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Just riffing here, but I got to talking with a buddy, and the changes we'd love to see to 40k are as follows:

- A reduction in the range of much of the game's weaponry, in order to focus more of the game on movement. Ideally, in my mind, the first turn would feature far less shooting and far more tactically oriented movement.

- Flat assault ranges, dictated by a unit stat. Perhaps this range could be mitigated/reduced by wounds received from overwatch.

- Flat movement penalties for difficult terrain. The current -2 for charging is simple and easy. Special rules for given units may adjust.

- Overwatch. A standby action one commits to in the shooting phase that allows the unit to fire upon a unit entering their range during the opponent's turn. You may ready for a potential charge or the arrival of enemy forces.

- Cover becomes a reduction in the to hit roll once again, but does not exceed -2 often, with -1 being most common.

- A common core table, unlike standard force org, a list of maximum types of units once can bring to the table. Not certain as to how to label various units, but the idea is a limiter that allows the use of various formations but limits the overwhelming presence of certain units. If 40k were to veer more towards AoS' multiple styles of play, it would be fun to see multiple tables that broadly regulate army structure based on gameplay type.

- Simple flyer functionality. I'd love to see a stride towards DZC's flyer rules, in which flyers attack through flight corridors and trigger reactive fire from enemy AA units (perhaps also triggering the sudden arrival of an enemy fighter). Fighters could differ in their ability to return to different table edges on their next pass. More agility, more possibilities, more fragility. Holding your own fighter in reserves in hopes of getting in on your opponent's six could be great fun.

- Throwing how half or more USR's from the rulebook, and eliminating their habit of unlocking more USR's. Meaning, USR's are independent, and no longer contain more USR's within themselves. These rules and their function are listed on all listings of a given unit. No page flipping or recalling a slew of USRs memory. I'd be happy to see more unit specific rules in any regard for flavor and fun, but understand this can be hard for GW as they already struggle with balance and rules interaction.

- Fewer USRs shared or conveyed to units. I understand the fun of buffing, but for less weedy rules and overcranking of units, this should be dealt out carefully and minimally.

- Some sort of shift to alternating activation, but obviously this extremely unlikely. You move everything, I move everything, you shoot everything, I shoot everything.

These are just my thoughts on things that would make the game more fun and fluid. I'd love to hear what the rest of you gents think!

I could write an essay on this gak but its almost 1am here and I'm tired so I'll stick with the big one. First and foremost, remove as much randomized gak as possible.

-Charge, flat 6"

-Running, flat 6"

-Psychic powers, lets us pick which.

-Warlord traits, let us pick which.

 Thokt wrote:
- A reduction in the range of much of the game's weaponry, in order to focus more of the game on movement. Ideally, in my mind, the first turn would feature far less shooting and far more tactically oriented movement.

I can get behind this. A prime example for me is that I pretty much cannot take my Vindicators without having at least one other thing which is at least just as scary and powerful, all because people have a whole bunch of relatively long range weaponry that can take it out Turn 1.

 Thokt wrote:
- Flat assault ranges, dictated by a unit stat. Perhaps this range could be mitigated/reduced by wounds received from overwatch.

I like the idea of a baseline Charge Range on a unit-by-unit basis, but I think there still needs to be some randomness in there. So my first thoughts on it would be to have a baseline stat that is at least 2" and then let the Charge Range be that +D6".

 Thokt wrote:
- Flat movement penalties for difficult terrain. The current -2 for charging is simple and easy. Special rules for given units may adjust.

This would definitely reduce the amount of dice rolls and make it a bit easier.

 Thokt wrote:
- Cover becomes a reduction in the to hit roll once again, but does not exceed -2 often, with -1 being most common.

I dislike this because it denies the only save which a unit might otherwise get. For example, when a Tactical Squad is shooting at a unit of Ork Boyz in cover with Boltguns.

 Thokt wrote:
- A common core table, unlike standard force org, a list of maximum types of units once can bring to the table. Not certain as to how to label various units, but the idea is a limiter that allows the use of various formations but limits the overwhelming presence of certain units. If 40k were to veer more towards AoS' multiple styles of play, it would be fun to see multiple tables that broadly regulate army structure based on gameplay type.

As long as this is applied to both Battle-Forged Armies as well as Unbound Armies. I think it's ridiculous that there are armies that contain disproportionate numbers of Vehicles or Elite units. There should obviously be some exceptions like Armour Divisions in Imperial Guard.


The rest I'll have to think about.

There's not a lot that needs to be done.
1. You can charge out of stationary transports
2. Soul Blaze is done on a D6 rather than a D3
3. ATSKNF is just a reroll for Fear tests as opposed to just ignoring it
4. A total change to blast rules so that you don't have to place the center hole over a model

Those would be my basic fixes.

I want internal and external codex balance and rules that are easy to understand and won't create rules arguments.

I also want the return of fluff to armies as well as their uniqueness (Iron Hands I am looking at you especially).

Fair prices for units and upgrades in every codex would be nice as well.

Reduction of ap2 and increase of actual tactics and strategies rather than just a spam of broken op stuff.

And finally a buff to assault so it is equally potent to shooting.

it is not weapons ranges that need to be reduced, but the automatically hit on a 'X+' resolution mechanic need replacing to bring back tactical target selection .

If we use opposed values in a chart similar to the current 'to wound' chart.
Eg a unit gets an Evasion stat to show how hard they are to hit at range.

Then hitting a small target in cover becomes much harder than hitting a large target in the open.

Can we just go back to movement values ,(with flat penalties) and the tactical options of 2nd ed?
(It was one of the things that just worked and worked well and it is used in most other war games.)

I would like a force organisation method similar to Epic SM.
Pick a themed 'company core' of HQ unit and a set of common units.
Then add up to 5 support units, and one special unit.

This way each faction can have multiple cores with their own lists of support and special units.So lots of variety in build options but more control to define balance better.

GW needs to define the scale and scope of the 40k game and write rules focusing on the intended game play.

No, weapons need to keep their range. What we need are larger tables. If the ranges get shorter then assaults will become easier and in a universe where everyone can shoot assaulting should not be the .goto default.

There's simply too much I'd want for the game to improve to list here, and really, it wouldn't be the 40k everyone knows it as it is right now.

But in short;

Less snowflake rules - make a USR and stick to it
More abstraction - If you're going to have a company+ sized game, it needs to play like one. Keep it simple, let the player's imagination do the leg work.
More consistency - Pick a scale. 28mm should optimally be for a smaller platoon sized game, but as long as a game size is picked, tailor the rules for it appropriately.
Better rules format - Give me free PDFs. If not, give me a dirt cheap, small, rules only books for both the main game and army books. If I want the fluff, I'll spring for a fancy book later.

I'd like people to be able to pick psychic powers however
I'd like psychic powers to be reorganized in power rankings where the best psychic powers are WC3, the next most powerful ones are WC2 and situational or decent powers are WC1.
In order to pick a lvl3 psychic power you would need to first pick a WC1 and WC2 power in the same psychic tree.

This means while yes you can choose your psychic powers not every lvl1 psycher in your army will be running around with invisibility. You would need a lvl3 psycher to even get a WC3 power and that psycher needs to devote himself to that psychic tree to even get that power.

The primaris (which should be equivilant to a WC1 power in usefulness) should be a free psychic power for the psycher if that psycher chooses any WC1 power from that tree.

Warlord traits should be chooses based on a small table for each type of HQ that leads (warlord) your army.
For instance a generic Ork warboss might have a choice of increasing personal stats +1 toughness/+1 atk, fearless buff to all orks during waagh, or +1 str to all Orks during waagh.
An Ork big Mek might be able to choose up to 3 units to outflank, it will not die to vehicles, or reroll his personal armour/invul save once a turn.
An Ork painboss might be able to allow his unit to choose to reroll to hit or to wounds each turn, increases his fnp save to unit by +1, or grants fleet to all Orks.
Special characters should have a preset warlord trait that's basically an improved version of one of the above appropriate choices so something like ghaz grants fearless to all Orks during waaagh and allows all meganobs the ability to run and his 2++ invul.
Maddoc allows his unit to reroll to hit and to wounds and also has his rampage and fearless rule for his unit.

gungo wrote:
I'd like people to be able to pick psychic powers however
I'd like psychic powers to be reorganized in power rankings where the best psychic powers are WC3, the next most powerful ones are WC2 and situational or decent powers are WC1.
In order to pick a lvl3 psychic power you would need to first pick a WC1 and WC2 power in the same psychic tree.

That is an absolutely amazing idea, I would love to see psykers have to specialize in a single discipline to access the best powers, rather than mix and match whatever they want.

thokt wrote:
Just riffing here, but I got to talking with a buddy, and the changes we'd love to see to 40k are as follows:

- A reduction in the range of much of the game's weaponry, in order to focus more of the game on movement. Ideally, in my mind, the first turn would feature far less shooting and far more tactically oriented movement.

I would argue for the exact opposite, I say weapon ranges need to be increased, with range modifiers coming into play. The idea that I can only shoot my rifle as far as I can run in two turns is pretty ridiculous, and making ranges shorter will only encourage people to use more suicide tactics. For tactical movement to come into play, there needs to be some sort of flanking or crossfire system, otherwise it doesn't matter where you are when you shoot someone.

 master of ordinance wrote:
No, weapons need to keep their range. What we need are larger tables. If the ranges get shorter then assaults will become easier and in a universe where everyone can shoot assaulting should not be the .goto default.

While I agree that assaulting isn't very realistic, it's already a part of the game, and the game is in no way realistic, AT ALL. More importantly, multiple armies are built around the mechanic itself, so I feel its necessary to give them a small assist is this department. If assault becomes more deadly, mitigating it becomes a tactical requirement. This emphasizes movement, which I believe to be at the core of an enjoyable table top war game.

The reason the current 40k rules are not 'intuitive/realistic'.Is because the game has no clear scale or scope.
And without this the game play can not be clearly defined.

It is just a jumble of cool sounding ideas, without any clear game play or development direction.

So to make the game intuitive, you have to define the game scale scope and intended game play.

If you want a equal focus on shooting and assault , you need to use modern land warfare as a base for the core game play.
(Equal focus on mobility fire power and assault. WHFB based rules are too focused close combat and mobility.)

If you do not believe me look at Epic Armageddon ...