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Back when we heard that GW were trimming 40k down from the colossal rules bloat it had become during 7th edition, there was almost universally rejoicing from the community.

8 months into 8th edition, and I think GW are encroaching upon their old addiction to adding in rules. Stratagems, Warlord Traits, Artifacts, faction and sub faction rules. These have all added a lot of extra moving parts that it becomes hard to keep track of what is what. Never mind any additional rules brought to the table from the mission being played.

We were promised that 8th edition would be quicker, and honestly I am not seeing it. There may be no more Universal Special Rules, but special rules still exist, and are scattered in so many different areas, that trying to find them, or keep track becomes clunky and slows the game down. With so many rules scattered around it is only natural that rules will be missed during a game, which can lead to players feeling cheated or/and annoyed.

What puzzles me is why there is a need for special rules? Surely a system should exist that allows a stat line to help demonstrate how good, average, or poor a model is?

Ultimately, there is far too much having to flick through books to find scattered information for casual play, for those who play just 40k I can imagine it is fine, for those who play a wide variety of game systems it has become a nightmare.

I really like the setting, and the models are wonderfully imaginative, however I am still finding their rules to be needlessly convoluted and I've been playing since 2nd edition.
Am I alone in this line of thought, or are there others who are coming to the same conclusion?

I 100% agree that a proper statline would be more than enough for an interesting game. I do think there are way too many special rules, auras/bubbles...but that stuff sells models.

We had a discussion on this the other week and the general consensus is that 8th is only slightly faster than 7th, if at all. Indexhammer was faster, easily, but with the reintroduction of layer upon layer of rules the game is definitely back to the chunk.

I think, terrible editing/writing aside, the flow of the game is fine, and I can appreciate that the majority of special rules do mimic each other. I do believe tournaments will need to consider reducing army size from 2000 points though, that seems to be hindering a lot of tournaments.

Its not that they are clunky, is that GW keeps forgetting what they made as rules, and then makes new rules for new stuff that screws everything over.

Case and point, Daemon codex letting Daemons deep strike, then forgetting the Magnus and Mort, both have the daemon key word. Or things like giving tzaangors heretic astartes, and forgetting there is a power that lets you zip them across the board turn one.

IMO 8th is more a rule bloat then 7th ever was, back in 7th i needed 1 book, 2 books max. My codex, and My Brb. Now i need the BrB, my codex for half my army, the other codex for the other half, the Chapter approved, and like 3 or 4 FAQs in order to keep up on the rules. 8th is fun, but its a mess, and its full of ambiguity.

Using something like Battlescribe can help. Special rules add flavour, further internal and external differentiation, synergies, tactical variety etc but do come with what may be construed as costs such as increased complexity, balance difficulties, demographic appeal etc. It is a trade off and who knows if there is anyone at GW with a really strong grasp of the overall picture.

Ix_Tab wrote:
Using something like Battlescribe can help. Special rules add, flavour, further internal and external differentiation, synergies, tactical variety etc which does come with what may be constued as costs such as increased complexity, balance difficulties, demographic appeal etc. It is a trade off and who knows if there is anyone at GW with a really strong grasp of the overall picture.

It helps yes, but with how crap Battle scribe has been lately its faster to flip through a dex. Where all the real slowness comes down is trying to memorize stratagems, and on top of that, needing to pause every so often to agree on when something happens because of the loose wording GW uses in 8th.

 Backspacehacker wrote:


IMO 8th is more a rule bloat then 7th ever was, back in 7th i needed 1 book, 2 books max. My codex, and My Brb. Now i need the BrB, my codex for half my army, the other codex for the other half, the Chapter approved, and like 3 or 4 FAQs in order to keep up on the rules. 8th is fun, but its a mess, and its full of ambiguity.

Can we please stop with this myth. It is not true. 7th was just as ambiguous and far more bloated.

Almost every army in 7th used a codex and usually a supplement. Not to mention your basic rules for 1 unit could be spread out over as much as 10 pages even without FAQ.

 Earth127 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:


IMO 8th is more a rule bloat then 7th ever was, back in 7th i needed 1 book, 2 books max. My codex, and My Brb. Now i need the BrB, my codex for half my army, the other codex for the other half, the Chapter approved, and like 3 or 4 FAQs in order to keep up on the rules. 8th is fun, but its a mess, and its full of ambiguity.

Can we please stop with this myth. It is not true. 7th was just as ambiguous and far more bloated.

Almost every army in 7th used a codex and usually a supplement. Not to mention your basic rules for 1 unit could be spread out over as much as 10 pages even without FAQ.

Its not a myth tho, i ran dark angels, i needed 2 books, my codex and the BrB. Its not a myth because it was how i actually played. Thats how everyone in my store played, we just needed a codex and the BrB.

Wanted a break from 8th so I went back to play some HH which is just modified 7th thinking it would just fit like an old glove. Oh boy was a wrong.

So much more clunky. Vehicle facings, closest model removal, USRs, templates and on and on. I wouldn't have any nostalgia glasses about 7th. I'm not saying 8th is perfect because it's not but I do not want to go back at this point.

 buddha wrote:
Wanted a break from 8th so I went back to play some HH which is just modified 7th thinking it would just fit like an old glove. Oh boy was a wrong.

So much more clunky. Vehicle facings, closest model removal, USRs, templates and on and on. I wouldn't have any nostalgia glasses about 7th. I'm not saying 8th is perfect because it's not but I do not want to go back at this point.

This truly sums up how i feel.

Well, GW is doing the same as they ever do. Adding more and more rules to the game. Not just rules but also strategems.
Do we need all those strategems? No, I think not.
Now Guardian Defenders can ''deep strike'' into position with the right strategem.
Different armies get similar strategems so that nobody will be left behind. This makes the game a mess as a whole.
How about units with their stats and special rules, and army wide rules? No toppings on top. GW cannot stop this...

The requirement that you always use the latest version of a unit entry can be a pain with cross codex units. As I don't play Space Marines, CSM are the nearest thing; if you play Death Guard, Chaos Space Marines, Thousand Sons or Daemons, certain units in your codex will become superceded by versions in a newer codex, so you really should be collecting all 4.

Nice way to sell rulebooks, which is what GW are really pushing at the moment. It makes sense - models are expensive to develop and you always worry about competitors putting out "counts as" similar models which is hard to stop. Also, eventually people get all the models they want or ebay becomes saturated with cheap second hand ones. Rulebooks have much tighter copyright protection, standardised mass production methods, you can re-use artwork and even text from previous editions and everyone has to get the new one when it comes out.

I think eventually their main market will move to Digital Subscription - get all the rules updates and new codices for your favourite armies in digital right-managed format for a monthly fee...

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Its not a myth tho, i ran dark angels, i needed 2 books, my codex and the BrB. Its not a myth because it was how i actually played. Thats how everyone in my store played, we just needed a codex and the BrB.

It varied from army to army, the worst offenders were I believe orks who were so bad you needed every supplement you could get to have a chance and that consisted of four or so? In addition to the BRB.

Personally I always needed at least three books total for my CSM, usually the codex, BRB, and a supplement. Often an allied codex as well. My admech army was literally spread across two codices.

The BRB+codex was certainly not the norm at least, way too many exceptions.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Earth127 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:


IMO 8th is more a rule bloat then 7th ever was, back in 7th i needed 1 book, 2 books max. My codex, and My Brb. Now i need the BrB, my codex for half my army, the other codex for the other half, the Chapter approved, and like 3 or 4 FAQs in order to keep up on the rules. 8th is fun, but its a mess, and its full of ambiguity.

Can we please stop with this myth. It is not true. 7th was just as ambiguous and far more bloated.

Almost every army in 7th used a codex and usually a supplement. Not to mention your basic rules for 1 unit could be spread out over as much as 10 pages even without FAQ.

Its not a myth tho, i ran dark angels, i needed 2 books, my codex and the BrB. Its not a myth because it was how i actually played. Thats how everyone in my store played, we just needed a codex and the BrB.

But the fact that you need to carry two codices around with you has nothing to do with rules bloat, it has to do with you choosing to run a soup army. That's not GW's fault. I run a pure BA army in 8th, I carry the BRB and the Blood Angels codex and that's it.

I personally feel like I don't need to bring the BRB these days. Using CA missions and the Rule Pamphlet I have enough for the core game. Then my phone has the FAQs(Thank the Omnissiah for the internet) and I bring my codex. To be fair I don't soup different factions so I am usually just a single codex gal.

So for me I am bringing CA, a Codex, and a pamphlet(the rules)- which technically I can just keep on my phone as well - and nothing more.

Regarding speed I find it dependent on the army being played. IG is super slow to play while something like Aeldari or Dark Angels tend to go much faster. Even my Tyranids are faster than IG.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'd like to add that it would be awesome if GW would release unit cards like they have done for AOS. It would make the page flippin' less of an issue as you only keep the unit cards relevant to your current list.

GW is just clunky, no matter whether they use "universal" rules or "unique" rules. A lot of it deals with the fact that they love to use informal/vernacular English in writing their rules (my favorite RAW/RAI debates deal with "out of phase" actions that are treated "exactly as though it were said phase"), as well as to mix fluff and crunch in the same sentence, to sneak rule-changes into FAQs, or to have FAQs directly contradict each other (Keywords and Faction Keywords are the same, but only Faction Daemons can use Daemon Stratagems. You can use Stratagems from another detachment as long as you have the correct Keywords...unless you're Genestealer Cults because screw you).

YMMV, but I did also find it easier to track my opponent's bonuses in 7th. Were formations problematic? Sure, but you knew that the Canoptek Harvest specifically let the Spyder in its formation grant buffs to the Scarabs/Wraiths in its appropriate formation. By contrast, 8th has a shellgame where you can bring (and face) an entire codex's worth of Stratagems, and you have to remember "Oh yes, one of these units can get +1 to wound, another one of these units can fight twice, another one of these units can autohit if this other unit is within 6" of said unit," and the mental focus moves less away from the maneuver and positioning and more towards "how do I use my +1s while avoiding my opponent's +1s."

And of course, this entire process is an IGOUGO structure so unless you have some "you activated my Trap Card" abilities that work in your opponent's turn, you mostly get to sit and wait while your opponent takes awhile to run through the whole gamut of options.

I feel the core of the game is good. Definitely my favorite edition.

However, all the Stratagems, traits and attributes are mucking things up quite a bit.
They certainly add nice flavor to the game, but when you can take a CWE detachment just to unlock stratagems for an otherwise Ynnari army, of which the units are all CWE and still have <Craftworld> keywords, I feel it just gets too easily abused.
I mean, if you have to have a pregame discussion with your opponents saying this units gets X, but not this other identical unit because they don't share the same detachment, you know something is a bit off.

-

PS: Maybe it's also personal bias speaking but the good folks on /tg/ had, back in the day, compiled the big reference chart of special rules and other tables from 7th into a 4-page master-sheet. Although it was obvious there were certain examples of USR redundancy (Stealth vs Shrouded, Rage and Furious Charge should have been folded into Charge Bonus[X], Missile Lock went completely unused in the first half of 7th), it did make cross-referencing/understanding my opponent easier. Furious Charge was Furious Charge after all, whether it was from Genestealer Cultists, Flesh Hounds, Dark Eldar (or Harlequins now and then) or Traitor Legion World Eaters.

So far I think everything is okay. I need the BRB and a Codex to play, under some circumstances also the indices from GW and FW, but since I only need 1 entry of those battlescribe is enough.

In 7th I needed BRB, Codex CSM, TraitorsHate/Traitor Legions, the Helbrute Dataslate and maybe Imperial Armour for FW. So quite the same or a bit more.

And the rules... I don't want to look back to 7th rules, after one game of 8th I had the feeling that I had a better grasp of the rules than after playing 7th for 3 years

I think that this is somewhat true. 8th edition has certainly exploded with rules, revisions, and an ever expanding list of books that is very quickly made obsolete by the release of FAQs that are not actual FAQs anymore.

Compared to the insane abomination that was 7th edition it is still pure bliss. But not for long.

After leaving the broken peak of gak behind, we are now slowly finding the way back to the foot of bloat mountain. And GW is steadily guiding us up the lower foothills. We are nowhere near the summit of bloat yet, but the day will surely come.....

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Its not a myth tho, i ran dark angels, i needed 2 books, my codex and the BrB. Its not a myth because it was how i actually played. Thats how everyone in my store played, we just needed a codex and the BrB.

So, what's your store preventing from just using BRB and codex in 8th?

You ignored like 50% of the existing rules in 7th, why bother with them in this edition?

One thing I fear might happen (because it just makes sense) is for GW to reverse the decision to allow Index rules to be used once all Factions get updated to Codices.

Why would they continue to support books that have rules (mostly) updated elsewhere.
This would cut down a little clutter, even though it will mean some options become invalid.

-

 MagicJuggler wrote:
PS: Maybe it's also personal bias speaking but the good folks on /tg/ had, back in the day, compiled the big reference chart of special rules and other tables from 7th into a 4-page master-sheet. Although it was obvious there were certain examples of USR redundancy (Stealth vs Shrouded, Rage and Furious Charge should have been folded into Charge Bonus[X], Missile Lock went completely unused in the first half of 7th), it did make cross-referencing/understanding my opponent easier. Furious Charge was Furious Charge after all, whether it was from Genestealer Cultists, Flesh Hounds, Dark Eldar (or Harlequins now and then) or Traitor Legion World Eaters.

Today, furious charge is +1 strength all the time. Please explain how that is less simple.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Its not a myth tho, i ran dark angels, i needed 2 books, my codex and the BrB. Its not a myth because it was how i actually played. Thats how everyone in my store played, we just needed a codex and the BrB.

So, what's your store preventing from just using BRB and codex in 8th?

You ignored like 50% of the existing rules in 7th, why bother with them in this edition?

How is that ignoring rules? I only ever used a codex and BRB because all my rules were in them.

What army did not have a supplement, formations that were sold separately, campaign books with formations in them or FW models?

Edit: Oh, right. Sisters.

What army needed all those? You're acting like to play my Eldar I needed the BRB, Codex, Iyanden and Mymeara books.

I needed the Codex and BRB to play my army and that's it. It wasn't like I had a weird small army either.

pm713 wrote:
What army needed all those? You're acting like to play my Eldar I needed the BRB, Codex, Iyanden and Mymeara books.

I needed the Codex and BRB to play my army and that's it. It wasn't like I had a weird small army either.

I mean, that's all you need in 8th, too.

Complicated? No. It's kid's edition which has cost it tons of the little tactics 40k has had.

What it is is slow as hell. First need to game each model position carefully, then you roll tons of dices rerolls on all. And thn game takes turn or 2 and then over.

 Jidmah wrote:
What army did not have a supplement, formations that were sold separately, campaign books with formations in them or FW models?

Edit: Oh, right. Sisters.

Don't forget the little insert pamphlets that were the unit entry for stuff like fortifications, until they got superseded by an entire book themselves. And that was back when fortifications were actually worth taking.

So I think at one point I had Stronghold Assault, Tempestus Scions (I had the hardback), Imperial Guard, and a Forgeworld book or two in addition to da roolbook.

You could get that complicated still if you wanted to, but most of the codexes have not been three entries wrapped around the bloat of a full size hardback book (Scions, I'm looking at you). In that sense, it's much better than it used to be.

8th is more complexity with less depth.

Yeah. Of course you could say that you NEED the index of GW and FW along with CA and BRB and Codex. But really, if your army has a codex there are very few entries in the Index you need and if you don't want to play a mission from CA you don't need it.