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 Korinov wrote:

morgoth wrote:You're always saying GW is expensive when you either buy crappy/historic at lower prices or flat out worse at the same price (PP) miniatures.

Well we like the GW universe and their miniature range, and we're happy to buy those even if we'd like them to be cheaper.

I think that overall, we'd like it if you kept your negativity to yourself when it's about a game you don't even play.

GW cultists always so worried about others' negativity...

(note how all the competition is dismissed as "crappy"

Nice ad hominem with strawman sauce there.
I guess it's time for me to find cheap weapons and goth-looking clothes with GW insigna all over them -oh wait, that's probably what my wardrobe is filled with since I'm a cultist.

"buy crappy/historic at lower prices" > do you mean to say that you know other miniature companies from which you can buy better / equal / futuristic miniatures for less than the GW price? I've seen better and more expensive, or equivalent and more expensive, but never the same for cheaper. I wish to be enlightened. Teach me o wise one.

"worse at the same price" > arguably PP miniatures are lacking in detail, sculpt quality and many other things - which doesn't matter since apparently it's a much better game, much simpler, much faster, less centered on miniatures I've even heard them say.

We're talking about a game of toy soldiers here, folks. Time to dial down the hostility a notch.

Initially I was over the moon when I found out that they were bringing some elements of AoS into 40k, but that was before I remembered what a gak storm it was going to cause.

morgoth wrote:
do you mean to say that you know other miniature companies from which you can buy better / equal / futuristic miniatures for less than the GW price? I've seen better and more expensive, or equivalent and more expensive, but never the same for cheaper. I wish to be enlightened. Teach me o wise one.

Dreamforge Games, Mantic, Warlord Games
add Perry Miniatures, Gripping Beast and Conquest Games for not futuristic Stuff

And now you will say you don't like their design
but personal preference has nothing to do with equivalent quality

it is ok if you like GW Marines more than Mantic Enforcer and you won't find 1:1 GW Marines because of Copyright reasons, but this does not mean that there is not the same for cheaper

 kodos wrote:

morgoth wrote:
do you mean to say that you know other miniature companies from which you can buy better / equal / futuristic miniatures for less than the GW price? I've seen better and more expensive, or equivalent and more expensive, but never the same for cheaper. I wish to be enlightened. Teach me o wise one.

Dreamforge Games, Mantic, Warlord Games
add Perry Miniatures, Gripping Beast and Conquest Games for not futuristic Stuff

And now you will say you don't like their design
but personal preference has nothing to do with equivalent quality

it is ok if you like GW Marines more than Mantic Enforcer and you won't find 1:1 GW Marines because of Copyright reasons, but this does not mean that there is not the same for cheaper

This has been discussed several times and it's clear that there can be no end to this discussion with people who think Dreamforge miniatures are equivalent quality to Games Workshop.
Let's go back to another topic which has a shot at being productive or something.

morgoth wrote:

 kodos wrote:

morgoth wrote:
do you mean to say that you know other miniature companies from which you can buy better / equal / futuristic miniatures for less than the GW price? I've seen better and more expensive, or equivalent and more expensive, but never the same for cheaper. I wish to be enlightened. Teach me o wise one.

Dreamforge Games, Mantic, Warlord Games
add Perry Miniatures, Gripping Beast and Conquest Games for not futuristic Stuff

And now you will say you don't like their design
but personal preference has nothing to do with equivalent quality

it is ok if you like GW Marines more than Mantic Enforcer and you won't find 1:1 GW Marines because of Copyright reasons, but this does not mean that there is not the same for cheaper

This has been discussed several times and it's clear that there can be no end to this discussion with people who think Dreamforge miniatures are equivalent quality to Games Workshop.
Let's go back to another topic which has a shot at being productive or something.

Its has been discussed a lot, Honestly I do not see how people can think GW is in such a superior design position. Marines there top selling line looks dorky to me now that i buy so many varied miniatures.

 insaniak wrote:

'Release books and then invalidate them months later' and 'Release nothing' are not the only two options GW have available to them.

Indeed. And easing this process boils down to limiting the number of publications for a game. I can't even name all the 40k supplements off the top of my head, the sheer amount of those Imperial Armour books alone is shocking. All material neccessary to play should be in the main rulebook. It should include simplified / summarised army lists too, enough for beginners to field a force. Expansions should be composed of campaigns, and codexes. The codexes should include all sub-codexes. Keep the cost down for players, and keep updating manageable. Doing any less it neglecting your player base.

Apple fox wrote:

morgoth wrote:

 kodos wrote:

morgoth wrote:
do you mean to say that you know other miniature companies from which you can buy better / equal / futuristic miniatures for less than the GW price? I've seen better and more expensive, or equivalent and more expensive, but never the same for cheaper. I wish to be enlightened. Teach me o wise one.

Dreamforge Games, Mantic, Warlord Games
add Perry Miniatures, Gripping Beast and Conquest Games for not futuristic Stuff

And now you will say you don't like their design
but personal preference has nothing to do with equivalent quality

it is ok if you like GW Marines more than Mantic Enforcer and you won't find 1:1 GW Marines because of Copyright reasons, but this does not mean that there is not the same for cheaper

This has been discussed several times and it's clear that there can be no end to this discussion with people who think Dreamforge miniatures are equivalent quality to Games Workshop.
Let's go back to another topic which has a shot at being productive or something.

Its has been discussed a lot, Honestly I do not see how people can think GW is in such a superior design position. Marines there top selling line looks dorky to me now that i buy so many varied miniatures.

I wouldn't go that far personally, I have bought non-GW miniatures which were indeed better, but about twice the price of GW stuff.

It's just that running around shouting "GW is way too expensive" when really there is a grand total of 0 companies out there which offer what they offer (a mniature range with a bajillion models, each coherent by faction more or less).

There are some models out there which are indeed good and well made and better than GW - and sometimes even cheaper, but that's a strict minority.

Most of the better models are more expensive and do not share aesthetics with a wide range of miniatures.

Those mantic enforcers don't look crisp to me, all their details seem to be rounded.
Maybe because they were painted by a 3-year old instead of a studio painter, I don't know.


The thing is: it's great that you play other games, it's great that you like other products, but don't expect every single 40K fan to just listen to some people's hate speeches about GW and never once react.

I find the reaction of the other guy totally justified regarding mantic, pp and other stuff, considering the constant bs we are being spammed with about how WMH is a better game, how 40K is the worst balanced game in this quadrant of the galaxy, about how we're just tools for buying stuff that the most evil company in the galaxy (GW) produces, how we're cultists for even preferring their miniature ranges to others, etc.

As fascinating as the topic of comparative miniature quality between companies may be, that's a discussion for a separate thread.

I think this is all a big joke tbh, I can't see them actively changing the structure of the game, having engaged with the TO's in the states.

I'm anticipating a few tweaks here and there, adoption of the FAQ's into the main rules, and possibly a 'three ways to play' (basic, intermediate, advanced).

But if you tie up the proposed rules changes with the tone of the video on the same page (obvious pisstake) then I really don't think this is going to happen.

If it does, well I'll just play 7th.

For Morgoth...

Firstly, this was my post in full.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

Why so offensive to gamers of other games? You're happy to admit that since 2012 you didn't play any 40k or whfb, but nice short AoS games give you and your wife a nice easy game to play.
Other gamers were in a similar position to you but instead of giving up for 3 or so years, went and found games they could have the same enjoyment you and your wife do with AoS.
Instead of defending AoS, you're just sounding like another white knight sticking with GW for the sake of it.

I still buy GW figures, I still have thousands of GW models, I still hope for a good future for 40K. But I found other games to play as well. I expect a lot of the "AoS haters" are that way because they spent decades of time collecting, building and painting models for an aesthetic that no longer exists in GW's games. Not because they're crying about blocks of square soldiers. Many of us now have nice short simple games of KoW with our wives - like you do AoS with yours - for the exact same reasons as you.

To which you replied... (I added the red correction for you)

morgoth wrote:

Because some gamers of other games are offensive to us 40K gamers all the frigging time.

morgoth wrote:

You're always saying GW is expensive when you either buy crappy/historic at lower prices or flat out worse at the same price (PP) miniatures.

You're? You mean me? GW is expensive. This doesn't mean other figures are crappy. It also doesn't mean I don't buy GW figures. My last 3 miniature purchases were 3 Kroxigors and a Starpriest from GW, a box of Skinks and a Genestealer Goliath (and a hardback Genestealer Cult book) from Element Games. Both purchases last week. The week before I bought a box of British Soldiers for Bolt Action from Warlord and a Strider from Mantic. I don't consider any of the figures "crappy" or I wouldn't have bought them.

morgoth wrote:

Well we like the GW universe and their miniature range, and we're happy to buy those even if we'd like them to be cheaper.

Erm... good for you. So do I. Not sure why you're having a rant at me about that.

morgoth wrote:

I think that overall, we'd like it if you kept your negativity to yourself when it's about a game you don't even play.

My negativity?
There I was thinking I was just pointing out to a GW player that there was no need to insult other gamers. Hardly negative. I know a lot of GW players are stuck in the GW only bubble, but some of us actually like multiple games/figures including the GW universe.

Now, as an ex-40k player, with 9 still current hardback codexes, every set of rules since 3rd edition and a wardrobe full of figures in 13 hardshell GW cases, I'm still happy for 40k to be AoS'ed. It needs clearer rules. If this means a rulebook, then all unit rules on single sheets - brilliant.

Why do I consider myself an ex-40k player? Well, for me Flyers and Formations killed my enjoyment of the game. I realise they aren't likely to disapear. By all accounts formations is a thing in AoS as well. My biggest pet peeve with any game, is having to look in multiple books for rules for a single army. I don't mind a rulebook with a codex, but supplement after supplement puts me off.
I guess I'll wait and see how GW treat the new 40k. Exciting times.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

'Release books and then invalidate them months later' and 'Release nothing' are not the only two options GW have available to them.

Indeed. And easing this process boils down to limiting the number of publications for a game. I can't even name all the 40k supplements off the top of my head, the sheer amount of those Imperial Armour books alone is shocking. All material neccessary to play should be in the main rulebook. It should include simplified / summarised army lists too, enough for beginners to field a force. Expansions should be composed of campaigns, and codexes. The codexes should include all sub-codexes. Keep the cost down for players, and keep updating manageable. Doing any less it neglecting your player base.

You are right, the material necessary to play a game is rather high. Recently, I played Eldar and took 4 books beside the rulebook with me.
However, GW made a lot of money with their supplementary books recently.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

'Release books and then invalidate them months later' and 'Release nothing' are not the only two options GW have available to them.

Indeed. And easing this process boils down to limiting the number of publications for a game. I can't even name all the 40k supplements off the top of my head, the sheer amount of those Imperial Armour books alone is shocking. All material neccessary to play should be in the main rulebook. It should include simplified / summarised army lists too, enough for beginners to field a force. Expansions should be composed of campaigns, and codexes. The codexes should include all sub-codexes. Keep the cost down for players, and keep updating manageable. Doing any less it neglecting your player base.

You are right, the material necessary to play a game is rather high. Recently, I played Eldar and took 4 books beside the rulebook with me.
However, GW made a lot of money with their supplementary books recently.

When I was first introduced to Games Workshop, it was back in the 2004 with the Lord of the Rings game. That rule book was no bigger than the current 40K main rules book and it include 100% of the rules for every model in the range at that time. For every faction.

If GW ends up rebooting the rules from scratch, I hope they do so by releasing a similar (hard copy) rule book. Granted there are far more models than that version of LotR, but GW could easily include the rules for a dozen different basic units for each faction (probably just a single set of rules for all Space Marines that just add 1-2 extra rules per chapter).
Give the players just enough rules to still play and learn the edition, then begin releasing codex supplements for each faction, or even several factions at once.

So you could do a Space Marine codex that adds in all the other special units, even BAs, DAs & Wolves.
You could have an Aeldari codex with all Eldar, DE, Harlies & Ynnari.
An Imperial Agents book for everything not Space Marine.
A Chaos book with all the CSM Legions and all the Daemons.
Then you release a single Xenos book for everything else.
If the rules are simple enough, you can expand on them like this and each multi-faction codex would not have to be more expensive than a current single faction codex

-

At the danger of going off on a tangent few will read.

I think there is a fundamental divide between what might crudely be defined as "playing tin soldiers" and playing a game.

WHFB had a quality because two massed armies facing each other in massed ranks across a table "looked" great. You had the fantasy elements but you could also imagine any real battle from the dawn of time through to the mid nineteenth century. The game may have become better or worse through the editions but this was I think fundamental to its charm.

Unfortunately the evolution of 8th went progressively against this idea which is partly I think why its popularity declined (amongst a variety of other issues).

40k in the same way should have that. For me at least the core of the game is meant to be about great looking infantry supported by a few more exotic options (tanks, creatures, perhaps one aircraft). Unfortunately however this being lost as competitive armies are increasingly composed of the better MC/GMC (which make a mockery of the scale, balance and generally the whole game). Its not uncommon to see lists where 2/3rds of points are invested in such models.

I don't find AoS armies as impressive because they just look like gangs or random assortments of stuff. They are not armies. Moreover I think most of the skill is in quasi-gamesmanship. Its not proper gamesmanship (you are not psyching your opponent out) but I don't find pre-measuring everything to the nth degree so you are in 2" of this model but just out of 3" of this other model to be a skill worth cultivating. The ability to win the initiative roll at a key point (typically turn two and certainly turn 3) is also not a skill.

For me AoS's simplicity is a virtue but not a overwhelming one. Warmahordes is a simpler game than 40k. Its quicker to play. What it gains in simplicity however it seems to lose in epicness. The whole game could just be played with pieces of paper (and certainly this seems the ever more popular way to do terrain). Sure this is true of 40k and WHFB - but something important would be lost in a way that doesn't seem as significant in Warmahordes.

Its probable AoS will be successful as new armies are released and GW's model quality continues. Sylvaneth were great, the new Dwarfs look good and I am sure tentacle Aelves will be brilliant too. A game you can play in an hour or two has an advantage over one that typically takes 3-4.

I do think however that if 40k just becomes AoS in space something special will be lost.

I welcome the Sigmafication of 40K and look forward to only 4 pages of rules.

Probably won't be that extreme, but seeing any reduction in the rules bloat and overall complexity of the game will make it more accessible to newer players.

Tyel wrote:
At the danger of going off on a tangent few will read.

I think there is a fundamental divide between what might crudely be defined as "playing tin soldiers" and playing a game.

WHFB had a quality because two massed armies facing each other in massed ranks across a table "looked" great. You had the fantasy elements but you could also imagine any real battle from the dawn of time through to the mid nineteenth century. The game may have become better or worse through the editions but this was I think fundamental to its charm.

Unfortunately the evolution of 8th went progressively against this idea which is partly I think why its popularity declined (amongst a variety of other issues).

8th funnily enough brought back massed ranks. 7th was the small cav spam edition because one good flank charge and the entire rank dies.

Yeah, 8th was the hoard edition. It would have been fine if "elite" units could actually kill stuff without being buried and if steadfast wasn't so powerful.
In typical GW fashion, they balanced it out by introducing "pass this arbitary stat test or the unit instantly dies" spells...which were also very effective against elite units that did not have some 100 or so models.

8th wasn't great. It needed to be redone.
I would have been fine with AoS, if they hadn't nuked the setting, came up with cringeworthy names for everything, got rid of ranks making it look like 40k, and made the art so damn garish. It looks like something from Warcraft or any other generic fantasy setting.
I would take Blanche over AoS's current art anytime. At least his work has a certain flavor that doesn't look like its from DeviantArt

That said, the current 40k rules set could use some pruning. As long as they nuke the rules and don't touch the setting or atmosphere too much, then it should be fine.
Not that they had already done so by letting Matt Ward touch it and set a precedent for flashy honorable heroes everywhere. Remember when Necrons were egypian flavored robots instead of robot flavored egyptians, who actually had thematically consistent, albeit undeveloped lore? I do. That was awesome.

 kodos wrote:
And there is balance because the number of Orcs is usually higher.

Youre seriously suggesting that putting twice as many hits on orks in close combat is some kinda of ballance? Youd have to slash the cost of boys down to 2ppm for that to be any kind of ballanced, because they fething suck gak right now.

 davou wrote:

 kodos wrote:
And there is balance because the number of Orcs is usually higher.

Youre seriously suggesting that putting twice as many hits on orks in close combat is some kinda of ballance? Youd have to slash the cost of boys down to 2ppm for that to be any kind of ballanced, because they fething suck gak right now.

it is always a good idea to base future points costs on the current powerlevel of a unit.

and with the possibility to always measure, strike first if you attack and have at least twice as many models in a close combat, you have done something wrong if the answer hurts that much no matter if they hit on 4+ or 3+;.

and an increase of 1/6 doesn't make twice as many hits.

but of course of just base stats need to be equal for all units and everyone should hit and wound with the same dice roll, AoS is the perfect system.
Just 3+ & 4+, no difference and no need to worry about "how can it be balanced that a single elite infantry model can kill more cheap mass infantry models than the cheap mass infantry model can kill elite infantry models"

 kodos wrote:

and an increase of 1/6 doesn't make twice as many hits.

I am not disagreeing with the other stuff you are saying, but this statement can be true. If you hit on 6s, a 1/6 increase to hit on 5s does in fact yield twice as many hits
Conversely, going from a 2+ to a 3+ will double the changes of failure.
A 1/6 difference at the extreme ends of the dice, do in fact make a big difference on a D6. But it doesn't make as much difference from 3+ to 4+, or vice verse

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Tyel wrote:
At the danger of going off on a tangent few will read.

I think there is a fundamental divide between what might crudely be defined as "playing tin soldiers" and playing a game.

WHFB had a quality because two massed armies facing each other in massed ranks across a table "looked" great. You had the fantasy elements but you could also imagine any real battle from the dawn of time through to the mid nineteenth century. The game may have become better or worse through the editions but this was I think fundamental to its charm.

Unfortunately the evolution of 8th went progressively against this idea which is partly I think why its popularity declined (amongst a variety of other issues).

8th funnily enough brought back massed ranks. 7th was the small cav spam edition because one good flank charge and the entire rank dies.

It's like nobody ran chaff or spread their battle line out to mitigate the chances of flank charges. Or shot/magic missiled the cav to get them below effective strength. Remember, you had to be above a certain US to cancel ranks

I will be happy with all of it but if they do fixed to hit and to wound stats like AoS then I am leaving.

Daston wrote:
I will be happy with all of it but if they do fixed to hit and to wound stats like AoS then I am leaving.

I am not sure I'd be completely out due to this, but I agree it would be lame. Having a Gretchen able to wound a WK on a set value would be ridiculous. Even if the WK had 100wounds, that should no be possible. Likewise, a Bloodthirster should wound on 2+ against most infantry, yet have a slightly harder time with tougher targets.
This variation on X can wound Y, but cannot effectively wound Z is part of the reason such variety exists in 40K. If a Marine always wounds on 4+ no matter the target, that would be lame and boring.

-

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, 8th was the hoard edition. It would have been fine if "elite" units could actually kill stuff without being buried and if steadfast wasn't so powerful.
In typical GW fashion, they balanced it out by introducing "pass this arbitary stat test or the unit instantly dies" spells...which were also very effective against elite units that did not have some 100 or so models.

8th wasn't great. It needed to be redone.
I would have been fine with AoS, if they hadn't nuked the setting, came up with cringeworthy names for everything, got rid of ranks making it look like 40k, and made the art so damn garish. It looks like something from Warcraft or any other generic fantasy setting.
I would take Blanche over AoS's current art anytime. At least his work has a certain flavor that doesn't look like its from DeviantArt

That said, the current 40k rules set could use some pruning. As long as they nuke the rules and don't touch the setting or atmosphere too much, then it should be fine.
Not that they had already done so by letting Matt Ward touch it and set a precedent for flashy honorable heroes everywhere. Remember when Necrons were egypian flavored robots instead of robot flavored egyptians, who actually had thematically consistent, albeit undeveloped lore? I do. That was awesome.

Nah, 8th was Avoidance Cavalry/Gunline edition. hordes where only good against all foot melee armies. My skaven got beasted across two/three turns by Dwarven shooting and in the next game High Elf Reavers detroyed my blocks without ever getting threatened in return. I packed it in after that.
Giving the popular armies relatively cheap core shooting was a major mistake, and whomever decided that Light cavalry should be able to march AND shoot AND free reform AND turn as many times as they like a turn was an idiot.
Oh and the magic phase. Sweet gak, that was horrifically stupid. The game pretty much became "bring magic/antimagic users or die"

But no, the model count for many of the armies did not help either, nor did the sudden influx on big shiny toys.... But then again look at 40K
Shooting is dominant (though to be fair it should be)
Some idiot decided to give certain armies (Tau, Eldar, Marines) insane levels of mobility
The Psychic phase has become a case of "You need to have a lot of psykers/anti psykers or you are going to feel the hurt"
The game has bloated to vast proportions where entire companies worth of infantry can be deployed, and too little effect, whilst big, powerful and deadly super units (Super Heavies/GMC's) dominate the game.

40K needs a reboot, preferably back to a modified 3rd edition. By all means, give us the option for vast games with swathes of infantry and super units, but make these the exception; IE Apocalypse. Bring us back too the basic game: The Platoon. A small number of infantry supported by a few tanks and/or elite units.
AoS is NOT the way to go though. And it NEVER will be.

 greyknight12 wrote:
It's pretty sad that the game has hit the point that so many players are literally saying "well, anything is better than this"

I totally endorse this statement and can't wait for 8th!

Pretty honest question so bear with me: D&D essentially had the same problem. 3rd edition was a cluster feth, so they rebooted it with 4th edition. 4th edition was too video-gamey, so they revamped it with 5th edition. 5th edition has free rules online, drastically simplified rules, and has increased the player base tenfold.

As it is, 40k is a mix of 3rd and 4th edition D&D: too bloated and power levels are all over the place. Why is 40k getting simplified viewed as such a bad thing? Pricing aside, it seems like one of the few things they could do to bring in new players.

 jreilly89 wrote:
Pretty honest question so bear with me: D&D essentially had the same problem. 3rd edition was a cluster feth, so they rebooted it with 4th edition. 4th edition was too video-gamey, so they revamped it with 5th edition. 5th edition has free rules online, drastically simplified rules, and has increased the player base tenfold.

As it is, 40k is a mix of 3rd and 4th edition D&D: too bloated and power levels are all over the place. Why is 40k getting simplified viewed as such a bad thing? Pricing aside, it seems like one of the few things they could do to bring in new players.

Because not everyone likes everything, and people spend more time complaining than rejoicing, especially online.

 jreilly89 wrote:
Pretty honest question so bear with me: D&D essentially had the same problem. 3rd edition was a cluster feth, so they rebooted it with 4th edition. 4th edition was too video-gamey, so they revamped it with 5th edition. 5th edition has free rules online, drastically simplified rules, and has increased the player base tenfold.

As it is, 40k is a mix of 3rd and 4th edition D&D: too bloated and power levels are all over the place. Why is 40k getting simplified viewed as such a bad thing? Pricing aside, it seems like one of the few things they could do to bring in new players.

4th has the opposite problem 3e, AoS, and 40k have, it was too balanced. It didn't really matter what you did or how you did it, everything basically did the same thing making distinctions almost entirely cosmetic.

4e D&D is what people who make shallow posts talking about how 'balance' is bad because it makes player choice irrelevant are talking about.

The major parallel between 4e and AoS is that they both took a superficial and ineffective approach to 'simplifying' the game; they decided that the soul of the game was how the dice worked, trimmed out most of the depth (movement rules, synergy, target priority...), and left in most of the bloat (many dice, long lists of redundant spells/abilities, too many classes, too many phases of play...).

Nobody is objecting to 40k getting simplified, we're objecting to it getting simplified badly.

40k has the same issues it's had for years: the game takes an age to play; the mechanics are clunky at best; there's a high barrier to entry; several sections of the rules are very limiting to the design space; various parts of the game and units are outright broken. Some of the changes they're making address these, some have potential to fix things, and some might make things worse.

With respect to it taking a long time, this has gotten worse and worse since the psychic phase was introduced, and it was already terrible from 6th. It would have been poor in 5th too, but was somewhat mitigated due to everyone zooming around in metal boxes. Really, games of 40k just take too long nowadays - I can play most medium sized board games 3 or 4 times in the space of a fast 40k game; if people aren't having fun during all of that (and let's be honest, they aren't unless they love watching people plan movement and psychic powers for up to 15 mins at a time) then it needs improving. Becoming more like Age of Sigmar would help for this, as well as clunky game mechanics. Say what you want about the majority of the game itself, it does things such as movement and magic very well - it's fast and easy to understand, with very few things you might describe as clunky. Compared to 40k where there's two dozen unit types which are largely only differ by how far they move and what terrain they can cover, as well as a dozen types of weapon which largely only vary by whether you can move or charge with them, on top of four or five dozen special rules... it's a refreshing change of pace. I mean, one of the most competitive formations in the game, the War Convocation, was printed briefly in a magazine with limited distribution, has rules split across 3 army books and needs constant cross referencing to tables at the beginning of each book for special rules activated once per game - is that not just a testament of how absurdly bloated the system is at the moment?

The barrier to entry has been helped quite dramatically with the introduction of the various board games, as well as kill team. Hopefully the new Necromunda-inspired game will help this further. Honestly, this is an area where GW has fairly tirelessly improved the game since 5th, and it really shows. The balance, unfortunately, has never been great but I think it's fair to say this is probably the worst I've seen it; no edition will fix this, though if they're fully redoing a lot of the books for 8th hopefully they'll at least somewhat mitigate the impact of the daemons/eldar/grav spam sweeping over everything.

And that leaves the bit which I think the new information helps with - limited design space. There's a fair amount to tackle here:

3 ways to play sounds to me like a whole lot of nothing. I'm hoping, though not optimistic, that this really translates to unbound and wacky formations go into the "open play" equivalent so that "matched play" becomes somewhat more solid. We'll see.

Army selection granting command points sounds better than the current formation structure, but really will depend on how it's implemented. If it's the same as it currently is (i.e. get free bonuses for taking X units) then it'll be no better. I like the idea of formations, but they fall foul of what I'm calling design space. With them, armies are very similar (see: every war convocation army, most Decurions pre-Eldar smashing the Necron book into irrelevancy, the Space marine battle company) as well as having the old "take these tax units to get the good ones" problem. I don't see how that's avoidable. We'll see how it's done; I'm not hopeful.

Movement values should honestly never have disappeared, and it's amazing how long it's taken for them to come back. They open up a lot of chances to make units more diverse, as well as fixing issues like assault units being useless unless they can either move 12+" or teleport next to enemies and then charge. There are so many useless units in the game because footslogging assault just doesn't function - hopefully this helps that a little.

Armour save modifiers are a great change in my opinion. I know people are worried about them, but there's a real issue with 40k which has existed for ages, in that AP is all or nothing. It's led to an arms race where in 5e you needed 3+ or better, then in 6e you needed 2+ or rerollable saves, and now we have D weapons because people were getting 2++ rerollables just to survive. Likewise, the best guns have gone from low volume lasplas in 4e, to as many meltaguns as you could cram into a list in 5e, to as many S7+ weapons and ignores cover templates as possible, to the situation now where if you can't generate 4+ AP2 hits or 6+ ignores cover hits per unit per turn, your gun is worthless trash. Everyone uses grav guns because there's no reason not too. Currently, you're never happy to take a grenade launcher or heavy bolter for any amount of points because they're worth almost nothing - AP4 in a game where the most seen units are all 3+ armour saves or 4+ cover saves is meaningless. I'm hoping cover becomes either a save modifier or a to hit modifier instead, but either way armour modifiers give these weapons a reason to actually exist. I doubt that AP will translate into the modifier exactly (I'd bet a heavy bolter will be either -1 or -2 for example, rather than the -3 AP4 would indicate) so it's a reason for optimism in my opinion. Of course, it now means they NEED to give the more elite units like terminators multiple wounds in the same way that elite units in AoS have multiple wounds, but that seems like a small trade off.

Charging units striking first, whilst not being exactly what they said (they're "hoping to work this out", which implies more everyone gets a hammer of wrath hit or something) would be a novel change. It has some definite winners - orks, necrons and IG would love to be able to ever strike first - and some definite losers. It all depends how movement ends up working - if a hormagaunt brood is faster moving than, say, a marine, it seems likely they'll get a charge (assuming, you know, they're ever actually playable), so it won't be an issue. If there's insta-drop and charge shenanigans around, I can see this being an issue. Really though, if it's just one round of combat then it seems pretty small as far as changes go.

Morale killing models per death over leadership sounds quite cool. My first worry is that it punishes hordes who, unless there's a major update in 8th, are currently bad - the only usable one is GSC who can insta-charge, mitigating shooting issues. That said, I think it opens design space; the current "sweeping advance rules" were a band-aid which needed to be pulled off years ago. The issue with SA is that it's all or nothing - either you beat the dice and your unit is 100% fine, or you fail and everybody dies no matter how big the unit is. This has lead to more and more armies getting fearless, stubborn bubbles, ATSKNF, LD10 area of effect etc, until morale is a near pointless stat in most competitive games. You just cannot afford to lose every single model in a large unit to an unlucky combat, so the rules have been balanced around that over the years. In turn, we got things like the tarpits of 6e where there were unbreakable blobs of guard who's sole job was to exist until the end of the game in combat, stopping enemies doing anything. That's not fun. However, it also means that hordes can NEVER be allowed to be strong and fearless in the current rules, because the result is the same - two people whiffing combat again and again, going nowhere and never checking for morale; a bit of an issue when there's an army which is literally meant to be fearless hordes! This sounds like a way to escape that, at the trade of favourring elite armies. I hope that's balanced out, as hordes already need a lot of love, but my thoughts are that this actually gives them the design space to make hordes good.

So, for now, I'm cautiously optimistic about these announcements. Obviously it leaves some major issues still in the game - mass proliferation of AP2 might become mass -ve modifiers, the psychic phase needs to disappear for being a time vampire, invisibility needs to disappear forever, assault options need to justify their existence in most squads - but on the whole I can see this being good for the game.

Very good summary of the problems of 40K right now, Eyjio. Nice work.