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It needs to move more towards AoS rules. Fewer rules, cleaner and simpler to play. Right now it has a range not as nice as AoS and rule set not as nice as AoS.

40k is the clusterF cousin of Fantasy/AoS where they kluge things to make it seem simpler. I was excited about 8th ed when 40k finally caught up but man, it was still so many rules issues and bloat. And whilst the game is a driving force for sales GW will not significantly change it again.

Anything like WFB has to die a death,.. like it did. And it was successful. Stop thinking about a gaming style popularized 40 years ago. It's okay things change for the better.

Hahahahahaha



Wait, you're serious?

Rules bloat is a huge issue in 40k. They really need to have a defined skirmish level where they can go ham with stuff like the strategy points and such, and then a battle level which is more streamlined and is like 3rd where you can look at a unit and understand what its capable of. Then they can go Apocalypse level where you just care about unit blocks rather then individual models.

In 40k now you need rules to prevent models from being wiped off the table in one turn. That is a clear indication of power bloat and rules boat where Ragnar Blackmane can wipe a Knight Titan off the map in one phase.

Durandal wrote:
Rules bloat is a huge issue in 40k. They really need to have a defined skirmish level where they can go ham with stuff like the strategy points and such, and then a battle level which is more streamlined and is like 3rd where you can look at a unit and understand what its capable of. Then they can go Apocalypse level where you just care about unit blocks rather then individual models.

In 40k now you need rules to prevent models from being wiped off the table in one turn. That is a clear indication of power bloat and rules boat where Ragnar Blackmane can wipe a Knight Titan off the map in one phase.

This already exists.

40k with small number of models = Kill Team.

40k with large number of models = Epic/Apocalypse.

40k with huge titans = Adeptus Titanicus.

40k with better aircraft rules = Aeronautica Imperialis

40k as an RPG = Deathwatch/Dark Heresy

40k with Spacecraft = Battlefleet Gothic

40k with Battalion level warfare = 40k 10th Edition.

The real issue is that none of those (except Kill Team) are really popular or supported much by Games Workshop. Which is why there are foolish requests for the main game to try and accommodate every type of conflict from two fireteams flanking each other to a planetwide conflict with almost 1,000 models on the table.

OT: 40k already had a near complete rewrite in 8th Edition and 10th Edition, yet there are still issues. What 40k needs is just good fundamentals and build up from there; instead of releasing new editions that take two steps forward and three steps back.

Respectfully disagree. Kill Team is not "small scale 40K", it has only infantry. In fact, if KT introduced reules for vehicles and monsters, it would become the only flavour of 40K I'd be interested in but alas, I dont think it will ever happen.

Speaking about 40K, I think it needs a total redesign from the ground up, taking into account the modern day scope and scale of the model aspects we have become accustomed to. But cynically enough, I don't think that's ever going to happen. GW have already figured out the same thing as online dating apps, it is far more profitable to keep us waiting for the "next thing" than giving us what we all actually want. So endless meaningless revisionist churn it shall be forevermore. Imperator Ave.

Dudes check the dates of what you're replying to

If only we'd had rules specifically for small fast 40K games *checks watch* SEVEN editions ago. Oh what a world that would have been!

 Lord Damocles wrote:
If only we'd had rules specifically for small fast 40K games *checks watch* SEVEN editions ago. Oh what a world that would have been!

I went back to that edition already...

The option I would vote for isn't here, but it would be like... take 5th edition, make it alternating activations of squads/units, wounds/casualties are applied in the morale phase so that each squad/unit still gets to do its full effectiveness for that turn even if they get wiped out.
So yeah.. I don't know how to say it, I guess complete re-write? To many units that are fearless, or immune to morale rules and whatnot.

Re write, and base on Necromunda game engine (but obviously simpler, to accomodate bigger battles).

Edit: oooops

I have probably already commented... But no, not really. people forget who the rules are aimed at and what market they target. As wargamers 'age' they tend to prefer 'better' (which I would sum up as more complex, less complicated) rules but GW rules are trying to give a different experience and it genuinely does seem to appeal to younger people more.

Really none of the options fit my choice. A partial rewrite would be my choice.

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Armies should be unique without a silly amount of special rules. Alot of armies feel kind of samey now with slightly different special rules.

Make Codexs cover every detail of an army. Have all painting and marking details related to the army as well. Along with make up of the army organization. Instead of being bloated with meh short stories and repetitive unit description.

Stop bloody removing options from units and whole units. In the previous edition I had two armies lose options in the middle of the edition, because the released new boxes for the units. Why would I invest time and money in army if it gets invalidated that quickly?

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Been playing 2nd ed alot recently again and kind of adds clarity on what has changed over the year. Rules where clunky but compact. Armies felt and played different. They had special rules but were not like now with every unit having a special rule and 3 layers of codex rules layered on top of each other.

8th was decent, removed alot of bloat. We had Index books that covered every army. Rules were streamline. Was a rewrite but not a completed one. 9th added alot of bloat back in and doubled down on newer mechanics

Complete re-write. Concentrate on gameplay (decisions, choices) not on admin/upkeep/busywork (generating random numbers, consulting tables, performing obligatory steps etc... good we don't have deck shuffling in GW games because then rules would ask us to do that every 3 minutes and GW would market it as the FUN! part) taking up 80% of playing time.

For example most rules than now say "...roll a D6 and on a 5+ do this" (player irrelevant , you can train a monkey to do such a menial task and get exactly the same result) could be "player can choose between A and B".

Yeah, I know, having valid, interesting, impactful, non-obvious choices instead of randomness requires better designers and playtesters, so it's just a pipe dream when it comes to GW games (surprisingly, even smaller publishers can achieve it with their board games. How? Must be a miracle.).

Rewrite from scratch. At its core, 40k is still fundamentally built on the base of 3rd edition, with layers and layers of incremental tweaks and modifications. Force Org charts became Detachments, wargear became Enhancements, options came and went, movement got taken away and added, TLOS came and went, as did allies, but deep down it's all built on that decades-old base

Kill your darlings, take concepts from more modern games. Nothing is sacred, challenge the fundamentals of what makes up 40k and make the kind of seismic shifts that marked the move from RT to 2nd or 2nd to 3rd. Burn it all to the ground

I argue that all the problems come from the stuff added on to the 3rd edition base, and not the base itself.

At this point it would be easier to keep the few things that worked from 3rd (base 3rd was very, very bare bones) as part of a new ruleset rather than using third wholesale as a basis for a new edition

Charax wrote:
At this point it would be easier to keep the few things that worked from 3rd (base 3rd was very, very bare bones) as part of a new ruleset rather than using third wholesale as a basis for a new edition

When I decided that I wasn't going to follow current 40K anymore and play an older edition again, I could have landed anywhere, but I chose 3rd. There was far more that worked in 3rd than that didn't, and most if not all of the problems stemmed from the codices and not the rules themselves.

40k has had two complete re-writes since this thread was started, and the answer is still yes