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 Selym wrote:
I'm currently editing down the rules. I can't remember what the original number of involved words are, but I was able to delete 6,000 words from just the psychic phase. It's horrendous.

I don't know why, but the idea of editing out 6,000 words from a single section of the rules and still leaving the rules functionally intact made me burst out laughing.

I... wow.

That's pretty shocking.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Selym wrote:
I'm currently editing down the rules. I can't remember what the original number of involved words are, but I was able to delete 6,000 words from just the psychic phase. It's horrendous.

I don't know why, but the idea of editing out 6,000 words from a single section of the rules and still leaving the rules functionally intact made me burst out laughing.

A compact rule set would be key for the game.
Last time, we were discussing if a unit that destroyed a Dread could consolidate D6 inches. Its clear, but a Dread is a walker and walkers are tanks.
Try to find this rule of consolidation in the rule book... Somewhere it says that a Dread is considered as an infantry model...

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Selym wrote:
I'm currently editing down the rules. I can't remember what the original number of involved words are, but I was able to delete 6,000 words from just the psychic phase. It's horrendous.

I don't know why, but the idea of editing out 6,000 words from a single section of the rules and still leaving the rules functionally intact made me burst out laughing.

A compact rule set would be key for the game.
Last time, we were discussing if a unit that destroyed a Dread could consolidate D6 inches. Its clear, but a Dread is a walker and walkers are tanks.
Try to find this rule of consolidation in the rule book... Somewhere it says that a Dread is considered as an infantry model...

I remember when walkers and tanks were different types of vehicles altogether...

Clear, concise, compact. That's what a rules set needs to be. It's not impossible, but at this point I think 40K needs a 3rd Edition style rewrite.

 Gen.Steiner wrote:
Clear, concise, compact. That's what a rules set needs to be. It's not impossible, but at this point I think 40K needs a 3rd Edition style rewrite.

This. Just the way GW presents their rules seems fundamentally broken. If I want to build a stupid Tac Squad I have to:

1. Look up the statistical section of the unit in the codex and decide what I want
2. Look up the fluff section of the unit in the codex to understand all the options and rules
3. Look up the wargear fluff section in the codex to decide what options I want
4. Look up the wargear stats section in the codex to determine the cost
5. Look up the wargear section in the BBB (or whatever color it is now) so I know what all the basic weapons do
6. Look up the USR section in the BBB so I know the squad's special rules

Since we're paying $40-60 for a codex, is it too much to ask that it includes a complete wargear list and USR glossary for the what the faction uses? Or that I don't have to flip back and forth constantly between multiple sections of the rules describing the same thing?

Most of the problem with the gameplay rules themselves is that they're written in the same byzantine way where you have to reference multiple sections of the book to understand a simple concept. A game based on a d6 roll with stats between 1-10 shouldn't require mile-long (kilometer-long for you non-Americans) FAQs to sort out regularly-occurring situations.

 WhiteBobcat wrote:

 Gen.Steiner wrote:
Clear, concise, compact. That's what a rules set needs to be. It's not impossible, but at this point I think 40K needs a 3rd Edition style rewrite.

This. Just the way GW presents their rules seems fundamentally broken. If I want to build a stupid Tac Squad I have to:

1. Look up the statistical section of the unit in the codex and decide what I want
2. Look up the fluff section of the unit in the codex to understand all the options and rules
3. Look up the wargear fluff section in the codex to decide what options I want
4. Look up the wargear stats section in the codex to determine the cost
5. Look up the wargear section in the BBB (or whatever color it is now) so I know what all the basic weapons do
6. Look up the USR section in the BBB so I know the squad's special rules

Since we're paying $40-60 for a codex, is it too much to ask that it includes a complete wargear list and USR glossary for the what the faction uses? Or that I don't have to flip back and forth constantly between multiple sections of the rules describing the same thing?

Most of the problem with the gameplay rules themselves is that they're written in the same byzantine way where you have to reference multiple sections of the book to understand a simple concept. A game based on a d6 roll with stats between 1-10 shouldn't require mile-long (kilometer-long for you non-Americans) FAQs to sort out regularly-occurring situations.

Yours doesn't?

The Sisters of Battle digital Codex has a section with all the faction's special rules listed with descriptions of how they work and a weapon table with stats.

I think a lot of people in 40K are in a holding pattern for 8th ed. I stopped playing club/shop pick-up games during 6th/7th, and recently games amongst my friends have dropped off too. Even in a small scale beer n' pretzels setting the game is no longer fun.

I'd love 8th ed to reset the game, but I can't see GW putting the lid back on Apocalypse.

If 8E is a failure, I may just abandon GW rules altogether.

Sorta working on it now...

We rewrote many rules during 5th edition and have been modifying them somewhat ever since. Some principles have been added but more have been taken away or never added since 7th Ed. The word doc is under 25 pages long and pretty inclusive although we never added flyers (still treated as skimmer types) nor super heavys.

 Selym wrote:
If 8E is a failure, I may just abandon GW rules altogether.

Sorta working on it now...

I've been considering going back to 5e if Sisters end up getting squatted.

Best it's ever been. There is no edition I'd rather play and I have played all of them when they were the current edition.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Best it's ever been. There is no edition I'd rather play and I have played all of them when they were the current edition.

LordTyphus wrote:
I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?

40K has never had this many options in any previous edition. This is a good time to play 40K.

Eldar, Tau, and Daemons are all strong armies in this edition.

 adamsouza wrote:

LordTyphus wrote:
I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?

40K has never had this many options in any previous edition. This is a good time to play 40K.

Eldar, Tau, and Daemons are all strong armies in this edition.

Unless you want to use any weapon that lays down more than one barrage blast at a time.

Then, the game raises its middle finger at you and thrusts it dramatically for effect.

 adamsouza wrote:

LordTyphus wrote:
I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?

40K has never had this many options in any previous edition. This is a good time to play 40K.

Eldar, Tau, and Daemons are all strong armies in this edition.

The biggest changes are that 40k now has flyers and allows superheavies. Moreover, you can even play an unbound army picking models and units at leisure. Furthermore, D weapons entered the game. Some superheavies have them but also Wraithguard who have D flamers. Some armies like Eldar and Tau have devasting fire power which is hard to counter (Decurion or Gladius formations can help here).

 adamsouza wrote:

LordTyphus wrote:
I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?

40K has never had this many options in any previous edition. This is a good time to play 40K.

Eldar, Tau, and Daemons are all strong armies in this edition.

What about the other armies?

 Capt. Camping wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

LordTyphus wrote:
I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?

40K has never had this many options in any previous edition. This is a good time to play 40K.

Eldar, Tau, and Daemons are all strong armies in this edition.

What about the other armies?

I guess personal preference here.

 Capt. Camping wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

LordTyphus wrote:
I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?

40K has never had this many options in any previous edition. This is a good time to play 40K.

Eldar, Tau, and Daemons are all strong armies in this edition.

What about the other armies?

He specifically asked about Eldar, Tau, and Daemons so that is what I commented about.

There is already a pissing contest going on in another thread abou who has it worst between Orks, Adepta Sororitas, and Chaos Space Marines .
There ever been an edition where Space Marines were not top tier.

The BIGGEST change is Force Organization, where there CAD is only one of many ways to build an army.
Combined Arms Detachment gives your troops Objective Secured, and lets your general re-roll Warlord traits.
Other formations/detachments give other benefits. Some are better, some are worse. People only care about the few perceived to be better.

Flyers and LoWs are part of regular army selection. The Psychic phase is either ignorable or game defining, depending on the army build.

Eldar - Jet bikes and Wraithknights are the strongest units this edition, spamming either will win you games and make people cry.
Tau - Markerlight Spam and the best shooting game, make people cry. Tau got a ton of upgrades from the last time you played.
Daemons - Mono Khorne has their own codex, that lets them summon, Nurgle is hard to kill, Tzeentch lets you summon more daemons.

Necrons lost their best shooty cheese, but are harder to kill
Space Marines got Grav weapons, which destory good armor, and a formation that lets them get transports for free.
Orks are terrible, outside of bikes, mega armored nobz, tankbustas, and lootas.

Everyone else is relatively unchanged

Marines were not top tier in 2nd and 5th for sure. I'd argue late 3rd as well.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Furthermore, D weapons entered the game. Some superheavies have them but also Wraithguard who have D flamers. Some armies like Eldar and Tau have devasting fire power which is hard to counter (Decurion or Gladius formations can help here).

D-weapons, or at least their effects, were in 1st and 2nd edition in most of the same places they are now.

D-like weapons have existed in every edition as well, usually more powerful than they are now (I'm looking at you Jaws of the World Wolf).

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Furthermore, D weapons entered the game. Some superheavies have them but also Wraithguard who have D flamers. Some armies like Eldar and Tau have devasting fire power which is hard to counter (Decurion or Gladius formations can help here).

D-weapons, or at least their effects, were in 1st and 2nd edition in most of the same places they are now.

D-like weapons have existed in every edition as well, usually more powerful than they are now (I'm looking at you Jaws of the World Wolf).

RT was an entirely different game that advocated a 3rd player GM set up battles, 2E games were also wayyy different and the game got so out of control they had to hard reboot it. Outside of RT and 2E such abilities have been rare and limited in scope (jotww couldnt affect vehicles for example), and usually highly bemoaned and generally seen as negatives.

LordTyphus wrote:I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?

As previously stated, the big changes are Flyers are a thing now, superheavies are allowed in normal games, and there are alternate army builds to the FOC.

6th edition became the edition where you can't just pick up and play 40K straight out of the box, so to speak. You have to establish an understanding with your opponent prior to the game if everybody involved is going to have a good time. Even the major tournaments have found it necessary to have a considerable amount of house rules in order to make the game playable.

That said, I've been enjoying 40K more lately than I have 3rd-5th editions. I have a group I play with regularly, and we have a set of house rules that considerably tone down the worst excesses of the game.

Here they are, if you're interested.



Fairly simple. We also have a general agreement not to use Flyers/FMCs in games of 1500pts or less.

You'll find it relatively easy to do well with Eldar, Tau, or Daemons. Those three are the current power dexes, though Necrons are also up there, and SMs have a few builds that can run at the level of those dexes.

adamsouza wrote:
There ever been an edition where Space Marines were not top tier.

3rd Edition. When Chaos had the 3.5 dex and Eldar had all kinds of cheese, while Space Marines players were lumbered with a dex that was mediocre at best. That situation didn't resolve till SMs got their 4th ed dex.

I think it's a ton of fun and mostly fine, although there are things I'd like to see changed.

Caveat: I don't play with WAAC/TFG players or play in tournaments.

I like this edition, there are a plethora of options when it come to playing the game and building an army. It is funny though that so many of these people complaining about the state of 40K lost their minds when AoS simplified the fantasy rules.

dkoz wrote:
It is funny though that so many of these people complaining about the state of 40K lost their minds when AoS simplified the fantasy rules.

Because GW simplified AoS to the point of no longer being a functioning game. There is a middle ground between "bloated mess of rules that need a 100 page FAQ to even attempt to cover all of the problems" and "so dumbed down that those games on the back of cereal boxes look deep in comparison", and that's what people want.

 Peregrine wrote:

dkoz wrote:
It is funny though that so many of these people complaining about the state of 40K lost their minds when AoS simplified the fantasy rules.

Because GW simplified AoS to the point of no longer being a functioning game. There is a middle ground between "bloated mess of rules that need a 100 page FAQ to even attempt to cover all of the problems" and "so dumbed down that those games on the back of cereal boxes look deep in comparison", and that's what people want.

I would argue that AoS completely changed the type of game that Fantasy was. Many people liked the whole infantry square and being able to use movement trays and AoS turned it into a 40k style skirmish game. It also didn't help that AoS basically squatted a few armies in the process and threw the Ultra-Sigmarines and to a lesser extent Khorne up as the poster boy of AoS.

 Peregrine wrote:

dkoz wrote:
It is funny though that so many of these people complaining about the state of 40K lost their minds when AoS simplified the fantasy rules.

Because GW simplified AoS to the point of no longer being a functioning game.

Well, no, it is a functioning game, and has been ever since it was released: it's just it was so different and such a big change lots of people just reacted quite strongly.

 Xathrodox86 wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:
fine as long as you're not trying to play it with someone who's a total melt.

Sadly, 40k seems to just attract (or possibly make) asshats. Personally, I have seen rather few players who weren't on the side of waac. And even fewer players who didn't just use marines all the time.

Me too. People stopped giving a feth about fun games and just bring 2 Riptides, 3 Knights and a bunch of OP formations, every time it's possible. The game stopped being fun long time ago.

I'm not going to deny these people exist, but why would you waste your time playing with them, if it's not the sort of game you want to play and you're not going to enjoy it? Just play with the few people you can find who want to play it on the same level as you. They do exist; I guess the tricky bit's finding them, but it can be done.

In my area, there are more LGS carrying 40K than there were during any previous edition. In my city alone, two shops in my city have opened and have active communities of 40K players, since 7th edition.

Personally, I find people who complain about army composition unfun to play with, and avoid doing so.

Not limited to 40K, but there is also a subset of players who insist that a previous edition of a game was better, often while playing the current edition. When asked why they are not playing the previous edition, the answer, almost always, ironically is they can't get anyone else to play the "better" edition with them. I find those people unfun, and avoid playing with them.