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 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
A fictional universe doesn't need real world logic. But it needs in universe logic and coherency to be believable and immersive. I think that's what Toussaint actually said.

This is correct. The Rhino was just one example of many. In the real world, vehicle crews take two or three times as long to train as infantry. Not only is there nothing remotely close to this, it's hard to imagine a geneseed-limited people like Marines decided to embrace the kamikaze vehicle lifestyle just to win a game of tabletop position.

Question: What's the best anti-armor weapon in the game?

Answer: Depends on the edition.

QED. There should be some baseline consistency to the fluff and therefore the system.

Heck, a fighter in D&D is still a fighter. The hit dice may have changed since the boxed sets of the 70s, but if you've taken a 40-year break, it's still recognizable. With 40k, I have no idea what the heck is going on. Partly that's GW's fanatical IP weirdness to protect their ludicrously overpriced models, but it's also because the same weapons, troops and vehicles function in wildly different ways.

It's like in 3rd when Hellhounds became fast attack.

What nonsense was this??? Flamethrowers are static weapons - you certainly can't expect them to project forward when you're driving at full speed. And of course we all know that flamethrowers are also the premiere anti-aircraft weapon out there.

Individual examples aside, it's also problematic for a miniatures-based wargame when units significantly change their capabilities.

Suddenly your army of cohesive, mutually-supporting units is an incoherent mess of irrelevant abilities, and your options are to either rework it to fit what the units actually do now, or soldier on with an army that doesn't make sense anymore.

 catbarf wrote:
Individual examples aside, it's also problematic for a miniatures-based wargame when units significantly change their capabilities.

Suddenly your army of cohesive, mutually-supporting units is an incoherent mess of irrelevant abilities, and your options are to either rework it to fit what the units actually do now, or soldier on with an army that doesn't make sense anymore.

^Unfortunately it appears that this is by design. Churn for the churn god, and all.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


I'm sorry for the choice of word there, I'm just baffled by the way you do things. You say you're 100% dedicated to your stories but then you routinely talk about limitations and obstacles that only exist in a matched play context where the story must be sacrificed to fit the constraints of a balanced pickup game against a random opponent at your local store/club.

Working within those limitation is part of the fun for us, because it's an an external force that contributes to the shape the story takes. It's like writing a sonnet with all its imposed stucture in both rhyme and meter, rather than writing everything in free verse. It is part of the art form.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

And you hype up Crusade despite all the places where it shamelessly sacrifices lore accuracy and narrative play for the sake of matched play needs. I just don't get it. I'd assumed you had no experience with narrative gaming outside of modern 40k and so even a feeble attempt at a narrative format like Crusade is better than nothing but IIRC that isn't true, you've played lots of games outside of modern 40k?

But you ignore all the place where Crusade contributes to lore accuracy- like the structure it provides for shadow wars in Commorragh, or the growth of a Cult, or the rites of Penance and Sainthood. Compared to that enhancement, any lore violations of lore that you might see feel relatively minor to our play group- and those that do exist (limited load outs) are products of the datacard, which is not an exclusively Crusade issue- it's one that exists in all three ways to play. So for us, Crusade is a way to bring the game CLOSER to the lore, not further from it.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

But in an RPG (or a wargame played as an RPG) changing the rules is standard practice and it's taken for granted that every group is going to change stuff. The fact that something is in the printed rules is meaningless, any and all rules can be changed on a whim if someone feels an alternative would be better.

It's a given that the rules CAN be changed if needed, but I wouldn't call it standard practice. In most cases, the rules will be fine as is. Some games, especially DnD, provide multiple sets of rules to give players a selection to choose from. As an example, several editions have allowed for both random stat generation via dice or a point-based stat generation system.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

This is why I say you're using a matched play/tournament mindset. This isn't the first time you've brought up a case of the printed rules creating a constraint on your game but felt compelled to play by those printed rules. Remember the points vs. PL thread and your DE force where you had to go through a bunch of list revisions to make everything fit instead of just playing a 525 point army in a 500 point game? That's a textbook example of the matched play mindset, to the point that you'd rather use a point system with clear errors as long as it tells you that your 525 point army is really 500 points so you can play at the standard 500 point total the rules expect.

I remember the thread well. It was the one where you kept saying "Give me a reason why you do this" and I'd give you a reason or two, and you'd say "But none of those are reasons" and then I'd explain why they were reasons, which you would mostly selectively ignore, and say "But you still haven't given me a reason." So I'd give you more reasons, and the whole process would repeat. I'm not going to revisit those arguments, because you didn't listen to them then and you won't now either. And the rest of us have moved on.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

So a named Imperial Guard sergeant is a legendary equivalent while a space marine chapter master with literal centuries of experience is a "relatively green unit" suitable for only basic rank until he fights a couple skirmishes? It's appropriate that only the sergeant can have artifact-level gear despite the clear fluff precedent that even the most junior chapter master has full access to the chapter's armory and routinely goes into battle with the best artifact equipment the Imperium can provide? The chapter master needs to demonstrate his value in a couple minor skirmishes before he can trade his generic power sword for the chapter's sacred relic, even though as a highly experienced captain he would have been entitled to have the relic sword?

The Chapter Master isn't a green Marine; he's a green CHAPTER MASTER. In the fist battle you fight with him, he has very little experience with the responsibilities that only a Chapter Master has- he's never been the guy who decides which companies fight where for example. He's never been the guy that other Imperial forces talk to when they want the chapter to support their war effort. And if you want to reflect him learning about how to do those things, then yes, you leave room for him to grow.

Your other option (still perfectly rules legal) is to grow him from Captain, and take the Chapter Master upgrade once he hits legendary, in which case there is no room to grow once he gets the title, but you understand the growth it took to get there. It allows him to fight with the relic sword in his very first fight as a Chapter Master.

A third option is to give him the upgrade at Heroic, so that you get some growth on both sides of the title. This would actually be my preferred solution- it's the thing that feels fluffiest. This way he does get to take the Relic with him on his very first fight as a Chapter Master, but he also gets to learn one Battle Honour as a Chapter Master.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

It makes sense from a mechanical perspective in a matched play context where balance is essential and stacking up Crusade upgrades onto a unit that already has multiple special rules has a high chance of creating something overpowered. It doesn't make much sense from a mechanical perspective in a narrative context where a unit being overpowered is not an issue if that outcome fits the story.

Overpowered units have an impact on the story as well as balance. When one unit is the best tool for any job, it does limit the narrative potential for other units to out-perform expectations, because your tempted from both a mechanical AND a narrative perspective to just send the hero. When that unit is more reasonably powered, it creates a narrative case for letting other units help to carry the load.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

And it certainly doesn't make any sense from a fluff point of view since it presents the absurd suggestion that a highly experienced squad of grots (which has died so many times that none of the original members remain) is somehow higher ranked than a space marine chapter master with zero Crusade XP.

It's been clearly explained in multiple rules sources that being removed from the table does not mean the model is dead, only that is no longer combat effective. Now if I was an Ork player, any time a unit of Grots was wiped out, I would actually remove them from my roster and replace them with an identical green unit to represent the fact that yes, they did indeed die. And this is also a perfectly legal way to tell the story the way you think it should be told without any extra effort or house rules.

As for the other piece comparing Grots to Chapter Master, don't confuse rank with experience. As explained above, it's rules legal to earn titles at multiple points in the experience spectrum, and that empowers the player to tell the story they want to tell. In addition, 10th actually created a cool innovation, in that non-character units cap out at battle-hardened until you choose to spend RP if you want the unit to reach Heroic or Legendary... And again, if I was an Ork player, I'd choose to never spend that RP because it feels fluffier to me personally to cap grots at Battle-hardened.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

And, more importantly to my immediate point, it creates constraints on your story. You mentioned how the inability to advance in Crusade ranks forces the named characters to be transient participants in your story. Want them to have a bigger role? Too bad, the system doesn't want you to do that because it would be bad for matched play balance.

And again, many narrative gamers don't see these things as limitations; we see them as a part of the artform that is narrative gaming. If we didn't want limitations to help shape our stories, we wouldn't be gaming- we'd just sit down at a word processor and bang out a short story, a novel, a play, an epic poem, a screen play or whatever.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

c) Emphasis on standardization and what is "official".

Well, I can't deny that this absolutely is a part of the tournament mindset, it's not RESTRICTED to the tournament play mindset, which is why I didn't include it.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

You may not be making decisions based on competitive optimization but you absolutely demonstrate the rigid adherence to the official rules and treat them as laws that must not be broken, not merely guidelines and suggestions as they are in a narrative game.

I break rules when I need to, I just try to avoid it because it's usually an unnecessary hassle, just like I can sometimes get away with using a pair of pliers to a wrench's job if I have to, but I'll always use the wrench if I've got one handy. A good example is that some factions have promotion mechanics and others don't; it's easy enough to just duplicate the promotion mechanic from one faction for a faction that doesn't have one; we do this all the time.

 catbarf wrote:
Individual examples aside, it's also problematic for a miniatures-based wargame when units significantly change their capabilities.

Suddenly your army of cohesive, mutually-supporting units is an incoherent mess of irrelevant abilities, and your options are to either rework it to fit what the units actually do now, or soldier on with an army that doesn't make sense anymore.

"Sorry, your dedicated anti-armor units are now anti-personnel. Your anti-personnel units are now ineffective. Happily, we have new units who can remedy these deliberate holes we blasted in your miniatures collection."

I had some hope that 4th edition would try to rectify the problems of 3rd, but I didn't care to stick around. When I decided to get back into 2nd, 5th came out, and I knew I had gotten off the carousel at the right time.

I mean, who here can't wait for XI Edition in 2026? Can we pre-order the new models yet?

I think people have the wrong idea about edition churn.

It's pretty obvious that well balanced game rules are achievable - see every other non gw game..., and GW has the resources and size to do that if they wish.

edition churn is a feature. It's part of their advertising and hype strategy. It creates a perpetual excitement train for its audience, until they burn out and calcify on their favourite version.

But by then the corporate excitement train has swept up more bright eyed people so the churn continues.

I don't really see the point in arguing over it, GW will deliberately do it for as long as it pays.

But you can do new editions that invigorate the brand without the need for wide sweeping changes to the core rules.

 catbarf wrote:
Suddenly your army of cohesive, mutually-supporting units is an incoherent mess of irrelevant abilities, and your options are to either rework it to fit what the units actually do now, or soldier on with an army that doesn't make sense anymore.

That is incredibly unfair to GW. You've completely left out an important kind of change: when your units/models are invalidated because they no longer exist at all in the rules. How could you omit GW's generosity in giving you new opportunities to buy more GW products to replace them?

Well, as long as people scream "No!" on the forums but vote "Yes!" with their wallets it means it's a successful, appropriate business model.

 Hellebore wrote:
It creates a perpetual excitement train for its audience, until they burn out and calcify on their favourite version.

Good use of the word calcify

I'd be interested to know how many people do this.

Since I came back to the hobby I've played 8th, 9th and 10th. I sold all my 8th edition rulebooks, but for some reason kept my 9th edition books, despite now having the 10th edition BRB and Index Cards for all my armies. I suspect I will sell them once I have codexes, but if I do ever 'calcify' it'll be on whatever the latest edition is at that time.

Do people hold on to the rules for previous editions?

I still have my 2nd Ed books. I like having the books.

Cyel wrote:
Well, as long as people scream "No!" on the forums but vote "Yes!" with their wallets it means it's a successful, appropriate business model.

That's not what that means at all, as that line of argument assumes that they are achieving the best possible result with the current model, and that no other model is capable of yielding better results.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But you can do new editions that invigorate the brand without the need for wide sweeping changes to the core rules.

Sure can. GW though doesn't do any advertising so the full immersion ecosystem they sell uses big changes as focal engagement amongst customers.

They have become pretty good at being their own propaganda machine, moving deck chairs and using excitement itself to generate excitement.

It's quite amazing how effective their methods are given what little they are working with. But once people get into the GW hypetrain it becomes self fulfilling.

 Hellebore wrote:
I think people have the wrong idea about edition churn.

It's pretty obvious that well balanced game rules are achievable - see every other non gw game..., and GW has the resources and size to do that if they wish.

edition churn is a feature. It's part of their advertising and hype strategy. It creates a perpetual excitement train for its audience, until they burn out and calcify on their favourite version.

But by then the corporate excitement train has swept up more bright eyed people so the churn continues.

I don't really see the point in arguing over it, GW will deliberately do it for as long as it pays.

This is the most obvious example I have ever seen of why this forum needs a visible like button function.

Yea Hellebore pretty much nailed it

Rules churn breaking your army is an enormous problem I think and it's true we have less stated it outright.

Because re-buying a new army or be made to leave units aside or play an ineffective list because balance has changed is unfulfilling.

And I don't want to have to sell the minis I carefully painted and assembled because unfortunately they aren't part of the game any more...

Big reason why I instantly calcified on the edition I started with, even though I am well aware that it is by far not the best the game ever had. Still, I think of changing edition at one point by jumping backward onto prior to 6th edition. With all books being more or less compatible anyway.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But you can do new editions that invigorate the brand without the need for wide sweeping changes to the core rules.

How so? It's not very invigorating to print a new edition that includes errata from the last 3 years, super conservative changes to the three most hated things and nothing else.

I'd prefer it by far.

Again, if you want to expand - give out an optional expansions for people to go crazy with. Warlord games has been doing it for something like 6 or 7 years, with a setting that is a lot less wide, in BA. And they're not nearly dying as far as I know - they even released new french plastic minis that I had to fight hard to refrain from hype buying


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hellebore wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But you can do new editions that invigorate the brand without the need for wide sweeping changes to the core rules.

Sure can. GW though doesn't do any advertising so the full immersion ecosystem they sell uses big changes as focal engagement amongst customers.

They have become pretty good at being their own propaganda machine, moving deck chairs and using excitement itself to generate excitement.

It's quite amazing how effective their methods are given what little they are working with. But once people get into the GW hypetrain it becomes self fulfilling.

Exalted btw because that was spot on.

 dreadblade wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
It creates a perpetual excitement train for its audience, until they burn out and calcify on their favourite version.

Good use of the word calcify

I'd be interested to know how many people do this.

Since I came back to the hobby I've played 8th, 9th and 10th. I sold all my 8th edition rulebooks, but for some reason kept my 9th edition books, despite now having the 10th edition BRB and Index Cards for all my armies. I suspect I will sell them once I have codexes, but if I do ever 'calcify' it'll be on whatever the latest edition is at that time.

Do people hold on to the rules for previous editions?

More than you would imagine. both myself and mezmorki have huge topics on dakka about playing older editions- his is centered around 7th, mine around 5th. our group has been at it since 8th ed turned us off the GW hype train and we have only added more new players. the good thing for both of us is that 3rd through 7th ed rules and codexes are very cross compatible with only a few minor tweaks to keep it all sane. i know there is also large communities for WHFB 6th or 8th ed, BFG, 2nd ed, and epic.

 vict0988 wrote:
How so? It's not very invigorating to print a new edition that includes errata from the last 3 years, super conservative changes to the three most hated things and nothing else.

A new edition is exactly the place to include the errata from the last 3 years and fix anything that was legitimately broken. It would be better to 'invigorate' the system with new content than to take the game people are currently enjoying and replace it with a different one.

If GW had released the 10th edition starter set with the same miniatures but a rulebook that was just a clean up of the previous version, it would have still sold and they would have kept those customers who enjoyed the last edition and aren't interested in learning to play another one. Every time they make sweeping changes to the game, they risk alienating a portion of their customer base.

The fact that they do it anyway, and it keeps working for them, is insane... but they do it because it's what they think will make the most money, not because it's best for the players.

 insaniak wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
How so? It's not very invigorating to print a new edition that includes errata from the last 3 years, super conservative changes to the three most hated things and nothing else.

A new edition is exactly the place to include the errata from the last 3 years and fix anything that was legitimately broken. It would be better to 'invigorate' the system with new content than to take the game people are currently enjoying and replace it with a different one.

If GW had released the 10th edition starter set with the same miniatures but a rulebook that was just a clean up of the previous version, it would have still sold and they would have kept those customers who enjoyed the last edition and aren't interested in learning to play another one. Every time they make sweeping changes to the game, they risk alienating a portion of their customer base.

The fact that they do it anyway, and it keeps working for them, is insane... but they do it because it's what they think will make the most money, not because it's best for the players.

I'd argue that by the end of 8th and 9th I aren't sure there was a consensus it was enjoyed. The noise on here and Reddit etc. certainly suggested the opposite.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
Suddenly your army of cohesive, mutually-supporting units is an incoherent mess of irrelevant abilities, and your options are to either rework it to fit what the units actually do now, or soldier on with an army that doesn't make sense anymore.

That is incredibly unfair to GW. You've completely left out an important kind of change: when your units/models are invalidated because they no longer exist at all in the rules. How could you omit GW's generosity in giving you new opportunities to buy more GW products to replace them?

The ammount of NaCl i could spare you would make the fast food industry blush.

I think two different things are going on here, so I'm harkening back to a quote from the first page of the thread.

 kodos wrote:

people get what they ask for, but they forget that they already asked for those things and don't understand that for a different outcome they need to ask for different things

Feedback is hard. Receiving and implementing feedback is harder. Implementing feedback that is not particularly specific is hardest. I'm not in a position to know what kind of rules feedback GW receives and how it processes it. I do wonder if it is often too general, and then, when GW changes something, we say, "No! Not like that!"

Certainly some feedback on forums like Dakka is very finely tuned (or at least very specific with detailed alternatives). Some of you have even gone so far as to pen your own new or modified rule sets. But don't forget how rare you are. You are not the typical customer. You live and breathe this stuff. If GW is receiving a lot of feedback, and your well tuned feedback is a needle in a haystack of "this sucks; please change," then it may not be getting through.

 Hellebore wrote:
I think people have the wrong idea about edition churn.

edition churn is a feature.

This can't be overstated enough. Even if GW is very attuned to feedback, if it's all going to get tossed into a rules grab bag every few years, then how effective is feedback at all?

 Fugazi wrote:
This can't be overstated enough. Even if GW is very attuned to feedback, if it's all going to get tossed into a rules grab bag every few years, then how effective is feedback at all?

If the evolution was completely random then sure. But I think most editions have shown a clear attempt by GW to "solve" perceived issues of the existing editions.
11th will likely "solve" issues GW perceive in the game over the course of next year. Even if that's initially a mess, because some of those issues have been solved by FAQs, supplements etc.

 Fugazi wrote:

Feedback is hard. Receiving and implementing feedback is harder. Implementing feedback that is not particularly specific is hardest. I'm not in a position to know what kind of rules feedback GW receives and how it processes it. I do wonder if it is often too general, and then, when GW changes something, we say, "No! Not like that!"

Certainly some feedback on forums like Dakka is very finely tuned (or at least very specific with detailed alternatives). Some of you have even gone so far as to pen your own new or modified rule sets. But don't forget how rare you are. You are not the typical customer. You live and breathe this stuff. If GW is receiving a lot of feedback, and your well tuned feedback is a needle in a haystack of "this sucks; please change," then it may not be getting through.

So one of my hobbies is writing. I wouldn’t credit myself as being very good, but I do have several traditionally published stories (meaning someone paid me to have publishing rights).

This is relevant because the biggest part of writing is revision and the most useful tool for that is learning how to interpret feedback. Without getting too into the weeds, there’s a fairly catch-all way to view feedback;

When a reader tells you something isn’t working, they’re right. When a reader tells you why something isn’t working, they’re wrong.

Now this is a gross simplification but, as stated, not getting too into the weeds. And while wargame design isn’t writing, the analysis process is similar. The 10th edition damage shift is a great example; lethality was ABSOLUTELY too high for 8th and 9th. But everyone had different thoughts on what it was that made the damage to high, be it increasing shots / making so effect everything / lack of meaningful terrain / lack of effective abilities to mitigate damage, so on and so forth. And in turn GW reduced damage by tweaking EVERY SINGLE LEVER which effected it. Their listening to what people said was broken was good, their attempt to fix every single issue anyone brought up for why it was broken was bad. And as such has thrown the game into a bizarre state where many armies struggle to participate and some lack any tools to tackle more than heavy infantry. Creating a problem just as bad because of a lack of accountable analysts.

And this is absolutely a curated issue. Because GW has the resources to identify and fix these problems effective. They just do not want to.

 morganfreeman wrote:

When a reader tells you something isn’t working, they’re right. When a reader tells you why something isn't working, they're wrong.

^Haha. That's definitely a quote that rings true from my game developer experience.

That and I'll reinforce the earlier statement about the difficulties of interpreting feedback . . . especially by upper management types that aren't really invested in playing the game, but also by basically everybody who is victim to their own confirmation biasis bubbles. It's a hefty minefield to navigate.

 morganfreeman wrote:
. And as such has thrown the game into a bizarre state where many armies struggle to participate and some lack any tools to tackle more than heavy infantry. Creating a problem just as bad because of a lack of accountable analysts.

To be fair, that's not a 10th issue. Just a perennial issue that keeps slipping through GW's design process. For whatever reason, everyone having a full toolkit just doesn't occur to them.


Orks and tyranids had long stretches of no good AT. Ork especially were capped at S8 or else punching with power fists/klaws for several editions.

Voss wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:
. And as such has thrown the game into a bizarre state where many armies struggle to participate and some lack any tools to tackle more than heavy infantry. Creating a problem just as bad because of a lack of accountable analysts.

To be fair, that's not a 10th issue. Just a perennial issue that keeps slipping through GW's design process. For whatever reason, everyone having a full toolkit just doesn't occur to them.


Orks and tyranids had long stretches of no good AT. Ork especially were capped at S8 or else punching with power fists/klaws for several editions.

I will never get over the 6e Tyrannofex and his Rupture Cannon. Fluffed as popping holes in Baneblades. A mighty S10... and AP4. Rage-inducing.

morganfreeman wrote:When a reader tells you something isn’t working, they’re right. When a reader tells you why something isn’t working, they’re wrong.

Insectum7 wrote:^Haha. That's definitely a quote that rings true from my game developer experience.

Absolutely spot-on for any form of product design. It's a fundamental principle of UX that you don't do what the user tells you; you listen to their problems, you ascertain what their desired end state is, and then you do the design work to figure out how to best get them to that end state.

Designers should not be looking for suggestions from the peanut gallery and then directly implementing them. They should be collecting feedback to figure out where the perceived problems are, and then designing a holistic solution to address them.

Insectum7 wrote:especially by upper management types that aren't really invested in playing the game

I'd also add on that having upper management that doesn't trust your designers makes handling this situation very difficult, because there is enormous pressure to give the users exactly what they are asking for. Ideally you perform A/B testing to assess the user-proposed changes against your own concepts, and draw both qualitative and quantitative data to demonstrate that your change is better even if it's not what the user requested, rather than having to essentially say 'trust me bro'.

In an austere development environment, you may not have the time and manpower to do that, and if you don't have a background in user research, you might have the methodology either.

But whatever the problem is with GW's process, it's not that the players are asking for the wrong things.

 Fugazi wrote:

Feedback is hard. Receiving and implementing feedback is harder. Implementing feedback that is not particularly specific is hardest. I'm not in a position to know what kind of rules feedback GW receives and how it processes it. I do wonder if it is often too general, and then, when GW changes something, we say, "No! Not like that!"

Certainly some feedback on forums like Dakka is very finely tuned (or at least very specific with detailed alternatives). Some of you have even gone so far as to pen your own new or modified rule sets. But don't forget how rare you are. You are not the typical customer. You live and breathe this stuff. If GW is receiving a lot of feedback, and your well tuned feedback is a needle in a haystack of "this sucks; please change," then it may not be getting through.

It isn't hard. GW just doesn't care what people outside of the studio may want or how they play the game. How many editions back to back does GW have to find out that LoS ingoring shoting in a game about shoting is a BAD idea? How many time does GW have to learn that in a game where they have dice rolling as a supposed balancing/luck factor, having rules that circumvent that, breaks the game? How many time do they have to let people do pet projects, when other armies have rules done to "get by". Those aren't new things. People have been telling GW what about those things is bad, for at least 3 editions, and probably much longer. The speed at which GW functions is mind blowing slow, and I am taking in to account the want to make money over everything else etc. It took took them the whole 9th ed, to "find out" that some secondaries let armie double dip. And that maybe this was a bad thing. They had miracle dice for eldar in 9th, they were broken, they nerfed/fixed them and then for 10th the dude who writes the eldar rules, wrote them back in the way they break every mechanic of the game. Entire armies have their DevW weapons and units nerfed, because people/person writing the eldar rules couldn't be forced to do "6 from miracles don't count for leathel. DevW etc. In 8th it took marine player over 2 years to "explain" to GW that the way they wrote the marine rules is not just not fun to play, but also makes them buy fewer models. GW fixed the problem, and then reverted it for 9th. And the way the sm codex looks like it stays reverted for 10th too.

How many turns did/does one have to play, in 10th, vs pre nerf knights or an eldar WK with old overwatch to know what people mean by it being unfun? I think you know it after one turn one. Does GW think that people surely wouldn't use unfun mechanics GW wrote against their opponents? Armies that don't work, 9th knights that couldn't core in an edition about scoring, slow armies with no movment tricks in a world of core rules that asks for armies to be fast, how much testing is needed to find out those things? Make an edition about use of vehicles, make vehicles tougher and the release factions that can't deal with vehicles? Within a rule set that GW is writing? I get that GW wants people to play more then one army, or buy new things. But no other game is so bad, that you can practicaly throw out your army between one edition and another, bar maybe having an eldar army..

And the typical GW customer, yeah he doesn't hang around forums, reddit etc He joins, maybe get a few months of fun, and then he quits. He sees no churn, GW doesn't have to care about his problems with transition from one edition to the other, because the typical w40k player is gone. And that is the lucky guy, because there are also dudes who spend 700-1000$ on an army, it is never fun and then they get to quit. Bonus points he probably can't even properly resell the army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

When a reader tells you something isn’t working, they’re right. When a reader tells you why something isn't working, they're wrong.

^Haha. That's definitely a quote that rings true from my game developer experience.

That and I'll reinforce the earlier statement about the difficulties of interpreting feedback . . . especially by upper management types that aren't really invested in playing the game, but also by basically everybody who is victim to their own confirmation biasis bubbles. It's a hefty minefield to navigate.

But how much feed back do they need. Each time an eldar codex comes out, it tables or cripples half, or so, of existing armies turn 1. That is like a program crashing on every machine bar the newest Apple. And GW fixes are even worse. They know what the problems are, not the DevWounds core mechanics, not the overwatch mechanic, not even something like the WK rules. The problem is with the eldar miracle dice rule. But they won't change that, for some reason. Which would maybe not be okey, but something to get use to, if all armies were treated the same way. But no, somehow, GW can't fix the eldar rules, practicaly every edition I have seen, but removing an army rule from Custodes, was no problem. Nerfing the living hell out of DW, as if they were a 70% win rate army? Easy peasy. GK players ask for their hammers back, something EVERY other marine army has, something that is in EVERY GK box GW produces, nope can't give new weapon load outs even if the models exist. But when the eldar autarch had weapon load outs not covered, that had existing models, GW did add them to the game. There was no problem with that or the need to way 1-2 years for a fix.

Dudeface wrote:
I'd argue that by the end of 8th and 9th I aren't sure there was a consensus it was enjoyed. The noise on here and Reddit etc. certainly suggested the opposite.

Well, yes, but ideally 8th and 9th would have been very different games to begin with, since every edition after 3rd would have been a refinement rather than making sweeping changes.