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So, as everyone here know, the 7th is dead, long live the almighty 8th ! Hooray !

What have you thought of the 7th ? How have you felt it ?

I'm not a tournament player, nor a great gamer, I'm fairly casual. I have liked 7th, it wasn't perfect, but I found it pretty easy to play, intuitive.

What I disliked during this edition was:
-random charge that could fail at 3"... Seriously ? Combined with overwatch
-too many randomness (psy power, warlord traits, assaulting...)
-psy powers really weak (when I play just one librarian, and I roll (again, random !) 1 for the psy power of my turn, it meant I had only 3 dice to pass my powers)
-vehicles too weak (not enough resilience, not enough firepower, not enough speed).
-shenanigans with characters too powerfuls (characters should be strong, but not at this point, even me, a casual, faced it so I can't imagine for you guys).
-tricky to win if your list was weak against your opponent's list
-unbalance. Some of my units rarely, if never, get used more than once, and some others were taken in every battle. It shouldn't be so blatant. And too many counter to some lists, even without wanting it.
- too long to set up a game

What I liked:
-the vast amount of choice I had (note: especially as an Imperial player) in units, codices, Imperial Armours...If you had the time and the money, you could play the whole year without two time the same list !
-as I said, it was easy to understand, and to play (very important, I don't want to calculate, or to check the rules in every game)
-some" new" factions (very pleased by that)

What I hope for 8th:
-a bit less randomness (but I still want some !!!)
-a bit more balance (I would like to be able to take any of my list against any of my opponent's lists without auto loosing or auto winning).
-a bit more quick ?

To me, 7th wasn't really bad, it just needed some changes: +1hp on every vehicle, change the psy phase, twerk some point values, some things like that.
However, I, for one, welcome the new 8th, hoping it keeps bringing new toys, and years of joy and warfare !

The sheer randomness of it all and the rules bloat towards the end made worse by poorly written formations and tacking on rules to the core ruleset.
If 7th had have been rebooted to remove said randomness and tighten up the formations/list building it would still be relatively playable imho,

But onwards with 8th I say!

I stopped playing because of 7th so frankly good riddance it won't be missed and no ones going to say it was an edition they miss.

Yeah, at the end there were so many books, formations etc...
Luckily for me it wasn't a problem, I saw very few of that.
But in general I guess it wasn't so funny

Good idea for a thread.

7th Dislikes:
1. Game setup time. Agreeing to a game and then starting your first turn over 1 hour later is crazy.

2. Too much randomness. A few things I can go for, but a lot of randomness, means not a lot of pre-planning, which means more setup time. Warlord traits, Psychic Powers, etc. While some random can be fun, there are places where it's not necessary if it slows the game down.

3. Too much reserves. When your opponent does a null or very small deployment that's somewhat lame. Either you win your first turn, and the game isn't fun, or it just feels wonky and you waste a whole turn.

4. Obscene power differences between some units. Monstrous creatures vs vehicles, T5 multiple wounds versus terminators, etc.

5. Psychic powers in some cases were too strong, and ability to deny a spell was not properly balanced.

Likes:

1. The psychic phase in general allowed for a lot of customization of any army game to game. Subtracting OP powers, if you played a game and used the "fun" psychic powers it was actually pretty darn fun.

2. Blast templates. I'm not a hard core competitive player, so in our games we don't really take the time to space stuff out entirely. "Oh oops, looks like those 4 were too close together. Nice blast!" <-- Me, my opponents, literally everyone the FLGS. But specifically flame templates. Sooooo satisfying. FWOOSH!

3. Formations. Subtracting the problematic few i really like the idea of a group of units being thematically constructed for a specific purpose.

4. Maelstorm / objective based missions. I love these, so much more depth (to me) than straight up "kill your opponent." Objective secured has real value in here.

5. Characters joining units. I'll miss this ability.

Things I'm looking forward to in 8th edition:

1. AP not being an all-or-nothing proposition. In 7th edition, AP3 was less common than AP2. That's crazy.
2. Pre-defined psychic powers and a streamlined psychic phase. Additionally, summoning isn't the absolute cheesemonster anymore.
3. The idea that armies will be balanced more regularly and point costs are decoupled from books.
4. Formal definition of matched competitive play.


Things i'm skeptical about:
1. Initiative being gone. I already see some units negate the rule of "charger goes first," which might be more difficult to keep track of than initiative. You could have easily achieved this same thing by making initiative a score, like +0, +1, +2. What happens when a unit that always goes first charges a unit that always goes first? If we had a +1 and +2, it'd be an easy compare. I guess what i'm saying at the end of the day is that you could have set everyone at a baseline of +0, and the charger gets +1 initiative, on a tie, the charger goes first. To me that is by far the easiest way to define this, and it's mathematical and easily referenced.

2. Terminators. Save mods, multiple wound weapons, these guys were already paper thin. I hope there's measurable improvement here.

3. Morale & battleshock. Consider Paladins. they're expensive. they'll be expensive in 8th. imagine a squad of 5, losing 3, and then getting a bad morale roll. You just lost at least 6 wounds on a 2+/5++ (assumed) profile for one bad roll. My guess is that most armies will find a way to mitigate or negate this effect, so why bother? My personal opinion would be to have leadership based abilities, similar to psychic, but more of a battlefield focus thing, to give value to a stat. I expect to here this a lot: "Oh no, i have to take a morale check."

I struggle to think of any positives.

I suppose some new factions coming out during its timeline were a plus to the game.

Other than that it was a pretty poor edition.

7E started out...hrm, not great but better than how it ended, but it basically started as a half baked 6E update that was...poorly handled.

I can't really think of much I like about 7E. Army construction is awful and confusing and absurdly complex while being hideously open to abuse, missions are either Maelstrom randomfest or the poorly ported 6E Eternal War missions that nobody bothered to update when big scoring changes were made (e.g. Big Guns and Scouring). Balance was awful, vehicles (particularly non skimmer vehicles) were awful. Multiwound deathstar units were...insane. Allies were a particular point of abuse and Formations were primarily marketing gimmicks to push sales through power bloat. And there's so much more to go on.The game was a bloated mess of incoherent rules delivered through four or five differenr sales channels with zero attempt at balance or centralization and at dramatically higher cost than previous editions.

Really, there's not a whole lot to like about 6E/7E in general. Lots of issues both with the core rules and codex books in 7E, the latter particularly starting with Necrons.

That was really a marked turning point of 7E imploding from power bloat and gimmickry, with the Decurion freebies and mind boggling boosting of the already overpowered Wraith in early 2015, followed quickly by doubling down on the Eldar absurdity (and I say that owning ~5k points of Eldar).


I'm having a difficult time thinking of much I really like about 7E, definitely the low point of my 40k experience.

7th ed is summed up by scatbikes and screamer stars.

My biggest problems with 7th Edition weren't with the game, but rather the players. I don't like WAAC ultra-competitive game play, and as a result I am unable to get in near as many games as I would like since they are dominating my local 40K area right now.

If I had to choose what I didn't like about 8th, here is my list:

- Too many sources for rules. I just want my army book and rule book, like in the good ol' days of 5th Edition. Supplements and campaign books as sources for new rules and boosting weak units are cool, but it almost requires you to stay on top of EVERY release to know what is going on. I don't have the time, money, or shelf space for that anymore...

- The Psychic Phase. I do not care for the Psychic Phase, as it either took forever because it was being used to win the game and cause shenanigans, or it was barely noticeable and didn't do much in the game. I prefer the 5th Edition method (a LD check) or how Age of Sigmar handles Magic.

- How Morale was handled (or not). Too many units in the game bypassed a basic mechanic, while others had no way (or poor ways) of handling Fear and Morale checks.

- Formations. I cannot stand them, but not because they exist, rather, it ties into my original complaint - WAAC players. I miss the classic Force Organization Chart of yore, and I have stuck with that in all my games save for two (and even then they would have fit within a standard FOC along with the rest of the army!).

As things are looking, I am actually excited for 8th Edition in ways that I was not originally expecting. So many of the changes they have made are EXACTLY what I would have done if I had been put in charge of writing the rules, so I am ecstatic and eager for the game to change.

EDIT: I can say that the best part of 7th Edition is the amount of variety and options for army construction available

Long live 8th edition!

If you give gamers ways to crush the opposition, many of them will. That puts the fault back with the rules. Hate the game, not the player.

Martel732 wrote:
If you give gamers ways to crush the opposition, many of them will. That puts the fault back with the rules. Hate the game, not the player.

I don't hate anyone or anything. I just don't care for competitive games, and I will not be playing in them. I might consider it once 8th edition has dropped, but we shall see. Just because someone wants to play a game of expensive plastic toys differently than I do is not worth hating anyone.

I am glad to see most people are in agreement that list construction was the best part of 7th. Yes there was tons of options, but I like that sorta thing. I just don't like poor balance.

Martel732 wrote:
If you give gamers ways to crush the opposition, many of them will. That puts the fault back with the rules. Hate the game, not the player.

My first game of 40k was in 5th edition. I didn't own any models, but I wanted to learn. A friend of mine at the time didn't have armies, but he knew how to play, and had a friend with multiple armies. So, we went over to this guys' house, for him to teach me, and to play a game.

I said I would like to play Space Marines. I thought they looked really cool, and I liked the idea of using guns. My opponent said, "No, i'm playing space marines. You're playing necrons." We went back and forth. Since i'd never played before, and he seemed very eager to play space marines, AND it was a learning game, I figured, why not, i'll just play something else. He gave me a box of necrons and said, "Build your army," to which, I said, "What? How?"

Anyway, fast forward. I had picked a few things out of the box, and i had no idea what they were. Handfuls of warriors, a couple ships with guns on them. He told me to put them on the board, and i did. We started playing. Everything of his was hiding, so i moved forward, and fired a couple shots, doing no damage.

Then, a huge portion of his forces arrived from Outflank, right behind my army, guaranteeing him the charge, which he did. And, he charged. Of course I lost combat, and I wasn't allowed my reanimation protocols (i called it zombie rule) because he had power weapons. (this is what I was told, anyway). I lost that game basically on the first turn and decided the game was stupid and wouldn't come back to it until way later.

Tell me, is this the player's fault, or the game's?

 Ratius wrote:
The sheer randomness of it all and the rules bloat towards the end made worse by poorly written formations and tacking on rules to the core ruleset.
If 7th had have been rebooted to remove said randomness and tighten up the formations/list building it would still be relatively playable imho,

But onwards with 8th I say!

Whats scary/sad is that you could have written that for every version including Rogue Trader.

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If you give gamers ways to crush the opposition, many of them will. That puts the fault back with the rules. Hate the game, not the player.

I don't hate anyone or anything. I just don't care for competitive games, and I will not be playing in them. I might consider it once 8th edition has dropped, but we shall see. Just because someone wants to play a game of expensive plastic toys differently than I do is not worth hating anyone.

You should hate the mutant, the traitor and all xenos your thought crimes have been noted and sent to the inquisition.

 Marmatag wrote:


Tell me, is this the player's fault, or the game's?

Sure that guy was a jerk, but he also may have been cheating, and you wouldn't have known because it was your first game. It's an outlier. If you had brushed it off and decided to learn the game and get your own army anyway, that guy still might have beat you all the time even with even points values and a strict adherence to the rules. It's the fault of the game's mechanics that that kind of thing is even possible in the first place, so yeah, I still blame the game.

The whole point of having rules is to enforce fair play. If you could rely on people to do that on their own, we wouldn't need rules at all - we'd still be playing army men like kids, except there would be no arguments about whose super magic shield made them invincible against whose death ray machine gun.

"Your super magic shield may make you invincible to my death ray machine gun, but my spiritual rib-cage separator passes right through it."

"Right you are, chappo, it seems you have vanquished me in honorable combat. Good form."

"It was a close one, you almost had me with that planetary dematerializer. It was an honor to fight you, sir! Shall we have mum make us peanut butter and jelly?"

I hated that Chaos was living off a a 6th edition codex from 2012, and that it had so many dang supplements.

Orks and 'Nids were underpowered.

It took an eternity to get a match started.

The rules were somewhat confusing. It didn't lay out a concise and easily remembered progression of events, melee was a mess, morale was confusing and forgettable, and I had to look up how to take a toughness test because I couldn't find it in the book.

 Luciferian wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:


Tell me, is this the player's fault, or the game's?

Sure that guy was a jerk, but he also may have been cheating, and you wouldn't have known because it was your first game. It's an outlier. If you had brushed it off and decided to learn the game and get your own army anyway, that guy still might have beat you all the time even with even points values and a strict adherence to the rules. It's the fault of the game's mechanics that that kind of thing is even possible in the first place, so yeah, I still blame the game.

The whole point of having rules is to enforce fair play. If you could rely on people to do that on their own, we wouldn't need rules at all - we'd still be playing army men like kids, except there would be no arguments about whose super magic shield made them invincible against whose death ray machine gun.

"Your super magic shield may make you invincible to my death ray machine gun, but my spiritual rib-cage separator passes right through it."

"Right you are, chappo, it seems you have vanquished me in honorable combat. Good form."

"It was a close one, you almost had me with that planetary dematerializer. It was an honor to fight you, sir! Shall we have mum make us peanut butter and jelly?"

But that is the point. When you're teaching someone, even if you're absolutely correct with the rules, is it really appropriate to curb stomp someone who doesn't even know how to move, or how to shoot, etc? The answer is no, it's not. And from there you can see that there are situations where it's not appropriate to stomp people out just because you can. If you're teaching your son how to play basketball, are you going to swat his every shot? I mean, it's the game!

I will miss nothing about 7th worst game i have play on the tabletop.

I may well miss the fact that no one wants to play the game if 8th is not a big improvement.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:


Tell me, is this the player's fault, or the game's?

Sure that guy was a jerk, but he also may have been cheating, and you wouldn't have known because it was your first game. It's an outlier. If you had brushed it off and decided to learn the game and get your own army anyway, that guy still might have beat you all the time even with even points values and a strict adherence to the rules. It's the fault of the game's mechanics that that kind of thing is even possible in the first place, so yeah, I still blame the game.

The whole point of having rules is to enforce fair play. If you could rely on people to do that on their own, we wouldn't need rules at all - we'd still be playing army men like kids, except there would be no arguments about whose super magic shield made them invincible against whose death ray machine gun.

"Your super magic shield may make you invincible to my death ray machine gun, but my spiritual rib-cage separator passes right through it."

"Right you are, chappo, it seems you have vanquished me in honorable combat. Good form."

"It was a close one, you almost had me with that planetary dematerializer. It was an honor to fight you, sir! Shall we have mum make us peanut butter and jelly?"

But that is the point. When you're teaching someone, even if you're absolutely correct with the rules, is it really appropriate to curb stomp someone who doesn't even know how to move, or how to shoot, etc? The answer is no, it's not. And from there you can see that there are situations where it's not appropriate to stomp people out just because you can. If you're teaching your son how to play basketball, are you going to swat his every shot? I mean, it's the game!

I'm talking about situations where the codex disparity is directly at fault, not player ignorance. I understand the Eldar perfectly, but this in no way helps me beat them. Once two players have equal rule knowledge, GW allows codex selection to be a massive trump card. That's not the fault of the owner of those models.

What drove me nuts about 7e

You couldn't design a list or strategy around a warlord trait, except in the case of special characters with a fixed one.
Psychic powers - the psychic phase was a bad implementation of a decent idea.
Huge disparity between the powerful factions and the weak ones. Orks, Sisters, Tempestus and Dark Eldar (before the Reborn Warhost anyway) couldn't hope to compete against the higher tier (or even middle tier - DE vs BA was not a very good matchup...) books, and Tyranids, Daemons and Grey Knights only stood a chance in certain specific builds. In the case of Daemons, the few builds that worked at all were utterly dominant!
The nature of vehicle and assault mechanics made them very difficult to ever balance correctly. Vehicles have been either OP or UP in every edition since 3e (including 5e, where they were both at once!), and assault has suffered from the same see-saw.
Edge and corner cases everywhere in the rules.
Fiddly rules everywhere.
Many known problem areas left to languish. CSM, Tyranids, Sisters, I'm looking squarely at you. Riptide ion accelerator, you too. (Really, GW, WTH?)
Bizarre oscillation between supporting old models and wargear options, and restricting units to only what comes in the current kit. Dark Eldar got hit hard by this, and then we got the abomination that is the scatterbike.
Even the dominant armies were often pigeonholed into specific builds if they wanted to win.

What I liked about 7e

More options for building a force than ever before. An occasional reason to take garbage units in the form of formations with ludicrous bonuses. Of course, this contributed to the huge power disparity and fiddliness problems, so maybe it wasn't a net win.
Many ways to paper over an army's weaknesses with allies. On the flipside, too many armies sucked if you didn't do that.
New factions, including some that the fandom has been asking loudly for: Harlequins, Adeptus Mechanicus, Genestealer Cults, Adeptus Custodes, Deathwatch.
Enough new, revamped or resurrected stuff that even old hands sometimes got caught off guard.
Variety, variety, variety - as long as your opponents are playing in the same spirit.

Martel732 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:


Tell me, is this the player's fault, or the game's?

Sure that guy was a jerk, but he also may have been cheating, and you wouldn't have known because it was your first game. It's an outlier. If you had brushed it off and decided to learn the game and get your own army anyway, that guy still might have beat you all the time even with even points values and a strict adherence to the rules. It's the fault of the game's mechanics that that kind of thing is even possible in the first place, so yeah, I still blame the game.

The whole point of having rules is to enforce fair play. If you could rely on people to do that on their own, we wouldn't need rules at all - we'd still be playing army men like kids, except there would be no arguments about whose super magic shield made them invincible against whose death ray machine gun.

"Your super magic shield may make you invincible to my death ray machine gun, but my spiritual rib-cage separator passes right through it."

"Right you are, chappo, it seems you have vanquished me in honorable combat. Good form."

"It was a close one, you almost had me with that planetary dematerializer. It was an honor to fight you, sir! Shall we have mum make us peanut butter and jelly?"

But that is the point. When you're teaching someone, even if you're absolutely correct with the rules, is it really appropriate to curb stomp someone who doesn't even know how to move, or how to shoot, etc? The answer is no, it's not. And from there you can see that there are situations where it's not appropriate to stomp people out just because you can. If you're teaching your son how to play basketball, are you going to swat his every shot? I mean, it's the game!

I'm talking about situations where the codex disparity is directly at fault, not player ignorance. I understand the Eldar perfectly, but this in no way helps me beat them. Once two players have equal rule knowledge, GW allows codex selection to be a massive trump card. That's not the fault of the owner of those models.

Again I would say that's a player problem. I play a lot and don't run into the issues you do. We're playing the same game. In a non-competitive meta, my friend plays BA and trashes just about everyone he runs into. Except me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Any way, 7th edition needed balance, i'm not arguing that at all. I guess I'm going to miss formations. Skyhammer was so cool and it wasn't broken OP, but it's dead now.

I absolutely reject that notion based on the premise that I accept that gamers WILL game a system. Authors who rule loose rules are asking for trouble, and gamers will give it to them!

Non-competitive meta to me seems like relatively random lists where no one is trying particularly hard. A game shouldn't fall apart because someone decides to build the best list they can.

Skyhammer is indeed broken, but not as broken as the most abusive options.

What I liked were formations. What I hated were formations.

GW took good ideas, and then naturally broke them in an attempt to increase sales.

Formations of fairly costed units were mostly fair. Formations of miscosted units were mostly broken. The initial codices were still the original sin.

The game system has its faults, but WAAC TFG are an issue even in a perfect system. Maybe not the WAAC bit, since they'll be constrained by balanced rules, but add in that TFG nature, and they'll start cheating.

 JNAProductions wrote:
The game system has its faults, but WAAC TFG are an issue even in a perfect system. Maybe not the WAAC bit, since they'll be constrained by balanced rules, but add in that TFG nature, and they'll start cheating.

I'm not talking about cheating. That ruins anything. 40K is the only game where people are shamed for trying to win. If you want that kind of experience, GW should not have gotten rid of the GM for the game. A 1 v 1 game is a duel, plain and simple.

Martel732 wrote:
I absolutely reject that notion based on the premise that I accept that gamers WILL game a system. Authors who rule loose rules are asking for trouble, and gamers will give it to them!

Non-competitive meta to me seems like relatively random lists where no one is trying particularly hard. A game shouldn't fall apart because someone decides to build the best list they can.

Skyhammer is indeed broken, but not as broken as the most abusive options.

I've had competitive games where people requested I not bring certain units.

If you can't have a competitive game without OP content, that says a lot.

Non-competitive was in regards to constructing a fair game. It was the wrong word for me to use.

@marmatag, its pretty simple really to figure if there's a player problem or a game problem.

If the problem stems from some sort of mechanical misunderstanding, army disparity, and other balance, in-game issues, its a game problem.

Someone being a rude, obnoxious, donkey-cave with zero social skills is a player problem.

There will be time these things overlap, like some people who don't understand how to play nicely with first time or new players. But generally, issues involving balance and army power level disparities and potential conflicts in game groups/stores because of that, well, that's a game problem at its core. You simply can't force or even expect all players to want the same type of game (the ever classic Fluff At All Costs vs Win At All Costs at the extremes), so a good game creates a framework that most player types will be happy against most player types in a general pick up scenario.

You'll always have donkey-caves, but if 40k was well balanced and well written, the cheesiest of beard armies would still fare reasonably well against some self-acclaimed super fluff army, which would allow both types of players to compete fairly and have fun without needing to point the blame at the other for playing 'incorrectly' as they may see it.

 Blacksails wrote:
I struggle to think of any positives.

I suppose some new factions coming out during its timeline were a plus to the game.

As a ruleset, 7E kept basically all of the things that made 6E bad, and then made things more random. It's crap.

The only saving grace is that Eldar got scatbikes and many D weapons in their Codex.