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So with rumors of 7th edition circulating, there's a lot of talk about what a new edition might or might not do. As a purely academic exercise (because I seriously doubt GW reads these threads or even cares), I started wondering if it would be possible to create some sort of "balance" simply by changing some of the core rules in the BRB, and not having to work codex by codex. While I don't think you could completely balance the game, I do think that some things could be fixed. So, feel free to post your suggestions, I'm curious.

Here are some of my thoughts:
1. Buff assault. Either making charge range longer (on average) with a 6+d6 or similar mod, or simply allowing charges after running would fix the one of the main weaknesses of assault armies this edition, which is getting to assault in the first place. This would make a whole set of lists much more competitive (at the expense of others, however).

2. Nerf "Ignores Cover". One of the issues with the current Tau and Eldar armies is their ability to negate the cover that many weaker armies use to survive. Changing it to a -2 modifier, etc would help some armies with their survivability. That said, a new category would probably need to be created for template weapons.

3. Allies chart. Selectively removing some alliances would help curb a few power lists. Furthermore, they could only be an option at >2k games, so they can be more adequately countered by double force org. I also like a suggestion I saw awhile ago, to limit you to one "extra" slot: a lord of war, a fortification, or an allied detachment.

4. Changing LOS rules. Being able to only see into terrain, rather than through would once again help some armies survive a lot better.

What do you all think? What core rules could be changed to enable more armies to compete?

Balance would only come from a re-hauled (ground up, not changes and tweaks) core rule book that was tested in conjunction with all the codices, to be released at the same time.

Doing that would allow a test team to see how each faction interacts with the current edition and how the balance levels compare immediately to reduce things like power creep and silly external balance. It would also alleviate some of the internal balance issues each codex inevitably has.

So no, doing minor things like 'nerfing ignore cover' or 'buffing assault' wouldn't balance the game any more than bumping the Vendetta's price to 165pts.

There's too much in the way of awful external and internal balance among the codices and bloat in the core book.

There's honestly no way to make a balanced game when you've got army books spanning two or three different revisions of the rules running about.

 greyknight12 wrote:
So with rumors of 7th edition circulating, there's a lot of talk about what a new edition might or might not do. As a purely academic exercise (because I seriously doubt GW reads these threads or even cares), I started wondering if it would be possible to create some sort of "balance" simply by changing some of the core rules in the BRB, and not having to work codex by codex. While I don't think you could completely balance the game, I do think that some things could be fixed. So, feel free to post your suggestions, I'm curious.

Here are some of my thoughts:
1. Buff assault. Either making charge range longer (on average) with a 6+d6 or similar mod, or simply allowing charges after running would fix the one of the main weaknesses of assault armies this edition, which is getting to assault in the first place. This would make a whole set of lists much more competitive (at the expense of others, however).

Charges are already longer than in 5th edition on average. The problem does not lies in charge distance (or to a lesser degree) but rather in its randomness. Rolling a single die would not help, more dice are better. Second problem is the firepower creep itself, so codex have to be fixed, not rulebook.

2. Nerf Ignores Cover. One of the issues with the current Tau and Eldar armies is their ability to negate the cover that many weaker armies use to survive. Changing it to a -2 modifier, etc would help some armies with their survivability. That said, a new category would probably need to be created for template weapons.

Back in 4th and 5th edition, ignoring cover was not a problem. It was on a few weapons, mostly with restricted range (hull flamers, infantry flamers, a few blasts here or there) and limited armour penetration (AP 5-4) and reasonable strength. No such things like helldrake, Wave Serpent pseudo-autocannon, or ignoring cover for whatever Tau player wants, with only 2 markerlights, or seeker missiles ignoring everything. Switching the "ignore" to -2 TSM would help a bit, just a bit... How of a help is a 6+ cover, when it is all you have left ? The issue is in the recent codices.

3. Allies chart. Selectively removing some alliances would help curb a few power lists. Furthermore, they could only be an option at >2k games, so they can be more adequately countered by double force org. I also like a suggestion I saw awhile ago, to limit you to one "extra" slot: a lord of war, a fortification, or an allied detachment.

Allies chart is not bad (Sisters should have more battle brothers though). The silliness is their inclusion in tournaments. WH40k is not meant by their designers to be a tournament game. Allies are a clear illustration of abusing a cool rule meant for beer and bretzels play. No allies = no cross-codex silly combos = more actual tactics.

4. Changing LOS rules. Being able to only see into terrain, rather than through would once again help some armies survive a lot better.

What you want is a return of 4th edition area terrain rules. They were terrible : XV8 Crisis teams hiding in plain sight behind a slim "forest" of a couple trees, jumping back and forth firing at you until you got mad. No thanks.
The answer is more terrain, bigger areas, and get some LOS blocking pieces. V6 cover rules are the best and cleanest we have ever had. Once again, if there is too much powerful "ignore cover" / no LOS required weapons, terrain will not save you. If most of the map becomes "invisible" due to an awkward rule stipulating line of sight are blocked behind area terrain, the game will feel very artificial.


So in general, apart from a moderate nerf to assault in general, the main issues come from the codices, not from the ruleset, IMHO.

What do you all think?

I think you read my damn mind mate.

Run + Assault and Consolidate into assault would go a loooong way to balancing assault vs shooty.

No double standards - shoot and assault should be similarly allowed, penalized, or disallowed from deep strike or outflank or infiltration.

Ignores Cover, as well as barrage IMO, are terrible rules that suck tactics out of the game. Ditto on the servo skulls as another similar element.

Allies chart balanced or removed entirely. Allies use up force org slots, or everybody can ally with everybody else or with comparable amounts of other factions. Battle brothers can suck a D weapon.

I already use those LoS rules, they are absolutely fantastic.

Doing that won't magically balance the game, but its a gigantic step in the right direction.

They were terrible : XV8 Crisis teams hiding in plain sight behind a slim "forest" of a couple trees, jumping back and forth firing at you until you got mad. No thanks.

Its a game of toy soldiers, use your imagination! When the alternative is "I can see your toe through a tiny gap in those trees, time to die" I think this is the better way to go about it

I never really understood no assault from cover or vehicle exit to be honest.

I mean from a fluff POV are GW telling me a soldier can run out of a transport onto a noisy crowded battlefield, and then has his head screwed on enough to instantly take up a firing position, assign a target and open fire but he doesn't have the ability to run out and into close combat with an enemy? It makes little to no sense to me.

Take into account assault style troops, their entire skill set is based around getting close and using them, not taking up a cover spot and using their pistols.

Edited due to lack of sleep stupidity!

 throwoff wrote:
I never really understood no assault from cover or vehicle exit to be honest.

I mean from a fluff POV are GW telling me a soldier can run out of a transport onto a noisy crowded battlefield, and then has his head screwed on enough to instantly take up a firing position, assign a target and open fire but he doesn't have the ability to run out and into close combat with an enemy? It makes little to no sense to me.

Take into account assault style troops like Scouts with knives in a Land Speeder Storm, their entire skill set is based around getting close and using them, not taking up a cover spot and using their pistols.

Land Speeder Storms are open-topped so they can infact jump out and assault from them. Just thought you'd want to know.

As long as GW clings to the codex/army book model, their games will always inherently be unbalanced. The lack of playtesting excused by "hey, it's not meant to be played competitively" is an atrocious policy for a game company to have. They need to be a game company first and a model company second for them to produce a decent game, and unless they change ownership I don't think that's going to ever happen.

 SRSFACE wrote:

Land Speeder Storms are open-topped so they can infact jump out and assault from them. Just thought you'd want to know.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
There's honestly no way to make a balanced game when you've got army books spanning two or three different revisions of the rules running about.

Right, but if you hypothetically wanted to try, could you get close? My intent is more to see if there are underlying USRs and mechanics that could be revised to somewhat even the playing field between the current factions in the game if you made specific changes with that as the goal. The challenge in such a scenario would be not taking changes too far and creating a new easy win button. An example of this kind of change was the AP value for power weapons, making draigowing much less deadly. A bad change would be making the default charge range 12", making assault-based armies unstoppable.

I threw out a couple as starting points, based on what I've seen here as common proposed rules.

I don't see any reason a company as large as GW couldn't in theory mass launch a brand new codex for each army alongside a new rule book.

The issue is economic though, with that many staffers working on such a big project new product launches for other stuff would probably need to be quietened down for quite some time while they do all the work that would be needed.

The end payoff of hundreds of thousands of sales of the rulebook plus at least one codex, for many of us several would be worth it though surely?!

I'd like to see a current challenge system removed or become less illogically penalazing. Something like +1 attack and/or hatred for the one who issued a challenge and had it denied. No prohibitions to strike blows or use ld. Cause currently it's become a dancing around 2' not to get challenged before the pile-ins. Stupid and annoying.

No random charges. Either a fixed 7' or semi-fixed 3'+d6' value. Chargingfrom a stationary vehicle even if it's not assault or opentopped like it was before.

Cover save for MC's for being obscured like in 5 ed and not for having a toe in area terrain.

More hull points for vehicles. We rarely see av11-12 stuff now. Except for cheezy stuff like serpents that must be nerfed but it's a codex issue. I'd like to see 4-5hp dreadnaughts that don't get glanced to death in one turn. And walkers on the whole need some overhaul. Cause currently they're so much worse than mc's that you rarely see them used as they're intended.

Precision shots should wound against the model's toughness not the general toughness.

Assaulting from outflank once again.

 throwoff wrote:
I don't see any reason a company as large as GW couldn't in theory mass launch a brand new codex for each army alongside a new rule book.

The issue is economic though, with that many staffers working on such a big project new product launches for other stuff would probably need to be quietened down for quite some time while they do all the work that would be needed.

The end payoff of hundreds of thousands of sales of the rulebook plus at least one codex, for many of us several would be worth it though surely?!

They need to move from the "one faction gets an update at a time" model, and more toward an expansion system where everyone gets new models at the same time. That way their financials don't tank every time they have a release for an unpopular-ish faction and compensate by raising prices.

Seems to work for Warmahordes, and their game definitely doesn't suffer for it.

 Ostrakon wrote:

They need to move from the "one faction gets an update at a time" model, and more toward an expansion system where everyone gets new models at the same time. That way their financials don't tank every time they have a release for an unpopular-ish faction and compensate by raising prices.

Seems to work for Warmahordes, and their game definitely doesn't suffer for it.

I actually prefer Codex updates as they don't just add more stuff but change the whole army. Warmahordes just adds and adds and adds and you end up having a dozen units that all do the same thing in marginally different ways and all factions end up playing largely the same (casters aside) as the available design space is all filled up. Sweeping changes are a good thing.

The above in no way implies that I enjoy waiting 8 years between updates, of course.

The real reason why GW won't ever update everything at once, though, has nothing to do with their capacity to produce everything simultaneously, but with our lack of capacity to purchase everything simultaneously.