Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
So when is 8th edition coming out, or is this all just speculation about the new edition?

Speculation, but speculation based on GW's consistent history of releasing new editions as a sales tool. We know 8th edition is going to happen, probably within the next year or two, the only question is the exact date.

There's more than that. The reliable rumour people are saying an overhaul is coming.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
So when is 8th edition coming out, or is this all just speculation about the new edition?

Speculation, but speculation based on GW's consistent history of releasing new editions as a sales tool. We know 8th edition is going to happen, probably within the next year or two, the only question is the exact date.

Given 7th ed didn't really work as a sales tool it will be interesting to see what they do.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Given 7th ed didn't really work as a sales tool it will be interesting to see what they do.

6th had not been out long enough for people to see much point in getting 7th.
Then Formations happened, and it all got a bit silly.
8th may be mostly hope from the players, but rumours and past experience play well with the chance of 8th happening soon.

A bit silly? Formations drove me from the game.

 Skinnereal wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Given 7th ed didn't really work as a sales tool it will be interesting to see what they do.

6th had not been out long enough for people to see much point in getting 7th.
Then Formations happened, and it all got a bit silly.
8th may be mostly hope from the players, but rumours and past experience play well with the chance of 8th happening soon.

6th wasn't really a big uptick in revenue like earlier editions were either. I think there may have been a lot of vets used to the idea of riding out editions they didn't like who stuck around for 6th but left when 7th rolled around and GW doubled down on the things they didn't like. The year 7th came out was actually a big downturn in revenue (compared to 5th that was a big up year).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
A bit silly? Formations drove me from the game.

Me too. I have no interest in 40K until the whole formation BS is gone. Going to a tournament playing 7th seems like a complete nightmare. WYSIWYG is completely out of the window when every model has like three different extra special rules depending on what formation it's bought in.

I have no hope that a 8th edition will fix anything. Rather they'll double down on the madness.

If the rumors about a advancing plot-line with returning primarchs proves true, then GW will probably feth up the setting as well, removing the last vestige of why many people care about the game.

The decline is slow still, but once the critical mass of gamers starts dropping below the line where 40K isn't the de-facto standard game anymore, the fall may be a quick and drastic vicious circle.

How many people now are playing 40K still, just because it's the game where they can get opponents to use their models with?

I didn't get 7th for one simple reason - I'd only just paid £45 for 6th edition and it got invalidated within a couple of months. My book still creaked when I opened it! It still creaked when I dumped it at the charity shop recently as well.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Given 7th ed didn't really work as a sales tool it will be interesting to see what they do.

I think you're mixing up two sales tools here: the initial spike of people rushing to buy the rulebook all at once, and the ongoing sales of new books as each codex is updated. 7th edition may not have had as much of an initial spike but it did accomplish the goal of changing the rules sufficiently that GW could continue selling everyone new books (including new versions of the rules they already owned). For example, by bringing LoW into the core rules GW created a whole new category of things to sell in large numbers, and the removal of the FOC allowed GW to publish whole books that are nothing more than "here's some formations for your army so you're updated to 7th". Those changes won't show up as an immediate spike in sales numbers, but without them GW would likely see a drop in sales as they run out of new things to sell.

This is also why 8th edition is becoming inevitable: GW is running out of armies to update to 7th edition, so the only way to keep codex sales at their current level is a new edition of the core rules.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
There's more than that. The reliable rumour people are saying an overhaul is coming.

Wasn't there a pretty reliable (from one of the WHW events) about an AoSing of the 40K game/storyline, but without the world being blown up? That sounds like it could be an 8th edition, and if it actually simplifies the game I'd be all over it. At the moment, I haven't played 40K in a year and right on the brink of selling up my last army.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
I've said this before, but 8th 40K is going to be the most important release for GW in, well, forever.

This will be the 6th time they've made a rule set that uses the framework from 3rd Ed (including 3rd Ed). Do you have any amount of realistic hope that they're going to fix things?

Remember what I said about 6th (link is in my sig):

"I could almost live with it if 7th Ed was GW making a new edition to fix the problems of 6th - like a 'break glass in case of stupidity' situation where they've seen what 40K has become (allies shenanigans, dataslates, and other nonsense) and they decided the best way to fix it was to tear the Band-Aid off quickly and reset everything with a new edition. But they're not doing that. They're adding more extraneous nonsense. More charts. More things to roll on. More cards ... More dataslates ... More blatant disregard for the fluff."

7th doubled down on the problems of 6th, adding more complicated nonsense, charts, tables and even more special rules than 3rd Ed had before it collapsed under its own weight and was replaced with the most boring edition of 40K ever. Why do we think 8th will fix this when their track record says otherwise?

The rumours suggest that this isn't the 3rd framework, that's why I'm hoping for change. No new codexes (other than demi-codexes like DW and GSC) suggests that they know there's no point in updating them because they're not going to work with the new system. Panda has suggests an AOS lite approach is coming WRT the simplification of the rules, and I'm a fan of brevity in games systems.

There are still potential issues of course - simplified won't necessarily mean balanced, they might simplify them to the point where there's even less tactical depth than there is now.

But if they can make something that's fairer, with free access to the rules, requires less effort to have a game, and offers an increase in player agency and on-table gaming, as opposed to the list building then by the numbers execution that we have now?

I can be optimistic for that, and so far nothing from a reliable source has suggested it can't happen.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
I didn't get 7th for one simple reason - I'd only just paid £45 for 6th edition and it got invalidated within a couple of months. My book still creaked when I opened it! It still creaked when I dumped it at the charity shop recently as well.

I had hardly opened the nicely boxed special-edition version 6th rules I paid far too much for. I keep it for the creak that stops me buying anything LE from GW ever again.

 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Given 7th ed didn't really work as a sales tool it will be interesting to see what they do.

I think you're mixing up two sales tools here: the initial spike of people rushing to buy the rulebook all at once, and the ongoing sales of new books as each codex is updated. 7th edition may not have had as much of an initial spike but it did accomplish the goal of changing the rules sufficiently that GW could continue selling everyone new books (including new versions of the rules they already owned). For example, by bringing LoW into the core rules GW created a whole new category of things to sell in large numbers, and the removal of the FOC allowed GW to publish whole books that are nothing more than "here's some formations for your army so you're updated to 7th". Those changes won't show up as an immediate spike in sales numbers, but without them GW would likely see a drop in sales as they run out of new things to sell.

This is also why 8th edition is becoming inevitable: GW is running out of armies to update to 7th edition, so the only way to keep codex sales at their current level is a new edition of the core rules.

It didn't work as a sales tool in either sense, the year 7th came out GW revenue dropped over £10M from the previous year.

hobojebus wrote:
[

I'm just sick of hearing how things have improved from fanboys when the change has been pretty insignificant.

Grump and plenty of the folks that are cautiously optimistic, or even liking with gw's latest offerings/direction are far from 'fanboys'. Being the perpetual black knight so over invested with the hate as you are is just as pointless and toxic.

And I know you like to hate with all the power of all of the hate all of the time, and will perform any amount of mental gymnastics to make that hate possible, but sometimes, this hating for the sake of hating is just self destructive.

Give it time. There have been changes. Slow? True. But this is a multi million pound corporation with almost two thousand employees and with many other commitments to juggle and people to please than just you. These beasts don't change direction on a dime. Or do anything In a time scale of finishing a beer. Take it from someone who works in pharma- change for these kinds of companies takes time, and by time, i mean it often takes years. Roundtree can't just click his fingers and make magic, regardless of your hate. You will see the long term effects of his decisions, and more tangible expressions of gw's new directions in 2017, 2018. At the earliest. And for someone who has followed gw since the early naughties, and who has shook his head with disappointment through the last ten years of kirby's short term-ism ''at the expense of gamers", I too am cautiously optimistic. Or as close to optimistic as my cynicism towards gw will allow! In other words, I'll see where this goes, and hold my tongue until I see what transpires

 Azreal13 wrote:
But if they can make something that's fairer, with free access to the rules, requires less effort to have a game, and offers an increase in player agency and on-table gaming, as opposed to the list building then by the numbers execution that we have now?

I can be optimistic for that, and so far nothing from a reliable source has suggested it can't happen.

Although GW's abysmal track record of rules writing in the last decade or so absolutely suggest that what you outline can't (or at least won't) happen.

But then you have the fact that rules writing talent has been going into GW just recently (if only one or two examples) as opposed to the brain drain of the last decade or so, and the fact that many people seem to rate the new games that have been coming out, even if they're essentially vehicles to discount models, and even then there's at least some cause for optimism.

There's already a volume of talent at GW (the design studio is huge now, some 150 people IIRC) so it may be that if they're given a bit more time, rather than the treadmill that we've been on since 6th, they can produce something better. Certainly the campaign supplements can be seen as lazy, where all they do is add a few formations etc, but they could also be a method of freeing up design time to invest in 8th, while trying to administer first aid to 7th as a stop gap.

Sure, we could be in for a brilliant 8th edition, well balanced, streamlined and all that. But it might also be a lazy port of 7th with some flyer minigame bolted on, a bunch of superhero primarcs running around and formations containing formations of formations. GW's design studion has been vastly larger than any of their direct competitors for years and that hasn't stopped them from running 40K into the ground.

I just don't see any reason to get my hopes up. GW has lost any benefit of the doubt I might have had when it comes to crafting rules.

Disclaimer: I don't play 7th nor own any new materials.

One big consideration: they're still printing books for 7th edition rules (the new Traitor's Hate and Angel...something). While I've seen a lot of people hint at an 8th edition in late 2017 etc., this is a huge indicator that if 8th edition comes out within the next year or two it will be making use of the current batch of codices - particularly the brand new stuff being issued out now.

If there was going to be a huge revised game taking it all back to the start you'd have seen a slow down in pumping out new shiny books. This is an issue that has crippled 40K's rules for the past 10-15 years.

They do not issue new codices for each edition - mainly because they insist on having 25+ codices and even more armies in the form of supplemental books etc. They've bloated the paper trail of the game into something that they can't produce in a timely fashion when a new edition is launched. This inherently forces them to adjust rules, but not stats or fundamental game principles.

You see the same skeleton work from 3rd edition in current GW products. Because they create games intended to use the oldest codices available they've stuck themselves in a rut they won't be able to exit if they continue to try to release new editions every 1.5-3 years.

Now, sure, they could just crank out a new AoS-esque 8th edition and say "screw you all, all of the books you've purchased are worthless". I don't remember the time lapse between the latest Fantasy books and their new edition. If they want desperately to lose customers they could go this route. I can guarantee if I'd just paid the ridiculous $55-75 bucks for a GW rulebook and it was replaced within a year, I'd be pretty ticked.

 Zywus wrote:
Sure, we could be in for a brilliant 8th edition, well balanced, streamlined and all that. But it might also be a lazy port of 7th with some flyer minigame bolted on, a bunch of superhero primarcs running around and formations containing formations of formations. GW's design studion has been vastly larger than any of their direct competitors for years and that hasn't stopped them from running 40K into the ground.

I just don't see any reason to get my hopes up. GW has lost any benefit of the doubt I might have had when it comes to crafting rules.

Because the best rumourmonger we have says they recognise 7th is bad.

Because we have the same guy saying the 8th will be different.

Because there has been change in a lot of critical areas.

Because if they don't, there's little chance they'll ever do more than arrest the slide they've been on.

One big consideration: they're still printing books for 7th edition rules (the new Traitor's Hate and Angel...something). While I've seen a lot of people hint at an 8th edition in late 2017 etc., this is a huge indicator that if 8th edition comes out within the next year or two it will be making use of the current batch of codices - particularly the brand new stuff being issued out now.

No, this is an indicator of the exact opposite.

We are getting supplements, not codexes. A core faction codex hasn't been updated in months, we're getting these campaign books instead - specifically because they need to keep supporting their model releases but don't want to update codexes for what they consider a dead edition.

Just find Sad Panda's profile and read his post history, he's been absolutely dead on in everything he's said.

There is a new edition of 40K in the works.

It's also correct that GW doesn't bother re-doing old Codex books, basically since Tau, as they consider 7th a lame duck rule set (there will still be rules for new miniatures, incl. campaigns, Codex Deathwatch, etc..).

Anything Panda (or Atia) say at this point is basically as good as reading it in White Dwarf.

 Azreal13 wrote:

No, this is an indicator of the exact opposite.
We are getting supplements, not codexes. A core faction codex hasn't been updated in months, we're getting these campaign books instead - specifically because they need to keep supporting their model releases but don't want to update codexes for what they consider a dead edition.
Just find Sad Panda's profile and read his post history, he's been absolutely dead on in everything he's said.

There is a new edition of 40K in the works.

It's also correct that GW doesn't bother re-doing old Codex books, basically since Tau, as they consider 7th a lame duck rule set (there will still be rules for new miniatures, incl. campaigns, Codex Deathwatch, etc..).

Anything Panda (or Atia) say at this point is basically as good as reading it in White Dwarf.

It's also worth noting that in other editions, the latter codices begin to become changeover proofed or at least capable of surviving into the next incarnation... A total cessation of codex release may well indicate a very radical change in the works for the next edition.

This feels like a major reworking in the offing, not a lazy port. With all the other change in the wind, I'm eager to see it, my orks have stunk in this edition, both via the rulebook and the thrice-damned codex of crud.

I will give any new version an honest look, but I suspect like nearly every version of 40k, the commercial interests will trump game design as a priority. I doubt the studio will be able to produce a truly good game as I don't think GW stands behind the idea that good rules sell models and instead thinks that good models just need the barest effort in rules to be made in order to sell. That the rules are best thought of as a framework for collection first and foremost.

Hmmm I thought the Traitor's Hate was a full on codex...you mean they're charging that much for a simple supplement? Ouch...

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

No, this is an indicator of the exact opposite.
We are getting supplements, not codexes. A core faction codex hasn't been updated in months, we're getting these campaign books instead - specifically because they need to keep supporting their model releases but don't want to update codexes for what they consider a dead edition.
Just find Sad Panda's profile and read his post history, he's been absolutely dead on in everything he's said.

There is a new edition of 40K in the works.

It's also correct that GW doesn't bother re-doing old Codex books, basically since Tau, as they consider 7th a lame duck rule set (there will still be rules for new miniatures, incl. campaigns, Codex Deathwatch, etc..).

Anything Panda (or Atia) say at this point is basically as good as reading it in White Dwarf.

It's also worth noting that in other editions, the latter codices begin to become changeover proofed or at least capable of surviving into the next incarnation... A total cessation of codex release may well indicate a very radical change in the works for the next edition.

This feels like a major reworking in the offing, not a lazy port. With all the other change in the wind, I'm eager to see it, my orks have stunk in this edition, both via the rulebook and the thrice-damned codex of crud.

1.) Initiative: Each player rolls 1D6 - highest roll places their army first.
2.) Deployment: Pile all your miniatures together in your deployment zone.
3.) 2nd. Initiative: Each player rolls 1d6 - highest roll begins play first.
4.) Play: Each player douses their pile of miniatures with lighter fluid. Then both players ignite their armies at the same time, using pages from their army codex as kindling.
5.) Victory: Measure the height of the flames - winner is the player with the highest flames.
6.) Redeployment: Each player buys a new army, and repeats stages 1-6.

The Auld Grump - and these rules are still better than Age of Sigmar!

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Zywus wrote:
Sure, we could be in for a brilliant 8th edition, well balanced, streamlined and all that. But it might also be a lazy port of 7th with some flyer minigame bolted on, a bunch of superhero primarcs running around and formations containing formations of formations. GW's design studion has been vastly larger than any of their direct competitors for years and that hasn't stopped them from running 40K into the ground.

I just don't see any reason to get my hopes up. GW has lost any benefit of the doubt I might have had when it comes to crafting rules.

Because the best rumourmonger we have says they recognise 7th is bad.

Because we have the same guy saying the 8th will be different.

Because there has been change in a lot of critical areas.

Because if they don't, there's little chance they'll ever do more than arrest the slide they've been on.

It's one thing to realize the current edition isn't doing well and one thing to turn it around. It's one thing to make a edition different from 7th and make something well designed that's well recieved.
They indeed need to change some fundamental stuff to arrest their slide and they might finally have realized that, but that doesn't mean they can or will succed.

Either they invalidate a huge pile of codexes, supplemets and campaign book and potentially get the horribly bloated system streamlined and somewhat smooth like the transition between 2nd and 3rd edition 40K or 5th and 6th edition fantasy with the clean but rudimentary armylists collected in the rulebook and Ravening hordes respectively. I would personally welcome the second option. A hard reboot of the game system. How would that be recieved by the current playerbase though?

A problem GW has created for themselves is that they've conditioned their playerbase to expect books and formations to build all kinds of 'special snowflake' forces. Tournament players are more or less encouraged to create armies from three or even more sources.
- Main codex
- Supplement codex containing the juiciest formations
- Codex for allied force, and that codex' supplement codex
- Campaign book containing some special formation
etc.

Either 8th edition does away with all that sillyness to create a manageble system, leaving current players with 3-4 expensive obsolete books. Or 8th edition attempts to carry over all the bloat from 7th making them compatible with the new edition. If the second is chosen, I can't see any way that they can fix any of he problems afflicting 7th.

 StygianBeach wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

GW sold fewer things this year than they did last year - fewer people bought Space Marines. Fewer people bought not-Space Marines. (Space Marines are easily their best selling items - more than entire games make for the company - so breaking them down as Space Marines and not-Space Marines gives a better view of how sales are actually running - Space Marines sold better than the entirety of Warhammer Fantasy Battle for several years.)

GW sold less stuff.

Which means that they made less money.

Not 'spent more than they made' - just made 'less money via sales than they made last year via sales'.

Making less money than the previous year means that you are losing money - getting less profit from the same amount of expended effort and resources.

If the trend continues then sooner, rather than later, they will end up 'spending more money than they made'.

This year, they made more money - but only after you add in the additional revenue from licensing. The sales of the games and miniatures that GW actually makes was lower than the year before.

Licensing is a band aid because it does not directly do anything about the root causes of dropping sales. It does not address why GW sold fewer Space Marines and not-Space Marines.

Selling less stuff also devalues the license - it is a lot easier to sell tee shirts of a hit band than it is for a group that has concerts in their parents' garage.

Saying 'oh, they only lost 0.9% of sales' still means a loss in sales, and that loss is on top of the losses from the year before, and the year before that.

Finding out what is going wrong in their core business not only means increasing their direct sales, but also adds value to their license.

What Kirby had been focusing on was not on growing the brand, it was on cutting costs - which does not add value to the brand, nor does it increase sales. It merely means that there is greater profit on each of the sales that they do make - which is a matter of diminishing returns.

Rountree is focusing on growing the market - selling more items, even if the profit on each item sold is lower.

So, he is putting out stuff that can be sold in hobby shops, not just GW and game stores.

He is putting together bundles, so that folks that weren't buying, let us say Knights, will spend the money to get two Knights. They are meaking less money than they would if someone was buying two at full price - but a lot more than they would if the person didn't buy anything.

Rountree is doing what Kirby should have - and had Kirby started doing this ten years ago, or even five years ago, then GW would not be in the position that it is now in.

The question is - can GW turn around fast enough to grow the brand big enough that the company does not go under?

The Auld Grump - they have a much better chance now than they did even a year and a half ago.

Thanks for the clarification that you are in agreement that GW made a profit this year, and last, and the year before.....

GW have been in a trend of diminishing profits for a long time. Making the claim that 'if this continues GW will go under' is quite banal and obvious, given enough time this would happen with any company.
The thing is that GW are making so much money that there is no impending doom just around the corner.

Considering how many posts I have read that where people have claimed to have started 40K because of Dawn of War I do not agree that licensing plays no part in addressing the sale of GW boxes.

I agree Roundtree is doing things much better than Kirby (from about 2009 onwards anyway), in fact around 2009 I would have agreed with the 'stagnation and decline' comment.

GW are trying new things and have many years ahead of them to see how things go.

I do not think that GW will ever go under as long as there is miniatures market, they may become a very small shadow of what they once were but I think they will always have some presence.

Sorry - that just means that you consider 'stagnate and decline' to be part of the natural life of a company - not that GW was not stagnating and declining.

Nor is it something that happens with 'any company' - it happens with companies that are failing.

Kodak had remarkably similar problems. TSR had remarkably similar problems, and when the decline was not halted, each company went under.

TSR was bigger than GW.

Kodak was bigger than GW and TSR put together.

Each failed to adapt to a changing marketplace, and each went under.

GW was not adjusting to a changing marketplace.

GW was failing.

Without a boost to revenue from increased licensing, it would be failing faster.

But the drop in sales has not stopped, merely slowed - so the company is continuing to fail - at a slower pace, and with a greater chance of the failure being halted.

It may have been 'banal and obvious' but you seemed to have difficulty grasping it, so got a more detailed analysis.

Then add in Kirby's insistence that the company issue a dividend, even as sales decline, year after year. Going so far, many years ago now, as to borrow money from the bank in order to pay that dividend - paying interest on top of the money sent out to investors. (An absurdly bad bit of business practice.)

If they reach the point where they are spending more money than they are making then they will no longer be failing - they will have failed.

Saying that GW has had a problem with declining sales 'for a long time' is merely saying that GW has been failing for a long time - in a slow decline, not a sharp plummet off of a financial cliff. Not thriving - but rather stagnating and declining - the phrase that you so objected to.

That is what the phrase means.

Rountree has begun doing things that should have been done years ago. He is trying to grow the company again, rather than merely cut costs.

But they have, as yet, not halted that drop in sales - and Kirby, et ali. have lumbered the company with directives about not doing some of the things that might well be vital to recovering those lost sales. (Prices, prices, and prices being the three biggest problems....)

Part is the conviction that the number one purchasers of GW minis are collectors - not players. So they perceive dropping prices as devaluing the brand.

The problem with that train of thought is that the brand only has that value if collectors are willing to pay that amount - which has been less and less of the case.

I will be blunt - I think that Kirby is a self deluding idiot.

I think that the collectors and the players are by and large the self same people - they buy and collect miniatures because they intend to play with those miniatures, not because they look good gathering dust on the mantelpiece or slowly melting in a shop window in sunny Leeds.

There are exceptions - people that only collect, or buy and paint the miniatures solely for resale.

But the bulk of buyers at the very least intend to play games with those miniatures.

I am pretty sure that Rountree realizes this - and that is the number one reason that I am cautiously optimistic. He is not trying to delude himself that people would be willing to buy and collect the miniatures without games to use them with.

The Auld Grump

Peregrine wrote:

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
So when is 8th edition coming out, or is this all just speculation about the new edition?

Speculation, but speculation based on GW's consistent history of releasing new editions as a sales tool. We know 8th edition is going to happen, probably within the next year or two, the only question is the exact date.

Well we do sort of know when the next edition is coming out. Sometime in 2017 since that will be the 30th Anniversary of 40K. Question is what month? So does anyone know when 40K was released? My Google-fu just shows up 1987 was the release year but no month.

Wikipedia says October, but given GW has been doing an early summer release date for new editions of 40k for quite a while, I suspect it will be June 2017.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
I've said this before, but 8th 40K is going to be the most important release for GW in, well, forever.

This will be the 6th time they've made a rule set that uses the framework from 3rd Ed (including 3rd Ed). Do you have any amount of realistic hope that they're going to fix things?

Remember what I said about 6th (link is in my sig):

"I could almost live with it if 7th Ed was GW making a new edition to fix the problems of 6th - like a 'break glass in case of stupidity' situation where they've seen what 40K has become (allies shenanigans, dataslates, and other nonsense) and they decided the best way to fix it was to tear the Band-Aid off quickly and reset everything with a new edition. But they're not doing that. They're adding more extraneous nonsense. More charts. More things to roll on. More cards ... More dataslates ... More blatant disregard for the fluff."

7th doubled down on the problems of 6th, adding more complicated nonsense, charts, tables and even more special rules than 3rd Ed had before it collapsed under its own weight and was replaced with the most boring edition of 40K ever. Why do we think 8th will fix this when their track record says otherwise?

The rumours suggest that this isn't the 3rd framework, that's why I'm hoping for change. No new codexes (other than demi-codexes like DW and GSC) suggests that they know there's no point in updating them because they're not going to work with the new system. Panda has suggests an AOS lite approach is coming WRT the simplification of the rules, and I'm a fan of brevity in games systems.

There are still potential issues of course - simplified won't necessarily mean balanced, they might simplify them to the point where there's even less tactical depth than there is now.

But if they can make something that's fairer, with free access to the rules, requires less effort to have a game, and offers an increase in player agency and on-table gaming, as opposed to the list building then by the numbers execution that we have now?

I can be optimistic for that, and so far nothing from a reliable source has suggested it can't happen.

Funnily enough, my brother and I simply went back to 3rd Edition, and it solved most of the problems we were having. I think if anything they need to see why they put 3rd out in the first place.

Problem is they put out 3rd in the form we know it because they wanted to have a larger sized game to sell more. Supposedly the original version of 3rd was like a cleaned up 2nd edition.

The game is in dire need of an overhaul though. Let this sink in: The core rules have been the same since 3rd edition, and that was nearly 20 years ago. They still haven't gotten the basics right after nearly 20 years of trying.

Here, I thought 3rd was put out for much the same reason that 6th WFB was put out, to give some sort of organizational structure to lists, and a base line kit or kits that become the Core choice for the army. Look back at 2nd Ed. With Squads filling the compulsory 25%, you had literally no drive to take what was supposed to be the core elements of an army unless you were a fluff nut. If Devastators were Squads, and Heavy Bolters were like a lawnmower over most troop types, why would you EVER run Tac Squads? WFB had the same problem where people wouldn't run anything that was supposed to be the backbone of an army unless it was required to unlock other units. That, and the vehicle rules for 2nd were rubbish. Actually, ALL of 2nd was rubbish. The fact that they chose to destroy the entire gaming system rather than revamp it like 6th did with 5th WFB, that should tell you something.