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The current state isn't ideal but the rules aren't that hard to find really they are all in the rulebook, and most of the more regular players know the most important ones by heart.

The problem is that bloat also slows down the game in general.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Galef wrote:
If they keep the current weapon stats and APs, they could make the save modifiers like reverse BS:
AP6/- = no modifier
AP5 = -1 to armour save
AP4 = -2
AP3 = -3
AP2 = -4 So a Terminator would still get a 6+ armour save against AP2
AP1 = -5 so it ignores all armour

But of course, they could scrap the AP system entirely.

A system like this is going to make feel no pain even stronger than it already is.

Same with Stormshields, assuming rending can't touch invuln saves.

Rending will help some armies, and completely invalidate others, like Grey Knights.

ASSUMING EVERYTHING ELSE STAYS THE SAME.

And even if it did, SO WHAT. Yeah, it would completely topple the current meta and shift what armies are strong and which aren't. So. What. It's not like it's toppling some finely tuned balanced machine. 40k balance is an utter steaming pile of gak as far as balance goes. Honestly, if they made one marine able to face an army of Orks alone, it wouldn't feel any more unbalanced than it is already. It's already unplayably poorly balanced. I just can't bring myself to care about 40k in its current state, so even rebalancing completely based on throwing darts at a chart would be welcome, because at least it has a CHANCE to make 40k interesting again.

Caedes wrote:
Holy flipping bacon. When will gw just learn to LEAVE STUFF ALONE!!!! I had to stop playing fantasy when AOS came out and clusterflipped the whole thing. I've still got 3 huge fantasy army's I can't use. Now they want to do the same thing to 40k???

40k is not broken. It does not need AOS rules. Maybe a few rule consolidations, and some clarity across a few others but seriously. Why the heck do we need new basic rules every 2 years?

If they want competitive play: then release codex updates for all races at the same time with balancing across everything. Imbalance exists now because army's have different level of codex creep.

Variety is good. AOS appeals to some. But just because people buy it does not mean those people buy 40k as well. It also does not mean that everyone who plays 40k will switch over.

If this does happen ... (and gathering storm was indeed the "end times" of 40k.... combined with all the price hikes I will be done. I can not afford to keep paying insane prices for plastic models, 60-70$ for a codex and Likley 200 for the rules every 2 years.

Seriously gw. If it ain't broke don't flipping flip it.

yeah, couldn't agree more. They never should have changed from 2nd ed to 3rd, and definitely should have stopped at 4th, maybe 5th...

Caedes wrote:

Seriously gw. If it ain't broke don't flipping flip it.

Here's the problem: 40k IS broken. Like, unabashedly broken. Rules bloat, wildly varying army power levels, Formations out the wazoo. 40K drastically needs a trimming down for rules at least.

 don_mondo wrote:

Caedes wrote:
Holy flipping bacon. When will gw just learn to LEAVE STUFF ALONE!!!! I had to stop playing fantasy when AOS came out and clusterflipped the whole thing. I've still got 3 huge fantasy army's I can't use. Now they want to do the same thing to 40k???

40k is not broken. It does not need AOS rules. Maybe a few rule consolidations, and some clarity across a few others but seriously. Why the heck do we need new basic rules every 2 years?

If they want competitive play: then release codex updates for all races at the same time with balancing across everything. Imbalance exists now because army's have different level of codex creep.

Variety is good. AOS appeals to some. But just because people buy it does not mean those people buy 40k as well. It also does not mean that everyone who plays 40k will switch over.

If this does happen ... (and gathering storm was indeed the "end times" of 40k.... combined with all the price hikes I will be done. I can not afford to keep paying insane prices for plastic models, 60-70$ for a codex and Likley 200 for the rules every 2 years.

Seriously gw. If it ain't broke don't flipping flip it.

yeah, couldn't agree more. They never should have changed from 2nd ed to 3rd, and definitely should have stopped at 4th, maybe 5th...

Back in my day, people said they should've stopped before they created Rogue Trader.

Things were much better then.

Caedes wrote:
Imbalance exists now because army's have different level of codex creep.

This is entirely untrue. Even newer books like Cult Mechanicus has INCREDIBLE imbalances in the same codex. They have *amazingly* strong units like the Kataphran (which in turn have an amazing imbalance in their weapons choices as some are OP and others are pointless) while they also have the worse than useless Electro-Priests.

If the only problem was varying power creep, at least each codex would have fantastic internal balance. That's just not the case.

Seriously gw. If it ain't broke don't flipping flip it.

Please, try any other game system. Malifaux, Bolt Action, SAGA... ANYTHING. You'll instantly notice how broken the balance in 40k is.

In the news, it says they're bringing back armor modifying values. Does anyone know how they worked in the past, or have a basic summary of how they work in AoS?

I mean, I can see that being good or bad, depending.

But if they dole out an AP value to EVERYTHING, like Galef suggested (which is honestly fairly logical), than armor is going to be kind of a joke.

For example, bolters reducing 2+ saves to a 3+ saves, just because?

I would definitely be ok with high strength weapons having AP modifiers - for example, it's not quite logical that terminators get the same save from battle cannons and lasguns.

But flooding the game with AP modifiers sounds like a nightmare for armored units.

Then again, I play orks, and I've always said armor is for losers. Maybe it will be.

Caedes, you are one voice saying it is not broken as opposed to a large tide of voices saying it is. If you hate the game or hate that it's changing, you can always stop playing.

Also for everyone: Note that until they specifically detail how something works, we do not know how it's going to work. Making assumptions now just leads to getting riled up over something without understanding it.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
In the news, it says they're bringing back armor modifying values. Does anyone know how they worked in the past, or have a basic summary of how they work in AoS?

I mean, I can see that being good or bad, depending.

But if they dole out an AP value to EVERYTHING, like Galef suggested (which is honestly fairly logical), than armor is going to be kind of a joke.

For example, bolters reducing 2+ saves to a 3+ saves, just because?

I would definitely be ok with high strength weapons having AP modifiers - for example, it's not quite logical that terminators get the same save from battle cannons and lasguns.

But flooding the game with AP modifiers sounds like a nightmare for armored units.

Then again, I play orks, and I've always said armor is for losers. Maybe it will be.

Well I can tell you power armor was useless in 2nd ed. If they do this, I won't have to worry how good BA are anymore.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

The current state isn't ideal but the rules aren't that hard to find really they are all in the rulebook, and most of the more regular players know the most important ones by heart.

The problem is that bloat also slows down the game in general.

Again with the undefined and horrible word that most of the internet users seem to love like the newest meme....
Bloat doesnt slow down games, poorly designed rules do such as the way we currently allocate and save wounds, or making each inquisitor have to generate a warlord trait in an army that needs 1 of those characters per 3 MsU units.
These sort of rules aren't a huge parts of text nor especially complex they are just devouring time like no other.
While having surplus rules like dune strider, or eldar rending instead of regular rending, and having multiple rule sets for the same sort of equipment in different codexes make the rule set messy but do not affect the game speed in any way.

What "bloat" reaally does is clogg up discussions about rules by preventing players to communicate properly about the rules.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
In the news, it says they're bringing back armor modifying values. Does anyone know how they worked in the past, or have a basic summary of how they work in AoS?

I mean, I can see that being good or bad, depending.

But if they dole out an AP value to EVERYTHING, like Galef suggested (which is honestly fairly logical), than armor is going to be kind of a joke.

For example, bolters reducing 2+ saves to a 3+ saves, just because?

I would definitely be ok with high strength weapons having AP modifiers - for example, it's not quite logical that terminators get the same save from battle cannons and lasguns.

But flooding the game with AP modifiers sounds like a nightmare for armored units.

Then again, I play orks, and I've always said armor is for losers. Maybe it will be.

It's entirely dependent on how large or small the modifiers are.
If current Ap 5/4 weapons are only -1 then Imperial guard/Dark Eldar/Orks etc. are going to get a (tiny) survivability boost.
It also means that weapons that are Ap2/3 won't spammed so much as they are now because the other weapons won't patter harmlessly off without an insane number of them anymore.
It may also make those MEQ and TEQ weapons LESS effective at killing them as they might not completely negate the save anymore.

After some thought i'm okay with the rending idea, provided they scale it with armor values extending beyond the d6 range.

For instance,

Armor 0 = no save
Armor 1-2 = 6+ save
Armor 3-4 = 5+ save
Armor 5-6 = 4+ save
armor 7-8 = 3+ save
armor 9-10+ = 2+ save

With a rending chart similar to what Galef posted.

So there'd be a big difference between armor rating 9 and 10, while it confers a 2+ save in both cases, a boltgun would reduce armor 9 to a 3+ save, while armor 10 would remain 2+.

Just a thought.


But i think most of 40k's problems could be solved by GW publishing balanced gaming formats, with some restrictions and point levels, and then balancing around that.

For instance, if they declared that a standard, competitive tournament game was 1500 points intended to be 1v1, it would make it easier to define a balance structure for that specific scenario.

 oldzoggy wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

The current state isn't ideal but the rules aren't that hard to find really they are all in the rulebook, and most of the more regular players know the most important ones by heart.

The problem is that bloat also slows down the game in general.

Again with the undefined and horrible word that most of the internet users seem to love like the newest meme....
Bloat doesnt slow down games, poorly designed rules do such as the way we currently allocate and save wounds, or making each inquisitor have to generate a warlord trait in an army that needs 1 of those characters per 3 MsU units.
These sort of rules aren't a huge parts of text nor especially complex they are just devouring time like no other.
While having surplus rules like dune strider, or eldar rending instead of regular rending, and having multiple rule sets for the same sort of equipment in different codexes make the rule set messy but do not affect the game speed in any way.

What "bloat" reaally does is clogg up discussions about rules by preventing players to communicate properly about the rules.

You seem to be the only one with issues with that word, so it may not be an error with most peoples communications.

It doesn't hurt when you explicity mention surplus rules.. So many rules that could be cut just by changing the movement stat to allow for things to move without a million different variations to 'speed up' a unit.

 Marmatag wrote:
After some thought i'm okay with the rending idea, provided they scale it with armor values extending beyond the d6 range.

For instance,

Armor 0 = no save
Armor 1-2 = 6+ save
Armor 3-4 = 5+ save
Armor 5-6 = 4+ save
armor 7-8 = 3+ save
armor 9-10+ = 2+ save

With a rending chart similar to what Galef posted.

So there'd be a big difference between armor rating 9 and 10, while it confers a 2+ save in both cases, a boltgun would reduce armor 9 to a 3+ save, while armor 10 would remain 2+.

Just a thought.

It could work in concept, but I seriously doubt they'll go beyond a D6 system. Not an impossibility, just unlikely, in my opinion.

I'm not convinced. 40k needs heavy trimming & codex balancing, not a rules overhaul. The AoS system heavily favors shooting, even moreso than 40k, with the main balancing factor being that shooting attacks are usually much less powerful compared to close combat. I don't see how this could transfer to 40k easily.

Also, under the AoS system anything can harm anything. This makes more sense in a medieval type setting but not in a futuristic setting with vehicles & anti-tank weaponry. It'll be very jarring for massive tanks to be able to take damage from guardsmen laser pointer fire... Lets hope they keep the toughness/vehicle armor system.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
In the news, it says they're bringing back armor modifying values. Does anyone know how they worked in the past, or have a basic summary of how they work in AoS?

In RT weapons had a separate armour save modifier, this was unrelated to the weapon's strength, for most basic or pistol weapons it was a -1 iirc so power armour which was a 4+ back then would drop to a 5+ and flak armour was pretty much effectively useless much of the time. Some weapons had a 0 modifier and one or two had a +1. Special and heavy weapons usually had a bigger modifier. Terminators back then had a rule that their armour couldn't be reduced below a 6+ save, but I think they were pretty unique in that regard.

Don't get me wrong. The rules need some adjusting. But a wholesale discard of the system that has worked for decades, in favor of something that has only been around a few years and fractured that player base is a bad idea. It would be like Chevrolet saying "hey we sold more corvettes last year,cause people must love them, so let's make all our cars corvettes and scrap everything else, and next year we will only release corvettes - at a 15% price hike!"

It's business management suicide.

Instead - they need to keep the core rules, tweak the interactions with each other, but more important: balance all the armies at the same time with the main rules. Do 8th, and ALL the armies new books at once. Models release not needed. Then they can sprinkle new kits and whatnot through the year, and not have to worry about new rules or how the new tau book works against the old eldar book... that was all done at rule release.

But nope. GW has sacrificed logic for madness and given into the dollar gods.

Martel732 wrote:


Well I can tell you power armor was useless in 2nd ed. If they do this, I won't have to worry how good BA are anymore.

Can you provide any examples on how or why? or has it been a while?

 Marmatag wrote:
After some thought i'm okay with the rending idea, provided they scale it with armor values extending beyond the d6 range.

For instance,

Armor 0 = no save
Armor 1-2 = 6+ save
Armor 3-4 = 5+ save
Armor 5-6 = 4+ save
armor 7-8 = 3+ save
armor 9-10+ = 2+ save

With a rending chart similar to what Galef posted.

So there'd be a big difference between armor rating 9 and 10, while it confers a 2+ save in both cases, a boltgun would reduce armor 9 to a 3+ save, while armor 10 would remain 2+.

Just a thought.

IF they stay close to AoS, they won't.

It is fairly rare to see -2 Rending, let alone -3 or higher. I legitimately cannot think of anything with higher than -3 Rend but I'm sure someone will find something.

What you would likely see in the case of a Boltgun is a statline like this:
4+ to Hit
4+ to Wound
2 Attacks
Rend -1

Mass Reactive Rounds, Superhuman Marksmanship, whatever: Reroll failed To Hit rolls of 1.

Something like that.

 Khaine wrote:
I'm not convinced. .

What are you not convinced of? This isn't a rumor, it's straight from GW. No specifics or guarantees, granted, but this isn't some wild rumor, it's likely happening, in one way or another.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
In the news, it says they're bringing back armor modifying values. Does anyone know how they worked in the past

this is how it used to work in Wfb ( and those rule where ported to 40k)

S 3 or 4 ( I can't remember) did have no armour reducing ability.
Each str above that added 1 to the armour reducing of the weapon.
Weapons such as pistols etc could also have the armour piercing (x) rule that was just added to the armour reducing ability.
Other units or weapons could just have the "ignore armour rule"

Armour could be stacked and wasn't a stat. So shield + heavy armour + barding + horse etc gave you a total save of a 2+
The best armour you could have was 1+ a 1 on a d6 always failed but it would protect you by sort of negating the first -1

So lets assume you got a total of 2 in armour reduction and you went up to someone with a 4+ sv. This meant that a 4+ sv would become a 6+ sv.

This resulted in the mass spammage of S5+ weapons, this was balanced out by the fact that most standard troops had S3 and that it was nearly impossible to buff them above S5. Those units who could had a serious impact on the game. One of the issues with the current state of 40k is the issue of ranged S6+ ap4 weapons this is why I do not think that this is a good direction for it will only reinforce the spammage of "kill all guns" since they will now also be perfect for mowing down TEQ and MEQ. Who needs single shot weapons when you could just equip each guy with the ideal spray gun and kill it all.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:

 Khaine wrote:
I'm not convinced. .

What are you not convinced of? This isn't a rumor, it's straight from GW. No specifics or guarantees, granted, but this isn't some wild rumor, it's likely happening, in one way or another.

Not convinced its a good idea?

If they do go all-in on the AoS rules then it will make Vehicles and Monsters really way more interesting. That poor Wraithknight is looking a lot less threating when its at half health with reduced attacks and hit/wound chance.

The real question is, will the armies be split up like in Sigmar? I hope not, my poor Dark Elves can't wait for an update.

My guess at a Space Marine:
Move 6, Wound1, Brave 8, Save 3+

Boltgun: Range 24 Attack 1 Hiit 3+ Wound 4+ Rend -
Extra Attack a half distance

Bolt Pistol same as boltgun minus the Rapidfire rule and 12" range

Plasma Gun: Rage 24 Attack 1 HIt 3+ Wound 3+ Rend -1
Extra Attack at half distance. One per 5 five models in the unit

Melta: Range 18" Attack 1 Hit 3+ Wound 2+ rend -3
D6 wounds verses Vehicles

Hrmm.

Maybe instead of shield/barding/horses, they'll combine things like armor/invluns/cover?

Like, a unit in cover gets +1 save, invluns give another +1 save, or something to that tune?

At any rate........IDK, it sounds like that could be unpleasant for armored units. But it's impossible to say without specifics.

But rolling cover/invluns/armor into a + modifier system and a -modifier system based on strength or other universial stats would definitely be simpler, which is clearly the direction they are headed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Khaine wrote:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:

 Khaine wrote:
I'm not convinced. .

What are you not convinced of? This isn't a rumor, it's straight from GW. No specifics or guarantees, granted, but this isn't some wild rumor, it's likely happening, in one way or another.

Not convinced its a good idea?

Ah, that's fair enough!

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Hrmm.

Maybe instead of shield/barding/horses, they'll combine things like invluns/cover?

Like, a unit in cover gets +1 save, invluns give another +1 save, or something to that tune?

At any rate........IDK, it sounds like that could be unpleasant for armored units. But it's impossible to say without specifics.

But rolling cover/invluns/armor into a + modifier system and a -modifier system would definitely be simpler, which is clearly the direction they are headed.

The old system used ward saves that would be used as an unconditional FNP instead of invul saves and cover saves gave a negative to hit modifier.

 Khaine wrote:
I'm not convinced. 40k needs heavy trimming & codex balancing, not a rules overhaul. The AoS system heavily favors shooting, even moreso than 40k, with the main balancing factor being that shooting attacks are usually much less powerful compared to close combat. I don't see how this could transfer to 40k easily.

Well, the other main balancing factor is that Cover saves modify your Armor and many units have things that grant them additional protection versus shooting or close combat. Some types of shields, for example, let you reroll failed Saves against Shooting Attacks but not CC ones.

Also, under the AoS system anything can harm anything. This makes more sense in a medieval type setting but not in a futuristic setting with vehicles & anti-tank weaponry. It'll be very jarring for massive tanks to be able to take damage from guardsmen laser pointer fire... Lets hope they keep the toughness/vehicle armor system.

This gets bandied about alot. But it's not necessarily true. And there are rules in place that allow for modifiers to mitigate this kind of thing.

For example, there are some units that have special rules allowing them to ignore Rend modifiers of less than 3--effectively meaning they will be saving quite a few of those wounds since it removes the hurtful Rend modifier. There's also modifiers that make it so that units have to add to their Hit or Wound values, or reduce the Damage value of a weapon, or any number of things like that.

And realistically? A 30 Hull Point "massive tank" being able to take damage from a Guardsman's piddly lasgun but able to regenerate those Hull Points from Enginseers is still going to take a hell of a lot of Guardsmen to kill it.

 Marmatag wrote:
After some thought i'm okay with the rending idea, provided they scale it with armor values extending beyond the d6 range.

For instance,

Armor 0 = no save
Armor 1-2 = 6+ save
Armor 3-4 = 5+ save
Armor 5-6 = 4+ save
armor 7-8 = 3+ save
armor 9-10+ = 2+ save

I like that.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
In the news, it says they're bringing back armor modifying values. Does anyone know how they worked in the past, or have a basic summary of how they work in AoS?

I mean, I can see that being good or bad, depending.

But if they dole out an AP value to EVERYTHING, like Galef suggested (which is honestly fairly logical), than armor is going to be kind of a joke.

For example, bolters reducing 2+ saves to a 3+ saves, just because?

I would definitely be ok with high strength weapons having AP modifiers - for example, it's not quite logical that terminators get the same save from battle cannons and lasguns.

But flooding the game with AP modifiers sounds like a nightmare for armored units.

Then again, I play orks, and I've always said armor is for losers. Maybe it will be.

Krump, essentially you have an armor value like now, and weapons come with an automatic Rend of 1 2 or 3. I'd say about 40% of weapons have a rend of 0, 33% have a rend of 1, and the remaining have a rend of 2, rend 3 is pretty rare.

The ratio of rend 1 to rend 2 weapons is all based on battle reports I've watched, but seems pretty consistent.

As a lighthearted aside, did anyone else notice the box labeled 'plastic thunderhawk' in the video associated with the adpeticon rules leaks? I thought it was pretty cute.

https://youtu.be/7dl0OtWqCa0?t=1m5s

 Kap'n Krump wrote:

Like, a unit in cover gets +1 save, invluns give another +1 save, or something to that tune?

At any rate........IDK, it sounds like that could be unpleasant for armored units. But it's impossible to say without specifics.

It could mean the end of MANZ, since most of the current anti horde weapons would also reduce their saves to a 5+ or 4+ . but you are right without any further specifications we do not know what is going to happen.