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Y'know, I was thinking recently. I'm all for simple, elegant game systems. So why does GW's design direction for 40K bother me?

RT and second edition were really messes when it came to gameplay, although second was half-decently patched by the end of its life cycle. But it was never really the rules that attracted me to 40K. It was this crazy, vast galaxy GW designed, and the way the rules (although not very good in gameplay terms) allowed you to explore it. With RT, you felt like anything was possible, even Squats on hoverboards with conversion beamers. Second edition was more of a proper wargame, but it was filled with fluff teases -- "quiescent perils of the C'tan," Arhra "burning with the dark light of Chaos", etc. -- that added depth and mystery and made the whole enterprise more interesting. And yeah, it may have been Herohammer, but isn't it more fun to outfit a character down to their digital weapons compared to choosing option A and option B?

That's a good segue to the current era, in which GW is actively trying to *contract* 40K -- fewer armies, fewer options and less converting. GW's vision for 40K may make more manufacturing sense and may be more palatable to the kiddies. But the more I think about it, the more I believe they've lost touch with what made that RT book sitting on the shelf a sloppy but compelling and inspired read. I get almost no sense of *inspiration* coming from the studio these days. And that's a crime. The business folks hamstringing that team need to get the soap in a sock treatment.

Hordini wrote:Yeah, and up to half in support too, with only a quarter having to be regular troops (at least for that Genestealer cult entry).

Man, what a messed up game that must have been.

It is a shame that a lot of other good ideas seem to have been lost though (Adeptus Mechanicus stuff, Genestealer cults, cultists, IG assault and penal squads, etc.)

That's the funny part. They junked the whole percentage system in 3rd ed., but it was just their *allocations* that were the problem. Fix that and you fix a lot of the Herohammer stuff. The percentage system is still around for WAB and it works just fine.

You're on the mark about the loss of IDEAS.

Y'know, I was thinking recently. I'm all for simple, elegant game systems. So why does GW's design direction for 40K bother me?

RT and second edition were really messes when it came to gameplay, although second was half-decently patched by the end of its life cycle. But it was never really the rules that attracted me to 40K. It was this crazy, vast galaxy GW designed, and the way the rules (although not very good in gameplay terms) allowed you to explore it. With RT, you felt like anything was possible, even Squats on hoverboards with conversion beamers. Second edition was more of a proper wargame, but it was filled with fluff teases -- "quiescent perils of the C'tan," Arhra "burning with the dark light of Chaos", etc. -- that added depth and mystery and made the whole enterprise more interesting. And yeah, it may have been Herohammer, but isn't it more fun to outfit a character down to their digital weapons compared to choosing option A and option B?

That's a good segue to the current era, in which GW is actively trying to *contract* 40K -- fewer armies, fewer options and less converting. GW's vision for 40K may make more manufacturing sense and may be more palatable to the kiddies. But the more I think about it, the more I believe they've lost touch with what made that RT book sitting on the shelf a sloppy but compelling and inspired read. I get much less sense of *inspiration* coming from the studio these days. And that's a crime. The business folks hamstringing that team need to get the soap in a sock treatment.

Uh oh gorgon, you're quoting yourself now. Back away from the 2nd ed rulebook.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Heh, I remeber playing with my BA back then. I had Dante, Mephiston, Corbulo (with a jump pack no less), and another libby in terminator armor, plus termies were my troops, and a dread was in there somewhere... Oh, plus my assassin. That game was on crack.

Gorgon, you hit the nail on the head. I'd sig that if it weren't so long. The next time you post a perfect summary of the wrongness of rules minimalism in 40K, please do so in haiku form.

Seriously, that's exactly what I've been struggling to express for a while when new codices strip away the character from their subjects, and when the really great background gets retconned because it would be difficult to write rules for that could be understood by an 11-year-old.

It is also what I've been trying to point out to JohnHwangDD every time that he condemns the existence of even an armory section in codices, versus the 6 choices of nearly-identical units that he seems to prefer. I swear the guy's a Necron.

gorgon wrote:That's the funny part. They junked the whole percentage system in 3rd ed., but it was just their *allocations* that were the problem. Fix that and you fix a lot of the Herohammer stuff. The percentage system is still around for WAB and it works just fine.

I'd like to see WH40k adopt the WHFB scaling chart, or even the Heavy Gear Blitz version where every squad choice is listed on the chart.

Grignard wrote:I forgot to mention that I think there were probably a wave of people coming in at the same time as me, in second ed. The reason I say this is that I'm pretty sure that 2ed was the first time they tried to market the game outside of traditional venues. I think they did this along with 4th ed WHFB. I had heard about the game at the FLGS in Donelson Tennessee, and I saw the 2nd ed box set at, of all places, Books-A-Million, right next to the 4th ed WHFB box. I got that box set for Christmas, and as soon as I read the rules and fluff ( For me, it was the wargear book that did it), I wasted zero time getting a battle going on the kitchen table.

I think IIRC this was around the time they had opened a lot of new stores in the UK.. so suddenly had a lot bigger high street presence, rather then the usual back-street model shop venues.

Ozymandias wrote:Uh oh gorgon, you're quoting yourself now. Back away from the 2nd ed rulebook.

LOL. I have no idea how I did that. Must have been something in the ink that I absorbed through my fingertips...