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Many current abilities feel aimless, there to follow a rule that every unit needs an ability rather than filling a need for diversity and immersion, do you agree and if so why and where? Which abilities would you like to see removed or reworked?

I think character abilities are cool, generally I'd want to keep them. For Necrons I feel like the rules for which units can be joined by which characters are way too prohibitive, so it sort of does not matter what the abilities are for them. I think the non-leader abilities of the Skorpekh Lord and the Lokhust Lord should be reversed, with the Lokhust Lord getting impact hits and the Skorpekh Lord getting fight on death or an automatic explosion or something like that so that becomes their differences instead of it coming down to what unit they can join. The Lokhust Lord's ability should offer benefits in melee as well and the Skorpekh Lord's leader ability should not have anti-synergy with Skorpekh Destroyers.

The Necron Warriors' ability is completely useless and I do not think the old one needs to come back, Necron Warriors are very different from Immortals and Flayed Ones and Ghost Arks already let Necron Warriors come back better than other units. Immortals also do not need any abilities.

Scarab Swarms reducing enemy OC is not necessary to my mind. Self-destruction is okay as a callback to 2nd edition, even if I think it is a bit at odds with Necron fluff.

Lychguard, Ophydian Destroyers, Skorpekh Destroyers, Canoptek Wraiths and Triarch Praetorians are all pretty similar in terms of stats and niche with their armour piercing attacks and chunky armoured bodies, I think abilities are necessary to differentiate these units. Lychguard should have a defender ability (triggered by being near an objective or being joined by a character), Ophydian Destroyers a charge ability and no more Deep Strike, Skorpekh Destroyers getting fall back and charge would set them apart and follow their fluff of passing through enemy lines, Canoptek Wraiths should be the ones able to Deep Strike as being able to phase through the ground to get around the Tomb World has always been core to their fluff a unique mobility instead of their offensive ability would set them apart as the real mobility option among Necron chunky melee units, Triarch Praetorians I would like to see inhabit more of a supporting role similar to Triarch Stalkers to set them apart from the previously mentioned units instead of what feels like a random addition of fall back and charge taken from what Canoptek Wraiths had in 9th.

To start, I like that every unit has a rule, and if there are problems with a rule matching fluff, I'd always be inclined to replace it with one more suited to lore than merely leaving the unit without one.

But the context for this is 1) I've always played with unit cards anyway and 2) I'm not the kind of competitive that makes think that I need to memorize every ability of every potential enemy unit in order to play. Without this context- ie. if you don't agree with those two points- I can see why you might prefer fewer abilities on less elite units.

Now to get to some specifics:

For Sisters, I think that which characters can join which units is too restrictive, and I also think that a Canoness should be able to partner with most of the other characters in addition to a unit, rather than just the few characters with whom they can double up.

Also, I feel like Repentia Superia should have continued to be characters for many reasons. First- despite generally believing that leaders are too restricted regarding which units they can join, I DO agree that Penitent Units should only be lead by Characters who are "Punisher" archetypes- Repentia Superia being particularly suited to the role... though Preachers and Dogmata could also be suitable. I just feel like the holiness of a Canoness or a Palatine, or even a Hospitaller or Dialogus would be besmirched by association with sin. I also want a Repentia Superior as a Warlord for a Penitent Legion.

As for some of the unit abilities themselves, I really like the BSS ability, which is that being in control of an objective allows the unit to generate a Miracle die. This feels really fluffy to me- if battlefield miracles are manifestations of the will of the emperor, it stands to reason that much of that will would involve the objectives of a given battle.

I don't particularly like reroll ones as a rule, but it isn't exactly unfluffy- I always focused more on technique rather than speed, opportunity or brute force when I knew my sensei was watching me fight.

Finally, while every unit in the army being able to use AoF makes the army stronger, I really don't think battle conclave units or Penitent Engines should be allowed to- Arcos and PE's have fallen so low they are unworthy of the Emperor's divine intervention, Crusaders and DCA's lack the training and purity to channel such power... And I might even argue that Repentia and Morties deprive themselves of the Emperor's grace out of guilt and shame for their real or imagined sins... Though I'm less committed to that because Repentia at least ARE frequently redeemed by extreme acts of vengeance against enemies of the Imperium.

I'm okay with the unit abilities. I didn't like 8th indizes where all armies felt pretty bland, I think 10th so far has a nice balance between fluffy rules without bloating the rules like 7th and 9th did.
Concerning specific rules, well I'm not so much a fan of rules that just make you more killy when on an objective or when attacking something on an objective. Just like with stratagems, "kill more" shouldn't really exist.

I just find it a bit annoying that some abilities, which are the same, couldn't be a USR. For example, the Leman Russ as well as scions get a rule to reroll hits. And some Tyranids have this rule as well. Why isn't it a USR, then? Even worse when it is practically the same rule but with one or two words that are different. I can't remember which one but my opponents Tyranids had "almost the same" rule but the key difference of one word really messed up my opponents game plan, thinking he had the same rule as one of my units.

In some cases, I really think the rules were only written so the author could follow a strict design paradigm and a lot of these could be thrown out.
My favorite example is the rule for the Leman Russ vanquisher: it may reroll the wound roll if its Strength 18 battle cannon against monsters or vehicles. It's nice to have, don't get me wrong, but was it really necessary?
Even worse is a Legends unit (but, well, it's a legends unit): the Tauros Venator may reroll the wound role as well, but all it's weapons (besides a hunter-killer missile) are twin linked ...

Personally, I wish there was a little more continuity between similar datasheets.

For example: Custodes get three different Contemptor Dreadnoughts, granted 2 of them are Forge World/HH. Currently only the Index Stock Contemptor gets the resurrection ability; the other two get there own unique abilities. They are the same model, just equipped differently. More over the FW/HH variants are more equipped for melee, which would make sense for them to have a resurrection ability...

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Concerning specific rules, well I'm not so much a fan of rules that just make you more killy when on an objective or when attacking something on an objective. Just like with stratagems, "kill more" shouldn't really exist.

What about if the target unit isn't on an objective? Is "kill harder" a bad rule flat out when an army has had problems in the last 3 editions with having one "Troop" unit being far better than the other choices?
I maintain that 10th has been the best edition for the CSM unit since I started Chaos because the rule gives them a tactical purpose over Cultists.
Cultists have the sticky objective so they're good for holding your backline, while CSM gets re-rolls to hit in melee (incentivising the player to close with the enemy) and then re-rolls to wound if the target unit holds an objective.
By giving CSM that rule, it makes them useful as an attacking unit.

 Gert wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Concerning specific rules, well I'm not so much a fan of rules that just make you more killy when on an objective or when attacking something on an objective. Just like with stratagems, "kill more" shouldn't really exist.

What about if the target unit isn't on an objective? Is "kill harder" a bad rule flat out when an army has had problems in the last 3 editions with having one "Troop" unit being far better than the other choices?
I maintain that 10th has been the best edition for the CSM unit since I started Chaos because the rule gives them a tactical purpose over Cultists.
Cultists have the sticky objective so they're good for holding your backline, while CSM gets re-rolls to hit in melee (incentivising the player to close with the enemy) and then re-rolls to wound if the target unit holds an objective.
By giving CSM that rule, it makes them useful as an attacking unit.

To answer your first question: No, not necessarily. Special rules can show specialisations, like tank bustas who usually had a Bonus against vehicles in their special rules. Or give units a purpose to differentiate them from similar units, like your CSM example.
It's probably because I don’t really like 10th edition's mission style that revolves just around objectives. So if you don't play with these objectives many units get worse.

Fair enough.

While I don't think special rules should be mandatory on every single unit, I do like that having so many special rules has encouraged GW to give niches to units that didn't necessarily have them before.

Concerning specific rules, well I'm not so much a fan of rules that just make you more killy when on an objective or when attacking something on an objective. Just like with stratagems, "kill more" shouldn't really exist.

I'm inclined to agree with this as a rule of thumb rather than a strict rule. Generally, kill-more rules tend to be kind of uninteresting as well as an easy way for excessive lethality to creep in. Adding situational modifiers to the kill-more rules *can* help to make them more interesting, but I'd say 10th has been hit and miss with those. Getting tau units danger-close to power up their shooting is interesting. Letting a hammerhead reroll to-hit rolls against a vehicle/monster (probably its preferred target in the first place) just feels like it could have been a slightly better BS stat. Ravagers getting rerolls against undamaged targets feels like an attempt to give it an edge over other lance platforms that wouldn't be OP throughout the game, but I'm just not sure what lore it's trying to represent.

Windriders getting rerolls against nearby
targets is low-key more interesting than it first appears. I think they were trying to toss a bone to the weakest of the 3 gun options (TL shuriken catapults) by giving them a rule that is easier to activate when you're up close. They may also have been trying to give value to screening units by letting them basically turn the windriders' buff off unless the eldar player clears the screen first? But in practice, it's mostly just free rerolls to synergize better with your shuriken cannons' sustained hits rule.

Also, there are tons of units where the special rule feels like someone was meeting a quota. These can probably removed or else ought to be reworked to be more interesting. Sometimes these rules also feel like they should have been baked into another unit. See: any bike character that lets bike units auto-advance 6".

And character buffs that shut off once the squad is dead just feel bizarre more often than not.

Special rules have done a fantastic job of breaking up a lot of 40ks issues with models mostly coming down to point efficiency. Seeing things still see play after taking points hits is a great sign as to how healthy of a design space it can be.

The primary issue right now is that some units just don't have good rules and trying to fix that with points isn't ever going to work. There are units that need to be fixed via a rules update far more than a points cut.

IMO the issue is that so many rules are just flavourless bilge.

When every character and their dog grants either Lethal Hits or Devastating Wounds, we're basically no better than when they all had reroll 1s auras in 8th-9th.

Except that the character rules are now a heap of cow dung.

I like them.

Incentivising "fluffy" target priorities for units is really nice (ie, rules that give bonuses for attacking already damaged units, Monsters/Vehicles, the nearest target, etc), and rules that encourage units to have very different playstyles regarding objectives (Intercessors vs Heavy Intercessors) are very welcome to me.

However, I can very much see the perspective of "why aren't these just USRs". I get that some abilities really ARE fairly unique/faction locked (Necron Warriors, for example), but for the ones that aren't (Sticky Objectives, reroll hits against Monsters/Vehicles, etc), those could be made into USRs.

Also, I do wanna bring up how OP mentioned that Necron Warriors have a useless rule - I fail to see how. It paints a picture of them being this tarpit of damage, self-repairing faster than the units around them, and cements their "intended" role.

I think in the situations where people describe the rule as "it was only added for fill a quota", I think that's perhaps more a case of that the rule just wasn't particularly interesting or engaging, or didn't change anything about how people might think about the unit.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Also, I do wanna bring up how OP mentioned that Necron Warriors have a useless rule - I fail to see how. It paints a picture of them being this tarpit of damage, self-repairing faster than the units around them, and cements their "intended" role.

It's because it has an alarming chance of not being helpful and/or being a bad idea to use.

* If you roll a 1 on RP, obviously you use it, and then it has a 1/3 chance of doing nothing (you roll a second 1.)
* If you roll a 2 on RP, using it means there's a 1/3 chance you actually get a worse result, a 1/3 chance that it functionally does nothing (roll a second 2), and only a 1/3 chance of getting a single extra warrior back.
* If you roll a 3 on RP, obviously you don't use it.

So of the 9 possible outcomes of a rerollable d3, only 3 of them are helpful: rerolling a 1 into a 2 or 3, and rerolling a 2 into a 3.

I get that they wanted to tone down what it was in the index, but they probably should have gone with 2d3 take the highest or something.

EDIT: Breaking that down a bit further, that's...
1/9th of the time it results in -1 recovered wounds.
5/9ths of the time it does nothing.
2/9ths of the time it results in +1 recovered wounds.
1/9th of the time it results in +2 recovered wounds.

So it's only beneficial 1/3rd of the time. And when it is helpful, 2/3rds of the time you're talking about a single extra warrior. The rest of the time, you're talking about 2 extra warriors. Which is nice, but usually a pretty minor benefit.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I like them.

Incentivising "fluffy" target priorities for units is really nice (ie, rules that give bonuses for attacking already damaged units, Monsters/Vehicles, the nearest target, etc), and rules that encourage units to have very different playstyles regarding objectives (Intercessors vs Heavy Intercessors) are very welcome to me.

It depends. Rewarding a hammerhead to shoot its railgun at a vehicle is kind of dumb because it was already going to do that. Shooting the nearest target is a little bit better, but often times you were going to do that anyway. Rewarding shooting units on objectives is maybe a bit better than that but again, shooting the thing scoring points is generally part of the plan going in. So in a lot of cases, these rules aren't really leading to interesting decisions. They're just making you more lethal when you do the thing you were going to do anyway.

I think in the situations where people describe the rule as "it was only added for fill a quota", I think that's perhaps more a case of that the rule just wasn't particularly interesting or engaging, or didn't change anything about how people might think about the unit.

100%. Basically, if the rule isn't interesting or impactful enough to add something to the experience, then why bother making people memorize it? Either remove it and lower the unit's cost, or give them a rule that improves the game experience.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Also, I do wanna bring up how OP mentioned that Necron Warriors have a useless rule - I fail to see how. It paints a picture of them being this tarpit of damage, self-repairing faster than the units around them, and cements their "intended" role.

It's because it has an alarming chance of not being helpful and/or being a bad idea to use.
...
I get that they wanted to tone down what it was in the index, but they probably should have gone with 2d3 take the highest or something.

2d3 take highest would be much nicer, I agree - but it still sets an idea of what the unit's intent is - and, I know it's only a once a game thing, but Overlords make it a bit better too - increased chance of getting 6 Wounds back.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I like them.

Incentivising "fluffy" target priorities for units is really nice (ie, rules that give bonuses for attacking already damaged units, Monsters/Vehicles, the nearest target, etc), and rules that encourage units to have very different playstyles regarding objectives (Intercessors vs Heavy Intercessors) are very welcome to me.

It depends. Rewarding a hammerhead to shoot its railgun at a vehicle is kind of dumb because it was already going to do that. Shooting the nearest target is a little bit better, but often times you were going to do that anyway. Rewarding shooting units on objectives is maybe a bit better than that but again, shooting the thing scoring points is generally part of the plan going in. So in a lot of cases, these rules aren't really leading to interesting decisions. They're just making you more lethal when you do the thing you were going to do anyway.

The reroll vs vehicles has its ups and downs. It pretty clearly acts as a cheat to deal with the game engine's in ability to create reliable, low volume weapons. Theoretically such abilities probably should be on the weapon itself, but there's also value in weapon standardization and legacy options that make it valuable to make a model the preferred platform for a specific weapon.

There's always going to be some dud designs. It just kind of happens and even once exciting designs can often lose their luster as developers improve their craft.

My thoughts

1) I hate when the same ability has different names on different models. Even sometimes within the same battletome (Slaanesh AoS an edition or two ago).
This slows down learning the game because instead of learning a core of abilities you now have ot learn unique ones for every unit. That's a LOT of information to learn just for one army, let alone learning them at least casually for opposing armies or if you run more than one army.

2) When an ability is just a modifier for a basic normal stat the unit has and when there are basically no counters to that ability happening. Eg a +1 save. Many times units get a +1 save through some named ability on their sheet.
It's a waste because you always take it, always use it and its just easier to have that ability as their basic stat instead of a modifier.


In both the above cases this they feel like a GW mandate that "all units must have abilities" and "all abilities must be unique/flavourful" has been imposed upon the rule writers. A policy which clearly can't work and results in the use of terms that actually makes the game experience harder to learn; slower to grasp and doesn't enhance the experience of the game.

By all means have a lore post where you talk about the unique way in which a unit shields itself; that's fantastic flavour. But just give it a single save value and leave it at that, they don't have to highlight it with a unique name and ability script when its just a generic element of the profile.



I love abilities when they feel like they make a unique impact on the game that's functional to the unit. Heck I hate that in current 10th edition the psy phase being taken away means a bunch of models feel less exciting. My Zoanthropes don't feel like a powerful psy toolbox unit because they just have an aura save bonus and psy attack*
However if they got all those abilities back they don't need unique names. I just need to know the information that its got an X inch Invun Save Aura. It's quick to learn, simple to apply, lets you pick another army up faster, conveys all the information easily.


The flavour should come through the lore - which as its published in the same book (codex) means players are already exposed to it.

Leave unique abilities to rare things that make a difference, but which are actually unique


*we shall leave off the fact that in this edition a psy attack feels like it was half developed or had part of its rules cut because right now they do nothing for the attacker; have almost no impact on the opponent and the handful of abilities that do reference them are defensive for the targeted opponent. Ergo being psy is a negative.

Thank you everyone for helping to create a vibrant discussion on the topic of abilities, I think adding where you are coming from is helpful. I rarely play at the moment, 40k has turned into something rather daunting, not being one of the guys in the know about rules, meta and stuff like usual makes it harder because that's where I really like to be. Unique abilities help to make that really difficult, just like the additional and updated Stratagems of 9th did. I like looking for and using combos, which is also why I think it is a shame that so many things are so restrictive and why I liked the Necrons index. I also like balanced games which often comes at odds with my like of combos because those often more or less break the game.

 LunarSol wrote:
The primary issue right now is that some units just don't have good rules and trying to fix that with points isn't ever going to work. There are units that need to be fixed via a rules update far more than a points cut.

Good rules as in rules that make the unit feel diverse from the units it competes with inside the codex, good rules as in rules that make the feeling of using the unit more immersive or good rules as in rules that make the unit more powerful as in worth more points?

Generally rules that make the unit diverse and useful compared to similar units in the codex. Power sometimes matters, but that can also just be a meta issue in some cases.

A big part of GK is having the psychic trait on everything, even things other armies have without such a trait. I would either like to see the trait removed and replaced by special rules, or be given actual synergies to use the traits. Let the units/characters "empower" or do something with the trait, and not just be something that the entire army is buried in, but it only "works" as a buff to anti psyker rules of other armies.

Maybe fewer "once per game" rules?

I’ve already stated that I’m not a fan of 10th, so my thoughts will reflect that.
I don’t like special rules on every unit, especially when they feel so arbitrary. There should be basic units that are your main objective scorers. The “special” part comes from special units that have a role that makes them better than the basic guys. Tone all the superfluous down. A few sprinkled special rules are cool, but on every datasheet is laborious.
I also am not a fan of the character attachment rules. Again, fixed units they can attach to often sucks and then you get stupid interactions, such as when Sammael joins a unit of Ravenwing Black Knights which subsequently now makes them super vulnerable to anti aircraft weapons because the one character is on a Jetbike.
As it stands, I haven’t played a game of 10th since before Xmas.

It seems worth noting that if stats, weapon profiles and USRs aren't sufficient to differentiate units (to the point where every unit needs at least one unique ability to feel meaningfully different), then this would suggest substantial flaws in the core rules.

Perhaps we should look towards addressing this, rather than slapping more rules on every unit?

 vipoid wrote:
It seems worth noting that if stats, weapon profiles and USRs aren't sufficient to differentiate units (to the point where every unit needs at least one unique ability to feel meaningfully different), then this would suggest substantial flaws in the core rules.

Perhaps we should look towards addressing this, rather than slapping more rules on every unit?

That's only really true if you value rules being simple and game mastery not being a pain. How would you include supportive unit rules in the core rules? Like to replace the Triarch Stalker's unique ability and what I suggest Triarch Praetorians ought to have?

 vipoid wrote:
It seems worth noting that if stats, weapon profiles and USRs aren't sufficient to differentiate units (to the point where every unit needs at least one unique ability to feel meaningfully different), then this would suggest substantial flaws in the core rules.

Perhaps we should look towards addressing this, rather than slapping more rules on every unit?

It is not really a core rules problem. It is a rules only for stuff we have models for problem. GW can't come out and say, this is a "scout" marine, this is a "line" marine, this is a "heavy" marine, "assault" etc with Melee/support/range hero options, because it would invalidate the need for existance of a huge chunks of every army line up. And by invalidate I mean, that just looks wouldn't be able to support two or three or four different versions of faction unit X. Why have both scorpions and banshees in elder? Do Karskin and Stormtroopers have to exist in the same codex?

GW games aren't , with very few exeptions (like Ad Mecha), some in depth hard to understand thing. Most problems are delt with spam, most armies are lucky to have one build which is working. There is a ton of illusion units and illusion options (the most for marines, but they exist for all armies), that only exist because it would be hard to explain a codex with 2 HQs and 3-4 units without making it extremly powerful. Special rules, especialy for marines, are the thing that drives the sales and support the model line. The moment a unit lacks proper special rules (DA Companions for example), a marine player can instantly point at a different unit in the same slot with better rules and/or better costs (which would be Blade Guard in the example I listed). GW games are driven by a mix of FOMO and that "maybe X will make my army fun to play".

The primaris for example. An update which at best will be spread over four editions, in a game where a lot of people don't make it past playing two. It should have been a size change. A new type of armour, with some new units/models added. I am not against adding new stuff. But did marine players really need their scout to turn in to 5 different units? Well for the company they clearly did, because that is what they did. And because rules/game play is glued to what models GW sells, we are in a situation that we are now. How many venguard Lts do marines have 3? Why can't it be a unit option? Well because GW wants to sell cards to people and 3 different gear load outs with 3 different special rules sets won't fit on to a normal sized card(or phone screen).

 vipoid wrote:
It seems worth noting that if stats, weapon profiles and USRs aren't sufficient to differentiate units (to the point where every unit needs at least one unique ability to feel meaningfully different), then this would suggest substantial flaws in the core rules.

Perhaps we should look towards addressing this, rather than slapping more rules on every unit?

I partially agree. I think another part of the same problem is the huge number of options available to most armies now. It used to be the case that you had one or two units in a given role in each army, so that role was doing a lot of work in differentiating the units without the need for lots of special rules. Now we have a lot of bloated armies with a ridiculous number of options, many of which have roles that overlap.

I'm not a huge fan of every unit having a special rule and I'm especially not a fan of ones that just outright make units more lethal. You can tell that some abilities are quite thematic - many of the Canoptek units for Necrons, for example - while some exist purely because a unit needed a rule (a lot of the SM vehicles spring to mind here). They also tend to slow the game down a lot, because none of them are USRs, so there's a lot of double-checking when they apply. Then there's the issue where a fairly innocuous rule becomes ludicrously good once you attach a character. CSM Legionaries with Abaddon spring to mind, or the tesla Immortal bomb before GW realised their error and nerfed it.

That said, I think there's an opportunity here. Battleshock is such an anaemic rule right now, I'd like to see it expanded to shut off all army, detachment and datasheet abilities for a unit as well, if failed.

 vipoid wrote:
It seems worth noting that if stats, weapon profiles and USRs aren't sufficient to differentiate units (to the point where every unit needs at least one unique ability to feel meaningfully different), then this would suggest substantial flaws in the core rules.

Perhaps we should look towards addressing this, rather than slapping more rules on every unit?

Meh. A lot of the Unit Special Rules are still Universal Special Rules, they just gave them a fan-service name on each of the datasheets. Superlative Strategist/Rites of Battle/Etc. Path of Command/Master Tactician/etc. Hero of Iyanden/Astartes Banner Objective Secured/Stormblades, Devastating Assault/Purge the Foe. And so on.

I'm a watcher of 10th and not a player.

That said - my perception is that every unit has some sort of sustained/devastating or somin or other.

 vict0988 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
It seems worth noting that if stats, weapon profiles and USRs aren't sufficient to differentiate units (to the point where every unit needs at least one unique ability to feel meaningfully different), then this would suggest substantial flaws in the core rules.

Perhaps we should look towards addressing this, rather than slapping more rules on every unit?

That's only really true if you value rules being simple and game mastery not being a pain. How would you include supportive unit rules in the core rules? Like to replace the Triarch Stalker's unique ability and what I suggest Triarch Praetorians ought to have?

I'm not saying that no unit should ever have a unique ability.

I'm saying that when *every* unit needs a unique ability to feel unique, then this would suggest a fundamental problem with the core game mechanics.

 vipoid wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
It seems worth noting that if stats, weapon profiles and USRs aren't sufficient to differentiate units (to the point where every unit needs at least one unique ability to feel meaningfully different), then this would suggest substantial flaws in the core rules.

Perhaps we should look towards addressing this, rather than slapping more rules on every unit?

That's only really true if you value rules being simple and game mastery not being a pain. How would you include supportive unit rules in the core rules? Like to replace the Triarch Stalker's unique ability and what I suggest Triarch Praetorians ought to have?

I'm not saying that no unit should ever have a unique ability.

I'm saying that when *every* unit needs a unique ability to feel unique, then this would suggest a fundamental problem with the core game mechanics.

As they say "When everyone is super, no one will be" It's no longer a special ability, or "special rule" if everyone has one.

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:

As they say "When everyone is super, no one will be" It's no longer a special ability, or "special rule" if everyone has one.

Having a special rule isn't special, but the rule that you have might be. There are three characters on the Sisters of Battle list that have abilities that affect AoF, all three of them are unique, and pretty fluffy and cool.

As others have pointed out though, cool rules like that aren't necessarily the norm- there is a lot of overlap and repetition. While the three rules I mentioned above feel very special, I don't think anyone's ability to reroll 1's on a shooting attack, or on a melee attack feels very special- that's a pretty common ability.

I think you can compare GW's style of special rules to Magic the Gathering's style of special rules.

In MTG many creature cards will have an ability or combination of them. However many might not have any ability at all and just run on their basic stats.

In the case of magic its not having an ability, its the sum total of all the cards parts and how it interacts with the rest of the deck that makes it important. Some cards have almost nothing in abilities or special rules or anything - they don't do anything magical. But they might have decent stats for a very low mana cost which makes them work in combos with other things.

Furthermore MTG uses universal terms. If a card does X then tis called X.



In Warhammer games instead what we see is GW focusing on the idea that its not the combination of units that's important, but that each individual unit can only be special with an ability.
That in itself isn't bad, but it is when they don't actually have unique abilities. Many might share the same ability, but GW doesn't call it by a single name, but a unique one each time.

In addition some aren't really abilities, they are just modifiers to their core stats which most of the time don't even count as a modifier - they are just the core stats but broken into two steps.





The result is the GW approach feels messy. It feels like a managers directive that doesn't work being made to work by twisting things into abilities when they aren't; then creating "unique names" (not abilities) to further stretch out the 'unique'.




The result is one game has easy to learn rules, but trickier to master combos; the other has much more convoluted rules to learn and less reliance on combos.

NOTE I should say that MTG style combos are not what I mean wargames should have. I'm simply drawing a comparison between two extremely different approaches to a similar system.