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Nah, keeps it dynamic. Two years ago the complaints were that it was to slow in the releases.

natpri771 wrote:

 Kavish wrote:
Things are pretty crazy these days with supplements everywhere and forgeworld units, not to mention new units being released constantly. It's virtually impossible (or really expensive) to keep up with it all. It's also a lot for GW to print, FAQ, and cast. With so many units available many of them must be just taking up shelf space, and costing the company money. Is 40k going the way of WFB? Is it inevitable because of GW's model of constantly expanding the range and continuing to support the old models (as not to invalidate players previous purchases). If it was a private company they could just sit on the range they have now and fill the gaps (eg: Sisters), work on improving the rules, and make modest profits. Being a corporation however, forces them (or should I say "it") to chase higher profits. Is GW strangling itself and therefore the games we love? What would GW do when even 40k, their flagship game, is costing more than it's making? (Don't say raise prices, it's not funny.) Liquidate?

Yup, the way is probably to merge some armies.
Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Space Marines, Dark Angels- Codex: Space Marines
Grey Knights, Sisters Of Battle- Inquisition (Codex Also Adds Deathwatch)
Imperial Guard, Militarum Tempestus- Codex: Imperial Guard
Chaos Soace Marines, Chaos Daemons- Codex: Forces Of Chaos

Imperial Knights should also either be removed or expanded into a Mechanicum codex (One Unit In The Entire Codex?! Seriously GW?)
Tau should also be removed, since they don't fit the theme of 40k (Sci-Fi Instead Of Sci-Fantasy). Also, they're extremely cheesy and are almost universally hated by everyone who doesn't play them. Eliminating them would also...progress the storyline! I was thinking of the entire Empire and all who reside in it being completely exterminated by the Imperium.

I very much agree with this. Chapter tactics and/or supplemental codices was a good idea, but then they went ahead with full blown codices for BA, DA, and SW anyway. SM could easily be one codex, just give each chapter 2-3 unique units and unique chapter tactics. Sisters and Inquisition don't really stand up as individual armies, and I hate the fluff violation of fielding a Grey Knights army (they belong in the fluff, not on the tabletop). IG used to have doctrines (i.e. chapter tactics) that allowed for players to make their own pseudo Tempestus army. Having their own 5-unit codex is such a cop out, it would've been so easy to add some interesting units or just wrap them into IG/AM with one page explaining their WL traits and orders.

And to reference OP, the game is definitely getting too bloated. I've posted in the Proposed Rules forum a bunch of ways that I think the game could be much more efficient with the rules and time. Basically, there are way too many distinctions without real differences:
- Many rules just add extra player actions without adding player agency: difficult terrain (just make it -2"), pile in moves (unnecessary), consolidation rolls (just make it 3"), run rolls (just combine it with movement), etc.
- Look at the charging summary reference page, there are 13 different kinds of non-vehicle charge that you need to memorize (do we really need different rules for beasts, cavalry, and chariots?)
- Every SM codex has its own deep strike special rule that makes it confusing but ultimately makes little difference. Plenty of codices have extensive blurbs explaining special rules that shouldn't exist in the first place, for IG case-in-point: lasgun arrays, heavy weapons teams. Both of those have over a hundred words describing what amounts to "3 dudes can shoot lasguns out the top of a chimera" and "one guardsman replaces his lasgun with a heavy weapon".
- Many of the USRs just confuse things and could easily be removed (blind, concussive, crusader, anything with a re-roll). Many of them are so rare that there's nothing universal about them, and should just be described in the codex or unit entry.

I don't think 40k is bloated, at least not in terms of content.
Nobody is saying you need to "keep up". You don't need to own everything.
The more choice, the better.

Rules on the other hand could do with some simplification.

I disagree with this whole, "oh I have to memorise every one of the 5 trillion rules and buy everything" crap that fills this thread.
I own the BRB, the tau codex and the AM codex, the armies I play. I literally need nothing else. I just have picked up the basics of the other armies and if there is something I don't know, my opponent simply does the simple action of pointing out what he is doing and what allows him to do it.
I know most of the BRB from heart simply from playing lots, so while there are those situations where you spend 5 minutes trying to work something out, they don't happen often.
There is one guy in my local GW community that uses all 30k stuff, and he just shows us the relevant page whenever we have a question.
I will admit that it does have a slight bloat of weird special rules (one special rule actually isn't used in any codex) and it would be very simple to have a £50 Imperium codex that covers about half the current codexes without having it all so spread out when it really isn't necessary.

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
I disagree with this whole, "oh I have to memorise every one of the 5 trillion rules and buy everything" crap that fills this thread.
I own the BRB, the tau codex and the AM codex, the armies I play. I literally need nothing else. I just have picked up the basics of the other armies and if there is something I don't know, my opponent simply does the simple action of pointing out what he is doing and what allows him to do it.
I know most of the BRB from heart simply from playing lots, so while there are those situations where you spend 5 minutes trying to work something out, they don't happen often.
There is one guy in my local GW community that uses all 30k stuff, and he just shows us the relevant page whenever we have a question.
I will admit that it does have a slight bloat of weird special rules (one special rule actually isn't used in any codex) and it would be very simple to have a £50 Imperium codex that covers about half the current codexes without having it all so spread out when it really isn't necessary.

I know most of my codex by heart as well. But I run into those "hold on let me check that" situations far more often than you it seems. I play mostly with casual folks who play about once a month. But even when playing with weekly players at my FLGS there are still a plethora of "let me check that" "how do these rules interact" "does x apply in y situation" which are mostly borne out of the myriad charts and the use of randomness instead of modifiers.

There are plenty of simple improvements that would drastically reduce the amount of rules bloat (though not necessarily content bloat):
- Simplify all d6 charts into d3 charts (e.g. vehicle damage, perils)
- Make all re-rolls into +1 or -1 (e.g. shred becomes +1 strength, fortune improves armor save by 1, etc.)
- Make cover modify BS
- Any d6" is just 3" (e.g. difficult terrain, consolidation, run, etc.), and all movement is done at once in the movement phase (not in 3+ separate phases).
- Eliminate look out sir <- this is seriously the worst waste of everyone's time and patience, it discourages strategy and rewards sloppy play.

The key is to make things more easily remembered and to reduce unnecessary player actions. Seriously, what is the point of having a fleet, move through cover unit roll 3d6 pick the highest with a re-roll just to determine whether they get to move 5" or 6" through cover? Just allow that unit to ignore difficult terrain. What is the point of having 6+ different outcomes for a perils of the warp attack? Just make the psyker suffer one wound. What is the point of having a weapon that is twin-linked, with shred? Just give it +1 BS and +1 S.

I actually like the adoption of USR instead of individually worded special rules and abilities. It's easier to tell your opponent "oh he has rage and furious charge than read out a paragraph describing the units unique special rule that nothing else in the game has.

I found this: http://bloodofkittens.com/formation-compendium/
I'm hoping the next round of codex's have all the relevant dataslates and whatnot incorporated into them.

I too believe that 40k has become far too bloated for a reasonable level of enjoyment.

Full disclosure: I don't have the 7th edition, I only have up to 6th. 7th turned me off for being dropped on us not barely even two years after 6th and without a great amount of armies being updated to 6th.

The sixth edition rulebook has 82 special rules, I just counted. In contrast the special rules section of the fifth edition only has 22. Now I do concede that many of those rules which take up so much space in 6th edition were seeded throughout previous editions under their respective sections, however it is a daunting list and adds nothing to the rules; whereas previously it seems those rules were referred to in the sections where they would make sense.

Ex: Armourbane v. Melta, or Rending v. Shred. Why can't we just call melta-bombs a melta weapon that fires off in the melee phase, or any other melee weapon with a melta-like effect should just have keyword 'Melta'. Rending used to be terrifying, now Shred takes the spotlight, seriously it sounds like a 12 year-old boy wrote some of this stuff just to out-do his mate.

What do you mean by Bloated?

When we say "bloated" we mean overstuffed with rules and options that slow down gameplay, complicate things, and cause confusion.

Especially so with what I like to call the 'almost-rules' in which a rule is like another rule but only slightly different when the original rule would have sufficed. Sometimes this is due to bad writing and it was intended to be just like the original rule but with a fancy blood or wolf in front of it but the translation from brain to page wasn't as clear as it should have been. Other times it really was intended to be different, but it is so close to the original that it causes confusion and frustration.

Think of bloat as extra software that runs in th background of your tablet or smartphone. It doesn't hurt, but its not really necessary for your device and your device would probably be faster without it.

xraytango wrote:
When we say "bloated" we mean overstuffed with rules and options that slow down gameplay, complicate things, and cause confusion.

Especially so with what I like to call the 'almost-rules' in which a rule is like another rule but only slightly different when the original rule would have sufficed. Sometimes this is due to bad writing and it was intended to be just like the original rule but with a fancy blood or wolf in front of it but the translation from brain to page wasn't as clear as it should have been. Other times it really was intended to be different, but it is so close to the original that it causes confusion and frustration.

Think of bloat as extra software that runs in th background of your tablet or smartphone. It doesn't hurt, but its not really necessary for your device and your device would probably be faster without it.

Can you provide an example of stuff you're talking about?

I was just about to agree that the game was bloated, but when I think about it, I don't really mind it all that much. I mean, yeah, if you strive to know everthing and have everything it's a bit much, but you don't need to - If you're playing with friends in a non-competetive envoirment, it isn't that much of a problem, because you can inform people of what you are using beforehand.

In fact, I like that there's always something new to read about or to try. I don't get that many games in a month, so it's nice to have something else (besides 1d4chan and Dakkdakka) to put my mind to, to keep me in the hobby... I guess it hurts my long-term memory, though. "You know what paper we were to do tomorrow?" "Ah, well, not really... But I can tell you have Furious Charge changed from 5th Edition to 6th Edition?..."

Besides that, my feelings on the subject of bloat can be found in the top part of my signature.

My solution to the bloat can be found in the bottom.

 Toofast wrote:

"It's happening"?! I can't even take anything you say seriously any more. 4 years ago, all the rules for GK were in 1 book. Now you need 2 books and a dataslate for the same information. Please enlighten me as to how GW is centralizing rules. Just give me one example. Every single release this year has had rules spread into more different sources than ever before. I played a tyranid player yesterday who had the codex, baal book, a white dwarf and a dataslate to play everything in his army. In 6th edition he would've needed a tyranid codex and that's it. I played space wolves and needed the codex, supplement, a book from stormfang and the fortifications book. In 5th I just needed my codex. Just because you say something doesn't make it true so please just cite one example of how rules are more centralized than they were 2-3 years ago.

Yes it is happening.

Many rules have been normalized under USRs, and the newer books have far less unique rules and a lot more USRs in them, which centralizes rules and gives more impact to new BRB releases, and thus helps balance.

Are there more books ? Sure. But now, most of what you should know is in the BRB (not all, not yet), when before a majority of obscure rules were in someone else's codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swastakowey wrote:

So yes I would say its pretty overflowing simply because there is no real way of finding everything in a few simple clicks. This is made worse by limited edition stuff as well.

On the contrary, if you have everything in epub/mobi, it's way easier than it has ever been.
Way too expensive too, but hey.

 TheSilo wrote:
Make cover modify BS

This I can get behind. I've never understood why cover is a save, surely it makes the guy harder to hit than wound?

But GW doesn't make logical decisions all the time.

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:
Make cover modify BS

This I can get behind. I've never understood why cover is a save, surely it makes the guy harder to hit than wound?

But GW doesn't make logical decisions all the time.

Well, surely you'd have to recost a lot of units?

I mean, guardsmen would get a whole lot worse and units with good saves would get a whole lot better.

I dread to even contemplate trying to take down a Riptide.

40K definitely has a larger volume of content than it used to, but I don't think it's "too" large.

I enjoy having a very wide variety of units and armies to choose from, as well as being able to mix it up with allies. I especially enjoy armies or rules which do "weird" things without being overpowering. For example, the Assassins are fairly unique in how they work, so I like them, and Inquisitors have a very high level of customisability, so I like them. Mostly I stick to a core army, and mix and match appropriate allies on a whim.

Having said that, I think there should be a trend to representing special snowflakes with different combinations of USRs rather than codex specific special rules where possible.

Having a very large number of codexes and smaller downloads is a benefit, I think, since players can more highly customise their army to suit their taste and switch between armies so as to keep the game fresh. Overall: no reason to slim down the number of codexes (why take away other people's fun just because you can't afford to buy them all and keep track of competitive counter-strategies?) but the rules would benefit from a serious slimming.

As regarding having to reference multiple sources to play an army: it's a problem that what used to be in a single book has been separated (e.g. Grek Knights) but in other examples, such as Tyranids, all the additional dataslates and expansions are entirely optional and were never represented before at all. You aren't forced to use them.

 vipoid wrote:

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:
Make cover modify BS

This I can get behind. I've never understood why cover is a save, surely it makes the guy harder to hit than wound?

But GW doesn't make logical decisions all the time.

Well, surely you'd have to recost a lot of units?

I mean, guardsmen would get a whole lot worse and units with good saves would get a whole lot better.

I dread to even contemplate trying to take down a Riptide.

I'd just make it so that MCs and FMCs are so large that you cannot not hit them in some way or another, unless of course you simply cannot see the thing, meaning that they never get Cover, neither Hard or Soft (I suspect there will be a difference - Area Terrain and Bushes are Soft e.g -1, while Ruins and stuff are Hard, e.g -2)

And I wouldn't mind that infantry switch. I mean, right now Guardsmen are some of the best Troops there is, while Tacs are left behind (Anyone remember that fun thread? Ah, those were the times).

I should try that with some mates, sometime. Sounds like fun.

 The Wise Dane wrote:

And I wouldn't mind that infantry switch. I mean, right now Guardsmen are some of the best Troops there is, while Tacs are left behind

So, instead you want Guardsmen to be useless while Tacs zoom ahead?

 vipoid wrote:

 The Wise Dane wrote:

And I wouldn't mind that infantry switch. I mean, right now Guardsmen are some of the best Troops there is, while Tacs are left behind

So, instead you want Guardsmen to be useless while Tacs zoom ahead?

Yeah, sure.

No, of course not - But Guardsmen wouldn't be useless either way. What kills Guardsmen are loads of strong shots and blasts, and with a reduced BS, one of those will be pretty good for them. I don't know the math, but I rememeber pitting a 10 Tac squad against a 30 Ork Shoota mob in a thread once, and it showed that it was favourable for the Tacs... But only slightly, though

Also, orders. And tanks. Combined warfare and stuff.

On the cover issue, everyone should benefit (unless you're a vehicle or MC that is less than 25% covered).

It's silly to think that Space Marines get no benefit from cover even when they're standing chin deep in a trench. Cover is the most dominant aspect of a battlefield, it shouldn't just be irrelevant for half the armies.

This fix has the benefit of reducing all the extra save rolling and working around all the crazy exceptions, template and blast weapons are hardly affected (these are weapons specifically meant to drive enemies from cover irl).

I also like the idea of cover making units completely immune to snap shots (if you're in a trench and you get hit by some grunt firing from the hip, it's your own damn fault).

P.s. Of course it would necessitate points adjustments, so would any rules change. I don't think that's a great excuse for perpetuating bad rules.

To cover the current game play of 7th ed 40k, with well written modern intuitive rules should not take more than 50 pages of rules.
Its only when you try to make 40k battle game backward compatible to WHFB skirmish core rues, does the list of additional /special rules skyrocket.

 TheSilo wrote:
On the cover issue, everyone should benefit (unless you're a vehicle or MC that is less than 25% covered).

It's silly to think that Space Marines get no benefit from cover even when they're standing chin deep in a trench. Cover is the most dominant aspect of a battlefield, it shouldn't just be irrelevant for half the armies.

This fix has the benefit of reducing all the extra save rolling and working around all the crazy exceptions, template and blast weapons are hardly affected (these are weapons specifically meant to drive enemies from cover irl).

P.s. Of course it would necessitate points adjustments, so would any rules change. I don't think that's a great excuse for perpetuating bad rules.

Assuming points were adjusted to balance it, I'd be happy with this change.

 TheSilo wrote:

I also like the idea of cover making units completely immune to snap shots (if you're in a trench and you get hit by some grunt firing from the hip, it's your own damn fault).

Honestly, I'd like to see Snapshots either removed or changed to BS-2 or something. Having everything hit on 6s is just wasting everyone's time.

The only player-friendly solution would be a unified and completely digital regularly updated codex/ruleset library. It's 2014, relying on printed media for game rules is archaic (though no doubt profitable).

I know gw has to make money and stay in business because that's what companies do, but I wish they could find a more agreeable business model for their *rules*. The pricing of their minis doesn't bother me at all really.

 vipoid wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:
On the cover issue, everyone should benefit (unless you're a vehicle or MC that is less than 25% covered).

It's silly to think that Space Marines get no benefit from cover even when they're standing chin deep in a trench. Cover is the most dominant aspect of a battlefield, it shouldn't just be irrelevant for half the armies.

This fix has the benefit of reducing all the extra save rolling and working around all the crazy exceptions, template and blast weapons are hardly affected (these are weapons specifically meant to drive enemies from cover irl).

P.s. Of course it would necessitate points adjustments, so would any rules change. I don't think that's a great excuse for perpetuating bad rules.

Assuming points were adjusted to balance it, I'd be happy with this change.

 TheSilo wrote:

I also like the idea of cover making units completely immune to snap shots (if you're in a trench and you get hit by some grunt firing from the hip, it's your own damn fault).

Honestly, I'd like to see Snapshots either removed or changed to BS-2 or something. Having everything hit on 6s is just wasting everyone's time.

Removing snap shots is my preferred solution, but people go bonkers whenever I suggest it.

Well, in former editions up to the fifth I had quite a good overview about all 40k factions.
This changed with all the data slates and supplements.
Another issue is to keep the armies updated and playable at a competitive level.
This is really hard due all the new stuff.
I know a guy who bought 3 Helldrakes and 3 Maulerfiends in the 6th Ed and was quite successful with them.
Now the Helldrakes are less useful and he just fields one of them.
The consequence for me is to shrink the number of armies.
I already got rid off my CSM army and think about dropping my DA successor chapter as well.

 koooaei wrote:

xraytango wrote:
When we say "bloated" we mean overstuffed with rules and options that slow down gameplay, complicate things, and cause confusion.

Especially so with what I like to call the 'almost-rules' in which a rule is like another rule but only slightly different when the original rule would have sufficed. Sometimes this is due to bad writing and it was intended to be just like the original rule but with a fancy blood or wolf in front of it but the translation from brain to page wasn't as clear as it should have been. Other times it really was intended to be different, but it is so close to the original that it causes confusion and frustration.

Think of bloat as extra software that runs in th background of your tablet or smartphone. It doesn't hurt, but its not really necessary for your device and your device would probably be faster without it.

Can you provide an example of stuff you're talking about?

40K 7th edition.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

xraytango wrote:
When we say "bloated" we mean overstuffed with rules and options that slow down gameplay, complicate things, and cause confusion.

Especially so with what I like to call the 'almost-rules' in which a rule is like another rule but only slightly different when the original rule would have sufficed. Sometimes this is due to bad writing and it was intended to be just like the original rule but with a fancy blood or wolf in front of it but the translation from brain to page wasn't as clear as it should have been. Other times it really was intended to be different, but it is so close to the original that it causes confusion and frustration.

Think of bloat as extra software that runs in th background of your tablet or smartphone. It doesn't hurt, but its not really necessary for your device and your device would probably be faster without it.

Can you provide an example of stuff you're talking about?

40K 7th edition.

Bad way of making a point dude, just chose an actual example.

Fearless vs ATSKNF is a decent example. Another example is having 15 different kinds of leadership tests. Is all that really necessary in a mass battle game with 100 models per side?

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:
Make cover modify BS

This I can get behind. I've never understood why cover is a save, surely it makes the guy harder to hit than wound?

But GW doesn't make logical decisions all the time.

I guess the way I saw it, despite it making little sense, was you roll to hit, but your rolls to wound determine WHAT you hit. So every save I made were actually you hitting the wall/tree/broken tank, and not my dudes. I spose it just made sense for one player to roll all their dice (to hits, to wounds) instead of having your opponent cut you off in between to roll cover saves?

I can foresee negitive mods making my Ork shooting suck all the worse :p

Melevolence wrote:

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:
Make cover modify BS

This I can get behind. I've never understood why cover is a save, surely it makes the guy harder to hit than wound?

But GW doesn't make logical decisions all the time.

I guess the way I saw it, despite it making little sense, was you roll to hit, but your rolls to wound determine WHAT you hit. So every save I made were actually you hitting the wall/tree/broken tank, and not my dudes. I spose it just made sense for one player to roll all their dice (to hits, to wounds) instead of having your opponent cut you off in between to roll cover saves?

I can foresee negitive mods making my Ork shooting suck all the worse :p

But then again, we have Burnas and Sluggas to take out entrenched people - I'd really like it if 40K get the same kind of strategy as Fantasy, where you don't go "Okay, I need something killy, so I fill out my entire roster with that thing", but rather go "I need something to defend my Objectives, and someone to remove enemy defenders from their" or "I need something that hits hard, something that will protect the hard thing, someone to hold up the ones the hard thing needs to kill, something fast to deny flanking and properbly a Wizard."

Perhaps part of the problem is that there aren't many real options in terms of gameplay.

Sure, there are a lot of options in terms of list building (even if a good chunk are false-options), but in-game what can infantry really do?

- Move
- Shoot
- Charge
- Go to Ground

That's about it. But, for all the endless dice-rolling, could there not be more in the way of options?

e.g. what if, instead of just diving for cover, infantry could choose to entrench themselves - maybe sacrificing a turn of shooting to gain +1 cover until they move.

Similarly, why does splitting a unit's fire require a special rule? Especially since we're now firing one weapon type at a time anyway. It just seems like something squads should be able to do anyway. Hell, I'm confused about why it required a Ld test. I mean, let's say you have a unit of guardsmen with some Lascannon HWTs. There is a mob of orks bearing down on you, but your commander decides that destroying a battlewagon in the distance is more important - and so orders the lascannons to open fire on it. So, why wouldn't the rest of the guardsmen shoot the oncoming orks? Their weapons can't hurt the battlewagon, but they can certainly hurt the orks. And, really, I think it would require a passed Ld test to *not* shoot those orks.

And, on that note, why is combat a black-hole that warps time and space? Units that shoot and then stop to fight move several times the distance of those that just run. You can't shoot into combat for fear if hitting a friendly unit - even though a) the opponent is a Wraithknight and the squad doesn't even reach its ankles, b) this is done all the time in the fluff and c) hitting your own unit is often still better than the fate which would otherwise await it. Which is kinder - potentially shooting friendly guardsmen with lasguns in a bid to save them, or leaving them at the mercy of a Haemonculus and his pet Grotesques?

*shrugs*

It just feels to me like this game is padded in the wrong places. in particular, it has a ton of dice-rolling in place of any actual options (or even logic).