Are the 40k rules still too Clunky?

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**darkcloak**

Pay a monthly fee to play GW?

Are you fething mad, man?

**LunarSol**

The rules are almost comically simple. They're just not organized in a remotely consumable way let alone one that facilitates gameplay.

**Cheeslord**

darkcloak wrote:
Pay a monthly fee to play GW?

Are you fething mad, man?

Seriously, I think it will come.

I also play D&D, and two of our group pay WOTC a yearly fee (something like £50) to use the 4th edition online tools for character creation. And it is no longer updated as they have moved on to 5th edition, but it's better than buying and carrying all the rulebooks.

Anyway, back on topic: I don't mind strategems, warlord traits and artefacts as they add to the depth of the game at a reasonable price of more rules to think about.

Things that still don't seem to work well for me:

Terrain: Never seem to be able to find the right rules, and the ones there are are silly and anti-intuitive.

Wargear and points values - they seem to write the codices to make army building (matched play) as hard as possible. Why do they hate us so? I hate looking up a unit entry to find the number of dudes in the unit and wargear options, then to the start of the unit entries to find what "chaos marine champion melee weapon" options actually are, then to the back to get the costs of everything (not forgetting to cross reference Chapter Approved in case any of these numbers got changed).

Mostly it's good though for actual battlefield playability.

**LunarSol**

Cheeslord wrote:

Terrain: Never seem to be able to find the right rules, and the ones there are are silly and anti-intuitive.

One thing I've learned hopping around game systems is that there's really no such thing as "generic" terrain. Whatever you play, terrain generally needs to be designed to support the terrain rules of the game first, because no one writes rules that fit any terrain after the fact.

The current 40k rules seem pretty limited area terrain. Basically, everything being a ruined building that units run inside for cover. There's not even really rules for hiding behind something from what I can tell. Definitely the weakest part of the system, but not unmanageable if terrain is designed to support it.

**daedalus**

LunarSol wrote:
The rules are almost comically simple. They're just not organized in a remotely consumable way let alone one that facilitates gameplay.

This. Fortykay attempts to be every game to every player, and it attempts to achieve this by creating rules that are discreet components that you can bolt on as many or as few as you'd like. The downside to that is that it turns into a convoluted mess really quickly.

If you handpicked the rules you used and then retyped them into a single document, you could probably make a decent rulebook that's only about 10-15 pages long, tops.

**Desubot**

daedalus wrote:
LunarSol wrote:
The rules are almost comically simple. They're just not organized in a remotely consumable way let alone one that facilitates gameplay.

This. Fortykay attempts to be every game to every player, and it attempts to achieve this by creating rules that are discreet components that you can bolt on as many or as few as you'd like. The downside to that is that it turns into a convoluted mess really quickly.

If you handpicked the rules you used and then retyped them into a single document, you could probably make a decent rulebook that's only about 10-15 pages long, tops.

Like what?

**daedalus**

Well, most of the rules are consolidated into one place in the big rulebook, but the order of them is horrible, since they're arranged into modular sections. I haven't exactly thought a ton about it, but something like this, I guess:

- Intro section
- Pick one: Open/Narrative/Matched (lets go Matched for the example)
- Matched Play intro as part of the game intro.
- Datasheets intro / Core Rules section / Terrain section / Stratagems section
- Choose Armies / Battle-forged
- Choose Mission / Deployment Maps / Missions (including expansion missions here)
- Campaign Rules

Of course, then your rulebook looks different for each group, because someone might not want Terrain rules, or something might want to add Battlezones, or something. Or (perish the thought) Open play. To me that's never been a huge issue though since I've never seen any two groups of people who play 40k exactly the same way, even at places like Adepticon.

The point is then it at least follows with a logical progression toward figuring out Matched Play instead of what should be "basic" rules like terrain being tucked away amidst "Advanced Rules", the detachment guidelines being tucked away pages away from where you're actually talking about detachments, and hidden little things like that.

**LunarSol**

Desubot wrote:
daedalus wrote:
LunarSol wrote:
The rules are almost comically simple. They're just not organized in a remotely consumable way let alone one that facilitates gameplay.

This. Fortykay attempts to be every game to every player, and it attempts to achieve this by creating rules that are discreet components that you can bolt on as many or as few as you'd like. The downside to that is that it turns into a convoluted mess really quickly.

If you handpicked the rules you used and then retyped them into a single document, you could probably make a decent rulebook that's only about 10-15 pages long, tops.

Like what?

This is essentially what cards do for most games and what apps are increasingly doing for the rest. Right now you've got the data sheet and the weapons chart for every possible unit you could field in your faction in a book (or often, multiple books and FAQs). An app or digital list builder could pair that down to only the models in your actual list and match them up with the weapons they're actually carrying. Battlescribe kind of does this, but its not a very clean interface and its somewhat dubiously reliable. Something with GW's support would do a much better job.

The closest example to me is Infinity. That is a game with the least comprehensive rulebook out there, with model rules scattered across several large sections that makes it impossible to get a clear picture of what the model I'm holding in my hand actually "does". Scrap that and use their army builder though and the game's complexities are quickly focused down to what you need to know and models quickly become relatively simple. MayaNet takes it a step further and organizes rules down to an extremely intuitive layout. That app alone bumped the game from something I felt was clunky to one of my favorite games simply by organizing the rules in a way that keeps them from getting in the way of the game itself.

**Desubot**

daedalus wrote:
Well, most of the rules are consolidated into one place in the big rulebook, but the order of them is horrible, since they're arranged into modular sections. I haven't exactly thought a ton about it, but something like this, I guess:

- Intro section
- Pick one: Open/Narrative/Matched (lets go Matched for the example)
- Matched Play intro as part of the game intro.
- Datasheets intro / Core Rules section / Terrain section / Stratagems section
- Choose Armies / Battle-forged
- Choose Mission / Deployment Maps / Missions (including expansion missions here)
- Campaign Rules

Of course, then your rulebook looks different for each group, because someone might not want Terrain rules, or something might want to add Battlezones, or something. Or (perish the thought) Open play. To me that's never been a huge issue though since I've never seen any two groups of people who play 40k exactly the same way, even at places like Adepticon.

The point is then it at least follows with a logical progression toward figuring out Matched Play instead of what should be "basic" rules like terrain being tucked away amidst "Advanced Rules", the detachment guidelines being tucked away pages away from where you're actually talking about detachments, and hidden little things like that.

Yeah i can agree to this a bit. it seems to be a pretty common theme for rules writers from England to make their rules books as convoluted as possible. not that the base game it self is bad its just hard to read at times

(mostly based on the shenanigans that was dwars)

then again after the first few romps 8th wasnt all that hard to figure out.

EditL I seriously hope GW puts out an Azyr for 8th. Azyr makes life pretty fething easy for aos games and at 1$ a month i cannot even complain.

**Sim-Life**

Well I play random pick up games so obviously I need to bring the BRB, CA, every codex and every FW book so I can know the rules of every possible match up I could encounter.

Not to mention that GW don't print the FAQs in a book so every few weeks I need to get them professionally printed and bound into a book with gold edged parchment and a hardcover made of spanish leather with "FAQs" embossed onto it in gold leaf and decorated with rubies and diamonds.

AND THEY KEEP RELEASING FAQS EVERY FEW WEEKS. How can GW think this is okay!?

**daedalus**

Sim-Life wrote:
Well I play random pick up games so obviously I nee dti bring the BRB, CA, every codex and every FW book.

Not to mention that GW don't print the FAQs in a book so every few weeks I need to get them professionally printed and bound into a book with gold edged parchment and a hardcover made of spanish leather with "FAQs" embossed onto it in gold leaf and decorated with rubies and diamonds.

AND THEY KEEP RELEASING FAQS EVERY FEW WEEKS. How can GW think this is okay!?

Guys guys guys! I found the one guy who buys the Collector's Edition books!

**Sim-Life**

daedalus wrote:
Sim-Life wrote:
Well I play random pick up games so obviously I nee dti bring the BRB, CA, every codex and every FW book.

Not to mention that GW don't print the FAQs in a book so every few weeks I need to get them professionally printed and bound into a book with gold edged parchment and a hardcover made of spanish leather with "FAQs" embossed onto it in gold leaf and decorated with rubies and diamonds.

AND THEY KEEP RELEASING FAQS EVERY FEW WEEKS. How can GW think this is okay!?

Guys guys guys! I found the one guy who buys the Collector's Edition books!

I did say EVERY codex. So that includes a collectors edition, standard and digital in case there's a minor misprint in one of the versions I can use to take advantage of the rules.

**BlackLobster**

I do find that the game flows quicker up to about 1500 points. Any more than that and games slow down to the old pace. But I don't object to that. I don't want a game that is over too soon.

I do find that there are too many stratagems even within a single codex. Even with the decks/cards I rarely remember more than a couple during the course of play. There are three in the rulebook. All each codex needed was 6 more for that army. Easier to keep track of.

As for the special rules, I don't see this as a problem. You only need to remember the ones in your codex or more importantly, the ones you have the table in front of you. If you want to know what your opponent's units have, just ask them.

As for the number of books, I tend to have 3 with me. Rulebook, codex and chapter approved. If I need the rules for my renegade knight or chaos daemons, I'll bring that book then too. Not really an issue. 7th was much worse, especially if you were using units from one of several FW books.

**stonehorse**

What I mean by clunky isn't that the rules are too complex, but rather are inelegant, for example Space Marines Intercessors have Leadership 7, with the Sergeant increasing this to 8 for the unit. They also have 'And They Shall Know No Fear'. This results in 3 different pieces of information to remember for something as simple as how a unit responds to morale. It would be more refined to have Loyal Space Marines at Leadership 10, and would cut down on the number of dice being re-rolled.

I could be wrong, but I do suspect that Space Marines in 8th edition have far more re-roll abilities than they ever did in 7th.

**daedalus**

Sim-Life wrote:
daedalus wrote:
Sim-Life wrote:
Well I play random pick up games so obviously I nee dti bring the BRB, CA, every codex and every FW book.

Not to mention that GW don't print the FAQs in a book so every few weeks I need to get them professionally printed and bound into a book with gold edged parchment and a hardcover made of spanish leather with "FAQs" embossed onto it in gold leaf and decorated with rubies and diamonds.

AND THEY KEEP RELEASING FAQS EVERY FEW WEEKS. How can GW think this is okay!?

Guys guys guys! I found the one guy who buys the Collector's Edition books!

I did say EVERY codex. So that includes a collectors edition, standard and digital in case there's a minor misprint in one of the versions I can use to take advantage of the rules.

Hey I just said that you buy the collector's edition. Never said you didn't buy the others. I guess you'd have to buy them in each printed language too, just to be on the safest side.

So what do those look like in person? I can only imagine you've never opened them because you immediately put them in dust sleeves to keep up that notoriously high super high resale value.

(Mostly off topic: Years ago (but after D&D 4th ed dropped) I actually bought the 3.5 Collectors Edition leather bound core books new on amazon years ago... because they were CHEAPER than the regular ones!

)

**Arachnofiend**

The big difference is that exactly what you need to know about a rule is described where that rule is listed. No more of the "X rule gives Y unit Z special ability, which ignores A rule" and having to have all of that memorized if you want to avoid flipping pages between at a minimum two different books. With stratagems the most "complicated" stuff you get is "X stratagem only works with Y keyword".

**Stormonu**

GW pulled a sleight of hand, moving the more complex rules interplay from the base book to the datasheets.

I really think they did too much of a hack job trimming down the base rules themselves as well so that there is a lot more room for misunderstanding rules interactions.

To me, it really feels like GW did all it could to move the rules out of the way so it wouldn't get in the way of their making "great models". The rules are just there to give you something to do with the models and encourage you to buy X copies of them. Not to game for game's sake.

**wuestenfux**

Fortykay is now more a board game.
No more maneuvering of tanks for shooting purposes.
Just deploy your units and move them up the board if necessary.
Too simplistic for my liking.

**vipoid**

I think it's faster/simpler than 7th overall.

However, 40k still has a big problem with rules that add complexity but no actual depth.

There's a load of stuff like rerolls, extra attacks/shots, extra saves, stuff that happens on a roll of 6+ etc., but they're not conditional. Or, I should say, they're not conditional on any actual tactics. Yes, inflicting a Mortal Wound on a to-wound roll of 6+ is technically conditional, but it's basically just conditional on random chance.

Put simply, very few of the rules have any meaningful impact on how a unit plays or open up new tactical possibilities/rewards.

**Gitdakka**

stonehorse wrote:
Back when we heard that GW were trimming 40k down from the colossal rules bloat it had become during 7th edition, there was almost universally rejoicing from the community.

8 months into 8th edition, and I think GW are encroaching upon their old addiction to adding in rules. Stratagems, Warlord Traits, Artifacts, faction and sub faction rules. These have all added a lot of extra moving parts that it becomes hard to keep track of what is what. Never mind any additional rules brought to the table from the mission being played.

We were promised that 8th edition would be quicker, and honestly I am not seeing it. There may be no more Universal Special Rules, but special rules still exist, and are scattered in so many different areas, that trying to find them, or keep track becomes clunky and slows the game down. With so many rules scattered around it is only natural that rules will be missed during a game, which can lead to players feeling cheated or/and annoyed.

What puzzles me is why there is a need for special rules? Surely a system should exist that allows a stat line to help demonstrate how good, average, or poor a model is?

Ultimately, there is far too much having to flick through books to find scattered information for casual play, for those who play just 40k I can imagine it is fine, for those who play a wide variety of game systems it has become a nightmare.

I really like the setting, and the models are wonderfully imaginative, however I am still finding their rules to be needlessly convoluted and I've been playing since 2nd edition.
Am I alone in this line of thought, or are there others who are coming to the same conclusion?

I agree. All the special rules providing rerolls and more layers of saves could have been represented in the stats. Examples:
Disgusting resiliance-> higher toughness or better armour saves
They shall know no fear-> higher ld stat
Reroll charge-> higher movement stat
in fact all rerolls could be replaced by to modifiers or better be removed (command points come to mind).

One offender of the bloat is in my oppinion all the different regiments doctrines/chapter tactics. GW or the community should just remove/ignore these rules. They don't add any flavour and rarely makes sense. Flavour comes from unique models, paintjobs, army composition. Not reroll 1's or whatever special rules.

**vipoid**

Gitdakka wrote:

I agree. All the special rules providing rerolls and more layers of saves could have been represented in the stats. Examples:
Disgusting resiliance-> higher toughness or better armour saves
They shall know no fear-> higher ld stat
Reroll charge-> higher movement stat

I think this is where the single d6 system really causes issues. You just don't have enough scope for what the designers are trying to do.

It kinda worked okay in 5th, but trying to represent individual guardsmen and stuff from apocalypse in the same system just doesn't work.

I think Warmachine is a good example of this done well. Using 2d6 gives them a much wider range of values - so the vast majority of defensive stats can be represented by increases to Def or Arm. What's more, these can then be used for buffs and debuffs, whereas in 40k you've got stuff like Invulnerable saves, FNP and Mortal wounds, which act completely independently of other defensive/offensive mechanics.

Gitdakka wrote:
One offender of the bloat is in my oppinion all the different regiments doctrines/chapter tactics. GW or the community should just remove/ignore these rules. They don't add any flavour and rarely makes sense. Flavour comes from unique models, paintjobs, army composition. Not reroll 1's or whatever special rules.

I disagree. Unique models are nice to look at, but when they play exactly the same as any other model you'll just be left wondering why you bothered spending all that effort on them.

Indeed, I think stuff like chapter tactics is a great way to let subfactions play slightly differently from one another and to encourage tactics that resemble those of the subfaction in question.

The problem is that actual bonuses often don't work out that way. Instead, you end up with odd things like melee subfactions trying to stay away from the enemy to make use of their '-1 to hit when more than 12+" away' feature. You also have the same problem I mentioned in my previous post, with most abilities not being conditional on any tactical play. That's what really needs to change, but it's by no means limited to subfaction rules.

**Cheeslord**

I forgot about the occasional awkward cases regarding hit / wound allocation. It fortunately doesn't come up too often, but sometimes if a unit has variable defenses you end up being forced to resolve attacks one at a time as each attack can change the defenses the next attack encounters.

2 examples off the top of my head: assault terminators (very rare as nobody takes them) with a mix of THSS and claws, and Plaguebearers (more common) when there are about 23 or so and you hit them with massed small arms fire. Potentially a few shots can make them much easier to hit, and since the rules state that they are based on resolving one attack at a time and rolling for all the shots at once is just "quick play", its clear you must keep resolving the attacks individually.

I'm sure there are other cases I just can't think of right now.
<edit> oh yes, if just a few of your unit are outside the area terrain so potentially then may become inside it after a few casualties, one save at a time, please...)

**LunarSol**

I do like how it makes the guys out of cover the first to die though. That plays out quite cleverly, IMO.

**Wayniac**

I think 8th started off lofty but they quickly detracted for some reason. I find AOS to be way less bloated (but still getting bloated) than 40k, and find 40k to quickly bloating with every new release. They did not need to give stratagems to everybody, it should have been a common set with maybe a small handful of specialized ones at max. They did not need to add different rules that are almost exactly the same; this is something Warmahordes learned in the Mk1 to Mk2 transition; you don't need to have 5 different variations of "This unit can fly" each with a different name and 1 of them is worded a little different, it should just be "Fly". Instead GW is continuing the trend of repeating rules across models, sometimes changing the wording from what should be a direct copy/paste/replace. There does not need to be a dozen variations of "<Keyword> within 6" can re-roll 1s to hit".

**sfshilo**

Backspacehacker wrote:
Its not that they are clunky, is that GW keeps forgetting what they made as rules, and then makes new rules for new stuff that screws everything over.

Case and point, Daemon codex letting Daemons deep strike, then forgetting the Magnus and Mort, both have the daemon key word. Or things like giving tzaangors heretic astartes, and forgetting there is a power that lets you zip them across the board turn one.

IMO 8th is more a rule bloat then 7th ever was, back in 7th i needed 1 book, 2 books max. My codex, and My Brb. Now i need the BrB, my codex for half my army, the other codex for the other half, the Chapter approved, and like 3 or 4 FAQs in order to keep up on the rules. 8th is fun, but its a mess, and its full of ambiguity.

Baloney.

7th was a dumpster fire of epic proportions. With digital media you should not need all those documents, and no one should complain if you don't have them if you have them in digital form.

The biggest issue in 8th seems to be the free for all approach to games. (2000 points is too much now that we have cost reductions across the board.) More people need to embrace staggered deployment methods as well since playing eternal war every mission gets tedious.

**LunarSol**

Wayniac wrote:
I think 8th started off lofty but they quickly detracted for some reason.

I think people just had far greater expectations for it than reality could muster. People treat 7th like a D where it was probably a low C and felt like 8th would be GW's A+ when in reality its more like a B-.

**ClockworkZion**

Quite honestly I like 8th. I think part of where people are finding it difficult to parse is that basically everything dies. Even regular games end looking like the aftermath of an Apoc game. And that's hard to get used to, especially if you play an army like Marines who are fluffed as being hard to kill.

That said, I like 8th. It's not perfect but it's still really good and if the team behind it does a good job with the FAQs and future expansions/beta rules it can get even better.

**fraser1191**

you dont even need to lug around the BrB if you got that little pamphlet

**Gitdakka**

vipoid wrote:

Gitdakka wrote:
One offender of the bloat is in my oppinion all the different regiments doctrines/chapter tactics. GW or the community should just remove/ignore these rules. They don't add any flavour and rarely makes sense. Flavour comes from unique models, paintjobs, army composition. Not reroll 1's or whatever special rules.

I disagree. Unique models are nice to look at, but when they play exactly the same as any other model you'll just be left wondering why you bothered spending all that effort on them.

Indeed, I think stuff like chapter tactics is a great way to let subfactions play slightly differently from one another and to encourage tactics that resemble those of the subfaction in question.

The problem is that actual bonuses often don't work out that way. Instead, you end up with odd things like melee subfactions trying to stay away from the enemy to make use of their '-1 to hit when more than 12+" away' feature. You also have the same problem I mentioned in my previous post, with most abilities not being conditional on any tactical play. That's what really needs to change, but it's by no means limited to subfaction rules.

To me nice thematic models are a reward in it self. I don't need them to get "free reroll ones" or other bonuses because of their paintjob to make me feel satisfied.

Very few of the faction bonuses feel fair or logical. Some examples I don't feel make sense:
-Catachans have the best tank gun loaders
-Cadians being most accurate guardsmen while static
-Ultramarines can disengage to shoot
How do you motivate any of those?
Catachans fight in jungles, they should not have tanks even
Cadians should be all about heroic infantry pushes, not static gunlines
Ultramarines are a hit and run chapter?

Then those free bonuses that break the game:
-factionwide ignore cover rules
-Factionwide - 1 to hit

Tell me one subfaction rule that is cool or necessary, I can't think of one. I'm good with marines being marines and guardsmen being guardsmen. Easier to game balance and less rules to remember for you and the opponent.

**vipoid**

Gitdakka wrote:
To me nice thematic models are a reward in it self. I don't need them to get "free reroll ones" or other bonuses because of their paintjob to make me feel satisfied.

Maybe I'm biased because I play DE. "Yeah, this HQ's wings look great. Pity we don't have a single HQ with any movement abilities."

If the paintjob is enough for you, great. I take little pleasure in converting/painting stuff that does bugger-all on the field.

Gitdakka wrote:

Very few of the faction bonuses feel fair or logical. Some examples I don't feel make sense:
-Catachans have the best tank gun loaders
-Cadians being most accurate guardsmen while static
-Ultramarines can disengage to shoot
How do you motivate any of those?

Didn't I already say this? I agree that many of the faction abilities are poorly designed, but I don't think that's an argument for just scrapping them. I mean, 40k isn't a great ruleset - it doesn't mean we should scrap it.

All we need is faction powers that have been better designed.

Gitdakka wrote:
Catachans fight in jungles, they should not have tanks even

I expect the idea is that you use it for Hellhounds (which they do use).

The issue is that they didn't make it unique to Hellhounds, so everyone just uses it for Battlecannons and such.

Gitdakka wrote:

Cadians should be all about heroic infantry pushes, not static gunlines

I thought Cadians were about static gunlines? I'll admit to not being an expert in their fluff though.

Gitdakka wrote:
Tell me one faction rule that is cool or necessary, I can't think of one.

'Cool' and 'necessary' are both entirely subjective in this context, making this a pointless question.