Bloodtracker
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i hate to jump on the bandwagon, but i love it when people say the rules aren't that bad, and people can play games with no issues, and always use the D6 process of "fixing rules issues". the current rules are terrible. 40k suffers from, as a whole, inconsistent verbiage use, inconsistent definitions, inconsistent analogy, and inconsistent methodology and nomenclature when discussing feature, functions, abilities, capabilities, options, ect ect...
It is very clear that whoever wrote these rules has never once stepped into any form of a technical writing class, or have themselves ever read any type of rule book with which to draw inspiration or at a minimum organization from.
People can play a game without arguing/debating/actively discussing a rule? I doubt this. I haven't seen a game of warhammer in 6th edition yet not stall in some kind of questions/debate and sometimes argument about how the rules work. While the degree of the discussion is certainly different between players, every game i have played and seen in 6th has ALWAYS resulted back to two people spending 15 min looking through their books, ipads, websites, and finally giving up and rolling a D6 on it...and that brings me to my personal favorite, - lets 4+ it and see what happens.
If this is a mainstay rule in any game system, its fundamentally broken. something has stopped working properly. I understand that you cant possibly cover ALL rules interactions throughout the course of developing a game system, but after 25 years you would think someone has a handle on it. instead, we get the steadfast rule of "if you don't know, then just roll a dice on it if it isn't clear in the BRB." Honestly through, that doesn't bother me as much as GW using this as a method to actually ANSWER questions in their own FAQ, which is a document comprised to do the exact opposite of providing ambiguity. The other problem is that gamers love rules, because we love to push them, bend them, and skirt them. Gamers love to play games where we can use some really cool trick to win with, or we get to use this awesome unit because they kill stuff ridiculous all over the place. Gamers also have to be right. games don't agree on "rolling dice" to see how this rule works, because games want consistency in how they approach the rules, and rolling a D6 just doesn't cut it when you have invested more into this game than the price of your car. no one wants to buy a unit of whatever and it completely sucks half of the time because the rules aren't clear and all you can do is "D6 it." thats like throwing away money, and a good chunk of it now given GWs prices, to not have a unit play the way YOU think it should play because the freaking rules are specific or accurate.
But, the biggest problem is that gamers have to have a standard. There has to be one source that releases rules that says "hey guys, this is how your toy army men will play, and this is the number of dice you need to roll". Gamers cannot be left to themselves to govern this, because then stuff gets more broken (is it possible) than it is now. Whether your a competitive player or a fluff bunny that "never plays to win", there has to be consistency in the rules set that allows players to go from one game to the next and somewhat have a reasonable expectation of what the experience will be. with independent development of rules, that simply cant happen.
honestly, i still have my ultramarines, and some Templars and other stuff, but they sit around and collect dust. even in my small town, i have no problems finding war machine players and hordes players and have been having a fun time playing those games. i don't think gamers will be able to unite to fix this game. gamers will not unite. our very definition defies that process. however, there are alternatives. i found a few, and from what i gather, there is a group looking up to start AT43, and im super interested in that, so i may be moving on to the next game. who knows.
point is, gamers cant fix this. there has to be a singular set of rules and one voice to bring them out. stick to house rules. they will make games more palatable until the next edition where submarines are the next flyers and they can destroy half of the board in one turn, or when someone else gets a new codex, or when the FOC just doesn't matter anymore and they go back to a % based system like in 2nd edition, so you can take even more allies with more data slates, and all kinds of other fun and new and exciting ways to completely ruin a game.
i guess the good news is that if GW keeps breaking gak at the rate they are doing it, sooner or later, everyone is just playing horribly broken stuff, and that, oddly, will bring al ittle balance back.
In the mean time, as i have seen so many times, GW compared to MTG and Hasbro, i will say this.
5 color control was terrible for the game of magic. the color pie didnt matter and colors lost all of their uniqueness to them. since that standard rotation, while lorwyn Shards were in, Hasbro has been increasingly launching more crazy and broken stuff to "balance" the color pie out.
it hasnt worked yet. it wont work here.
lets just hope that when GW does sell their business to hasbro, or whatever they are planning on doing, the next people who get the IP, and the chance to do something about it, know that games like organized play, gamers need structure, and gamers need concise rules that make sense.
if they do that, 40k will be one hell of a game agian. and the ultramarines will show back up in my local segmentum.
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