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The title's confusing. I have trouble summarizing my ideas in titles.

Essentially, what I'm suggesting is that 8e WH40k have a few different rulesets, each for a different scale of game.

The problem I'm looking to solve here is the number of models used in armies nowadays. 28mm models were never designed for company-level battles. However, I do fully recognize that many players absolutely love the uniqueness of a large-scale 28mm battle, and there's no real need to take that away.

What I propose is 4 different rulesets, all operating under the same basic principles (d6 system, unchanged statlines, same basic mechanics, etc), but with more or less detail based on the points level you want to play with.

The smallest battles with the most detailed rules would basically be kill team. It would have stuff for customizing your soldiers' specializations, models would operate individually, etc. It would also be the only one with duels. A squad versus another squad. It would cater to people who love details who don't want to get bogged down in large-scale battles.

The next largest would basically be combat patrol. Fairly basic, streamlined rules, with less detail than Kill Team, but with three squads, a tank, and an HQ on each side. Squad numbers obviously aren't exact, I'm just trying to demonstrate the size of the army I imagine. Designed much as a standard game (the next size up), but for slightly quicker games.

Then there's the standard games. Think 1850-2000 point battles nowadays. Very basic, very streamlined rules designed to speed gameplay along and avoid getting bogged down in pointless detail that requires finnicky measuring. Lords of War are restricted to this or Apocalypse.

The biggest would be Apocalypse. Basically a ruleset with extremely basic and streamlined rules to make playing with massive armies quicker and easier, and the concept of balance goes out the window entirely.

I'm no rules designer, so I can't say how these different rulesets would be achieved, but as a general idea I think it'd be nice to have a future edition of the BRB be able to accommodate a variety of points values.

There are two problems with this:

1) You're designing four different games, with completely different mechanics and rules concepts. It's the equivalent of making a single rulebook with 40k, BFG, and Epic. There's no reason to put them together and make people buy all four just to get the rules they care about, so at that point you split up the rules and make four (or more!) separate games in the 40k IP.

2) You're fragmenting the community even more than it already is. Remember how often the 40k community is a toxic mess about stuff like banning unbound armies, "win at all costs" vs. "casual at all costs" players, etc, and is really more like a bunch of parallel communities that never willingly interact with each other? Now multiply this by four, as everyone picks their preferred game and ignores the rest. You probably end up with a situation like Apocalypse, where most people had zero interest in playing it and the few people who invested in the models never got to use them for anything but display pieces.

 Peregrine wrote:
There are two problems with this:

1) You're designing four different games, with completely different mechanics and rules concepts. It's the equivalent of making a single rulebook with 40k, BFG, and Epic. There's no reason to put them together and make people buy all four just to get the rules they care about, so at that point you split up the rules and make four (or more!) separate games in the 40k IP.

2) You're fragmenting the community even more than it already is. Remember how often the 40k community is a toxic mess about stuff like banning unbound armies, "win at all costs" vs. "casual at all costs" players, etc, and is really more like a bunch of parallel communities that never willingly interact with each other? Now multiply this by four, as everyone picks their preferred game and ignores the rest. You probably end up with a situation like Apocalypse, where most people had zero interest in playing it and the few people who invested in the models never got to use them for anything but display pieces.

Actually, I was envisioning it being more or less the same ruleset, but with specific rules here and there added or removed.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
There are two problems with this:

1) You're designing four different games, with completely different mechanics and rules concepts. It's the equivalent of making a single rulebook with 40k, BFG, and Epic. There's no reason to put them together and make people buy all four just to get the rules they care about, so at that point you split up the rules and make four (or more!) separate games in the 40k IP.

2) You're fragmenting the community even more than it already is. Remember how often the 40k community is a toxic mess about stuff like banning unbound armies, "win at all costs" vs. "casual at all costs" players, etc, and is really more like a bunch of parallel communities that never willingly interact with each other? Now multiply this by four, as everyone picks their preferred game and ignores the rest. You probably end up with a situation like Apocalypse, where most people had zero interest in playing it and the few people who invested in the models never got to use them for anything but display pieces.

Actually, I was envisioning it being more or less the same ruleset, but with specific rules here and there added or removed.

That's basically the same thing as what Peregrine said for point 2. Apoc is literally the 40k rules with some extra rules added and no one plays it

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
There are two problems with this:

1) You're designing four different games, with completely different mechanics and rules concepts. It's the equivalent of making a single rulebook with 40k, BFG, and Epic. There's no reason to put them together and make people buy all four just to get the rules they care about, so at that point you split up the rules and make four (or more!) separate games in the 40k IP.

2) You're fragmenting the community even more than it already is. Remember how often the 40k community is a toxic mess about stuff like banning unbound armies, "win at all costs" vs. "casual at all costs" players, etc, and is really more like a bunch of parallel communities that never willingly interact with each other? Now multiply this by four, as everyone picks their preferred game and ignores the rest. You probably end up with a situation like Apocalypse, where most people had zero interest in playing it and the few people who invested in the models never got to use them for anything but display pieces.

Actually, I was envisioning it being more or less the same ruleset, but with specific rules here and there added or removed.

That's basically the same thing as what Peregrine said for point 2. Apoc is literally the 40k rules with some extra rules added and no one plays it

So if no one plays Apocalypse, shouldn't GW just axe it and all the Apocalypse-only models since no one ever uses them?

 Pouncey wrote:
Actually, I was envisioning it being more or less the same ruleset, but with specific rules here and there added or removed.

Then there's no point in doing it. The issue with 40k's scale problems is that the core rules are fundamentally broken outside of their intended scale (of ~1-2000 point games). Making the game work well at significantly larger or smaller point levels would require major changes to the core rules, to the point that it's 40k in name only. So why be bound by the 40k rules at all? Start over with a blank slate for each version of the game and do it right. If you do anything less, trying to fix the problem with only minor changes, you just create even more of a bloated mess of rules where you've added complexity but not really done much to improve the game.

 Pouncey wrote:
So if no one plays Apocalypse, shouldn't GW just axe it and all the Apocalypse-only models since no one ever uses them?

No, because those models are part of normal games now. IMO that was one of the few good things GW has done since 5th edition, consolidating everything into a single game so there are no more models available to buy that can't be used in normal games. There have certainly been problems in executing the idea (it is GW, after all), but it was something that needed to be done.

I would prefer a different ruleset for skirmish-sized battles, like Mordheim was.
Herald of Ruins rules are good, but I think they're hindered by staying too close to standard 40k. Especially when it comes to campaigns, because in 40K a stat increase is a pretty big deal (+1T for instance has a huge impact). And to me, skirmish games must have good campaign rules: when you have only a handfull of guys, and you give a name to each of them, you want to see them evolve game after game.

I think combat patrol can be merged with "standard" sized 40K, but with different FOCs. Combat patrol could be 1HQ, 2-4 troops, 0-2 FA/HS/Elite, or something like that. No gargantuans, flyers or superheavies. While standard sized 40K would allow formations and all the units in the codices.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Actually, I was envisioning it being more or less the same ruleset, but with specific rules here and there added or removed.

Then there's no point in doing it. The issue with 40k's scale problems is that the core rules are fundamentally broken outside of their intended scale (of ~1-2000 point games). Making the game work well at significantly larger or smaller point levels would require major changes to the core rules, to the point that it's 40k in name only. So why be bound by the 40k rules at all? Start over with a blank slate for each version of the game and do it right. If you do anything less, trying to fix the problem with only minor changes, you just create even more of a bloated mess of rules where you've added complexity but not really done much to improve the game.

...

I am 100% certain that the core rules for WH40k will always be fundamentally broken at points limits of 1.

 Pouncey wrote:
So if no one plays Apocalypse, shouldn't GW just axe it and all the Apocalypse-only models since no one ever uses them?

No, because those models are part of normal games now. IMO that was one of the few good things GW has done since 5th edition, consolidating everything into a single game so there are no more models available to buy that can't be used in normal games. There have certainly been problems in executing the idea (it is GW, after all), but it was something that needed to be done.

I disagree strongly about the inclusion of the Lords of War category into standard games. There was a better way to allow the use of superheavies in standard points value games - i.e. special scenarios - and making them a legitimate part of standard armies was a terrible decision. If the models were not seeing widespread use, they should've been relegated back to Forge World as a more specialist project for the few times when people actually want to play Apocalypse.

 Pouncey wrote:
I disagree strongly about the inclusion of the Lords of War category into standard games. There was a better way to allow the use of superheavies in standard points value games - i.e. special scenarios - and making them a legitimate part of standard armies was a terrible decision. If the models were not seeing widespread use, they should've been relegated back to Forge World as a more specialist project for the few times when people actually want to play Apocalypse.

Ain't never happening. GW won't put models that are usable in 40k but not in standard game. Their goal is to sell models. Limiting when model can be used is counter productive. Most people don't play apoc=no point buying apoc only model=GW doesn't even consider apoc only model.

Only models they will release that aren't usable in standard 40k are models for other games. Obviously they have no problem releasing models for BB or AOS despite them not being usable in standard 40k game. But apoc is subset of 40k so any model usable in apoc IS usable in standard 40k.

If you don't like that invent your own rules.

You can design 4 different framework of limitation for the scale of the game. I agree if done right.

But 4 different rulesets is going to end in tragedy.

tneva82 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
I disagree strongly about the inclusion of the Lords of War category into standard games. There was a better way to allow the use of superheavies in standard points value games - i.e. special scenarios - and making them a legitimate part of standard armies was a terrible decision. If the models were not seeing widespread use, they should've been relegated back to Forge World as a more specialist project for the few times when people actually want to play Apocalypse.

Ain't never happening. GW won't put models that are usable in 40k but not in standard game. Their goal is to sell models. Limiting when model can be used is counter productive. Most people don't play apoc=no point buying apoc only model=GW doesn't even consider apoc only model.

Only models they will release that aren't usable in standard 40k are models for other games. Obviously they have no problem releasing models for BB or AOS despite them not being usable in standard 40k game. But apoc is subset of 40k so any model usable in apoc IS usable in standard 40k.

If you don't like that invent your own rules.

I thought I established in the OP that I'm terrible at inventing rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
You can design 4 different framework of limitation for the scale of the game. I agree if done right.

But 4 different rulesets is going to end in tragedy.

My knowledge of the precise technical terminology is extremely limited, as I am not a game designer.

Please don't hold it against me if I use the wrong words for things.

The simplest form I can think of to explain what I'm asking for is to have the 8e rules for Kill Team, Combat Patrol and Apocalypse included in the BRB instead of as separate booklets.

So how would this scale setup be different from the current Kill Team-normal 40k-Apocalypse system? Just a different comp list/banlist to regulate which scale superheavies/formations can exist in, or would there be more to it?

 AnomanderRake wrote:
So how would this scale setup be different from the current Kill Team-normal 40k-Apocalypse system? Just a different comp list/banlist to regulate which scale superheavies/formations can exist in, or would there be more to it?

I was describing how it would work when I realized that I was literally suggesting keeping things the same way they work now, but with better Kill Team rules.

My request seems entirely pointless now.

I withdraw my suggestion.

I could see some rules limitations being added. Something like: Fliers can only be used in games of 1000+ points. Superheavies can only be used in games of 2000+ points.

 Pouncey wrote:
...with better Kill Team rules...

Honestly after attempting to build better Kill Team rules that's the one I don't think would be easily handled with altered mission rules/comp rules. As is it's incredibly skewey and balance issues in the core game just get exacerbated by stripping the tools to counter things out of a lot of armies and telling a bunch of them that they're just not allowed to play for one reason or another; my list of why Kill Team with the assumptions built into 40k's army books wouldn't work got so long I eventually turned it into a brainstorming document for a Mordheim conversion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pouncey wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
So how would this scale setup be different from the current Kill Team-normal 40k-Apocalypse system? Just a different comp list/banlist to regulate which scale superheavies/formations can exist in, or would there be more to it?

I was describing how it would work when I realized that I was literally suggesting keeping things the same way they work now, but with better Kill Team rules.

My request seems entirely pointless now.

I withdraw my suggestion.

(Also I don't think suggesting harder comp rules for 1k-ish/2k-ish/Apoc games is entirely pointless; one of the fundamental issues of 40k is getting stuff (superheavies, massed Flyers, Wraithguard...) sprung on you without warning in a pick-up game with someone you didn't coordinate with ahead of time, and if there were better-defined 'format' rules that'd be much easier to avoid without getting into arguments and causing bad feelings. You'd have a quick/clear preestablished shorthand for "I'm not prepared to play against a large number of Flyers" or "my Codex is old and terrible, I'd rather you didn't run a meta-formation to get loads of free stuff that I don't have any way of accessing".)

Sounds awful. Clean up the rules, implement some of the changes regarding Fliers and Lords of War, boom, done.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
...with better Kill Team rules...

Honestly after attempting to build better Kill Team rules that's the one I don't think would be easily handled with altered mission rules/comp rules. As is it's incredibly skewey and balance issues in the core game just get exacerbated by stripping the tools to counter things out of a lot of armies and telling a bunch of them that they're just not allowed to play for one reason or another; my list of why Kill Team with the assumptions built into 40k's army books wouldn't work got so long I eventually turned it into a brainstorming document for a Mordheim conversion.

So Kill-team would operate better as a standalone mini-game then?

 Pouncey wrote:
So Kill-team would operate better as a standalone mini-game then?

Absolutely - it fails both as a skirmish game and as another way to play 40k thanks to the ruleset it is binded to; having it more along the lines of a specialist game like Necromunda would probably make it far more appealing as a format of play.

 Pouncey wrote:


...

I am 100% certain that the core rules for WH40k will always be fundamentally broken at points limits of 1.

The "1-2000" points was shorthand for "1000-2000"

Also:

1) This concept has been brought up several times
and
2) It would be cool if the different "modes" of play were included in the BRB, but they're still fundamentally broken, for example Kill Team is basically hot garbage, although it's nice to have a way to do some skirmish games with your 40k models.

I would like the standard game to be fixed before even considering something like this, because if it isn't, I might get rid of my one remaining army (which I only even kept at this point because my friends have yet to build their models for other systems we're getting into).

 General Annoyance wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
So Kill-team would operate better as a standalone mini-game then?

Absolutely - it fails both as a skirmish game and as another way to play 40k thanks to the ruleset it is binded to; having it more along the lines of a specialist game like Necromunda would probably make it far more appealing as a format of play.

Good to know.

I'll wait for the revamp before starting my Kill Team then.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jacksmiles wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:


...

I am 100% certain that the core rules for WH40k will always be fundamentally broken at points limits of 1.

The "1-2000" points was shorthand for "1000-2000"

It's not shorthand I come across often. My mistake though. Apologies.

Also:

1) This concept has been brought up several times
and
2) It would be cool if the different "modes" of play were included in the BRB, but they're still fundamentally broken, for example Kill Team is basically hot garbage, although it's nice to have a way to do some skirmish games with your 40k models.

I would like the standard game to be fixed before even considering something like this, because if it isn't, I might get rid of my one remaining army (which I only even kept at this point because my friends have yet to build their models for other systems we're getting into).

1. I honestly didn't know that.

2. Personally, if I return to playing WH40k, Kill Team would be how I do it, as the small number of models suits my personal tastes.I have little interest in the standard game anymore.

I'm a fan of having somewhat different rulesets for 3 styles of play; Kill Team, Standard, and Apoc.

As Peregrine noted, the issue with going back to Apoc now is that people who bought all the large stompy models will want to use them. Ideally, in Standard, there can still be Lords of War, but they'd be restricted like they are in 30k.

Kill team would have all the silly rules like Look Out Sir and other small model interactions, standard 40k would be closer to what the 5th Ed core rules looked like, and Apoc would be more streamlined and take some pages out of Epic.

 Blacksails wrote:
I'm a fan of having somewhat different rulesets for 3 styles of play; Kill Team, Standard, and Apoc.

As Peregrine noted, the issue with going back to Apoc now is that people who bought all the large stompy models will want to use them. Ideally, in Standard, there can still be Lords of War, but they'd be restricted like they are in 30k.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItB81DVbRDs

600,000pts Apocalypse battle. Two scratch-built Emperor Titans present.

You wanna use massive vehicles or creatures, play the massive-scale version of the game.

The rules don't allow you to use your Phantom Titan now? All your buddies similarly lament the loss of use of their Lords of War? Great news, you have a large number of players who want to use massive models, go play Apocalypse.

You're the only one who misses the lack of being able to plant a Baneblade on the field? Sounds like your group is happier without Lords of War. Maybe you should simply go without, and you can occasionally invent a scenario that requires its use for a one-off game so you can use your model.

Kill team would have all the silly rules like Look Out Sir and other small model interactions, standard 40k would be closer to what the 5th Ed core rules looked like, and Apoc would be more streamlined and take some pages out of Epic.

Sounds good.

 Pouncey wrote:
...Sounds like your group is happier without Lords of War...

The problem here is that 'Lords of War' is silly to treat as one category, given that it covers things ranging from Dante to Warlord-class Titans. Any effort to do the scaling properly is going to have to chop up and redefine Lords of War almost by definition, probably leaving big ICs legal at all levels, 'small' (6HP/W or thereabouts, or capping around 400pts) GCs/superheavies legal in 'big 40k', and really big superheavies (Daemon Lords, full-size Titans, Thunderhawks...) restricted to Apocalypse only.

As far as the problems of doing skirmish-scale the assumptions of the Codexes are much bigger issues than the rules themselves. Constrained stat ranges (with regards to all of it, but especially to S/T/W), non-granular weapon stats (chainsword = kitchen knife), weapon distribution and squad sizes (primarily with regards to uniformly-equipped armies like the Eldar or Necrons), and the irrelevance or nonexistence of things that are incredibly crucial to the life of real-life infantrymen (heavily-abstracted terrain and cover, sheer uselessness of suppression) are absolutely necessary to make a game where a Grot can exist alongside a Knight and where you're putting 100+ models on the table function smoothly and not take six months and a GM to play, but once you decide that you're going to make a skirmish game where the scariest dudes are the sergeants and the biggest tanks are Rhinos keeping those same assumptions leave you with a bland and poorly-balanced game.

To give a real example of the counterargument: The way to play killteam currently is to use the Heralds of Ruin rules (http://heralds-of-ruin.blogspot.ca/p/kill-team-rules.html), which is successful because it's functionally a new standalone game, whereas the 40k killteam fails because its an anemic bolt-on to the standard rules.

 McGibs wrote:
To give a real example of the counterargument: The way to play killteam currently is to use the Heralds of Ruin rules (http://heralds-of-ruin.blogspot.ca/p/kill-team-rules.html), which is successful because it's functionally a new standalone game, whereas the 40k killteam fails because its an anemic bolt-on to the standard rules.

Honestly I felt the HoR system didn't go far enough; they kept the stats and costs from the 40k Codexes (with accompanying "what the *bleep*?" balance decisions and bizarre/arbitrary limitations) and printed their rules as a game mode that plugs into the core 40k rules. It's better than the official Kill-Team but it could be a lot better.

(My Mordheim-based project got started after complaints from my playgroup (while trying out HoR) about how basic Guardsmen were at least as irrelevant there as they were in 40k (only they couldn't be meat-shields for the valuable models because there are no squads) and how Tau gunlines were every problem we'd had with gunlines in Mordheim proper rolled into one mess and pumped up to absurd levels. It has been in barely-functional alpha for quite a while because I'm having trouble picking an implementation and stopping instead of tearing up and reworking bits of it and stapling extra armies on before the whole thing is anywhere near ready, but since I'm about to be home for winter break in close proximity to my testing/sounding board it might actually get done soon.)

Years ago at my local GW in Newcastle WA we'd play a campaign like this BFG, then it became an epic game, then it became a 40k game, and finally it was an Inquisitor scale game.

There were special bonuses and what nots for the winner of each game, and in the new game they'd use that bonus...

Anywho, GW has always wanted to enlarge the 40k game. There was a time that you could have 30 models as your 2k army and it cost about $300 for evertything. Then they reduced point cost on models, which meant you had to buy more. My 2k army became an 1100 point army between 3rd/4th or was it 5th/6th....

Anyway, it's about the money for GW, they are a business afterall.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
...Sounds like your group is happier without Lords of War...

The problem here is that 'Lords of War' is silly to treat as one category, given that it covers things ranging from Dante to Warlord-class Titans. Any effort to do the scaling properly is going to have to chop up and redefine Lords of War almost by definition, probably leaving big ICs legal at all levels, 'small' (6HP/W or thereabouts, or capping around 400pts) GCs/superheavies legal in 'big 40k', and really big superheavies (Daemon Lords, full-size Titans, Thunderhawks...) restricted to Apocalypse only.

As far as the problems of doing skirmish-scale the assumptions of the Codexes are much bigger issues than the rules themselves. Constrained stat ranges (with regards to all of it, but especially to S/T/W), non-granular weapon stats (chainsword = kitchen knife), weapon distribution and squad sizes (primarily with regards to uniformly-equipped armies like the Eldar or Necrons), and the irrelevance or nonexistence of things that are incredibly crucial to the life of real-life infantrymen (heavily-abstracted terrain and cover, sheer uselessness of suppression) are absolutely necessary to make a game where a Grot can exist alongside a Knight and where you're putting 100+ models on the table function smoothly and not take six months and a GM to play, but once you decide that you're going to make a skirmish game where the scariest dudes are the sergeants and the biggest tanks are Rhinos keeping those same assumptions leave you with a bland and poorly-balanced game.

...I kinda stopped reading after your first sentence.

Commander Dante is a Blood Angels Captain or Chapter Master.

Why is he a Lord of War and not an HQ choice, and why do I expect the answer to that question to inspire much nerd rage?

Chapter Master*

And he's a LoW because LoW's are done based on how powerful they are as a unit, as well as their rarity and/or significance. The presence of Dante is all three of those things - powerful, significant and incredibly rare.

krazynadechukr wrote:
Years ago at my local GW in Newcastle WA we'd play a campaign like this BFG, then it became an epic game, then it became a 40k game, and finally it was an Inquisitor scale game.

There were special bonuses and what nots for the winner of each game, and in the new game they'd use that bonus...

Anywho, GW has always wanted to enlarge the 40k game. There was a time that you could have 30 models as your 2k army and it cost about $300 for evertything. Then they reduced point cost on models, which meant you had to buy more. My 2k army became an 1100 point army between 3rd/4th or was it 5th/6th....

Anyway, it's about the money for GW, they are a business afterall.

I always thought the increase in army sizes over the years was a result of players' collections growing over two or three decades and the writers wanting to accommodate players wanting to use more and more of their collections.

But that presumption was based on the idea that gaming companies want to make fun games because a fun game inspires people to like spending money, and any business prefers it when their customers like handing over their cash.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 General Annoyance wrote:
Chapter Master*

And he's a LoW because LoW's are done based on how powerful they are as a unit, as well as their rarity and/or significance. The presence of Dante is all three of those things - powerful, significant and incredibly rare.

He's a named Space Marine Chapter Master with some backstory. He's not THAT significant, powerful, or rare, is he? What sets him apart from any other Chapter Master?

 Pouncey wrote:
He's a named Space Marine Chapter Master with some backstory. He's not THAT significant, powerful, or rare, is he? What sets him apart from any other Chapter Master?

Honestly, I recommend you go read about him first before I attempt to explain his significance in both the Blood Angel's Chapter and in the Imperium of Man:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Dante