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In 8th edition, Universal Special Rules were replaced with "bespoke" special rules on individual unit entries. Opponents of this change state this can lead to "a spade is a spade, except when its a shovel" situations, while advocates for this change like being able to glance through their unit entry and know what abilities they have, without having to flip back to the USR to find out the difference between Relentless or Slow&Purposeful, Crusader versus Zealot, etc. The problem is that both sides are correct to a degree!

USRs weren't the problem. GW's implementation of them was off! Several reasons include:
-Rules were not atomic: Relentless was "counts as stationary for shooting." Slow and Purposeful was "counts as stationary for shooting, but cannot run, Overwatch, or perform sweeping advances." Come Codex Cult: Mechanicus, you get Kataphractons, which cannot Run but can Overwatch (and Sweep). GW then made "Heavy Battle Servitor". This meant the unit could not run, but it could fire 2 weapons. Had GW created "Fire Control(X)" (May fire X additional weapons), and atomicized S&P, they could make Kataphractons "Cannot Run, Fire Control, Relentless", Centurions "Cannot(Run, Overwatch, Sweep), Fire Control, Relentless", Terminators "Cannot Sweep, Relentless", etc.
-Rules were not always Universal: The most notable example of this in 7e was Missile Lock. Meant to represent a missile getting a target lock on its opponent, only one weapon in the entire game used it (the Dark Angels Blacksword)! Meanwhile, there were were at least 3 different weapons that had some sort of "missile lock on" shtick (Tau Seeker Missiles, Hive Crone Tentaclids, Hunter Skyspear Missiles) that didn't use Missile Lock!
-Rules were not always Special: Looking at you Soul Blaze.
-Rules were not always Rules: Relentless made a unit count as stationary for shooting...unless you were using a Gitfinda!
-Rules were not scalable: One thing GW should have added would have been "composite" USRs. For example, an Avatar would have Aura(Friendly, Craftworlders, 12")[Fearless, +1 Strength on Charge] while Skarbrand would have Aura(All, 24")[Reroll Melee Attacks]. Having distinctions between USRs a character possessed, and those granted to a unit, would also mitigate deathstars.

On a non-USR note, certain rules did the opposite of their name. Look at Tau: You would think the Multi-Tracker would allow a Battlesuit to track multiple units (that was the Target Lock's job! ), but it instead let the unit fire multiple shots. Nomenclature isn't GW's forte, news at 11.

I fear that we may go back to the silly days of 4th(?) edition, where different marine chapters had the same equipment with different rules. I remember my Space Wolves cramming so much ale into their drop pods they had two less capacity than Ultramarine ones!

That being said, if GW stick to their word and realise the internet is a thing and issue errata across the board if they feel the need to change something, it won't be a problem.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I fear that we may go back to the silly days of 4th(?) edition, where different marine chapters had the same equipment with different rules. I remember my Space Wolves cramming so much ale into their drop pods they had two less capacity than Ultramarine ones!

That being said, if GW stick to their word and realise the internet is a thing and issue errata across the board if they feel the need to change something, it won't be a problem.

I remember the early days of 5th edition when Black Templar had gimpy 4e versions of Power of the Machine Spirit, Cyclone and Typhoon Missile Launchers, Storm Shields and Nartheciums. I also remember them getting a sudden spike in popularity once those items were errata'd to be in line with their rules from the 5e codexes, as Black Templar could put PoTMS on anything as a vehicle upgrade, including Vindicators

I also remember Daemonhunters ignoring Eternal Warrior, since Nemesis Force Weapons slew their opponents outright (rather than having Instant Death)!

A faster release schedule will help tremendously as well. It won't be years between codices with similar gear.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I fear that we may go back to the silly days of 4th(?) edition, where different marine chapters had the same equipment with different rules. I remember my Space Wolves cramming so much ale into their drop pods they had two less capacity than Ultramarine ones!

That being said, if GW stick to their word and realise the internet is a thing and issue errata across the board if they feel the need to change something, it won't be a problem.

How would USR's help that? The main issue with that was separate codex's from similar ones like FA and C:SM

The thing is, they could have used USRs, but still included the text for them on each unit's dataslate (when applicable).

So newer players can remind themselves of the rules each time, whereas more experienced ones can just glance at the names and remember exactly what they do.

They could even have added different flavour text to the same ability when on different units.

e.g. Deep Strike on, say, Scions could talk about them parachuting into position, whilst Deep Strike for Flayed Ones would be them teleporting in from their weird pocket dimension thing. However, the actual rules for both of these abilities would remain identical.

I think it should be a huge problem if they don't plan to have different rules interact. No ignoring the various FNP variants for example. But honestly besides that and instant death/eternal warrior, a lot of the USR didn't really interact that much.

Whether they reference universal rules or are writing model-specific rules, the biggest thing GW needs for their special rules is a style guide.

A ruleset is, essentially, a technical publication and should be written as such. It is a set of instructions on how to do something, even if that something is "play 40k". This means that it needs to be clear, concise, and consistent.

 ross-128 wrote:
Whether they reference universal rules or are writing model-specific rules, the biggest thing GW needs for their special rules is a style guide.

A ruleset is, essentially, a technical publication and should be written as such. It is a set of instructions on how to do something, even if that something is "play 40k". This means that it needs to be clear, concise, and consistent.

Sweet Mormon Jesus, yes. Universal special rules make things vastly more clear when they're used properly, but using them properly just wasn't done in 7th edition.

They could also do with a refresher course in using keywords. Especially since they still apparently fail to understand the difference between 'Models' and 'Units' about half the time (leading to, for example, the 'Assault' rule being nonfunctional if you try to play it as written).

To my mind the issue with USRs was that they wrote too many, used them inconsistently, and wrote too many tiny variations on the same thing (e.g. having Stealth, Shrouded, or Stealth + Shrouded rather than a subscriptable Stealth (Stealth (+1), Stealth (+2), etc.), making Reanimation Protocols exactly like Feel No Pain except in how it reacted to Instant Death, that sort of thing).

They've been better about it thus far, though there's still plenty of space for improvement (Warmachine's got a "Critical" keyword that lets you tack on an extra effect on a certain to-hit roll; if Warhammer got a "Critical (X): does X on a to-wound roll of 6+" rule a lot of redundancy could be cut out).

USRs had no point.

Some had become so common they might as well be included in the units profile, and some we're so uncommon you would not see them in play ever.

There was no need to have them, they just added another place to flip to to reference a rule other than the units datasheet

Special rules still exist, but the separation of characters and units removed the need to have a USR section as they can all be put into their respective units datsheet or folded into profiles for units or weapons

blaktoof wrote:
USRs had no point.

Some had become so common they might as well be included in the units profile, and some we're so uncommon you would not see them in play ever.

There was no need to have them, they just added another place to flip to to reference a rule other than the units datasheet

Special rules still exist, but the separation of characters and units removed the need to have a USR section as they can all be put into their respective units datsheet or folded into profiles for units or weapons

The point of a USR section is so I can write "Airborne: this unit cannot charge, and can only be charged by models with the Fly rule" in one place, and then just write "Airborne" on fifty-odd unit datasheets instead of writing it out every time and making people double-check to make sure they know which thing that I've called "Airborne" it is. It's the same reason things like Power from Pain and ATSKNF are printed in one reference at the start of an army list instead of getting reprinted in full on every single unit that has them, or why Warmachine does things like "this unit isn't alive and doesn't give up a soul token" as a little quick-reference icon, or why MTG has keywords. USRs aren't a bad thing, they make it easier to understand the game as a whole rather than needing to reinvent the wheel every time you come to a new army book and confuse people by reinventing it slightly differently (like how "shields" do twenty different things in AoS).

But where you have them written down and whether you call them "USRs" is organizational fiddling; the real reason USRs are better now is that GW's been a lot better about making them consistent and relevant.

Indeed. USRs allow games to grow in size and complexity while still being playable. The only reason M:TG and other trading card games are playable with any level of complexity is USRs. Hell, even a unit's statline is basically a USR by another name.

In my opinion removing USRs was a great move for GW's two flagship games. The datasheets and warscrolls now offer unlimited design space and expansion of scope.

USRs can be great to build a tightly balanced game, but they are by their nature limiting in scope. If you are to build a game around a set of core USRs it limits the potential for new and exciting units. They are good for games built from the bottom up where the whole game is designed in one go.

GW's games are ever expanding and evolving. The rules are also designed top-down in that the fluff comes first, and the rules seek to emulate that fluff on the tabletop. As new models come out there would eventually be units that cannot behave how they should due to the restrictive nature of USRs. In the past this has led to GW creating new rules for the new units which bypass the USRs (as pointed out in the OP), and this creates bloat because the rules for a single unit are now in a variety of sources.

The new system of datasheets/warscrolls ensures there will never be bloat because a units rules are kept to a minimal amount of sources, at the same time the system allows the designers to constantly create new and exciting rules to represent how units operate in the fluff. It's a great move forward in my eyes and I am a big fan.

Err, they didn't really remove USRs.

 Melissia wrote:
Indeed. USRs allow games to grow in size and complexity while still being playable. The only reason M:TG and other trading card games are playable with any level of complexity is USRs. Hell, even a unit's statline is basically a USR by another name.

That's mainly to deal with card effects interacting with each other and timing. The keyword system is one way of facilitating that when needed, otherwise I assume they mostly plan to have abilities stand alone.

Can we find examples where issues crop up currently that would be solved by USRs?

SilverAlien wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Indeed. USRs allow games to grow in size and complexity while still being playable. The only reason M:TG and other trading card games are playable with any level of complexity is USRs. Hell, even a unit's statline is basically a USR by another name.

That's mainly to deal with card effects interacting with each other and timing. The keyword system is one way of facilitating that when needed, otherwise I assume they mostly plan to have abilities stand alone.

Can we find examples where issues crop up currently that would be solved by USRs?

Transports and mixed units. Originally, a unit of Grey Hunters could transport a Wolf Guard Terminator in a Rhino because it did not have the Terminator Keyword. This was FAQed though. Meanwhile, a unit of 5 Deathwatch Vets and 1 Terminator won't fit in a Land Raider, because the entire unit has the Terminator Keyword and thus takes up 12 slots. Bulky USR anyone?

As someone who was a new player in 7th, USRs were absolutely a problem. I couldn't wrap my head around all of the rules that reference other rules that reference other rules, it took me ages to play a turn because of all the stuff I had to look up to know what one unit did. The new system where everything you need to know is on the datasheet is far superior.

I think USRs were broken both in theory and in practice.

Every edition GW would say codex creep had gone too far and they would try and hack things back to a small number of USRs (which by 7th had grown to cover countless pages in the rulebook).

What happened? Well for the first few releases they might try to stick with this. Producing what would typically be described as very boring, characterless armies. This is because rules are what make an army feel different to another.

So GW would quickly abandon this. The Labour of Love armies (Eldar) would get bags of special rules covering almost every single unit. This unsurprisingly caused balance issues when the unloved would get "oh yeah, this elite unit is basically your troop, but his gun has +1 strength. Have fun".

Then as codex creep ran on you reached the point where every army was getting its own selection of special rules plus a cricket score of USRs (see the culmination of this in Wulfen).

So all in all I think the new everything on the datasheet approach is better.

Arachnofiend wrote:
As someone who was a new player in 7th, USRs were absolutely a problem. I couldn't wrap my head around all of the rules that reference other rules that reference other rules, it took me ages to play a turn because of all the stuff I had to look up to know what one unit did. The new system where everything you need to know is on the datasheet is far superior.

As some one who was a new player in 7th USR were great. It let me just memorize a few core rules for each of my armies and just look at their USR to know what each one did and use the core rulebook for one off stuff like soul blaze rather then having these massive data slates.

 Melissia wrote:
Indeed. USRs allow games to grow in size and complexity while still being playable. The only reason M:TG and other trading card games are playable with any level of complexity is USRs. Hell, even a unit's statline is basically a USR by another name.

/thread

USRs are one of the few things GW did well in previous editions, and removing them from 8th is pure insanity.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Indeed. USRs allow games to grow in size and complexity while still being playable. The only reason M:TG and other trading card games are playable with any level of complexity is USRs. Hell, even a unit's statline is basically a USR by another name.

/thread

USRs are one of the few things GW did well in previous editions, and removing them from 8th is pure insanity.

Funny. There is over 150 keyword rules for MtG. MtG simply adds more USRs when they want to do something new so I'm not sure how you think that would work for GW.

Actually the way MtG and basically every Cardgame works is having a "Standard" mode where only the cards of the past 1-2 years can be used in the competitive tournaments.

Thats the only way to balance the game when you have literally thousands and thousands of cards. Agreed, they have a better use of USR than GW, but the bloat after years of new content just need to be cut down one way or the other.

Daedalus81 wrote:
Funny. There is over 150 keyword rules for MtG. MtG simply adds more USRs when they want to do something new so I'm not sure how you think that would work for GW.

The difference is that MTG has thousands of "units", far more than 40k. So if you scale down the number of MTG "units" to something comparable to 40k you'd proportionally scale down the number of keywords, and you'd find that most of those keywords are repeated across large numbers of cards. GW would have no pressure to introduce hundreds of new "units" every year, and could handle most of the unit-specific rules with a carefully chosen set of USRs.

I'm not sure whether Magic should be the system to compare to, instead of comparing to other tabletop mini-games. Warmahordes has its share of USRs (and also had "composite USRs", such as Field Marshal, Elite Cadre, Granted vs Tactics, etc), but a game like Kings of War has relatively few USRs.

One thing that always perplexed me about 40k is that, as it kept adding all these fancy/exotic weapon rules, like Tesla, Helfrost, Haywire, Soul Blaze, etc, how come nobody at GW thought "hmm, you know what, maybe we should add "damage types/weapon-types" to attacks, so it's easier to future-proof them?" After the whole Ulemathi Plasma Syphon debate ("Is a Pulse Rifle considered a Plasma Weapon"), you would think they would add a "weapon class/weapon keyword" interaction, either for 7th or 8th, rather than doing things like "A Gauntlet of Fire is considered a flamer as defined in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook", and not then having to ask "can Kataphractons use a Haemotrope Reactor for their Plasma Culverins?"

I like that lack of USR gives the possibility of more army specific rules where they do very similar things but have some degree of difference. though this is only a theoretic advantage I am having difficulty finding a good example of implementation of it.

Arachnofiend wrote:
As someone who was a new player in 7th, USRs were absolutely a problem. I couldn't wrap my head around all of the rules that reference other rules that reference other rules, it took me ages to play a turn because of all the stuff I had to look up to know what one unit did. The new system where everything you need to know is on the datasheet is far superior.

But those two things are not mutually exclusive. You could have a more streamlined nomenclature and still print the rules on the datasheets. If they had Feel No Pain (X+), instead of Dok's Tools, Disgustingly Resilient, Stimulant Injector, Narthecium, etc., Deep strike instead of Teleport Strike, Jump Pack Assault, Manta Strike, Raptor Strike, Children of Baharroth, etc., it would be much faster for two opponents to explain their armies to each other rather than have to explain every rule. Rather than having to learn 4 pages (or whatever) of USR, you have to learn every codex? Sure, maybe it doesn't help new players much at first, but as they play more games, learn the jargon, it makes things so much simpler. And if it's fully printed on the dataslate as well, then everybody wins.

I think the idea of USRs could work, the problem is that USRs as implemented make it hard to balance armies over edition changes, without mass unit by unit changes (units losing some USRs, changing USRs etc). With how codices are released edition changes can cause units to go from useless to amazing or vice versa just by changing a USR. The same is true for weapons, while it would be nice for all weapons with the same name to work the same way this only works if it is reflected in the points cost, otherwise you end up with broken units that underpay for items or over pay.

From an accessibility standpoint, it is easier to have everything bespoke because it does not change with the USR changes, and if GW tries to make balance changes (think Black Templars who had army wide Prefered enemy become army wide rage in the change from 5th to 6th), it does not rely on people to know about FAQ changes, for a new player who picks up an army book they should not be required to go to the internet to find the "real" rules for their faction.

The problem of have a USR but also print it on the data sheet, is that it only works if the USR never changes, otherwise you have scenarios where either all data slates need to be FAQ'd, or the data slate and BRB don't agree on a USR. So if they have the "deep strike" rule which right now would be "set up anywhere more than 9" away from an enemy model." and then "deepstrike" gets changed to more than 8" or more than 10", do all these change or not? Or do we have Deepstrike(x), where x is the number of inches away you set up?. If it is never in the rulebook, then it might work, but even then, what do you do when you want a FNP rule that doesn't work against mortal wounds? or only works against mortal wounds, now you have FNP and some other rule anyway.

Jargon is still going to develop, to cover similar rules. I mean I already don't use all the rule names when telling opponents about my units.

Pain boy - "this guy gives units within 6" a 6+ save against wounds suffered (usually call in FNP anyway against experienced players).

Teleporting units- "these guys can set up just out of 9" away from you during my turn"

Breng77 wrote:
The problem of have a USR but also print it on the data sheet, is that it only works if the USR never changes, otherwise you have scenarios where either all data slates need to be FAQ'd, or the data slate and BRB don't agree on a USR. So if they have the "deep strike" rule which right now would be "set up anywhere more than 9" away from an enemy model." and then "deepstrike" gets changed to more than 8" or more than 10", do all these change or not? Or do we have Deepstrike(x), where x is the number of inches away you set up?. If it is never in the rulebook, then it might work, but even then, what do you do when you want a FNP rule that doesn't work against mortal wounds? or only works against mortal wounds, now you have FNP and some other rule anyway.

On the other hand, if you want to change every deep strike rules, for example, to be 8 or 10 inches, then you have to update every datasheet. Having different or standardized names cuts both ways. Ultimately, I think having standard names for similar abilities with specifiers (Deep strike (x), Feel No Pain (x), Stealth (x), etc) does a lot to more to make the game easier to understand than having a bunch of rules with different names do the same thing.

As for FAQs and errata, well they already have to produce some anyway. I have yet to see a game where it doesn't happen.

Edition changes will always be a big, messy affair. Whether they have USRs or not will not change that.