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Less dice, more dakka and choppa:
- Change overwatch to simply allow shooting units to use their guns during the first round of close combat as if moved (it's hard to use a missile launcher when an ork is standing right in front of you). Takes less time and awards quality over quantity.
- Less variance in charging. 2-12" is too much when an entire unit is at stake. Guns work without random ranges, I don't see why charges shouldn't.
- Same for run. Flat-out, turbo-boost and other accelerated movement aren't random, just make run a flat 6".
- Scratch AP. Weapons get an USR that decreases armor save rolls by one or two where applicable (plasma, melta, lances etc).
- FNP becomes a flat increase to saves. When saves get better than 2+, they "overflow" into rerolls like BS does. For example, a paladin with FNP(+2) would get a reroll of 5+.
- WS hits the same as BS, a WS above 5 "overflows" into rerolls. Increase save by one for higher WS, increase by two for double WS.
- AV becomes toughness, kill penetration roll. For example, a rhino would be T7/T7/T6, a landraider T10 all around (random numbers - needs play testing, of course).
- Hull points and wounds become hit points, because they really are the same.
- No more differentiation between penetrating and glancing vehicles. Either you take off a hit point, or you don't.
- Eliminate vehicle damage table. There is no reason to enable randomly causing instant death to just a single type of unit.

Change rules which cause most arguments and/or balance issues:
- First blood can only be scored in close combat.
- Cover becomes binary and 2d. Draw line of sight across a unit, area terrain or terrain piece, get cover. No more arguing about 24% vs 26%.
- For the same reason, you can always shoot every model within range, no more "out of sight".
- Deploy fortifications after terrain has been set up. Allow very large fortification to replace certain types of terrain.
- Make walkers monstrous creatures. There really is no reason not to.
- Failing leadership test always spells doom for a unit, and for that reason dozens of units get a way around it. Either make it less drastic or drop it all together. I doubt the game would lose a lot at this point if leadership disappeared.
- Eliminate barrage sniping by just adding ignore cover
- Scatter once per unit for any number of identical blasts to save time. When you've shot nice grotzookas a turn, you get what I mean.

Streamline USR:
- There is no need for six types of close combat USRs when they all amount to nothing but more wounds caused. Same for shooting. With the changes above, all can be rolled into additional WS/BS, additional shots/attacks and strength.
- Why do we need a dozen different wordings for "this is good at killing tanks" (amorbane, melta, lance)? Just make them work like poison, ie. auto-penetrating on a set roll.
- Skyfire shoots at the sky only. Interceptor only allows you to intercept reserves. Add "No penalty for shooting at flyers" as new USR.
- Every USR has exactly one effect. If necessary, split existing ones. No one can remember an USR that gives seven minor conditional bonuses.
- Giving USR badass names doesn't do a thing to make the rules more readable. If something runs an additional 3", call it "run move +3" instead of "Glorious boots worn by the Emperor himself at the Battle of Wolves and Angels when a very drunk Leman Russ punched pretty boy Sanguinus in the face (See page 56)".

 Jidmah wrote:
- Giving USR badass names doesn't do a thing to make the rules more readable. If something runs an additional 3", call it "run move +3" instead of "Glorious boots worn by the Emperor himself at the Battle of Wolves and Angels when a very drunk Leman Russ punched pretty boy Sanguinus in the face (See page 56)".

GBWBTEHATBOWAAWAVDLRPPBSITF is OP. It needs to be nerfed to +2.

Nice ideas so far guys, I agree with those of you who don't like challenges, they don't really fit in 40k

And personally, I like the GBWBTEHATBOWAAWAVDLRPPBSIF rule

 Tod wrote:
Nice ideas so far guys, I agree with those of you who don't like challenges, they don't really fit in 40k

And personally, I like the GBWBTEHATBOWAAWAVDLRPPBSIF rule

Personally my thing with challenges (IRL) is that I would accept... and then tell the rest of my squad to attack the guy when he/she/it wasn't looking. There is no honor in war, only winners and losers.

 deviantduck wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
- Giving USR badass names doesn't do a thing to make the rules more readable. If something runs an additional 3", call it "run move +3" instead of "Glorious boots worn by the Emperor himself at the Battle of Wolves and Angels when a very drunk Leman Russ punched pretty boy Sanguinus in the face (See page 56)".

GBWBTEHATBOWAAWAVDLRPPBSITF is OP. It needs to be nerfed to +2.

I lol'd

Also, simpler USR names would make translations less prone to mistakes, and it would be easier for us with international editions of the BRB to cross-check our versions of the rulebook with english materials such as mini-codexes, Forgeworld rulebooks or supplements, assuming GW keeps releasing those only in english.

For example, the rending USR translates into spanish as "acerado". "Acerado" means "reinforced with steel" or "incisive" depending on context. Quite counter-intuitive if you ask me.

Revamp the vehicle rules to make them not a "worst of both worlds" unit type.

Remove the vehicle damage bonus for AP 1 and 2 weapons.

Bring back rules allowing some weapons to do D3 or D6 damage (as opposed to all weapons doing one point of damage).

Correct the allies rules to remove their most abusive applications. Allow Tyranids some limited ability to ally with Chaos Space Marines and Imperial Guard.

Remove First Blood as an objective. Replace The Relic with something that people actually want to play.

Also, drop the Challenge rules completely.

Actually, just let Jidmah write 7th edition. His ideas are all pretty excellent.

Charge should go down to d6" , there is no way a charging person is faster then someone who is runing to cover .
Overwatch should also be change , shoting at someone from point blank range is easier then from the other side of table.

There should also be options added for supresive fire and speculative fire not just from mortars . It would greatly help shoty armies to counter FMC and fast moving units , if they could put templates down which would force out hits , if someone enters them . There should be a downside to puting those templates though , units that put them down shouldn't be able to overwatch as they are re-loading.

Makumba wrote:
Charge should go down to d6" , there is no way a charging person is faster then someone who is runing to cover .
Overwatch should also be change , shoting at someone from point blank range is easier then from the other side of table.

There should also be options added for supresive fire and speculative fire not just from mortars . It would greatly help shoty armies to counter FMC and fast moving units , if they could put templates down which would force out hits , if someone enters them . There should be a downside to puting those templates though , units that put them down shouldn't be able to overwatch as they are re-loading.

Yeah, nerfing assault more is what 7th needs... Geez. Charging is fine as is, not just d6, and Overwatch in my mind should be nerfed. Frankly, it should replace all normal CC attacks, so that it's an actual decision instead of automatic. Shooty armies don't need more to counter other armies, is being best not enough?

Charge should go down to d6" , there is no way a charging person is faster then someone who is runing to cover .
Overwatch should also be change , shoting at someone from point blank range is easier then from the other side of table.

Both of these statements are untrue. In fact, with a rifle, you're better off being a bit of distance away... that way the intended target doesn't step past the muzzle and stab you in the neck. As the Wu Tang said, protect ya neck.

Overwatch is not as bad as people like to think it is, since it's done as snap-shots. What makes it "bad" is the armies (Tau, mainly) that get the supporting-fire option, that allow units close to the target of the assault *also* fire Overwatch., and unless you have dedicated a lot of points to assault units, you're not tying enough FW up into melee when your charge lands. I often see people trying to charge 3 Tau units with only 1 or 2 assault blobs, which just gets them shot to pieces by all 3 blocks of Tau.

... but, then again, the gun is mightier than the sword.

 Peregrine wrote:
Everything. Delete the whole game and start over from the beginning. I'd be surprised if my ideal 7th edition contains even a single sentence from 6th edition.

This. In fact, we have a whole thread about it: How would YOU reboot 40k? Let 100 Heresies Bloom!

 Agent_Tremolo wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
- Giving USR badass names doesn't do a thing to make the rules more readable. If something runs an additional 3", call it "run move +3" instead of "Glorious boots worn by the Emperor himself at the Battle of Wolves and Angels when a very drunk Leman Russ punched pretty boy Sanguinus in the face (See page 56)".

GBWBTEHATBOWAAWAVDLRPPBSITF is OP. It needs to be nerfed to +2.

I lol'd

Also, simpler USR names would make translations less prone to mistakes, and it would be easier for us with international editions of the BRB to cross-check our versions of the rulebook with english materials such as mini-codexes, Forgeworld rulebooks or supplements, assuming GW keeps releasing those only in english.

For example, the rending USR translates into spanish as "acerado". "Acerado" means "reinforced with steel" or "incisive" depending on context. Quite counter-intuitive if you ask me.

I've got an even better one for you: In German, until 6th edition "Relentless" translated to "Waffenexperte" (= weapons expert) and then suddenly a rule called "Unnachgiebig" (actual translation of relentless) appeared in the 6th edition's BRB, effectively removing the relentless rule from all 4th and 5th edition codices.

All kinds of changes, though if I could only make one change it would be to remove 'Ignores Cover' from the game. That one special rule has pretty much killed competitive balance between codecies.

For me, a 7th edition ought to be entirely about clarity.

A group of people ( too much work for one person ) needs to comb through every mechanic and special rule to make sure that the language is very clear and understandable.

As an example, the mechanics for working out hits and wounds should be the same for both shooting and close combat. There should be no situation in which you would ever need to "roll off" to see the order of things. And no, letting the player whose turn it is decide any order issues is not an answer.

The structure and layout of the rule book itself should be changed. Flipping between 3 or 4 different pages to get all of the rules around a template weapon is just asinine and makes it very easy to miss important bits. For example, using template weapons when the unit is charged is essentially hidden and, if you aren't paying attention, leads to an initial thought that template weapons can't be used in that situation which is wrong.

Consistency is also very important. If skimmers are allowed to be hit normally with skyfire weapons then they should have the skyfire rule. Along those lines, the Allies chart should better reflect the fluff. The current one looks like they started down that path, then someone with zero knowledge of the background came in and screwed it all up. Simple examples: in the codex fluff, Tau are explicitly stated to shoot orks on sight. From an allies perspective they should then be CtA not AoC. Next, in fluff, the imperial races don't differentiate between Eldar and Dark Eldar. So all of those ratings should be the same: DA. Same with GK and SW: DA because since the first war of armageddon the wolves don't get along with the Inquisition /GK forces at all.

In short I'd rather see a group of people clean up the existing rules so they make sense, then change the presentation such that it's very easy to see what's going on. This alone would have a MUCH bigger impact than coming out with an actual new edition with all of the associated "bugs" of a new release.

State explicitly that 40k approved FW is legal and drop the farfetched ally combinations - make battlebrothers much more rare.

Make Tau allies of convineincee with SM and battle brothers with IG ("Xeno scum!" and gue'vessa).

I've actually started going through the rulebook already and am working on rewriting, dropping, or changing the rules as gw has them. The idea is to better write the rules so there's no wording discrepencies, contradictions or large loop holes. I'm also trying to streamline the process of the game and trim a lot of the fat off it. This thread has brought up some good ideas that I think will help with this project. When I'm done I hope to give it to people for testing and feedback in hopes that for fun games people will have a more enjoyable set of rules to play from.

Altering the rules for Strength D weapons, or even Super Heavy units in general so that we can see a fairer interaction with regular 40k.

 Spellbound wrote:
I would either get rid of first blood or change it. What I would love to see for "first blood" would be:

Get a victory point if, in one game turn, you killed an enemy unit without losing one yourself.

So if you go first and kill a rhino, but then they kill your rhino, no first blood. If it's turn 6 and you finally kill an enemy unit, and their retaliation doesn't finish off one of yours, you get first blood.

That way, first blood goes to the first player to actually get the upper hand, or skillfully arrange to destroy an enemy unit at no cost to themselves. Otherwise it's just a back and forth that, tactically, isn't worthwhile.


I would bring back VICTORY POINTS. Killing a rhino should not be worth the same amount as killing 10 Paladins. Ever.

I would make EMPTY, DEDICATED transports non-scoring, non-denial units. And remove the landraider as a dedicated transport (make it a heavy support option only, or allow it to be taken as heavy support OR elites OR HQ, if someone wants to cart their terminators around without having to give up heavy support).

I don't like how in one mission a maulerfiend doesn't count at all, yet in another it's a scoring unit. Was the reason for making vehicles non-scoring because they can't actually grab an objective? Because the dreadnought has two gun arms, he can't grab the vital dataslate that you've been fighting over? If that's the case, then they shouldn't be able to in some missions and be unable to in others.

A transport vehicle, typically, is just crap. Low armor, weak weapons, and by itself is just not able to do much. Play Dawn of War and build a rhino - what's it do? Transport troops, that's all. Doesn't do anything else.

A vehicle of substantial strength, something you could park in a street and cover the city block with supporting fire like a predator or falcon can keep someone from approaching an objective. They can deny the opponent that objective. A dreadnought standing by the dataslate protecting it until someone with actual hands comes by. Vehicles aside from dedicated transports should be able to deny objectives.

And a transport with a squad of guys in it SHOULD count. We abstract a lot of things in this game - we can't abstract that the guys can quickly get out and grab it? Being near it in a transport or being near it on foot are pretty close, given how quickly our troops are proposed to be able to disembark and be ready to fight.



I would allow overwatch at full BS, but you declare you are overwatching instead of shooting. So you move to near an objective, declare you are going into overwatch, and don't shoot anything. Then, if you get charged, you can let fly and cause significant damage. You could even allow them to shoot if a nearby unit is charged, too.

This way we could bring back charging from reserves, and situations like "khorne berserkers behind walls pile out and catch you totally unawares" are removed. And if someone tries to put their entire army on overwatch, well congrats you skipped your shooting phase. If the enemy decides not to charge you, you wasted your time.


I also think we should bring back "remove the casualties you want". It made the game faster, and the decisions people made regarding weapon selection and upgrades allowed them to get more out of it. Weapons can be picked up by other squad members, so there's no reason that meltagun should fall to the ground and Look out, Sir! should just be kind of given. Make armor saves on majority armor, UNLESS a character wants to take their own save.

Conversely, if that's considered unbalanced, bring back torrent of fire. I was ok with certain models making their own saves because of the volume of fire the unit took. I hate not being able to put commanders or special weapons forward because they'll automatically be the first ones shot.

Lol, no. First blood means who kills someone first. It should be anyone one model. If you go first, you go first. If you mil a model you drew "first blood"! End of story. Kinda dumb that you have to kill a whole gang of orks to get it

Johnnytorrance wrote:

Lol, no. First blood means who kills someone first. It should be anyone one model. If you go first, you go first. If you mil a model you drew "first blood"! End of story. Kinda dumb that you have to kill a whole gang of orks to get it

If you do that then you may as well just dispense with the First Blood condition completely and just give the player who won the roll off to go first a VP. Rather, I'd like to see it changed to first Elite, Heavy or Troop unit (non-vehicle) to get wiped. But then again I run vehicles that explode if you sneeze too hard.

First blood should be 1st scoring unit

Remove Seize the Initiative.

Buff up Pyromancy.

Change vehicles to a Toughness/Wounds/Armor Save system.

Other than that, I can't think of any issues in the main rules.

dadakkaest wrote:Add a mechanic for taking away overwatch within say 8" and with a chance of failure. Flash bang type grenades or something. Squad getting assaulted takes an initiative test, and if it fails, no overwatch.

I really like this idea.

Nem wrote:

dadakkaest wrote:
Add a mechanic for taking away overwatch within say 8" and with a chance of failure. Flash bang type grenades or something. Squad getting assaulted takes an initiative test, and if it fails, no overwatch.

Something like this, and the weapon skill table. A WS9 Unit should be able to his a WS2 unit on a 2+. Never understand why it's capped at 3.

Yeah, it's crazy how much better shooting is than assault in this game.

I'd change charge range from 2d6 to 3d6 take the two highest and through cover 3d6 take the lowest.

Keep it the same, but on the last page next to the reference sections write this "This is how it is going to be, if you don't like it write your own smegging rules"



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Biggest things for me:

Stop flip flopping between shooting and melee being all powerful and actually set in rules that enable both styles of play since while some armies can mix both, others are strongly one or the other.

The other thing is at the very least FAQ update every codex list for any completely new paradigm changes to the game. 6th edition should have come with every army being FAQd to at least include some kind of flyer defense for every army that was not just an ADL, but didn't. That is lazy...

Oh wait, who am I kidding. I am NOT buying 7th edition, so I really don't care unless GW magically transforms and actually releases a GOOD ruleset for a change.

Skriker


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sierra 1247 wrote:
Keep it the same, but on the last page next to the reference sections write this "This is how it is going to be, if you don't like it write your own smegging rules"



Automatically Appended Next Post:

May as well include an 'FU if you don't like that our rules suck" along with it too...

Skriker


Automatically Appended Next Post:

clively wrote:
Along those lines, the Allies chart should better reflect the fluff. The current one looks like they started down that path, then someone with zero knowledge of the background came in and screwed it all up. Simple examples: in the codex fluff, Tau are explicitly stated to shoot orks on sight. From an allies perspective they should then be CtA not AoC. Next, in fluff, the imperial races don't differentiate between Eldar and Dark Eldar. So all of those ratings should be the same: DA. Same with GK and SW: DA because since the first war of armageddon the wolves don't get along with the Inquisition /GK forces at all.

The allies thing is a tough issue. I think the best solution I've seen of late was the suggestion one person made to just allow any army to ally with any other army with all allies being "Allies of Convenience". Getting rid of all of the different levels of allies takes away a lot of the biggest offenses that come from the allies table. No psychic powers buffing units that were not designed to have such psychic report woudl go a long way to calming some of the dislike of allies. This is also the most fair and open way to allow people to add new armies to the collections they prefer as allied detachments first instead of only those they can use from the table.

The one thing I would add to this would be that if you have allies you have the allied detachment as normal, BUT each slot you include, except for HQ, would be removed from the main army's FOC. This would mean that armies without allies would not be penalized for not having them as their opponents will not have extra slots in the FOC. This would also do away with the 4 heldrake and 4 ridtide offender armies from forces that are able to ally with one of their own supplements.

These would turn allies into a cool add on feature to make your army unique, but wouldn't give you any crazy advantages from your combo, or enable you to effectively ignore the limitations of the FOC. Considering making these changes for my home group. Have to see how they work out.

Skriker

I wouldnt go so far and cull all rules, there are some good ones, but many Ideas are good.

My two cents:
As mentioned in the thread change the "I go, You go" System to something else, my Idea would be :

- Both sides move, then shoot, then assault. (This would benefit meele and shooty armies and leaves room for tactics)

Then get ride of either random charges or improve them to a working system (3d6 is a good Idea, or 2d6 + Initiative)

I had once also the Idea to remove the +1 Attack on the charge and replace it with + 1 Initiative (Would work with 2d6 + Ini System). Counterattack would negate the Bonus of Charging.

And Nades instead prevent Overwatch

As mentioned in the thread change the "I go, You go" System to something else, my Idea would be :

- Both sides move, then shoot, then assault. (This would benefit meele and shooty armies and leaves room for tactics)

This would give second player a huge advantage every turn. First would move, but then before first could do anything, second would move to counter first so first would always be out of position in the shooting and assault phases while second would always be in position. While trying to replace I go, You go would be interesting, I can't think of any alternatives that would really work well. Maybe alternating moving units, although that has its own problems as well.


As far as changing the rules go where to start:

1.) Get rid of random movement. Run, move through terrain and charge are all fixed distances.

2.) Get rid of true line of sight. Replace it with abstract line of sight that is focused on expedience, clarity, easy of play and tactics.
2a.) Ensure the rules make it easy to fill the board with ample line of sight blocking terrain to break up fire lanes and prevent alpha strikes. This should go a long way to making assaults more practical.
2b.) Shorten weapon ranges to further minimize alpha strikes.

3.) Make going second suck less, this should include:
3a.) Allowing all bikes and skimmers to claim jink saves during the first shooting phase rather than get caught with their pants down. This is an artifact of the turn structure that can easily be removed.
3b.) Enable Flying Monstrous Creatures to start the game as swooping if the controlling player so desires
3c.) Eliminating seize the initiative, deploying first and going second is incredibly unfair, it is basically like giving the player who seized two movement phases in a row.
3d.) Allow the second player to use augment powers immediately before the first player's first turn.
3e.) Eliminate first blood.
3f.) Don't let reserves such a drop pods enter turn 1.

4.) Get rid of snap shots, this mechanic effects different armies disproportionally and consumes valuable game time having players make shooting attacks that probably won't even hit, let alone do anything.
4a.) This includes overwatch.
4b.) This also includes supporting fire.

5.) Fix vehicles
5a.) Increase Mobility: Vehicles should be able to move 12" and fire at least 1 weapon. This is kind of the point of armored vehicles, they should be able to move faster than infantry on foot and still put down fire.
5b.) Eliminate vehicle damage table. I think hull points provide a fairer and more consistent damage mechanic, so do away with the older mechanic.
5c.) Enable assaults out of stationary vehicles.
5d.) Enable disembarkation after moving 12".

6.) Fix flyers, including not just a rewrite of the rules but and rewrite of all flyer statistics. It does not matter what rules you use for flyers, Vendettas and Heldrakes can never be balanced against things like Crimson Hunters and Razorsharks with their current stats under any flyer rule system.

7.) Wound allocation - Bring back 4th Edition wound allocation rules. Stop making a minigame out of a mechanic that is just supposed to determine how much damage a unit has taken.

8.) Do away with nearly invincible units:
8a.) Make invulnerable saves always fail on a roll of 1 or 2, regardless of unit stats or other modifiers.
8b.) Failed invulnerable saves can never be rerolled for any reason.
8c.) Failed saves other than invulnerable saves, if rerolled, can at best negate a wound on a 4+. That is a 1/12 chance of failure for a rerollable 2+ save, and a 1/6 chance for a rerollable 6+, and is more than good enough.

9.) Cut the fat - get rid of strange rules that add little or nothing to the game
9a.) Eliminate challenges
9b.) Eliminate Warlord traits
9c.) Eliminate mysterious terrain
9d.) Eliminate mysterious objectives.

10.) Allies - Everybody is allies of convenience with everyone else. Battle brothers are too exploitable, desperate allies are useless, and the alliance chart in general provides arbitrary favoritism, benefitting races like Eldar and Tau and absolutely screwing over Tyranids.

11.) Psychic Powers - No more random psychic powers. Make sure all psychic powers are fair and their will be no need for random assignment.

12.) Fix the leadership system. Leadership checks under normal circumstances are too easy to pass, which often requires things like psychic powers to overcompensate and make them nearly impossible to pass. Leadership on 3d6 should not be required just to get units to fail their leadership rolls.

13.) Make cover a BS penalty. This will make cover valuable for all units.
13b.) Make vehicles and monstrous creatures use the same rules for cover. Currently a vehicle has to be 25% physically concealed, while a MC merely needs a toe in area terrain.


Things to keep:
1.) No scoring/contesting from within vehicles. The fact that veteran's never had to actually leave Chimera's in 5e was stupid.
2.) No assaulting from reserves or infiltration. Assault units should still have to outmaneuver their victims to get the charge. They should never get to move straight from reserves to assault, this gives the opposing player no defense against them. They should be brought in line through other changes, such as increased LOS blocking terrain, removal of overwatch, changes in wound allocation and assault out of vehicles.