Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

During set-up for a game in a tournament this past weekend I had a thought: a year post-release, 8th Edition is just as bloated as 7th Ed, but the bloat has migrated to a different place.

I had this realisation while going through lists and using pre-game Stratagems. My opponent played a well-built, highly mobile Eldar/Dark Eldar Soup list. After showing me his list - a dizzying array of small units and characters piled into transports across two factions - he then rattled off ‘this Dark Eldar Detachment is this Kabal and so has this subfaction rule for infantry, this one for vehicles, and this one for something else, then this Dark Eldar Detachment is this Cult so it has this subfaction for infantry, this for vehicles, that for something else, this Eldar Detachment has x, y and z rules...’ Suffice to say I was pushed to try and keep up, before he went into Warlord Trait, psychic powers and Relic. Then he launched into ‘I’ll use this Stratagem to get another two Relics, one does this, the other does that, then I’ll use another Stratagem to get two more Warlord Traits, this one does this, that one does this, that and the other. Oh, and I’ll use another Stratagem to Deep Strike this...’

By which time my eyes had completely glazed over and I had simply given up. We actually went on to have a really fun, tactical game and he soundly beat me to take out the tournament.

I can only remember once being snowed under by rules / bloat once in 7th Ed against a double formation Tau list that seemed to have more special rules than models. Yet in just under a year of 8th Ed I can count a fistful of times. I’m not the type to religiously memorise every rule for every faction, but I read the Community articles, have a flick through Codexes and forums and generally try to have a handle on a high-level of what’s going on. Yet the deluge of Faction and Subfaction Rules, Warlord Traits, Psychic Powers, Relics and particularly Stratagems has left me feeling like I’ve lost my grip and can’t get it back.

When 8th Ed launched it was lauded as a pared-down, right ruleset trimmed of the bloat of 7th. I never considered 7th bloated, but I enjoyed the breath of fresh air and the novelty of cleaner rules. Over time, though, each new Codex piled on the extra rules at a pretty alarming rate. It’s now to the point where I would say there is easily as much bloat in 8th Ed as there ever was in 7th.

I think I’ve realised what makes it harder in 8th than in 7th: decentralisation. The bulk of 7th’s bloat was concentrated in the BRB with Universal Special Rules and Psychic Powers and so on. This meant that over time you got to know all of the core rules through use. The only bloat that was hard to keep track of was that contained in the Codexes - things like Formations. Now we’re in a position that all of the bloat has migrated to the individual Codexes. This means you don’t have it centred in the BRB where you will eventually learn it. If you don’t play Dark Eldar, you’re unlikely to learn how the damned thing works without deliberately studying the Codex.

Maybe 7th Ed did get something right.

To be fair, dark eldar has by far the most subfaction rules and the largest variation of them.

I think there is bloat in that particular codex but in those that have only 6 or so subfactions it's much easier to keep up.

and it's unfair to complain about subfaction rules because well.. we asked for it, all throughout 6th edition most people's response to space marine chapter tactics was to think it was a good idea and want to see it expanded

The flip side is you can play right away without dumb rules referencing. This rule refers to page 97 where it tells you the effects are the same as a USR in the BRB. It was nonsensical. The rules you need to play are by and large in your Codex, which is a welcome change. I played 7th for over a year and most games were as fun as reading the dictionary. Sure, the new ones could be better indexed, have been better proofed from the off etc. (lest anyone try and make this a binary argument instead of a discussion) but you can actually pick up and play the game now.

I agree. 8th was supposed to be faster than 7th and while that's pretty much true for the basic rules, in practice it really isn't. There are re-rolls everywhere, special rules for almost every unit and stratagems to consider for both you and your opponent. Of all of those, I think the re-rolls are probably the biggest culprit for slow play, given how prevalent they are.

The proliferation of multi-faction armies also doesn't help. It's pretty straight forward playing against mono-faction armies: there's 1-2 army-wide special rules to consider, and there's usually a small number of stratagems you'll see in common use. Once you get into armies with 2,3 or more factions involved it can get really unwieldy.

It probably doesn't help that most of these "time sinks" are pretty minor. No one thing is really making things take a long time. It's the accumulation of lots of small elements that all add up to lengthen the game.

I don't think it's as bad as 7th - at least most stratagems don't need to be rolled for.

Although, they could probably have saved time at the beginning of games by having people pick additional artefacts, psychic powers and warlord traits in the list-building stage.

Honestly, though, I think the bigger issue is that the core rules are rather poor. GW seemed to concentrate a bit too much on the embellishments (stratagems and such) and not enough on the main rules. Hence why the Assault weapon rule still doesn't work as written, and why a huge, floating barge can somehow be entirely obscured by infantry models that it hovers over.

It's the Re-rolls that bug me. Soooo many Re-rolls. I really think they need to borrow the same to-wound mechanic from Mantic's Kings of War. Basically armour save and toughness are rolled into a single Defence stat. The attacker rolls against this stat, so there's no armour save roll. It cuts the time down massively.

E.g. A marine would have a Defence Stat of 7. A bolter is Strength 4. Roll a D6 per hit, any rolls of 5+ beats the Defence and causes a wound. I think that gives the same average as rolling to wound vs toughness then applying a 3+ armour save.

I'd disagree. 7th edition might have been similar to 8th edition now at the beginning of its life cycle, but when detachments of formations came in everything went over the board.

But even the basic rules consisted of useless bloated tank rules that rarely came into play because of tanks made of paper, fiddly unit types, special rules that literally consisted of two other special rules, a psychic phase that made no sense at all and slowed down the game even more. And on top of that you had the artefacts, warlord traits and for some factions also chapter tactics and later on formation boni for everyone, more often than not even 2-4 special rules because of a formation.
No, 8th edition is far from being close to 7th edition bloat. And I really love legion tactics, CSM had to wait 4 editions to get them back.

Banville wrote:
It's the Re-rolls that bug me. Soooo many Re-rolls. I really think they need to borrow the same to-wound mechanic from Mantic's Kings of War. Basically armour save and toughness are rolled into a single Defence stat. The attacker rolls against this stat, so there's no armour save roll. It cuts the time down massively.

E.g. A marine would have a Defence Stat of 7. A bolter is Strength 4. Roll a D6 per hit, any rolls of 5+ beats the Defence and causes a wound. I think that gives the same average as rolling to wound vs toughness then applying a 3+ armour save.

A bolter needs to roll a 4+ and then fail a 3+ armour save to kill a marine. That change would make the game much, much more letal than it is now.

Too many rolls...
My IG army is fine, as I use a grand total of 1 codex.
But too many rolls! I would love to see stuff made 'auto' more. For example an IG medic heals on a 4+. Just double the points and have him auto heal.
As for re-rolls, replacing them across the board as much as possible with '+1 to whatever' would help.

8th isn't perfect but it's far superior to 7th.

And I agre with "An Actual Englishman", what you are describing here is exclusively a problem of the Eldar Soups. Dark Eldar is probably the most complex codex of the edition.

Play space marines, or even Imperial Soup, and you will not have this problem.

They could have fixed 7th with the following:

1) Roll the duplicate USR's together.
2) Similar for unit types.
3) Level out psychic powers
4) Balance codices
5) Balance formations

Now, instead of USR's, we're having to read fiddly unit datasheets instead. We all still call that 5+/6+ extra save a FnP roll...

It’s bloated, but in a different and somewhat better way.

There are still a ton of rules, but instead of having to reference the brb for each rule and having several rules that do the same thing in the brb, we have all the special rules in the codex. It makes it easier at least to reference stuff.

And I love that everyone is getting subfactions and not just space Marines.

I for one dislike the fact that you need your opponents codex to truly understand what it does and what it doesn't. It opens up for a larger gap of knowledge between players which makes it more prone to be cheated on. A more proactive player would ask the other player for the datasheet to confirm the opponent isn't pulling rules out of his butt, which in turn wastes valuable play time.

I liked when in 7th, you can ask for the datasheet or rules and identify all the special rule keywords (which you should have more or less memorized if you were going to an event) through a copy of your own BRB. Now, you have to rely on internet and additional books to do so.

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
It’s bloated, but in a different and somewhat better way.

There are still a ton of rules, but instead of having to reference the brb for each rule and having several rules that do the same thing in the brb, we have all the special rules in the codex. It makes it easier at least to reference stuff.

And I love that everyone is getting subfactions and not just space Marines.

I agree.

Sounds like OP just doesn't know the rules for Eldar and Dark Eldar. I dislike the whole pre-game ritual of explaining all your cool gak to your opponent. I much prefer just playing and discovering what stuff does in the game.

 skchsan wrote:
I for one dislike the fact that you need your opponents codex to truly understand what it does and what it doesn't. It opens up for a larger gap of knowledge between players which makes it more prone to be cheated on. A more proactive player would ask the other player for the datasheet to confirm the opponent isn't pulling rules out of his butt, which in turn wastes valuable play time.

I liked when in 7th, you can ask for the datasheet or rules and identify all the special rule keywords (which you should have more or less memorized if you were going to an event) through a copy of your own BRB. Now, you have to rely on internet and additional books to do so.

So in 7th you'd have to know the rulebook and then look at your opponent's codex but now you have to know the rulebook and then look at your opponent's codex?

7th had army rules that weren't on the datasheets as well.

A part that often isn't touched on is that GW's naming conventions have also gone bonkers over the last few years, and this makes things harder to keep track of.

I’ll grant it was an outlier example - Dark Eldar have the most complicated subfaction rules, and souping makes that worse. But it doesn’t mean other factions aren’t also complex and Soup is an ongoing issue of complexity.

Take Stratagems for instance. We’ve had 19 Codexes so far, each with something like 25 Stratagems. That means we’re fast approaching five hundred special rules. I doubt there were 500 special rules in the total of 7th Ed. Then you’ve got an extra special rule for just about every unit under the sun, some of which are identical, some of which are different, and some of which are slight variations on others. Throw in Faction Rules, Subfaction Rules, every army getting one (or more) table of their own Psychic Powers, Relics, Warlord Traits... I would contend that there are way more rules out there now than there were in 7th.

People love to say that 7th had lots of USRs that were just doubles of others or did the same thing as others combined, but I could only ever think of one example which I think was that Zealot + ATSKNF = Hatred + Fearless or something. USRs meant you only had to learn 70 or so rules and you knew the dominant part of all special rules. Now you have literally hundreds, all scattered to the four winds.

I also don’t see how ‘it’s right there in your Codex’ is better than ‘it’s right there in your rulebook’. ‘It’s right there in your opponent’s Codex’ is definitively worse than ‘it’s right there in your rulebook’. USRs meant that my opponent could say ‘this unit has Rage, Furious Charge and Crusader’ and I would immediately know not to let that unit charge. Now my opponent has to either say ‘this has Wolfmurder, Icewolfness and Wolfaxeness’ which will elicit a blank stare, or ‘this unit gains two attacks for charging, and +1 Strength for charging, and rolls two dice and picks the highest for running, and adds D3 to Sweeping Advance, and...’ which will get my eyes glazing over.

Case in point, we all still use Feel No Pain and Deep Strike even though GW went away from that nomenclature, because bloody hell USRs were easier...

It would have been nice to have had all the identical rules kept identical...

The rulebook could have had the long description of all the rules so all the FAQs weren't so big. Then all the datasheets could have that name, and the short description mostly like they do now.

The stratagems are a classic example of bloat as mentioned - a few are shared globally, and then most factions share happy with at least one other codex. Why couldn't the rule book have had 5-10 core stratagems, with 5-10 for races (groups of codices), and then each codex could have 5 mostly unique. Just as many, but less to learn and less confusion before you realise it's the same as a stratagem in your codex!

MrPieChee wrote:
Why couldn't the rule book have had 5-10 core stratagems, with 5-10 for races (groups of codices), and then each codex could have 5 mostly unique. Just as many, but less to learn and less confusion before you realise it's the same as a stratagem in your codex!

Because if you look at existing stratagems across armies it would severely limit their freedom on top of them not knowing the potential stratagems for all armies until the codexes are out. Additionally, the units affected and trigger conditions do vary.

8th has its own flavor of bloat but the bigger issue is how 8th is bloated and fiddly but far more shallow than 7th. 7th absolutely needed a reset but it should of been a reset on mainly the codexes with a clean up of the BRB to cut down on imbalances and redundant/pointless mechanics.


Also a year in and Terrain rules are still garbage.

If 8th had been a reset of 7th than I would've have quit. 7th is a joyless slog, a tax return pretending to be a game. It's only up side is if you get off on minutia.

Having USRs in the BRB just made sense. It made it much easier understand what your opponent's stuff can do, and most people are going to memorize the rules they encounter frequently, so this "waaaa it's too much page flipping!" doesn't hold up.

Don't forget one of the side effects of the "you only need to know your rules" approach- less interactive gameplay. According to GW, the entire point is to not care what the other player's army can do, or is doing. Just use your list-built synergies and roll more sixes than them! All to avoid having to pick up the BRB a few times per game to clarify an unfamiliar interaction.

Don't know about other factions and how the 7th ed codex looked like, but GK rules seem to very minimalistic as far as gaming goes.

I don’t understand the different Obsessions for infantry, vehicles, and “something else” you’re referring to. Each Kabal/Cult/Coven has only one ability. The only one I can think of that changes for vehicles is Black Heart, and all that obsession does is give them the first ability from Power From Pain (which itself is not a new rule) while models with that rule get one more level of Power From Pain. Simple enough.

What he is saying is take two detachments with different Kabal/Cult/Coven. All the vehicles go in one and almost of the infantry into another. Since DE are allowed to enter any DE transport, not just those with the same Kabal/Cult/Coven, you end up with a unit with one Obsession in a Transport with a different Obsession.

meleti wrote:
I don’t understand the different Obsessions for infantry, vehicles, and “something else” you’re referring to. Each Kabal/Cult/Coven has only one ability. The only one I can think of that changes for vehicles is Black Heart, and all that obsession does is give them the first ability from Power From Pain (which itself is not a new rule) while models with that rule get one more level of Power From Pain. Simple enough.

Flayed Skull gives ignore cover and re-rolls to some vehicle weapons, as well as access to a super-overpowered Stratagem, Obsidian Rose increases range, etc..

It's not uncommon to mix. Back-line ravagers, etc.. could be Obsidian Rose for range or Black Heart for resilience, Venoms and/or Flyers be Flayed Skull for re-rolls, ignore cover and/or Stratagems, etc..

Add to that the fact that Drukhari and mix-and-match transports and people transported in ways no other army can, i.e. Flayed Skull Kabalites in Obsidian Rose Raiders and Black Heart Venoms, etc.. in ways that other armies cannot, etc...

In some tricksy, leadership-bomb soup Aeldari, usually with Hemlocks and/or Harlequins, Dark Creed vehicles can also hand out extra minuses to LD,

Did you even ever read the Codex?

kombatwombat wrote:
Snip..

Ok a few things on these points -

1. The throw away of USRs is a great thing for the game. It means that I'm not forced to buy a £75 rule book and a codex to play my army. The suggestion that it's somehow easier than the current set up is also bogus - you'd still need to know that a particular unit had the rule 'crusader' in which case you're still having to memorise another codex. The only difference is that the crusader rule is called one thing for one army and another thing for another army.

2. Stratagems aren't supposed to be memorised. They are supposed to be exciting tricks your army can pull to win the game. This is by design. You'll know the most common and powerful stratagems but the less used and less powerful stratagems you won't know off hand (making them potentially more useful). Stratagems also aren't the same thing as special rules.

3. There are much less special rules in the game now. Even with units having a variation of 'furious charge' or whatever most units don't have many special rules.

4. USRs do exist still; in a sense. They're called keywords now and there's hardly any of them.

I kind of see where you're coming from with this topic but honestly I think you're confusing 'bloat' with 'depth'. It's good for the game that stratagems exist. The game would literally be more boring and worse without them.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

kombatwombat wrote:
Snip..

Ok a few things on these points -

1. The throw away of USRs is a great thing for the game. It means that I'm not forced to buy a £75 rule book and a codex to play my army. The suggestion that it's somehow easier than the current set up is also bogus - you'd still need to know that a particular unit had the rule 'crusader' in which case you're still having to memorise another codex. The only difference is that the crusader rule is called one thing for one army and another thing for another army.

Agree. In my gaming group the BRB is only used for narrative missions any more. You literally don't need it play if you have a battle primer somewhere, while in 7th you were constantly flipping through it for USR, psychic power, unit type rules etc.

While I think having multiple versions of FNP isn't very useful, there are very few other rules that can be streamlined like that. Even explosions and the "this is a plane" rules have slight differences between factions. IMO they are too few to bother, and the only gain would be having to bringt the BRB again.
Consistent naming could open up design space for rules reacting to other rules though.

2. Stratagems aren't supposed to be memorised. They are supposed to be exciting tricks your army can pull to win the game. This is by design. You'll know the most common and powerful stratagems but the less used and less powerful stratagems you won't know off hand (making them potentially more useful). Stratagems also aren't the same thing as special rules.

When I was still playing MtG competitively I had more than 10k distinct magic cards memorized and could tell you the casting cost, rules text, type, edition and rough value just from seeing the picture. Any player that cares will have all stratagems memorized, they are in no way designed to spring unexpected effects on unsuspecting opponents.

3. There are much less special rules in the game now. Even with units having a variation of 'furious charge' or whatever most units don't have many special rules.

Agree. As a bonus similar effects now usually work similarly - unlike in 7th you can be sure that the "fights first" version of eldar does not work wildly different than a similar rule for daemons or tyranids.

4. USRs do exist still; in a sense. They're called keywords now and there's hardly any of them.

Keywords are just types with no rules attached. The only USR left is the FLY keyword.