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 alextroy wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Thought you couldn't consolidate to get put of engagement range?

You don't. You consolidate closer to the enemy, but by doing so you change the way engagement range is defined. You fight at 1.9", end your consolidation move at 1.7", and now because the line between models no longer crosses the terrain engagement range drops back down to 1".

Must just be me, but I’m finding it hard to visualize a circumstance when this can actually happen. Theory is fine, but on the table?

Imagine a unit just on the edge of the ruin, 1.9" from an enemy outside the ruin that they just charged. According to the new rule that unit can attack. After it attacks it can then consolidate towards the enemy and move so the front edge of its bases are all outside the terrain at, say, 1.7" away. As the shortest distance between the two units no longer goes through the ruin, engagement range is now 1" and the targeted unit cannot attack back.

Again, nice theory. Show me a magic terrain piece where this can actually happen for an entire unit.

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood what you were asking. While most ruin terrain pieces can be used to execute this play, it's actually pretty easy to avoid by just not putting your models within 2" of the terrain in the first place so I don't think it's likely to come up very often in actual play. The other consequences of the rule, like making charges into terrain paradoxically easier, will come up quite often.

I think the solution GW have used is very sloppily conceived and should be rewritten. At least the really weird consequence of this ruling is avoidable, unlike the problem with the original rule, which was too easy to exploit.

We always house ruled things whenever something came up that was just obnoxious to us.

Examples being:
- You can only see that guy's antenna or banner, but you are able to shoot him, even though it's purely cosmetical.
- Bodyguard models that are hiding behind a wall make it impossible to target the character model standing out in the open.

Not making it "your" game in your local community when you play with friends is a bit of an alien concept to me. Nobody will come to your house and break apart your models if you houserule to make it more fun for yourself.

I can understand it if you attend a con or a tourny that you go 100% by the book, though.

 oni wrote:


Let's say, by chance, you and I meet at a convention at an open table for a game of W40K. Who's community rules do we use? Yours? Mine? Do we ask what the locals do? Or do we simply play by the games rules; GW's rules?

There is only one reasonable answer and that is to play by the games rules; GW's rules.

Or you could try that age old thing where you talk to each other. Afterall, you're already going to have to discuss what the terrain features are, what mission to play, wether or not we're using one of the GT packs, etc...
And there's NO guarantee that whoever you meet will even be familiar with current update x/GT pack whatever-it-is-this-month, etc.

 oni wrote:
So why then should anyone play using 'community rules'? Seems a lot like being told "conform to the group think or be excluded".

Do you play in tourneys? Have any of them ever had terrain placement/type rules? Restricted what units/sources could be used? Scoring rules?
If so you've already accepted playing by community rules.

 alextroy wrote:
Again, nice theory. Show me a magic terrain piece where this can actually happen for an entire unit.

It doesn't have to be magic. It just has to have a wall or an L shaped terrain on it. And practicaly half the terrain is an L shaped thing, because of how LoS functions this edition.

The era was never here, certain people just delusionally tried to twist the game to fit their own vision rather than accept and embrace the vision as presented. GW always said that the rules were for you to adjust as you see fit, not this "official" crap. Here's a quote from May 1999 in regards to people questioning if the Citadel Journal was "official":

The worst thing in the world for our hobby would be a drift towards 'rules lawyers' and 'officialdom' - we get enough of that from the tax office and traffic police.

this too, a direct quote from Rick Priestly himself:

Rick Priestly, Warhammer rulebook wrote:I'd like to make a plea about queries, questions, and 'officialdom' in the hobby. Warhammer is inherently adaptable, the rules and ideas in the game are a springboard to better and greater things. I encourage players to develop the game to suit themselves, to invent and change rules to their own taste and explore their own ideas about rules, modeling, scenery and backgrounds.

People corrupted the game to be way more serious than it ever was meant to be and everything has suffered as a result. Sadly that mindset seems to have completely polluted the game. I have never seen anyone willing to really house rule anything, just like most people it seems anything that's not the latest GT pack might as well not even exist and it's unfathomable to imagine anyone saying to use something else. It's a bit ridiculous.

Corrupted the game, because they wanted clear rules, which removes drama, personal likes and outside of the game involvment? What is next playing the game with the rules as writen being the first step to satanism?

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

It's a little arbitrary, though, as GW's "suggestion for minimum table size" seems to have been taken as "only playable standard table size" by many tournament organizers, for example.

You can fit more tables in a given space and you can make the tables cheaper, it's not surprising that people hosting multiple games at a time and providing tables/terrain are embracing a rule that makes them more money and allows them to have bigger tournaments. Also it's popular because it's actually good for the game. Melee armies have more of a chance without getting blown off the table T1 and maybe not even getting into charge range on T2. I don't like it thematically as there was already way too much stuff crammed into a tiny area at 2k points and 6x4 tables but I won't deny that it has improved gameplay.

Karol wrote:
Corrupted the game, because they wanted clear rules, which removes drama, personal likes and outside of the game involvment? What is next playing the game with the rules as writen being the first step to satanism?

The rules aren't clear, and didn't remove drama. Just made it more convoluted.

 oni wrote:


Let's say, by chance, you and I meet at a convention at an open table for a game of W40K. Who's community rules do we use? Yours? Mine? Do we ask what the locals do? Or do we simply play by the games rules; GW's rules?

There is only one reasonable answer and that is to play by the games rules; GW's rules.

So why then should anyone play using 'community rules'? Seems a lot like being told "conform to the group think or be excluded".

Presumably, that's something that you'd talk with your opponent about, but, personally, I'd assume the default for two people from different communities would be to use the GW rules and, optionally, make any adjustments to them that can be agreed upon. You'd, of course, want to come prepared to play by the GW rules if necessary (or I suppose you could turn down the pickup game if you don't have a list handy that meets those rules). No reason you can't have a community rule set that you play within your community (or, alternatively, perhaps your community favors GW rules, which is perfectly fine). Just like real life though, you gotta understand that there will be differences in these rules and be prepared to work with the other person to overcome those differences.

If you don't agree with the rules decisions in your local community, that really sucks. Try to avoid people who are being absolutists with respect to the community rules and are willing to work with you on finding common ground. If those people don't exist, I'd say the community isn't worth it (obviously a horrible outcome if that community is the only way to play the game...but if it's not fun to play, you might be better off not playing unfortunately)

Using the rules as a platform for building the game system that you and your buddies want it to be is a great thing and I wholeheartedly encourage it.

But it's just not a useful approach for pick-up games against strangers at the local shop, and for a lot of people that's the only gaming they get.

 catbarf wrote:
Using the rules as a platform for building the game system that you and your buddies want it to be is a great thing and I wholeheartedly encourage it.

But it's just not a useful approach for pick-up games against strangers at the local shop, and for a lot of people that's the only gaming they get.

Or, most likely, the only kind they WANT. I've been to many shops over the years, and people WANT to basically randomly show up and hope someone else did the same, rather than have a semi-organized group. Lately now you have FB groups or discords or whatnot to organize, but it's far from an actual gaming club it's still basically people who are only connected by going to the same game store, with nothing else.

 alextroy wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Thought you couldn't consolidate to get put of engagement range?

You don't. You consolidate closer to the enemy, but by doing so you change the way engagement range is defined. You fight at 1.9", end your consolidation move at 1.7", and now because the line between models no longer crosses the terrain engagement range drops back down to 1".

Must just be me, but I’m finding it hard to visualize a circumstance when this can actually happen. Theory is fine, but on the table?

Took about 20min from faq release until i ran into this

 oni wrote:

 jeff white wrote:

 oni wrote:
Movement and positioning is supposed to be important; right?

I really do not see why it was an issue, but if that's not what the designers intended then the change is perfectly fine.

On topic... There is nothing positive about community rules. They fragment play groups and promote cliques. The last thing I want anyone telling me is "This is how we play it here." The rules are the rules whether you agree with them or not.

Yes, agreed. Move and positioning should matter, very much.

But… community rules? Some communities are bigger than others and it already happens. So…

Wow, but… no.

Let's say, by chance, you and I meet at a convention at an open table for a game of W40K. Who's community rules do we use? Yours? Mine? Do we ask what the locals do? Or do we simply play by the games rules; GW's rules?

There is only one reasonable answer and that is to play by the games rules; GW's rules.

So why then should anyone play using 'community rules'? Seems a lot like being told "conform to the group think or be excluded".

Umm… again no.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ccs wrote:

 oni wrote:


Let's say, by chance, you and I meet at a convention at an open table for a game of W40K. Who's community rules do we use? Yours? Mine? Do we ask what the locals do? Or do we simply play by the games rules; GW's rules?

There is only one reasonable answer and that is to play by the games rules; GW's rules.

Or you could try that age old thing where you talk to each other. Afterall, you're already going to have to discuss what the terrain features are, what mission to play, wether or not we're using one of the GT packs, etc...
And there's NO guarantee that whoever you meet will even be familiar with current update x/GT pack whatever-it-is-this-month, etc.

 oni wrote:
So why then should anyone play using 'community rules'? Seems a lot like being told "conform to the group think or be excluded".

Do you play in tourneys? Have any of them ever had terrain placement/type rules? Restricted what units/sources could be used? Scoring rules?
If so you've already accepted playing by community rules.

This, yes.

tneva82 wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Thought you couldn't consolidate to get put of engagement range?

You don't. You consolidate closer to the enemy, but by doing so you change the way engagement range is defined. You fight at 1.9", end your consolidation move at 1.7", and now because the line between models no longer crosses the terrain engagement range drops back down to 1".

Must just be me, but I’m finding it hard to visualize a circumstance when this can actually happen. Theory is fine, but on the table?

Took about 20min from faq release until i ran into this

Thank you for the illustration. So the issue is one of GW fixing one niche tactic (using Breachable walls to create a unchargable unit) and creating a different niche tactic (extra Engagement Range that can be abused if you can dance a unit far enough away and out of terrain).

I guess people need to ask which problem is worst.

 alextroy wrote:
Thank you for the illustration. So the issue is one of GW fixing one niche tactic (using Breachable walls to create a unchargable unit) and creating a different niche tactic (extra Engagement Range that can be abused if you can dance a unit far enough away and out of terrain).

I guess people need to ask which problem is worst.

Plus making deep strike charges into ruins more likely than the same charge against a unit not in a ruin, plus having units in ruins block additional table space in the movement phase. They've replaced one edge case situation with several different problems and IMO that is clearly a bad trade.

 alextroy wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Thought you couldn't consolidate to get put of engagement range?

You don't. You consolidate closer to the enemy, but by doing so you change the way engagement range is defined. You fight at 1.9", end your consolidation move at 1.7", and now because the line between models no longer crosses the terrain engagement range drops back down to 1".

Must just be me, but I’m finding it hard to visualize a circumstance when this can actually happen. Theory is fine, but on the table?

Imagine a unit just on the edge of the ruin, 1.9" from an enemy outside the ruin that they just charged. According to the new rule that unit can attack. After it attacks it can then consolidate towards the enemy and move so the front edge of its bases are all outside the terrain at, say, 1.7" away. As the shortest distance between the two units no longer goes through the ruin, engagement range is now 1" and the targeted unit cannot attack back.

Again, nice theory. Show me a magic terrain piece where this can actually happen for an entire unit.

This actually came up during my game yesterday. A unit of deathwing terminators was partially sitting on a ruin to hold an objective. My daemon prince charged them and made sure he was getting the bonus to engagement range:


After the daemon prince fought, I consolidated closer, but dragged the "shortest line" out of the area terrain, reducing the engagement range to 1" again. The terminators were not allowed to fight back:


It's definitively avoidable, but also quite easy to gotcha people this way if you know how to.

Wayniac wrote:
The era was never here, certain people just delusionally tried to twist the game to fit their own vision rather than accept and embrace the vision as presented. GW always said that the rules were for you to adjust as you see fit, not this "official" crap. Here's a quote from May 1999 in regards to people questioning if the Citadel Journal was "official":

The worst thing in the world for our hobby would be a drift towards 'rules lawyers' and 'officialdom' - we get enough of that from the tax office and traffic police.

this too, a direct quote from Rick Priestly himself:

Rick Priestly, Warhammer rulebook wrote:I'd like to make a plea about queries, questions, and 'officialdom' in the hobby. Warhammer is inherently adaptable, the rules and ideas in the game are a springboard to better and greater things. I encourage players to develop the game to suit themselves, to invent and change rules to their own taste and explore their own ideas about rules, modeling, scenery and backgrounds.

People corrupted the game to be way more serious than it ever was meant to be and everything has suffered as a result. Sadly that mindset seems to have completely polluted the game. I have never seen anyone willing to really house rule anything, just like most people it seems anything that's not the latest GT pack might as well not even exist and it's unfathomable to imagine anyone saying to use something else. It's a bit ridiculous.

AKA that's Preistly blaming his shoddy rules writing on the players

It's just fundamentaly different gaming mentalities. The original game is intended to function much more cooperatively than many like to play it. That's not bad rules writing.

Personally I like a system where I can squeeze efficiencies and play cutthroat games. But I can recognize that wasn't the original intent. RP was building for a different mindset than I tend to apply. That's not his failure.

 Insectum7 wrote:
It's just fundamentaly different gaming mentalities. The original game is intended to function much more cooperatively than many like to play it. That's not bad rules writing.

Personally I like a system where I can squeeze efficiencies and play cutthroat games. But I can recognize that wasn't the original intent. RP was building for a different mindset than I tend to apply. That's not his failure.

I disagree. While I can get behind designers not balancing their games for top competitive play, for your average two dudes meeting at a store with their average two armies, the rules have to provide a well functioning game out of the box without any need for modification.
If you can't even do that, you aren't deserving of the title game designer, and yes, that is bad rules writing.

The new obscuring rules are bad and anyone involved with getting them added to the FAQ should feel bad. No excuses.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The era was never here, certain people just delusionally tried to twist the game to fit their own vision rather than accept and embrace the vision as presented. GW always said that the rules were for you to adjust as you see fit, not this "official" crap. Here's a quote from May 1999 in regards to people questioning if the Citadel Journal was "official":

The worst thing in the world for our hobby would be a drift towards 'rules lawyers' and 'officialdom' - we get enough of that from the tax office and traffic police.

this too, a direct quote from Rick Priestly himself:

Rick Priestly, Warhammer rulebook wrote:I'd like to make a plea about queries, questions, and 'officialdom' in the hobby. Warhammer is inherently adaptable, the rules and ideas in the game are a springboard to better and greater things. I encourage players to develop the game to suit themselves, to invent and change rules to their own taste and explore their own ideas about rules, modeling, scenery and backgrounds.

People corrupted the game to be way more serious than it ever was meant to be and everything has suffered as a result. Sadly that mindset seems to have completely polluted the game. I have never seen anyone willing to really house rule anything, just like most people it seems anything that's not the latest GT pack might as well not even exist and it's unfathomable to imagine anyone saying to use something else. It's a bit ridiculous.

AKA that's Preistly blaming his shoddy rules writing on the players

If you don't like his rules modify them to suit them. That's literally the point being made here.

That being said I agree in part with both sides. The Cult Of Officialdom is strangling the game because it results in things like losing Jump pack Chaos Lords/Canonness and restricted squad options like the Skitarii and Plague Marines and such. Things that could be easily housr ruled back in but people just won't because its not "official". But at the same time the game is no longer a few isolated pockets of nerds playing in the garage or on the kitchen table using tupperware or the kids toys for terrain. The standards GW should be held to both for the scope and price of the game should be much, much higher but being locked into the mindset of "its just supposed to be fun, change the game how you want" is just as harmful as sticking too rigidly to the rules (albeit for very different reasons).

 Jidmah wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
It's just fundamentaly different gaming mentalities. The original game is intended to function much more cooperatively than many like to play it. That's not bad rules writing.

Personally I like a system where I can squeeze efficiencies and play cutthroat games. But I can recognize that wasn't the original intent. RP was building for a different mindset than I tend to apply. That's not his failure.

I disagree. While I can get behind designers not balancing their games for top competitive play, for your average two dudes meeting at a store with their average two armies, the rules have to provide a well functioning game out of the box without any need for modification.
If you can't even do that, you aren't deserving of the title game designer, and yes, that is bad rules writing.

The new obscuring rules are bad and anyone involved with getting them added to the FAQ should feel bad. No excuses.

Well I cant speak to the current obscuring rules, but I'm pretty sure Rick Priestly didn't write them.

 Sim-Life wrote:
If you don't like his rules modify them to suit them. That's literally the point being made here.

Yes, and the point is that needing to modify broken rules is a sign of incompetence by the author, an author who expects me to pay them a significant amount of money for their work. I give credit to Rick Priestly for his work in the early days of GW but the reality is that he, like most of GW's authors from that era, absolutely sucked at making good rules. And rather than admit that 40k was a game that needed to be refined into something better they insisted on blaming "competitive" players for "unfairly exploiting" their mistakes and "playing the game the wrong way". But quality rules matter just as much for casual/narrative play as for competitive play and 40k's flaws were problems in all of them.

Things that could be easily housr ruled back in but people just won't because its not "official".

But where do you draw the line? And what do you do about balance concerns? If a character in the current codex is designed around only having a 6" move giving an upgrade to 12" is a significant buff that hasn't been accounted for. And is "GW used to do this" the only valid justification, or should I be able to expect my opponent to house rule in anything I think is cool? Am I entitled to jump packs on my guardsmen if I want them? Sure, some of these things might be fine but most fan-made content is garbage. The average 40k player is even worse than GW at creating good rules and I don't think it's reasonable to expect every game to involve negotiating about which house rules will be allowed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
It's just fundamentaly different gaming mentalities. The original game is intended to function much more cooperatively than many like to play it. That's not bad rules writing.

It's absolutely bad writing. Over and over again 40k has flaws that have nothing to do with enabling a cooperative RPG-style game, it's just bad design and poor editing with "BUT NARRATIVE" being used as an excuse for why the author didn't do a better job.

 jeff white wrote:
I was listening to an established and popular podcast, yo dog, when one commentator suggested that, with recent changes to engagement ranges given certain terrain features, and with event organizers rejecting the rule, the era of treating GW rules and updates as gospel, the one and only best way to play, is over. In this case, the context was competitive, but I figure that the point holds for more casual settings, and more hobby centric settings too.

My question is how many here agree with the commentator’s assessment. Is the mood out there such that people are ready to make house or local are flexible rules arrangements or … something besides chasing the corporate meta?

I think 'local tweaks' are a good idea - a single set of 'universal' rules are often a race to the bottom and the lowest common denominator.

'One default/proper way to play' can be extremely stifling and issues are only compounded when the rules are flawed/broken. Games like warmachine/hordes have basically died because of an over-insistance on 'competitive steamroller or gtfo' and defined approach- it's telling that the 'brawlmachine' format which has inspired a bit of a resurgence stemmed from a local effort, rather than an official dictat.

And I don't blame the writers- at least not really. 'Incompetence' is an easy accusation to level, and often, whilst at least somewhat warranted I do think the greater issue isn't so much lack of ability, but rather unsolvable situations - ttg's are limited systems that can only hold so much weight anyway, and rough edges are unfortunately par for the course for any system that survives beyond a starter box. There's only so much that can ever be accomodated without compromises and paying a price, and imo the latter two aren't always worth it.

Anyway, different groups have different circumstances and approaches to gaming and I'm very much in favour of players taking ownership of their games along with at least some of the responsibility for 'what' they play and 'how' they play.

 Jidmah wrote:


This actually came up during my game yesterday. A unit of deathwing terminators was partially sitting on a ruin to hold an objective. My daemon prince charged them and made sure he was getting the bonus to engagement range:

Spoiler:

After the daemon prince fought, I consolidated closer, but dragged the "shortest line" out of the area terrain, reducing the engagement range to 1" again. The terminators were not allowed to fight back:

Spoiler:

It's definitively avoidable, but also quite easy to gotcha people this way if you know how to.

Please tell me this was for a tourney or that your opponent encouraged you to do this... otherwise it's a real jerk move to actually pull this garbage in a friendly game.

Why do the circumstances of my game matter?

GW explicitly changed the rules to work that way, and I believe that this change is hot garbage and that the rules team should know better by now to not at least ask a few of their playtesters for feedback on such a change.

 Jidmah wrote:
Why do the circumstances of my game matter?

GW explicitly changed the rules to work that way, and I believe that this change is hot garbage and that the rules team should know better by now to not at least ask a few of their playtesters for feedback on such a change.

Spoiler:

But if it lets you sleep better, I'm a fairly sporting opponent. I gave my opponent the option to ignore this part of the FAQ, but they declined thinking that their deathwing heavy list would benefit from easier charges after deep striking.
Karma always catches up to you.

Originally I was just calling it out as a jerk move, but reconsidered that as perhaps being a bit harsh considering I didn't know the context.

It's obvious the rules team did not consider what's in these examples. I know I didn't. After seeing them I now agree, this change needs to be revised. Perhaps clarifying that the charging unit must begin it's move outside of the terrain feature.

 Sim-Life wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The era was never here, certain people just delusionally tried to twist the game to fit their own vision rather than accept and embrace the vision as presented. GW always said that the rules were for you to adjust as you see fit, not this "official" crap. Here's a quote from May 1999 in regards to people questioning if the Citadel Journal was "official":

The worst thing in the world for our hobby would be a drift towards 'rules lawyers' and 'officialdom' - we get enough of that from the tax office and traffic police.

this too, a direct quote from Rick Priestly himself:

Rick Priestly, Warhammer rulebook wrote:I'd like to make a plea about queries, questions, and 'officialdom' in the hobby. Warhammer is inherently adaptable, the rules and ideas in the game are a springboard to better and greater things. I encourage players to develop the game to suit themselves, to invent and change rules to their own taste and explore their own ideas about rules, modeling, scenery and backgrounds.

People corrupted the game to be way more serious than it ever was meant to be and everything has suffered as a result. Sadly that mindset seems to have completely polluted the game. I have never seen anyone willing to really house rule anything, just like most people it seems anything that's not the latest GT pack might as well not even exist and it's unfathomable to imagine anyone saying to use something else. It's a bit ridiculous.

AKA that's Preistly blaming his shoddy rules writing on the players

If you don't like his rules modify them to suit them. That's literally the point being made here.

No, the point being made is that he's a shoddy rules writer and says to fix it yourself. Amazing he gets the support he does.

That really isn't what he's saying by a long shot, EviscerationPlague. He's saying not to get wrapped around the axle of what's 'official', whether that concerns rules ambiguities, optional content in ancillary publications, or coming up with your own rules.

Priestley has penned tightly-written and well-designed game systems since and always kept to that same ethos.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
It's just fundamentaly different gaming mentalities. The original game is intended to function much more cooperatively than many like to play it. That's not bad rules writing.

It's absolutely bad writing. Over and over again 40k has flaws that have nothing to do with enabling a cooperative RPG-style game, it's just bad design and poor editing with "BUT NARRATIVE" being used as an excuse for why the author didn't do a better job.

We're probably mixing up two things here.

I'm saying that the Rick Priestly quote comes from a different philosophy when it comes to game design, and that philosophy is perfectly fine.

But as for the current rule adjustments being awkwardly rammed into 40k, yes I agree that many of them are incredibly dumb.

They're two different animals.