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It's a double-edged sword. To have a better control over balance you need less variables. But less variables means less customization for the player. Even in the age of Formations and detachments, players still find ways to make their own forces somewhat unique to their own since we still have a slew of artefacts, items and unit options. If they take away such options and have set model counts, they can accurately gauge just how powerful a certain set of units would be rather than leave it up to the players to find some unholy combination, but it also means that anyone wishing to use that bundle will inevitably be using something not that dissimilar from another person using the same bundle.

I'm not saying either one is bad, but it all depends on which direction the devs and audience wants it to go.

Devil's advocate but at competitive level games, most of the lists seem to resemble each other very closely anyway.

If this is a thing I would expect a lot of people to be up in arms about it, just like they were when the GHB came out for AOS. I know when I wrote Azyr Comp for AOS, one of the biggest constant complaints I got was that you couldn't buy individual models.

Its smoothed over since then, but I still see that complaint fairly regular.

Simplifying it is good for the competitive scene, where less variables is always preferred since it puts more focus on player skill. Chess is the logical conclusion to such a balance system, where both players end up with the exact same force where you have at least one unit for every task, and it's completely up to you to figure out how to get one over your opponent.

However it does no favours to the casual crowd, where customization is far more common and encouraged. There will also be less instances of "Fringe" armies coming in to sweep tournaments since most variables could be accounted for.

Again, neither is bad. It'll just depend on which direction they want to go towards.

I think the "Base" movement will be 5" rather than 4" like 2nd edition was.
Most of the armies in AOS have their (standard) guys moving 1" faster than they did in WHFB

I'm not totally against buying units in blocks, I just hope it's implemented well and doesn't frequently stick people in the position of being a few points short of buying another block of the unit their army is themed around.

Kind of like how I think having weapon and wargear profiles included on a unit's warscroll could work out well, but I hope GW doesn't extremely simplify the wargear choices of units.

I'm cautiously optimistic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So IIRC in WHFB units moved double distance when they ran instead of rolling, while in AoS units they add +1d6" of movement. Did they move double in 2nd Edition 40k or +1d6"?

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:
So IIRC in WHFB units moved double distance when they ran instead of rolling, while in AoS units they add +1d6" of movement. Did they move double in 2nd Edition 40k or +1d6"?

Double move. Same for a charge.. Except for Khorne Berserkers. They charger further..Like 10 to 12" I can't recall.

I would like to see troops have more supportive roles. The elites and heavy supports and fast attacks can bring out the big guns, but be unable to move and shot in one turn or move slow or have limited ammunition.
The troops could have abilities like "hold perimeter" which allows them to shoot once an enemy unit takes an action inside a certain area.
Or "pinning fire" which forces an enemy unit to move away from them or take additional hits.
Or "draw fire" forcing enemies to attack the troops rather than the elites.
Or "marker lights" to improve their elites' attacks.

This could buy the hard hitters time to move into position or set up their guns to take out bigger targets like tanks or MCs.

In the end every unit would be useful. Sure you can run all Devestators, but without Tacs drawing fire maybe they'll be pinned all game by Guardsmen while two tanks just run them over.

I do hope to see at least a little longer than 4" movement for standard infantry, personally (5" move being the 'standard'. and 6" move being the 'quicker' races such as Eldar, Dark Eldar, and the faster Tyranid bioforms).

Running move being double that in inches, but if you run you forgo effective shooting (maybe allow what we know as Snap Firing in the current edition so you can at least 'spray and pray' on the way in) and then in order to assault you declare a charge while moving/running and you end your movement in base-to-base contact with an enemy model.

Perhaps, if you declare you are going to charge in while moving+running, you add an additional D6" of movement to your models as they charge, so you can go for a long charge in hopes you roll high to add to the move+run distance. Maybe make this a benefit of more melee oriented units? Not sure.

Jump Infantry can work in that they always move as though they are running but may still fire weapons as though they are moving normally, ignore terrain penalties (whatever they may be) unless they end their movement in terrain, at which point they take a dangerous terrain test, etc. They could also add a D6" to their charge distance if declared, and may re-roll the D6 if they wish (Jump Packs).

Alternatively they may be given an 8" move and a 5" run + D6" charge. I personally would like to see this as it would make your jump infantry fast and able to react more effectively.

Bikes similarly would work at moving and running without the loss of firepower per-se but they would not ignore terrain (save for jetbikes of course) and would take dangerous terrain tests as needed. Of course setting their base move at 8" to coincide with jump pack movement, etc.

I always felt like Jump Packs and Bikes worked too similarly considering the drastic difference in method of movement. Granted, on a tabletop they can only be differentiated so much, but I still feel like Bikes are essentially Jump Packs +1 for the most part. I'd like to see both as equally viable options instead of one being so obviously superior to the other.

Bikes currently give you +1 Toughness, improved movement by double, Relentless, turbo boosting for even more movement, Jink cover save (4+) and always on hammer of wrath. Plus, in most instances, they also have a twinlinked version of the basic infantry weapon of the model that is riding it.

Jet packs/Jump Infantry give you improved movement by double, deep strike, the ability to ignore terrain while moving, and re-roll charge distances + conditional hammer of wrath if you don't use the jump pack for movement in the movement phase. (If you're not Raven Guard, anyway)

It's obvious which is the have and which is the have-not. I don't mind that one has abilities that the other doesn't have or move movement, but at present there's little reason to run a jump pack heavy force (Which I love to do, being a Blood Angels player) when you can put equal points in bikes on the table.

Just my thoughts on that. Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

So, if we think of stormcast as sigmarines as people like to kid around with calling them.

Judicators (guys with armor and bows) move 5"
Liberators (guys with hammer and shield) move 5"
Procecutors (guys with wings and javelins) move 12"

Handgunners (Humans) for free people move 5"

White Lions (High elf infantry) move 6"
Orruks (orcs) move 5"

So, I would guess assuming they like playing on the same size tables we will see:

Marines and Imperial guard move 5"
Eldar move 6" except howling banshees which move 7"
Tyranid termigaunts and genestealers will move 6"
Large creatures will move 5"

Jump packed troops will move 10-12"
Vehicles will move 10-12"
Dreadnoughts/Wraithlords will move 5-6"

This would be my guess. Because they are made by same company and meant to be played on same gaming surface.


What made movement annoying on 2nd edition is most tournament games were 4 turns long. And one of the victory conditions was get squad into enemy deployment zone.

So, if you didn't run at least one turn. It was impossible to win with just troops. And if you played squats with their 3" move, 6" on run. It was always impossible to win by that victory condition.

I expect movement profiles to be largely standardized, truth be told. I don't foresee infantry as we currently know it being able to move much beyond 12" at maximum. Maybe slightly more with a random charge distance mechanic, though I don't personally like that myself.

I don't mind some random movement, such as consolidation moves, but I am not a fan of completely randomized charge distances.

Partially random I can deal with, such as 6+D6" charge. If you're 4" to 5" from a target, you should be able to just charge in without having to roll for distance. You've already weathered at least one to two turns of shooting to get into position to charge (worst case scenario) and then are likely going to take overwatch (in whatever form it takes) too on top of that.

Rolling the unlucky 2, 3 or 4 on the 2D6" charge roll, especially for units that don't get any rerolls from fleet or other rules (Jump Pack units with Raven Guard Chapter Tactics for example), is pretty much the death knell of whatever squad was about to try and get stuck in as they're about to take even more fire from the enemy and IF.they survive they get to try again and the (possibly) take overwatch fire again.

Make long charges a thing with some randomization (Try for that 8" to 10" charge and hope for the best.) but if you get within 6" to 7" you should be able to get in without issue (overwatch deaths and whatever terrain mechanics/penalties not-withstanding).

Just my opinion on that, Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

Edit: I will clarify the above is for standard infantry and things that move like standard infanry. Not Jump Infantry/Calvary/bikes, etc.

I was reading my old Warzone books and was reminded very much of the transition between 2nd and 3rd edition 40k, but in Warzone the change was kind of reversed.

Going between 2nd and 3rd Games Workshop tried to simplify rules, to make it faster to play with larger armies.

Target Games tried to encourage people to play with larger armies, but at the same time they made the rules more intensive.

Intensive rules work with small skirmish games. I really enjoy Malifaux, but Wyrd's system would grind to a halt if you were trying to handle much more than twenty models (combined) on the table at one time.

Warzone's sweet spot, in my view, was both sides fielding a couple of squads, with about six to eight models in each squad, with a couple of individuals on top of that.

In 2nd Warzone required you to field a squad of basic troops for each elite squad you fielded, and a squad for every individual model. If you wanted to field a squad of Golden Lions and a squad of Blood Berets you had to take two squads of Trenchers, instantly doubling the number of models required to get to the table, and as said, the rules became more intensive.

The larger the game scale the more abstract the rules have to become if you want to complete a game in any reasonable amount of time. Warmaster, like Epic, gave a great deal of abstraction in order to ensure reasonable speed of play.

I hope GW either moves to a small intensive style of play, or a large abstract style of play, but with their past performance in mind I'm not holding my breath.

War of the Ring provided a larger, more abstract, version of Lord of the Rings, but allowed players to use the same models across the systems. Of course, because it was a good system, GW discontinued it.

A major change to balance I'd like to see is basic troops be disproportionately cheap to the point where they're the stars of every codex. Imagine 8 point tactical marines and CSM's? Cheap troops would be the building blocks of every competitive list

Superheavies, gargantuans and pseudo versions of either (Magnus etc.) would be increased in points to the point they become pretty inefficient to take. That way they'd still exist for people wanting to play with the big toys, but they wouldn't dominate games and would have little competitive use

The rest can stay priced more or less as they are. Adjustments for balance of course, but they'd deliberately not be balanced against troops.

That way games of 40k would actually see full sized infantry units like ork boyz and guardians interacting with each other, or large guard platoons fighting chaos marines, tactical squads fighting waves of hormagaunts etc.

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
A major change to balance I'd like to see is basic troops be disproportionately cheap to the point where they're the stars of every codex. Imagine 8 point tactical marines and CSM's? Cheap troops would be the building blocks of every competitive list

Superheavies, gargantuans and pseudo versions of either (Magnus etc.) would be increased in points to the point they become pretty inefficient to take. That way they'd still exist for people wanting to play with the big toys, but they wouldn't dominate games and would have little competitive use

The rest can stay priced more or less as they are. Adjustments for balance of course, but they'd deliberately not be balanced against troops.

That way games of 40k would actually see full sized infantry units like ork boyz and guardians interacting with each other, or large guard platoons fighting chaos marines, tactical squads fighting waves of hormagaunts etc.

I don't see how that would be an improvement at all.
You wouldn't balance the game at all and you'd massively increase the scale of the game to the point when even a small ~500pt game could have 3 or 4 basic squads easily.

 warhead01 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

As for always 5 or 10, unless points work out evenly I'm not a big fan because it removes a way to pick up a few points here or there. It makes playing a variety of point levels more difficult.

That's exactly why I hope they go that way. I'm starting to think not letting players completely control their points spending will lead to a form of balance.
(Although I fully expect players to learn to game that as well. It's what they do.)

In 2nd edition, a Space Marine squad was 300 points for 10 Marines; no more, no less. Towards the end, they introduced a rule that you could field a single under-strength squad to fill up odd points. IIRC only Marines were allowed this; Guard were sufficiently cheap that it didn't matter so much, and most other armies were more flexible anyway.

Just rules wise, I'd like to see dark Eldar warriors get an option to get an armor save better than 5+, or an option to get better shooting weapons

Madoch1, I doubt that the basic troops choice will have a way to improve their armor save, sadly.

But, lots of other armies have 5+ save on their basic troops option(s), as well as poor to mediocre 'standard' shooting weapon options (especially Guard). Eldar, Imperial Guard, Dark Eldar, Orks (which are even worse, with a 6+ save), all have a 5+ save on their line troopers.

I doubt we'll see much change in the saves department, though I do expect if they bring back armor modifiers as a Rend system similar to what is done in AoS, that certain armor values will be less effective than they once were, and others that were less effective will normalize some.

An example being that you will likely get to roll more saves more often, versus just picking up models being shot at out in the open, but those saves may be only on 6+.

While it may not be worth much, getting to roll a 6+ save where before you got no save under the Armor Penetration (AP) system is at least a small improvement. I'd rather take the shot at 6+ (or even the normal 5+) save than not get to roll a save at all, personally speaking.

We'll see. I'm cautiously optimistic here regarding 8th and what we'll see develop.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

I personally do not wish to see Dark Eldar getting easier access to 4+ or better saves. Their entire gimmick is to be fast alpha strikers and currently it translates well into the game. Giving them heavy armor just makes them into Scions.

Make a distinction from Leadership Tests and Moral Tests and Fear tests....too many players get them and the exceptions all mixed up.

Make Moral tests based on double your toughness or something like that

something to clean up the psychology mess that has been around since rogue trader

 Red__Thirst wrote:
Madoch1, I doubt that the basic troops choice will have a way to improve their armor save, sadly.

But, lots of other armies have 5+ save on their basic troops option(s), as well as poor to mediocre 'standard' shooting weapon options (especially Guard). Eldar, Imperial Guard, Dark Eldar, Orks (which are even worse, with a 6+ save), all have a 5+ save on their line troopers. Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

IIRC Orks and Guard can both upgrade their troops to have 4+ armour,

Eldar just cheese it (no surprise) and jump from 5+ to 3+ for absolutely no reason. on their bikes

Dark Eldar +5+ armour I am fine with for the most part, Incubi can have 3+ of course and I do think that Archons should have a general 3+ option.

I think the current Shadowfield is a good enough substitute for 3+ armor. What the Archon really needs is a Reaver Jetbike option (which it had two editions ago).

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I think the current Shadowfield is a good enough substitute for 3+ armor. What the Archon really needs is a Reaver Jetbike option (which it had two editions ago).

But every Dark Eldar player knows that the shadowfield is cursed to roll a 1 on the first strength 6 hit allocated to the Archon....

Jbz` wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I think the current Shadowfield is a good enough substitute for 3+ armor. What the Archon really needs is a Reaver Jetbike option (which it had two editions ago).

But every Dark Eldar player knows that the shadowfield is cursed to roll a 1 on the first strength 6 hit allocated to the Archon....

Last big game we had with multiple Archons vs Imperials - we assumed the other Archons were jamming the Shadowfield when it failed.

Personally I think all HQs should have access to a 2+ save.

I would like wounds and wounds to be distinguished.
As in the things that you cause after a successful to-wound roll. And the things that you take after failing a save.

Probably most of the arguments over how a rule works is is the wound applied before or after the save? Both are called wounds.
Call them wounds (before saves) and injuries (after saves) for example, and rename the wound characteristic to hp or something.

Most HQs are already kitted out for close combat and generally all go for the same set of special rules when selecting their melee weapons, so making all of their armors the same would essentially make them all pretty much identical. I think they should instead give HQ choices more funky abilities outside of being melee blenders. Tau and IG HQ choices are more fun to me for this reason alone.

 Mr Morden wrote:


IIRC Orks and Guard can both upgrade their troops to have 4+ armour,

Eldar just cheese it (no surprise) and jump from 5+ to 3+ for absolutely no reason. on their bikes

Dark Eldar +5+ armour I am fine with for the most part, Incubi can have 3+ of course and I do think that Archons should have a general 3+ option.

Guard veterans can upgrade the armor to a 4+ but their regular troops infantry squads cannot upgrade armor.

Orks can upgrade I will agree. But it makes them a lot more expensive. Still most folks don't run all boyz with 4+ armor save that I've seen (some do, I'm certain, but I've never seen it.).

I do think Eldar should have at best been given a 4+ armor save on their jetbikes. They already get +1 toughness for being on the bike, plus the ability to have a jink save. But, I digress.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

Why do so many people want to see slower troop movement?
That just skews things back in favour of mobile shooting armies like Tau and Eldar.

Short distance movement kind of works in AoS but most armies have to take some truly specialised units in order to fire over twelve inches.
Almost every troops choice in 40k fires twelve inches.

is AOS played on 6x4?

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Why do so many people want to see slower troop movement?
That just skews things back in favour of mobile shooting armies like Tau and Eldar.

Almost every troops choice in 40k fires twelve inches.

That is why they need to come up with a comprehensive ORDER of BATTLE. clearly define movement vs other actions. You can keep movement at 4" - 6" as it worked in 2n ed

I did like psychic powers as an alt shooting and not its own phase like 2nd /7th ed.

Phase 1....move or hide/go to cover/ground ...overwatch OR RALLY (which should always be first!!!)
Phase 2....run(just another move) or shoot
Phase 3....Charge into OR fight HtH combat

so you can move all 3 phases or move 2 and fight in cc or any combination that they think would work for the new stats. Just keep it tidy in an Order of Battle that you can use to be more mobile at the expense of fighting or shooting.

 admironheart wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Why do so many people want to see slower troop movement?
That just skews things back in favour of mobile shooting armies like Tau and Eldar.

Almost every troops choice in 40k fires twelve inches.

That is why they need to come up with a comprehensive ORDER of BATTLE. clearly define movement vs other actions. You can keep movement at 4" - 6" as it worked in 2n ed

I did like psychic powers as an alt shooting and not its own phase like 2nd /7th ed.

Phase 1....move or hide/go to cover/ground ...overwatch OR RALLY (which should always be first!!!)
Phase 2....run(just another move) or shoot
Phase 3....Charge into OR fight HtH combat

so you can move all 3 phases or move 2 and fight in cc or any combination that they think would work for the new stats. Just keep it tidy in an Order of Battle that you can use to be more mobile at the expense of fighting or shooting.

2nd edition shooting was a very different animal.
Unless a special rule permitted it models had a 90° shooting arc, to hit rolls were modified by cover rather than being used in the same phase as armour and invulnrable saves.
You had to shoot at the closest enemy unit regardless of its threat level.
Measuring range didn't happen until after your target had been chosen and if you'd chosen poorly tough luck.
Guns jammed.
Overwatch meant choosing to not shoot in your shooting phase in order to shoot during your opponent's turn.
Guard shooting was only a fraction better than Tyranid shooting, Tau didn't exist.

In spite of all that, shooting was still king.

I do agree with the concept of if you want to overwatch you don't get to shoot in the preceding turn's shooting phase. (But obviously Overwatch would allow to-hit at normal or only slightly reduced Ballistic Skill.)

I feel that should have been brought back in with Overwatch instead of how it currently allows for additional shooting to occur. Assault armies have to rely on gimmicks to really be effective or have a snowball's chance in hell of making it into assault versus Tau or Eldar with the jump-shoot-jump movement type.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the new edition. I hope to see some good streamlining come about and make a well balanced army a good option to take instead of relying on superfriends, or formation gimmicks, or whatever else to carry the day and make the list 'good'.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-