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So what should the size be then? 13? 15? 17 1/2?

They have to pick a size to set the rules at and most units cap at 10, or like 30. It seems like a reasonable break point for me.

No one is going to take 11 man units so I don’t know why you are focusing on that as if it matters?

Larger units can spread out more with aura abilities, smaller units have a harder time. We don’t know how a bunch of other rules interact in the game goin forward, there might be additional benefits to taking larger units such as more kill point focused missions. We already know larger units benefit more from stratagems, and we will get to use a good number more of them going forward.

dhallnet wrote:
I dunno why it needs so many pages of arguing. We had weapons designed to take out high numbers of models that weren't really working because they were too random, now they might do while not auto deleting smaller units.

This being immersive or improving gameplay has barely any relevance, it's just about improving the function of some weapons.

Because if we don't have a daily freak out over previews an angel won't get their wings.

More seriously the community is largely reacting as GW likely intends and is stirring the pot and stoking the boiler for the hype train with what is ultimately a very small amount of incomplete rules from which we're trying to paint whole pictures from.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I mentioned the Basalisk because it's one of the tanks I have seen shunned by a number of people talking about the Guard codex. Pick a different tank and the point still stands: most tanks that used to have blast weapons are largely sidelined in 8th over tanks with fixed numbers of shots.

But it doesn't help basilisks. Nobody's going to fire a basilisk at an 11 man boyz just to get an average 2.5 more shots from the S9 -3AP D3 damage cannon. That'd be mental. You don't take basilisks to kill 11+ man units, and you won't after the blast change either.

 Red Corsair wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
I am going to wait with a verdict on whether it is bad or not when I can actually get a game in using the entire ruleset and new points.

I think it is no coincidence we'll be getting some terrain previews tomorrow. Could very well be that terrain and cover has changed so drastically that tank and blast weapons are just balancing that mechanic out.

Either way, I am excited for all of this.

It's beyond reason to me that GW didn't lead with new terrain rules when it was easily the single greatest short coming of 8th and arguably has the most responsibility of holding 9th on it's shoulders.

Whoever is responsible for generating PR in GW, if there is one, should seriously be evaluated.

Nah. Keeping us worked up generates more publicity.

Thunderfire and Scorpius are going to be terrifying.

yukishiro1 wrote:
But it doesn't help basilisks. Nobody's going to fire a basilisk at an 11 man boyz just to get an average 2.5 more shots from the S9 -3AP D3 damage cannon. That'd be mental.

I was using it as a way to discuss the weapon type and not actual tactics.

If I said Whirlwinds instead would you be happy?

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
I am going to wait with a verdict on whether it is bad or not when I can actually get a game in using the entire ruleset and new points.

I think it is no coincidence we'll be getting some terrain previews tomorrow. Could very well be that terrain and cover has changed so drastically that tank and blast weapons are just balancing that mechanic out.

Either way, I am excited for all of this.

How would blast weapons balance out terrain, when they key off how many models are in the unit, not how many models are in a given area?

Blast weapon fires at 11 ork dudes spread across 25 inches of board space - max shots!

Blast weapon fires at 60 models packed into a 6 inch radius castle in deep cover - no shot bonus at all, because they're all 5-man squads or lower.

How does this balance anything?

The only thing I can think of is that if the terrain rules, for example, say that the whole unit gets the full benefit of terrain (including LOS blocking) even if only one model is in it. This would mean there's a huge advantage to a big unit of 30, because you could "be in cover" based on one model 30 inches away from where your front models are. Blast would then serve to partially punish the advantages of having big squad sizes.

Needless to say, this would be a very stupid way to do cover, though. So it would be a case of one stupid rule compensating for another stupid rule.




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 Eldarsif wrote:

This one has no obvious way it will improve the game

Well, the obvious improvement is that it supposedly reduces tilting, ie. rolling 1 attack all rounds and therefore getting minimal use out of your battletank sucks and you end up paying more points than your tank was worth. Now, whether that this is a good implementation or not remains to be seen on the battlefield.

But it will only improve tilting against units of 11 or more, or, to a very small extent, against units of 6 or more. How does that improve the game to smooth dice rolling only when targeting large units? Why is tilting problematic shooting at units of 11 but not when shooting at individual vehicles?

Which is another terrible immersion breaking rule, which is why I say in response to wait and see: One terrible rule shouldn't be rescued by a second terrible rule. It leads to "The Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly" scenario.

Fine, so instead make rules stepwise increasing buff at 6+, 8+, 11+, 15+? And we all go around making regrssion analysis on hand held calculators or memorize pages of hit tables?

having a cut off *somewhere* isn't bad in itself. its just a lesser evil.

 puma713 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

This one has no obvious way it will improve the game

Well, the obvious improvement is that it supposedly reduces tilting, ie. rolling 1 attack all rounds and therefore getting minimal use out of your battletank sucks and you end up paying more points than your tank was worth. Now, whether that this is a good implementation or not remains to be seen on the battlefield.

But that can still happen against stuff like Knights.
'
If they really wanted to avoid whiffing for stuff like that, they'd've just made weapons do a flat amount of shots. Or at least something with a bell curve-2d3, for instance.

But blast weapons weren't made to take down knights. Blast weapons were made to take down hordes of infantry. It's a different mindset, similar to 5th Edition. If you want to take down knights, you use more reliable weaponry. I think it is pretty representative of what the weapons are meant to do.

But part of the pickle GW is in is their own fault considering they bragged about blasts finally getting more hits verse those exact things when 8th was released. So which way is cool according to them. I am not saying they can never change their opinion, but the wind surfing between editions is certainly a condition they suffer from historically. Just look at the heavy weapons and infantry from the other day. Suddenly, dead eyed cool as a cucumber Bob has a hit penalty because Timmy in the bunker corner suffers from wrestles leg syndrome.

 Leth wrote:
So what should the size be then? 13? 15? 17 1/2?

They have to pick a size to set the rules at and most units cap at 10, or like 30. It seems like a reasonable break point for me.

No one is going to take 11 man units so I don’t know why you are focusing on that as if it matters?

Larger units can spread out more with aura abilities, smaller units have a harder time. We don’t know how a bunch of other rules interact in the game goin forward, there might be additional benefits to taking larger units such as more kill point focused missions. We already know larger units benefit more from stratagems, and we will get to use a good number more of them going forward.

The point with the 11 man is that it punishes certain choices arbitrarily. But that's not the main point; that would be fine if there was any actual gain from the rule. The main point is why we think it will help the game to have a weapon type that is good at killing big squads. What's the value added from that?

We all know what the value added from old blast templates were. They punished clumping. That was obvious. It made a lot of sense. They took it away not because punishing clumping wasn't a good game mechanic, but because it was too clunky to administer.

It is not at all obvious what gameplay objective is furthered by punishing large units. As you yourself noted, this in effect punishes spreading out, and rewards clumping: the exact opposite of what the original blast rule set out to do. That doesn't mean it's bad, but it does make it very odd that they seem to be using a rule that used to punish clumping - and the fluff of which is very much about punishing clumping - to now reward it.



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 ClockworkZion wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
But it doesn't help basilisks. Nobody's going to fire a basilisk at an 11 man boyz just to get an average 2.5 more shots from the S9 -3AP D3 damage cannon. That'd be mental.

I was using it as a way to discuss the weapon type and not actual tactics.

If I said Whirlwinds instead would you be happy?

Whirlwinds didn't need help, though. The only reason people didn't take them is because thunderfires are even better at doing the same thing, which won't change, unless you think whirlwinds will get the rule but thunderfires will not.

So we have a mechanic that doesn't help units that need it, and does help units that don't need it, while punishing units that don't need to be punished, while doing the opposite of what the fluff reason for it to exist is, for a gain nobody has actually been able to articulate.

This is what we normally call a bad rule.


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torblind wrote:
Fine, so instead make rules stepwise increasing buff at 6+, 8+, 11+, 15+? And we all go around making regrssion analysis on hand held calculators or memorize pages of hit tables?

having a cut off *somewhere* isn't bad in itself. its just a lesser evil.

Well no, I'd argue that this hows why keying the amount of shots you get against the amount of models in the unit is just not a good mechanic in the first place. Why is this a good mechanic? I still haven't seen anyone actually explain why it's good specifically to increase the amount of shots a gun gets based on the number of models in the unit being shot.

Arbitrary results are fine if you get something greater from the rule than you lose due to the arbitrary nature. The problem here isn't that 11+ is an arbitrary cutoff, it's that there's no real gain from the rule in the first place to overcome the loss caused by the arbitrary cutoff.

 Leth wrote:
So what should the size be then? 13? 15? 17 1/2?

They have to pick a size to set the rules at and most units cap at 10, or like 30. It seems like a reasonable break point for me.

Going to be honest, no. The "rolls of 3" bit should have started at 11 or more, and then the "full" bonus at 20 or more.


6-12 people doesn't feel "hordey" to me. Unless we're going to see "Combat Squads" rolling out to every army.

Larger units can spread out more with aura abilities, smaller units have a harder time. We don’t know how a bunch of other rules interact in the game goin forward, there might be additional benefits to taking larger units such as more kill point focused missions. We already know larger units benefit more from stratagems, and we will get to use a good number more of them going forward.

We know that they're starting to bring in "Wholly Within" verbage, which makes a huge difference for smaller units vs larger units.


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 ClockworkZion wrote:
I mentioned the Basalisk because it's one of the tanks I have seen shunned by a number of people talking about the Guard codex. Pick a different tank and the point still stands: most tanks that used to have blast weapons are largely sidelined in 8th over tanks with fixed numbers of shots.

Basilisks weren't really "shunned", they just ended up having a super specific build. For some stupid reason, Catachans were amazing with artillery.

I am picturing Red Corsair leaving his 4 kids in a GW store and telling to take good care of them, and saying “don’t feth that up like your rules for 9th edition !!”.
The you see three GW employees feeding each one of Red Corsair’s kids, and a fourth... I don’t want to see this...

I quoted him three posts down, hah hah !

 Kanluwen wrote:

We know that they're starting to bring in "Wholly Within" verbage, which makes a huge difference for smaller units vs larger units.

Wholly within would just punish large units even more, though. Which again raises the question of why we need a particular kind of gun that gets more shots the more models are in the unit being shot (but not the more models that are in a given area).

the_scotsman wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
It's immersive to you that you get max shots against a unit of 11 boyz strung out across 25 inches of board space, but not against 60 models packed within 6 inches of one another?

Maybe it is. Again, subjective.

To be fair I originally got started in pen and paper RPGs in 1991. I have had a few years to practice my immersion.

And some people enjoy getting punched in the face and think it shows affection. But I don't think that means that we should change our laws to recognize being punched in the face as a good thing.

But in point of fact, he already answered that even he doesn't think that is immersive.

Does anyone really think it's immersive that the new blast rule punishes spreading out and rewards clumping up? Maybe some of you do. But I kinda doubt it.

I am really failing to understand the logic you're using to make that claim, so...can't really answer the question as you posed it.

Why does my 30 ork boyz being in 3 units of 10 instead of 1 unit of 30 mean that they're necessarily more clumped up? If anything, they have the potential to be farther apart, since now they can secure more objectives and don't all have to be in coherency with one another. But I'd be more inclined to consider the composition as mostly neutral to how close together the models are going to be placed on the board.

He's more on about spreading a singular unit of 30 out across a wide distance, still getting carpet bombed down a 40" conga line, but having 3 10 men units, interlaced, holding hands and generally touching bases has only the 1 unit of 10 get effected by the same blast even though in the previous example all 30 models could die. You could have a single model wrapped entirely by another unit, and only that one model would take the hits.

Which I agree is dumb and immersion breaking, Id prefer templates than this. It goes from 1 extreme to another, min 3 for 6-10 to suddenly max shots as soon as Jeff joins the gang making it 11. Having something that scales with intervales would of been better instead of from this. Maybe stages of 5 models etc.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Wholly within would just punish large units even more, though.

Never said it didn't? Said it made a big difference for smaller units vs larger units.

If the 'big' auras such as reroll all hits/wounds end up as "Wholly Within" going forward? That makes a difference compared to the "I touched one guy!" bit we have now in some instances.

 Gnarlly wrote:
Yeah, armies that have historically been known as "horde" armies will have fewer optional play styles. When I think of classic Tyranid, Ork, and even Necron armies, I think of hordes of models running across the tabletop to engage in melee, or in the case of Necrons, slowly marching towards the enemy with diminished hordes slowly reanimating.

The state of hordes will likely be very sad in 9th, and I don't see how even the best terrain rules will help. I also doubt that 40k will see the same discount to troops/battleline units that AOS has. The only possible hope for hordes is getting first turn with the ability to advance/charge across a shortened gameplay table in that first turn.

Don't worry I'm sure when Troop sales drop off corporate will be asking why and 10th will be all hordes, all the time to compensate.

 Red Corsair wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
I don't see how any of that addresses how it makes the game better either.

"We don't know the full rules" isn't an argument for the benefit of this change, it's an argument that we don't know what the full effect will be.

Assume all the changes are very worked out to be totally "balanced" in terms of point values. How does it improve the game to add this feature? What is the gameplay benefit of punishing people significantly for taking 11 models instead of 10?

"We don't know the full rules" is more a plea for cooler heads until we know enough to definitively state that things are indeed actually broken.

Also it's an attempt to make certain unloved units more playable. Like the humble Basalisk.

Why would you choose one of the most played, consistent tanks in the guard army for your example?



Solid rules should never require other rules to bail them out. This is another example where a sloppy solution took me literally 2 minutes to find a problem with. So no, the bigger picture isn't needed. From their own mouth GW stated some 100+ (117 or 170 hard to tell from that guy) existing weapons are being classed as blasts, and you have to be a pretty disingenuous if you seriously suggest that it is somehow difficult to determine 90% of those. We know from their own promo video that at the very least the knights rapid fire BC is blast. That's 3 hits on a 10 man unit, but suddenly 12 on an 11 man unit (Jesus Christ Timmy I told you to stay home). I don't care how terrain interacts with that, it shouldn't be a crutch for a lazy rule with horrible design. The rule was arbitrary enough when I thought it was per die rolled, but immediately became a joke when you realize it's based on the entire lot. Then it also breaks down when realizing d3 hit weapons.

As someone else pointed out, if a death guard player takes 7 plague marines he is suddenly and arbitrarily punished. This not only breaks immersion, it dis-incentivizes fluffy narrative sized units from being taken.

Meanwhile D3 shot weapons gain WAY more by comparison gaining max output verse anything over 5 models. As if there was any more reason why an admech player should take neutron lasers over eradication beamers. Go ahead, tell me to wait and see if neutron lasers are actually blast, as if them not suddenly makes a garbage rule good.

As an aside, before the complainer complainers arrive and pounce on me, I am actually liking the majority of what I am seeing. Just because GW successfully babysits 3 of my kids, doesn't get them off the hook for knocking the 4th into a well.

Hah hah

 Kanluwen wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Wholly within would just punish large units even more, though.

Never said it didn't? Said it made a big difference for smaller units vs larger units.

If the 'big' auras such as reroll all hits/wounds end up as "Wholly Within" going forward? That makes a difference compared to the "I touched one guy!" bit we have now in some instances.

Definitely. Hence why if they are moving in that direction it's even more puzzling why they're focused on bringing more ways to make it easier to shoot large units off the table.

Does anyone in this entire thread think one of 8th's problems was that it was too difficult to shoot blobs of infantry off the table? Maybe these people exist, but I really doubt it.

This really seems like a change that serves no gameplay purpose, just because someone thought it would be "cool."

dhallnet wrote:
I dunno why it needs so many pages of arguing. We had weapons designed to take out high numbers of models that weren't really working because they were too random, now they might do while not auto deleting smaller units.

This being immersive or improving gameplay has barely any relevance, it's just about improving the function of some weapons.

Problem is GW throwing balance out of the window in order to sell more models. Sold enough horde models, now time to push elites. Helped by playtesters who have had years agenda of helping elite gunlines making house rules for that effect.

GW isn't even being subtle in their desire to have people buy elite armies and units to replace horde ones. And edition or two they will reverse it once elite sales have saturated market.

The majority of the whining centered around the start of 8th was "it was too difficult to shoot blobs of infantry off the table", so yeah apparently it was an issue.

yukishiro1 wrote:

Well no, I'd argue that this hows why keying the amount of shots you get against the amount of models in the unit is just not a good mechanic in the first place. Why is this a good mechanic? I still haven't seen anyone actually explain why it's good specifically to increase the amount of shots a gun gets based on the number of models in the unit being shot.

Because with how the game works high rate of fire weapons hurts small elite squads (quantity over quality) just as much if not more and the numbers of shots is the only thing they can tweak since templates are out of the equation.
It kinda makes sense then to tweak the number of shots on the number of bodies in the targeted squad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:

dhallnet wrote:
I dunno why it needs so many pages of arguing. We had weapons designed to take out high numbers of models that weren't really working because they were too random, now they might do while not auto deleting smaller units.

This being immersive or improving gameplay has barely any relevance, it's just about improving the function of some weapons.

Problem is GW throwing balance out of the window in order to sell more models. Sold enough horde models, now time to push elites. Helped by playtesters who have had years agenda of helping elite gunlines making house rules for that effect.

GW isn't even being subtle in their desire to have people buy elite armies and units to replace horde ones. And edition or two they will reverse it once elite sales have saturated market.

Sure and GW is directed by a bunch of lizardmen.
Or maybe most elite were (arguably are) not so great.

 Eldarain wrote:
Thunderfire and Scorpius are going to be terrifying.

Particularly CSM Scorpious. It's already really good.

Hoping those see a price increase as well.

dhallnet wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

Well no, I'd argue that this hows why keying the amount of shots you get against the amount of models in the unit is just not a good mechanic in the first place. Why is this a good mechanic? I still haven't seen anyone actually explain why it's good specifically to increase the amount of shots a gun gets based on the number of models in the unit being shot.

Because with how the game works high rate of fire weapons hurts small elite squads (quantity over quality) just as much if not more and the numbers of shots is the only thing they can tweak since templates are out of the equation.
It kinda makes sense then to tweak the number of shots on the number of bodies in the targeted squad.

Finally! A real argument! Thank you - not being sarcastic here. Genuinely, thank you: you're the first person in the thread to directly address the basic question. And you're correct: Flechette blasters, for example, are almost exactly as good at killing grots as they are at killing intercessors; you kill almost to the point the same value of each model with a volley of 50 shots. This is indeed a basic limitation of the game engine. You basically can't make high volume shots that are only good at killing chaff.

The trouble is...this rule does nothing to address that. It only impacts variable shot weapons. High volume of fire weapons are typically not variable. The flechette blaster is 5 shots, not 1d6 shots. Bolter fire is not variable. Hurricaine bolters are fixed shots. Etc etc.

So we have identified a reason that some guns might want to shoot more shots based on the number of models in the unit being shot - not because it makes sense, but because of the basic limitations of the way the game's math works.

But the rule isn't being applied to these weapons; it's being applied to weapons that don't have the characteristics we have identified as maybe being a good candidate for this rule.

So maybe the idea behind this would be good, but not for blast weapons.

Well without pressing more doom and gloom wouldn't it be good if we could find answers that led to all types of players being happy or unhappy ? Bias one way or the other isn't good game design. We shouldn't need to be riding the roller coaster of balance.

The only thing I've noticed is this, if you own a good amount of all the units a faction you play has it's the only way to always be happy in warhammer. As they will inevitably nerf something to buff another. Last edition was men all over, now I'll need to swap out the majority of boots for tons of vehicles/mechanized infantry to ride out there.

The only way to ride out these ups and downs is own everything, and perhaps that is really what GW wants. Don't ride the meta, get it all and then no matter what the meta is you'll be golden. They can't nerf everything.

yukishiro1 wrote:

dhallnet wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

Well no, I'd argue that this hows why keying the amount of shots you get against the amount of models in the unit is just not a good mechanic in the first place. Why is this a good mechanic? I still haven't seen anyone actually explain why it's good specifically to increase the amount of shots a gun gets based on the number of models in the unit being shot.

Because with how the game works high rate of fire weapons hurts small elite squads (quantity over quality) just as much if not more and the numbers of shots is the only thing they can tweak since templates are out of the equation.
It kinda makes sense then to tweak the number of shots on the number of bodies in the targeted squad.

Finally! A real argument! Thank you - not being sarcastic here. Genuinely, thank you: you're the first person in the thread to directly address the basic question. And you're correct: Flechette blasters, for example, are almost exactly as good at killing grots as they are at killing intercessors; you kill almost to the point the same value of each model with a volley of 50 shots. This is indeed a basic limitation of the game engine. You basically can't make high volume shots that are only good at killing chaff.

The trouble is...this rule does nothing to address that. It only impacts variable shot weapons. High volume of fire weapons are typically not variable. The flechette blaster is 5 shots, not 2d3 shots. Bolter fire is not variable. Hurricaine bolters are fixed shots. Etc etc.

So we have identified a reason that some guns might want to shoot more shots based on the number of models in the unit being shot - not because it makes sense, but because of the basic limitations of the way the game's math works - but they are not the guns being impacted by this change.

I would argue that the weapons with a fixed high number of shots were designed from the start to have this versatility of either aiming at hordes or elite. Random ROF was imo their attempt at making "balanced" weapons designed to deal with hordes (it won't be the first, nor the last, time that GW hopes the rng gods balance part of the game for them) without completely screwing elites. They are fixing that right now and maybe, if it's needed, they'll fix these other weapons in 10th ed

 Leth wrote:
So what should the size be then? 13? 15? 17 1/2?

They have to pick a size to set the rules at and most units cap at 10, or like 30. It seems like a reasonable break point for me.

No one is going to take 11 man units so I don’t know why you are focusing on that as if it matters?

Larger units can spread out more with aura abilities, smaller units have a harder time. We don’t know how a bunch of other rules interact in the game goin forward, there might be additional benefits to taking larger units such as more kill point focused missions. We already know larger units benefit more from stratagems, and we will get to use a good number more of them going forward.

Here me out...

You could not tie it to unit size at all...

It's not that difficult if you want to simulate a template while removing arguing.

Blast, pick a model in range and line of site to the firer and roll to hit. If successfully hit, the unit suffers a number of hits equal to the initial model hit and all other models in that unit within X" of that model. Any other hits from models from other units within X" are allocated to those units, not the original target. Measure from the center of the target models base.

That even leaves it open to massive amounts of granularity for blast size.

It also punishes clumping without tying it to unit size.

I am sure theres holes in that too, as I am spitballing, but it wouldn't be hard top tweak.

Or we could just return to blast templates, and start by remove the scatter die if that somehow is causing arguing.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I have watched the video. They level no criticisms at it whatsoever, almost as if doing so would see them punished.

A bit like video game reviewers.

Maybe because there is nothing THEY feel THEY need to criticize. I've watched every video they've posted, they have criticized things GW have done in the past and GW keeps giving them stuff to preview so obviously GW doesn't care if they criticize their products or not. If GW got upset by them not kissing their ass they wouldn't keep giving the TT tactics guys stuff to play with.

the_scotsman wrote:

Another thing that's been pointed out is that units could get cheaper the bigger they get, which is a mechanic in AOS. You're incentivized to bring a big horde because the natural disadvantages to having tons of models in the unit, like them not all being able to fight at once in close combat, are offset by a cheaper cost, so you can use hordes as damage soakers.

This is a great point and something I had not thought of before. It could mitigate some of the anti-horde tidbits we're seeing.

AngryAngel80 wrote:
Well without pressing more doom and gloom wouldn't it be good if we could find answers that led to all types of players being happy or unhappy ? Bias one way or the other isn't good game design. We shouldn't need to be riding the roller coaster of balance.

The only thing I've noticed is this, if you own a good amount of all the units a faction you play has it's the only way to always be happy in warhammer. As they will inevitably nerf something to buff another. Last edition was men all over, now I'll need to swap out the majority of boots for tons of vehicles/mechanized infantry to ride out there.

The only way to ride out these ups and downs is own everything, and perhaps that is really what GW wants. Don't ride the meta, get it all and then no matter what the meta is you'll be golden. They can't nerf everything.

True, and we've been on this roller coaster for a long time. Remember the transition from 3rd to 4th to 5th? Strong melee from transports in 3rd, to reducing the effectiveness of melee and transports/vehicles in 4th (excluding Eldar skimmers), to increasing the durability of vehicles in 5th (aka "parking lot" edition). Looks like we may be getting back to the parking lot edition of the ride. If your primary goal is just selling waves of miniatures then I guess it makes sense.

But imagine if the goal really was to improve the ruleset to create a game that had more balance across factions and playstyles (at least as much as reasonably possible). "Beta" rules changes would be proposed and tested by the entire community and accepted or rejected based on feedback after a set period of time and trial. Games would be more satisfying for the players in the long run. The player base would be happier, bringing in more players by positive reviews and word-of-mouth instead of constantly having to release "new and improved" editions every three years. Sales of miniatures would increase as newer players picked up and came to appreciate the game. One can imagine . . .

 Gnarlly wrote:
"Beta" rules changes would be proposed and tested by the entire community and accepted or rejected based on feedback after a set period of time and trial.

You mean like giving your ruleset to a bunch of variably well known gaming communities already covering your games for them to playtest it ?

Edit : Ah no, you don't, you wish the community would write the rules. I would be out right away.