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no more true line of sight. Everything is area terrain.
Make up your mind on vehicles and STICK to it.
recost and redevelop a pointing methodology to ensure some reasonable semblance of game balance is achieved
remove the cover/invulnerable save system. if you have an invulnerable save, its a bumb to your armor save
nothing in the game except for terminator like infantry can save on anything higher than a 4+
terminators save on a 3+
remove "wounding" from the combat process. if the shot hits, lets assume its probably going to be lethal
get rid of stupid random objectives, and mission objectives that you can actually score with no effort
get rid of the psychcic phase. move it back to a context sensitive system: if your casting a melee buff, its case at the beginning of the assault phase, if your casting a shooting buff, its case at the beginning of the shooting phase, ect ect....
get rid of anything bigger than a land raider for the game. with that, reintroduce epic 40k. get rid of apocalypse from being "normal, accepted standard games" of 40k.
remove the allies system from the game. if an army can take an ally, it is clearly defined in the codex what models/units they can take as an ally and they have to pay a points increase or reduction to reflect the balance shift in the game
no more random charge distances; units have a movement stat. use that stat. its fine. no need to mess things up anymore with stupid random charge distances.
make leadership important again. have penalties that have real consequences for failing the check, and have models and units that can use this effect.
get rid of flyers. again, that what the new version of epic is for
have a technical writer write the rules, clean them up and keyword everything
reduce shooting ranges dramatically. range is unimportant in the game now. every gun can shoot almost the table length it seems.
no more pre-measuring of anything. ever.
declare all shooting and charging simultaneously.
allow overwatch to shoot with a small penalty
more game balance. more game balance.
less random stuff. everything from powers to missions, and everything else in between, just get rid of it. give players the option, and balance the powers to make taking one not so much better than a clear choice is easily attainable.
more intra-army synergy. IE. unit A gets a buff because im running charector B. so on and so forth....
seperate the fluff from the rules entirely. i dont care if grey knights should be able to destroy a planet on their own with only one dude, the fluff is the fluff, but balance is balance. quit trying to build fluff into the rules. its klunky, akward, makes for terrible conversation and wont help you at all when you try to make sense out of it...a lot like a bad date....

thats a start, i could probably think of a few more.

Instead of changing the core rules, I will propose a simpler fix. Make the codices more equal in power level.

 Random Dude wrote:
Instead of changing the core rules, I will propose a simpler fix. Make the codices more equal in power level.

Why not both?

 Blacksails wrote:

 Random Dude wrote:
Instead of changing the core rules, I will propose a simpler fix. Make the codices more equal in power level.

Why not both?

Sure, in a perfect world. GW already has enough on their plate. They still have multiple codices to update, and I feel changing both would be expecting too much. Of course with the prices they charge, I think we are entitled to expect a lot.

 Random Dude wrote:


Sure, in a perfect world. GW already has enough on their plate. They still have multiple codices to update, and I feel changing both would be expecting too much. Of course with the prices they charge, I think we are entitled to expect a lot.

No, not in a perfect world. In a totally reasonable world in which other, smaller companies do just that.

And no, they don't have too much on their plate. For a company their size, I would expect all codices to be updated with each new edition. They had a four year cycle, that's plenty to write a new edition and get all the codices up to date and do enough play testing to catch the glaring errors and most of the smaller ones.

Stick to your guns as a model company. Have Fantasy Flight take control of writing rules for the actual game, they are pretty good at it. Additionally, helps to cut down on competition between two companies that have a strong relationship while still competing for customers (X-Wing) Focus time and attention on churning out good quality models via GW and ForgeWorld, fluf through BL. In doing so, work to reduce production costs by not having to have a writing team on staff that catches nothing but flak from a community that has some legitimate concerns but often struggles to express these in a constructive and unbiased way.

When I try to imagine the writing team at GW, I can't help but imagine it's just Floyd Petrovski from season 6 of The Guild.

I would adjust charging rules so that a lot of currently disallowed types of charges are allowed but at considerable penalty (ie Initiative 1 and opponent can Overwatch at full BS or similar) for those who must absolutely charge out of their rhinos or on the turn they deep strike.

I would make a number of charge types no-bonus charges to represent less than ideal charging scenarios, but not as badly disorganized as the scenarios above. Things like infiltrating or scouting or outflanking to set up a charge in here.

I would reconnect Jink to Moving rather than have bikes and skimmers pull Matrix style dodges.

I would change up the phases so both players get to move, then both get to shoot and finally both get to assault rather than each player moving, shooting and assaulting before the other player can do anything.

I'd do a few other things if I had the time to think some more.

avatarofawesome wrote:
Stick to your guns as a model company. Have Fantasy Flight take control of writing rules for the actual game, they are pretty good at it.

The single best solution available for all concerned. HBMC, get to work! *whip*

 Random Dude wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Random Dude wrote:
Instead of changing the core rules, I will propose a simpler fix. Make the codices more equal in power level.

Why not both?

Sure, in a perfect world. GW already has enough on their plate. They still have multiple codices to update, and I feel changing both would be expecting too much. Of course with the prices they charge, I think we are entitled to expect a lot.

When Spartan Games brought out Dystopian Wars v2 they redid the rules for every single unit in the game on release. The result was a much better, more balanced, game. I'd love to see GW do this.

Honestly the entire codex release scedual is a relic of the pre internet age and is holding GW back.

Have Fantasy Flight take control of writing rules for the actual game, they are pretty good at it.

Oh, holy snail snot, no. FFG couldn't balance a ruleset if their life depended on it in less than 5 editions.

 Psienesis wrote:

Oh, holy snail snot, no. FFG couldn't balance a ruleset if their life depended on it in less than 5 editions.

GW have had 7 so far, and they still haven't got it either...

Coming from PC gaming, I look at for example World of Warcraft which has been iterated on substantially each expansion and frequently between expansions too. Subjectively many of these changes may not appeal to everyone, but there's been clear advancement in a number of areas, something GW cannot really claim with their own game. A new edition from GW doesn't substantially improve the game, it tweaks it for a lateral shift which I find really frustrating.

FFG hasn't really gotten there yet, either, only they've only got 5 editions of Dark Heresy out now. Give 'em a year and Im sure there will be a core book for the Administratum game, where you play bursars and tithe collectors in a grim galaxy of perilous adventure.

Dark Heresy is an RPG where the focus is on cooperation rather than competition. Cooperation can allow imbalances, competition cannot. It's also mediated by a GM who can counter any imbalances on the fly.

I haven't played the FFG games - yet - but I have read through all of them. I *have* played and mainly GMed RPGs for 20 years though both on and offline and any imbalances are easy fixed as the GM has full discretion over everything. Sometimes you can want a high powered campaign, or you could reward an underpowered player with something to beef them up to compensate - or the party could start to revolve around the imbalance which is fun too. Ideally you don't have gross imbalances, but they tend to come from things like 2nd ed DnD what was it... barb rogues? Weird combos rather than the blatant undercosted or otherwise poorly designed units you get in 40k.

And 40K is written in the same manner, in this case the GM is replaced by a "roll off" with a d6.

 Yonan wrote:
Dark Heresy is an RPG where the focus is on cooperation rather than competition. Cooperation can allow imbalances, competition cannot. It's also mediated by a GM who can counter any imbalances on the fly.

This, pretty much.

I've never seen the big deal about RPGs being imbalanced, since they're a co-operative rather than competitive game, and you have the impartial arbitrator to remove any silliness.


Having said that, a company's credentials as the writer of such a game don't necessarily mean anything when considering them as the potential writer of a wargame. Although they get a certain amount of leeway based on the 'surely can't do any worse' factor...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
And 40K is written in the same manner...

...aside from how you're playing against each other, with the goal being for one of you to beat the other.

Yep, the cooperative vs competitive is a huge distinguishing factor. Imbalance in cooperation is usually fine - I am *much* better at RTS and FPS games than my mates, so when we play on the same side we all have a ball. When we play versus... no one has fun unless there's a handicap system. That's the difference. When the differences come from rules rather than skills the enjoyment factor still remains, you can enjoy imbalanced coop, you cannot enjoy imbalanced competitive.

Imbalance in RPGs also is generally situationally imbalanced. A powerhouse melee fighter can wreck face in a certain brawl situation whereas a wizard chain casting fireballs will wreck in others. Both for the good of the team.

 insaniak wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
And 40K is written in the same manner...

...aside from how you're playing against each other, with the goal being for one of you to beat the other.

Be sure you take the whole quote into context, because the "forge the narrative" axiom of GW is basically instructing you to play the game as if it were a cooperative RPG, in that you are supposed to be cooperating to tell some sort of 40K story. Disputes are intended to be handled, currently, by a roll of a d6, rather than a GM or Referee, as was referenced in previous editions.

A lot of us don't accept "forge the narrative" as anything other than an excuse designed to cover for their shocking rules sorry. There are no narrative forging rules in 40k, no cooperative rules - there are only bad competitive rules.

 Psienesis wrote:
Disputes are intended to be handled, currently, by a roll of a d6, rather than a GM or Referee, as was referenced in previous editions.

'Previous editions'?

RT was the only edition to have a GM. Every other edition has just asked players to roll off.

Assault from deep strike. Game fixed.

All vehicles are assault vehicles, assault from deep strike. This would balance out shooting/assault.

Well the current rules provide all i really need which is fun nights at my gaming club but im sure i could think of plenty of minor personal preferences.

The only major change i would make would be for the game to use D10s rather then D6s.

So the fact 40k still uses the core rules (game mechanics and resolution methods,)from WHFB , even though 40k is not using massed ranks of infantry and cavalry fighting in close formation armed with hand weapons and bows/muskets.

Has not aroused concern any one else?

Of all the things wrong with 40k rules, the humble D6 can work fine if used in an intelligent way.(As many modern war games prove).
And so could easily be kept in a 40k re write.

But as GW seem reluctant to use any modern game development options , (eg anything after 1982.)

All they can do is add progressive layers of complication to the core rules that do not cover the current game play.And this leads to a over complicated holistic mess.

Lanrak wrote:
Has not aroused concern any one else?

Of course it has. This is why I say the rules need to be rebuilt from scratch, you're never going to have a good game when you're building it on the foundation of something that is completely inappropriate.

pax_imperialis wrote:
Assault from deep strike. Game fixed.

You must be a Chaos Daemons player....heck, I play Daemons too and even I can see how broken assaulting out of deepstrike is.

 Blacksails wrote:
Why not both?

Because it's hard to make some good points
Most changes I've read in this thread would make me open eBay, sell my entire army and never look back.

I'm a Blood Angels player and I understand why Assaulting after Deep Strike is a terrible idea.
The things that I would change are probably the things that take the fun out of many games.

First of all I really dislike the WS-table.
I think it's ridiculous that my WS8-model still misses 33% of his attacks.
Though I might be biased when I turned my Sanguinor into a MC with Divine Intervention and had it MISS every freaking attack that turn.
I do like the BS-idea, where everything over a 6 lets you reroll.
Maybe that could work with WS.

Random Charges are a nice thing, but I would like to see more rules that allow models to reroll those dice, especially CC-armies.
6+D6" sounds like a good idea, though I think that it makes no sense for armies like Tau to charge that same distance.

Remove Seize the Initiative.

No single roll has a greater power to end the game, and it does so 2 hours before you stop playing.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

No single roll has a greater power to end the game, and it does so 2 hours before you stop playing.

Only if you ignore the possibility of your opponent going first when you are deploying.

 insaniak wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

No single roll has a greater power to end the game, and it does so 2 hours before you stop playing.

Only if you ignore the possibility of your opponent going first when you are deploying.

To put it another way, the person who is going second never deploys their army for that 1-in-6 chance that they're going first, so I' m not quite sure how Seize the Initiative is such a game-breaker for you.