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What if GW would let gamers have input to the making of a 6th edition? (BTW, they definitely won't)
What would like to see change?
Change to a codex?
A whole new codex?
better models?

I personally would like to see some better posed models. The masters of the chapter models for SM are okay. but they seem kind of static. I would like them to have more dramatic poses.

As far as rules go, I'm pretty satisfied but there are things I would like to see change.
First off: The grey knights should have a codex all to themselves.
Necrons need new rules new models. The monoliths are too strong in my opinion.
And the standard point limit for GTs should be at 1500 not 1750 not 1850 and all that. If you want to field more models you should play apoc.

That's about it for me but what do YOU think?

remove Silly wound allocation rules.

yes.
I would like that too.

A ground up total rewrite. Since that isn't goint to happen a non 3rd edition game mechanics based skirmish system as a supplement to the main game with fan made army lists based upon a set of guidelines published by the studio.

If we're going with what are mostly pipe dreams, I'd like to see a new edition with every codex in the game rewritten to work with the new rules, and sold together in an affordable set.

I'd like to see wargear back, the wound allocation rules gone, vehicles able to fire weapons better, a vehicle damage table that ties in to the strength of the weapon that penetrated it, kill points fixed via the new codices, scoring ability unrelated to the Force Organization Chart, better rules for Chaos armies, better support for chapter approved supplements, twenty other things I haven't thought of yet, and a palace made of unicorns.

Orkeosaurus wrote:....and a palace made of unicorns.

That's being released next month, all those other things look impossible.

Orkeosaurus wrote:If we're going with what are mostly pipe dreams, I'd like to see a new edition with every codex in the game rewritten to work with the new rules, and sold together in an affordable set.

I'd like to see wargear back, the wound allocation rules gone, vehicles able to fire weapons better, a vehicle damage table that ties in to the strength of the weapon that penetrated it, kill points fixed via the new codices, scoring ability unrelated to the Force Organization Chart, better rules for Chaos armies, better support for chapter approved supplements, twenty other things I haven't thought of yet, and a palace made of unicorns.

All that and the ability to split vehicle shooting.

in a 6th ed 40k, I'd like to see the old defensive weapons rule reintroduced, kill points removed, a reworking of the wound allocation system (currently it tends to either be either horrifically unfair to certain armies, and horrendously abusive for others, like Nob Bikers) ballistic skill modifiers instead of a stupid ubiquitous 4+ cover save, and a greater variety of basic mission types. Other things that would be nice is a revamped multimelta, something done to enhance the Autocannon, greatcoat guard infantry, vehicle split fire, etc.

If they do a new edition, I'd also like them to re-do all the armies like they did with 3rd ed, include all the army lists in the basic rulebook, and then from there release expansion books with things for each army rather than doing one army at a time.

In terms of other stuff, I'd like to see Space Marines go back to the psychotic warrior killers they used to be and less the "good-guys" (or "spehse mahreens") of the Imperium. I'd like to see the Chaos Space Marines more as their old selves, the ancient and dark enemy, driven by hate as opposed to the renegade space pirates out for power they are now.

6E?

For the most part, I'm pretty darn happy with most of what 5E did, but do a "top 5" wishlist:

1. Removal of VPs, pure focus on Objectives.
2. KPs assigned to 1 HQ, 2 Troops per side
3. Variable cover saves from 3+ to 5+
4. Run d3" vs Fleet d6"
5. Biel-Tan as a primary Eldar build, with Scorpions & Banshees as Troops

Change fearless so that it allows rerolls of leadership checks, as opposed to automatically passing them.

I would like to see a new army, or better yet 40k version to Dogs of War.

I guess that makes them Mercenaries ?

Recent GW plastic have been quite impressive (keeping
up with competing companies i guess?) ,
i have abit of confidence they'll continue producing
improved kits.

1) A return of options
Once upon a time you had the ability to field an army 100 different ways. Eldar had variant craftworld lists. Chaos had special rules for all the different legions, and 'Nids could create their own monstrosity. While definitely more abusable, this system allowed us a lot of options, and a lot of FUN in deciding what those options would be. I'd like to see some of that returned to the game.

2) More Missions
There honestly needs to be some massive book of random missions with a big table to roll on various setups. Bring some variety to the game and make it harder for the Min/Max army lists to be able to take down the basic missions available now.

3) Kill Points reworked.

4) Separate tables for Glancing and Penetrating vehicle hits. I never saw a reason to bring them together into one list. Just doesn't make sense to me. I guess it's in line with the general dumbing down of the game.

5) Common sense approach to cover saves
I personally feel that the current approach to cover saves is somewhat slowed. While TLOS is good, the whole concept of weaving two units together to grant both of them a "cover" save seems to be an abuse of the rules, and I'd like to see a caveat in the rules to prevent such blatant stupidity.

The options you mentioned was really nice to have back then.

But the trend of ( every new army is the strongest ) really pushed the option away :/ it simply became ineffective to the point of the alternate list been hopeless.

To be able to go back to those days, GW would have to properly balance the army... but we all know they buff the new armies to boost their sales :<

so probably wont ever see it again.

1) more campaign support. Just look at necromunda to see how cool a well-done campaign setup can be. Some rules for leveling up squads, giving commanders new bits, and all that kinda stuff would be super cool

2) more missions. even the d3*d3 variations grow boring super quick. For 15-30 bucks, I would totally buy a codex-style add-on with cool new missions, maybe a few army specific ones here and there

3) i agree with a return to wargear. Armouries were soooo much cooler than this lame "so and so can have this this or this." If they did a separate "terminators" "power armoured" etc list rather than the 1,2,* labelling it would be easier to read too.

4) I really hate the whole "buy x special character if you don't want to play vanilla marines" tripe. It makes every army feel very much the same. They could have done it by wargear, so if your commander has a bike you can pay XXX for troop bikes, if he has a jump pack XXX for fleeting, etc

5) wound allocation is slowed, nix it

6) more than a glance/pen table. Glances are meaningless, pens are overpowered. There should be a difference between penning a 15 against a landraider and a 15 against a rhino.

7) marines need more than 1 attack. They're genetically engineered superheroes, why do they have the same number of attacks as guardsmen?

8) the rules need to be written more tightly. The easier-to-read rules that they have are great for beginners, but the number of wording loopholes are infuriating. Its not like I play competitively all the time. Even for friendly games, it feels cheap to resort to houserules and dicerolling. Houserules especially, as feelings get hurt when people are ruled against

9) proper FAQ support. I mean for feths sakes, how hard is it to properly datamine their emails, and automatically post their rulings on things. If they posted the top 3 rulings per month even, it would be better than the half assed support we get now. Also, I would appreciate a better FAQ ruling on DA/etc equipment. The half-assed answer we have now is even worse than a no. It should be "official GW stance is that XXX is fair, but..." in the least. I feel like a cheater pushing for the better rules, but I also feel cheated using outdated equipment too.

1. A new format for the rulebook:

A hard slipcase containing the following volumes:

Rules (including missions and apocalypse/skirmish variants)
Armies (full and coherent lists for every army with no fluff, no special characters, unified wargear encyclopedia)
Hobby (all the fluff/background and hobby sections)


2. Instead of the current codex release schedule each cycle would release codices which were supplements to the basic army list, providing rules for special characters, variant army lists, army-specific fluff/hobby sections, etc.


--Both 1. and 2. would be properly checked and edited to ensure clarity, consistency and fairness, backed up by proper playtesting.


3. Focus on creating plastic versions of all existing metal models except special characters before starting on totally new stuff.

Get rid of running. A Terminator can now jog alongside his Landraider transport. This is daft.

1. A return to VPs

2. Codexes ALL designed before-hand to accomodate the new rules

3. A constantly updated FAQ

4. More missions.

5. Give MCs a better chance at a cover save...I cant see that marines leg, he gets a 4+ save, I cant see that fexes leg, no cover save??? Maybe reduce their (MCs) cover saves by 1.

6. Less favouritism towards SM and orks.

I think some of these points have been covered before, but it can't hurt to re-iterate (you never know if someone from GW is actually paying attention...yeah right)

No more guys with stiks'n'stones beating up guys with lasers, plasma and mini rocket launchers!?

I would want 6th Ed 40k to have a release date many years in the future. This ed isn't a year old yet.

1. Mission Generators. Something I do miss from 2nd Edition are the Mission Cards. Sure, stick with Objectives on the board for taking high ground etc (or wherever you prefer to place them of course) but let the players roll up an objective of their own from a single chart, for example 'kill enemy commander' or 'have a scoring squad in the enemy deployment zone' and so on. Just adds a bit of randomness and fun to my mind.

2. I'll second the Book of Missions. Great idea, and I seem to dimly recall a Standard Bearer mentioning such a thing. I'm probably confusing it with summat else though.

3. Something done with KPs. I don't like slug fests. I really don't. Makes the game dull, and Fantasy does the mass punch up so much better. For example, the D3+3 approach, with the first 3 going on compulsories, the rest allocated by the owning player.

Changes I'd like to see for 6e:

CC need to be less decisive. I've seen it happen alot, but I can't understand how a 9 man unit get's wiped out just because of losing a CC. I'm all for making CC faster but the current rules makes it ludicrous.

In 6e, I'd like to have an acutual well written rules set. Cross-referenced and checked for errors. I don't want a $50 book with only 1/3 rules and 2/3 fluff.

Edit: Removed a specific point..added a different one

I want every codex to receive a launch at the beginning of every edition, instead of coming out in the middle and being lost in regards to the next coming edition. I want them all specifically written with the coming rules in mind.

I want the vehicle rules revised. The apoc damage chart and the defensive weapons were a nice start but I still don't really believe vehicles have any middle ground. Either destroyed or not.

I want wound allocation and targeting/sizes to either be fully abstract or entirely literal.

Cover needs to apply negative ballistic skill modifiers, not a hard number enforcing horde armies domination of the game.

I want variant lists back. Lost and The Damned, Speed Freaks, Chapter approved lists, 13th company etc. The hobby seemed much more fun when I joined it back at the beginning of 4th.

The missions need to be re-done. The kill point system is awful and the objectives consist of "standing on me". There is so much more they could be doing with the base rulebook missions.

Place significance on the force organization chart again. Now the only difference in the slots is in one deployment, you can only place a single HQ and two troops and beyond that, anything that isn't a troop is just classified as "other". I liked the deployment order actually, but I also like the fact the first player doesn't get to see the enemies army.

I'm sure I have more but that's all I can think of.

Everyone has raised good points.

I think the top one is having a basic outline of the codices worked out before the rulebook is published so every army has a list thats relevant in current rules & doesnt have to wait 'til the edition is coming to an end to have rules published.

They also need to have a more tightly worded rulebook. A lot of us are complete power-fiends who will exploit any fuzzily worded rule if it means we can have an easier win, GW need to bear this in mind when wording rules.

Also, someone raised the matter of the rulebook being two thirds fluff & one third rules. This is a good point. The fluff is nice, but at the end of the day, Im paying for a set of rules which govern the way I play, I want that to be the meat of the book.

The vehicle rules definitely need to be looked at. As Flashman said, a terminator being able to jog alongside his transport is ludicrous.

Every rule & mechanic in the book needs to be looked at critically. If it works well, keep it, if it doesn't work well, rethink it. The effort should be less on streamlining the game, or turning it into a roleplaying game, but finding a good balance between fluff-relevance, ease of use & realism.

I also vote for a big book of missions. It could be divided into sections. generic missions based on different scenarios, all of which are decided by victory points, objective based missions where each army has a specific goal to accomplish, & races get a couple of race specific missions each. There could also be some kind of mission generator table.

*edited to add to a point*

I think it’s time to flush the system, much as how 2nd edition transitioned to 3rd edition. The current system has been band-aided up so much that it’s time to start new. Here are the core issues that I think need to be addressed:

- The 10 point scale for stats needs to be widened or tweaked in such a manner that there is some more differentiation between units. As is, nothing uses the top or bottom end of the scale for the most part. I can only think of a few units, which have a singular stat over 7 or less than 3. For the most part, where you are on either side of 4 matters the most.
- Revolving the game around the D6 is a bit of a challenge because it gives a lot more randomness than probably should be in the game. Some people like it, some people don’t. I’d like to see moving to a D10 system or modifiers to allow for a wider range on rolls. The other option is to rework some of the tables. High WS means nothing for them most part, because once again, once your over 4, it really doesn’t matter. 10, 9, 8, etc. all are basically the same as WS5 against WS4.
- I’d like to see vehicles moved away from armor values and to a wounds and toughness system like the wraithlord. The delta in effectiveness between the two systems is huge. The current vehicle rules make it extremely hard for people to rely on the vehicles or annoy the hell out of your opponent because they can’t deal with them after a certain point.
- Cover needs to be reworked, as well as cover saves.
- Shooting and moving needs a major overhaul.
- Charge reactions need to be evaluated.
- Leadership tests from shooting needs a look.
- Wound allocation should be reverted to 4th edition.
- All the codecies need to be reset at the same time. This was done at the beginning of 3rd and while annoying, it did put everyone on an equal footing till the codex for each army could be released.

The biggest issue is that need to have someone who cares about making the armies balanced in all fashions writing the rules. Not the “lets play nice” group they have now.

Techboss wrote:I think it’s time to flush the system, much as how 2nd edition transitioned to 3rd edition.

The biggest issue is that need to have someone who cares about making the armies balanced

Never. Gonna. Happen.

5E has very few structural problems, and the changes you propose serve primarily to homogenize the game, rather than to preserve distinctiveness between armies. I'd rather have things somewhat unbalanced & varied, than blandly homogenized (RT/3E limited options) or completely out of control (i.e. 4E lists). Codex reset is horrible because it means that every new book raises the power level considerably. We don't need 4 years of deliberate Codex creep. Finally, remember, the notion of balance works for the kinds of armies that GW wants to play - the don't care about tournament play, and they don't balance that way.

Just a few random things I can think of right off the top of my head...

I would really like to see some sort of Overwatch/cover fire mechanism. I see lots of people complain about cover saves pretty regularly (here, in RL, etc), and this is only magnified when your opponent runs one of his units from cover to cover - and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it as he/she crosses that huge open stretch of turf in between.

I would also like to see a "big book of missions" as several others have suggested, or at the very least, put some value into WD and have a new mission released in it once in awhile. The 3x3 mission set-up 'chart' in 5th ed got old within a few weeks of release. Yes, players can also make their own missions, but since we're talking pipe-dreams here...

I'd like to see losses from shooting be a bit more harmful than the "test at 25%" we have now. CC is vicious and the losing side gets to test with a penalty based on how many losses they took. I'd like to see something like this (even if it's not the same exact method) implemented.

My number one complaint about 5th (and 4th and 3rd to an extent) is random movement. I can't stand random movement. Sure everyone goes 6" which is fine, but then difficult terrain turns that into 2d6 take the highest and running (or fleet in previous editions) adds an extra 1d6. I can't tell you how many games I've seen come down to 1 movement roll and I can't stand it. I want to see movement normalized. 6" standard, half speed through difficult terrain (it counts as twice as far as you move though it in the cases of moving though both clear an difficult ground), run 3" (or maybe 4") and fleet 6" (or maybe 5 if standard running is only 3"). I really hate how fleet units are only faster if they assault.

The cover system also needs some looking into. While conceptually, it doesn't make a lot of sence, it does make for fairly smooth gameplay. I think the big problem with it now though is that it's just too powerful and too easy to get. Going back to the system where cover was mostly 5+ makes it too weak. If cover started to give BS penalties, it might work out. Another option is if the game is revamped to a 1d10 system, you could have greater degrees of cover rather than 50% effective and 33% effective. 40% probably being the nice middle ground.

As I posted in the IG thread, perhaps we split KP missions as follows:
1 - winner kills the most KPs
2-5 Objectives
6 - winner has the most KPs remaining

The two missions basically offset one another, so KPs now become pretty much neutral in the grand scheme of things.

Why not just make it so that each player adds their remaining KP's to the KP's that they killed instead of splitting it into two missions? That way at least the total KP's are equal to each player.

VP's still make infinitely more sense, any problems with the previous edition would not have been hard to fix.

@Vak: That would work, too.