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Over the last year or so I have noticed a lot more discussion online about the complexity of many games, not just Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40K. I too for a long time have felt that, especially in 40K, things have gotten quite complex and I often tend to forget rules entirely, or partially leading to issues during my games. I think it's safe to say that most people use one form or another of Army builder app, or data cards, or they simply do not alter their list that often and play it all the time. If you have 1, 2 factions for a game, and you play often you eventually memorize anything and everything eventually.

But I have made an observation. Today, 8 years past where I started with this hobby I build my lists with online apps, where as when I started I built them by hand on paper, writing down everything in my own personal organizational template. Since I've stopped doing that, I've noticed that I forget stuff all the time. And so I wanted to test this. For the last month, I've gone back to building all of my lists by hand, pen and paper before each game. I take the time to read the list once or twice after I write it and I often read it to my opponent (quickly) before the game begins.

So far, the results have been really positive. I'm not forgetting nearly as many of my rules interactions as I once did. Because I have a lot of factions spread across three different games, It can often be hard to stay current with so many different armies and rules, but I think that this method is what helps make that easier.

So what do you think? Has anyone else had this issue, tired this or other solutions? Do you think we rely too much on apps and army builders to the detriment of remembering our rules? Discuss!

I don't have research that I can quote, but I genuinely believe that writing things down by hand does help with memory.

I make my own unit and strat cards, so I have the rules written down for reference, but I don't find I have a lot of trouble remembering the rules- cards are as much for my opponent's benefit as they are for mine.

That said, I do think it's important to have the digital tools for those that want or need them, but I don't want them to ever become necessary.

Maybe? I know that a HH event I'm going to this summer has been explicit in saying that rules must come from an actual source and not something like Battlescribe so I guess previously there have been issues with second-hand readings getting things wrong. Back in 5th a friend notoriously got the rules for a Warlord Titan wrong because they used a Google image, instead of the Apoc book I was using right beside them.

Part of it isn't actually that the game is more complex, its the way GW has information and communicates that information.

In the past, for example, a unit had 1 half to full page (two for a very special unit) of rules in the codex. That was IT. The point costs for that model, the weapon costs, upgrade costs, abilities, weapon profiles - everything was on that page.

Now true sometimes that data would be repeated again, eg a weapon profile chart, and powers were often set on a separate page for psycher units.

But by and large it was 1 page.


Today you might have to flip between several pages for many units to get the full story from stats to points. It's been even worse in the past. The result is that whilst the actual information is no more complex, the display and communication is far more haphazard and makes the process much more difficult to achieve. Yes points are on a neat table, but now you've GOT to flip from profile to points table to find that information. It's not a repeat summary table, its the only points table in the book.


The same is then true when GW issues FAQ,Errata, expansion and WD updates. All these are GOOD things in moderation. However GW goes a bit over the tope and the result is that information gets spread out between publications. This can make it more fiddly again as now you've got to cross reference other sources.



Apps have the advantage here as they can be updated to a single information base. At least in theory, GW has had issues with their apps for ages.

Yep, GW has added complexity to listbuilding (needing to buy detachments with CP which may or may not be refunded, as well as pre-game CP expenditures for additional WLTs and relics, etc.) as well as to the rules (your units datasheet only tells part of the story now, you need to cross-reference strats, doctrines, WLTs, relics, etc. within the same rulebook, as well as AoRs and additional rules found in various erratas, campaign/warzone books, etc. to get the whole picture), and layered inconvenience on top of that (its not a mistake/unintentional that matched play points are on a separate page from the datasheets now, ostensibly its for ease of listbuilding, in reality its to promote Power Level by making matched play points seem like less of the "default" way of playing) to the process that makes it a pain to use a blank sheet of paper and a pen(cil). You can still do it the old fashioned way if you want to but theres so much more to track that you'd be crazy not to use an app to simplify and streamline the process.

 Gert wrote:
Maybe? I know that a HH event I'm going to this summer has been explicit in saying that rules must come from an actual source and not something like Battlescribe so I guess previously there have been issues with second-hand readings getting things wrong. Back in 5th a friend notoriously got the rules for a Warlord Titan wrong because they used a Google image, instead of the Apoc book I was using right beside them.

I can believe that. I spent almost all of 7th edition playing with the 6th edition Eldar Codex and not knowing it because the store I bought my army from was unscrupulous and were trying to unload unbought stock.


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chaos0xomega wrote:
Yep, GW has added complexity to listbuilding (needing to buy detachments with CP which may or may not be refunded, as well as pre-game CP expenditures for additional WLTs and relics, etc.) as well as to the rules (your units datasheet only tells part of the story now, you need to cross-reference strats, doctrines, WLTs, relics, etc. within the same rulebook, as well as AoRs and additional rules found in various erratas, campaign/warzone books, etc. to get the whole picture), and layered inconvenience on top of that (its not a mistake/unintentional that matched play points are on a separate page from the datasheets now, ostensibly its for ease of listbuilding, in reality its to promote Power Level by making matched play points seem like less of the "default" way of playing) to the process that makes it an issue to just break out a blank sheet of paper and a pen(cil). You can do it the old fashioned way but theres so much more to track that you'd be crazy not to use an app to simplify and streamline the process.

So I've been finding that with the apps, battlescribe especially I tend to always forget my warlord traits and my chapter doctrines. Using stuff like AoS Reminders (not sure if there is a 40K analog) helps *somewhat* but so far the best thing for me has been good ol' fashioned paper! Sometimes I think it's because I'm one of those weird millennials born at a very odd time where neither analog or digital technology really impacted me much and as such I'm not as familiar with either side as I probably should be.


One of the worst for me though is keeping track of Terrain rules, especially in AoS because it's just so easy to forget what you rolled, or that you're "wholly within 1'" of the feature.


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 Overread wrote:

The same is then true when GW issues FAQ,Errata, expansion and WD updates. All these are GOOD things in moderation. However GW goes a bit over the tope and the result is that information gets spread out between publications. This can make it more fiddly again as now you've got to cross reference other sources.

IRC someone had told me that there are over 500 different rules publications for Necromunda!? I'd believe it. My rules for Altansar are in a WD and honestly, I'm not sure why those two pages couldn't have been popped into the Craftworlds book. It's really not as if another 5 pages even would be bad for that book, but 1-1/2 to two would have been fine!


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PenitentJake wrote:
I don't have research that I can quote, but I genuinely believe that writing things down by hand does help with memory.

I make my own unit and strat cards, so I have the rules written down for reference, but I don't find I have a lot of trouble remembering the rules- cards are as much for my opponent's benefit as they are for mine.

That said, I do think it's important to have the digital tools for those that want or need them, but I don't want them to ever become necessary.

I used to make my own spell cards back in 7th edition. Sometimes I miss having the huge list of interesting spells to choose from, compared to the very watered down magic we get these days.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yep, GW has added complexity to listbuilding (needing to buy detachments with CP which may or may not be refunded, as well as pre-game CP expenditures for additional WLTs and relics, etc.) as well as to the rules (your units datasheet only tells part of the story now, you need to cross-reference strats, doctrines, WLTs, relics, etc. within the same rulebook, as well as AoRs and additional rules found in various erratas, campaign/warzone books, etc. to get the whole picture), and layered inconvenience on top of that (its not a mistake/unintentional that matched play points are on a separate page from the datasheets now, ostensibly its for ease of listbuilding, in reality its to promote Power Level by making matched play points seem like less of the "default" way of playing) to the process that makes it a pain to use a blank sheet of paper and a pen(cil). You can still do it the old fashioned way if you want to but theres so much more to track that you'd be crazy not to use an app to simplify and streamline the process.

You had to look up Relics and WLT within the same book since 6th. You also had to look up USRs and Psychic Powers in the BRB. Erratas, FAQs, and Supplements have also been a thing for a very long time.

So the only real difference is knowing about CP costs for detachments, which you will learn after one game because all of the basic ones refund, and do a little bit more flipping of pages for points. Not really that big a deal.



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 Togusa wrote:
I used to make my own spell cards back in 7th edition. Sometimes I miss having the huge list of interesting spells to choose from, compared to the very watered down magic we get these days.

Hey, just play Tsons. They have like 9 Psychic trees.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and listbuilding is different from gameplay. To 6ths Relics, WLTs, Psychic Powers you now need to add an additional host of layered rules on top of that (general strategems, detachment/army special rules/doctrines, subfaction abilities, subfaction relics/psychic powers/strategems, warlord traits, etc.)

I play MT and TSons currently, I know what Lambdan Lions and Cult of Duplicity do. I don't know what Psian Jackals and Cult of Mutation do, because theres no need to (those abilities aren't relative to my army and very few people play them). If I was trying to build a list using a subfaction I'm unfamiliar with, theres a lot of additional overhead involved in referencing that content to figure out listbuilding strategies and combos, etc. Likewise its easy to memorize the warlord traits and relics I use, its not so easy to listbuild when I'm referring to ones that I am not familiar with in order to examine potential for other builds.

USRs were easy (at least through 6th, I skipped 7th but that edition added a bunch more and made a mess of many of the existing ones) and psychic powers were limited compared to where they are now (also helped that I didn't play any armies that used psychic powers up until this edition lol).

FAQ/Errata were a common document until 8th/9th edition when they split some errata from the FAQ into the balance dataslate and chapter approved. (+2 docs that didn't exist before).

Supplements were decidedly not a thing until recently - maybe the first ones released in 6th or 7th, my memory is a bit fuzzy on when Warzone: Damnos and Warzone: Damocles, etc. released which I think were the first true "modern" supplements that were actually necessary for general play, the iteration prior to them were apocalypse expansions and thus didn't impact you if you were just playing regular pickup games or competitive games (and thus didn't impact most players). Likewise there was stuff like Cities of Death, Planetstrike, and Apocalypse, but those were specific "game modes" and weren't relevant unless you and your opponent agreed to play that specific type of game (which in my group meant they weren't generally used outside of specific pre-organized event days/megabattles). The supplements today add general matched play rules, additional units, listbuilding options, strategems, etc. into the mix that make them almost mandatory for generalized gameplay.

Its decidedly more overhead and processing than it ever was previously, regardless of how much you try to downplay it.

Agreed.

I think its not just that GW has done these things before, its that GW is doing things a LOT faster. Heck I recall tyranids getting an FAQ for an edition on pretty much the last month/week for that edition before a whole new edition launched.


Now of course FAQ/Errata coming faster is not in itself a bad thing. Indeed its a very good thing that GW is much faster than they were.

Thing is GW has gone extreme with supplements, way more than they did in the past. In some parts its good but in others it adds complexity through the breakup of information.



When that information in its core form, the codex, is already more complicated to read and broken up, it just adds to the difficulty.


I think the other aspect is that many of these layers don't improve the balance. Some bits do, but then they are undone by another supplement or change. And the entire structure is then undone by a new edition. So in some ways the complexity and supplements and updates build and build toward a sort of improved total; then the house of cards falls down and starts over afresh.