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When the Designer's Commentary where posted, many people said that they where only something of Warhammer Community, with 0 relevance to whats official about 8th edition rules. Because they wherent in the FAQ section of the Games Workshop page.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/11/16/happy-birthday-warhammer-community-nov-16gw-homepage-post-2/

https://www.warhammer-community.com/faqs/
They are here now, under warhammer40k:


So, does this means they are now oficially how those rules need to be played? Or did they still don't count as FAQ's for Tournaments, Matched play, etc...?

They are put up to to show the intent of the designers behind all the rules they put in books. They do not effect the RAW (read as written) of any rules but clarify the RAI (read as intended) of them to help players interpret the rules correctly.


In this edition it is more for a tournament organizers benefit in helping clarify rules complications.

They are obviously not errata but they are the final word on RAI.

I'm not really sure that these distinctions are important. The Commentary seems about as official as anything gets.

Like, if you're in a pick-up game, and you disagree with your opponent about a rule and then they point to the Commentary which clearly supports their position, you're a huge ass if you start to argue about how that's not actually a FAQ and so you still have to roll off to see whose interpretation sticks. Does anyone actually disagree with this? Of course, if before the game you agree to play the game according to different rules than those endorsed by the Commentary, you can do that. But you can do the same with a FAQ or even with the whole rulebook.

Meanwhile, surely almost every TO is going to interpret almost all of the rules in a manner consistent with the Commentary. I mean, if you're a TO why wouldn't you do this? Maybe you'll have special rules for your tournament, like "No Forgeworld" or "the bottom level of ruins blocks LoS", but you're not going to feel less reluctant to depart from the Commentary in this fashion than from a FAQ or rulebook.

So who cares if it is "officially a FAQ"? What is the actual significance of this distinction?

There is no real distinction, but some people are going to try to make one. If I'm in a game, and someone refuses to go with the official designer commentary, the game is over right there, because that's absurd.

It's basically an FAQ in my opinion. It's them stating what the intent of the rules are.

I agree. They are, for all intent and purpose the same as an FAQ document.

I think they have kept it separate from the codex and index ones as the things inside it affect all the armies, so it is more of a "general overview" faq that clears up issues across the game and core rules.

But, one the plus side, we no longer have to worry about Ynnari armies! LOL

 Galas wrote:
When the Designer's Commentary where posted, many people said that they where only something of Warhammer Community, with 0 relevance to whats official about 8th edition rules. Because they wherent in the FAQ section of the Games Workshop page.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/11/16/happy-birthday-warhammer-community-nov-16gw-homepage-post-2/

https://www.warhammer-community.com/faqs/
They are here now, under warhammer40k:


So, does this means they are now oficially how those rules need to be played? Or did they still don't count as FAQ's for Tournaments, Matched play, etc...?

The designer's commentary is ironically the best example of a "FAQ" GW has made. It's almost entirely them answering questions about rules they've written. Unlike the other FAQ's which are mainly rules changes the Designer's Commentary is the closest we get to a true FAQ because there really aren't any rules changes, they're just stating what they meant a rule to mean.

Anyone not taking it as official is insane. Especially since this one was pretty well written in my opinion, at least compared to previous FAQ's. The flowchart alone shows they're learning a thing or two about how to explain things to players.

It's obviously intended to be an official rules resource, any talk about it "not being an FAQ" because of the title or where it was located on the site was always silly.

As an aside, it used to be Designers' Commentary, now it's Designer's Commentary? Where did the rest of the designers go?

I feel like I'm back in law school, arguing about legislative intent behind poorly-worded statutes . . .

Wayniac wrote:
It's basically an FAQ in my opinion. It's them stating what the intent of the rules are.

This. It's a FAQ by any other name.