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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.

I'm salty, because while in most cases these LD problems don't matter.... It hurts double for orks who drop like flies and get none of the fearless love

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 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.

I always thought that the soul of the game, whatever the system, regardless of miniature wargaming, roleplaying, sports, or anything, is FUN.

Seriously, the rules don't matter in the big scheme of things. All they are used for is to abstract out into a mechanic what might happen in real life should such an encounter occur. All the dice do is help out with the probability of success or failure for a given experience.

Think back for a moment, and put some sincere thought into this: WHY DO YOU ENJOY WARGAMING? Is it for the models, or for the rules? Is it for the other players, or for a chance to be good at something? Do you enjoy the painting over the gaming? Do you like playing in tournaments? How about narrative campaigns? Is the fluff your favorite part over any other? Or do you hope to make some crazy, epic moments on the tabletop?

We are all in this hobby for our own reason, so not one answer will fit for everyone.

If the rules get changed in a way you don't like, then make up your own rules and play that game! The example of D&D 4th edition was given, and I have no problem saying that I enjoyed it! It was the system that was out and being supported when I first tried D&D, and our group realized that some things didn't work, and so we made our own house rules. Does it REALLY matter that the warrior was using At-Will and Encounter powers to attack the Giant Ant Queen instead of making standard melee attacks? No! What matters is that we had fun together, and we had a memorable campaign.

No system will be perfect, and that's okay. Figure out WHY YOU ENJOY WARGAMING and then think about what rules changes will do to your personal experiences in the big scheme of things.

morgoth wrote:

 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.

Cos complaining about complaining isn't complaining, amirite?

Eyjio wrote:
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.

Does anyone else remember 5th edition's Fearless rule? A Fearless unit could lose combat, and they would take additional Wounds based on how much they lost by, but would get their armor saves. What about that as a mechanic? It would represent models fleeing and getting cut down by the victors, or by their comrades who consider those fleeing to be traitors and cowards.

 jreilly89 wrote:
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.

For me, the dread that comes from the idea of a simplified reboot is that it will mean hundreds of dollars spent on book goes down the drain at once. It is one thing to update a book every now and then, but to straight up wipe the slate clean is terrifying.
If GW could reboot just the main rule book, yet leave all the codices alone (meaning statlines, points costs and faction specific special rules would have to remain) than I could be happy with a drastically different main rule set. A set of smart writers can find a way to simplify the main rules and still make all the puzzle pieces in the codices fit.
But given what happened with Fantasy 8th ed into AoS, I doubt this would happen.

And free downloadable rules are a slap in the face. They are not free. They are the cost of a tablet and painfully scrolling through digital info. I would rather pay for actual books, much more user friendly. In my experience, I can find a rule twice as fast in a book as most players can scroll to it on a device.

-

Yes, nice summary Eyjio.

I mentioned this before but hoard armies have nothing to fear. The battleshock system works well for them. Also, if 40k follows AoS's line with objectives being controlled by whoever has the most models around it them and granting points on a turn by turn basis then they'll really come into their own. I've won by spamming bloodreavers to do just that. They die in droves, but I owned the objectives long enough to pull into the lead.

 Galef wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
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.

For me, the dread that comes from the idea of a simplified reboot is that it will mean hundreds of dollars spent on book goes down the drain at once. It is one thing to update a book every now and then, but to straight up wipe the slate clean is terrifying.
-

Even if it wasnt a simplified update, the addition of squad based movement and changing how AP works, along with what ever else they'd have added, still invalidates your books. Hell everytime a codex updates your old ones are invalidated.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Even if it wasnt a simplified update, the addition of squad based movement and changing how AP works, along with what ever else they'd have added, still invalidates your books. Hell everytime a codex updates your old ones are invalidated.

But that's 1 book at a time, not all of them. And adding a movement rate for each unit could be done in the main rules via an Index of units, exactly how they did when then introduced Hull Points. That edition brought in a new stat, yet all the codices were still valid. They were all updated eventually, but not all at once.

If GW does go the AoS route and does a hard reboot, I would be willing to reinvest if the hardcopy rules were affordable. Like $10 per soft-cover book. Or priced as they are, but packed with multiple factions, like a single Space Marine book with all chapters, even BAs, DAs and SWs. Another book with all Chaos, Another with all Aeldari, etc.

So a book like this then? https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Grand-Alliance-Chaos

That's how I'd imagine the "AoSing" of 40k to go. They release a big book for each faction, and then smaller books for the newer armies.

 Galef wrote:
And adding a movement rate for each unit could be done in the main rules via an Index of units, exactly how they did when then introduced Hull Points.

Simply look back at the previous editions for this. Would be simple to extrapolate, and come up with something like this:
Tyranids Movement 6, Eldar and Dark Eldar Movement 5, Squats and Ratlings Movement 3, all else Movement 4. Simple base rule that I can still recall from memory. Only make up a few exceptions, probably stuff like Wraithguard being Movement 4 for being somewhat slower to grasp the physical reality around them for example

On the other hand, a complete reboot like with AoS might be refreshing. I understand the pain of having all those book nullified right then and there. I too have just about every codex, and, just to be on the safer side, stopped buying all those expansions and campaign books and what not.

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:
Does anyone else remember 5th edition's Fearless rule? A Fearless unit could lose combat, and they would take additional Wounds based on how much they lost by, but would get their armor saves. What about that as a mechanic? It would represent models fleeing and getting cut down by the victors, or by their comrades who consider those fleeing to be traitors and cowards.

The problem with 5th edition Fearless was that it was fairly universally reviled. In many cases, it made being Fearless a liability, because the unit could get stuck in a combat with something that they either were fairly evenly matched with or couldn't kill, and would lose through attrition where a non-fearless unit could have just broken from the combat.



Making more models die faster is not the way to fix a game that already focuses too heavily on killing models as quickly as possible. I would rather see morale have a less direct affect on the unit (reducing their effectiveness, rather than forcing them to run away or just removing models wholesale) so that units actually stayed on the board for longer.

This, for me, is one of the biggest problems with 40K, and has been for a long time. We have all these pretty models, we spend hours putting them together and painting them... and as likely as not, they stay on the board for all of 3 and a half minutes before going back in the case. Hell, I bought the original plastic/metal Vindicator kit when it was first released at the end of 2nd (might have been very early 3rd) edition. I assembled it the day after buying it. I didn't get to shoot with it until 5th edition.

That's an extreme case, but the point remains - the game should focus on your units doing things, rather than just on how quickly you can table your opponent. Because that way, we'd all get to actually play with our models more.

 insaniak wrote:

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:
Does anyone else remember 5th edition's Fearless rule? A Fearless unit could lose combat, and they would take additional Wounds based on how much they lost by, but would get their armor saves. What about that as a mechanic? It would represent models fleeing and getting cut down by the victors, or by their comrades who consider those fleeing to be traitors and cowards.

The problem with 5th edition Fearless was that it was fairly universally reviled. In many cases, it made being Fearless a liability, because the unit could get stuck in a combat with something that they either were fairly evenly matched with or couldn't kill, and would lose through attrition where a non-fearless unit could have just broken from the combat.



Making more models die faster is not the way to fix a game that already focuses too heavily on killing models as quickly as possible. I would rather see morale have a less direct affect on the unit (reducing their effectiveness, rather than forcing them to run away or just removing models wholesale) so that units actually stayed on the board for longer.

This, for me, is one of the biggest problems with 40K, and has been for a long time. We have all these pretty models, we spend hours putting them together and painting them... and as likely as not, they stay on the board for all of 3 and a half minutes before going back in the case. Hell, I bought the original plastic/metal Vindicator kit when it was first released at the end of 2nd (might have been very early 3rd) edition. I assembled it the day after buying it. I didn't get to shoot with it until 5th edition.

That's an extreme case, but the point remains - the game should focus on your units doing things, rather than just on how quickly you can table your opponent. Because that way, we'd all get to actually play with our models more.

That right there about Fearless crumble is what killed Swarms going from 6th to 7th WFB. If you take the same thing that made people stop taking swarms and apply it to the nice expensive elite units that GW needs to make mass money off of ESPECIALLY if they just did a new plastic kit for, then you quickly see why people disliked the mechanic so much.

"Every model should have cool bespoke rules. Not only would that be more fun, but it’ll mean you will only need to learn the rules for your models."

Sounds to me like tables are going away and you'll be hitting and wounding on fixed values.

To me, fearless would have to mean something about the choices you have, and are willing to make. It doesn't automatically drop your IQ by a couples of tens so you stick around hopeless fights and such!

As such, I think it would be nice to have some kind of morale mechanic, where you would need to make a morale test to do stuff. Stuff like charging into that 20-strong Genestealer horde with your 10-strong Imperial Guard Infantry squad. If the opposing side has a rule that causes fear, it would then modify your chances of affecting it negatively, and being fearless (which I would apply to Space Marines as "They Shall Know No Fear!", would negate such a test completely, as they know no fear and therefor are totally free to charge into an outnumbering enemy squad that has claws which rip their power armour to shreds liek a pair of scissors does flimsy paper.
The opposite would be true as well. Those Guardsmen would likely be desperate, and either continue fighting such a close combat, or run off and get eaten alive, depending on morale checks and their outcome. Space marines would simply choose to leave combat at a time of their choosing. They wouldn't fear the retalliation and perform some form of fighting retreat.

in the same way, I would be hoping for some rule set for suppression. I never thought it fun, nor practical, to roll 20+ ranged fire attacks (punisher gatlings and such) or massed fire from an infantry squad 20 strong at rapid fire range. Especially when all it does, is remove models. Each and every squad that doesn't suffer enough casualties just stands up, returns fire or does whatever the heck it wants to. How about a weapon having both a number of attacks, and a suppression value? Make morale checks by rolling dice added to Morale against such a suppression value to see if the affected squad even dares raising their heads from what cover they sought. Weapons which now have tremendously cumbersome rates of fire, or stuff that causes frightening explosions (Demolisher battle cannons?) might actually get a reasonably low rate of fire, but high suppression values. Some other weapons might have high suppression, like a sniper rifle. "Where did that come from!? Heads down, boys!"

 Galef wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
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.

For me, the dread that comes from the idea of a simplified reboot is that it will mean hundreds of dollars spent on book goes down the drain at once. It is one thing to update a book every now and then, but to straight up wipe the slate clean is terrifying.
If GW could reboot just the main rule book, yet leave all the codices alone (meaning statlines, points costs and faction specific special rules would have to remain) than I could be happy with a drastically different main rule set. A set of smart writers can find a way to simplify the main rules and still make all the puzzle pieces in the codices fit.
But given what happened with Fantasy 8th ed into AoS, I doubt this would happen.

And free downloadable rules are a slap in the face. They are not free. They are the cost of a tablet and painfully scrolling through digital info. I would rather pay for actual books, much more user friendly. In my experience, I can find a rule twice as fast in a book as most players can scroll to it on a device.

-

You're supposed to use the search and table of contents features when you use electronic formats.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lord Xcapobl wrote:
To me, fearless would have to mean something about the choices you have, and are willing to make. It doesn't automatically drop your IQ by a couples of tens so you stick around hopeless fights and such!

As such, I think it would be nice to have some kind of morale mechanic, where you would need to make a morale test to do stuff. Stuff like charging into that 20-strong Genestealer horde with your 10-strong Imperial Guard Infantry squad. If the opposing side has a rule that causes fear, it would then modify your chances of affecting it negatively, and being fearless (which I would apply to Space Marines as "They Shall Know No Fear!", would negate such a test completely, as they know no fear and therefor are totally free to charge into an outnumbering enemy squad that has claws which rip their power armour to shreds liek a pair of scissors does flimsy paper.
The opposite would be true as well. Those Guardsmen would likely be desperate, and either continue fighting such a close combat, or run off and get eaten alive, depending on morale checks and their outcome. Space marines would simply choose to leave combat at a time of their choosing. They wouldn't fear the retalliation and perform some form of fighting retreat.

in the same way, I would be hoping for some rule set for suppression. I never thought it fun, nor practical, to roll 20+ ranged fire attacks (punisher gatlings and such) or massed fire from an infantry squad 20 strong at rapid fire range. Especially when all it does, is remove models. Each and every squad that doesn't suffer enough casualties just stands up, returns fire or does whatever the heck it wants to. How about a weapon having both a number of attacks, and a suppression value? Make morale checks by rolling dice added to Morale against such a suppression value to see if the affected squad even dares raising their heads from what cover they sought. Weapons which now have tremendously cumbersome rates of fire, or stuff that causes frightening explosions (Demolisher battle cannons?) might actually get a reasonably low rate of fire, but high suppression values. Some other weapons might have high suppression, like a sniper rifle. "Where did that come from!? Heads down, boys!"

It's called pinning.

Eyjio wrote:
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.

(snip)

That's an excellent summary. Go back in time and describe the current state of the game to players of 5e or earlier, and they'd probably assume you were on drugs.

 Galef wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
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.

For me, the dread that comes from the idea of a simplified reboot is that it will mean hundreds of dollars spent on book goes down the drain at once. It is one thing to update a book every now and then, but to straight up wipe the slate clean is terrifying.
If GW could reboot just the main rule book, yet leave all the codices alone (meaning statlines, points costs and faction specific special rules would have to remain) than I could be happy with a drastically different main rule set. A set of smart writers can find a way to simplify the main rules and still make all the puzzle pieces in the codices fit.
But given what happened with Fantasy 8th ed into AoS, I doubt this would happen.

And free downloadable rules are a slap in the face. They are not free. They are the cost of a tablet and painfully scrolling through digital info. I would rather pay for actual books, much more user friendly. In my experience, I can find a rule twice as fast in a book as most players can scroll to it on a device.

-

I love hard copy - I don't use electronic so I know where you are coming from and its often painful to watch people messing about with phones and the like, but printers are a thing and if the rules are free you are paying for just paper and printer costs. Plus likely they will bring out books. They have with AOS. I would hope more for printed cards as they are much better play aids than codex's - hard copy or electronic.

You simply can't change the system and still keep the same stats, army rules and special rules - that's one of the main reasons why the game is in such a terrible mess - GW did not reboot Codexes when editions change - so rules don't work, armies are suddenly terrible, units are pointed wrong or their role is redundant. Also the broken codexes stay broken or get worse, this is an opportunity to fix what is broken, not stick with the same problems.

I have 7 editions of rules and codexes - I used to have a complete set but the recent few years they have been two expensive and two regular.

To me one of the great benefits of moving away to having points in a codex is that you can now do yearly re-balancing updates to fix blatant problems which would otherwise be ignored for years. It should lead to hopefully more consistency in balance.

 Elemental wrote:
That's an excellent summary. Go back in time and describe the current state of the game to players of 5e or earlier, and they'd probably assume you were on drugs.

Thanks! To be honest, if you told me about 7th in 5e, my reactions would probably have been: "Why does 40k need a magic phase? Are non-Imperium armies really being played or are you pulling my leg? You mean special weapons other than meltaguns exist and tanks are pretty squishy? Which idiot ported the destroyer weapons over when nobody even likes them in Apoc?" There have definitely been more than a few missteps along the way, but in fairness the game isn't just 100% mech IG, mech Grey Knights and mech Space Wolves any more. I do sort of long for the days where Draigowing was an army which could actually exist on the table for more than 2 turns - nowadays it'd just get wiped by various D weapons and stomps.

insaniak wrote:Making more models die faster is not the way to fix a game that already focuses too heavily on killing models as quickly as possible. I would rather see morale have a less direct affect on the unit (reducing their effectiveness, rather than forcing them to run away or just removing models wholesale) so that units actually stayed on the board for longer.
This, for me, is one of the biggest problems with 40K, and has been for a long time. We have all these pretty models, we spend hours putting them together and painting them... and as likely as not, they stay on the board for all of 3 and a half minutes before going back in the case. Hell, I bought the original plastic/metal Vindicator kit when it was first released at the end of 2nd (might have been very early 3rd) edition. I assembled it the day after buying it. I didn't get to shoot with it until 5th edition.

That's an extreme case, but the point remains - the game should focus on your units doing things, rather than just on how quickly you can table your opponent. Because that way, we'd all get to actually play with our models more.

I agree that models don't stay on the table long enough, but I disagree that morale should have a less direct effect. The issue with making morale do something else (such as reduce BS/WS, having to regroup or blocking the ability to charge, etc) is that it slows the game down even more - a low BS unit is basically a dead unit, and if you make unit-by-unit morale exceptions you increase bookkeeping, and thus the risk of someone making a mistake or forgetting a rule. Especially in combat, we're now seeing models with 8+ attacks because assault is so gimped; most units need more killing power in assault and the new change would go towards helping that, although realistically we also need the weapon skill chart to become nearly identical to the roll-to-wound chart if it's ever going to be anything other than whiffing attacks constantly.

In my opinion, it's the ridiculous levels which shooting has gotten to which has left us in this state - Land Raiders die in single hits which is absurd (and has been true since 5th, barring the newfound ability of most armies to now glance them to death), and destroyer weapons are still one of the least fun things ever introduced into a gaming system for exactly this reason - you painted a large model lovingly? Too bad, dead in one hit, along with losing that point investment. I maintain that this is still a good change thematically, as you can just imagine the models deserting the battle, and is a much simpler compromise which might allow them to have meaningful leadership. You are right though, the lethality of the average weapon should be reduced significantly.

morgoth wrote:It's called pinning.

You know, it's easy to forget this rule is actually in the game. I think the last time I saw a unit get pinned was in 6th, and that was in a narrative campaign. I'd love to see snipers actually be worth taking though, as opposed to being worse than bolters most of the time.

Eyjio wrote:
The issue with making morale do something else (such as reduce BS/WS, having to regroup or blocking the ability to charge, etc) is that it slows the game down even more - a low BS unit is basically a dead unit, and if you make unit-by-unit morale exceptions you increase bookkeeping, and thus the risk of someone making a mistake or forgetting a rule.

You just use counters placed in units to indicate the morale state of a unit. You could use actual counters, or have dice that represent the morale level, or something like Epic 40k did with blast markers.

Units aren't going to be pinned by snipers when they are all invisible, titans, monsters or monstrous titans

Eyjio wrote:

 Elemental wrote:
That's an excellent summary. Go back in time and describe the current state of the game to players of 5e or earlier, and they'd probably assume you were on drugs.

Thanks! To be honest, if you told me about 7th in 5e, my reactions would probably have been: "Why does 40k need a magic phase? Are non-Imperium armies really being played or are you pulling my leg? You mean special weapons other than meltaguns exist and tanks are pretty squishy? Which idiot ported the destroyer weapons over when nobody even likes them in Apoc?" There have definitely been more than a few missteps along the way, but in fairness the game isn't just 100% mech IG, mech Grey Knights and mech Space Wolves any more. I do sort of long for the days where Draigowing was an army which could actually exist on the table for more than 2 turns - nowadays it'd just get wiped by various D weapons and stomps.

You don't think the crappy Apoc sales might have had something to do with it? Personally I loved Apoc but hate seeing Apoc models in standard play to the point that I don't even like Apoc anymore.
Hopefully the AoS ing re-establishes boundries and separates Apoc from standard - now that everybody has Apoc models it might get another shot at life.

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 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.

I always thought that the soul of the game, whatever the system, regardless of miniature wargaming, roleplaying, sports, or anything, is FUN.

Seriously, the rules don't matter in the big scheme of things. All they are used for is to abstract out into a mechanic what might happen in real life should such an encounter occur. All the dice do is help out with the probability of success or failure for a given experience.

Think back for a moment, and put some sincere thought into this: WHY DO YOU ENJOY WARGAMING? Is it for the models, or for the rules? Is it for the other players, or for a chance to be good at something? Do you enjoy the painting over the gaming? Do you like playing in tournaments? How about narrative campaigns? Is the fluff your favorite part over any other? Or do you hope to make some crazy, epic moments on the tabletop?

We are all in this hobby for our own reason, so not one answer will fit for everyone.

If the rules get changed in a way you don't like, then make up your own rules and play that game! The example of D&D 4th edition was given, and I have no problem saying that I enjoyed it! It was the system that was out and being supported when I first tried D&D, and our group realized that some things didn't work, and so we made our own house rules. Does it REALLY matter that the warrior was using At-Will and Encounter powers to attack the Giant Ant Queen instead of making standard melee attacks? No! What matters is that we had fun together, and we had a memorable campaign.

No system will be perfect, and that's okay. Figure out WHY YOU ENJOY WARGAMING and then think about what rules changes will do to your personal experiences in the big scheme of things.

Exactly. D&D4e and AoS got so much backlash from players of earlier editions because they didn't pay attention to what made the game fun.

WHFB, to me (and I suspect many others), was supposed to be the game of maneuver-heavy impulse warfare, where battles were won by clever positioning as much or more than by having bigger toys than the other guy. AoS is, instead, a game of size creep and die rolls that stripped out the maneuver element of gameplay almost entirely in favour of a superficially similar dice mechanic and 40k-style bigger-things-win balance.

If you'd put me in charge of the WHFB reboot we'd have ended up with something more like War of the Ring, wherein unnecessary fiddly stat elements, complicated special rules, and unnecessary die rolls got stripped out and the maneuver/impulse warfare gameplay stayed. Leave in how the game is supposed to play and take out the endless rules bloat, rather than stripping out the gameplay and preserving the rules bloat.

AoS places a lot of importance on manoeuvring as well. Especially with the pile in moves, which are much more important than you might first imagine. You'll be trying to position your troops to inflict the maximum amount of attacks whilst receiving the minimum amount back in turn. My friend is getting very good at this.

Also, they don't always end up as a big ruck in the center of the board. Our games are usually decided by who's able to dash to the unclaimed objective in the corner.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
AoS places a lot of importance on manoeuvring as well. Especially with the pile in moves, which are much more important than you might first imagine. You'll be trying to position your troops to inflict the maximum amount of attacks whilst receiving the minimum amount back in turn. My friend is getting very good at this.

Also, they don't always end up as a big ruck in the center of the board. Our games are usually decided by who's able to dash to the unclaimed objective in the corner.

Without getting stuck into the subjective point of whether there's more or less depth to the movement phase now (if we do we'll be here all day) I think we should be able to agree, objectively, that the strategy/player choice/gameplay involved in the AoS movement phase is drastically different from that involved in the WHFB movement phase.

Which pissed off all the people who found the WHFB movement phase fun.

Which is why there was/is so much vitriol directed at the reboot from the old guard.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
AoS places a lot of importance on manoeuvring as well. Especially with the pile in moves, which are much more important than you might first imagine. You'll be trying to position your troops to inflict the maximum amount of attacks whilst receiving the minimum amount back in turn. My friend is getting very good at this.

Also, they don't always end up as a big ruck in the center of the board. Our games are usually decided by who's able to dash to the unclaimed objective in the corner.

Without getting stuck into the subjective point of whether there's more or less depth to the movement phase now (if we do we'll be here all day) I think we should be able to agree, objectively, that the strategy/player choice/gameplay involved in the AoS movement phase is drastically different from that involved in the WHFB movement phase.

Which pissed off all the people who found the WHFB movement phase fun.

Which is why there was/is so much vitriol directed at the reboot from the old guard.

So coming back to my thread, which i somewhat abandon, I will agree with this, which also is the reason im sort of weary on the changes.

Change can be good as long as it makes the game more fun, but to much of a good this is really bad, IE what happened to WHFB. I often would equate WHFB to the table top version of total war, which was great i think that was really cool but when AoS just uprooted that, its understandable that peole were pissed and did not wanna even be a part of the game anymore because their game was dead. Thats what i fear for 40k. BUT with that said, it almost sounds like we are going back to 3rd ed rules which i have only heard about not actually played.

Overall as long as the core game play does not change, deathstars and super friends are addressed, MC are on par with vehicles, im down for what ever makes the game more fun. I just dont wanna walk into the store on my first game of 8th and and have it be nothing like 40k other then name and models like what AoS was to fantasy.

Exactly. D&D4e and AoS got so much backlash from players of earlier editions because they didn't pay attention to what made the game fun.

4E also got alot of lies said about it, many rules were quoted by awful grognards that weren't even there. Many seemed to miss when most of the classes were just caddies to Wizards and CoDzilla...

Honestly though there's plenty to hope for if 40k gets AoS'ed, but if there isn't some big rehaul we'll still have to deal with the horrid codex balance we have now.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Exactly. D&D4e and AoS got so much backlash from players of earlier editions because they didn't pay attention to what made the game fun.

4E also got alot of lies said about it, many rules were quoted by awful grognards that weren't even there. Many seemed to miss when most of the classes were just caddies to Wizards and CoDzilla...

Honestly though there's plenty to hope for if 40k gets AoS'ed, but if there isn't some big rehaul we'll still have to deal with the horrid codex balance we have now.

Well i mean its not like AoS is any better balanced, Death is dead, Destruction is viable if your running death star like armies, 7 Giants is a hilarious army to run BTW. Then with order and Chaos is just who can build a better wombo combo and get it off first.

Im all for the nerfing of the cheese, but i just dont want it watered down to nothing.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Exactly. D&D4e and AoS got so much backlash from players of earlier editions because they didn't pay attention to what made the game fun.

4E also got alot of lies said about it, many rules were quoted by awful grognards that weren't even there. Many seemed to miss when most of the classes were just caddies to Wizards and CoDzilla...

Honestly though there's plenty to hope for if 40k gets AoS'ed, but if there isn't some big rehaul we'll still have to deal with the horrid codex balance we have now.

And you're asserting that AoS doesn't have horrid balance?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Exactly. D&D4e and AoS got so much backlash from players of earlier editions because they didn't pay attention to what made the game fun.

4E also got alot of lies said about it, many rules were quoted by awful grognards that weren't even there. Many seemed to miss when most of the classes were just caddies to Wizards and CoDzilla...

Honestly though there's plenty to hope for if 40k gets AoS'ed, but if there isn't some big rehaul we'll still have to deal with the horrid codex balance we have now.

And you're asserting that AoS doesn't have horrid balance?

Where are you reading that he's asserting that? I mean, can you point to the words specifically? Because that's some world class assumption. I can't see him saying that even a little.
edit: I liked another word better.