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 Kingsley wrote:


I suppose you could argue that the new Necron Immortals aren't equivalent to the old ones. The only problem with that line of argument is that then you have to admit that the new Necron Immortals are better than the old ones, and therefore you are paying less for more and better models-- hardly an argument in favor of the thesis that GW hikes prices extravagantly!

UNCLEBADTOUCH wrote:
Or the fact that they have changed material which has very different cost implications, again your not getting the same ad before which is what your arguin is invalid.

This and the fact that Immortals also got about 1/3 cheaper in points cost.

 Testify wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

Not really, the hardcore gamers just want clear, streamlined, balanced rules, and the new gamers would benefit from clear, streamlined, balanced rules.

This is one of those silly "All I want is for everything to be perfect" things.

"Clear" and "streamlined" are both subjective, and if you want "balanced" go play chess. The fact that you have difficulty understanding the rules doesn't mean everyone does.

I'm not the sort to struggle with rules (I program microprocessors in assembly for aliving, and have to follow arcane rule sets on a daily basis), but I don't find the 40K rules at all clear. I've lost count the number of times I've found the line referring to a scenario in a completely unrelated section (blast markers aren't explained in the "shooting" section, jut the special rules, and you need to assume that the blast stuff applies to large blast), and I've also lost count of the number of times I've asked "can you do that? how do you do that?" and given up trying to find a ruling in the book.

Clear isn't particularly subjective; can the wording be taken to have more than one meaning? It's not clear then, but that doesn't mean it has to be lawyery either. Take your chess example; the rules for that are pretty clear and concise, yes? Do they read like a legal document? Legalese != clear.

Streamlined is pretty subjective though, and personally I find 40K very rambly.

I'm struggling to follow your argument though, for the game to appeal to casual gamers it has to be unclear, bloated and unbalanced?

Out of curiosity, have you read rules produced by other gaming companies? Kings Of War (fantasy equivalent) is only about a dozen pages long, including lists, does that mean it's a poor game for casual gamers?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 filbert wrote:
Also, I would like to add I am a casual gamer too and I hate having to flip through rulebooks, cross-check FAQs, debate a rule meaning with an opponent etc etc. Just being a casual does not necessarily mean you happily tolerate poorly-worded, unbalanced or ill-playtested rules.

I'm in the same boat; I probably spend 50% of my gaming time flicking through rulebooks and codex's trying to establish what I'm meant to be doing, and most of the time have to resort to guessing. Admittedly I've only played about 6 games of 6th Ed so far.


I'm not going to apologise for expecting the big player in the industry, who's had on staff some of the best writers, to make a better of the 6th iteration of their rule books.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Testify wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Testify wrote:
This is one of those silly "All I want is for everything to be perfect" things.

Stop and think about that for a moment, and then ask yourself if expecting a commercially released, professionally-written game to be written competently is actually that big an ask...

At no point during my read-through of 6th edition did I think "man this is badly written". Even after a few games, I thought it was pretty clear (even though I got most of the rules wrong, obviously). It took the internet to open my eyes to the fact that it was badly-written, which is odd as I have tastes in both literature and abstract systems - you'd think I'd recognise poorly written rules but there you go.

If you got most of the rules wrong they can't be that clear, no?

 insaniak wrote:

There are holes in 6th edition 40K that simply shouldn't be there. By the 6th edition of a game, you would think that they would remember to mention in the movement rules that you can't move through other models. You would think that the Look Out Sir rule would have been playtested enough for them to not have to have changed it 3 and a half minutes after release. You could expect that the allies rules would have included some sort of explanation as to how they function with army wide rules... or even just a brief explanation as to exactly how they are defining the word 'army' for rules purposes. You might even be excused for thinking that rules that were corrected by FAQ towards the end of 5th edition, like ICs joining units pre-game, might have had those corrections carried over to the new edition rather than just reverting to being broken again...

Those are by and large common sense. Obviously models can't move through each other, they also can't spontaniously multiply or sprout wings (oh wait...).

But they can shoot through each other, right? So if you can shoot figures in your own unit, can you move through them?


I'm all for casual gaming (I'm very far on the casual spectrum), but to me that means as little time reading the rules as possible, and more time pushing figures about a table. The more bloated and unclear the rules are, the more time a gamer needs to spend figuring them out.