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Howdy Dakka,

As I read through the threads on the 9th ed changes, it's been interesting seeing how people relate those changes to the current game. With 9th apparently right around the corner, I thought it would be interesting to see what we think went right and what we think went wrong with 8th. In order to keep this a discussion and not just a winge-fest, please elaborate on your thoughts. It's cool if you sincerely disliked the whole of 8th, but if that's the case, mention why. Don't just say "I hated all of it", etc.

For me and the group I play with:

The Good:
- Index 40k was actually fun (although it started to get stale similar to the end of 5th ed), and the most balanced the game has probably ever been
- Streamlining of the core rule book was fantastic
- Strategems and CP are cool ideas
- CP farming aside, I enjoyed the different methods of army construction and wish they had done more with that. Things like the Drukhari triple patrol bonus were interesting and fluffy, and I would have liked more of that for each army
- I LOVE that hull points went away

The Bad:
- The initial streamlining of the core rules was balanced in a negative way via supplement bloat
- I hated that a Land Raider could be pinned in place bu a poxwalker
- Terrain rules were TOO streamlined
- Strats and CP were poorly implemented
- We al HATED the Psychic Awakening concept. Those books functioned poorly as codex updates and didn't function at all as campaign books
- Despite the increased speed of release, there are now enough factions and sub factions that we are back to books going years w/out updates
- A game that went from a 80+ page rulebook to a 12 page rulebook takes longer to play due to the core mechanics (too many rerolls, etc)


So those are mine. What are your thoughts?

Corsairs are gone and DE is 3 armies in 1. I hate that more than anything else.

Corsairs are gone and DE is 3 armies in 1. I hate that more than anything else.

Yeah, the Dark Eldar split was a weird one for me. One of the 40k Podcasts I listen to (might have been Preferred Enemies? I don't remember) mentioned that it felt like the Dark Eldar stuff was written by someone who really likes the faction, but doesn't actually understand the faction. That seems about right given how they came out.

Good changes from 7th to 8th:
- Ap system
- movement value
- Psychic phase
- choose warlord traits
- faction traits
- stratagems/ command points
- wounds for everything (instead of hull points for tanks)
- Melee became stronger
- constant point and rules updates

Things that need improvement:
- terrain (though Cities of Death did already some things)
- warlord traits, faction rules and psychic powers should cost points - you can never balance them all without a point value, there'll always be 1-2 that are "the best" when there's no downside
- tank rules (8th made tanks already much better than they were before, but I lke what has been shown of 9th so far)
- weaken shooting
- no models, no rules is bad for the game, even for someone like me who prints legends profiles and puts them back in the codex as I don't know anyone who would forbid playing them

Its like if Scouts, Tacs marines, and Primaris units all became their own things and can't be in each others detachments or you lose your traits. Its just stupid move on GW's part.

Right :
- accessibility of the core rules
- the index situation where there was no codex bloat and everyone somehow started "equal" with no "recent codex bloat" power creep was a good moment
- faq+chapter approved attempting to balance the game within an edition

Wrong:
- power creep based on how recent a codex is
- special rules and stratagem everywhere constantly breaking core rules which makes strategic planning nearly impossible because any unit can pull of something that will disable your strategy without you able to (realistically) prepare for it.
- a mass of legacy gameplay problems involving IGO UGO / deepstrike/ shooting/ no LOS weapons
- non-HQ units with ludicrous statlines (hello thunderfire cannon
- "bad guys" armies are generally less powerful than "good guys"
- focus on primarch style characters with super powers is not a good direction for a sci-fi battlefield game
- point values make no sense - army abilities need to be priced since they dramatically alter gameplay and they are definitely not equals.

I can see this getting very contentious very quickly, but I'll throw in my $0.02 on top of what OP already listed.

Good:
-No more templates (YMMV, but I always found them tedious)
-Emphasis on movement in the rules
-Lots of army-specific flavor (the flipside to bloat)
-Simple, easily-remembered systems for hit and wound values, no needing to look up tables
-Deep Strike/reserves are reliable, so avoid the frustration of never showing up
-AP system is easy to use and less binary; AP3 isn't the all-important breakpoint
-Vehicles and monstrous creatures are finally treated consistently

Bad:
-Melee feels gimmicky/game-y with tri-point vs Fall Back
-Morale largely doesn't matter, and is easy to ignore with CP
-CP rerolls remove a lot of the tension from bad rolls
-Rerolls upon rerolls upon rerolls slow the game down
-Deep Strike/reserves are reliable, so never have to risk scattering or timing issues- as with melee, the 9" magic bubble feels very game-y
-Modifiers after rerolls, and abilities triggered on 1s or 6s being affected by modifiers, lead to some weird interactions
-Lack of facing or arcs makes vehicles feel weird

No more templates (YMMV, but I always found them tedious)

I also liked this change. While I loved the visceral experience of laying down a huge pie-plate, what a PITA that could become. I'm not sure they implemented it right, but I'd have to agree that removing the actual templates was good.

8th the absolute worst edition since 5th. Cant wait for 9th to land, it can only get better....i hope.

Good:

- Basic stratagems (not the army specific ones)
- To hit and to wound.
- Selectable warlord traits

Bad:

- Fallback, the worst rule ive ever witnessed GW introduce since i started in 5th.
- Elite Melee less viable than in 7th (and even then it wasent very good)
- Melee rules, pile/consolidate in to nearest, but must be closest and in base contact, but not if chargeing and or flying... (Basicly VERY clunky and overcomplicated)
- Gunline army spam
- 9" Deepstrike and outflank range = you fail the charge, you die.
- Army stratagems, should have been specific rules, not some pokemon powerup card for inferior units. (Then id rather have formations).
- Terrain
- Removal of hullpoints (it could easely be balanced out to make more fair fun and engageing, now all tanks are a meatpile)

One word, lethality.

When a game boils down to a 2000 vs 1500 game because you're able to wipe out a quarter of the enemy army turn 1 it is a recipe for disaster.

Add to that the fact you need to roll dice to see how many dice you roll (that was meant to be a joke, dammit) along with Superheavy Proliferation, invuls being handed out like candy so things you're meant to fire anti-tank against being bad anti-tank targets, and all the rules bloat, is a recipe for disaster.

Random Damage was also a bad idea. D3 weapons are pretty useless because you'd much rather bring Flat 2 damage. It's why Plasma is so heavily used. Re-rolls bloody everywhere slows the game down to a crawl and negates Plasma's downside by turning the overheat risk from 1/6 to 1/36.

Yes I will agree to Damage is to high.

My good:

- every army got a dex including some new ones
- subfactions for most armies/ subfaction traits
- I liked PA; never before in GW history have 24 factions received an update in 9 months! (Sure not every faction got models and not all updates where equal, but way better than the Big Codex updates for 1/3 of factions and screw everyone else)
- liked allying, especially once doctrines came along to give it a cost
- cross platform integration (40k rules for KT and BSF; 40k transitions to Apocalypse)
- cool weird models like Rogue Traders, Ambulls and Zoats, etc
- super fast production schedule- every month is Christmas

My Bad:
- terrain/ cover rules
- need more Xenos models/ growth
- detachment system quirks for oddball armies (increases for battalions and brigades hurt DE raiding force; Inquisition an SoS awkward)
- because I like allied armies for storytelling purposes, I wasn't a fan of Battle Brothers, though it could have been worse

The good:

- AP system
- Bringing back the Movement stat
- All major armies getting updated in one edition
- Regular FAQs and Chapter Approved helping to keep the game fresh
- Some of the streamlining worked quite well (changing BS to the number needed to hit, for example)

The bad:

- Ludicrous Codex creep, from the IG Codex in early 8th to the latest SM Codex and supplements. It seems GW just can't help themselves and will eventually come up with a cool new idea that breaks their own game
- Starting with a whole new system introduced a bunch of new problems such as CP farming and old "problems" that had previously been solved like monsters and units above the ground floor
- Probably too many factions now. I think things are getting out of hand with factions and sub-factions for those factions. It makes getting the balance right harder
- Auras. Just no.
- Mortal Wound spam is tedious, especially in the Psychic phase
- This started in 7th , but I hate the gradual erosion of "normal" armies. The old Force Organisation Chart may have been quite limiting but I liked that it forced tough choices on people. I'm not such a fan of the "take whatever you want" approach
- Too many stratagems, used too often for things units should be able to do anyway
- Terrain

+1 catbarf
good:
made for decent pickup games
PL made for simplified listbuilding

bad:
Weapon arcs no longer mattered

Gunline army spam

Yeah, this has been a complaint across multiple editions now, and I think the terrain rules and general lethality of the game have made that even worse in 8th.

Removal of hullpoints (it could easely be balanced out to make more fair fun and engageing, now all tanks are a meatpile)

I'm not sure I follow. Outside of Iron Hands shenanigans, Vehicles were generally gak in this edition. Did you find them too powerful? I enjoyed removal of hull points because it made vehicles feel less like paper. They were still easy to kill this edition, but with hull points it felt even worse.

Good
- Point changes
- FAQs

Bad
- Race to the bottom point changes
- FAQs that were always playing catch-up, because of extreme release windows

Tycho wrote:

Gunline army spam

Yeah, this has been a complaint across multiple editions now, and I think the terrain rules and general lethality of the game have made that even worse in 8th.

Removal of hullpoints (it could easely be balanced out to make more fair fun and engageing, now all tanks are a meatpile)

I'm not sure I follow. Outside of Iron Hands shenanigans, Vehicles were generally gak in this edition. Did you find them too powerful? I enjoyed removal of hull points because it made vehicles feel less like paper. They were still easy to kill this edition, but with hull points it felt even worse.

Yeah the hullpoint chart was nice, with guns getting blown off, tracks getting wrecked, stuff like that, gave the game more depth. Ofcourse 1shot melta = explosion was not very great. But you could incorperate some D3/D6 hullpoint removal based on a chart roll + more hull points for all vehicles (im just brainstorming here) i dont see it as impossible to make tanks feel more like tanks and less like a monster. But thats just my take on it anyway.

The Good:
- It wasn't 7th
- There was some attempt to balance the edition as it went along
- The (white dwarf updated) maelstrom objectives were interesting
- Lots of model releases, include some that weren't marines

The Bad:
- Dice bloat. Lots of dice, lots of rolls, lots of re-rolls
- More mindless smashing, less positioning and reacting.
- Increasingly impossible to balance units with stacked bonuses
- Paid faqs/errata
- Death by rules bloat
- Many exceptions to every rule
- Faction bloat (though understandable as a way to sell models)

Paid faqs/errata

This one really gets me. CA updates to points should be free IMO. Maybe they're moving to that with the announcement of giving away the digital dex when you buy the actual book version ...

Dice bloat. Lots of dice, lots of rolls, lots of re-rolls

That's the first time I've seen that phrase but you're absolutely right. I feel like even a 5 man squad of Intercessors can put out enough shots that you almost need a dice app even for them. The few times I broke out my Orks this edition, I DEFINITELY used a dice roller app ... IDK how some people can get by without that in this edition.

Good:
- Casualty removal chosen by controller.
- Simple and precise core rules.
- Frequent FAQ's that addressed the issues people had.
- Frequent Errata that addressed game balance issues.
- Stratagems.
- Psychic powers returning to a simple 2d6 roll with double 1's and 6's for perils.
- Grouping everything into a similar statline.
- Characters being able to help out without being a part of the unit. This one surprised me, but I feel was a great choice.
- Morale resulting in loss of models rather than loss of control.
- More wounds in the game allowed for great diversification of units and weapons.

Bad:
- Fly keyword is crazy strong, and received numerous modifications to how it works.
- Rapid fire changes to points costs made owning a book feel like a liability.
- Over-ability to stack buffs and auras. There needed to be a limit.
- Great expectation for morale, but too many ways to again ignore it.
- Psychic Awakening, despite being billed as "the biggest thing since the Horus Heresy" has gone absolutely no where.

Writing some books to work in one very specific way, only to make such game play impossible or even illegal after some time.

And then the unwillingness to fix or change it, just proceding with the usual codex release as if the problems didn't exist.

Also the reaction to some stuff was odd. Ynari were or eldar flyers were allowed to do what they did for years. Castellans broke in to the meta for around a year too. On the other hand something like IH got nerfed after less then half a year.

Deleted.

The Good
- Standardisation of stats, making everything the same system of stats was a good idea IMO.
- Everything can hurt everything. Some put this as a bad thing but I don't mind it. Yes, your Lasgun can damage a Land Raider but the odds are still pretty slim, and adds a bit of a cinematic touch to it.
- Regular output of models and rules.
- Advancing the storyline.


The Bad
- IMO, GW went a bit overboard with the removal of USRs. Some, such as Deep Strike, could have been kept, or perhaps modified to "Deep Strike (X)", where X is the distance you must arrive from the enemy. Getting rid of overlapping rules such as Zealot, Hatred and Preferred Enemy was good, but I think getting rid of them all added some inconsistency between units.
- Too many rerolls.
- Characters seemed to fall into two categories; either "Cheap as hell aura", or "Expensive and CP-draining hardhitters", there seemed to be no middle ground.
- Mortal Wounds being handed out left, right and centre. Removed any unique characteristics of a unit, instead GW just say "yeah just make it do Mortal Wounds".
- Character targeting
- LoS. Removing the vehicle facing ideas I think, in general, had more benefits than drawbacks, but the new system of "if any part of the model at all, can see any part of the enemy, you can shoot it with no restrictions". What was wrong with the old system?
- The playstyle of "Load up on as much CP as possible to use on the same Strategem combo repeatedly", applicable for Order of Companions, Endless Cacophany/VotLW, Prismatic Blur/LFR, Command and Control Node, etc.

For me:

GOOD
Free base rules
Streamline of the rules
Release of all base datasheets on day 1 (Indexes)
Actual playtesting of Indexes
Multiple levels of play sets (Learn to Play 40K magazine, Know No Fear, First Strike, Dark Millenium Starter)
Discounted box sets (Start Collecting, Apocalypse sets, Forgebane, Tooth & Claw, etc.)
Stratagems as limited, strategic resource
Variable damage for weapons
new models

BAD
- Introduction of Primaris, instead of just an admission of scale change
- only one Aspect warrior model update for Eldar
- All complexity moved to datasheets
- No flowchart or recognition of the need for addressing "specific rules override general rules (datasheet trump base rules)"
- Day 1 errata for multiple codex rule issues
- Lack of playtesting/ignoring playtesting in codexes
- Faction abilities without regard for model point costs
- Lack of terrain rules in basic ruleset
- Whack a mole nerfs and point shuffles
- Lack of melee overwatch/Withdraw occuring in Movement phase
- Stratagem overload/CP farming
- Shot spam superior to high-damage attacks
- Transport loading/unloading
- Minus to hit stacking
- Battleshock DOA due to morale invulnerability rules
- Grey Knights
- Lackluster new model kit rules (poor Ork players)
- Character targetting shennanigens
- Psychic Awakening dud release
- Heavy weapon penalties on vehicles
- Lack of Steel Behemoth-like rules for many vehicles
- Damage levels neutered by abilities to ignore damage levels
- Alpha striking
- 9" Deepstrike and flamer interactions

I could go on with the negatives, but I think I'd best stop now

Good:

- The new codexes add a lot of variety with strategems, traits, relics, chapters... and thanks to the FAQs and points changes lots of different units have seen the table throughout the edition.

- No more blasts and templates

- Plastic sisters! (Although only at the end of the edition)

- Free core rules and simplified game without being oversimplified

Bad:

- SM always pushed

- Most of the models released in the last 3 years are awful

- Too many re-rolls

- Soups in matched games

- Standard game format too big (my favorite is 1500 points)

- Some armies were stuck with the index for too long (15-18 months for my SW and orks, dammit!!!)

Yeah, I think 8th was generally extremely successful with a few things that I think cause big problems/repurcussions that thankfully seem like priorities in 9th.

so, assume anything I don't mention, I like.

1) Terrain. 40k is a game designed to accommodate anything from trash, to beautiful intricately sculpted plastic terrain boards. The ideal ruleset for a system like that would be fairly abstracted, fairly permissive, and fairly varied.

8th terain was none of those things. It was un-impactful, extremely harsh (if not EVERY SINGLE MODEL on your unit can get on top of or inside a terrain piece then NOT ONE MODEL gets cover!!!) and broke down heavily when paired with the super-permissive TLOS system.

Also, terrain that benefits super heavy elite stuff way more than light infantry is kind of backwards, IMO. Utilizing terrain effectively should 100% be what light infantry is good at, otherwise you end up with goofy situations where to be balanced light infantry has to be able to slug it out with elites in the open. Marines should not cower in bunkers in order to fight hordes of guardsmen who largely don't give a gak about terrain.

2) Movement. Far, Far, Far Far too many mechanics in 8th rewarded being stationary and penalized movement. MASSIVE ranges for the board size, no firing arcs, permissive TLOS, extremely potent auras, and extreme deadliness allowing you to easily table an enemy witha gunline before they can win through points made being stationary extremely good, which is the opposite of what you want out of a dynamic wargame. 8th ed played most like a super old school simulationist historical based on like, civil war line infantry, when it should be this epic fast moving cinematic thing.

Being stationary in a game like 40k absolutely should not be the default way to play, and it definitely was for almost the majority of units in the game.

3) Melee: Extreme risk, highly micro-intensive, relatively low reward, very abstracted. Shooting: Zero risk, extremely simple, high reward, very permissive.

You could have both melee and shooting be super abstracted ala apoc, and the game would be fine. Or super permissive ala AOS, and the game would be fine. But there being this dichotomy between the two where many of the gamier shooting elements form 7th got removed (positioning to avoid %obscurement, firing arcs, blast spacing, etc etc) and left almost all the ones that were in there for melee in place is what created this frustration between people who favor melee and people who want to shoot.

I'll echo most others here.

Good:
Hull points going away was a big one, that was a stupid mechanic to layer on top of the damage chart. For the scale the game plays at these days, treating them and monsters the same is appropriate.
The return of modifiers for armor I think was great.
Frequent rules updates
Relatively simple core rules
Lots of army customizability.
Easy to manage psychic phase.
Removal of templates (they're just not right for the scale the game plays at anymore)
Better missions than previous editions.
Keyword system ultimately actually is pretty solid.


Bad:
insane levels of lethality and alpha strikeyness
ridiculous levels of power & unit bloat and needless mechanics in army lists
Poor internal balances between units for many armies.
an almost complete lack of meaningful terrain/cover mechanics
Being able to draw LoS to the sword tip of one dude barely in range, and being able to wipe out the whole rest of the unit with sufficient firepower, with all the firing unit's LoS drawn from the tip of a foot or a tank tread or gun barrel that can't even swivel to track onto the target properly
Rerolls on top of rerolls
A synergistic combo of some of the above mixing with the AP rules and widespread invuls mirroring in some ways the issues of 5E/6E where multishot weapons with middling AP dramatically outperformed dedicated low ROF heavy weapons
really poorly thought out detachment, CP, and allies mechanics.
Vehicles and monsters being able to be stopped from shooting just because someone touched them.
No "Sweeping Advance" melee mechanic, resulting in melee being substantially less effective in removing units than previous editions.
Far too many identical or identical role rules/mechanics being treated as their own special rule.

Amishprn86 wrote:Its like if Scouts, Tacs marines, and Primaris units all became their own things and can't be in each others detachments or you lose your traits. Its just stupid move on GW's part.

This fundamental change to how a faction interacts within itself was horrible. the one faction that should have the least impediment to working together(well maybe CSM) being hamstrung taking differing styles was idiotic.

I love 8th and cant wait to see what 9th has in store.

That being said, 8th is not without faults;

Terrain - basic rules sucked, Cities of Death fixed them....too bad they were optional and not default.

Melee - while I had plenty of fun melee goings on(Salamanders Relic Contemptor just smacking down jetbike after Saim Han jetbike while eating shot after shot, Lt. w PF punching a knight to death, etc) more often then not nothing would make it into combat before withering volumes of dice would make them go bye-bye.

Initiative - not a thing in 8th, but definitely should've been.
Morale - dont know why they didnt do more with it in 8th

Vehicles - damn grots/cultists/gaunts

Sheer Volume of Dice - the sheer volume of dice & the rerolling of said dice

In retrospect I think the core rules changes were largely negative. I don't think continuing with 7e as if nothing was wrong was the correct answer, but I don't like a lot of the fixes we got. A summary:

Vehicle fire arcs: Antenna-to-antenna line of sight and vehicles shooting out their butts are "easier" to write rules for, but it's also very silly-looking and makes the game much more stressful since you now need to make sure that every single tiny little fiddly bit on your vehicle is hidden or the enemy can still shoot it. I think vehicle fire arcs could have been handled much better by defining four overlapping 180-degree arcs (front, left, right, and rear) and then defining which weapons can fire in which arc; it's much easier to eyeball 180-degree arcs than 90-degree arcs and much easier to eyeball which way is forwards than it is to eyeball where your corners are. I'd also have preferred LOS to be measured to/from the center of a model rather than any protruding fiddly bits.

Vehicle armor facings: Similar to fire arcs the old system was fuzzy and hard to eyeball, but the new system doesn't have a way to reward you for moving your guns up the table. Things like Land Speeders and Vypers that used to be fast gun platforms that could seek side-arc shots more easily than stationary gun platforms now longer have a purpose, you just spend more points on your stationary big guns. I'd have preferred it if they'd gone to something like Flames of War's 180-degree front/180-degree back arc that's easier to eyeball, defined universally on every vehicle, and didn't take elements away from gameplay.

The AP stat: The rules change leaves AP about as badly broken as it was in 7e, and for the same reasons: GW can't do the math to accurately price either saves, AP, or Invulnerable saves. Just about everything in the entire game that isn't a dedicated anti-tank gun really needs its AP worsened by at least one.

The Damage stat and Wounds: Vehicles don't have enough Wounds and AT weapons don't do enough damage. As a result volume of mid-power weapons is still better AT than taking dedicated AT weapons, which has been a problem with the game since 6e brought in hull points. The secondary problem with the Damage stat is that it makes shooting at units with FNP with random-damage attacks take a really long time; I need to roll a d3 for each unsaved wound I caused, then the other guy needs to take that many FNPs for each point of damage, and we can't speed up the rolling at all because the shots must be resolved in order.

Rerolls: In older editions saves/FNP could easily be ignored, so you could easily need to roll only two dice to do damage. In 8e if the other guy's using a sub-faction that grants army-wide FNP you need to roll four dice to do damage every time you attack. The odds of any single die doing damage are thus so small they need to keep inflating the number of dice you attack with and increasing the number of ways to reroll failed hits/wounds, which makes the game take a really long time. I'd rather have gone back to a time when you didn't always need to roll four dice on every attack and lose the rerolls.

Stratagems: The use of single-unit stratagems to patch broken units has led to a massive amount of rules bloat, borked a lot of internal balance, and made the game much harder for a new player to actually use since not only do they need to know how the core rules work they need to know what all their stratagems are, which ones are worth it, and when to use each one. If they'd stuck with the wargame instead of adding the card game on top of it the game would be much simpler and much easier to understand.

Sub-Factions: On one hand it's great that other armies are getting the kind of sub-faction detail only the Space Marines had in 5e-7e, but on the other hand the way GW tends to write them they feel like they push you into playing specific lists with specific sub-factions. Internal balance is made really screwey if whether you should use a specific unit in your army depends on what colour you've painted it, and the need to ally with other sub-factions of your own army to use all the units you want to use to their full effect makes list-building much harder. Sub-factions should have been designed such that they let your army use units in a different way rather than just giving bonuses to specific sorts of units.

Psykers: The WHFB-inspired system in 6e/7e was clunky and required too much bookkeeping. The Sigmar-inspired system in 8e creates a lot of counter-intuitive scalability problems; each psyker you take is worse than the last one because you can't use the powers you want to since another psyker has already tried to cast them. I'd like GW to stop equating the lore description "psychic" with the in-game "psychic phase"; more psykers should have psychic "weapons" rather than offensive powers and there should be more passive effects created by psykers like with 4e Warlocks and 3e Grey Knights. The psychic rules with psychic tests and Perils should be for big game-changing things you can do one or two of a turn, not for every single unit in your Tzeentch or GK army.

Morale: In older editions GW used morale as a black-and-white alive-or-dead mechanic; if you got forced to make a morale test and failed you either couldn't do anything at all on your next turn or you died. This felt bad, so as editions went along GW started letting more and more people just ignore the morale mechanics, so now in 8e morale has become a weird edge case where very occasionally one or two models get removed from an army with 30-model squads and nobody else really cares. What we needed from morale was a "pinned" state that reduced a unit's effectiveness without turning it off entirely so you could make progress in the game using morale without getting to surprise-RFP units with it.

Characters: Deathstars and wound allocation were incredibly irritating. I don't think the "closest target" core rule is any less irritating; it creates a lot of geometry-related traps for new players. It feels a lot like Mk2 Warmachine, where some people can easily eyeball distances and some people can't, and it sticks a lot of unnecessary extra "gotcha" moments into the game that really don't help. I'd have preferred it if characters were still members of a squad, but you had to join them to the squad during deployment and couldn't hop around, and weapons that can now ignore the character-targeting rule let you pick which model in the squad to kill.

Good:
- no templates, scatter die and AV/facings
- indexes
- simpler core rules (perhaps too simple, but still)
- fw being finally embraced by gw proper
- ap system
- FAQs twice an year and communication from GW
- psychic phase
- pick psychic powers/warlord traits
- specialist detachments
- simpler to hit and to wound system
- not rolling for reserves not scatter
- faster codex release
- new models
- you pick which models die after being attacked
- no more warp charge dice
- keywords
- subfactions

Bad:
- keeping IGOYGO (and I don't see it going away in any future edition) and TLoS
- the tremendous power creep and unbalance intra/intercodex
- still giving marines a lot more options than other armies
- dozens of books to play with a single army
- CP bloat and poorly balanced stratagems (as also having lots of them)
- terrain rules (abysmal)
- chapter approved and codexes still being physical (and expensive!)
- some armies have nothing to do in specific phases
- tau losing jsj and the 1 commander per detachment limit (it could have been done better)
- modifier stacking
- soup (and the fact some armies have access to it, others don't)
- reserves "dying" on turn 4
- re-rolls everywhere, but not proportional between armies
- many smaller factions should be just one (inquisition, custodes, sisters of silence and assassinorum should be an Agents of the Imperium codex)
- anti-deepstrike auras
- modifier after re-rolls
- random damage
- core detachments giving a lot more CP than specialist ones
- the lack of Outflank abilities
- too many good quality dice attacks (aggressors, for example)
- changing rules mid-edition (codexes SM and CSM 2.0)
- vehicles losing Relentless