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 techsoldaten wrote:
I would say there's a lot more chance involved in baseball than in 40k. Are you saying this factor makes it impossible to model?

As has been pointed out: you need to select the degree of precision you want to have with your model.
You touched on some 7 categories, it is good to set a limit but that (arbitrary?) number could make the model not fine enough to come up with a meaningful outcome/result.

Baseball has a settled-on number of stats for players that make the components of a team.
Then each team compared against another known team and it's various players and their stats.
We typically are more concerned with how well a pitcher can strike-out the various batters of the opposing team.
And the relative ability of the upper tier batters being able to get runs.
It REALLY simplifies matters greatly that these skills play-out one at a time rather than all at once.
With some consideration of how well the basemen/fielders are able to catch if the hit is not a home run.
We do not concern ourselves so much with placement or the "field conditions" but I am sure there are some considerations for heat or rain.

It does not fall as neatly into place with 40k.
Through army selection the "roster" can radically change within that "team".
Their strengths change a fair bit depending on points values.
The game type being played.
The objectives / points and how they work.
Plus we can have "other teams" interact as allies.
Plus all the various components of the "players" come into play all at once or at certain intervals.

I really hate to use words like impossible but it would be simpler to model the majority of Solar System heavenly body gravitational interactions in a "meaningful" way than to model a tabletop game, BUT Dawn of War Soulstorm comes pretty close!

<edit> I have conducted a fair bit of statistical work and "math-hammer" and would try brute-force massed simulated dice rolls just as a sanity check against my equations.
Nothing to say you could not set up simple instructions for individual units / models and varying plans carried out and then simulated thousands of times for a win/lose result with statistics of what "plans" worked or not. You may not get a good yes/no answer but more like "if you do this, it will work, but will not if your opponent does this...".

I can pretty much judge how difficult something is to tackle when many of the answers lead to the phrase "Well, that depends...".

There's nothing inherently wrong with the rules. Are there areas where they could be improved? Sure. As for the game being complex, that will depend on who you ask, some people like me, love complexity and think the game could use some more complexity. Other people will think it's too hard. The problems with balance in the game have nothing to do with the rules, the rules apply to all armies evenly. Balance issues come in when armies don't get the same treatment. The real issue with balance is, GW does not have a standardized point system. They create a mini, give it some rules then decide after some play testing till they decied what the points should be. But that method is all subjective.

The only way to ever balance this game, is to assign all skills, stats, and wargear a single point cost. The old VDR was a good attempt at this. But until this is done, it doesn't matter what rule set you use.

The calculating points value talk is interesting. The point on what combinations you take (and what the opponent takes) will alter the relative worth of your units.

Basically you don't know exactly how many 'points' your army 'should' be 'worth' until both you and your opponent have already chosen your armies.

It would be neat if you could make a system where you enter the models both you and your opponent have picked and that system works out the relative worth of those two armies and then applies some kind of handicap to 'balance' the game (maybe one player starting at a Victory Point deficit, getting a multiplier to how many VPs they earn or whatever). Of course that would probably be pretty impractical in reality, though.

nareik wrote:
The calculating points value talk is interesting. The point on what combinations you take (and what the opponent takes) will alter the relative worth of your units.

Basically you don't know exactly how many 'points' your army 'should' be 'worth' until both you and your opponent have already chosen your armies.

It would be neat if you could make a system where you enter the models both you and your opponent have picked and that system works out the relative worth of those two armies and then applies some kind of handicap to 'balance' the game (maybe one player starting at a Victory Point deficit, getting a multiplier to how many VPs they earn or whatever). Of course that would probably be pretty impractical in reality, though.

While such solution would indeed increase "balancing value" of point system (by making it dynamic 1-on-1 calculation you get rid of a lot of "meta environment" problems), it does not solve at least two other problems with balancing 40K through point values:

- 40K have huge range of different victory conditions, many of which shift relative value of units taken. If you also allow assymetric victory conditions all your dynamic balance at list building stage goes out the window - you will have to include those in handicap evaluation, increasing difficulty of it.

- second problem requires a bit more extreme example: playing on "planet bowling ball" is considered acceptable but basically invalidates all assault armies. Now consider exactly opposite terrain setup: standard 6'x4' table, with only two 4" strips of flat ground along longer edges so you can legally place models on the table, and a single, huge, 40" wide LOS blocking, impassable mountain between deployment zones. Scatterlaser/WraithKnight/WarpSpider army on such table can do exactly nothing and loses to simple Biovores/Spore Mines spam (spore mines are used to fill up space in Tyranid deployment zone to deny Eldar Deep Strike abilities), because Barrage is the only abilitiy that matters. And now thrash tier codex stomped the absolute top build. Every IRL terrain setup lands somewhere between those bowling ball and impassable mountain examples but is not really quantifiable in any meaningfull way to inculde terrain dependancy into point system...

nou wrote:
To all those postulating creation of formula for 40K point cost and discussing computational difficulty, I have only one simple question:

- how you envision taking ENEMY models into account when calculating point costs? Straightforward example: Poison is worth absolute zero points when facing IG armoured list and Haywire USR is totaly useless against Tyranids.

One would have to assume some sort of "meta enviroment" of matchups probability to balance this, which is totaly unrealistic outside of tournament scene, and even within tournament scene point costs would have to be recalculated after every meta shift...

Don't shoot a tank with a sniper rifle. Don't take a gimmicky army instead of something well rounded. Fixing unit costs only addresses a part of the problem, it's not a cure all, the rest has been addressed in this thread by others (army composition, rules, etc).

 agnosto wrote:

nou wrote:
To all those postulating creation of formula for 40K point cost and discussing computational difficulty, I have only one simple question:

- how you envision taking ENEMY models into account when calculating point costs? Straightforward example: Poison is worth absolute zero points when facing IG armoured list and Haywire USR is totaly useless against Tyranids.

One would have to assume some sort of "meta enviroment" of matchups probability to balance this, which is totaly unrealistic outside of tournament scene, and even within tournament scene point costs would have to be recalculated after every meta shift...

Don't shoot a tank with a sniper rifle. Don't take a gimmicky army instead of something well rounded. Fixing unit costs only addresses a part of the problem, it's not a cure all, the rest has been addressed in this thread by others (army composition, rules, etc).

So you are saying if we cut a bunch of the lists (IG tank company, SM sniper scouts or bust) and stuff 40k becomes easier to balance, but that it is impossible to do so in the current game state.

Here was I thinking you were on the side in favor of a "balance formula".

Ravingbantha wrote:
There's nothing inherently wrong with the rules. Are there areas where they could be improved? Sure. As for the game being complex, that will depend on who you ask, some people like me, love complexity and think the game could use some more complexity. Other people will think it's too hard. The problems with balance in the game have nothing to do with the rules, the rules apply to all armies evenly. Balance issues come in when armies don't get the same treatment. The real issue with balance is, GW does not have a standardized point system. They create a mini, give it some rules then decide after some play testing till they decied what the points should be. But that method is all subjective.

The only way to ever balance this game, is to assign all skills, stats, and wargear a single point cost. The old VDR was a good attempt at this. But until this is done, it doesn't matter what rule set you use.

The old VDR is a good example of why this doesn't work, or at least why it's more difficult than most people seem to believe. It was easily possible to create an absolutely monstrous tank using those rules through exploitation of loopholes and unforeseen combos. I know because my group had a good laugh breaking trying to come up with the most broken vehicles we could using that system. Sure, you could attempt to close every loophole and mathematically model the interaction of every weapon, point of armour and special rule but it quickly gets beyond the scope of what's practical (not necessarily what's possible, just practical).

It's patently untrue that the only way to balance the game is through your method of assigning costs to stats, skills wargear etc. There are other methods, the main one being empirical testing.

I also disagree that the rules are inherently sound. While imbalances between and inside the armies is the single biggest contributor to the problems in 40k right now I think there are certain fundamental issues in the rules themselves that could do with fixing. Assault is just far too difficult, for example, for very little reward in most cases. Take Dark Eldar Wyches as an example. They're a bad unit, yes - overcosted for sure. However, one of the biggest problems they have is more that the core rules make units like them unusable to the point where the concept of a semi-elite, extremely fragile close combat unit is simply not viable because of the core assault rules, including issues such as Overwatch, assaulting through terrain and the relative amount of damage an assault unit can achieve in a game versus what a similarly costed shooting unit can achieve. That's just an example - there are many other similar areas IMO.

I don't think people here are really arguing against complexity. Complexity is what creates interesting situations in a game. It's complication that's the problem. The layering of rule upon rule upon rule and roll upon roll upon roll that slows the game down and adds no real depth is the issue.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

nou wrote:
To all those postulating creation of formula for 40K point cost and discussing computational difficulty, I have only one simple question:

- how you envision taking ENEMY models into account when calculating point costs? Straightforward example: Poison is worth absolute zero points when facing IG armoured list and Haywire USR is totaly useless against Tyranids.

One would have to assume some sort of "meta enviroment" of matchups probability to balance this, which is totaly unrealistic outside of tournament scene, and even within tournament scene point costs would have to be recalculated after every meta shift...

Don't shoot a tank with a sniper rifle. Don't take a gimmicky army instead of something well rounded. Fixing unit costs only addresses a part of the problem, it's not a cure all, the rest has been addressed in this thread by others (army composition, rules, etc).

So you are saying if we cut a bunch of the lists (IG tank company, SM sniper scouts or bust) and stuff 40k becomes easier to balance, but that it is impossible to do so in the current game state.

Here was I thinking you were on the side in favor of a "balance formula".

Or play to the mission. Look, at some point anyone can make a game unplayable; by tossing the old force org out the window, GW created an environment conducive to gimmicky lists. If you show up to play against an IG player with all snipers though, the problem isn't the game. If you show up with all snipers and you don't know who you're playing, the problem isn't the game. A game can be supremely balanced and still be unable to think for people.

It is foolish to think that one could properly model 40K.

There are serious important things that need modeled which are ten times easier, so why would anyone spend the time on 40K...

The only thing that would make sense is an iterative system where feedback is used to refine point values within a specific rules context and specific terrain style and mission type....

Even that is incredibly complex so ... it's probably better to give up right now.

morgoth wrote:
It is foolish to think that one could properly model 40K.

There are serious important things that need modeled which are ten times easier, so why would anyone spend the time on 40K...

The only thing that would make sense is an iterative system where feedback is used to refine point values within a specific rules context and specific terrain style and mission type....

Even that is incredibly complex so ... it's probably better to give up right now.

One might argue that GW does this with each new rules iteration. The problem lies in their need to generate revenue in between rules editions which results in a tacked-on mishmash of additional rules, exceptions, formations, etc which are not strictly aligned with the original product. The fault could lie in the dependence on rules editions rather than a living rulebook model, either that or do a better job balancing the supplements.

 agnosto wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

nou wrote:
To all those postulating creation of formula for 40K point cost and discussing computational difficulty, I have only one simple question:

- how you envision taking ENEMY models into account when calculating point costs? Straightforward example: Poison is worth absolute zero points when facing IG armoured list and Haywire USR is totaly useless against Tyranids.

One would have to assume some sort of "meta enviroment" of matchups probability to balance this, which is totaly unrealistic outside of tournament scene, and even within tournament scene point costs would have to be recalculated after every meta shift...

Don't shoot a tank with a sniper rifle. Don't take a gimmicky army instead of something well rounded. Fixing unit costs only addresses a part of the problem, it's not a cure all, the rest has been addressed in this thread by others (army composition, rules, etc).

So you are saying if we cut a bunch of the lists (IG tank company, SM sniper scouts or bust) and stuff 40k becomes easier to balance, but that it is impossible to do so in the current game state.

Here was I thinking you were on the side in favor of a "balance formula".

Or play to the mission. Look, at some point anyone can make a game unplayable; by tossing the old force org out the window, GW created an environment conducive to gimmicky lists. If you show up to play against an IG player with all snipers though, the problem isn't the game. If you show up with all snipers and you don't know who you're playing, the problem isn't the game. A game can be supremely balanced and still be unable to think for people.

Right so the question remains: how would you write a formula to determine a Sniper Rifle's points cost? Would this formula take enemy models into account? Do you price it a lot because it can be a major PITA against a Carnifex or are sniper rifles free upgrades because they can't touch a Steel Host formation? Does your formula somehow take the average of its effectiveness against all unit types? Oh wait sniper rifles are still effective against vehicles because they can kill Scout Sentinels etc. so would a points formula charge them more or less? What if the enemy never brings scout sentinels? What about against an entire army of Gaunts? Are sniper rifles better than bolters?

There is way too much going on for a balance formula to work.

The reason why many people say it's to complicated is becuase of reasons like:

-broke a working system: Pyker powers
-over lap in rules: things like SaP and relentless being only slightly different as an example
-To many special rules equivalent to the school yard "well I have a shield that stops that, but I have a super powerful thing that ignores that, duh uh!" Arguments
-to many incidents where RAI vs RAW can mean 2 completely different things: gates of infinity power with vengeful strike, or the Deathwing formations with land raider transports
-to many times were you need to consult the rule book or roll off to see what you do.
-To much left up to interpretation
-no consistency between dexs
- no official hierarchy or rule authority, I.E. Rules In dex supersede BRB or vice versa

GW just expanded the game way to much. The rules now Imo are to bloated for the size of games that are the norm now.

I think the biggest problem is the lack of actually using USRs.

For example, Games Workshop wanted Wulfen to be good at CC, so they came up with a variety of rules that does this. However, there are plenty of rather functional USRs already that are quite similar, such as Fleet (a USR which is "this unit is speedy"), Furious Charge/HoW (which I think are basically the same rule and says "this unit likes to charge), and Rage ("this unit is frenzied and angry rawr!").

Instead they made a bunch of special-snowflake special rules that are basically "this unit is speedy, likes to charge, and is frenzied and angry!" but decided that USRs were too 'universal' and made up their own.

You can see the opposite of this effect on Khorne Berzerkers. "These guys like to charge and are angry!" *slaps on Furious Charge and Rage and calls it a day*.

So you have units like Heavy Battle Servitors from Cult Mechanicus that have the Heavy Battle Servitor Rule: "Relentless, but can't run." Okay, GW, I get it, they're on treads and can't physically run in the traditional sense. Seriously though, it would be less demanding and artificially complex if they simply put 'relentless' under special rules on the profile and that was that. It's not like removing a single random D6 roll from the unit's movement is going to make them suddenly broken or remove some tactical options or something.

I guess my TLDR point is: "USR's aren't actually universal because they're not 'special' enough, so GW comes up with basically the same rule (or a rule meant to be an abstraction of the same effect, e.g. being angry = Rage, being angry also = Death Frenzy) and adds it to a single unit in a single army and that's just a headache."

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

nou wrote:
To all those postulating creation of formula for 40K point cost and discussing computational difficulty, I have only one simple question:

- how you envision taking ENEMY models into account when calculating point costs? Straightforward example: Poison is worth absolute zero points when facing IG armoured list and Haywire USR is totaly useless against Tyranids.

One would have to assume some sort of "meta enviroment" of matchups probability to balance this, which is totaly unrealistic outside of tournament scene, and even within tournament scene point costs would have to be recalculated after every meta shift...

Don't shoot a tank with a sniper rifle. Don't take a gimmicky army instead of something well rounded. Fixing unit costs only addresses a part of the problem, it's not a cure all, the rest has been addressed in this thread by others (army composition, rules, etc).

So you are saying if we cut a bunch of the lists (IG tank company, SM sniper scouts or bust) and stuff 40k becomes easier to balance, but that it is impossible to do so in the current game state.

Here was I thinking you were on the side in favor of a "balance formula".

Or play to the mission. Look, at some point anyone can make a game unplayable; by tossing the old force org out the window, GW created an environment conducive to gimmicky lists. If you show up to play against an IG player with all snipers though, the problem isn't the game. If you show up with all snipers and you don't know who you're playing, the problem isn't the game. A game can be supremely balanced and still be unable to think for people.

Right so the question remains: how would you write a formula to determine a Sniper Rifle's points cost? Would this formula take enemy models into account? Do you price it a lot because it can be a major PITA against a Carnifex or are sniper rifles free upgrades because they can't touch a Steel Host formation? Does your formula somehow take the average of its effectiveness against all unit types? Oh wait sniper rifles are still effective against vehicles because they can kill Scout Sentinels etc. so would a points formula charge them more or less? What if the enemy never brings scout sentinels? What about against an entire army of Gaunts? Are sniper rifles better than bolters?

There is way too much going on for a balance formula to work.

I'm the first to admit that I'm not an expert here but my armchair angle on this is that you point out units without weapons, price weapons separately, etc. You then game it out and adjust accordingly. Obviously it would work better than what they do now or anything with a D weapon would be pointed astronomically high since it is equally useful against everything.

It doesn't even really need to be overthought. You start with 3s across the board for a model's stats (except leadership which would be a 7) which would cost a base number of points, for argument's sake, let's say 7 points. Every stat that increases costs one more point, every stat that decreases costs one less. Since the game makers are ideally setting out to not munchkin the heck out of the system they're making, you won't see BS0 WS10 Beserkers, rather, you'd see 5 pt IG/AM squaddies since they'd have a two worse armor save.

You then pare down your special rules and assign pt costs based on how much they break the basic rules of the game; not every unit needs to be its own special snowflake outside of army-wide embellishments. Something that adds something to the unit and doesn't break a basic rule, like orders for IG/AM would cost a point or two per model; something that breaks a rule like ATSKNF or Fearless would costs substantially more (3-5pts?); obviously not all special rules are created equal and some would need to cost substantially more because they interact differently with other special rules.

After that, you point out the weapons available to each unit. Since not every unit in an army has access to every weapon (or limited access), you're less worried about spamming. In cases where spamming is possible, you'd rework the unit to prevent it. Special weapons aren't special when everyone can have them. Use the humble lasgun as the base and cost it at one or two points then do the same as with units adding a point for increases and deducting a point for decreases again using common sense to prevent internal abuse. Then look at special characteristics for weapons and adding further.

The difficult thing, really, is that 40k has so many special rules that things become needlessly complicated; we go back to, do you really need fear in a game where nearly every unit/army has a way to negate it? That said, once you arrive at what things cost, you apply them equally across all armies which will result in point values looking drastically different than they do now. If a unit costs too much, there's likely too much crud tacked onto it for little or no reason. Does X unit really need 10 special rules? Do those rules really need to exist? Those are design conversations that need to be held amongst the design team.

There is no perfect system but, in my opinion, almost anything would be better than what we see now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think the biggest problem is the lack of actually using USRs.

For example, Games Workshop wanted Wulfen to be good at CC, so they came up with a variety of rules that does this. However, there are plenty of rather functional USRs already that are quite similar, such as Fleet (a USR which is "this unit is speedy"), Furious Charge/HoW (which I think are basically the same rule and says "this unit likes to charge), and Rage ("this unit is frenzied and angry rawr!").

Instead they made a bunch of special-snowflake special rules that are basically "this unit is speedy, likes to charge, and is frenzied and angry!" but decided that USRs were too 'universal' and made up their own.

You can see the opposite of this effect on Khorne Berzerkers. "These guys like to charge and are angry!" *slaps on Furious Charge and Rage and calls it a day*.

So you have units like Heavy Battle Servitors from Cult Mechanicus that have the Heavy Battle Servitor Rule: "Relentless, but can't run." Okay, GW, I get it, they're on treads and can't physically run in the traditional sense. Seriously though, it would be less demanding and artificially complex if they simply put 'relentless' under special rules on the profile and that was that. It's not like removing a single random D6 roll from the unit's movement is going to make them suddenly broken or remove some tactical options or something.

I guess my TLDR point is: "USR's aren't actually universal because they're not 'special' enough, so GW comes up with basically the same rule (or a rule meant to be an abstraction of the same effect, e.g. being angry = Rage, being angry also = Death Frenzy) and adds it to a single unit in a single army and that's just a headache."

There you have it. I agree with this completely. You don't need murderfang to have a special rule called murderrage (or whatever) if giving him furious charge and rage basically equals the same thing. Once the rules writers realize the value of consistency, the game will immediately become less of a PITA to play.

nou wrote:
To all those postulating creation of formula for 40K point cost and discussing computational difficulty, I have only one simple question:

- how you envision taking ENEMY models into account when calculating point costs? Straightforward example: Poison is worth absolute zero points when facing IG armoured list and Haywire USR is totaly useless against Tyranids.

One would have to assume some sort of "meta enviroment" of matchups probability to balance this, which is totaly unrealistic outside of tournament scene, and even within tournament scene point costs would have to be recalculated after every meta shift...

in a way, this is why skew/spam lists are so good.
An army of entirely fliers / vehicles / nonvehicles / whatever is good because it overwhelms the enemy's ability to deal with a certain target type. You can't balance that in GW's current damage resolution system using only points.

Trasvi wrote:

nou wrote:
To all those postulating creation of formula for 40K point cost and discussing computational difficulty, I have only one simple question:

- how you envision taking ENEMY models into account when calculating point costs? Straightforward example: Poison is worth absolute zero points when facing IG armoured list and Haywire USR is totaly useless against Tyranids.

One would have to assume some sort of "meta enviroment" of matchups probability to balance this, which is totaly unrealistic outside of tournament scene, and even within tournament scene point costs would have to be recalculated after every meta shift...

in a way, this is why skew/spam lists are so good.
An army of entirely fliers / vehicles / nonvehicles / whatever is good because it overwhelms the enemy's ability to deal with a certain target type. You can't balance that in GW's current damage resolution system using only points.

It's already naturally balanced by being utterly nuked by another skew list and some other very strong lists.

In general though, the strongest force bringing everything into balance is the missions.

Of which I believe the ones in the book should be played more instead of each tournament having its own artificial setting.

People whine about full flyer armies ? give them the real mysterious objectives and let's see how many turns an all-flyer list will make.

The rulebook missions are nowhere near balanced nor are they intended to be, hence why most events use their own missions. The Maelstrom missions are randomness for its own sake that heavily emphasize MSU spam generalist armies like SM's and Eldar that can do meaningful stuff in every single phase, while the Eternal War missions have a ton of problems, KP's being a stupid victory mechanic, scouring and big guns making FA and HS units liabilities for no commensurate benefit because GW copypasta's the 6E missions without thinking about the changes they made to how scoring units work, etc.

Likewise just because some types or armies have hardcounters doesnt mean they are balanced, having a game where you practically autowin or autolose depending on opponents build is not balance.

I consider a game too complicated if I find no-one can get through a round without forgetting something, I need aids other than tokens for bookkeeping, there are several rolls a turn that very rarely matter and/or there is more than one "layer" of special rules (i.e. special rules that ignore or interact with special rules, rather only the core rules.)

I think they need to strip the game back to some simple core elements and then work with them with regards to the units. No core rule should undo another one. Instead they should work together. And they should try to focus on the dice roll. Rules should add or subtract from the dice roll with the occasional re roll there too.

And at the risk of starting an argument...we could probably stand to lose the templates as well. They always slow the game down for me, and they also undo the though ballistic skill mechanism which again is a common problem with 40k these days (rules undoing other rules).

I think they should make it faster on models being removed for instance in rogue trader each weapon had a negative modifier to an armor save. A bolter was a -2(so a terminator with a +2 save, minus the bolters -2 gave it a save of +4/ and a model with a +5 save was just removed). Different weapons had different modifiers a Las cannon had a -6 modifier for example.

I think the biggest complexity comes from people with no idea what they're talking about spreading their ignorance like paint.

Murderfang has -
Furious Charge
Rage
Rampage
It Will Not Die

All of which are BRB rules.

Murderfang has two unique things like most unique chharacters do.
Murderlust is a much better version of Extra Armour.
Murderclaws are Relic Dreadnought Claws.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
I think the biggest complexity comes from people with no idea what they're talking about spreading their ignorance like paint.

Murderfang has -
Furious Charge
Rage
Rampage
It Will Not Die

All of which are BRB rules.

Murderfang has two unique things like most unique chharacters do.
Murderlust is a much better version of Extra Armour.
Murderclaws are Relic Dreadnought Claws.

My, quite poetic, aren't we? "spreading ignorance like paint."

Why does one model need all of that? I know it seems like characters should have extra "stuff" since the regular units have so much tacked-on but if you remove a lot of the glitz from the regular units, you make the game simpler so that a casual player isn't forced to absorb so many things. Some of us don't live and breath 40k, some people have lives outside of a game that they can only play a few times per year and for us the game just becomes more progressively a morass of special building on special.

Here's an example. Get rid of FnP and replace it with an extra wound for the model. Get rid of IWnD and replace it with an extra point of armor save or armor. Instead of making more special rules, work within the confines of what already exists.

IWND and FNP aren't bad, but Murderlust and Murderclaws are.

Murderlust can be changed to the Extra Armour wargear and Murderclaws can be changed to DCCW and Master-crafted.

@ agnosto

You're speaking my language. Why have all these rules when it would be easier to work with the models core stats?

 irondestroyer wrote:
I think they should make it faster on models being removed for instance in rogue trader each weapon had a negative modifier to an armor save. A bolter was a -2(so a terminator with a +2 save, minus the bolters -2 gave it a save of +4/ and a model with a +5 save was just removed). Different weapons had different modifiers a Las cannon had a -6 modifier for example.

Oof, definitely not -2 for bolters. Remember we have whole armies of those now. Maybe -1 or something.

Complicated? No.
Bloated? Yes. By the Emperor, yes.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 irondestroyer wrote:
I think they should make it faster on models being removed for instance in rogue trader each weapon had a negative modifier to an armor save. A bolter was a -2(so a terminator with a +2 save, minus the bolters -2 gave it a save of +4/ and a model with a +5 save was just removed). Different weapons had different modifiers a Las cannon had a -6 modifier for example.

Oof, definitely not -2 for bolters. Remember we have whole armies of those now. Maybe -1 or something.

Shuriken catapults, however....

 Future War Cultist wrote:
@ agnosto

You're speaking my language. Why have all these rules when it would be easier to work with the models core stats?

Exactly. The whole rules for the sake of 'narrative' has really bloated everything to the point of the game nearly being unplayable, for me anyway. Getting rid of a large number of them would also serve to make the game less complicated to the point where a greater number of exploits could be removed. The problem is that the game designers are approaching this from how they play the game, a narrative, quasi-rpg experience, while they would be better off taking it back to Rogue Trader when it was one if that's what they really want us all playing.

To me rules like FnP, rerollable saves, and RP are issues as they take fun out of the game and really slow it down. One player rolls to hit, accounting for all the various adjustments there, then rolls to wound, the the opponent rolls their armor/cover save then gets to roll again and sometimes even another time on top of that. So, I get one chance to wound and you get 2 or 3 chances to save, yeah. Take those out and the game just got noticeably shorter.

As someone who's having to learn 7th edition after not being active in the tabletop club scene since 4th/5th edition, the rules-bloat certainly doesn't help with picking it up again. What makes it even harder is that along with the extra rules you also have things like Unwieldy, Armourbane, Shreading etc which already existed in older editions but without the fancy buzzword.

And the psyker rules; I've played a good few games in 7th now and I still have no idea where this "witch" is and how I'm supposed to deny her sultry advances.

 agnosto wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
I think the biggest complexity comes from people with no idea what they're talking about spreading their ignorance like paint.

Murderfang has -
Furious Charge
Rage
Rampage
It Will Not Die

All of which are BRB rules.

Murderfang has two unique things like most unique chharacters do.
Murderlust is a much better version of Extra Armour.
Murderclaws are Relic Dreadnought Claws.

My, quite poetic, aren't we? "spreading ignorance like paint."

Why does one model need all of that? I know it seems like characters should have extra "stuff" since the regular units have so much tacked-on but if you remove a lot of the glitz from the regular units, you make the game simpler so that a casual player isn't forced to absorb so many things. Some of us don't live and breath 40k, some people have lives outside of a game that they can only play a few times per year and for us the game just becomes more progressively a morass of special building on special.

Here's an example. Get rid of FnP and replace it with an extra wound for the model. Get rid of IWnD and replace it with an extra point of armor save or armor. Instead of making more special rules, work within the confines of what already exists.

Wannabe graphic novelist actually, poetry is accidental at best.
I agree with you for the most part - a lot of rules really can be dropped to a regular numerical statistic rather than a special rule, but I don't agree with dropping the special rules altogether. Simple is nice but I love combo plays.
IWND and FnP are confered by other models as often as they are static on individual models.
Likewise Rage and Rampage are both situational, so they only apply under certain circumstances.

As an example a Vehicle is a difficult model to simplify into numbers because bumping up its armour would make it straight up immune to large amounts of opposing models, Murderfang in particular because so many of his rules are situational.
Since the FAQ Murderfang packs 6 attacks which is great but it really becomes impressive when its controller manages to charge into a unit of two or more models; 8-10 attacks at S8 is massacre country. On the flip-side an opponent who can make the charge on Murderfang with a single model Rage, Rampage and Furious Charge become irrelevant.
Same with Murderlust, if your opponent rolls explode the ability to ignore shaken and stunned results doesn't matter a bit and nor should it.
That said, I don't like the vehicle damage table anyway.