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I agree with OP.
For the most part, I'm pleased with the changes. Yeah, there's a few glaring imbalances and I'm not impressed with malefic, though I've always liked the idea of being able to summon daemons in a battle, they got a little carried away (plus, with the "no proxying daemons" rule clearly written, their intent is pretty see-through).

Really though, I prefer fluffy games and campaigns over bitter competitiveness and such by far, so I have no problems with the unbound/multi-force org. In fact, orks have been really hard to play with single force org for a while now, anyway, with everything being so cheap. In a 2500 single FOC list I recently made, I had to use every single slot! That's a little too limiting, IMHO.

 Yonan wrote:

Orktavius wrote:
Simple fix for the summoning stuff that everyone is bitching about....ready for it?

DON'T LET PEOPLE PROXY DEMONS!!!!!

Thus making the intent behind the change - GW selling more daemons - work perfectly, and ensuring the practice of butchering the rules to sell models continues.

Exalted.
This also goes with GW's pathetic effort to get us to only use GW terrain in our games. Similarly stupid.

They try to upset the meta in such a brutal way that only neck beards will have armies that they can play. In their twisted plan we rush out and spend hundreds to stock up on cheese so we can compete with said neck beards.
Pretty pathetic. My bet is that they see a little boost in sales (neck beards rushing out to buy new stuff) and then a precipitous drop in sales as the rest of the gamers out there leave.
oh wait. THat just happened in Dec.

Good post OP, and I agree.

I think that 7th heralds a new era of 40k which has the potential to significantly expand the player base. This is because of my boys reactions when they found out that they could take all their cool models and play them in a game. They were PUMPED. There will be a lot of people who didn't want to deal with having to buy an HQ, troops etc just to get the Wraithknight, baneblade/insert new cool looking shiny unit here in order to play it. Now they don't have to.

To play 40k now, you just need to get the models you like and know someone with a rulebook. You can get a codex if you want an army, but if you just have a single wraithknight/riptide/Heldrake/Defiler/Soulgrinder, well, there are enough sources to get the rules for that.

And I think that is a very good thing.

Like the OP, I think 40k will be fundamentally different because you can CHOOSE what style of game you want to play. Don't like unbound? Fine - play BattleForged. Don't like BattleForged? Play unbound. Want to play all the big models you can find? Go ahead.

I personally will happily play any unbound list in a maelstrom mission with my battleforged list at any fixed point limit. Not for a standard mission, but for maelstrom, sure.

I think people are seriously underestimating the value of objective secured and the way that works with the maelstrom missions. Playing an unbound list against a battleforged list in a maelstrom mission will be really hard. Because you don't have enough units to cover all the objectives and eliminate ALL my troops in 1 turn. Plus you have to kill my super scoring vehicles as well.

And there is a lot of wailing about the demon summoning. Well, it COULD be a problem in the game if you let them do it for the whole game. But, casting summoning is not that easy to do (particularly if your dice hate you) and they can only TRY to do it once from any unit per turn. The answer is to kill the unit - actually just the psyker with the power will do. Because, while they are summoning, they aren't casting protective powers (which you can deny now) and they aren't slinging nasty stuff at you. There is no codex that can't overwhelm a single unit given they have multiple detachments to play with. Alpha strike, here we come! Beta strike will do.

For me 40k is about bringing a list which enables me to respond to the tactical changes in game, and deal with how the game unfolds. 6th Ed was imho more unbalanced, because certain armies had FOC slots that literally had all the good stuff in it and that army was highly constrained (eg Cron FA and HS slots). Now, that's not a restriction (well, not as much) so you can bring more of the good stuff if you pay the HQ and troop tax.

And that for me is the key point. For the agreed points limit, you can now access as powerful list as you want. No "only have three slots" restrictions for any army.

That's probably the thing that scares people the most......now they have to choose. You have to choose your player group, choose the way you play (WAAC, fluffy, bound, unbound etc etc). There is more uncertainty in what you are facing. There is more uncertainty in what you'll be trying to do in a game (for maelstrom missions). Now, how good a general are you?



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry for the wall of text!

MarkCron wrote:
Good post OP, and I agree.

I think that 7th heralds a new era of 40k which has the potential to significantly expand the player base. This is because of my boys reactions when they found out that they could take all their cool models and play them in a game. They were PUMPED. There will be a lot of people who didn't want to deal with having to buy an HQ, troops etc just to get the Wraithknight, baneblade/insert new cool looking shiny unit here in order to play it. Now they don't have to.

To play 40k now, you just need to get the models you like and know someone with a rulebook. You can get a codex if you want an army, but if you just have a single wraithknight/riptide/Heldrake/Defiler/Soulgrinder, well, there are enough sources to get the rules for that.

And I think that is a very good thing.

Like the OP, I think 40k will be fundamentally different because you can CHOOSE what style of game you want to play. Don't like unbound? Fine - play BattleForged. Don't like BattleForged? Play unbound. Want to play all the big models you can find? Go ahead.

I personally will happily play any unbound list in a maelstrom mission with my battleforged list at any fixed point limit. Not for a standard mission, but for maelstrom, sure.

I think people are seriously underestimating the value of objective secured and the way that works with the maelstrom missions. Playing an unbound list against a battleforged list in a maelstrom mission will be really hard. Because you don't have enough units to cover all the objectives and eliminate ALL my troops in 1 turn. Plus you have to kill my super scoring vehicles as well.

And there is a lot of wailing about the demon summoning. Well, it COULD be a problem in the game if you let them do it for the whole game. But, casting summoning is not that easy to do (particularly if your dice hate you) and they can only TRY to do it once from any unit per turn. The answer is to kill the unit - actually just the psyker with the power will do. Because, while they are summoning, they aren't casting protective powers (which you can deny now) and they aren't slinging nasty stuff at you. There is no codex that can't overwhelm a single unit given they have multiple detachments to play with. Alpha strike, here we come! Beta strike will do.

For me 40k is about bringing a list which enables me to respond to the tactical changes in game, and deal with how the game unfolds. 6th Ed was imho more unbalanced, because certain armies had FOC slots that literally had all the good stuff in it and that army was highly constrained (eg Cron FA and HS slots). Now, that's not a restriction (well, not as much) so you can bring more of the good stuff if you pay the HQ and troop tax.

And that for me is the key point. For the agreed points limit, you can now access as powerful list as you want. No "only have three slots" restrictions for any army.

That's probably the thing that scares people the most......now they have to choose. You have to choose your player group, choose the way you play (WAAC, fluffy, bound, unbound etc etc). There is more uncertainty in what you are facing. There is more uncertainty in what you'll be trying to do in a game (for maelstrom missions). Now, how good a general are you?



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry for the wall of text!

Why did you need a ruleset to allow you to do any of the things you say your boys are pumped for? In the past couldn't you have just played any models you wanted to? Because rule books existed you had to follow the rules? Now that there are no rules you feel free to do these things?

I just don't understand this. You could always do this. This is not an improvement, this is a lack of structure for when you DON'T want to have these types of games.

Some people find house ruling a tad bit distasteful, and prefer to play the game by the rules rather than making up their own.

themadlbb wrote:
For the analogy (particularly pertinent for you FPS players out there): Imagine a shooting game with relatively tight mechanics. There are different guns with different shooting capabilities, and they have skills and weaknesses in different areas. The first edition of the game begins to reward certain guns more than others.

When the sequel comes out, players are given the option to dual-wield weapons. Now, weapons that had never before been used together are possible, offering new combinations and possibilities. The core mechanics of the game are still there. You are rewarded for speed, accuracy and strategy, but you now have new tools in your arsenal. Some combinations are terrible, some are amazing. If you as a player choose to use a single weapon like in the last edition of the game, you will face significant struggles against those who attempt to dual-wield. The core mechanics are the same, but you are now playing a different game that requires an additional layer of strategy.

You left out the important part where the fluff of the first game established that nobody in this world dual wields before the sequel introduced dual wielding.

There are considerably better strategy games out there. There are far easier games to get started with. The only reason 40K didn't lose me, someone who's always been interested in it primarily for the fluff and the models, with 7th edition and its "everybody can summon daemons now" nonsense is because it already lost me with 6th edition, where it really started to rape its own fluff in an effort to sell models.

I would like to offer an alternative theory to the ones subscribed.
With regard to the OP comment of dual wielding vs single wield analogy lets take Halo 1 vs 2 as the basis.
In Halo 1 you could only single wield, the weapons were different but fairly balanced in general.
In Halo 2 they added in dual wielding but a single wield was equally viable by setting the standards of balance so dual wield was shorter range.

In this analogy both were viable.
40k should have a similar approach to the game, every option should be approximately balanced so anything can be used. That doesn't mean everything is awesome sauce, it just means that different tools have different uses. Therefore an SMG wont be able to do something at long range but when it gets close it will be useful but you have a battle-rifle for range.

What this means in game design terms is that the options should be balanced in such a way that depending on the terms of engagement they can be used to varying affects.
Some of this is down to the player obviously; but there should not be such significantly better options by doing one thing that no other option can compete.

For example Tau. Tau are pretty good at shooting, they have methods to increase this for a point cost, and suck at close combat. They however were given the ability to remove cover entirely (and in some cases line of sight) which made them a significant problem for people trying to get close.
If they had been forced to modify cover instead of removing it, the player trying to get close would be able to use cover to help that, thereby exploiting the close combat weakness.

In the new edition the balancing issues are way out which causes the problems and moaning. I think most people would be happy to adapt to the game if these issues were addressed.
I think it should be fine to bring anything in the game in any combination, but there should be something that makes that army not infallible.

The problem that's causing the issues is the summoning of daemons, because, whilst a fair option, it is too easy to do on mass and therefore unbalanced.

If the game was more balanced regardless of the options available to you it would be better.

While more options is good most of the times I think there is a limit.

Personally I Play 40k for 2 reasons:

1. I like building and painting GW Models.

2. I like strategy games.

While reason 1 wont be affected by the rules GW writes, reason 2 will be. The problem for me is, that more options in 40k means less strategy, more rock, paper scissors, cause there is not enough Balance in the game. I just dont want to buy and paint riptides, Imperial Knights or deamons to have a FAIR Chance in a strategy game that is dominated by the collected cheese of all armies in one list. In a good strategy game every army should have the ability to build a valid TAC-list that can handle every monobuild-list through pure skill of the Player ---> without allied cheese.

I also think tournaments with no regulations are simply stupid. Whats the point of being the king of rock, paper, scissors?


To make it short: 40k without modifications was never a good strategy game and wont become better through more options. A good game begins with some sort of balance.

dresnar1 wrote:

MarkCron wrote:
Good post OP, and I agree.

I think that 7th heralds a new era of 40k which has the potential to significantly expand the player base. This is because of my boys reactions when they found out that they could take all their cool models and play them in a game. They were PUMPED. There will be a lot of people who didn't want to deal with having to buy an HQ, troops etc just to get the Wraithknight, baneblade/insert new cool looking shiny unit here in order to play it. Now they don't have to.

To play 40k now, you just need to get the models you like and know someone with a rulebook. You can get a codex if you want an army, but if you just have a single wraithknight/riptide/Heldrake/Defiler/Soulgrinder, well, there are enough sources to get the rules for that.

And I think that is a very good thing.

Why did you need a ruleset to allow you to do any of the things you say your boys are pumped for? In the past couldn't you have just played any models you wanted to? Because rule books existed you had to follow the rules? Now that there are no rules you feel free to do these things?

I just don't understand this. You could always do this. This is not an improvement, this is a lack of structure for when you DON'T want to have these types of games.

Absolutely, and we did. But now it is official, and you can do it in every FLGS without people looking at you strangely.

Your point works in reverse as well....you can always house rule that unbound doesn't exist - now the structure allows you to choose which you want.

And I don't think there is a lack of structure. There are clearly defined structures now which are essentially the same as the ones that existed before (double FOC anyone?). All that changed was the points limit it kicked in at.

For myself, I am not interested in a play style in which there are no restrictions. The tactical interest comes from the limitations you have to work within and try to transcend.

When you can do that by pic'n'mixing any units at all, there is no meaning to the game. It becomes a dice fest, especially when random changing objectives are added.

So yes, a paradigm shift to what is IMO a very bad paradigm that I reject. I also rejected the start of this move in 6th edition -- D weapons, Allies, etc. These things are designed mainly to sell more models, not because they improve the game.

The way forwards for players like me is to ignore and/or reject/ban the new stuff that has been crammed into the rules and strip it back to the core essentials. This is fairly simple to do, in fact, and the only problem is that rather than simply not playing optional add-ons, like Apocalypse used to be, we are being cast in the role of joyless nay-sayers stopping other players from having their legitimate fun.

MasterOfGaunts wrote:
While more options is good most of the times I think there is a limit.

Personally I Play 40k for 2 reasons:

1. I like building and painting GW Models.

2. I like strategy games.

While reason 1 wont be affected by the rules GW writes, reason 2 will be. The problem for me is, that more options in 40k means less strategy, more rock, paper scissors, cause there is not enough Balance in the game. I just dont want to buy and paint riptides, Imperial Knights or deamons to have a FAIR Chance in a strategy game that is dominated by the collected cheese of all armies in one list. In a good strategy game every army should have the ability to build a valid TAC-list that can handle every monobuild-list through pure skill of the Player ---> without allied cheese.

I also think tournaments with no regulations are simply stupid. Whats the point of being the king of rock, paper, scissors?


To make it short: 40k without modifications was never a good strategy game and wont become better through more options. A good game begins with some sort of balance.

Don't entirely disagree with your statement. However, why are you assuming that everyone you play will only field riptides, knights and demons? There is a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) flying around - with no basis in fact.

The game has changed, dramatically, and if anything requires you to have more strategy and better tactics because you aren't facing cookie cutter netlists with limited options anymore. Balance is created in your player group at the level of competitiveness you want. In fact this was true with 6th as well - many tournaments restricted LoW, rerollable 2+ and created a different game to the one intended....but it still didn't result in "balance" because of the nature of the player group. If you wanted to be competitive in 6th, you needed Taudar, eldau, inquisitions etc.

In 7th, you get to choose what form your op cheese comes in and you can have as much of it as your player group wants and you play within a defined structure that the world plays to. That's a good thing.

OP- Excellent post. I agree 100% with everything you said. The new player is going to be the most confused when the vet players start slinging around restrictions.

Bravo good Sir!

MarkCron wrote:
The game has changed, dramatically, and if anything requires you to have more strategy and better tactics because you aren't facing cookie cutter netlists with limited options anymore.

And this will be true for at least a month.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Byte wrote:
OP- Excellent post. I agree 100% with everything you said. The new player is going to be the most confused when the vet players start slinging around restrictions.

Bravo good Sir!

What new player?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
For myself, I am not interested in a play style in which there are no restrictions. The tactical interest comes from the limitations you have to work within and try to transcend.

When you can do that by pic'n'mixing any units at all, there is no meaning to the game. It becomes a dice fest, especially when random changing objectives are added.

So yes, a paradigm shift to what is IMO a very bad paradigm that I reject. I also rejected the start of this move in 6th edition -- D weapons, Allies, etc. These things are designed mainly to sell more models, not because they improve the game.

The way forwards for players like me is to ignore and/or reject/ban the new stuff that has been crammed into the rules and strip it back to the core essentials. This is fairly simple to do, in fact, and the only problem is that rather than simply not playing optional add-ons, like Apocalypse used to be, we are being cast in the role of joyless nay-sayers stopping other players from having their legitimate fun.

Ok, fair enough. But, in reality, you're rejecting a paradigm that specifically allows you to do exactly what you want and providing a common structure for you to start from. Having that structure is essential - it is WAY easier to criticise and tear down a structure that it is to create it in the first place.

Providing a rules structure for both the bound and unbound lists and essentially "formalising" what was taking place in a lot of basements, garages and houses was and is a great move. It makes the game more attractive to a wider range of people, who will undoubtedly group up and say "we want to play x like this". Where is the problem with that?

The debates in this and many threads are imho, valuable because it allows people to decide for themselves what they think works for them. The only concern I have with "nay-sayers" is where blanket statements of "x is terrible and will break the game" are generically applied, with no examples. Hell, we haven't had the edition for a week yet - how can anyone claim to be able to make generic statements?

Two months from now, there may well be specific things that are generically adjusted - things like being able to swap useless maelstrom cards. And we'll be having "bound is better than unbound" arguments. Today, everyone should just dust off those old models and go play a game.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Triton wrote:

MarkCron wrote:
The game has changed, dramatically, and if anything requires you to have more strategy and better tactics because you aren't facing cookie cutter netlists with limited options anymore.

And this will be true for at least a month.

Hmmm. You don't seem to have a lot of faith in Dakka's ability to create netlists


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Triton wrote:

 Byte wrote:
OP- Excellent post. I agree 100% with everything you said. The new player is going to be the most confused when the vet players start slinging around restrictions.

Bravo good Sir!

What new player?

The one who sees Gorkamorka and just wants to have that to go with their Riptide, Wriathknight and Imperial knight

MasterOfGaunts wrote:
Whats the point of being the king of rock, paper, scissors?

It was a pretty big deal to Alex Kidd.

MarkCron wrote:
Providing a rules structure for both the bound and unbound lists and essentially "formalising" what was taking place in a lot of basements, garages and houses was and is a great move. It makes the game more attractive to a wider range of people, who will undoubtedly group up and say "we want to play x like this". Where is the problem with that?

It was great in basements, and my friends loved my illegal at the time CSM+IG+Daemons lists. For getting a game with someone you don't know it's horrible as the chances are much more likely that it'll be a less enjoyable game. Will it be fluff rape? Will it be OP resulting in you being steamrolled? Will it be complete tosh resulting in you steamrolling them? The structure is essential to set a baseline for play so you can have a decent game with anyone, anywhere. If you want to customise your play with your friends, you were free to do that before.

Balance is created in your player group

And this is the proof of poor game design. Most of the Balance should come from the rules themselves, so that I can go to a pickup-game without the fear of facing a demonfactory, quadtides or whatever else OP-List. Within my group I can play everything I want with every silly rule i can think of. Well, I dont want to start a new balance discussion here. All I wanted to say is that more options isnt generally good, especially in a game that lacks of balance, cause it will make everything even worse. If we ve got balance, we can think of more options.

 Yonan wrote:

MarkCron wrote:
Providing a rules structure for both the bound and unbound lists and essentially "formalising" what was taking place in a lot of basements, garages and houses was and is a great move. It makes the game more attractive to a wider range of people, who will undoubtedly group up and say "we want to play x like this". Where is the problem with that?

It was great in basements, and my friends loved my illegal at the time CSM+IG+Daemons lists. For getting a game with someone you don't know it's horrible as the chances are much more likely that it'll be a less enjoyable game. Will it be fluff rape? Will it be OP resulting in you being steamrolled? Will it be complete tosh resulting in you steamrolling them? The structure is essential to set a baseline for play so you can have a decent game with anyone, anywhere. If you want to customise your play with your friends, you were free to do that before.

Ummm... in 5th edition, you could turn up and get roflstomped by GK, Crons. In 6th it was <insert army>Dar/dau. I don't think it is structure that is causing your concern. Rather, it is the player group. However, you are always free to choose who to play and to ask what they player is playing - in fact the new book almost demands it because you have extra missions, points limits, any restrictions you prefer.....etc.

That is the difference with this edition - now there is a very good reason to actually communicate with the other player before setting up - and you will see a whole bunch of legal combinations that you've never seen before. That's why 7th ed is not 6.5 as many are calling it.

MarkCron wrote:

 Yonan wrote:

MarkCron wrote:
Providing a rules structure for both the bound and unbound lists and essentially "formalising" what was taking place in a lot of basements, garages and houses was and is a great move. It makes the game more attractive to a wider range of people, who will undoubtedly group up and say "we want to play x like this". Where is the problem with that?

It was great in basements, and my friends loved my illegal at the time CSM+IG+Daemons lists. For getting a game with someone you don't know it's horrible as the chances are much more likely that it'll be a less enjoyable game. Will it be fluff rape? Will it be OP resulting in you being steamrolled? Will it be complete tosh resulting in you steamrolling them? The structure is essential to set a baseline for play so you can have a decent game with anyone, anywhere. If you want to customise your play with your friends, you were free to do that before.

Ummm... in 5th edition, you could turn up and get roflstomped by GK, Crons. In 6th it was <insert army>Dar/dau. I don't think it is structure that is causing your concern. Rather, it is the player group. However, you are always free to choose who to play and to ask what they player is playing - in fact the new book almost demands it because you have extra missions, points limits, any restrictions you prefer.....etc.

Like I said, my gaming group was great - the problem here is for random pick up games. Yes, there were powerful lists before - when they had restrictions they had to meet. Now that there are no restrictions, there will be lists much more powerful for any points value. And as I said, facing OP lists isn't the only problem - fluff rape and underpowered lists aren't fun to play against either.

That is the difference with this edition - now there is a very good reason to actually communicate with the other player before setting up - and you will see a whole bunch of legal combinations that you've never seen before. That's why 7th ed is not 6.5 as many are calling it.

The problem is, when you communicate you'll find you both want different games since the rules are so wide, thus making it a problem to find random games. Especially since the 40k player base has already been dwindling for some time.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
For myself, I am not interested in a play style in which there are no restrictions. The tactical interest comes from the limitations you have to work within and try to transcend.

When you can do that by pic'n'mixing any units at all, there is no meaning to the game. It becomes a dice fest, especially when random changing objectives are added.

So yes, a paradigm shift to what is IMO a very bad paradigm that I reject. I also rejected the start of this move in 6th edition -- D weapons, Allies, etc. These things are designed mainly to sell more models, not because they improve the game.

The way forwards for players like me is to ignore and/or reject/ban the new stuff that has been crammed into the rules and strip it back to the core essentials. This is fairly simple to do, in fact, and the only problem is that rather than simply not playing optional add-ons, like Apocalypse used to be, we are being cast in the role of joyless nay-sayers stopping other players from having their legitimate fun.

This is exactly the way I feel. GW has been cannabalizing 40k for the sake of pushing models. I reject their attempts to sell me gak I don't need. No SA, no escalation, no double FOC, no unbound, no armies spawning armies, no forge world, no lords or war in "normal" 40k. 1 FOC + 1 ally OR formation/dataslate is plenty for me.

MasterOfGaunts wrote:

Balance is created in your player group

And this is the proof of poor game design.

No it isn't. If every game was supposed to be exactly balanced and purely about player skill, we'd all be playing chess. In fact, every game that involves dice and or unit choice can be broken to some extent or another. Games like Dropzone Commander/X Wing/ insert your favourite seem to be distinguished as "balanced" because you can play any army and have a chance of winning. 7th removes some of the restrictions that were holding some armies back - making the game more "balanced". Sure, you are going to get 4tide, 3knight, demonfactory, 3ctan, baneblade, all wraith etc etc etc. The point is that in 7th there are more ways to get a powerful, OP, Cheesy army, than just to buy the latest codex/shiny model.

How does it remove restrictions , when playing something else then a patchwork army is suddenly a stupid thing to do. How many people started to play w40k or any other table top game to play with those SW , those rebels , those cryx and aleph bastards , compering to those that started playing the same games by buying random models. In fact a free for all is even more limiting then it was before. Eldar or tau may have lacked something , ok am probably kiding myself in the case of eldar , now they have no problems with that. It was already a problem with 6th , where not taking coteaz , if you could, was a stupid thing to do.

Not following. Clearly 7th removes restrictions. Playing a battleforged army (which, as many have pointed out, has almost no limits anyway other than HQ and troop taxes) gives you clear advantages over a "patchwork" army, particularly in missions with multiple objectives.

Re eldar, we may see the death of every army other than eldar and demons in a few months. But somehow I doubt that.

It does not remove rescrictions , if everyone has to play a patch work list made out of multiple codex ,even eldar and demons. Then the armies who do it worse are non viable. Every unit that can be replaced by another from a different codex , becomes automaticly bad , which means the number of playable armies drops. And the number of "pure" armies , and I think there are more people wanting to play SW or AM , then patchwork armies , that are viable drops almost to zero . Even demons are better when they take ally . Knights for example help them with other armies MC and are very good blockers too.

My boyfriend told me to use a sports example so people would understand me better. The fact that there are free for all weight classes in K1 , doesn't mean that there are zounds of people under 100kg and 190 wining fights .

 AesSedai wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
For myself, I am not interested in a play style in which there are no restrictions. The tactical interest comes from the limitations you have to work within and try to transcend.

When you can do that by pic'n'mixing any units at all, there is no meaning to the game. It becomes a dice fest, especially when random changing objectives are added.

So yes, a paradigm shift to what is IMO a very bad paradigm that I reject. I also rejected the start of this move in 6th edition -- D weapons, Allies, etc. These things are designed mainly to sell more models, not because they improve the game.

The way forwards for players like me is to ignore and/or reject/ban the new stuff that has been crammed into the rules and strip it back to the core essentials. This is fairly simple to do, in fact, and the only problem is that rather than simply not playing optional add-ons, like Apocalypse used to be, we are being cast in the role of joyless nay-sayers stopping other players from having their legitimate fun.

This is exactly the way I feel. GW has been cannabalizing 40k for the sake of pushing models. I reject their attempts to sell me gak I don't need. No SA, no escalation, no double FOC, no unbound, no armies spawning armies, no forge world, no lords or war in "normal" 40k. 1 FOC + 1 ally OR formation/dataslate is plenty for me.

I have to piggyback on these comments. Love or hate the new rules, I think that it is clear the rules are becoming more and more of a vehicle just to sell models.

Apocalypse already existed to allow for superheavies, but when GW didn't feel like they were moving enough Baneblades they bumped the superheavy rules into a new expansion (Apocalypse-lite with a new nice price tag) then insisted these rules were core to the game at all times. A new book was required to play these units, and superheavies had the nice benefit of devaluing core troops whose battlefield roles shrank as they were going up against significantly more powerful units (thus needing more troops to be effective at their previous role).

And I feel like this has to be said- GW's intention on adding in more allies, formation, superheavies is for you to buy more books. I keep seeing people say "just get the rules from...places.' I don't think stealing the rules (or copying them from a buddy) is a good solution and is certainly the opposite of what GW is trying to foster by adding in all this content. Unbound is the next step in this thought process-
Okay, I want to use a Riptide, an Imperial Knight, and some Imperial Guard for my Tau robot force, I just need the Imperial Knights, the Tau Empire, and Astra Militarum books, so $150 in rules (not including the Escalation book).

Some people might like all this extra content, but I think it imposes a stark wall against anyone wanting to start playing the game. And what we end up with is veteran players who don't mind spending an extra $50 a month on a new rulebook here or there, but no new people and a continually dwindling game.

MarkCron wrote:
No it isn't. If every game was supposed to be exactly balanced and purely about player skill, we'd all be playing chess. In fact, every game that involves dice and or unit choice can be broken to some extent or another. Games like Dropzone Commander/X Wing/ insert your favourite seem to be distinguished as "balanced" because you can play any army and have a chance of winning. 7th removes some of the restrictions that were holding some armies back - making the game more "balanced". Sure, you are going to get 4tide, 3knight, demonfactory, 3ctan, baneblade, all wraith etc etc etc. The point is that in 7th there are more ways to get a powerful, OP, Cheesy army, than just to buy the latest codex/shiny model.

Some people actually care about the background lore of the game, and don't look forward to the prospect of Grey Knights allying with Daemons to take on Dark Eldar allied with Tyranids.

I'll throw this in for what it's worth. The OPs got it basically right. New edition, new paradigm, the things that worked before won't work now and there's going to be a feeling-out process while players learn the ropes of the new rules.

The thread has (predictably) been overrun by people expressing disapproval, anger, and genuine hate towards GW over something as benign as some new rules. This baffles me, and strikes me as a waste of time. I see no purpose to becoming this emotionally distraught over what is, after all, a pretty minor alteration to the rules set. Not liking it is perfectly reasonable, but really hating the people that are responsible...it achieves nothing, and has nothing to do with the original topic of the thread.

To the new rules, I played a game with my Tau against an IG army with primaris psyker, a group of sanctioned psykers, and an allied inquisitor with psychic powers. I had him basically beaten by the end of turn three (at which point he conceded), and I didn't make a single deny roll (though his primaris did perils and lose prescience, to his chagrin). Within reason the new psyker rules don't unbalance the game too much.

On top of this, I've been collecting Orks for something like twenty years now and I've got many thousands of points worth. My girlfriend plays tyranids and has a little over a thousand points, my other buddy plays guard with maybe 1,500 pts worth. We wanted to do a 2k point game, them combined vs me, but under the old allies rules we couldn't make it work and had to jury-rig our own scenario. Having the option to ally guard and 'nids, un-fluffy though it may be, will let us play these games now with some semblance of order under the rules. So I think it's a good thing and I'm happy they made the changes, and I think that's the sort of scenario they had in mind when they wrote those rules.

As an aside, we should really stop using the phrase "fluff-rape". We have few enough women around these parts and my girlfriend at least finds phrases like that off-putting enough to stay away from the online community.

MarkCron wrote:

MasterOfGaunts wrote:

Balance is created in your player group

And this is the proof of poor game design.

No it isn't. If every game was supposed to be exactly balanced and purely about player skill, we'd all be playing chess. In fact, every game that involves dice and or unit choice can be broken to some extent or another. Games like Dropzone Commander/X Wing/ insert your favourite seem to be distinguished as "balanced" because you can play any army and have a chance of winning. 7th removes some of the restrictions that were holding some armies back - making the game more "balanced". Sure, you are going to get 4tide, 3knight, demonfactory, 3ctan, baneblade, all wraith etc etc etc. The point is that in 7th there are more ways to get a powerful, OP, Cheesy army, than just to buy the latest codex/shiny model.

Before I say anything, I agree with your OP in concept. I don't think we are quite looking at it with all the other possible combos that might come out just yet. The new spells and the revisions are enough to trip anybody up. Heck look at the hard nerf to snipers that just flew out of nowhere.

This is a flawed argument. Also, nobody ever said they wanted an exactly balanced mirror match because you can already almost do that in 40k (random dice rolls are the only deterrent). People just like games that are balanced enough that there's nothing that was heldrake level broken or Pyrovore level bad. No bad options like the mark of tzeentch which is basically always worthless and should never be taken. It doesn't match the fluff and it punishes fluffy, casual, and non-competitive players that are more prone to bring what they like. At this point, the game is horridly broken to no end. GK allied with daemons? That's fluff breaking horrid, and just all around terrible yet here we are daemons fighting alongside GK summoning daemons to fight the dastardly Imperium of Mankind. This game has had long spans of time where an army could auto-table an enemy on turn 1! If you give a man a foot, they will go a mile. At best, they should have placed some house rule ideas in it rather than plastering the rules officially.

I think the GW community is driven mostly be fear, at least vocal elements on the interwebs.

Most people do not actually think of what is balanced but simply fear that they might lose to something, without even thinking about it.

for example, summoning.

People are acting like the sky is falling over demon players summoning more lesser demons.

There's some frontline gaming report video out there where a guy rolls well above average and gets about 200 points of demons on turn 1 with no perils. The game goes on and the guy continues to roll well, he then goes on to NOT WIN, that is right this omg the sky is falling it cannot be stopped power even whent he guy rolled very very well, did not win him the game against a fairly tame space marine army.

So chill out people and play the game to the rules for a few months before you figure out what is "broken" because most of the stuff people are saying is broken - is not.

office_waaagh wrote:
The thread has (predictably) been overrun by people expressing disapproval, anger, and genuine hate towards GW over something as benign as some new rules. This baffles me, and strikes me as a waste of time. I see no purpose to becoming this emotionally distraught over what is, after all, a pretty minor alteration to the rules set. Not liking it is perfectly reasonable, but really hating the people that are responsible...it achieves nothing, and has nothing to do with the original topic of the thread.

Well don't forget how much money many of us have put into the game This is a hobby game. It is the most expensive wargame out there, requires building, painting, and finally playing games. The rulebook came out 2 years after the previous one and costs 80 dollars with a rather crummy rulebook in several ways. People are upset arguably because they don't like the direction 40k is going after having invested probably at least a thousand bucks into the game building and customizing their army. Then the rulebook comes in and invalidates it.

To the new rules, I played a game with my Tau against an IG army with primaris psyker, a group of sanctioned psykers, and an allied inquisitor with psychic powers. I had him basically beaten by the end of turn three (at which point he conceded), and I didn't make a single deny roll (though his primaris did perils and lose prescience, to his chagrin). Within reason the new psyker rules don't unbalance the game too much.

As mentioned, I don't think that a single psyker is the worry. It become a problem with armies that (fluffy) are heavily psyker orientated such as GK and Tzeentch CD. The guys naturally have tons of psykers and that's when problems start to pop up. Against them, they can basically shut down any of your own magic whilst spamming their own. That said Tzeentch has an odd catch where the shooting spells that they were built for were drastically nerfed but daemon spawning is new arguably and likely broken. To be frank I'm still not really sure if Chaos summoning is really that broken either. It's only a limited amount of summons really.

On top of this, I've been collecting Orks for something like twenty years now and I've got many thousands of points worth. My girlfriend plays tyranids and has a little over a thousand points, my other buddy plays guard with maybe 1,500 pts worth. We wanted to do a 2k point game, them combined vs me, but under the old allies rules we couldn't make it work and had to jury-rig our own scenario. Having the option to ally guard and 'nids, un-fluffy though it may be, will let us play these games now with some semblance of order under the rules. So I think it's a good thing and I'm happy they made the changes, and I think that's the sort of scenario they had in mind when they wrote those rules.

Wait, you actually used the ally rules for that!? My group just makes co-op games where units are BB but cannot join eachother's unit so you can buff each other but not mix units. Actually the GW employee when we started was the first to do that. Also it's not too heresy if you model those guard to be some mad cults working for Nids . Not quite how they work but close enough.

As an aside, we should really stop using the phrase "fluff-rape". We have few enough women around these parts and my girlfriend at least finds phrases like that off-putting enough to stay away from the online community.

Wait, no offense but why talk about women in this? I'm sorry just a bit perplexed why you'd even bother to mention this at all. As per avoiding it for that, pssssht if anything avoid it for the flame wars, pointless debates that always continue, and the embitterment and hatred of gamers that hold a cynical view of the game often. Jesting aside, we don't want to walk into this one trust me. This is a trap, a terrible terrible trap that nobody wants to awaken. It'll just lead to pointless debates that are incredibly off topic.