules? I'm sorry, but making mandatory troops choices more mandatory isn't an improvement with this game.

BYE

You know, I've been thinking about this, and I think this goes back to the transition of 2nd to 3rd edition, when the units rules were very different. Back in 2nd edition, there weren't 'troops' and 'elites': there were HQ, Units, Support (which was, like, vehicles and stuff, IIRC) and Allies (which allowed you to field a unit of Eldar with your space marines, but that's for another post)* and it was based on a percentage system. Units had to be 25% of your points, but there was no incentive to take Eldar Guardians over, say, Striking Scorpions or Dark Reapers or whatever. 3rd edition and the FOC was, in many ways, a reaction to that, insisting that certain units were mandatory, and those would be called 'Troops'.

So already we have the notion of mandatory selections, but without necessarily changing the variety or utility of options. In many cases, it still made more sense to take elite, fast attack or heavy support choices over troops choices. The various sub-codicies tried to ameliorate this by making certain non-troops choices into troops choices (Craftworld lists, different Chaos lists, Marine traits, etc.), but that just proved the point: why take more than 2 of X when I could have 3 of Y which does the job(s) better, and now with this sublist I can use them as troops too!

I think the fundamental question the design team is starting to ask with 5th ed. is: what do we want troops to do? They've started to answer the question: troops have a tactical role by being the only scoring units viz. objectives (which isn't that different than, say, AT-43, where certain units are necessary, depending on the list construction, for the army to be viable, claim objectives, etc.). Of course, the question would then be: what do the other types of units do viz. troops? In other words, how do the units interact with each other across the list and FOC? Right now, in some armies, there's a lot of synergy (IG commanders and leadership, special characters conveying special rules to the whole army, Tyranid Synapse) and some not at all (Tau commanders are, effectively, just another battlesuit with some better widgets).

Perhaps we've been asking the wrong question all along: instead of saying this unit is/is not useful or powerful, we should have been asking "how do the units in this army interact with each other? Is the interaction tactically sound? Or are they just a series of units that merely work independently of each other and have no coherency with the rest of the army?" (to be fair, there are many who have been asking that question all along, in different ways).

So now the question is: will 5th edition be the one where the design team figures out that all FOC options must have some kind of synergy, if not to every other choice, then to an array of choices, so that multiple builds are possible and viable, and every unit has its synergy with the army as a whole, especially troop chocies?

If 5th proves to be that edition, even if it culminates in 6th, it'll be a major leap forward for this game. One might even say that this could be the last stage of growing pains from being a skirmish game to being a units-based game. And that would be a major improvement, indeed.


*Forgive me if I got the terms wrong; the emphasis is not on the titles of the different selections but on the notion that in 2nd ed., 'units' was a catchall phrase to mean basically any codex-specific non-vehicle dudes.

Smashotron wrote:

I feel it does not force a player to take "bad" Troop choices, nor does it make everything else worthless (in regards to objectives). Though I understand your sentiment, other Codex improvements (like if you take Character A or Rule B then take Good Unit X as Troop, or Elite Unit Y counts as scoring) along with the fact that everything else contests still allows you to take strong tactically-sound choices in your force and accomplish the same goal. Sure your opponent might take 6 Tactical squads (thus technically improving his chances of scoring), but if you select wisely you could potentially field better scoring and/or non-scoring units that will wipe the table with his face.

But the point of sending anything to an objective is to claim it. It's fine if you DS some termies to stop something from scoring but what if they just wipe out the unit holding the objective? The Termies can't figure out how to pick up the flag? Fingers too fat and sausage like maybe...

Don't even consider unit specifics (why can Termies not score, but Marines can?), but look within lists.

The Blood Angels and Dark Angels Codices are perfect examples of this.

With the Dark Angels, I can take Terminators as Elites, as you'd expect, but I can also alter my list via a Special Character and take them as Troops. So... why can these Terminators score and these ones can't?

Ok, there are some (feeble) arguments as to why the ones in a non-Deathwing army couldn't, but let's look at Blood Angels.

They can take Assault Squads as Troops and Fast Attack in the same list, no alteration or requirements for Special Characters. Now you can take two identical units, but one is Troops, one is FA, and only the Troops one can score.

One Guardsman will hold an objective over 10 Chaos Terminators. A lone Grot can stare down a Hive Tyrant W/Tyrant Guard and not flinch, 'cause he can somehow score, yet they can only contest.

I agree with Syr when he says that the Dev Team is finally asking what they want Troops to do in this game. They've made the change in the typical ham-fisted way GW makes all sweeping changes, but they have taken a step forward in that they're thinking about where they want this game to go.

That said I do not share his optimism (are you surprised?) when he says:

"[W]ill 5th edition be the one where the design team figures out that all FOC options must have some kind of synergy, if not to every other choice, then to an array of choices, so that multiple builds are possible and viable, and every unit has its synergy with the army as a whole, especially troop chocies?"

I would posit that the Dev Team has already worked this out but have chosen specifically not to design their game in this way. This isn't because they are incapable of it (as much as cynicism clouds my posts, I am certain that if they wanted to, they could write a damned fine ruleset - they have with other systems), but because they don't want to do it. Or, more accurately, their first loyalty is to their business model, and the above suggestion of Syr's would compromise that model.

In a perfect world, "FOC options [would] have some ... synergy... so that multiple builds are possible and viable, and every unit has its synergy with the army as a whole...". This is a fantastic idea for writing a game, and it is certainly something our group has strived for with our 40K Revisited Project, but the major difference between us and Games Workshop is that we don't have to sell new model kits.

As long as their focus remains on selling miniatures (and I see no reason why this would change), then Syr's perfect notion will never come to pass. If all units had synergy, if lots of different builds were viable, then there'd be nothing new to sell (unless you changed the rules wholesale between editions, but that would just annoy people).

If the rules came first, and they made sure that everything worked within the rules before they even considered a single new kit, their business would collapse or they'd have to be a much smaller company (ala. Catalyst Game Labs & Iron Wind Metals). You'd have to rely on new players and people wanting to update models, not on making a new kit and giving it killer rules whilst simultaneously nerfing the stuff that was good in the previous edition (just look at the new Marine Codex if you want a great example of this type of design philosophy).

So what has this got to do with scoring troops?

Well if we accept the fact that GW will always be a miniature company first, and a rules company last (and it is), then we can accept that they are always going to be swinging that pendulum as hard as they can between different versions of the same army or rules. What we shouldn't accept is when they do things like the scoring change.

The scoring change, from what I can tell, is their half-way attempt at doing what we want without, as I said, compromising their business model. From this we can see their desire to improve the game, but also see their servitude to the bean-counters that need to shift X units of Shiny New Model Kit #44C before the next shareholders meeting.

And this is where we get the notions of 'ham-fisted' game design and great ideas with failed executions (ala Guard Doctrines, Marine Traits, etc.). The scoring unit change, like the Doctrines and Traits, are ideas that have merit - great merit in some cases - but cannot be taken to their full because doing so would risk the 'miniature' side of things. If they didn't require you to buy more 'stuff' because their rules actually allowed you to tailor your list to bring about synergy, they wouldn't be shackled with these half-way measures when it comes to rules writing.

As much as I crap on with cheap remarks in other threads (and laugh heartily at those who take me too seriously in those), this is something I'm dead serious about:

GW either has to do one of two things:

1. Accept fully what and who they represent - a miniature company that writes rules to service those miniatures, and thusly stop making half-hearted attempts at actual game design that just end up screwing the players in the long run by creating a host of arbitrary and nonsensical rulings and problems.
2. Make some bold changes with the rules that don't cater to shiny new model kits and give us a well crafted rules system.

Sadly as long as GW remains in the financial position that it's in right now, the latter can never happen. The former isn't a bad thing though - I don't think GW simply giving up on being forward thinking with rules is a terrible alternative as it would give us a break from constantly shifting core concepts and we can get back to the usual constantly shifting unit dynamics due to changes within unit rules, not major core rules. All the former is is not ideal, and as I said to Syr's comment, we can't really live in an ideal world where GW writes great rules and continues to produce lots of great miniature kits - those two things are mutually exclusive for a company as large as them - but we can wish for them to give up on their clumsy missteps in 'fixing' the game and just let them play silly-buggers with Codex entries.

At least that's a pain only on the bank balance, not our sanity. We'll never have to ask "Why did they do that!???" in anger again, except for the answer is "To sell a new model kit", and that answer I'm fine with.

BYE

P.S. And before anyone jumps up and down claiming I'm coming up with a 'GW Conspiracy Theory' let me remind you that a conspiracy theory requires a certain amount of secretive behaviour and underhandedness. There's nothing secretive about GW's actions. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that with the new Marine Codex their goals and decisions are even more overt than ever before. They're not 'evil' for doing what they do, they're just a business. I just wish the dev team would figure that out and stop trying to be game designers in an environment that simply doesn't support forward thinking rules design and balance...

Augustus: Given the tone of some of your remarks in the related thread (which certainly isn't a shot, just an observation!), I'm really glad to see you over here on this side of the street.

HBMC, there is a "What do you hate about 5e" thread. Take your cynicism and conspiracy theories over there.

I like how I don't feel stupid by not gaming the casualty removal system. I knew how to do it, but it never felt right to me.

I like how I can focus on the objectives and pull off a win or a draw with shrewd and tight play.

I like that my tanks don't auto blow up when sneezed at (unless the sneeze is in cc).

I like that I had to think about how to play again.

I like that the game plays smoother and does indeed feel more cinematic.

I like that I'm not the only one who likes things anymore.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

outflank is cool

removal of escalation was great

variable game length was a good thing. the SMF nerf was a long time in coming. TLoS I like but is still awkward at times. the new vehicle damage table and vehicles actually getting cover saves is great.

There are lots of things to like about 5th ed.

Sadly, for as many things as they fixed, they broke (defensive weapons), messed up (Kill Points) or flubbed (wound allocation) on just as many if not more.

As I played precisely 3 games of 4th and none of 3rd (even though I owned both rulesets) because they were, to be frank, stinking turds of a game, for me 5th came as a pleasant surprise. A game written so as to be intelligible and that actually works without too much head scratching is something to be lauded.

Sure there are some sillinesses remaining, but generally 5th edition has tipped over into fun from not-fun for me, and so gives me an excuse to break out the plastic Spayz Marienz (hurr) for the odd evening's gameplay. (I've always loved the fluff, right since I painted my first RTB01 beakie marine in 1988).

It's never going to be a "serious" wargame. But at least now its fun and not simply a pointless headache.

In summary its a lot more intuitive than it used to be. And for me that's a good thing.

With regard to taking and holding objectives.

Again, we have a nice little abtraction which, IMHO, enhances the game. The Elite and Heavy stuff is there to CLEAR the objective of resistance, until less critical units can dig in to hold it.

This then free's up my Terminators, for example, to stomp off somewhere else and clear out another.

As far as I am concerned, the only thing now missing from 40k (since it got it's tactical depth back!) is good old fashioned psychology. Bit bored of Carnifex not actually being that scary, and nobody getting even slightly upset when a Dreadnought tears a commanding officer limb from limb before hurling him into some enemy troops.

The best thing is the rules are much more understandable -- better written and leaving aside a few anomalies they actually work in the sense that they are more easily playable. This streamlines everything.

wound allocation. no more +2 invul save guy, catching all the bullets for some reason.

I like how I went the Vegas GT and didn't have a single rules argument. On top of that, I had fun opponents in all of my games and faced the most diverse array of armies that I have ever seen in 40K.

There is something to be said for that and 5th edition was a direct contributor to this.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Bedies Codex Creep is design law at GW, not something they're trying to prevent.

Is it?

I've played since late 3rd, more in early/mid 4th than late 4th, and now 5th. I started after the publication of the "3rd with knowledge of 4th" edition Chaos codex. Every other codex since then has been weaker. The power 4th ed lists -- Chaos, Blood Angels, Tyranids, Eldar -- either got brought into line with a 4th edition codex (Chaos, BA) or the 5th edition rules smoothed out the really strong stuff ('Nids, Eldar).

If anything, codex power is trending downwards. The existing balance problems are mostly a result of there still being 3rd edition codices in the game environment, which is, of course, a problem. But do you really think those codices are less competitive now than they were back in mid 4th when old Chaos, old BA, tri-falcon, and nidzilla were dominant?

1. wound allocation is great. the guy with the fist sometimes dies first now
2. tlos. the through the tree under the legs over the hedge shoot is back. break out the laser and paint the target. yep I can see it.
3. vehicle damage table. though the strength of exploding vehicles is a bit weak.
4 run
5 characters within 2" of a squad are in the squad.

I'd just like to voice my support for Wound Allocation as well! It's simple, it's straight forward, and it means min-maxed squads are fairly risky, as you cannot depend on the meatshield or two to save the expensive stuff.

One thing I would like to see added, and this is purely personal preference, is for players to declare targets for shooting before commencing firing. I reckon this would add a fair bit of suspense and thought, rather than 'hmmm. Better fire another volley. Go on then, one more' which currently exists.

Would also like to see that adopted in Fantasy, even though I am guilty of it myself. The main downside (there must be others I haven't considered) is that the decision making process might slow things down as much as it stands to speed things up.