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I've tried to attack the problem of "fixing" 40k from a number of different angles over the past few years, and I've come to the conclusion that the status quo contains a large number of degenerate relationships that prevent any real fixes, most of which have become entrenched within the lore and within GW's business model.

The basic problem is size creep; models get bigger, guns get bigger, "basic" models become irrelevant in the face of larger and fancier guns, which leaves us with a lot of false granularity (the difference between a "Space Marine statline" and a "veteran Space Marine statline" is +1A/+1Ld, which under the current rules is pretty much academic), trickle-down size creep (2W Space Marines shouldn't be necessary, but they are made so by size creep everywhere else), and because GW would rather release a new model to "fix" the issues than fix older models we end up with list bloat where there are options that were relevant in older editions but aren't relevant now because size creep and rules changes have rendered them irrelevant.

I've started wondering recently if it would be possible to give the 9th Age treatment to 7e; instead of tearing up the rules and starting over go back to basics, clean up older rules, and build some of the USR bloat into the core rules rather than requiring a giant appendix of "special rules" to handle it; the problem there is I don't have a benchmark for what "works" and "doesn't work" about 8e to build off of, so I'd better enumerate that to begin with.

And on that front I've spent so long waffling and trying to consider various properties of the game that I don't really have good answers, so at the end of the day I'm going to start needing to throw some ideas down on paper and hoping for the best. Arguments could be made either way for a lot of the following, but here's the position I'm working from:

--->Alternating Activations; In my mind this is a recipe for abuse if you don't have strong controls on the approximate cost of a "squad"; it doesn't solve the alpha-strike problem if you let superheavies exist, and unless you're willing to cut down on the length of the turn the number of priority passes that'd have to take place to alternate activations in five phases each turn (move/psychic/shoot/charge/fight) would make games take a lot longer than they do already.

--->Dice: I'm sticking with d6s simply because I don't regard the amount of granularity GW is trying to introduce by putting more and more models into the game as desirable. When the stack of Imperial infantry has to go Conscript->Guardsman->Guard Veteran->Stormtrooper/Battle Sister->Celestian->Space Marine Scout->Space Marine->Veteran Space Marine->Primaris Space Marine->Space Marine Terminator->Gravis Armour->Custodian->Warden->Custodian Terminator you might care about trying to make the stats more granular, but I regard trying to write a ladder of 13+ steps of "this model must be very slightly better than this other model" as a much bigger problem than the fact that d6s don't simulate the ladder of 13+ steps very well.

--->Vehicle Facings: The point of vehicle facings is that I can put down a model that you can't kill because of how I've positioned it, but you can kill if you can get around it. It isn't a huge game-slowdown problem if you've got a few vehicles with basically rectangular shapes or with obvious bases; it becomes a huge game-slowdown problem if you have a lot of irregularly-shaped vehicles. For me the idea that "movement->shooting" aren't perfectly sequential (i.e. my Flyer doesn't "move 20", then shoot", it shoots something somewhere in the middle of its movement) is enough to justify vehicles shooting "outside of arc" (the line of sight requirement represents the fact that the "turn order" isn't something obeyed in the chaos of the battlefield; a vehicle that has to poke part of its nose outside of cover to take a shot is actually driving out a short distance, shooting, and reversing back into cover (anyone who's played World of Tanks will be familiar with the concept), but the enemy has an opportunity to make a shot while they're doing that, even if the vehicle has "enough movement" to make it back out of line of sight in "one turn". I can't remember who but someone suggested to me in another thread that 180-degree "front"/"back" arcs might be easier to measure and create a similar effect, I'm leaning towards doing something with that suggestion at the moment. I also find that the vehicle degradation tables mostly translate to a lot of looking things up and don't matter all that much because vehicles tend to either die all the way or have stratagems that make them fight at top profile, so I'm thinking of a universal subsystem-damage table instead.

--->8e numbers v. 7e numbers v. Other numbers: 8e and 3e-7e both run on three-rolls-to-kill, and seem to require high fire rates to do anything as a result. I don't mind fixed to-hit rolls out of 8e simply because the comparison table for WS in 7e mattered so little; it's relevant in 30k because all the Space Marines have very similar WS so nudging it a point has repercussions more often than not, but shift the game to include fewer Space Marines and more Guard/Xenos and giving WS as a fixed number is faster/easier than checking every fight to make sure your WS is still higher than the other guy's. I prefer the to-wound table from 7e because it just comes out and tells you "stop firing lasguns at tanks, you can't hurt them" instead of the "go ahead and roll two hundred dice against my airplane at 1/216 to do a wound, it'll be fun" of 8e. Armour saves are problematic for similar reasons; in 7e it was nigh-impossible to price 2+ armour/AP2 unfairly because it was 6x as effective or 1/6th as effective depending on matchup, so a "fair price" just made 2+ armour/AP2 wildly overpriced half the time and wildly underpriced the other half of the time. 8e has a similar problem where the value of AP/armour swings wildly depending on your matchup. Three-rolls-to-kill has produced some fundamentally degenerate things; you shouldn't need to fire 3-4 shots per pulse rifle for a pulse rifle to be relevant, but in an environment when you might be shooting at un-Markerlighted Primaris Marines in cover and need 36 shots to drop one 17pt model you sort of have to. On the other hand two-rolls-to-kill in Lord of the Rings feels frustrating because you spend so much of the game fishing for 5+ on a small number of attacks and you need the "trapped" conditional effect that lets you swing twice with everyone to ever kill much. My current thinking is sticking to 8e to-hit and save-mod mechanics, but rearranging durability to try and produce something more like a 7e meta where one shot killed more things and you didn't fire as many shots.

--->Blast weapons: One of the things I've been grumbling about for a very long time is uniform blast damage; when GW set out to make a blast weapon that's also a semi-functional anti-tank gun in earlier editions they had to give it AP2 against all targets hit, which made it way too strong at killing heavy infantry. The thing that really took Terminators off the battlefield in earlier editions was the proliferation of AP2 large blasts; you Deep Strike, everyone's all clustered together, a Riptide ion cannon blast lands in your face and they all need to make their 5++ or die. Blast templates themselves are fun but if you're trying to be precise/careful with them they're a huge source of game slowdown; I'd rather see something closer to how Bolt Action does "blasts" where they do a random number of hits but only ever do one hit to armoured targets in an effort to make anti-armour and anti-infantry weapons actually different instead of keeping the "let's fire 2d6 d3-damage shots at any target heavier than a Guardsman!" meta going. I really like the conversion beamer on the Contemptor Dreadnaught in 8e; it shoots one very powerful shot, then if that kills a model it does a large random number of hits at a much lower S/AP/D, thereby simulating non-uniform blast damage (your explosion may kill the Terminator caught in the middle, but pelting the rest of the unit with shrapnel isn't going to do a whole lot) and making it function differently from a gatling gun making a large number of uniform-damage shots, so I'm thinking that's a good model to extend to other "blast" weapons.

--->Army lists: I'd like to move to a 30k-esque model of one "primary detachment"/one "allied detachment" with "Rites of War" that modify which units live in which slots and grant detachment-wide bonuses/penalties to everyone to simulate strange and unusual armies; more structured army-building lets me fiddle more precisely with things for balance purposes without straight-up saying "no, you can't do that." I've complained endlessly about skew in other contexts where taking only units vulnerable to one type of weapon renders armies overly-strong against all-comers lists that don't have enough of the hard-counter; with 40k's loose detachment structure there isn't a lot you can do about it, but the way 30k does it I can say things like "sure, take Russes in Troops, but the ones in Troops have more restricted equipment and the enemy has an extra secondary objective and your non-Russ choices are restricted in this other way." They'd probably end up looking more like Theme Forces in Warmachine (2-6 per faction depending on size of faction) rather than the 15 generic and 2 Legion-specific per Legion in 30k and would be a lot of work to write, but it's a way I can reconcile my desire to avoid skew armies with other peoples' desire to play skew armies without saying "Nope, only T4- 1W models in Troops, you must all take infantry to take objectives." At least I think I can balance them that way; I don't see Armoured Breakthrough (Predators in Troops) or Fury of the Ancients (Dreadnaughts in Troops) winning everything in 30k.

--->Command Points: I like the idea, but I dislike the implementation; there are a lot of things that feel like they ought to be a rule on a unit that GW implements as Stratagems (flakk missiles, for instance). One of the things I actually like quite a lot about v2 Age of Sigmar is "command points" generated per turn used as a constraint on special abilities; if I tie CP/turn to what characters you've got left on the table it makes sniping characters more interesting; I'd also like to try and cut down on GW's insistence that there be stratagems attached to specific units/weapons since it feels like that produces a lot of unnecessary stratagems you don't need that you have to dig through to get to the important ones. CP/turn also feels like it'd make the 'one use of each stratagem per turn' bit less necessary if you can't blow all your CP for the game doing something massive and dumb on one turn.

--->Psykers: I have a deep and abiding hatred for one cast attempt per power per turn; it feels like it encourages writers to make individual powers too good since they can always say "oh, don't worry, you only get one cast/turn," and it discourages taking multiple psykers since you get diminishing use out of them for each one you take, which screws over armies that have a lot of psykers. My current thinking on psykers is to kill the "psychic phase," make any "psychic power" that isn't an attack function like a stratagem, and define the ones that are attacks as a weapon with the "psychic" tag, then making them all harder to use depending on nearby potential "denial" sources and riskier to use depending on how powerful they are.

--->Types: One of the major sources of bloat in 7e since by then there were eight non-vehicle types with their own page of rules and twelve types of vehicles with their own page of rules, plus eight weapon types that had to define how many shots you got and whether you could move and fire them based on what type of unit they're attached to. One of the great things 8e did is make all those types "keywords" that didn't do anything on their own but could be referenced by other things, but then they promptly shot that idea in the foot by taking rules that would be more easily done by attaching them to a type (Explodes, Supersonic) and writing out the full paragraph on every datasheet with minor variations, requiring you to dig through a paragraph of identical text to figure out if one or two variables are slightly different. I'm currently thinking that anything that's a paragraph of identical rule should be written as "this is what this type does" and stuck into the core rules to avoid needing to scan through paragraphs of text to make sure there are no slight variations in every single unit's version of the rule with the same name.

I've done a lot of theorizing/philosophizing on most of these points over the years and always run into hurdles that send me back to the drawing board when I try and write up a test version; going to try and actually forge ahead and post something this time around. Expect more later today, expect every model to have a use but don't expect every profile to survive intact, and don't expect to see every army book in the near future, I know most of the Imperials well enough to do a lot of their stuff off the top of my head but I can't do Orks/Tyranids/Necrons without a lot more reading and consultation with people who actually know them.

-Army lists. Is there anyone else who thinks that it would be much more elegant to balance units in such a way that all those army choices come naturally, instead of arbitrarily forcing people to use certain combinations of units? Or do you think this is simply not practically possible?

-The main problem with psy-powers is their (lack of) interactions with other units plus their sheer power (and probably the comparatively small prices of psykers). Powers that cause damage for some reason completely ignore the normal process through which all other damage sources can be regulated (and therefore balanced and countered). Powers which grant special effects are basically just better versions of how you normally get them, even after considering the psytest.
And there is nothing your opponent can do. Except bringing his own psykers. But not everyone has them. Playing eg. T´au against Eldar, there is that phase where your opponent just recites a litany of "Ways in which I shall destroy your army" and you just stand there, with a bleeding heart. On the other hand, playing two psychic armies against each other can result in everything getting denied and noone having fun.

Psy-powers are badly fleshed out and integrated with the rest of the game. Improve that and you can probably already get rid of arbitrary one-cast-per-turn restraints and a lot of frustration.

-"Blast" weapons. I´m writing "blast", because the current ones are actually no blast at all (pun intended). The templates had their problems and it´s good that they´re gone, but I really miss the concept of blast weapons: To deal damage based on the headcount (and clustering, but I guess we should not do this again) of a unit. How do you think about this? The most basic example would be: If you hit, make X wound rolls, X being the number of models in the unit (can have an upper limit).

I dunno but I really like how everything is on the unit's Datasheet, and seriously dislike the current tendency of growing references to wargear/rules/options that are not on the Datasheet. I)t is just very convenient to have all relevant stuff in one place for the unit, so you don't have to dig through several pages to find a rule or weapon profile.

For many other things, I think you should really consider sending stuff to the chopping block. Like, reduce those 13+ steps to ~5 (Guardsman -> (Storm Trooper -&gt Battle Sister -> Scout -> Space Marine -> Terminator). Cut down the faction bloat, cut down the unit bloat, cut down the special rule bloat, and see where it takes you.

I’d scale blast weapons by giving them a maximum wound number per model count instead, same with flamers and if the blast weapons hit they auto cause so many wound rolls for each amount of models in the hit unit up to a cap for that weapon.

For example, a demolished shell can cause a maximum of 8 wound rolls. If it hits a squad with 8 models, it gets 8 rolls. If it hits a squad of 10, still only 8, if it hits a squad of 4, it can only roll 4.

Flamers would be flat 5, Heavy flamers flat 10 etc etc flamers still auto hit also.

I’d then tweak it so that some weapons had a different damage profile for vehicles if the weapon can feasibly nuke infantry in a blast, and crack open armour, like a demolished or earth shaker.

You don´t even need different profiles depending on the target. That just bloats things again. Give it one strong profile for the first wound and a weak profile for any additional one.

 AtoMaki wrote:
I dunno but I really like how everything is on the unit's Datasheet, and seriously dislike the current tendency of growing references to wargear/rules/options that are not on the Datasheet. I)t is just very convenient to have all relevant stuff in one place for the unit, so you don't have to dig through several pages to find a rule or weapon profile...

What you want there is "reminder text"; the way in MTG all the keywords are keywords that exist in a central repository and are clearly and obviously consistent, but can be written down on cards for quick reference.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

OKorVesah wrote:
-Army lists. Is there anyone else who thinks that it would be much more elegant to balance units in such a way that all those army choices come naturally, instead of arbitrarily forcing people to use certain combinations of units? Or do you think this is simply not practically possible?

Maybe? Most miniatures games have some restrictions beyond simple points (field allowance limitations, KoW's one-monster/cannon/character-per-unit, Legion's gone all the way back to requiring a minimum number of Troops...), I don't think it's possible to get entirely away from the FOC but I hope it's possible to make Troops not just a tax.

-"Blast" weapons. I´m writing "blast", because the current ones are actually no blast at all (pun intended). The templates had their problems and it´s good that they´re gone, but I really miss the concept of blast weapons: To deal damage based on the headcount (and clustering, but I guess we should not do this again) of a unit. How do you think about this? The most basic example would be: If you hit, make X wound rolls, X being the number of models in the unit (can have an upper limit).

The basic function of the Contemptor Dreadnaught's Conversion Beamer in the Forge World Astartes book: one shot at 6/-3/d3, if that shot kills a model in the target unit the unit takes 2d6 additional hits at 6/0/1. My thinking is that something simple like a frag missile would do one hit at 4/-1/1, then if that killed something it'd do d6 additional hits at 3/0/1; bigger weapons would have bigger initial profiles and higher strength off the blast but you'd have to get to pretty gigantic weapons before the blast started having an AP/dealing more damage than that. It doesn't entirely do damage based on headcount but it does restrict blast weapons to one hit on vehicles, it differentiates them from high rate of fire guns, and it patches over the uniform-damage problem that has made high-power blasts (ex. battle cannons) screw over heavy infantry more than they should be able to every edition I've played.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A few more thoughts:

--->Charge in Movement: It cuts out on an extra "phase", but perhaps more interestingly it cuts down on the "can't move and fire/can't charge after firing" mechanical weight, the only problem is that it makes it harder to soften up units with shooting. It also might be interesting to link "run distance" to "charge distance"; older editions with fixed movement had to have special rules for "moves further", "runs further", and "charges further", in 8th with a Move stat there are only special rules for "runs further" and "charges further". If I take a leaf out of the 9th Age's statline and make "move distance"/"run distance" a statline entry and use run distance for charging we don't need special rules for either one.

--->Initiative in Melee: On paper it's a fun idea, in practice the problem was that models that models with higher Initiative couldn't win duels for balance reasons (it isn't okay for an Eldar character to whack a Space Marine to death before he can attack if he attacks first 100% of the time) and it ends up feeling screwey when your whole army strikes first/last all the time, though it does feel more interesting in 30k where Initiative is more similar and slight tweaks can define a unit's role. The AoS/8e-style switch-off mechanism seems to add more choice but in most matchups it feels like false decision-making because there's one obvious best order in which to activate units, though, and the writers have tried to keep strikes-first/strikes-last as rules that exist in the game which ends up feeling like it adds extra bloat in special rules that was on the statline back when it was Initiative, so my current thinking is to bring Initiative order back and make more use of Initiative modifiers to differentiate weapons.

As someone, who plays a lot with 7th ed "custom spin-off", I can share a few comments and ideas (but my goals are not towards:

@"7th ed &8th ed numbers" - no matter how many shots/swings are taken, the core factor to consider is that IGOUGO works well only if average damage output (calculated in points taken out of the game) of an army is a low percentage of the total point level of an army and variance is big enough for the second player to be able to turn ahead despite of attrition (look at Oldcromunda starter gangs to see a close to ideal damage output for IGOUGO). 8th ed alpha strike problem is a direct result of increasing damage output and lowering survivability. 7th ed works a lot better if AP does not remove saves completely (that is why later in live cycle of 7th ed many units got "backup invulns"). If you are going to increase overall lethality of single shots you are going to have a huge alpha strike problems to deal with.

@Initiative: my way to deal with "entire factions act before other factions" was to introduce a choice of trading in attacks for increase in initiative. Combined with bonus attack from charging makes melee a lot more interesting and less "autopilot" part of the game, with much more "valid CC matchups" than "stock" 7th ed. And I got rid of "grenades and cover screwing CC order" entirely and redone those - in my version defender in cover has a cover save during first CC round while attacker charging from cover has a bonus to charge distance.

@army lists: my choice was to redo those completely and introduce a proper command structure - i.e. HQs are actually there to command and open slots for different other parts of army structure. Not only shift what is and what is not troops in otherwise rigid FOC, but actually have slots attached to HQ characters. That way you can introduce a rather fine balancing mechanism while still allowing for totally thematic forces.

Other thoughts: 7th ed profiles actually have a usefull "movement value" in them already - in my spin-off models don't run d6, but initative in inches or d6, at player choice, and always charge a minimum of initiative up to 2d6. No more snake eyes screwing 3" charges on units like Genestealers (which become properly scary by initiative and movement changes alone).

Of course everything has to be recosted after any core changes and my spin-off is only concerned with couple of factions, so your results may vary and there may exist huge problems with compatibility of some factions with ideas listed above.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:
I dunno but I really like how everything is on the unit's Datasheet, and seriously dislike the current tendency of growing references to wargear/rules/options that are not on the Datasheet. I)t is just very convenient to have all relevant stuff in one place for the unit, so you don't have to dig through several pages to find a rule or weapon profile...

What you want there is "reminder text"; the way in MTG all the keywords are keywords that exist in a central repository and are clearly and obviously consistent, but can be written down on cards for quick reference.

Nooooo, I know what I want there, and that's everything on the unit Datasheet. There is no need to throw around reference cards/papers/notes/magiceightballs/whatever if I can just show up with the unit Datasheets for my army and have literally everything covered. It is not like space becomes an issue once you start killing the bloat.

nou wrote:
@army lists: my choice was to redo those completely and introduce a proper command structure - i.e. HQs are actually there to command and open slots for different other parts of army structure. Not only shift what is and what is not troops in otherwise rigid FOC, but actually have slots attached to HQ characters. That way you can introduce a rather fine balancing mechanism while still allowing for totally thematic forces.

I dunno but I feel like in the Dark Future HQs are actually not there to command but to do bad@ss stuff like beating up entire squads and doing space magic. Like, the IG Officers might be the only HQ choices that are indeed there to command, everyone else is either a beatstick, a wizard, a specialist, or a combination of these three.

 AtoMaki wrote:

nou wrote:
@army lists: my choice was to redo those completely and introduce a proper command structure - i.e. HQs are actually there to command and open slots for different other parts of army structure. Not only shift what is and what is not troops in otherwise rigid FOC, but actually have slots attached to HQ characters. That way you can introduce a rather fine balancing mechanism while still allowing for totally thematic forces.

I dunno but I feel like in the Dark Future HQs are actually not there to command but to do bad@ss stuff like beating up entire squads and doing space magic. Like, the IG Officers might be the only HQ choices that are indeed there to command, everyone else is either a beatstick, a wizard, a specialist, or a combination of these three.

It might be my factions of choice bias, but let's list some generic HQs:
- Farseers are there to micromanage slight tides of fate to assure Eldar victories - a feat that was always represented directly by how Eldar psychic powers are reliant on other army elements and this is how it was since 2nd ed;
- Warlocks, once independent loners, were actually incorporated as Guardian Sergeants in 3rd and nearly all their powers in 7th are directly altering efficiency of things they are attached to.
- Autarchs are there to directly act as generals, with explicit strategic abilities, not solely great combat prowess (their main use in stock 7th were reserves shenanigans);
- Tyranid Alphas and Hive Tyrants and basically all Tyranid HQs except for oddities like Old One Eye are there to directly allow lesser troops to even function properly via Synapse Range...

But as I said earlier - that is my personal spin-off, I never expected it to be widely accepted, just suit my needs and head canon.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:
I dunno but I really like how everything is on the unit's Datasheet, and seriously dislike the current tendency of growing references to wargear/rules/options that are not on the Datasheet. I)t is just very convenient to have all relevant stuff in one place for the unit, so you don't have to dig through several pages to find a rule or weapon profile...

What you want there is "reminder text"; the way in MTG all the keywords are keywords that exist in a central repository and are clearly and obviously consistent, but can be written down on cards for quick reference.

Nooooo, I know what I want there, and that's everything on the unit Datasheet. There is no need to throw around reference cards/papers/notes/magiceightballs/whatever if I can just show up with the unit Datasheets for my army and have literally everything covered. It is not like space becomes an issue once you start killing the bloat...

Sorry. Reminder text is the way to combine what you want (quickly/easily-referenced rules in one place without needing to flip through a bunch of different books) with what I want (centralized and well-organized rules that function consistently across armies rather than piles of slight variations on the same thing that emphasize "uniqueness" over usability and require players to memorize every army book to have a ghost of an idea what's going on).

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:
I dunno but I really like how everything is on the unit's Datasheet, and seriously dislike the current tendency of growing references to wargear/rules/options that are not on the Datasheet. I)t is just very convenient to have all relevant stuff in one place for the unit, so you don't have to dig through several pages to find a rule or weapon profile...

What you want there is "reminder text"; the way in MTG all the keywords are keywords that exist in a central repository and are clearly and obviously consistent, but can be written down on cards for quick reference.

Nooooo, I know what I want there, and that's everything on the unit Datasheet. There is no need to throw around reference cards/papers/notes/magiceightballs/whatever if I can just show up with the unit Datasheets for my army and have literally everything covered. It is not like space becomes an issue once you start killing the bloat...

Sorry. Reminder text is the way to combine what you want (quickly/easily-referenced rules in one place without needing to flip through a bunch of different books) with what I want (centralized and well-organized rules that function consistently across armies rather than piles of slight variations on the same thing that emphasize "uniqueness" over usability and require players to memorize every army book to have a ghost of an idea what's going on).

I don't think that the latter is necessary if you can get the former right. If your whole army is, like, six Datasheets with everything on them, then there is no need for any referencing, you can look up everything quickly and easily whenever you so desire.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:
I dunno but I really like how everything is on the unit's Datasheet, and seriously dislike the current tendency of growing references to wargear/rules/options that are not on the Datasheet. I)t is just very convenient to have all relevant stuff in one place for the unit, so you don't have to dig through several pages to find a rule or weapon profile...

What you want there is "reminder text"; the way in MTG all the keywords are keywords that exist in a central repository and are clearly and obviously consistent, but can be written down on cards for quick reference.

Nooooo, I know what I want there, and that's everything on the unit Datasheet. There is no need to throw around reference cards/papers/notes/magiceightballs/whatever if I can just show up with the unit Datasheets for my army and have literally everything covered. It is not like space becomes an issue once you start killing the bloat...

Sorry. Reminder text is the way to combine what you want (quickly/easily-referenced rules in one place without needing to flip through a bunch of different books) with what I want (centralized and well-organized rules that function consistently across armies rather than piles of slight variations on the same thing that emphasize "uniqueness" over usability and require players to memorize every army book to have a ghost of an idea what's going on).

I don't think that the latter is necessary if you can get the former right. If your whole army is, like, six Datasheets with everything on them, then there is no need for any referencing, you can look up everything quickly and easily whenever you so desire.

I think what Anomander is picturing here are datasheets that are built using only a closed pool of well defined USRs, with the pool also available in a form of an exhauistive list in a single source for reference, so that players of every faction can have a common understanding of all game rules. Or at least common cross-faction USRs being utilized that way. In 8th you have to know every slight variation of basic +1, FNP, explosion, etc... mechanics that are on individual datasheets. This is a recursive theme of discussions about USRs-vs-"tailored rules" and the best way to combine those two worlds are parametric USRs.

In my opinion I'd start with a guardsmen at 10 points then work my way up from there. Though we would probably no longer be playing 2000 point games though

I view the core problem is really size creep and the unhealthy smashing of normal games with Apoc that has lead to a weird epic light that doesn't function well as either a skirmish game or a large scale battle simulation.

When I started in 5th each side would be based around an HQ some troops, a few tanks, skimmers or monsters and that was it. I remember when a Land Raider or Russ was the biggest thing you would see on a table. Now more and more large models are being added to the game.

This ends up making 80 percent of unit choices that sit between guardsmens and Knights having little use because either I want the hardest hitting thing I can take or I want the cheapest thing I can take to fill up space and generate CP. The game has gotten to deadly, with offensive output really outstripping any defense.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I view the core problem is really size creep and the unhealthy smashing of normal games with Apoc that has lead to a weird epic light that doesn't function well as either a skirmish game or a large scale battle simulation.

When I started in 5th each side would be based around an HQ some troops, a few tanks, skimmers or monsters and that was it. I remember when a Land Raider or Russ was the biggest thing you would see on a table. Now more and more large models are being added to the game.

This ends up making 80 percent of unit choices that sit between guardsmens and Knights having little use because either I want the hardest hitting thing I can take or I want the cheapest thing I can take to fill up space and generate CP. The game has gotten to deadly, with offensive output really outstripping any defense.

This is the one thing I agree with in this thread. Everything else just makes me cringe.

But, I've been playing with some friends lately and we've kept all the LoW stuff out of the game. I'm finding it to be quite enjoyable, especially at the 1750 point level. The game feels tight and fun in this regard.

Play 5th Edition with the 3rd Edition Rulebook lists.

Problem solved.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Play 5th Edition with the 3rd Edition Rulebook lists.

Problem solved.

...and end up with Wraithguard running around with meltaguns, with very little more than toughness to differentiate them from Fire Dragons. BRB lists 3rd ed was what made me quit 40K back then due to unparalleled blandness of the game and castration of all flavour. “Mighty” Avatar for IIRC 65pts with 5++ only and dying to humble Tactical squad in every possible scenario...

No, thank you, being bored to death after few games doesn’t exactly qualify as problem solving in my book.

nou wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Play 5th Edition with the 3rd Edition Rulebook lists.

Problem solved.

...and end up with Wraithguard running around with meltaguns, with very little more than toughness to differentiate them from Fire Dragons. BRB lists 3rd ed was what made me quit 40K back then due to unparalleled blandness of the game and castration of all flavour. “Mighty” Avatar for IIRC 65pts with 5++ only and dying to humble Tactical squad in every possible scenario...

No, thank you, being bored to death after few games doesn’t exactly qualify as problem solving in my book.

If you can't play basic lists, that is a fault of your imagination. Or lack thereof.

It's a significantly better gaming experience than anything from 6E onwards.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

nou wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Play 5th Edition with the 3rd Edition Rulebook lists.

Problem solved.

...and end up with Wraithguard running around with meltaguns, with very little more than toughness to differentiate them from Fire Dragons. BRB lists 3rd ed was what made me quit 40K back then due to unparalleled blandness of the game and castration of all flavour. “Mighty” Avatar for IIRC 65pts with 5++ only and dying to humble Tactical squad in every possible scenario...

No, thank you, being bored to death after few games doesn’t exactly qualify as problem solving in my book.

If you can't play basic lists, that is a fault of your imagination. Or lack thereof.

It's a significantly better gaming experience than anything from 6E onwards.

My imagination is fine, don't worry. But I cannot envision myself having a good time with ~200 games of index 3rd (my 7th ed count to date). And as to gaming experience - I'm a person who actually played through Anphelion Project campaign with all it's bells and whistles and had a blast with it. Yours or mine idea of "fun and good gaming experience" seem to be quite different and neither is universal. So just let's agree to disagree on this one.

I think anomander may like the ruleset I've been working on. I really should post it soon.
I've tried to take the best of each edition and streamline without losing flavour. Common special rules are in the main book, but with simple reminder text on the data sheet where appropriate.
Very much work in progress of course...