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So i started playing the game with Admech and ive been running the Monitor Malevolus warlord trait for a while.


I recently started playing drukhari and i realised after a while that i was using Labirinthine cunning the wrong way.


I'd read the rule quickly, and my brain just assumed that it was the same rule as monitor malevolus, but with a different name.

I started looking into it and noticed how many of the regain CPs on stratagem usage have slight variations.
I then looked at the fight again stratagem quickly, they all let you fight twice but with different timing restrictions.
I then looked at the "tides of traitors" equivalents (endless green tide, fresh converts, endleess swarm, black cornucopians) and yet again, they all have slight variations/restrictions. (to be fair, the strength of the units brought back varies so i can understand better why this one isnt a copy/paste)

Why is that, why does GW make so many rules that so similar yet behave differently, wouldnt it be simpler to simply have a fixed rule for an effect? It would lower the memory load that comes with memorizing all the variations.

Because writing is harder than copying.

Well GW used to have USRs so if lots of rules did the same thing you'd call them all the same thing like Deep Strike. That lead to some rules bloat so to solve it they decided that fifty names for one rule was a much better solution.

pm713 wrote:
Well GW used to have USRs so if lots of rules did the same thing you'd call them all the same thing like Deep Strike. That lead to some rules bloat so to solve it they decided that fifty names for one rule was a much better solution.

how does having USRs lead to rules bload? isnt it the complete opposite? you'd have 1 rule for CP regen instead of 45 different ones.

I think you missed the tongue in the cheek.

Ayy. Now there are 100 times diffrent names for an USR, except when it clearly is supposed to be just like an actual USR but becasue there are 100 versions of it 1-2 are wrong stronger / worse then supposed too.

Wait you thought GW was actually competently writing rules ? No that would be a waste of oppurtunity to nickle and dime you through CA.

As above, the reasoning behind doing this kinda had the opposite affect.

I think the "idea" was to reduce the amount of rules in the CORE rules. So from this perspective, removing USRs was a good idea. You only need to know the rules in the BRB and for the units you have. Less places to reference.
During "Index 40K" in early 8E, this worked well, if it was a bit bland and some units were too expensive

In practice, however, it's a mess now that Codices, FAQs and Chapter approved are basically required to reference at all times. I certainly think the reason they aren't "copy/pasting" similar rules is to allow certain things to be tweaked a bit for certain units/factions.

For example, the basic Marine Strat that allows you to drop in units as Reinforcements (forget the name) is a 1CP per unit strat that can be used on multiple units. The only limitation is that you must place at least half your forces on the table (in Matched paly, I think).
The various Aeldari strats that do the exact same thing have much more limits. I.e all of them are once per battle and limited to a MAX of only 2 units AND for 3CPs.
Since Eldar are generally glass cannons with low durability and big punch, this limit, in theory, is a balancing factor for them.

That might not be the best example, but I think you get the point.
Having similar rules that have subtle (or not-so-subtle) differences allows similar play-styles that have to be adapted to per faction and require different resource management.
And, IN THEORY, this is a great idea (just like Formations in 7E) but (just like Formations in 7E) the execution makes it lame, dumb and sometimes OP.

-

Another example of this is gets hot. For imperials it happens on results modified to one. On ork weapons it happens only on unmodified ones. Meaning imperials explode more when shooting through smoke or night, while they are imortal if buffed by +to hit. Orks dont care. They just explode on ones.

Is it confusing? Hell to the yes!

Yeah. I think they wanted to be able to customize various rules on a unit-by-unit basis. So maybe they decide that assault marines should be able to deepstrike 8" away from the enemy instead of 9", but they don't want to make that change for everyone. Actually, isn't that kind of the chaos with the Calidus?

The thing is that 99% of the time, the rules are either exactly the same or close enough that you could probably handle the differences with a pair of parenthesis or the odd different rule.

So for instance, most people around here just refer to all the deepstrike-like rules as "deepstrike." If you wanted to customize the exact range of the deepstrike (making spore mines land 12" away, for instance), then you could just have a USR called Deepstrike(X"). So spore mines have Deepstrike(12"), and assault marines with jump packs have Deepstrike(9"). And then maybe the Calidus has a rule that says:

"Ninja Stuff: This unit has Deepstrike(9-d6"); roll the d6 at the time the unit arrives from reserves."

Similarly, Feel No Pain could just be Feel No Pain (X+). Explodes could just be Explodes(x, y, z) where x = the roll needed to explode, y = the range, and z = the number of mortal wounds inflicted.

There were definitely too many USRs with too many special exceptions last edition, but there are at least a couple of rules that could be handled more easily as USRs. Heck, Fly is basically a USR.

Because everyone on the Internet spent so much time screaming "USRs SUCK!" that they decided not to include common special abilities in 8th.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Because everyone on the Internet spent so much time screaming "USRs SUCK!" that they decided not to include common special abilities in 8th.

USR's don't suck when the company writing the rules uses them properly.

GW used USRs, then had rules that ignored USRs and special snowflake rules that were like USRs but not so rules that ignored USRs didn't ignore it, etc. Which lead to a massive rules bloat and fracturing effect. The intention of 8th was so that if you had a Rulebook and Codex, you'd have all the rules you'd need.

As you can see in my signature, this was not the case.

If USR's are to work as a concept, then units need to be limited in what special rules they have, which doesn't really work in normal 40k. It works fine in Apoc though.

For example, there shouldn't be any reason why Feel No Pain couldn't be a USR, but that require that GW behave themselves and don't try to give Death Guard some sort of "Super Feel No Pain".

It's more simple than the guff people are posting here. They're not meant to be the same, and why should they be?

In urban design there is a concept that involves building paths where people naturally walk, so instead of putting down a path that looks like an T you wait a bit and look at where people naturally walk through the grass and discover that people naturally walk like a Y to get to their destinations quicker, then you lay the path where people naturally walk. When the majority of 40k players continue to call Reinforcements Deep Strike, the rules should use those terms as well.

One of the reasons not to have USRs is because it can be a little on the nose and the names of the rules lets the writers sneak in some fluffy writing. Since the 40k rules writers are a bunch of fluff bunnies I imagine they couldn't help themselves. Here is a list of what USRs could have been.

Objective Secured
Deep Strike (more than x")
Hard to Hit (-x)
Hard to Hit (-x Melee)
Hard to Hit (-x Ranged)
Invulnerable Save (x+)
Advance Fast (x")
Feel No Pain (x+)
Fearless
Sniper
Bonus MW (x+ to wound)
Increased Damage (x+ to wound x Damage)
Increased AP (x+ to wound x AP)
Bonus Hits (x bonus hits x+ to hit)
Bonus Attacks (+x)
Multiply Attacks (*x)
Explodes (x+ x" x MWs)
Fly
Bomb (x times per game up to x rolls x+)

Heavy Weapons, Special Weapons, etc. lists also aren't really necessary IMO, they belong on the unit page, as does pts costs for units and wargear, preferably they would also be at the end of the codex because now I've gotten too used to looking at the end of the codex when I'm not using a program to do the work for me. But having to add costs together to figure out how much a model costs is kind of silly.

IMO 8th is still way better in terms of layout and design than the previous edition, don't forget they used to put 8 pages of modelling showcase sandwiched between special rules of the units and the pts costs of the units and the rules for weapons were nowhere near the datasheet of the unit and a crapload of art and showcases where sprinkled throughout the rules.

I appreciate the art and fluff GW produces a lot, just tucked away somewhere I can appreciate it when I have time and not in the middle of the rules where it annoys me rather than inspires me.

I have created a set of Stratagems that are meant to replace the Stratagems of the codices with a shared set, you are meant to pick 5 while creating your army and that's all you get access to. https://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_Angrier_Initiative

With WL traits I think having a big shared set could work, but it would obviously change things up with giving good WL trait options to every faction, rather than half.

Command


Personal


Strategic


Friendly units is subfaction specific to discourage soup, or it could be faction ambivalent if you use my Stratagem rules since those don't encourage soup as much as the current Stratagem system does.

Adeptus Custodes


Adeptus Mechanicus


Astra Militarum


Blood Angels


Chaos Daemons


Chaos Space Marines


Craftworlds


Dark Angels


Dark Eldar


Death Guard


Deathwatch


Rogue Trader


Gellarpox Infected


Grey Knights


Imperial Knights


Necrons


Orks


Space Marines


Space Wolves


Tau Empire


Thousand Sons


Tyranids

 Imateria wrote:
It's more simple than the guff people are posting here. They're not meant to be the same, and why should they be?

Have you actually seen the rules? A lot are the flipping same.

In addition, the names do not indicate what the rules do. (7th and earlier was guilty of this as well.)

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Because everyone on the Internet spent so much time screaming "USRs SUCK!" that they decided not to include common special abilities in 8th.

USR's don't suck when the company writing the rules uses them properly.

Yes they do, unless you're re-printing a unified set of them in every book they're mentioned the things are infinitely more trouble than what we have right now.

If they bother you that much, take all these USRs yall have made and use them as personal short hand, but having tried to get into a few factions late last edition and spending longer to find a couple USRs than reading the rest of the codex I will sit here and yell about how they suck until we both turn blue.

Just because GW sucked at implementing them doesn’t mean they’re a bad idea.

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Because everyone on the Internet spent so much time screaming "USRs SUCK!" that they decided not to include common special abilities in 8th.

USR's don't suck when the company writing the rules uses them properly.

Yes they do, unless you're re-printing a unified set of them in every book they're mentioned the things are infinitely more trouble than what we have right now.

If they bother you that much, take all these USRs yall have made and use them as personal short hand, but having tried to get into a few factions late last edition and spending longer to find a couple USRs than reading the rest of the codex I will sit here and yell about how they suck until we both turn blue.

I can probably look through most codexes and find 6+ different wordings of "deploy from reserve anywhere 9+ inches away from an enemy" in less than the same number of pages. As a new player you have to read every units special version of the "Deepstrike" rule and compare them to see if they are the same. Find out that all of them were the same and then you will just assume that every rules text that involves "9+ inches from enemy" is the normal deepstrike rule because who will to actually read every units fluffy version of the same damn rule? Until you find out its actually what used to be the old "infiltrate" rule or "outflank" rule or "scout" rule for a certain unit but you didnt bother to read all that extra text instead of "Deep strike". They are very rare compared to the 1000000 different versions of "deepstrike" so I see people mistake the rules all the time.

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Because everyone on the Internet spent so much time screaming "USRs SUCK!" that they decided not to include common special abilities in 8th.

USR's don't suck when the company writing the rules uses them properly.

Yes they do, unless you're re-printing a unified set of them in every book they're mentioned the things are infinitely more trouble than what we have right now.

If they bother you that much, take all these USRs yall have made and use them as personal short hand, but having tried to get into a few factions late last edition and spending longer to find a couple USRs than reading the rest of the codex I will sit here and yell about how they suck until we both turn blue.

I mean, MTG USR's (keywords) that are all accessible for free online at any time, with very clear explanations on what they mean. Why couldnt GW do the same? I didnt play in 7th so i have no clue what acessibility model GW went with for their USR, i'd assume that there was at the very least a section for them in the BRB (which technically every player should own). How was it seemingly so hard to access the USRs?

The issue with 7th is that there were a LOT of USRs, some of which cross-referenced, some of which did basically the same thing, and some of which were used maybe once (Making them not very universal).

They were also given fluffy names, not names that helped you figure out what they do.

Agile, Crusader, Fleshbane and Zealot are the only bad USRs I can think of from 7th. I never had much issue with any USRs.

A lot of the rules could have been done more neatly with +1s and -1s but 8th cut down on a bunch of complexity, that doesn't mean it would be hard to understand that an unwieldy (-1) weapon has -1 to hit in close combat.

Looking through them all there is a lot, but we used to have a cheat sheet hung up where we played, but we needed that for tonnes of other things in 7th as well because the game was needlessly complex in a thousand different ways, USRs were the least of it.

It's also nothing compared to the huge list of Stratagems everyone has access to currently. It isn't really fair when you get caught out by a special ability your opponent hasn't told you about. With 7th I could tell you my unit had USR 6, 12 and 25 and you knew what that meant or if they didn't it was a quick fix (but an earmark in your book if you can't find the page). In 8th I don't tell you what my Stratagems are and mess you up in 4 different ways you never imagined possible because you didn't have the nerve to spend 10 minutes looking through my objective deck(s).

Personally, I'd really like to see a return of USRs.

I think the key to whether or not they are good is all down to implementation as previously mentioned.

GW would need to produce a comprehensive list of USRs and stick to them. No extra extra super special USRs, the same but a little different. The name's of the USRs should be based on the game mechanic, not the fluff explanation to avoid confusion: eg. instead of "fleet of foot/claw/hoof" etc, call it "Fast Advance";instead of "Deep Strike" call it "Reinforcements" and "Feel no Pain" could be "Durable" or "Resilient" etc. etc.

Once the USRs are set, the whole list of them should be published in the BRB in one location, in addition all the USRs used by units in a particular codex should be listed in that codex. No need to list the ones not available to the units in that codex.

This way everyone will have access to all the USRs in the BRB so they know what their opponent is talking about when they say this unit has "fast advance" etc. and the ones relevant to a specifc army/faction are readily accessible without having to flip through multiple locations/books.

In addition, the USRs for any given unit should be printed in full on the unit's own datasheet for ease of reference with whichever appropriate fluff explanation/flavour text is appropriate.

This shouldn't be too difficult to achieve. At present a datasheet already spells out a unit's special rules in full anyway. This is just copy & paste and if errata/corrections etc are needed, it would be a simple case of revising the USR and all occurrences of that specific USR are replaced by a single errata/FAQ.

I posted on "proper USR usage" awhile ago: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/758545.page

Incidentally, my favorite 7th USR was Missile Lock. It spent the first half of 7th unused by anything in the game, until the 7th Dark Angels Codex gave them back to Blacksword Missiles, all while Tau, Marines, and Tyranids all had their own bespoke rules for weapons representing "missiles locking onto a target."

I think it's funny how many people are arguing that the problem is that they can't find rules on their datacards and have to search through the rulebook, but that isn't the case at all. You can write out what every single ability does on every single datasheet and never even list them in the main rulebook, just use the same terminology between units and codices to simplify things.

I also don't get the appreciation for rules being slightly different. Why do you need DS, but this that and the other. Why can't you just have DS? Or when you really need to give a unit a besboke rule it will stand out because it isn't just "Deep Strike (>9" T2-3)", if the Drop Pod rule said it could DS T1 half of everybody wouldn't notice it because people might just assume it's normal DS without even reading the rule, the rules are training us to make mistakes because the writers think their fluff bunny gak is more important than accessible rules.

VladimirHerzog wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Well GW used to have USRs so if lots of rules did the same thing you'd call them all the same thing like Deep Strike. That lead to some rules bloat so to solve it they decided that fifty names for one rule was a much better solution.

how does having USRs lead to rules bload? isnt it the complete opposite? you'd have 1 rule for CP regen instead of 45 different ones.

It lead to bloat because GW are bad at their job. You had things like sniper, fleshbane and poison which were all either the same or nearly the same.

The repetition of similar rules mechanics may feel a bit bloated, but it allows unparalleled freedom to change specific units without impacting anything else.

We've seen this already and it works.

USR as we had in prior editions were a mess because there were alot of abilities that did the same thing but slightly different way.

8th edition needs to expand on it's keyword system in a form of glossary of terms to help govern specific interactions, like explodes (triggers on, range, damage) or supersonic (# of pivots).

 skchsan wrote:
USR as we had in prior editions were a mess because there were alot of abilities that did the same thing but slightly different way.

8th edition needs to expand on it's keyword system in a form of glossary of terms to help govern specific interactions, like explodes (triggers on, range, damage) or supersonic (# of pivots).

GET YOUR COPPY OF THE KEYWORD GLOSSARY NOW; JUST 40£! IF YOU PREORDER IT WIL BE 39.99£!!!!

*probably GW after seeing this Suggestion.

 oni wrote:
The repetition of similar rules mechanics may feel a bit bloated, but it allows unparalleled freedom to change specific units without impacting anything else.

We've seen this already and it works.

I think that's a tiny edge case that doesn't justify the removal of USRs. We've already seen one clumsy rules change that would have been much, much easier if they'd have stuck to USRs. The change to how the various FNP effects could only be used once per wound required a really convoluted rule to clarify exactly what they meant. They couldn't just name a USR and say "you can only use one of these" they had to say "abilities that ignore wounds, like X,Y and Z can only be used once per wound". It's clumsy and leaves potential room for interpretation. There's absolutely no disadvantage to using USRs, especially when done well. Pretty much every other game I can think of uses them.

USRs also help with communication. It's much easier to say "this unit has Deep Strike" rather than, "this unit has Manta Strike, but this one has Strike From The Shadows and this one has Haha! Surprise!" There's no need for multiple different names for rules that do exactly the same thing and it makes it harder for players to understand unit entries at a glance.

Slipspace wrote:

 oni wrote:
The repetition of similar rules mechanics may feel a bit bloated, but it allows unparalleled freedom to change specific units without impacting anything else.

We've seen this already and it works.

I think that's a tiny edge case that doesn't justify the removal of USRs. We've already seen one clumsy rules change that would have been much, much easier if they'd have stuck to USRs. The change to how the various FNP effects could only be used once per wound required a really convoluted rule to clarify exactly what they meant. They couldn't just name a USR and say "you can only use one of these" they had to say "abilities that ignore wounds, like X,Y and Z can only be used once per wound". It's clumsy and leaves potential room for interpretation. There's absolutely no disadvantage to using USRs, especially when done well. Pretty much every other game I can think of uses them.

USRs also help with communication. It's much easier to say "this unit has Deep Strike" rather than, "this unit has Manta Strike, but this one has Strike From The Shadows and this one has Haha! Surprise!" There's no need for multiple different names for rules that do exactly the same thing and it makes it harder for players to understand unit entries at a glance.

Not to mention, if there are two units with rule X, one of which is OP because of it and one of which is fine, you can just give the first unit rule Y.

Is it THAT much harder for an FAQ to say "This unit now has rule Y, which does [RULES TEXT], instead of rule X," instead of "This unit's rule has changed to [RULES TEXT]."

I think it's worth pointing out that the functional difference in CP regeneration across these traits isn't exactly a matter of USRs. It seems like half the traits in the game care about your own CP expenditures and half care about your opponent's (I'm sure it isn't exactly 50/50, but there's a healthy mix).

There are probably both flavorful and (maybe) balance implications to having the two different modes. The Thousand Sons relic, for instance, "allows the wearer to perceive the intent of those around him," and feeds off of enemy CP. The Sautekh warlord trait, on the other hand, is based off of "a filter of infallible logic" and focuses on your own CP. Balance-wise, well, you have more control on spending your CP than your opponent's expenditure, but that's a small thing.

Is this small difference in otherwise similar rules confusing? absolutely. Does it serve a purpose to make the rules functionally different? Yes. Admittedly I'm hardly an experienced player and don't get to play that often, but it's tripped me up repeatedly. I don't think it's exactly a USR problem in this case (deep striking and feel no paining aside), and I don't really know what to say other than "pay close attention to the specific rule."