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There are still some (minor) limitations on Unbound armies though. They have to comply with unit sizes and the ally chart, for instance.

Not saying that those are huge limitations, mind you. Removing the FoC definitely makes some units stronger since they can be units of 1 instead of having to group up to fit into the FoC, as an example. For instance, now there really is EVERY reason for a Nid player to take multiple units of 1 Zoanthrope, instead of units of 3. You get more ML, more Psyhic dice, more powers, and enemy units will waste more shots into Overkill, since they can only target 1 model.

I get the feeling a lot of Tyranid armies will switch to Unbound, if only to no longer worry about overcrowded slots.

Also, Nidzilla is now even easier to do! And without a 30 gaunt tax!

So if the psychic phase is anything like the magic phase in fantasy, psykers will have "psychic dice" of their own, plus a generated pool that all psykers share.

I'm assuming that to cast a psychic power, you probably roll 1 or more dice, add the leadership of your psyker, and try to roll above or equal to a target number (probably 13 or 14). Warp charge 2 or 3 powers probably require a higher number to cast successfully. I would imagine that in this process, rolling a double 1 or 6 would cause a further roll on the "perils of the warp" chart.

To further speculate, i would imagine that enemy psykers would be able to potentially block your psychic powers by rolling dice from their own pool(s) of psychic dice. they would likely need to beat the number your psyker generated upon casting their own powers. I would also assume that double 1's or 6's could cause damage on their part, as well.


That's all speculation and guessing, but i bet it's pretty close to what we get at the end. What i can't figure right now is how witchfire powers work - possibly they get manifested during the psychic phase, and then they count as a weapon your psyker can use during the shooting phase or possibly be held-over to use as overwatch.

I hate waiting.

 Flashman wrote:
The inherent problem is that as 40K has evolved over the last few years GW have become more obsessed with making (and selling) big kits and less interested in foot soldiers. They've basically recreated Epic at 28mm scale.

Some people are into this, others want 40K to go back to what it was designed to be i.e. a skirmish game.

Consequently GW are coming up with increasingly dumb ways to try and mesh the two together, so that they can keep both sets of customers happy.

It isn't working

It would work if they put all the non-skirmish stuff into add-on modules. Then skirmish gamers could happily play with the stuff they liked and big game players could play with the add-ons, without having to tread on each others' toes. This was the situation in 3rd, 4th and 5th edition, with add-on modules like Planetfall, CoD and Apocalypse.

The basic problem is that GW are trying to stuff the big game elements into the core rules in the idea this will convince everyone to play big games.

GW execs one day - "They want nerfed? They want broken? They want unbalanced? We'll show them they had it good..."

 tomball0706 wrote:
I'm kinda liking the sound of the unbound army lists, sure some are going to be broken as hell such as those that are twenty riptides only, but it can also provide some brilliantly themed lists!

I'm looking at pure CSM raptor armies, or a horde of nothing by IG troopers fighting dozens of trygons. Some things we've always wanted to try out but had to stick to apocalypse and apocalypse MK2. Now there isn't the 3k point minimum buy in which I like and the games wont be 20 hour long marathons. They could be short and sweet battles that were being replicated from a novel we read?

And those complaining how 40K is no longer a skirmish game? Hey with Unbound army lists you can easily break that 10 man squad of marines down to 10 1 man squads and have them all act individualy, ergo 40K has just became Killteam!

Yeah the book shall be a rip off, but some of the ideas we've only heard brief tid bits about aren't worth slating the entire thing and classing it as a failure already? We don't know whats coming, we've had a paragraph from a WD and that's it (come on 40k radio, tell us more damn it!). I know it's hard, especially with GW, but come on, for once, lets have some hope and faith!

Preach over, man I should apply to the Ecclesiarchy

You were already free to break the rules and play your bizarre footguard versus trygons game, you didn't need it to be enshrined in the rulebook. And you've misread the unbound rules, it doesn't let you take 10 1-man tactical squads.

I may start nids now too, actually. An entire army of Carnifexes and Hive Tryants makes me happy. I have to see the rules, but I think I'll be okay with these FoC parts so far.

I don't know if fantasy is like this now, but the psychic rules leak seems very much like the older editions of fantasy's magic phase. This is a good thing imo. Makes psychic powers seem more like a finished product, rather than something just tagged onto the shooting phase.

Not sure about the unbound list. I hope the bonuses for a 'pure' army are significant, as they will need to be to deal with that all greaterdaemon/ wraithknight/ riptide/ etc that some people are likely to bring.
It seems like this will make the gap between competitive play and casual play much wider. I will be watching with interest, and won't pass judgement until I've seen what methods they have to balance this.

 krazynadechukr wrote:
GW execs one day - "They want nerfed? They want broken? They want unbalanced? We'll show them they had it good..."

Reading a couple of the articles from the WDW, it honestly gives me the impression that they are feeling vindictive against competitive players asking for balance.

But what good is it going to do them when they firmly establish the belief that "40k is for narrative battles" and see those customers who are interested in a well-built game walk out the door? Obviously that isn't everyone by any means, but how will alienating the portion of the base help in any way?

 Bull0 wrote:
You were already free to break the rules and play your bizarre footguard versus trygons game, you didn't need it to be enshrined in the rulebook. And you've misread the unbound rules, it doesn't let you take 10 1-man tactical squads.

And this, as it has been said by many others. This stuff was always playable before it was codified, but now it will probably be much more expected (I haven't seen much of a mass-disregard of any 40k rule except for maybe mysterious objectives).

 tetrisphreak wrote:
So if the psychic phase is anything like the magic phase in fantasy, psykers will have "psychic dice" of their own, plus a generated pool that all psykers share.

I'm assuming that to cast a psychic power, you probably roll 1 or more dice, add the leadership of your psyker, and try to roll above or equal to a target number (probably 13 or 14). Warp charge 2 or 3 powers probably require a higher number to cast successfully. I would imagine that in this process, rolling a double 1 or 6 would cause a further roll on the "perils of the warp" chart.

To further speculate, i would imagine that enemy psykers would be able to potentially block your psychic powers by rolling dice from their own pool(s) of psychic dice. they would likely need to beat the number your psyker generated upon casting their own powers. I would also assume that double 1's or 6's could cause damage on their part, as well.


That's all speculation and guessing, but i bet it's pretty close to what we get at the end. What i can't figure right now is how witchfire powers work - possibly they get manifested during the psychic phase, and then they count as a weapon your psyker can use during the shooting phase or possibly be held-over to use as overwatch.

I hate waiting.

My reading is that models no longer have their own dice/warp charge. Models now generate dice for a pooled resource. So if I have 2 Hive Tyrants, 1 Tervigon and 4 Zoanthropes, I would get d6 +1 (Terv) +2(Hive Tyrants) +8 (2x4 Zoans) for a total of d6+11 dice. I could then divide those dice however I wanted. Maybe I REALLY need that Catalyst off that the Hive Tyrant has to go off. I throw 4 dice at it. I have my d6 roll + 7 left to use for other powers. Despite generating dice, some psykers might not even actually use any powers.


Which I guess raises an issue ala the old Magic system for WHFB. You get armies that generate a TON of dice vs armies that can't/don't generate a lot, and you end up with a very one sided phase. Nids can get Psykers in 3 different slots (HQ/Troop/Elite), generating dice out the carapaced wazoo, where Necrons only ever generate d6 psychic defense dice. I guess that's not really all that different from games now where Necrons have very little psychic defense though.

It does make me wonder how Shadow in the Warp and other psychic things will function though. What good is the -3 LD on psykers doing to stop actual psychic powers, if those powers no longer require a LD test?

We'll see. I think my let down at the Nid codex is what has me thinking about them most when it comes to the new rules changes. Maybe, just maybe I'll finally see a reason to play them against, say, Tau...

 streamdragon wrote:
There are still some (minor) limitations on Unbound armies though. They have to comply with unit sizes and the ally chart, for instance.

Not saying that those are huge limitations, mind you. Removing the FoC definitely makes some units stronger since they can be units of 1 instead of having to group up to fit into the FoC, as an example. For instance, now there really is EVERY reason for a Nid player to take multiple units of 1 Zoanthrope, instead of units of 3. You get more ML, more Psyhic dice, more powers, and enemy units will waste more shots into Overkill, since they can only target 1 model.

I get the feeling a lot of Tyranid armies will switch to Unbound, if only to no longer worry about overcrowded slots.

Also, Nidzilla is now even easier to do! And without a 30 gaunt tax!

I'm honestly finding it too entertaining not to just think of making an army of Inquisitors or, if I want to roll chaos, either an army of Khornate juggerlords or the Lord of Change band

Da Butcha wrote:
I'm still amazed that some people don't see the problems inherent in an Unbound army

That will always be an issue, Unbound, Battle-Forged, 1999+1, No-Allies List will all have issues. The only way this will never be an issue is if both Players work it out or Pre-Generated Armies.

(Yes, I do see all the cool stuff. Starting players being able to play immediately with what models they have. Amazing themed forces. Cool narrative games.)

This is why I like the concept of Unbound Armies

Which of these sounds more reasonable:

You have 10 Heldrakes. It is your responsibility, before showing up at the gaming store to play, to negotiate with an opponent for bringing a non-standard list. You were aware, before buying and painting 10 Heldrakes, that this formation was a non-standard list.

Your opponent has brought his entirely legal 10 Heldrake army to the gaming store. Now that both of you are at the store, with your armies in tow, you can back out of a game or try to get him to alter his list if he has other models with him, or maybe try to alter your list with any extra models you have, to make a game that might be more fun for you and less trying for your Battle-Forged Space Marine army.

Actually it is the Responsibility of BOTH Players. Personally, myself, I would love to try it once just to see how it would happen. If had the Heldrake army and knowing the “Hate for them I would also have brought a second “Battle Forged List” just incase no one wanted to play against that Macy’s Day Horror Show.

I know that 'narrative games' sound awesome. They are awesome. However, narrative games require communication and planning before the game (unless you make up a narrative as you go along, which you can do with any game, at any time, so if you are using narrative in that sense, you are always good, so shut it). Let me illustrate.
You have a cool narrative idea for an Orky Air Force (which, I will admit, sounds good to me!). You bring your models (all those cool ork airplanes, and maybe some deffkoptas) to the game store/club. Your opponent has a cool narrative idea for a dense, urban warfare game, and brings a massive fortification network, tons of IG ground-pounders with flamers and det charges, and grabs all of the game venue's Cityfight ruins to set up on the board.
If you let your opponent have 'his' narrative game, you will have a board with rubble all over it and almost nowhere you can even PLACE a dakkajet base, and your narrative plan is foiled. If you set out a table that supports being able to place many, many large-based fliers (without them toppling over), your opponent's narrative plan of dense, urban warfare is spoiled.
You need to talk about those types of expectations before the game. If the game overtly sets up almost ANY army selections as valid for a pick-up game, then you have problems.

The it was not a “True Forge the Narrative Collaboration.” Somewhere there was a breakdown in the communication making it impossible for one army to play. Oddly this has nothing to do with “Unbound List Building”, it is a failure for both players to work together.

Also, for all of those who are arguing that 'let people play with what they have' is a good choice for Games Workshop:
Why not let them play with their Warhammer Fantasy models? What about their Epic or Warmaster models? What if they want to glue Riptide arms on a Stonehorn? Why shouldn't the rules support letting them make up their own models? Why should the rules limit them to valid unit choices? What if I have 7 IG troopers, a Star Dragon, 3 Terminators, and a Wraithknight?
Unless you are okay with 'plonk down any plastic from GW and write your own rules', you are already accepting the value and utility of some limits and regulation on 'play what you own'. We are then just discussing the best parameters for restrictions that we all agree should exist.*

Yes.

*Related anecdote:

A man asks a woman if she would be willing to sleep with him if he pays her a billion dollars. She replies affirmatively. He then offers five dollars and asks if she would still be willing to sleep with him for the revised fee. The woman is greatly offended and replies as follows:

She: What kind of woman do you think I am?

He: We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price.

I think that we've already established that some limitations on your army composition are necessary (otherwise, meet my Epic Landraider army!). We're now discussing whether the ones that GW has seemed to establish with the 'new rules' leak are adequate.

Thank, now all I can think of is a Robot Chicken episode.

 Xerics wrote:
Why is everyone complaining about unbound so hard?

In war today we only send in the best tools for the job. If that means we send on a few B-1's screaming overhead for a strafing run without any infantry or tanks then so be it because the only tool we need for the job is those B-1's.

The FoC is more akin to a full on deployment which as we know isn't what Warhammer 40k is. It is a bunch of skirmishes. So why not bring only the tools for the job? What's the point of bringing infantry in when the opponent has flamers? Why send in the troops if you know they are going to just get slaughtered on the first turn by a drop pod harboring a flamer dreadnought? Unbound is a show of force which we use in every modern day war. Why should the future have reverted? It's about time they "caught up" with our tactics.

You don't think it makes sense that you are sending your infantry up against flamers? Well look at it from the other guys perspective. Why wouldn't they take flamers if they know you have infantry. Best tools for the job, like you said.

 StarTrotter wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:
There are still some (minor) limitations on Unbound armies though. They have to comply with unit sizes and the ally chart, for instance.

Not saying that those are huge limitations, mind you. Removing the FoC definitely makes some units stronger since they can be units of 1 instead of having to group up to fit into the FoC, as an example. For instance, now there really is EVERY reason for a Nid player to take multiple units of 1 Zoanthrope, instead of units of 3. You get more ML, more Psyhic dice, more powers, and enemy units will waste more shots into Overkill, since they can only target 1 model.

I get the feeling a lot of Tyranid armies will switch to Unbound, if only to no longer worry about overcrowded slots.

Also, Nidzilla is now even easier to do! And without a 30 gaunt tax!

I'm honestly finding it too entertaining not to just think of making an army of Inquisitors or, if I want to roll chaos, either an army of Khornate juggerlords or the Lord of Change band

For me? GENESTEALER CULT + PDF

SUCK IT HATERS

PhantomViper wrote:

 Anpu42 wrote:

2] Unbound…as an Old-Rouge-Trader-Player, “This how us old Folks used to Play”. There were not FOCs, No Army List. You had to build you tanks out of WWII Models and Deodorant Sticks. The core book gave to some pages to Photocopy and glue onto cardstock to give you some Space Marines and Orks to play.

I love the concept of Unbound, and those in my group have talk to also love it. The consensus looks to be, we will build “Battle-Forged List” and “Unbound List” and “Forge Unbound Narrative Battles”.

If you and your group love Unbound so much, why do you guys need a 100$ rulebook to tell you to ignore the rules and play like that? What kept you from just ignoring the FOC in all previous editions and just "forge the narrative"?

We have.
As for the book, we will do what we always do, put out a donation Jar and we as a group buy the new book.

GorillaWarfare wrote:

 Xerics wrote:
Why is everyone complaining about unbound so hard?

In war today we only send in the best tools for the job. If that means we send on a few B-1's screaming overhead for a strafing run without any infantry or tanks then so be it because the only tool we need for the job is those B-1's.

The FoC is more akin to a full on deployment which as we know isn't what Warhammer 40k is. It is a bunch of skirmishes. So why not bring only the tools for the job? What's the point of bringing infantry in when the opponent has flamers? Why send in the troops if you know they are going to just get slaughtered on the first turn by a drop pod harboring a flamer dreadnought? Unbound is a show of force which we use in every modern day war. Why should the future have reverted? It's about time they "caught up" with our tactics.

Spoken like someone who has never been to war.
You think this unbound makes it more realistic? Hardly. "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had." It's not ideal, but it's true. You can't just send in a bunch of tanks because unsupported tanks will get eaten by infantry. You can't just send in infantry because they'll get eaten my snipers, machine gun nests and bombs. You can't send in you ground forces without air support because whoever has air superiority will have a HUGE advantage. You'll also want artillery to soften up those hard to crack places.
What I'm saying is that in a real war you'll want some of everything in order to be an adaptable and effective force.
Also, most of the time we're fighting with less than ideal equipment. Those uparmored humvees weren't exactly bomb proof ya know. They were never meant to be a true fighting vehicle but that's what we used because that's what we had.
Should we make a game just like real life war?
No.
As someone said earlier, a game should be fair and fun, two things a war should never be. Believe me. It isn't. If my deployments were games, I'd play as the Americans and my opponent would play as the insurgents. They'd show up and ambush us, they'd get a turn where they'd kill a humvee, maybe a few more soldiers, then it'd be my turn where the Americans counter attack, kill and arrest most of them, then call in apaches to blow up the building the rest are hiding in. That's not a fun game. Trust me on this.

 streamdragon wrote:

For me? GENESTEALER CULT + PDF

SUCK IT HATERS

People keep posting all of these awesome ideas that are allowed with Unbound armies (and believe me, this one is awesome, which is why I chose it--not to pick on anybody).

However, the fact that Unbound allows you to create awesome armies doesn't address the fact that it also allows you to create terrible armies (insert ridiculous example here). Is it absolutely necessary to allow ridiculous, unfluffy, boring, un-fun armies just so that we can have some cool fluffy ones? Must ALL-RIPTIDE be the price of Genestealer Cult?

Are we actually at the point where we can't even expect that from professional games designers?

"Well, they only do this for a living. There's no possible way, in the age of magazines, print-on-demand, and electronic publications, for a large games company to create rules which encourage and allow interesting armies that fit into their longstanding, popular intellectual property, unless you simply allow the players to select any damn units that they want. "

Oh, and incidentally, given that Unbound Armies are still bound by the allies matrix, you STILL can't field a Genestealer Cult + PDF with Unbound.

That will have to wait for Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition: Totally Unbound (which, true to the name, comes as a sheaf of unbound pages).

 streamdragon wrote:




It does make me wonder how Shadow in the Warp and other psychic things will function though. What good is the -3 LD on psykers doing to stop actual psychic powers, if those powers no longer require a LD test?

Going back to my initial guess, the psychic test will probably be LD + a dice roll.

Low leadership = more dice required to reliably cast a spell.

However, rolling more dice gives a higher chance to cause a peril's of the warp as well. This could in all be very well for tyranids vs psychic armies like eldar, since their jetbike councils are all Ld8 and LD5 when in shadows range.

It's plausible to me at least.

Da Butcha wrote:
That will have to wait for Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition: Totally Unbound (which, true to the name, comes as a sheaf of unbound pages).

Hehe...maybe "unbound" really means is "no hard copies will be printed".

When 20 guys sit in a room and think for too long, wierder decisions than that can happen.

Da Butcha wrote:
Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition: Totally Unbound (which, true to the name, comes as a sheaf of unbound pages).

... and every page bears the words "Whatever, do what you want", "roll a D6 for it" and/or "forge a narrative".

Da Butcha wrote:
[
Oh, and incidentally, given that Unbound Armies are still bound by the allies matrix, you STILL can't field a Genestealer Cult + PDF with Unbound.

Jes Bickham said in the WD article there is an "All New" Allies matrix. Therein lies hope (albeit drab) that the tyranids get Guard as allies of convenience, just for that very reason. I'm also crossing my fingers that the rules for Battle Brothers will change considerably.


If the book is $100 (still no firm confirmation on that, i'm hoping it's $75) that is $50 per year. Back when i played tons of Halo 3, my XBL membership cost that much. While i'd like this 7th edition rulebook to last the standard 4 to 5 year cycle, I'm not too beat up over 6th leaving us early.

I'm tentatively hopeful. But I'm not gonna worry about it till it's out. And I'm not painting any of my own stuff for it right now while I wait. Though I am painting other games and some commissions for others....Meh, it's only 3 weeks.

Why are we attacking people because they like some of the new rules? Seriously if you don't like the new rules then don't use them. You don't like unbound? Don't use it. Theres no reason to tell people their views are wrong just cause your butthurt over the rules changing so soon. Look at it with an open mind, who knows... maybe you'll like the new rules when you can actually read them and they aren't rumors.

 Hulksmash wrote:
I'm tentatively hopeful. But I'm not gonna worry about it till it's out. And I'm not painting any of my own stuff for it right now while I wait. Though I am painting other games and some commissions for others....Meh, it's only 3 weeks.

Same, I was going to finish up my Templars and Khorne csm but gonna switch to finishing my fantasy army for now.

SgtLockett wrote:
Seriously if you don't like the new rules then don't use them. You don't like unbound? Don't use it.

Balkanisation of the player base is not a good thing. It's already getting harder for people to find a game without deliberately halving the number of opponents with the Battleforged-Only/Anything-Goes split.

Da Butcha wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

For me? GENESTEALER CULT + PDF

SUCK IT HATERS

People keep posting all of these awesome ideas that are allowed with Unbound armies (and believe me, this one is awesome, which is why I chose it--not to pick on anybody).

However, the fact that Unbound allows you to create awesome armies doesn't address the fact that it also allows you to create terrible armies (insert ridiculous example here). Is it absolutely necessary to allow ridiculous, unfluffy, boring, un-fun armies just so that we can have some cool fluffy ones? Must ALL-RIPTIDE be the price of Genestealer Cult?

Are we actually at the point where we can't even expect that from professional games designers?

"Well, they only do this for a living. There's no possible way, in the age of magazines, print-on-demand, and electronic publications, for a large games company to create rules which encourage and allow interesting armies that fit into their longstanding, popular intellectual property, unless you simply allow the players to select any damn units that they want. "

Oh, and incidentally, given that Unbound Armies are still bound by the allies matrix, you STILL can't field a Genestealer Cult + PDF with Unbound.

That will have to wait for Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition: Totally Unbound (which, true to the name, comes as a sheaf of unbound pages).

@ the bolded. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF you're right.

And yes, I understand that Unbound will allow for some truly, truly broken armies. Then again, the current FOC does too.

Like I said, what Unbound does is basically turn regular 40k games into Apocalypse games. So any complaints about Unbound intrinsically apply to Apoc as well. Now I understand that not everyone enjoys or wants to play Apoc; that's a fair complaint. But I think that there are certain exaggerations as to the effect Unbound will have on 40k as a whole (instead of individual games).

Yes broken armies will most certainly be possible with Unbound. Broken armies will most certainly be possible within Battle Forged limitations (i.e., the FOC). I understand and empathize with players whose main sources of games is PUGs at a store. I can only hope for those players that GW actually manages to make the bonus for a Battle Forged army sizable enough that it can deal with Unbound armies. I'm also hoping the changed nature of battle objectives for the new missions will even things out between Unbound and Battle Forged armies. Granted, for the current spate of missions which are apparently still in the new BRB, Unbound armies with no troops will certainly have a difficult time scoring objectives. In the end, I just don't see Unbound being some sort of camel-back-breaking rule option for the majority of players.

Tournaments will still impose whatever restrictions they want; competitive players are relatively unscathed.
Among-friend players will still be able to plan games in advance and limit what sort of zaniness they want.
Pick up players will definitely be the most hard hit by this. I've never tried doing a PUG at a store, so I can't speak from experience.

 Anpu42 wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

 Anpu42 wrote:

2] Unbound…as an Old-Rouge-Trader-Player, “This how us old Folks used to Play”. There were not FOCs, No Army List. You had to build you tanks out of WWII Models and Deodorant Sticks. The core book gave to some pages to Photocopy and glue onto cardstock to give you some Space Marines and Orks to play.

I love the concept of Unbound, and those in my group have talk to also love it. The consensus looks to be, we will build “Battle-Forged List” and “Unbound List” and “Forge Unbound Narrative Battles”.

If you and your group love Unbound so much, why do you guys need a 100$ rulebook to tell you to ignore the rules and play like that? What kept you from just ignoring the FOC in all previous editions and just "forge the narrative"?

We have.
As for the book, we will do what we always do, put out a donation Jar and we as a group buy the new book.

So if you already did this, why do you need a new edition again? In fact, if you already disregard the rules anyway, why didn't you and your buddies kept playing Rogue Trader?

I'm hoping GW goes ultimate narrative. Each player decides each turn what their armies do - how far they move, what their shooting does, how many dice you get and what numbers you need to hit, etc. Write up whatever rules you need for your narrative. Actually it would be better to remove the dice - takes away from the narrative - better for the player to tell their opponent what happened that turn (eg - my lascannon hit your tank which exploded and happened to cause catastrophic damage to the other 2 tanks nearby and they exploded as well. Followed by the next players turn - my guardsman happens to be carry a new explosive device that he detonates in a suicide attack - his brother was the tank commander - the explosive is super powerful but a shaped charge and only your forces are completely destroyed by the result - wow, great game! Lets set up again and see who goes first and decides the outcome of the next game!)

SgtLockett wrote:
Why are we attacking people because they like some of the new rules? Seriously if you don't like the new rules then don't use them. You don't like unbound? Don't use it. Theres no reason to tell people their views are wrong just cause your butthurt over the rules changing so soon. Look at it with an open mind, who knows... maybe you'll like the new rules when you can actually read them and they aren't rumors.

Disagreeing isn't the same as attacking. At least try to understand the oppositions point of view in a discussion. It'll make you sound less condescending and ignorant. It could be that based on the evidence we have, many people feel that this new edition is going the opposite direction they would have liked. Instead of tighter and more balanced rules they get "no rules."
For some, this new "anything goes" is going to be fun. And granted, with my friends we've tried similar ways to play and it was indeed fun.
For many people, like me, who rely on pick up games, this isn't good news at all. I don't want to show up with my tac SOB list and face heldrake spam or not play. That's not fun and hurts a portion of the gaming community. How big is this portion? I can't say.
The actual edition may prove to be good, but judging by what's been released, it looks awful.
Its the fact that GW is going the opposite way for casual and competative players to enjoy a game with strangers that's the problem. With your mates, sure, it'll be great, but it was that anyway, so why hurt the other side of the fanbase?

If you want to play a narrative battle, what is the point of the rulebook in the first place? If you play a narrative I assume (correct me if i'm wrong) you actually PLAY the game. i.e. it's not just, "well this guy died in the BL novel so he comes off the table, and this unit got slaughtered so they're off, and this titan got it's head shot off by a guy with a plasma pistol, so it's gone."

What i'm saying is, even with narrative battles and narrative lists, you still want there to be some sort of semblance to a "balanced" game. (I know I said that word). In fact, it should NOT be the responsibility of the players to make everything up in order to make the game a cool experience. There should be some things that happen, because of the rules, that are not what you expected.

To me, Unbound sounds like laziness. Even ignoring the possibility of the crazy mega deathstar lists that will undoubtedly pop up, Unbound lists are simply GW refusing to make a rule set that supports narrative battles. Because it is not a rule set. It is a lack thereof. Yes, it is now technically legal to field your genestealer cult + PDF list. And it is legal to field Mad Max's warbuggy list as well, but there is nothing that will make a battle betweenfun in the rules because these rules such as they are don't actually have a game in mind. They have a display case army in mind that will look great and seem really cool, but play like crap.

It is now entirely on the players to write the outcome of the game. There is no need for rules if you just want to make a movie with your toy soldiers as the stars. In any case, this was as several people have pointed out, always the case. If you wanted to throw the rules out the window, then you did.

DISCLAIMER: What we have is piecemeal, not the whole picture. I understand this. However, until I see the whole picture, I'm going to discuss the parts I can see.

I've been thinking about this and have come to the startling conclusion that there are zero problems with 7th edition until you introduce players into the equation.

Players break the game, not the rules. Unfortunately people are always going to be gits so whatever GW do people will spoil the fun.

Being able to do what you want doesn't mean you should.