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.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I always prefer refinement over replacement, and that's how my mindset works.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That doesn't mean you never try something new - damage degradation sounds like a great idea to me - but I'd much rather fix the problem than throw it away and start again.

I think most people do, that's why in most things you see new versions come out that are improvements over time. GW has never really done the refinement thing though, it's always been replacement.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Moreover, I'd really appreciate it if some people here could drop the attitude that if it's in the new 40K rules then it must be perfect. The degradation thing is a perfect example. A few of us have offered ideas that would allow this to be a simple over-arching rule, whereas GW have gone for the, in our opinion, utterly unnecessary (and more prone to error) 'bespoke' method of giving every unit its own unique table. Rather than debating the merits of either side, quite a few people here just scream at us for being 'haters' consider the new rules perfect just because they're not 7th Ed.

The other consistent thing about gw games - the fans tend to decry anyone that isn't in love with the game as a hater. I think a lot of gw's success through the years has been due to the factionalization of it's fan/customer base. Rather than 'hate' gw for the problems it creates in its games, they 'hate' other players for various symptoms of these problems. Sadly its to be expected at this point.

Also, as far as 3rd through 7th are concerned they were heavily constrained by 3 things that 8th is getting rid of(arguably 4)

The AP system, full disclaimer I'm not entirely sure when this came in but the ap system as it existed in 6th-7th created a terrible design space. The totally binary nature of the system made giving offensive or defensive power incredibly swingy and was ultimately responsible for the rise of the 2+fnp, 2++ rerollable vs 189 million S6 arms race we found ourselves in with 7th. It also made cover largely redundant for some armies but utterly essential for others which contributed to the ignores cover problems we had.

2. Rerolls. Using rerolls almost exclusively meant that power scaled quadratically with buffs rather than linearly which is how Ultrasmurf Centurion star was born.

3. The old to wound chart. With the old to wound chart you created incredibly powerful break points both offensively and defensively that led to a very jagged power curve based on what was in vogue. Going from S4 to S5 was nowhere near as strong as going from S5 to S6, wounding MEQ on 2s and doubling out T3 characters was huge. Then you go to S7 and no one cares, you basically gain nothing, then you hit 8 and now you double out T4 characters and wound T6 on 2+ which is huge, then 9 didn't matter and 10 was again a huge advantage.

Same defensively 2->3 was irrelevant 3->4 was pretty powerful 4->5 was the single biggest jump in effectiveness for infantry models, 5->6 was nice but ultimately meh, 6->7 irrelevant 7->8 made you immune to most infantry weapons and anything that went beyond 8 was pretty much unusable in friendly games against non-SM or Eldar.

4 would be vehicle mechanics but meh.

ERJAK wrote:

Mchaagen wrote:

Rubenite wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

But no. We get "Oh these guys are going to be great. So are these guys! And these guys! Oh wow boy a y'all gonna love it!".

Coming from Reece and Frankie I don't think this is merely marketing speak, it does really sound like they were heavily involved in balancing the new edition, and wanted every unit to be a viable choice (though of course this would also be an optimum situation from a model sales perspective).

Reece also stated (in one of the Frontline podcasts) that a lot of their feedback/suggestions weren't considered by the design team at all. So, I think many are over-emphasizing their actual involvement in helping with the play testing and any subsequent rules development that was accrued from those outside play-testers.

This is a bit disengenuous, what he actually said was that their part in 8th was very small, yes, but the context of the comment was to underscore the mammoth size of the task at hand rather than simply gw not taking their feedback, or them not giving much feedback.

Either way, it doesn't look too good on the whole 'things will be balanced this time around' concern. It's just looking like more of the same. I'd love to be wrong here, time will tell i guess.

 Torga_DW wrote:


The other consistent thing about gw games - the fans tend to decry anyone that isn't in love with the game as a hater. I think a lot of gw's success through the years has been due to the factionalization of it's fan/customer base. Rather than 'hate' gw for the problems it creates in its games, they 'hate' other players for various symptoms of these problems. Sadly its to be expected at this point.

You can't talk to someone that refuses to listen. Neither side is blameless in this.

 rollawaythestone wrote:
I'm fine with them deciding model-by-model which units are targetable and which aren't based on whether it makes sense for that model. Something that won't be hiding behind or amidst it's lackeys vs. something embedded in a unit. As long as it's balanced with other advantages it sounds fine. I like this change to characters - and can't wait to see the unit profiles!

Too bad they don't decide on whether or not it makes sense for that model but by wound counter. Which might or might not make sense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Quarterdime wrote:
What do you think "over a dozen wounds" for Magnus means? 13? 14? 15?

If it's 13 then they've short changed him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
He's getting way less wounds than an Imperial Knight, that's for sure.

If he got any of what you listed he would sure prefer to be rather with 10 wounds and same price.

 Torga_DW wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

Mchaagen wrote:

Rubenite wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

But no. We get "Oh these guys are going to be great. So are these guys! And these guys! Oh wow boy a y'all gonna love it!".

Coming from Reece and Frankie I don't think this is merely marketing speak, it does really sound like they were heavily involved in balancing the new edition, and wanted every unit to be a viable choice (though of course this would also be an optimum situation from a model sales perspective).

Reece also stated (in one of the Frontline podcasts) that a lot of their feedback/suggestions weren't considered by the design team at all. So, I think many are over-emphasizing their actual involvement in helping with the play testing and any subsequent rules development that was accrued from those outside play-testers.

This is a bit disengenuous, what he actually said was that their part in 8th was very small, yes, but the context of the comment was to underscore the mammoth size of the task at hand rather than simply gw not taking their feedback, or them not giving much feedback.

Either way, it doesn't look too good on the whole 'things will be balanced this time around' concern. It's just looking like more of the same. I'd love to be wrong here, time will tell i guess.

I would argue that at least this individual comment is not an indicator at all and that the intent was to emphasize just how much work building 8th actually was.

I will agree that it's impossible to know for sure if things are actually going to be good and if balance is going to be solid. (It'll be better but that means literally nothing, the only way the balance could be worse is if they came to your house and beat you up for playing the wrong army)

In response to your comment to H.B.M.C.; it's not that I love GW so much that I just love everything they put out and forget all the haters, it's that I HATE 7th so much that anyone who tries to stop me from killing it and peeing on it's grave is getting an earful. I want to keep playing 40k, I want to keep liking 40k but I know for a fact I can't do that with 7th and feeling good about what 8th has presented so far.

I am looking forward to balanced list building in 8th now, having to properly balance weapon options out IE anti tank, but not too much anti tank or hordes will dominate etc.

ERJAK wrote:


This is a bit disengenuous, what he actually said was that their part in 8th was very small, yes, but the context of the comment was to underscore the mammoth size of the task at hand rather than simply gw not taking their feedback, or them not giving much feedback.

Disingenuous--how ironic.

I didn't mean 'simply gw not taking their feedback' or 'them not giving much feedback.' Here it is for you once again; 'that a lot of their feedback/suggestions weren't considered by the design team at all.'

My comment has nothing to do with how large a project 8th has been to develop, or because it was such a large project that the amount that Frontline put in was a minute part, but rather that the impact of Reece and Frankie as play-testers has been overblown.

I don't like 7th either that's why my group uses a significantly different ruleset. But by all means, continue to misinterpret comments while you're peeing.

 Rippy wrote:
I am looking forward to balanced list building in 8th now, having to properly balance weapon options out IE anti tank, but not too much anti tank or hordes will dominate etc.

Agreed, I hope the new rules encourage a variety of builds for each army rather than the current rules that mean that usually for each army list there is one prevalent build type with only a few unit types being viable if you want to be competitive. Only time will tell.

tneva82 wrote:

Youn wrote:
Exarchs would be treated the same way champions are in AoS. Since, exarchs in all previous editions couldn't leave their unit that makes them nothing more then sergeants.

Lol people should really learn about ALL the editions before making sweeping statmeents that "in all previous editions...".

In 2nd ed exarch were independent characters who could be given different wargear and exarch powers. Powers weren't limited to certain aspects like they are now(so you could have in theory tank hunting exarch howling banshee gear).

One common combination was for example swooping hawk wings(mobility) combined with firepike(or fusion gun). Mobile tank busting exarch.

Yup, pure mix-and-match in 2E. I was considering to build a bunch of Power Fielded Exarchs with Shuricannon Jetbikes - a very inexpensive build, given how cheap the Jetbike models were (plastic!) and the one-off availability of vehicle Shuricannon bitz.

I dont think 7th was a bad edition initially. Sure it wasnt perfect, but the psychic rules were much more interesting than before, and the removal of model from the front, while flawed, forced you to think tactically once in a while.

But 7th edition was ruined by the bloat, especially the continual additons of formations, and the bad balance between codexes. Im not sure GW will be able to avoid theses pitfalls with 8th edition.

As for 8th, initially, the thing that will make it or break it imo is command points. So far, a few of the rulres are great, and a few are cringe worthy, but the game in itself seems a bit boring, and like AOS, lack tactical depth (though to a lesser degree). If command point forces you to make some meaningful and fun decision, then all will be good, and the game might turn out to be better and more tactical than 7th. If not, it will not be much more than a glorified version of AOS. Weirdly enough, im rather optimistic and think that they will pull it off

Mchaagen wrote:

ERJAK wrote:


This is a bit disengenuous, what he actually said was that their part in 8th was very small, yes, but the context of the comment was to underscore the mammoth size of the task at hand rather than simply gw not taking their feedback, or them not giving much feedback.

Disingenuous--how ironic.

I didn't mean 'simply gw not taking their feedback' or 'them not giving much feedback.' Here it is for you once again; 'that a lot of their feedback/suggestions weren't considered by the design team at all.'

My comment has nothing to do with how large a project 8th has been to develop, or because it was such a large project that the amount that Frontline put in was a minute part, but rather that the impact of Reece and Frankie as play-testers has been overblown.

I don't like 7th either that's why my group uses a significantly different ruleset. But by all means, continue to misinterpret comments while you're peeing.

You misquoted Reece and completely ignored the context of the comment, you were being disengenuous, if you can't deal with that maybe you should try being correct in the future.

As for your gaming group using a heavily modified rule set, that's great for you, I'm glad it's working for you and I'm glad you're having fun but some of us occasionally like to play people outside of an insular circle-jerk but hey, if it works for you keep on pumpin.

Sounds fun but a balancing nightmare.

So far I like what i hear and still have confidence in the new edition. But then again I do have preferred tastes wich are not the same as everyone else's.

I like the idea of increased lethality, return of M as a stat and no difference between MC/ vehicles. There should perhaps be a line there , but where do you draw it?

Since he put it into quotations, i wonder if he's not referring to another post than you are

 streetsamurai wrote:
I dont think 7th was a bad edition initially. Sure it wasnt perfect, but the psychic rules were much more interesting than before, and the removal of model from the front, while flawed, forced you to think tactically once in a while.

But 7th edition was ruined by the bloat, especially the continual additons of formations, and the bad balance between codexes. Im not sure GW will be able to avoid theses pitfalls with 8th edition.

As for 8th, initially, the thing that will make it or break it imo is command points. So far, a few of the rulres are great, and a few are cringe worthy, but the game in itself seems a bit boring, and like AOS, lack tactical depth (though to a lesser degree). If command point forces you to make some meaningful and fun decision, then all will be good, and the game might turn out to be better and more tactical than 7th. If not, it will not be much more than a glorified version of AOS. Weirdly enough, im rather optimistic and think that they will pull it off

Well, considering that everyone in my area that switched from 40K to AoS agrees that AoS is extremely more tactical than 40k, this is shaping out to be the best edition ever of 40k, in the form of an "AoS +1".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The multiple overwatch and the new SvT table are changes that i will need time to evaluate, but for the rest i like what i see.

I really hope the psychic phase moves along. In 7th I was super motivated to kill psykers ASAP, not because they were so powerful, but just so I could finish games. And the pregame garbage was worse.

Yeah AOS is full of tactical decision. Last time i played, i had to choose between dancing the electric boogalo or the maccarena in order to get my reroll. Deep tactics .

Not sure if this has been mentioned, I skipped a few pages.

Regarding characters, for those that want the targetable/untargetable thing to be governed by a keyword instead of by wounds: it's already governed by a keyword, it's just in addition to the wound count rather than instead of it. That keyword is "character". This doesn't lock out any design options, and makes for cleaner rules IMHO where rare outliers can get an exception rather than the rules for everything having to accommodate them.

Relatively small leader guy that should be able to hide? Character with 10 or less wounds.

Relatively weak thing that is still too big to hide? 10 or less wounds and not a character. Note that this appears to already be in place for things like a dreadnought. The only potential issue I could see with this approach is a fluff mismatch, where something would fluffwise be character, but doesn't have the keyword, in exchange for how he played in practice better matching fluff.

Leader guy who's tough and too huge to hide? Character with 11+ wounds.

Really tough thing that's dense enough to hide behind a squad? Get's its own rule. I imagine these would be rare enough that having a special rule on a few things letting them hide is a more elegant option than putting a hide/can't hide keyword on a significant chunk of the characters in the game.

That's not to say it will be implemented perfectly across the board. Some things might get classed in a way that doesn't make sense, like a hypothetical guy the size of a building getting just enough wounds to hide behind grots. Some things might not be designed to work correctly for the class they're in, like a hypothetical 11 wound 3 story monster that's so easy to wound that extra wound is a curse. But those would be specific implementation problems, not a problem with the rules framework for characters. Aside from RG, we have no evidence of how the rule's being specifically implemented. Whether or not he should be able to hide behind a unit is debatable, but be careful extrapolating out to other characters, since we currently have a data set of 1.

 Lobukia wrote:
I really hope the psychic phase moves along. In 7th I was super motivated to kill psykers ASAP, not because they were so powerful, but just so I could finish games. And the pregame garbage was worse.

It changed. It's shallow like in aos now, unfortunately

 Lobukia wrote:
I really hope the psychic phase moves along. In 7th I was super motivated to kill psykers ASAP, not because they were so powerful, but just so I could finish games. And the pregame garbage was worse.

Well lot depends on how much rolling spells will have. As number of castings will go up so will succesfull ones.

Buffs will obviously be quick. But there will be lots of 'em.

 Torga_DW wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

Mchaagen wrote:

Rubenite wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

But no. We get "Oh these guys are going to be great. So are these guys! And these guys! Oh wow boy a y'all gonna love it!".

Coming from Reece and Frankie I don't think this is merely marketing speak, it does really sound like they were heavily involved in balancing the new edition, and wanted every unit to be a viable choice (though of course this would also be an optimum situation from a model sales perspective).

Reece also stated (in one of the Frontline podcasts) that a lot of their feedback/suggestions weren't considered by the design team at all. So, I think many are over-emphasizing their actual involvement in helping with the play testing and any subsequent rules development that was accrued from those outside play-testers.

This is a bit disengenuous, what he actually said was that their part in 8th was very small, yes, but the context of the comment was to underscore the mammoth size of the task at hand rather than simply gw not taking their feedback, or them not giving much feedback.

Either way, it doesn't look too good on the whole 'things will be balanced this time around' concern. It's just looking like more of the same. I'd love to be wrong here, time will tell i guess.

this is obvious in certain things such as missions which gw stated in one article as being the same two d6 charts with minor tweaks. Given the fact the current BRB misssions largely favor small elite mobile armies and the fact NO tournaments use missions directly from the book I'm quite certain FLG suggested a more complex multi element mission and gw ignored it for the basic missions they have. However this doesn't mean that version 8 is at a losss since tournaments will continue to use thier own multi tiered missions they created.

Medicinal Carrots wrote:
Regarding characters, for those that want the targetable/untargetable thing to be governed by a keyword instead of by wounds: it's already governed by a keyword, it's just in addition to the wound count rather than instead of it. That keyword is "character". This doesn't lock out any design options, and makes for cleaner rules IMHO where rare outliers can get an exception rather than the rules for everything having to accommodate them.

Yes it does. It prevents 11+ wound untargetable character.

You know wounds does not have to be in direct correlation with physical size...

And there's literally zero drawback in having simple keyword to do it without relation to wound count...

Spoletta wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
I dont think 7th was a bad edition initially. Sure it wasnt perfect, but the psychic rules were much more interesting than before, and the removal of model from the front, while flawed, forced you to think tactically once in a while.

But 7th edition was ruined by the bloat, especially the continual additons of formations, and the bad balance between codexes. Im not sure GW will be able to avoid theses pitfalls with 8th edition.

As for 8th, initially, the thing that will make it or break it imo is command points. So far, a few of the rulres are great, and a few are cringe worthy, but the game in itself seems a bit boring, and like AOS, lack tactical depth (though to a lesser degree). If command point forces you to make some meaningful and fun decision, then all will be good, and the game might turn out to be better and more tactical than 7th. If not, it will not be much more than a glorified version of AOS. Weirdly enough, im rather optimistic and think that they will pull it off

Well, considering that everyone in my area that switched from 40K to AoS agrees that AoS is extremely more tactical than 40k, this is shaping out to be the best edition ever of 40k, in the form of an "AoS +1".

Utterly anecdotal, ergo pointless. Saying that "my area believes X or Y" doesn't mean jack gak.

 Janthkin wrote:
7th ed was rooted in 3rd ed?

Of course it is.

The core movement, shooting and HTH rules are the same. The basic tenants of the vehicle rules are the same, infantry types, a number of the general special rules, the way weapons work (range, AP, etc.), still exist in 7th. The basic FOC hasn't changed, and even mission structure is similar. Overall specific details changed (like the HTH rules, or general cover saves going to 4+ then back to 5+, the exact way Rapid Fire weapons work, how you use blast markers, the way mission objectives work, or who scores, etc.) but at its core 3rd Ed and 7th Ed are the same game. With little conversion work you could take a 3rd Ed codex (or even a BBB army list) and use it in 7th. It wouldn't be very good (balance would be way out), and would lack most of the options, but the unit profiles and weapon profiles and basic building blocks of the game would survive into 7th Ed.

Everything that's been added on since is just that - stuff that's been added on. Decurions, formations, allies, fortifications, flyers and so on are all rules bolted onto the original frame. The more they added, the more unwieldy it got, and it went beyond the level of carrying books in 3rd (as you noted) and became the misshapen beast we have today.

I don't deny that the game has become unplayable with all that crap they've stuck to it, and it's why we need a big overhaul. I just don't think that scrapping the framework is the best idea. I believe that 7th Ed can be fixed, as opposed to replaced.

 Janthkin wrote:
What I really want is a TERRAIN rules preview. I've been playing so many non-GW games of late, and ALL of the them make better use of terrain (and encourage more tactical thinking) than 40k has in the last 2 editions. Of course, when 6e Tau launched, terrain stopped mattering anyway, given that everything could shoot over/ignore it....

The last time GW took a crack at terrain we got terrain with rules that were randomly rolled. Want to take that leap again?

Spoletta wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
I dont think 7th was a bad edition initially. Sure it wasnt perfect, but the psychic rules were much more interesting than before, and the removal of model from the front, while flawed, forced you to think tactically once in a while.

But 7th edition was ruined by the bloat, especially the continual additons of formations, and the bad balance between codexes. Im not sure GW will be able to avoid theses pitfalls with 8th edition.

As for 8th, initially, the thing that will make it or break it imo is command points. So far, a few of the rulres are great, and a few are cringe worthy, but the game in itself seems a bit boring, and like AOS, lack tactical depth (though to a lesser degree). If command point forces you to make some meaningful and fun decision, then all will be good, and the game might turn out to be better and more tactical than 7th. If not, it will not be much more than a glorified version of AOS. Weirdly enough, im rather optimistic and think that they will pull it off

Well, considering that everyone in my area that switched from 40K to AoS agrees that AoS is extremely more tactical than 40k, this is shaping out to be the best edition ever of 40k, in the form of an "AoS +1".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The multiple overwatch and the new SvT table are changes that i will need time to evaluate, but for the rest i like what i see.

yea from the rules we see I don't see how 40k is less tactical as it opens up a whole new realm of tactics. The only tactical loss I see is the fact vehicles don't have side or rear armor and outside of a imperial knight with its 1 sided shield it doesn't matter what side you hit most vehicles. However 8th edition opens up more options through the fixing of many poor mechanics in 7th. I don't think 8th is perfect because even with as little as we know I already see tiers of effectiveness making certain units more competitive then others. For example an 11 wound character is already objectively worse then a 10 wound character. Str 6 rend 2 weapons Will likely be he sweet spot for best weapons in game (can't wait to see the stats on hotshot volley guns). I'm sure many more things will pop up as he rules are released.

 streetsamurai wrote:

 Lobukia wrote:
I really hope the psychic phase moves along. In 7th I was super motivated to kill psykers ASAP, not because they were so powerful, but just so I could finish games. And the pregame garbage was worse.

It changed. It's shallow like in aos now, unfortunately

It changed. its playable and not wasting time and effort with a tedious version of the old WFB magic system.

different viewpoints.

tneva82 wrote:

Yes it does. It prevents 11+ wound untargetable character.

You know wounds does not have to be in direct correlation with physical size...

They probably now do, at least somewhat. And considering that Guilliman has nine wounds, I really cannot see a 11+ wound character that was not some hulking giant monstrosity. Smaller characters that are supposed to be resilient can have good toughness and save.

 streetsamurai wrote:

 Lobukia wrote:
I really hope the psychic phase moves along. In 7th I was super motivated to kill psykers ASAP, not because they were so powerful, but just so I could finish games. And the pregame garbage was worse.

It changed. It's shallow like in aos now, unfortunately

there is nothing shallow about it. The psychic phase is what it always should have been and was until the hot donkey turd that was 6/7th created. None of the psychic dice pools and warp pool nonesense ever existed until they convoluted it up in the current edition.

I dont see a risk reward analysis as tedious nor resources allocations decisions , and saying 8th edition psychic phase is not shallower is just bizzarre. You might think that it is a good thing, but it is a lot less complex and you have much less decision to take than in 7th

 H.B.M.C. wrote:


The last time GW took a crack at terrain we got terrain with rules that were randomly rolled. Want to take that leap again?

Oh good lord please no. I wince each time I flick over the "mysterious terrain" charts.