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exactly! fluff doesnt belong in a rule book. Fluff belongs in its own novel.

 Filch wrote:
exactly! fluff doesnt belong in a rule book. Fluff belongs in its own novel.

I try not to interfere with the conversation when I put together a thread like this in order to see how it progresses without my meddling. With this said, I just have to say I agree 100%, the rules should be rules, not fluff. If there was a BRB with nothing but rules for the game and all of the rules for each army, it would probably be the same size as the regular BRB and it would be so much easier to play the game.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
What I want them to do for seventh is update every major codex 7.5 style and then freeze it there. Any further updates should be in WD, Campaign books, or dateslates.

This doesn't save GW from codex creep. GW isn't able to make balanced codices. Beware of dataslates that cost extra.

All of the repackaged Tau models (not just the new ones) have rules in the box so we may be seeing the ground work for a future change.

 jonolikespie wrote:
No other game forces you to buy a second rulebook to go with the even more expensive rulebook you already bought.

Codices need to go away and be reduced to an optional extra if you want the fluff and art.

Lots of games do but they are often much cheaper; e.g. Field of Glory campaign books, DBMM Army List books. You need these extra books for the accurate historical army lists, but they are much cheaper than the GW books.

Surprisingly.

 wuestenfux wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
What I want them to do for seventh is update every major codex 7.5 style and then freeze it there. Any further updates should be in WD, Campaign books, or dateslates.

This doesn't save GW from codex creep. GW isn't able to make balanced codices. Beware of dataslates that cost extra.

Post necrons all the newer codexs are more or less balanced against each other. Eldar stand a bit ahead but once the design change was chosen, I'd say the creep isn't as bad as it used to be.

You would have to utterly gut the game in order to fit the rules for every army, every piece of wargear, every unit, vehicle, and model into one book.

To reference Egon Spengler: "This would be a rulebook seventy-five feet long, weighing approximately two hundred pounds."

 Psienesis wrote:
You would have to utterly gut the game in order to fit the rules for every army, every piece of wargear, every unit, vehicle, and model into one book.

To reference Egon Spengler: "This would be a rulebook seventy-five feet long, weighing approximately two hundred pounds."

Not really. Most armies have unit rules over about 10-15 pages, with a further 5 pages of army/weapon rules. Streamline all the pointless duplicate USR's and other rules and you can easily fit all the current armies in a single book.

 Psienesis wrote:
You would have to utterly gut the game in order to fit the rules for every army, every piece of wargear, every unit, vehicle, and model into one book.

This would be a good thing. The rules right now are a bloated mess, cutting out the majority of them would be one of the best things GW could do for the game.

Adding new miniatures to an army, with all armies already in a single book can be done easily. Very easily. Put the rules on or in the box of minis, plus the GW website. Done and done. So easy even GW could do it.

 Peregrine wrote:
. So you either update the core rulebook at a ridiculous frequency or you go years between army updates where everyone accumulates a growing pile of separate rule sources to keep track of..

Or you just include the rules with the models, and have the rulebook list just as a reference.

Quite frankly, having armies go 'years' between updates aside from the occasional new unit is a good thing. They've had 7 editions now to get the rules right. They shouldn't need to keep changing gak every few years.

Sales should be driven by awesome new models, not by the fact that GW randomly decided to mix up the power scale on everything and add in a bunch of new special rules.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
All of the repackaged Tau models (not just the new ones) have rules in the box so we may be seeing the ground work for a future change.

Technically, they have the rules for the unit on the instructions, but they do not include any special rules for the unit's weapons or wargear. It's a step in the right direction, but it's still not what we need.

Well, I think the idea of ONE BRB is crazy, because it'd be like, 2000 pages. The actual BRB in mini format is cheap, easily transportable, and not really a big deal. I wish you could get printed paper edition mini codexes in 'gamer edition' that are paperback and without the fluff. These should be much cheaper, but it's not so much cost for me, as I would happily buy both, if it came in a bundle: it is weight, transportability, and undesirability of a mess of huge books while I'm gaming. And who cares about what happened to Maugan Ra when you're actually playing a game, anyhow. $25 would be a good price point, I think.

Digitally, I think the gamer editions are a great step in the right direction. I'd prefer it to be subscription based: Pay $100 a year, and get BRB + gamer editions of any 3 factions that you pick (you don't have to pick them all at once) digitally for that year. Or pay $175 a year, and get BRB + all gamer faction books, or $250 a year and get BRB + all gamer faction books + gamer versions of the campaign books. When you subscribe to the faction, you should get all the dataslates related to the faction. I'd be so in.

And the thing is, I'd still buy the standard hardcovers at the current prices to enjoy the fluff and artwork, and to be on the shelf for my collection of gaming rulebooks.

 insaniak wrote:

Quite frankly, having armies go 'years' between updates aside from the occasional new unit is a good thing. They've had 7 editions now to get the rules right. They shouldn't need to keep changing gak every few years.

Sales should be driven by awesome new models, not by the fact that GW randomly decided to mix up the power scale on everything and add in a bunch of new special rules.

Looking only at my own perspective, I have to disagree. I would have long since quit 40k if armies went years without significant updates, or the game meta just stayed the same. I would have lovingly quit with fond memories (as I did with D&D, Talisman the Gathering, and many other games that just got old), but I'd have moved on nonetheless. By changing the game around, it always feels fresh (at least relative to the amount I play it), and I stay engaged in it.

I get the desire of some people of "buy and build once, play forever", but that's definitely not the game for me. The game I want is "keep adding new and different stuff". Must be my short attention span

 Red Marine wrote:
Adding new miniatures to an army, with all armies already in a single book can be done easily. Very easily. Put the rules on or in the box of minis, plus the GW website. Done and done. So easy even GW could do it.

the problem with such updates is that those armies with better books will be maybe getting a good new unit or a bad one, but the army will still be good. Bad armies on the other hand could wait years for new udpates and if those units would not be optimal, they may as not exist at all. I mean to make IG viable in 7th or 7.5 they would have to suddenly make 5-6 IG units and all of them good, and all of them in different slots.

If GW really wants to make this game good, the rules would be freely on the website and frequently updated. This would let Black Library focus on publishing the background material in the form of books and whatnot, as well as publishing faction-related fluff in the "Xenology" style fluff books they use to do. One of the reasons MTG is so successful is because of it's comprehensive and adaptive rules.

As for actually publishing all of the rules in one book, if they ever did this, it'd be an novelty item at best. I'm having difficulty enough flipping through ebook files to find page references during a game, having to lug around a book that is literally hundreds of pages of rules and fluff and then have to look through it to build a list and play would be impossible.

 Talys wrote:

Looking only at my own perspective, I have to disagree. I would have long since quit 40k if armies went years without significant updates, or the game meta just stayed the same. I would have lovingly quit with fond memories (as I did with D&D, Talisman the Gathering, and many other games that just got old), but I'd have moved on nonetheless. By changing the game around, it always feels fresh (at least relative to the amount I play it), and I stay engaged in it.

The thing is, you don't need to re-write the entire army to do that. You can achieve the same thing by leaving the core army lists as-is and releasing campaign supplements and rules for alternate game modes.



As far as the size of an 'all-in-one' book goes... The army lists wouldn't actually have to take up anywhere near as much room as they do now. Equipment lists could be condensed as so many armies share the same gear, and there are a lot of units that could be similarly condensed... You don't actually need three separate army list entries for 'Land Raider with this gun', 'Land Raider with that gun' and 'Land Raider with the other gun.'

For a similar format to the 7th ed setup, they could stick with the 3-book layout by just dropping the model catalogue and replacing it with an army lists book.

To all of those saying one BRB to rule them all would be too big, I have to quote SilverMK2:

 SilverMK2 wrote:


Not really. Most armies have unit rules over about 10-15 pages, with a further 5 pages of army/weapon rules. Streamline all the pointless duplicate USR's and other rules and you can easily fit all the current armies in a single book.

Without the fluff, you can fit all the rules in about 15 pages per army. Same with the BRB, without the fluff and useless filler, you could trim it down to about 30 pages. It would be about the same size as it is now.

 insaniak wrote:

As far as the size of an 'all-in-one' book goes... The army lists wouldn't actually have to take up anywhere near as much room as they do now. Equipment lists could be condensed as so many armies share the same gear, and there are a lot of units that could be similarly condensed... You don't actually need three separate army list entries for 'Land Raider with this gun', 'Land Raider with that gun' and 'Land Raider with the other gun.'

For a similar format to the 7th ed setup, they could stick with the 3-book layout by just dropping the model catalogue and replacing it with an army lists book.

Yes, they could go to a much smaller number of books that packed in in formation like Imperial Amour does. BRB could be by itself, everything Imperium could be in a book, everything Eldar-ish could be in a book, and all the other factions could be in a book.

It doesn't jive with the current way that GW wants to push sale though -- trickle out one faction at a time, with their rules and models concurrently. I'd be happy with annual updates to a small number of books, but I think it's wishful thinking; hence, subscriptions, which I think *could* actually become a reality and could be made to work with GW's release cadence.

And, no question that there's not a need to have separate 4 pages of Land Raiders, though the DA, Ultramarines, and Blood Angels, and Grey Knights players will all insist that their picture is the one that should be in the One Book to Rule them All!

 Talys wrote:
Well, I think the idea of ONE BRB is crazy, because it'd be like, 2000 pages. The actual BRB in mini format is cheap, easily transportable, and not really a big deal. I wish you could get printed paper edition mini codexes in 'gamer edition' that are paperback and without the fluff. These should be much cheaper, but it's not so much cost for me, as I would happily buy both, if it came in a bundle: it is weight, transportability, and undesirability of a mess of huge books while I'm gaming. And who cares about what happened to Maugan Ra when you're actually playing a game, anyhow. $25 would be a good price point, I think.

Digitally, I think the gamer editions are a great step in the right direction. I'd prefer it to be subscription based: Pay $100 a year, and get BRB + gamer editions of any 3 factions that you pick (you don't have to pick them all at once) digitally for that year. Or pay $175 a year, and get BRB + all gamer faction books, or $250 a year and get BRB + all gamer faction books + gamer versions of the campaign books. When you subscribe to the faction, you should get all the dataslates related to the faction. I'd be so in.

And the thing is, I'd still buy the standard hardcovers at the current prices to enjoy the fluff and artwork, and to be on the shelf for my collection of gaming rulebooks.

 insaniak wrote:

Quite frankly, having armies go 'years' between updates aside from the occasional new unit is a good thing. They've had 7 editions now to get the rules right. They shouldn't need to keep changing gak every few years.

Sales should be driven by awesome new models, not by the fact that GW randomly decided to mix up the power scale on everything and add in a bunch of new special rules.

Looking only at my own perspective, I have to disagree. I would have long since quit 40k if armies went years without significant updates, or the game meta just stayed the same. I would have lovingly quit with fond memories (as I did with D&D, Talisman the Gathering, and many other games that just got old), but I'd have moved on nonetheless. By changing the game around, it always feels fresh (at least relative to the amount I play it), and I stay engaged in it.

I get the desire of some people of "buy and build once, play forever", but that's definitely not the game for me. The game I want is "keep adding new and different stuff". Must be my short attention span

2000pages? more like 4-5 pages

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/597998.page

Each codex can condense into 3 pages or maybe a few more.

subscription of $100+ ? there are so much more useful subscription like netflix, anti virus, amazon prime etc... i dont think wh40k deserves a single penny to publish rules and collect subscription because they are 1st and foremost a company that sells collectible miniatures not a GAMING COMPANY DESPITE HAVING THE MISLEADING NAME GAMES WORKSHOP.

 Talys wrote:
players will all insist that their picture is the one that should be in the One Book to Rule them All!

Is it catching? Did I start something? Is this what I will tell my grandkids 60 years from now?

 insaniak wrote:
Or you just include the rules with the models, and have the rulebook list just as a reference.

That would be the "growing pile of separate rule sources" I referred to. It's possible to do it that way, but it's a lot more convenient to have everything in one place.

Quite frankly, having armies go 'years' between updates aside from the occasional new unit is a good thing. They've had 7 editions now to get the rules right. They shouldn't need to keep changing gak every few years.

Sales should be driven by awesome new models, not by the fact that GW randomly decided to mix up the power scale on everything and add in a bunch of new special rules.

Well yes, GW's method of "updating" the game is completely broken. But even in a well-run game there are going to be updates. Balance problems slip through testing, new models turn out to create undesired interactions with older rules, new campaign/variant material needs to be incorporated into the main rules, etc. Having each army's rules separate from the core rules allows you to publish these updates without having to publish a new edition of the entire rulebook.

 Peregrine wrote:

That would be the "growing pile of separate rule sources" I referred to. It's possible to do it that way, but it's a lot more convenient to have everything in one place.
.

All of the rules for my Star Wars Miniatures are in one place. Being on separate cards doesn't force you to scatter then randomly around your house.

 Filch wrote:
subscription of $100+ ? there are so much more useful subscription like netflix, anti virus, amazon prime etc... i dont think wh40k deserves a single penny to publish rules and collect subscription because they are 1st and foremost a company that sells collectible miniatures not a GAMING COMPANY DESPITE HAVING THE MISLEADING NAME GAMES WORKSHOP.

If GW rules (or models!) could have as many interested human beings as Netflix, Antivirus or Amazon Prime, they'd be really cheap. But that won't ever happen. The human population would have to number in the tens of trillions for there to be as many people interested in wargaming as are interested in Amazon and Netflix (or antivirus!) as there are now. It's a tiny, tiny niche, so the products are more expensive. I mean, guess what, car magazines, gun magazines, and magazines about country living can cost as much as a month of subscription to Netflix, too

I do believe that GW is foremost a miniatures company; but one with a game that a lot of people happen to like. And if you like the game, you pay for the rules. So, we're just talking about ways to pay for those rules that might make more sense than the current distribution format -- a discussion that is hardly new, but that I think certainly has some merit. Obviously, GW does too, as they put out the gamer edition books. Now, if you don't like the game, and think GW should just disappear into the Eye of Terror, you can't really contribute to the question of, "are codices really the way for GW to continue?"

I don't see why GW can't make a success out of both lines of the business.

Frankly, in terms of their heritage and largest volume of cash spending, they are a retailer and distributor, not a model manufacturer or a rules publisher.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
All of the repackaged Tau models (not just the new ones) have rules in the box so we may be seeing the ground work for a future change.

End Times 40k. Dun dunn dunnn.

I prefer the 4th edition Warhammer army book style. Rather thick, but FULL of fluff. Similar to what we have now, but loads more fluff and nice art. I do like the expansions as well. However, I don't mind paying; I usually check things out before buying something. If I thought spending 30£ on a codex, that's been out for over three years and likely at least one more (10£ a year so far), is too much, I'd go play something else.

I wouldn't mind a massive codex where all Imperial/Chaos/Eldar etc. forces were compiled. The books are currently too much filler and not enough cool fluff and crunch.

 Filch wrote:
People seriously need to stop giving GW money for rules to the game if they dont like it. If you dont like it then dont play it. If you dont play it then dont buy it. Vote with your wallet and show them it is not profitable to waste resources on printing books. GW already stated they are in the business to sell models not make a game. So hold them to their word and starve them of published print revenue.

If they didn't think the rules were fairly priced, they wouldn't buy it

What people say and what people do is veeeeeeeeeeeery different. Reminds me of when a company in Norway wanted to launch a new washing up liquid that was much better for the environment, but didn't create any bubbles in the sink. Everyone said it was a great idea and that they'd buy it, but the product absolutely bombed. Everyone preferred bubbles and thought everyone else would buy it, and one individual contribution to the environment wouldn't really matter.

I like codices more.

I am all for Age of Sigmaring the rules to make the free and online or in the model box.

The eBook gamers editions should also be sold in print, and the mini-rulebook should be sold outside of DV for £10 or so.

The last codex I bought was Codex Skitarii and while the source book fluff was good, the snippets of narrative were absolutely terrible. Cringe worthy. If they are to make the fluff some extra that you can purchase it is fundamental to me that they keep it in source-book style suppliments and not BL fiction.

I will buy some AoS battletomes when the armies I play get released. I will never buy a BL book on AoS.

As someone who has returned to the hobby for a little over a year now, the biggest hurdle for me to play 40k is the price of the rules - and it is the reason I am playing AoS instead.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't see why GW can't make a success out of both lines of the business.

Frankly, in terms of their heritage and largest volume of cash spending, they are a retailer and distributor, not a model manufacturer or a rules publisher.

In their current business model, if they didn't make models and write rules, they'd have nothing to retail and distribute

Joking aside, I agree though: they should be able to be profitable and make people happy in all aspects of their business, from models to rules to selling stuff.

I would like if they made a "gamer edition" codex for each army, wouldnt need a lot of pages. and could charge significantly less for a book of your army with just rules. They also could make a lore and picture book of the army in a separate paper book. Then make a version that has both like the current codex(s). The paperback lighter versions could be a direct sales item, to save stores the hassle of taking up more floor space with the edition of 3 army books per faction. Campaign books softback and released every 6 month, and have more than 2 armies that are part of it. Just my thoughts.