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7th is Bloated, 8th is Bland, Formation spam, versus soupspam, yadayada, skub and flame. Now that that is out of the way...

I am pondering how to clean up 7th, and I know I'm not the only person that has tried. Colonel_Bork had an earlier project, and I've seen an attempt on Reddit. The projects usually end up petering out due to little differences and disagreements though. Likewise, the "community edition" has been floated around but there was a certain apathy towards it. I imagine a good question is: How to actually make a game edition that could be a good compromise for both the players that feel 8th streamlined, and those players that feel abandoned by the game. Of course, making a good "7.5" that has the best of both systems is not going to be an overnight process, and would need to be handled with multiple iterations.

I imagine the best way to start, is to look at which changes were non-controversial versus controversial, then develop a more focused "plan of attack" to deal with individual issues. So, which issues do you consider non-controversial ("This change is a nobrainer") versus controversial, and which side do you take on controversial positions? For example:

Non-Controversial: 8th making Movement a stat again, and abstracting Run/Turbo/Flat-out into a single "Advance" move. This is far cleaner than having assorted "non-USR" rules like Dunestrider, or having Vehicles versus Fast Vehicles.
Non-Controversial: It's safe to assume that many players feel something is "off" with 8e Cover mechanics.
Non-Controversial: Removing D, Stomp, and Thunderblitz tables. Power roulettes are no fun.
Controversial: Removal of USRs. On one hand, 7th had way too many USRs (80+ in fact). On the other hand, replacing them with unit-specific rules leads to a potential future-proofing nightmare. Keywords are a potentially good start, but they have had earlier hiccups.
Non-Controversial: Being able to select your Psychic Powers and Warlord Trait=Good thing. Players have an easier time "Forging a Narrative" when their Commander isn't Tyler Durden.
Controversial: Blast removal. Did it really speed up the game, or just pave the way for Conscripts and Brimstones?
Controversial: Formations vs "3 Flex Detachments." On one hand, Formations were arguably a cause of having to bring a ton of extra books for referencing datasheets, and certain Formations caused hate in both Tournament and Competitive Play. On the other hand, the vast majority of Formations were average if not outright awful. By contrast, with 8th, flex detachments make it trivially easy to spam, and the bonuses are the same regardless of the army: A Command Point is a Command Point. Further muddying the issue is the fact that 30k used Rites of War instead of either setup.
Controversial: The Psyker Phase. The biggest issues with 7th Psykers were bad internal balance between powers/disciplines, an "all-or-nothing" casting/denial system, and "pooled Warp Charge" making it more optimal to have a "big caster" and multiple Warp Charge "battery" units, rather than multiple mid-level casters. For example, people took Magnus but never took Thousand Sons. In 8th, the issues degenerate to Psychic Focus ("can only attempt to cast once" means you want the caster with the best modifier), and Smite being the only power that can be cast multiple times, a power that Aspiring Sorcerers and Grey Knights incidentally have a tougher time casting. Thus, Chaos Players will take Magnus (or mass Malefic Lords), but not Thousand Sons.
Controversial: Characters. On one hand, removing Look Out Sir rolls speeds things up. On the other hand, the targeting rules have been easy to exploit (Characterspam lists with 4+ Culexus Assassins are particularly hilarious), and combined with wonky rebalances have also seen oddities like regular Crisis Suits being replaced with Commander Spam.

What other elements of 7th versus 8th do you consider "controversial versus noncontroversial" and what is your stance on them? Fot assortrd issues, do you believe a "third option" would be ideal?

Cover was controversial if I recall. 7th edition had it bad but 8th didn't exactly fix it either. I think I heard a few people ask for it to be a BS penalty but not sure how that would go over. I do think this is more "realistic" but not sure if it would be balanced)

Semi-Controversial was the change in the AP system. While the base system is welcomed by most, how it translated was controversial at best (especially with marine players, who got the short end of the stick where they gained nothing and instead lost their power armor).

The overhaul of vehicles was a big one. Half the people liked the fact that Vehicles are so much easier to sort out now since they're essentially MCs, while others are up a wall because firing arcs and armor facings are no longer a thing. I personally think reverting to the 5th edition rules with some minor tweaks would have been better than just completely changing them.

To be fair, a lot of 'complaints' about 8th edition are because people are playing the wrong game.

The issues you list for 8th are, if I am reading correctly, Psychic Focus and Terrain/Cover.

At least in my experience, people essentially ignore the advanced cover rules. I've never seen anyone subtract 2 from their charge rolls in woods, for example.

And the Psychic Focus thing is explicitly a 'gamey' mechanic to balance psykers, and GW knows it's gamey. That's why in Narrative play, psychic focus doesn't exist.

I think you highlight some things in the original post which say a lot about the community. People spamming or abusing rules in 8th...spammed and abused rules in 7th. There's no version of this game where it "fixes" people and their goal to abuse a system. If you make a rule set that tight and water-proof, other people complain about it being "boring".

The loss of blast templates did greatly speed up the game without question - however the conversion could use work. Ideally bigger blasts should be D6+2 or something to that effect. The swing of a single D6 isn't suitable for larger guns. Also people need to realize that some blast weapons straight up shifted priority with their new stats (some guns which excelled at wiping out large masses of infantry now are more suited to shooting at vehicles, etc.). So I think the blast concept is fantastic, just poorly executed in some cases.

The thing is 40k is still very much has it's rules based on it's fluff. Games that have tighter competitive rules generally do it in reverse; the rules are made first then the narrative is made to fit the rules. Yes I know this sounds silly as 40k is anything but realistic, but clearly they try to represent the fluff on the table before actual balance comes in.

Basically it means if you do not want your players to exploit or spam, you'll have to design the very base system of your game to discourage or disallow spam and exploits.

A very good starting point for 7th is fixing the random nature of it.
You've already mentioned a few - being able to pick psy powers/warlord traits.
I'd also personally bin 2d6 charges, random # of shot mechanics and warp charges.

Change #1. Remove summoning and the psychic phase altogether, replace it with 8th psychic phase, except instead of smite every discipline gets a primaris power they can spam, that provide smaller bonuses to the army or detriments to the enemy, that do not stack.

Change #2. Remove all free-stuff and replace it with 8th edition where everyone must dedicate points at the beginning for reinforcements.

Change #3. Use 8th edition vehicle toughness rules.

Change #4. Use 8th edition weapon damage and AP systems, but with tweaks to make things more balance. remove D3/D6 damage from many weapons, and go with a flat, 2, 3, 4, etc.

Change #5. Remove formations except for CAD and Allied.

Change #6. Get rid of anything that smells anything like a death star.

These are good ways to get started.

Change 1) Give up because making a 7.5 is not possible. The problems are from the root of 3rd edition, building on a flawed base is not going to work.

I might as well start responding.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
The thing is 40k is still very much has it's rules based on it's fluff. Games that have tighter competitive rules generally do it in reverse; the rules are made first then the narrative is made to fit the rules. Yes I know this sounds silly as 40k is anything but realistic, but clearly they try to represent the fluff on the table before actual balance comes in.

Basically it means if you do not want your players to exploit or spam, you'll have to design the very base system of your game to discourage or disallow spam and exploits.

See, I don't usually buy that first argument so much, because many of the actual balance/crunch issues tend to fly in the face of fluff. Stuff like the Barkbarkstar, Tau Commanderspam, or such tend to come about because of unintended combos or wonky internal balance (or how the Riptide was the most common rare prototype of all time). I imagine a better way to discourage spam is to allow viable alternatives to "attrition" or mass alphastriking, and to develop a system that promotes effective combined arms approaches within an individual army.

 Marmatag wrote:
Change #1. Remove summoning and the psychic phase altogether, replace it with 8th psychic phase, except instead of smite every discipline gets a primaris power they can spam, that provide smaller bonuses to the army or detriments to the enemy, that do not stack.

Change #2. Remove all free-stuff and replace it with 8th edition where everyone must dedicate points at the beginning for reinforcements.

Change #3. Use 8th edition vehicle toughness rules.

Change #4. Use 8th edition weapon damage and AP systems, but with tweaks to make things more balance. remove D3/D6 damage from many weapons, and go with a flat, 2, 3, 4, etc.

Change #5. Remove formations except for CAD and Allied.

Change #6. Get rid of anything that smells anything like a death star.

These are good ways to get started.

1) FWIW, I prefer Psyker powers to be "degrees of success" rather than nonbinary pass-fails. For example, how Kings of War handles magic.
2) Reinforcement Points have been inconsistently applied in a manner that most such abilities actually aren't worth using in 8th. It is an overcorrection, especially since "resurrect a destroyed unit" costs points but "resurrect an almost-destroyed unit" doesn't. Perhaps the best example of this is A Tide of Traitors vs Send in The Next Wave. The first lets you replace a unit wholesale, and lets it come back from either of the side edges. The second costs Reinforcement Points, and forces the unit to come in from your DZ. Which then almost makes you wonder...why didn't you just buy that squad to begin with?
3) Whatever, I am neutral tbh.
4) Nonrandom damage works. Tbt, I prefer 7e Shooting ("batch by weapons" rather than "batch by targets") but allowing you to split weapons across targets. Ex: A Devestator Squad with 2 Lascannons and 2 Heavy Bolters could go "Heavy Bolters to that Infantry Squad, Lascannons to that tank." As opposed to mixed weapons in a single batch, or getting statistical variation depending on whether or not you fast-roll (Ex: Firing a mix of D1 and D2 weapons at a unit of W3 models).
5) Removing formations requires rebalancing armies to have functional CADs. For example, Chaos Marines get penalized harder than Eldar in CAD-only games.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Change 1) Give up because making a 7.5 is not possible. The problems are from the root of 3rd edition, building on a flawed base is not going to work.

If by that, you mean the fundamental 40k turn structure, yes. Truth be told, how to implement a replacement for IGOUGO is a completely separate topic AFAIK, especially since 8th still mostly sticks to using that same system.

7th at its core is just not worth keeping.

If you are seriously interested in doing this, just start your own ruleset and devote a thread to it in that specific forum. Like minded folks can help you create it.

I personally will never go back to any edition with free summoning in it, or a psychic phase that basically asks the question: "Are you eldar? are you daemons/chaos?" And if the answer is no, you do not get a psychic phase.

 Marmatag wrote:
7th at its core is just not worth keeping.

If you are seriously interested in doing this, just start your own ruleset and devote a thread to it in that specific forum. Like minded folks can help you create it.

I personally will never go back to any edition with free summoning in it, or a psychic phase that basically asks the question: "Are you eldar? are you daemons/chaos?" And if the answer is no, you do not get a psychic phase.

And 8th... Is?

7th had some good bits (the morale system was cool, just too much stuff was immune to it) and was overall an interesting system. It's the codexes AROUND IT that really made it turn down.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Controversial: Blast removal. Did it really speed up the game, or just pave the way for Conscripts and Brimstones?

Easiest fix for this would of just been making blast weapons do More or more consistent hits against bigger units. the mechanic is already on some weapons they just needed to add another line for bigger units.

so say a vindicator does D3 shots natrually

Against a unit of 5 or more it does D6 which is already writen it

then they should of added a line for 10 or more as 3 + D6 or some flavor of that.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I might as well start responding.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
The thing is 40k is still very much has it's rules based on it's fluff. Games that have tighter competitive rules generally do it in reverse; the rules are made first then the narrative is made to fit the rules. Yes I know this sounds silly as 40k is anything but realistic, but clearly they try to represent the fluff on the table before actual balance comes in.

Basically it means if you do not want your players to exploit or spam, you'll have to design the very base system of your game to discourage or disallow spam and exploits.

See, I don't usually buy that first argument so much, because many of the actual balance/crunch issues tend to fly in the face of fluff. Stuff like the Barkbarkstar, Tau Commanderspam, or such tend to come about because of unintended combos or wonky internal balance (or how the Riptide was the most common rare prototype of all time). I imagine a better way to discourage spam is to allow viable alternatives to "attrition" or mass alphastriking, and to develop a system that promotes effective combined arms approaches within an individual army.

I don't mean they succeeded at translating the fluff into rules, but rather that when they made the rules, they were thinking of the fluff. And almost in a comic book fashion too. The stuff that ended up happening like Barkstar, Commanderspam and Riptide Wing were the result of them thinking about two steps ahead when they really should have thought four.

Like the Barkstar was the result of them thinking, in two separate trains of thought, that Fenrisian Wolves should be loyal to Space Wolf Space Marines, and that Imperial Units should be goody goody with each other. They didn't realize that this ended up meaning Azrael somehow became the crazy cat lady (or in this case, crazy dog grandpa).

The worst example was the 6th edition Mutilator. The train of thought probably went:

We need a CC Oblit > Give him all the CC weapons and can switch around > Put it on the Oblit's body and drop the cost by about 1/4th > ??? > Profit!

And so we got something that was slow as hell and couldn't do much outside of drawing some panick-fire. This one stung because most people compared them to the (then useful) paladins of the GKs, which brought more firepower, psychic powers, a better choice of weapons, and bigger squad sizes for roughly the same amount of points. They weren't really thinking of what the combat role of the thing was or what niche it was filling, just that they needed a clawed counterpart to the Oblit.

 Desubot wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Controversial: Blast removal. Did it really speed up the game, or just pave the way for Conscripts and Brimstones?

Easiest fix for this would of just been making blast weapons do More or more consistent hits against bigger units. the mechanic is already on some weapons they just needed to add another line for bigger units.

so say a vindicator does D3 shots natrually

Against a unit of 5 or more it does D6 which is already writen it

then they should of added a line for 10 or more as 3 + D6 or some flavor of that.

Realistically, I imagine the real issue with blasts from 6th onward (it generally wasn't as noticeable in 5th) was not that they were unreliable or slowed the game down (though units like the Wyvern didn't help) so much as the fact that small blasts generally got marginalized as unit bases crept up in size (such as Marines going from 28 to 32 mm) and 7e became "bikes and monsters." More cynically, one could argue they were chopped because you can only sell a set of templates to a gamer once (and that's assuming they don't just use the ones that belong to the LGS).

I've contemplated "place a blast down, make a tohit for each model underneath" as a potential compromise. After all, GW has shown it is still willing to include "AOEs" in a roundabout way, via Orbital Bombardment stratagems or "its not a beam" Psychic Powers.

Switch to a D10 and use a modified AP system where if AP = armor save, the target gets half their save. Make AP 1 and 0 super rare. With D10, you can actually differentiate Orks from humans from marines from chaos marines.

The thing with Blasts is that the mechanic originated from WHFB, where everything had to bunch up base to base in regiments. That's why the small blast is so damn tiny that it might as well be 1 shot; it hits a lot more people when you're putting it over models on 20mm square bases that are side by side, rather than a 28mm round base that can be 2" away from everything else. And that was with just infantry; trying to shoot a blast weapon at anything bigger was a moot point unless you had some way of making them bunch up.

The scatter dice was another issue since it basically meant that whoever was shooting the blast always had a 1/3rd chance of it landing directly on target regardless of BS, especially since when it did scatter the BS reduction's effectiveness ranged from "ant's fart whiffing" to "jack all".

It really should have been that you shoot to hit as normal, then place the blast marker down wherever you wanted, and everything under is hit. If you missed, then you rolled the scatter die +2D6 and determine where it landed. Also the Big Blast should have been the Small Blast, while a 7" one would be made for the Big Blast.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing 6th Edition's Ally Chart for Imperials (and 7th Ed for everyone else) with 7th Edition's Ally rules using 8th Edition's Faction Keyword system.

The loss of the Independent Character USR did a lot in destroying Death Star units, in my opinion, and got rid of some of the most egregious arguments involved with 7th Edition's rules, along with the free units some detachments allowed for.

How to fix 7th edition?

- Ditch Formations and go back to a single Force Organization Chart. Maybe add the Allied chart as well.

- Four types of saves - Armor, Invulnerable, Cover and Jink. Armor and invulnerable saves work as normal. Cover can be a 5+ or a 6+, depending on the terrain. Jink is a 4+ because you sacrifice your shooting to use it. Jink would be restricted to fast moving units and flyers only.*

- Eliminate any kind of re-rollable save, especially on a 2+.

- Introduce the M stat. It eliminates so much bloat.

- Gut the USRs and parse them down to a core group. USRs should show up in just about every faction. If something seems too niche, then restrict the rule to that particular army.

- Eliminate D. Allow Strength of weapons to go above 10.

- You could eliminate AV from the game and replace it with toughness. The MC rules were always more enjoyable, to me, as a player. You could introduce variable toughness to kind of emulate the old AV system. So a Predator might have a Toughness value of 9/8/6. 9 on the front, 8 on the sides, 6 on the rear. It maintains the tactical element of positioning but eliminates the irregularity of the AV system (which makes tanks either paper tigers or roaring dragons, with little wiggle room).

- I am not sure how to fix the Psychic Phase but I sure as heck enjoyed the 5th edition "roll against your Leadership" much more than the psychic dice pool. I would allow Psykers to pick the powers they want but I would also ensure that no power is really over the top powerful. Useful and effective, sure, but not crazy powerful. I would cap each power to only being manifested once a turn, outside of a super basic Primaris Power for each Discipline.

- I would make BS work like 8th. Eliminate the old 7-BS=What Your Need to Roll nonsense.

- I would keep blasts and templates but I would make Scatter more predictable by emulating the Warmachine Blast Template (which can only scatter in 1 of 6 directions).

- I would just copy/paste the 8th edition wounding chart.



*I thought I would love the AP system in 8th but I find it leads to a lot of boring outcomes, especially with how damage has spiked. I agree that Marines basically lost their armor save, which is a huge problem. I think if 7th edition style cover were still in effect (i.e. a 4+), then it would help mitigate the side effects of powerful AP blowing through armor as if it were paper. However, I was never really a fan of how common cover was in 7th, since it always seemed to negate the potency of the AP system that was in place. Give and take, honestly.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Cover was controversial if I recall. 7th edition had it bad but 8th didn't exactly fix it either. I think I heard a few people ask for it to be a BS penalty but not sure how that would go over. I do think this is more "realistic" but not sure if it would be balanced)

A penalty to the to hit rolls was in place ever since the original Rogue Trader. It wasn't bad at all. A simple -1 to the to hit roll results for ranged attacks against targets in or clearly behind cover should do nicely, perhaps a -2 (at most) for targets that are in specified hard cover, such as bunkers and fortified buildings for which one would have to spend Power/Points to aquire.
It's what we are thinking to try out and use for a house rule.

If I was going to make a fan ruleset, I would definitely not bother with 7th, it's without a doubt the worst version of 40k I've ever played. Why not just make your own version? By the time you do all your homebrew fixes and clear up wording you'll have to completely redo the codexes and their points, and at that point you've basically made your own game.

At least then nothing is holding you back so you could go about putting in cool new mechanics like alternate activation, proper overwatch, more interesting cover mechanics, ballistic modifiers, better army customization, fog of war type elements, better missions, etc. etc. etc.

I just don't get these "I want to make a homebrew 7th/6th/5th/whatever posts" because if you're going to put in the effort to completely redesign one of these editions, you'd be far better served just coming up with an entirely new framework for the amount of time you'll put in. The only reason I use 8th, or 7th, or whatever edition other people are using is because that's what available and it's the easiest to find a game for. Believe me if I had my choice to pick or design a different ruleset for 40k I'd do it in a heartbeat. 8th was an improvement and all but it still has a long way to go.

I'd reconsider powerful characters, cover, firing arcs especially of tanks, and some special rules making units/models too powerful.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
If I was going to make a fan ruleset, I would definitely not bother with 7th, it's without a doubt the worst version of 40k I've ever played. Why not just make your own version? By the time you do all your homebrew fixes and clear up wording you'll have to completely redo the codexes and their points, and at that point you've basically made your own game.

At least then nothing is holding you back so you could go about putting in cool new mechanics like alternate activation, proper overwatch, more interesting cover mechanics, ballistic modifiers, better army customization, fog of war type elements, better missions, etc. etc. etc.

I just don't get these "I want to make a homebrew 7th/6th/5th/whatever posts" because if you're going to put in the effort to completely redesign one of these editions, you'd be far better served just coming up with an entirely new framework for the amount of time you'll put in. The only reason I use 8th, or 7th, or whatever edition other people are using is because that's what available and it's the easiest to find a game for. Believe me if I had my choice to pick or design a different ruleset for 40k I'd do it in a heartbeat. 8th was an improvement and all but it still has a long way to go.

I think the idea is that it's easier to get the community to rally around a "spiritual" succesor to 7th then your own OC homebrew system

Starting with 7th seems like the wrong approach to me. 7th was the worst version of 40k I've played. Granted, a lot of that wasn't down to the core rules so much (SHVs and the like aside) but more down to the ludicrous power creep and imbalances as the edition went on, but given everything you'd need to strip out why start with it at all?

In terms of core mechanics 8th seems like a better place to start. Reintroducing the Movement stat, changing vehicles to use Toughness and Wounds and adding in multiple damage weapons and a proper AP system are all big wins IMO. There are some things that don't work so well, such as cover, close combat, some characters and army construction but I think 8th is a much better base to build from.

 ulgurstasta wrote:
I think the idea is that it's easier to get the community to rally around a "spiritual" succesor to 7th then your own OC homebrew system

More or less. I mean, I know there assorted proposed rule rewrites (Beyond the Gates of 40k, Bolthammer, etc), and I did write up my own system ("Stack-based alternating activation"), but I also am interested in a more gradual cleanup of 7th, rather than the "shotgun surgery" of 8th.

Some ideas in 8th I'm ok with of course. Keywords could be usable, provided they were "scoped" properly (for example, there was the FAQ for Space Wolves that said a Wolf Guard Terminator in a unit of Grey Hunters is "treated as though it has the Terminator keyword"). Weapon-level Keywords could easily have solved the 7e dilemma of "Is a Plasma Culverin a Plasma Weapon" for purposes of interacting with the Haemotrope Reactor.

Of course, there are the things from 7th that were lost: Without Fire Points, the Rhino has all but disappeared from Marine lists in favor of the Razorback. With Reserves being unit or stratagem-specific, null counterplay versus alphastrikes is heavily marginalized in favor of extreme bubblewrapping. With the changes to both saves and wounds, power armor really doesn't mean a whole lot compared to having more wounds and attack dice. Even tiny things, like choosing when to Jink/Go-To-Ground, or 8e units being able to overwatch multiple times are all simplifications that remove player decisions.

And that's probably the real issue with 40k in general. It's a game that can inconsistently alternate between "abstract" or granular, a game that thinks that flanking and cover are too much to keep track of, but that players care about "Bolters, Storm Bolters, Bolt Rifles, Bolt Carbines, etc." And so I get why people like 8th. After all, Soul Blaze, Daemonic Gifts, Mysterious Objectives, etc. are just rolling and table-lookups, but they don't actually increase the actual complexity of the game.

 Red_Five wrote:
- Ditch Formations and go back to a single Force Organization Chart. Maybe add the Allied chart as well.

Formation Lists were fine, for the most part. It was the Special Rules which were the problem. Add on Command Benefits like the Gladius' to them, and you have a recipe for brokenness.

The majority of Formations would be fine if their Special Rules were converted to being Command Benefits AND if they were toned down to a similar level of the CAD. For example, if the Skyhammer Annihilation Force's Command Benefits were limited to being just the being forced to Deep Strike and timed it, it would be seeing a similar balance to the Deathwing's Detachment.

I would like to see a scalable ruleset that plays closer to second edition for smaller games and if players want that level of detail... Why not 2000pt Old Skool Necromunda style games for people who want that level of detail? Anyways for five hundred point or seven fifty I like second edition but maybe keep eighth vehicle wounds and weapon damage. Return to templates too. Every other thread I see a post about "fixing" 8th ed blast mechanics... What a trainwreck. And facings, and second ed vehicle turning... Yup. Get it all back IMO.