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 Sim-Life wrote:
I think a lot of people are looking at 8th too much like its actually complete yet. A third of the factions have yet to get their real codex and even then the difference between the first books released which would have obviously been rushed and the more recent ones like Nids and Eldar that have had a bit of time put into them are miles apart.

8th won't REALLY be finished totally until the cycle of getting every faction up to date with stratagems and such is done later this year. At that point is when the devs can focus on tweaking balances properly in codexes. When Space Marines get a new codex then we'll really be in a position to judge because that will really be the first proper codex instead of just a placeholder.

Of course GW might just print the same codex again with the March/November FAQs and Chapter Approved edited in. Who knows?

Lol always at the future and you are saying GW is deliberately selling half-finished products. "Here buy this codex we haven't bothered to even balance with".

What's the next "wait for X" excuse when codexes are out and game is still unbalanced junk? GW doesn't care about balance so good luck waiting for it. They just swing nerf and boost hammers wildly randomly shifting meta one way or other but never actually balancing game.

I don't care about tournaments but still play semicompetitive games other than fluffy ones. I own 3 large armies and none of them has a codex yet, so comparing to 7th edition I only have a few options available. Thousand of points of units/characters are now useless or unplayable even in friendly metas, while only a few units/characters have become viable.

CA fixed a bit my SW making TWC and wulfen decent at least, but orks and drukhari are too limited at the moment and can only play with a few stuff. Again, I'm not even considering tournaments, I'm talking about friendly games.

For now this edition is terrible, from my perspective. I do appreciate the core rules though.

Several months in and absolutely loving it. My enjoyment just goes from strength to strength. Yes, there are some grumbles such as cover saves needing to be fixed but mostly I have no problems with any of it. 8th edition is designed for casual play not tournament or cempetitive gaming, hence the simplicity. This for me is what is making the game more enjoyable.

Started off loving it, now starting to get worried. Uneven balance is a problem already and GW seems incapable of understanding their own game properly.

Too many re-rolls and overpowered characters can turn the game boring pretty fast, and I think Morale needs to play a much bigger role in the game. Nobody should be immune, for starters. We're fine with stats going above 10 so why don't we see Ld for things like Poxwalkers at, say, 20? There's nothing worse than playing a game and feeling helpless to do anything but things like blobs of Fearless troops and blobs of re-rolling massed firepower are pretty close to this for me.

There is hope, though. I don't think the game has too many fundamental problems at its core, it's more the implementation of certain things being a bit off.

8th has made me look forward to 9th

 Tokhuah wrote:
8th has made me look forward to 9th

I hope you will not be disappointed.
Then GW might bring the game into another direction.

I'm enjoying it.

Stopped playing all together none of my armies has a codex, all my friends armies do have a codex.

Honestly don't think I'll bother even once codex are out I'm just not missing 40k.

I miss 7th I liked the old power/toughness table alot better. Formations were a ton of fun. Mortal wounds were a good idea but I feel like they are to tied to smite. I liked the psychic phase more in all most every way last edition. Only thing I like about the new one is no random powers and their is no telepathy tree.

As a nids player who played %100 melee nids in late 7th who didn't care about winning since I'm more a modeler I'm loving 8th.

tneva82 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
I think a lot of people are looking at 8th too much like its actually complete yet. A third of the factions have yet to get their real codex and even then the difference between the first books released which would have obviously been rushed and the more recent ones like Nids and Eldar that have had a bit of time put into them are miles apart.

8th won't REALLY be finished totally until the cycle of getting every faction up to date with stratagems and such is done later this year. At that point is when the devs can focus on tweaking balances properly in codexes. When Space Marines get a new codex then we'll really be in a position to judge because that will really be the first proper codex instead of just a placeholder.

Of course GW might just print the same codex again with the March/November FAQs and Chapter Approved edited in. Who knows?

Lol always at the future and you are saying GW is deliberately selling half-finished products. "Here buy this codex we haven't bothered to even balance with".

What's the next "wait for X" excuse when codexes are out and game is still unbalanced junk? GW doesn't care about balance so good luck waiting for it. They just swing nerf and boost hammers wildly randomly shifting meta one way or other but never actually balancing game.

I'm sure had they waited 6 months before releasing Codex: Space Marines your complaints would be different. But you'd still be complaining.

Its funny you say that GW is bad at balance but aside from Lictors and Zoanthropes I can't think of any really bad units in the nid dex. Balance between armies is REALLY difficult. Even Privateer Press which is held up as a super competitive rule set with good balance admits that the best they can do is make sure a faction has good internal balance. And I've not seen a large amount of complaints about any book since Craftworld Eldar so I'm led to believe that for the most part the more recent books have a good internal balance. So yes, GW can do good balance. Denying that the newer books are better than the first few is just burying your head in the sand and complaining for the sake of it.

But as I said, certain people will complain about things no matter what.

I like split fire and guaranteed deep strike. Stratagems are useful and add another dimension to the game. It's good that you are allowed to choose your psychic powers again.

I don't like the rules around cover and am bothered by the psychic phase, especially the rules that prohibit the same power being used more than once per turn.

So.... my opinion is neutral. There are some upsides and downsides, it's just a new edition.

After a few games under the belt with different opponent, my initial skeptisism is gone. There are some good idea (and I did not agreed with them in the beginning, for example about removal of AP and Morale-based effects).

But in the end I get used to it. And if it makes the game easier for beginners, I'm okay with that.

My only concerns are:

1) The micromanagement in positioning (specifically in movement during Combat phase, pile in and so. This is terrible. I really dislike it, don't add anything to the game and it's usually a complete waste of time. Also, it's really punishing for new players, make difficult to use terrain properly etc.

2) The overall rules coherency is degrading rapidly... as usual. Or even more.
Luckily I have my Index, but I have to wait at least until all my friends get their Codex (and their full Strategems) before I can propose to roll back to Index+Trait+Stratagems (imho, the best ruleset you can use).

3) Someone will have to write better cover rules, sooner or later. Hope will be GW. Probably will be some fan-made solutions.

But, hey, I've started to paint again, so that's a good thing for sure.

 Crimson wrote:
I've played 40K since 2nd edition, and I have to say overall 8th is the best edition thus far. It is not perfect, but the rules are clear and mostly logical and amount of annoying micromanaging has been decreased drastically. My biggest gripe are the terrain rules, where I think they went a tad overboard with the simplification (Intervening terrain should provide cover.)
That being said, I'm more an modeller than a gamer, and I play only maybe once a month, so I haven't played that many games, so it is perfectly possible I will still find some things that start to annoy me.
And yes, codex armies generally tend to be a bit more powerful than index ones, even with Chapter Approved fixes, but if they keep releasing the codices at this pace, that problem is soon resolved.

Wow.
I can agree or claim everything said here.
8th I have been entering many stats in Excel to keep a handle on them and work out a Squat list for my friend in 8th so I can appreciate that some of the balance tricks are not as simple as they first appear.
I can appreciate that much more effort is going into the design.
The terrain rules had been simplified a bit too much which does not seem to reward making and playing terrain.
Other than that: best rule system by GW for 40k I have seen so-far.

I'm skipping 8th still. It did inspire me to write my own system due to having more issues with its anti-design, more than previouw editions have inspired me.

tneva82 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
I think a lot of people are looking at 8th too much like its actually complete yet. A third of the factions have yet to get their real codex and even then the difference between the first books released which would have obviously been rushed and the more recent ones like Nids and Eldar that have had a bit of time put into them are miles apart.

8th won't REALLY be finished totally until the cycle of getting every faction up to date with stratagems and such is done later this year. At that point is when the devs can focus on tweaking balances properly in codexes. When Space Marines get a new codex then we'll really be in a position to judge because that will really be the first proper codex instead of just a placeholder.

Of course GW might just print the same codex again with the March/November FAQs and Chapter Approved edited in. Who knows?

Lol always at the future and you are saying GW is deliberately selling half-finished products. "Here buy this codex we haven't bothered to even balance with".

What's the next "wait for X" excuse when codexes are out and game is still unbalanced junk? GW doesn't care about balance so good luck waiting for it. They just swing nerf and boost hammers wildly randomly shifting meta one way or other but never actually balancing game.

8th is disappointing for me. I was excited with the initial claims, however I play GK, BA and Eldar and it's plain GW can't balance still.

GK in particular have been disappointing. Wait for the codex, no wait for the faq, no wait for Chapter Approved.... and nothing has really changed. Instead the revisions in faqs and chapter approved are knee jerk reactions to things seen at tournament level - problems with Conscripts, flyer spam, Guilliman buffing Razorbacks, Smite spam etc

I don't like quite a bit about 8th, but it's still much better than the previous edition.
There are a lot of things that should be changed still and some things where I'm still wondering what kind of drug the author was on, but it's not nearly as much as it was previously.

Although I'm still baffled how someone could design a Codex that is basically -2 toHit while there are armies with a average toHit of 5+. Everything else you can understand a little at least, or chalk it up to poor wording. But that one I can't justify at all.

Overall I'm really enjoying it. It has its problems for sure but having played a lot during 7th in a tournament competitive environment and travelling for events I think 8th is in a better spot than most of 7th.

My gaming group has remained pretty consistent with it, we lost a few guys and gained a few guys with the edition launch so I don't know that my local community has grown from it but it has stayed consistent.

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I enjoy 8th edition.

It's flaws:
1) Terrain rules are useless and silly. This is kind of a big deal, because terrain should be important, in my opinion.

2) Alpha strike. This could easily be fixed by letting people hold stuff in reserve up to 50% of their army even if it doesn't have a special rule, thusly allowing armies to preserve the core of their firepower even if they have 2nd turn, instead of simply being gutted.

Wins:
1) Simplicity. I can explain the rules much more clearly now; the only fiddly bit at the beginning was the assault rules and that's just because I can't read and tried to play them like older editions. Now that I've a handle on them, they make sense.

2) Balance. It's not perfect, but I finally feel like the glaring disparities of 3e-7e are gone. There is no one unit type (or keyword, in this case) that I can point to that's flat out better than a comparable unit type; each has their strengths and weaknesses. In 3-7th, the Monstrous Creature unit type was significantly better than the Walker unit type, all else being equal. Superheavies are no longer special snowflake tanks, but instead merely big and intimidating versions of lesser vehicles.

3) Army construction. Armies actually feel like fluffy "armies" now, rather than just a hodgepodge of units crammed together to fit some FOC that didn't really make any damned sense for the concept in question, or some Formation that forced weird choices down people's throats that were also fairly nonsensical sometimes.

4) Customization: so this is kind of contentious I am sure, as customization in the objective sense has gone down somewhat... but on the army scale, it's gone up, because of the aforementioned balance. I saw Rough Riders at NOVA 2017 in spades (though sadly they're gone now, so maybe that's not the case for NOVA 2018!). I fairly routinely see Terminators of whatever flavour. I commonly see mortars and Imperial Guard infantry squads duking it out with Howling Banshees and Swooping Hawks. I see dreadnoughts challenging Carnifexes in an epic duel of titans rather than the Carnifex casually smashing it aside and moving on.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I enjoy 8th edition.

It's flaws:
1) Terrain rules are useless and silly. This is kind of a big deal, because terrain should be important, in my opinion.

2) Alpha strike. This could easily be fixed by letting people hold stuff in reserve up to 50% of their army even if it doesn't have a special rule, thusly allowing armies to preserve the core of their firepower even if they have 2nd turn, instead of simply being gutted.

Wins:
1) Simplicity. I can explain the rules much more clearly now; the only fiddly bit at the beginning was the assault rules and that's just because I can't read and tried to play them like older editions. Now that I've a handle on them, they make sense.

2) Balance. It's not perfect, but I finally feel like the glaring disparities of 3e-7e are gone. There is no one unit type (or keyword, in this case) that I can point to that's flat out better than a comparable unit type; each has their strengths and weaknesses. In 3-7th, the Monstrous Creature unit type was significantly better than the Walker unit type, all else being equal. Superheavies are no longer special snowflake tanks, but instead merely big and intimidating versions of lesser vehicles.

3) Army construction. Armies actually feel like fluffy "armies" now, rather than just a hodgepodge of units crammed together to fit some FOC that didn't really make any damned sense for the concept in question, or some Formation that forced weird choices down people's throats that were also fairly nonsensical sometimes.

4) Customization: so this is kind of contentious I am sure, as customization in the objective sense has gone down somewhat... but on the army scale, it's gone up, because of the aforementioned balance. I saw Rough Riders at NOVA 2017 in spades (though sadly they're gone now, so maybe that's not the case for NOVA 2018!). I fairly routinely see Terminators of whatever flavour. I commonly see mortars and Imperial Guard infantry squads duking it out with Howling Banshees and Swooping Hawks. I see dreadnoughts challenging Carnifexes in an epic duel of titans rather than the Carnifex casually smashing it aside and moving on.

You're not in the minority, you're in the majority. I say this to my wife all the time but people don't go onto the internet to tell people on a car repair forum they're new car is working fine. It's easy to feel like everyone hates 40k 8th because the Dakka forums are a cesspool of negativity and people yelling incessantly about things not being competitive and "b-but the muh-mathhammer says its not optimal", but they're a minority and not at all representitive of the people who generally play the game.

The Good:

It's a hell of a lot better than flipping through 3 books.

It's a lot quicker, which means I can get more games in.

It's nice to see some armies doing really well when they weren't so good last edition.

It's great that we now use separate weapon systems on multiple targets, rather than A Leman Russ having to shoot every gun at the same thing.

I actually like the Primaris Marines, though the fluff is 'meh' at best. To me, they play like Space Marines from the fluff.

I am actually amused by people who whine and cry about change and then 'quit the game'. I find it's usually a WAAC player, so good riddance.

The Bad:

The 'power level' system is little more than a scoring system for an Open War objective. Every person I've seen asking to play by power level is usually 500 points over their opponent's list.

I've never seen such a mad scramble to get Imperial Guard units. Can't say I'm a fan of quite a few 'new' Guard players that seem to think they've got skill when they're just laying down nothing but tanks of all shapes and sizes.

Bobby G seems to appear in every Space Marine army I've played against, and people keep telling me to buy him.

Sticking 1" of my tank from behind a wall and shooting every gun I have at someone (even the sponson gun on the opposite side) is dumb. Line of sight from the weapons should be a common house rule.

Some of the whiny WAAC players that 'quit' can't stop hanging around just to complain.

"Sticking 1" of my tank from behind a wall and shooting every gun I have at someone (even the sponson gun on the opposite side) is dumb. Line of sight from the weapons should be a common house rule."

You'd likely need to reduce the cost on vehicles, then.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
The Good:

It's a hell of a lot better than flipping through 3 books.

It's a lot quicker, which means I can get more games in.

It's nice to see some armies doing really well when they weren't so good last edition.

It's great that we now use separate weapon systems on multiple targets, rather than A Leman Russ having to shoot every gun at the same thing.

I actually like the Primaris Marines, though the fluff is 'meh' at best. To me, they play like Space Marines from the fluff.

I am actually amused by people who whine and cry about change and then 'quit the game'. I find it's usually a WAAC player, so good riddance.

The Bad:

The 'power level' system is little more than a scoring system for an Open War objective. Every person I've seen asking to play by power level is usually 500 points over their opponent's list.

I've never seen such a mad scramble to get Imperial Guard units. Can't say I'm a fan of quite a few 'new' Guard players that seem to think they've got skill when they're just laying down nothing but tanks of all shapes and sizes.

Bobby G seems to appear in every Space Marine army I've played against, and people keep telling me to buy him.

Sticking 1" of my tank from behind a wall and shooting every gun I have at someone (even the sponson gun on the opposite side) is dumb. Line of sight from the weapons should be a common house rule.

Some of the whiny WAAC players that 'quit' can't stop hanging around just to complain.

I agree with most of this, except for your second to last point (though your last point is golden):

If you do make LOS from the weapons a house rule, it should be from every model, so a Riptide can't shoot out of it's toe. This was a problem I had in 3-7th editions: why can monsters/battlesuits/dudes/whatever shoot from their toe, or ear, or whathaveyou, while a vehicle must point its guns at the target? But instead of making LOS required for every weapon, G.W. just doubled down on abstraction and said "vehicles are equally insane to everything else" which, if you understand that to be their desired level of abstraction, isn't a problem. Now, you could complain that you disagree with that level of abstraction, but I think it's necessary to play a company scale game instead of drawing LOS for every rifle/machine-gun/grenade on the board.

I love it! It's nice to have a game that doesn't feel bogged down by a bazillion rules.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
If you do make LOS from the weapons a house rule, it should be from every model, so a Riptide can't shoot out of it's toe. This was a problem I had in 3-7th editions: why can monsters/battlesuits/dudes/whatever shoot from their toe, or ear, or whathaveyou, while a vehicle must point its guns at the target? But instead of making LOS required for every weapon, G.W. just doubled down on abstraction and said "vehicles are equally insane to everything else" which, if you understand that to be their desired level of abstraction, isn't a problem. Now, you could complain that you disagree with that level of abstraction, but I think it's necessary to play a company scale game instead of drawing LOS for every rifle/machine-gun/grenade on the board.

I'm not sure how it's possible for a Riptide to shoot anything if it's in the proper place- the trash can.

I'm joking, of course. Our rule is "The gun must be able to move and point at the target". This applies to knights, titans, tanks, battlesuits, or anything else. If a Riptide could reasonable aim a weapon at his target, he can shoot it. But sticking just a shoulder or head over a wall and being able to shoot everything is a no-go.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
If you do make LOS from the weapons a house rule, it should be from every model, so a Riptide can't shoot out of it's toe. This was a problem I had in 3-7th editions: why can monsters/battlesuits/dudes/whatever shoot from their toe, or ear, or whathaveyou, while a vehicle must point its guns at the target? But instead of making LOS required for every weapon, G.W. just doubled down on abstraction and said "vehicles are equally insane to everything else" which, if you understand that to be their desired level of abstraction, isn't a problem. Now, you could complain that you disagree with that level of abstraction, but I think it's necessary to play a company scale game instead of drawing LOS for every rifle/machine-gun/grenade on the board.

I'm not sure how it's possible for a Riptide to shoot anything if it's in the proper place- the trash can.

I'm joking, of course. Our rule is "The gun must be able to move and point at the target". This applies to knights, titans, tanks, battlesuits, or anything else. If a Riptide could reasonable aim a weapon at his target, he can shoot it. But sticking just a shoulder or head over a wall and being able to shoot everything is a no-go.

I'd be fine with that house rule, I think, though if you tried to apply it to my local meta you'd get a lot of "but this is totally reasonable." Just to use your example: The Riptide has jump jets in the fluff (hence why it used to be able to JSJ). Why couldn't it show it's head to the enemy, boost up and fire like a helicopter, and then gently land back on those flimsy ankles?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I'd be fine with that house rule, I think, though if you tried to apply it to my local meta you'd get a lot of "but this is totally reasonable." Just to use your example: The Riptide has jump jets in the fluff (hence why it used to be able to JSJ). Why couldn't it show it's head to the enemy, boost up and fire like a helicopter, and then gently land back on those flimsy ankles?

In our meta, we have the response to this sort of thing.

"Well, thank you for your time and good luck finding a game."

You'd be shocked at how often something as simple as "I'd rather not play with you" will get someone on board with rules. Or, of course, drive away WAAC players. This is a feature and not a bug.

I haven't had nearly enough games, but overall this is my favorite edition by a significant margin (been playing since 4th).
The rules are easy to pick up and play, very few units are "untouchable" by a large portion of enemy units (referring to basic infantry weapons having the capacity to wound larger models that they could not in prior editions), the AP system is my favorite.
I love that a Heavy Bolter actually has an affect on Marines, rather than being a "I'm out of AP3 weapons" last resort.
Cover improving armour save instead of a flat separate roll that only applies if you can't take an armour save is great because it helps way more units that just hordes.

-

I like the lack of strict weapon LOS. I can glue the guns on my models however I like without accidentally modelling for advantage (or for disadvantage.) Furthermore, it reduces measuring and micromanaging. It's an abstraction, the tank is not actually immobile, it can turn or 'peek' around the corner and fire. Sure, it doesn't make perfect sense in every situation, but such is the case with all abstractions.

Oh, the bully and pout technique. Classic.