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 Sim-Life wrote:

Jackal90 wrote:
Technically, not every rule there is optional.

Using specific formats always is (but forms a lot of my games)

Stuff like PA, FW etc is part of the game, not an optional extra.

PA rules are optional supplements and FW are optional models. They are not required to play the game.

True. Same applies to codexes and plastic models though. In that logic where's gw codexes/models on list? If you put fw on option but not those it's rather illogical. Both are as non-optional

I am fairly certain the BRB tells you the correct datasheet is the most current datasheet. So using outdated datasheets would be non optional and house rules. As others have said, thats not a problem. But it's also just what it is. The fact that GW has made getting the correct datasheets a never ending carrot on a stick is bs for everyone but also irrelevant. The "correct" way is the most current datasheets with the most current points/PL if points/pl is what you are using.

BaconCatBug wrote:And I can drive a car without break-lights. It doesn't make them optional.

Having working break lights is legally required. Even if you're not using them, they're not optional. Can you physically drive without them? Yes. Can you legally drive without them? No.

Matched Play rules are only "needed" when you play Matched Play, and Matched Play itself is an option. There is no legal requirement to use any of the rules beyond the core rules in the Battle Primer and the datasheets. Incorrect analogy.

Lance845 wrote:I am fairly certain the BRB tells you the correct datasheet is the most current datasheet.

The battle primer makes no mention of that. Yes, it would be logical to assume that the most recent is the most valid, but it's not houseruling to use an outdated sheet. RAW, all you need are the core rules, a surface to play on, a tape measure, dice, models, and their datasheets.

I use the rulebook, codex, CA18 and FAQs. Never got around to getting CA19 and haven’t bought the codex supplement even though I play a space marine successor chapter. Haven’t got any of the PA stuff either.

Yes. The battle primer doesn't say that. The BRB does. Do you play with detachments, cp, stratagems? The rules governing all that is in the BRB. Not the battle primer. If you are using the BRB then you are USING the BRB. At which point. Latest data sheets.

Unless you are house ruling. Which again. Great. I encourage it. But that's what it is

Aash wrote:
I use the rulebook, codex, CA18 and FAQs. Never got around to getting CA19 and haven’t bought the codex supplement even though I play a space marine successor chapter. Haven’t got any of the PA stuff either.

But HOOOOOOOWWWW? It's LITERALLY impossible to play the game without CA19 and Vigilus.

 Lance845 wrote:
Yes. The battle primer doesn't say that. The BRB does. Do you play with detachments, cp, stratagems? The rules governing all that is in the BRB. Not the battle primer. If you are using the BRB then you are USING the BRB. At which point. Latest data sheets.

Unless you are house ruling. Which again. Great. I encourage it. But that's what it is

Through that lens I can see the point; I think it's fair to call it house ruling if you're not using the current point values. In my own personal games, I never use power level, but some players do; players who chose to play PL wouldn't be using house rules, unless PL's also changed in CA.

As for FAQ's, yeah, if you choose to ignore those, that would also constitute houseruling. FAQ's are free though.

Guess I shouldn't have gotten as snide as I did with BCB. As always with 40k, things are usually more nuanced than we give them credit for- myself included.

Regarding OP, Urban Conquest isn't on the list; while Urban Conquest CONTAINS City Fight rules, the Streets of Death Campaign System in Urban Conquest is not formally part of City Fight.
Also, if you're an escalation campaign player, you might use Kill Team and Apocalypse as part of the system; I can see why you might leave those out, as they are not played WITHIN the 40K rules set but as a supplement to it, but again, lines are blurry.

And yeah, for the record, I urban Conquest Streets of Death from Kill Team through 40K to Apocalypse. I don't actually have the Apocalypse rules yet- none of the armies is anywhere near big enough yet.

Wow, this thread just blew up on the launch pad, didn't it?

Lance845 wrote:Yes. The battle primer doesn't say that. The BRB does.

It is perfectly acceptable to play 40k with just the core rules in the Battle Primer. Those are the basics, the most fundamental building blocks of 40k.
So, unless it's in both the BRB and the Battle Primer, it's optional.

Do you play with detachments, cp, stratagems?

I choose to, but they are optional. Most people use them too, but they are optional, like how Matched Play is.
For some opponents, I play only the most basic rules in the Battle Primer (so, no stratagems, no command points, and no detachments beyond 'these are what models you have'). That's not house rules. That's playing according to the Battle Primer.

The rules governing all that is in the BRB. Not the battle primer. If you are using the BRB then you are USING the BRB. At which point. Latest data sheets.

That's great, but the BRB isn't strictly *needed* to play 40k. Again, the free Battle Primer, the source of rules that comes in every starter box (not Start Collecting, though that would be nice), has all the *core* rules, and outright says in it "this is all you need to play a game of Warhammer 40,000".
If you needed the BRB, what are the people who just buy a box of Dark Imperium playing?

Unless you are house ruling. Which again. Great. I encourage it. But that's what it is

Playing with the Battle Primer isn't house ruling.

Playing with JUST the battle primer is esentially playing a demo version of the game. And I agree. It's not house ruling. But the moment you are not JUST using the battle primer then your playing the actual not demo game. And the BRB tells you what rules are currently valid. The most current datasheets. The most current point values.

You are of course free to not use point values or detachments or PL and do Open in the most broad and basic version. And thats great. Again. Do what you want.

But, again, ARE you using CP and stratagems? ARE you using detachments? Are you using point values? Great. You just crossed the line out of the demo and into the BRB. Now you have a hard fast not optional rule telling you which datasheets and point values to use.

House rule it away. Again. Awesome. It's not "less than" to be house ruling. 40ks a fething mess and house rules is what makes it bearable at all. Call it what it is.

 Lance845 wrote:
Playing with JUST the battle primer is esentially playing a demo version of the game.

The Battle Primer explicitly states that all you need to play 40k is that. Anything else beyond that is optional. Yes, those extra options might be the most common ways to play, and they might add a great deal more depth to the game, but they are optional.

If OP wanted to say "optional additions beyond the BRB", that's not what their title says.

But the moment you are not JUST using the battle primer then your playing the actual not demo game.

The Battle Primer isn't the "demo game". It's the core rules. Everything beyond that is optional.

You are of course free to not use point values or detachments or PL and do Open in the most broad and basic version. And thats great. Again. Do what you want.

I am doing what I want - taking the core rules, and adding optional elements from other sections, like command points and stratagems. That's not houseruling though.

But, again, ARE you using CP and stratagems? ARE you using detachments? Are you using point values? Great. You just crossed the line out of the demo and into the BRB. Now you have a hard fast not optional rule telling you which datasheets and point values to use.

No, I'm using optional additions to the core ruleset.

There is no "demo" version of 40k. There are the core rules (in the Battle Primer), and everything beyond that is an optional experience you can add to your game.

Quoting the Primer:

Battle Primer, Page 13 wrote:So now you know what a datasheet is and how it works – in conjunction with
the core rules that follow (plus your Citadel Miniatures, battlefield, dice and tape
measure, of course!), you’ve got everything you need to start playing games of
Warhammer 40,000 and dive into epic battle.

Emphasis mine.

"Demo" 40k would be something like no charge or fight phase. The Battle Primer offers the very core of what you *need* to play.

House rule it away. Again. Awesome. It's not "less than" to be house ruling. 40ks a fething mess and house rules is what makes it bearable at all. Call it what it is.

I am calling it what it is - the core rules. You're the one pretending like they're not valid to be called the core rules (which it literally says on the Primer).

Call stratagems, detachments, and command points what they are - optional. What's the harm in that?

Half this thread is currently arguing that it's actually illegal to play 7th edition of WH40k because it has been superseded by 8th edition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
And I can drive a car without break-lights. It doesn't make them optional.

From personal experience, I can assure that my car neither stopped driving nor being a car when its break lights broke last fall.
Not to mention that racing cars usually never have any break-lights at all, but still are considered cars.

Therefore breaklights are clearly an optional part of a car, unlike the wheels or the motor.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

BaconCatBug wrote:And I can drive a car without break-lights. It doesn't make them optional.

Having working break lights is legally required. Even if you're not using them, they're not optional. Can you physically drive without them? Yes. Can you legally drive without them? No.

Actually.... What's your countries laws concerning vintage automobiles? Ford Model Ts for example did not originally come with tail/brake lights. They were a later option. And with the right plates & paperwork you can still drive an unmodified T around here in the states.
I'd imagine there's plenty of other auto manufactures of the time also missing what's now required features.

ccs wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

BaconCatBug wrote:And I can drive a car without break-lights. It doesn't make them optional.

Having working break lights is legally required. Even if you're not using them, they're not optional. Can you physically drive without them? Yes. Can you legally drive without them? No.

Actually.... What's your countries laws concerning vintage automobiles? Ford Model Ts for example did not originally come with tail/brake lights. They were a later option. And with the right plates & paperwork you can still drive an unmodified T around here in the states.
I'd imagine there's plenty of other auto manufactures of the time also missing what's now required features.

Highway Code states to "take special care that lights, brakes, steering, exhaust system, seat belts, demisters, wipers and washers are all working." Aka, if it had lights, those lights need to be working. So, sure, unless BCB is driving a car which wasn't built with brake lights. Still wouldn't make it optional, as optional would imply that you could go without break lights on a modern car.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

BaconCatBug wrote:And I can drive a car without break-lights. It doesn't make them optional.

Having working break lights is legally required. Even if you're not using them, they're not optional. Can you physically drive without them? Yes. Can you legally drive without them? No.

Actually.... What's your countries laws concerning vintage automobiles? Ford Model Ts for example did not originally come with tail/brake lights. They were a later option. And with the right plates & paperwork you can still drive an unmodified T around here in the states.
I'd imagine there's plenty of other auto manufactures of the time also missing what's now required features.

Highway Code states to "take special care that lights, brakes, steering, exhaust system, seat belts, demisters, wipers and washers are all working." Aka, if it had lights, those lights need to be working. So, sure, unless BCB is driving a car which wasn't built with brake lights. Still wouldn't make it optional, as optional would imply that you could go without break lights on a modern car.

True, but only for a road car. A track car, rally car, nascar, formula one etc are all cars and don’t necessarily need lights, and not having them doesn’t stop them from being a car. And they are all perfectly legal, when used for the designed purpose. A formula one car isn’t allowed to drive on the road, but in a Grand Prix it is entirely legal, whereas a road car would not be.

Aash wrote:
True, but only for a road car. A track car, rally car, nascar, formula one etc are all cars and don’t necessarily need lights, and not having them doesn’t stop them from being a car. And they are all perfectly legal, when used for the designed purpose. A formula one car isn’t allowed to drive on the road, but in a Grand Prix it is entirely legal, whereas a road car would not be.

Fair enough, so we're getting to the various options of what a "car" is! So a rule that's in place for one, and is *needed*, isn't needed for something else.

So, likewise, rules that would be in play for Matched aren't necessarily compulsory for the most basic version of 40k, and are therefore optional.

Hey all, I know it's easy to get sidestracked on what's "optional" and what exactly that means in the strictest sense, but I think the gist was more trying to see what's most in most widespread common use among the community. If we could stick to that instead of chasing officialdom analogies over cars and the like, I think we'll be better off. Thanks!

I voted... nothing. No more actual games for me until something sensible comes in the form of 9th Ed. This last Ed can burn. All of it. CA. Vigilus. PA... just the End Times done half again as well. Yeah... not worth the time to figure out. GW doesn’t take their game seriously enough to do it well, why should I give my life to sorting out their mess. Snipers that don’t need line of sight. Oh.. jeebus.

 jeff white wrote:
I voted... nothing. No more actual games for me until something sensible comes in the form of 9th Ed. This last Ed can burn. All of it. CA. Vigilus. PA... just the End Times done half again as well. Yeah... not worth the time to figure out. GW doesn’t take their game seriously enough to do it well, why should I give my life to sorting out their mess. Snipers that don’t need line of sight. Oh.. jeebus.

Good job, you helped ruin the vote by doing exactly what OP asked you not to do. Nobody cares that you don't play 8th edition, most of the world's population doesn't.

I cannot glean the littlest bit of information from this poll unless 90% of people legitimately don't play with CA19 pts. Do they play PL or house ruled pts or what? None of the categories has more than 10%, what is going on with this poll? Am I just not understanding how to read the results? You are supposed to click yes on all the rules you use right?

You do vote for each used option, yes.

The percentages are compared to all other votes.

Unfortunately, we don’t know how many people voted (for example, right now about 100 people use the first option, so it’s the most popular “option” where few people use cities of death rules (about 25).

We can get a sense of what’s relatively popular, but we couldn’t say that “xx” percent of people use CA19 points updates, because we don’t know how many voted.

You can interpret relative popularity of expanded materials. For example, right now, materials with 70 + votes would be considered bordering on “standard” where materials with 30 - votes might be unusual... if we were to make a meta consisting of the people that voted.

 greatbigtree wrote:
You do vote for each used option, yes.

The percentages are compared to all other votes.

Unfortunately, we don’t know how many people voted (for example, right now about 100 people use the first option, so it’s the most popular “option” where few people use cities of death rules (about 25).

We can get a sense of what’s relatively popular, but we couldn’t say that “xx” percent of people use CA19 points updates, because we don’t know how many voted.

You can interpret relative popularity of expanded materials.

Alright cool, thank you. Didn't mean to derail the thread, just wanted to know exactly what the thing is telling me. If we assume 100 votes then I am surprised by how few people play with Legends, I thought it was mostly competitive gamers that didn't. Perhabs it's just that those choices aren't particularly interesting or something, but I'd think they were much more popular. The amount of people that play narrative missions really surprises me, the lack of overlap between missions is also surprising, between all three you get 131/97 or 131/100, that means less than half of players play more than one of these types of missions. Only War isn't even listed, I assume that's what everyone plays normally since it's the only real way to play and that's why we have so little overlap. JK.

For my group, we generally use the first three, but we often play 3 or 4 players at a time, so we usually use an 8x4 board, regardless of points.

Other than rules updates through BattleScribe, I got off the rules train after the AM Codex came out, though we try to keep up with the free rules updates in FAQs and such.

If I were to play Marines these days, and outside of KT I don’t, but if I did I’d be building out of the old Codex using current points through BattleScribe. I have no interest in pumping hundreds of dollars into rules for a game I seldom *enjoy*. Too little back and forth for my liking, but I’ve got other games that keep me interested and the wheel eventually turns. I hated 7th, liked early 8th, now find it distasteful again. The wheel turns and I’ll get actively re-engaged again some say.

this has to be the only game system, well apart from Warhammer, where anyone asking what sort of rules people like or use will immediately degenerate into an argument over what the word "optional" means...

you can see some bits of the GW output are intended to be part of the core rules, but not everyone is willing to fork out for an often expensive expansion to get one or two pages of actual content so they become 'optional' by default, in that many opt not to bother.

personally: "do you have the book with the rules in it?" is about the only question I'm bothered with, not a scanned copy, or something you downloaded, or something from some on line army builder - do you have the actual printed copy of the rule or other 'official' source.

if the answer is yes, then feel free to use it, if its got something in that changes how my army operates that I have not seen however then as far as I'm concerned that doesn't exist for this one game - happy to read it and take account for the next one though (e.g. point changes, structure changes, changes to how rules work - stuff that would actually change what I have with me had I known)

there have been 'optional' bits for 40k (and WHFB) for decades, e.g. it was always a shock when someone in warhammer would play anything other than "battle line" as the scenario, the 5th edition scenarios book for 40k was great fun, I love how 'cities of death' works and seriously wish that was how the main terrain thing works but because its "optional" the only time people want it is when they get an advantage.

if GW want to, as the obviously do, continue with this part work ruleset they need to come up with a much better format for it and have the thing live in a ring binder for the rules - so when a new supplement comes out it is obvious if its slots in to the main rules bit or not

personally though, you have some weird FW monster I've never heard of, and the actual book for it, yes I'd like to see that on the table to see what it does

leopard wrote:
.
personally: "do you have the book with the rules in it?" is about the only question I'm bothered with, not a scanned copy, or something you downloaded, or something from some on line army builder - do you have the actual printed copy of the rule or other 'official' source.

What of its a scanned copy that they've printed out then put it in a ring binder they personally organised to cut down on the amount of flicking about over multiple books they need to do?

 Sim-Life wrote:

leopard wrote:
.
personally: "do you have the book with the rules in it?" is about the only question I'm bothered with, not a scanned copy, or something you downloaded, or something from some on line army builder - do you have the actual printed copy of the rule or other 'official' source.

What of its a scanned copy that they've printed out then put it in a ring binder they personally organised to cut down on the amount of flicking about over multiple books they need to do?

That's fine, but this quickly devolves down into a piracy discussion which is always messy. In an ideal world if attending an event I personally feel its polite/prudent to have the publications there as well, just in case a reference or query comes up on a page you potentially missed and as a hard copy to ensure the scans aren't incorrect etc. But even then, happy to use the reference folder instead of forcing the use of 5 books on the edge of the table.

Yeah, the actual book is quite useless for heavily errata'ed codices.

I just wanna say this is the most dakkadakka thread i've ever seen. 2 or 3 posts actually answering the question and about 100 arguing over the definition of optional

 Elemental wrote:
Wow, this thread just blew up on the launch pad, didn't it?

I've said it once and I'll say it again- Needless pedantry and Dakka. Name a more iconic duo.

So, with over a hundred dakkanauts having voted, I guess we can start drawing first conclusions.

- People using up to date matched play rules are still very likely to use the rule of three, and most of them also use the detachment limit. The percentages are almost identical to the last poll.
- As a surprise, the suggestions for table sizes have become vastly more popular than last time I did this poll, now used by roughly three out of four voters.
- Being able to play with/face forgeworld rules is roughly as likely as using the detachment limit. You are more likely to be forced to adhere to the rule of 3 than to be able to play a forgeworld unit.
- Legends aren't used/allowed by more than half the voters. Only stuff from Blackstone Fortress or the mostly useless Kill Team units have less acceptance.
- As expected, the vast majority of people is not using the stuff without point values, even if they are playing narrative missions
- Unlike in previous editions, White Dwarf rules seem to be wildly accepted.
- Surprisingly few people are actually using the ITC as their way of playing. From the presences it has in tactical discussions and the perceived dominance in North America I've at least expected 50%, if not more. I certainly did not expect them to draw even with narrative missions.
- The default way to play seems to be using the most current rules for matched play, including all campaign books and all the organized play suggestions, playing a CA 2019 mission. In those games you are very likely to be able to use rules from both forgeworld and white dwarf rules, but might not be able to use datasheets from other rule sources, including legends.

 Jidmah wrote:

- Surprisingly few people are actually using the ITC as their way of playing. .

Why is that surprising?