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I don't think GW would dispute that, their attitude is basically that the game is there to give people something to do with their plastic army men, which are the real product. As long as it's passable for that purpose, that suits GW and most players.

And, to be fair, on those lines, 8E is probably the most functional ruleset GW has ever produced.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Possible, but that contradicts the other signs of 8ths incredible success, like GW's business numbers, facebook activity, multiple fan sites (B&C, dakka) reporting an all-time high in user activity and massive increases in organized event participants.
On top you have the subjective effect of huge amounts of people coming back to the game that have not played in decades. Most people unhappy with 8th seem to be those who enjoyed 7th, because they signed up for a completely different game.

As many people as ever are playing WH40k, and the vast majority of them would rather play 8th than any other edition.

To paraphrase Mark Hamill, it doesn't need to be good, it just needs to make money. People like bad things all the time.

You realize that this paraphrasing is perhaps the worst counterpoint to any argument? I mean, it is a completely empty statement that mounts to a very verbose "nuh-uh" response.

I mean, I get it. You personally really dislike 8th. Nothing wrong with that. Doesn't make your opinion more or less valid than other people's opinion. Except mine of course.

8th is an objectively bad game.

If many people enjoy it and a company makes a ton of money off it, you are objectively wrong about that.

AdmiralHalsey wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Spoiler:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
8th is an objectively bad game.

By what metric? People are having fun, the game is popular, GW is making money on it. No 8th might be subjectively bad if you go by the metrics of a well-written and tight ruleset getting tighter and tighter. But an objective metric of how good a game is would almost inevitably have to include 8th edition or else exclude games that most people agree are good games. Gameplay is fun. Story is degrading, but given its long history much of the story of the overall work is still super good. Difficulty is low, debth is high. Complexity is expanding rapidly, but most of that complexity is optional, you'll have to work quite hard to justify how optional content is objectively bad, rather than subjectively bad because you don't like it personally. Even if you haven't read all the added rules you can ask 3-5 questions and weedle out the most important information you need about them if your opponent is using them.

Objectively 'badly designed' game, he meant to say.
[He? Probably a he. Do cat bugs have a gender? Does bacon?]

It's got some great marketing and very pretty minatures, though.

Not sure it's really defendable when you go, 'In order to play this game you will require two people, two thousand pounds, a large table, paint, glue, clippers, over one hundred paper printed documents, a rulebook, two yearly updates to the rulebook, two faction specific rulebooks, along with possibly another suppliment, access to Dakka's 'you make da call' online forum, and a dice for when you still disagree what any of these rules mean.'

That's not great design, and if anyone thinks that's the only way to make a playable wargame and this is good design, then I honestly don't know what to say.

I agree that it's badly designed, badly playtested, badly patched etc. etc. But at the end of the day, it's still fun. I don't believe in wrong fun, Cookie Clicker is a good game, Ludo is a good game, Monopoly is a good game, hordes of people have had fun with those games so they are good, a game can also be good if a minority have fun with them, but if a lot of people play them and have fun then you can't really call it a bad game. You could argue it's just marketing and buyers remorse forcing people to play, but I don't believe that to be the case, even if they are all badly designed, they still strike a chord on some level that make them enjoyable and re-selling 40k still yields a 30-90% return on investment. Now if you had games that produce literally no enjoyment or negative enjoyment, then I think we can agree on a game being bad.

 Jidmah wrote:
If many people enjoy it and a company makes a ton of money off it, you are objectively wrong about that.

Enjoyment doesn't equal quality. Profit doesn't equal quality.

To be fair, a game is just something that provides enjoyment to those playing it. So, strictly speaking, as long as people ARE enjoying 8th edition, it is a good game, because it's fulfilling this objective.

BaconCatBug wrote:Enjoyment doesn't equal quality. Profit doesn't equal quality.

flandarz wrote:To be fair, a game is just something that provides enjoyment to those playing it. So, strictly speaking, as long as people ARE enjoying 8th edition, it is a good game, because it's fulfilling this objective.

I'm pretty confident that if enough people enjoy a game, they are the ones in the unique position to determine if it is one of quality.

BCB is apparently incapable of making objective observations(or at least confusing sub/objective). Especially how the popularity of 8th and the record profits associated with it, reflect how the general player population perceives the game. It doesn't reflect the narrative that they've been pushing since 8th dropped. One where GW is "incompetent and terrible at game design"(paraphrasing from innumerable posts) & couldnt design their way out of a paper bag.


Also, BCB doesnt play the game.

Terrible at game design? Absolutely.
Like, did you forget Pyrovores blowing up the whole frickin table or something?

Low quality things sell all the time. The Transformers movies made bank despite it being rather brain dead and all eye candy. Fast food is popular and yet very few would say its high quality food. At least in the US the most commonly played board games are stuff made by Milton Bradly and almost all of those games are mindlessly simple to play (Stratego is good stuff at least).

I think its safe to say that 8th edition is objective a less complex game than 4th, 5th, 6th, or 7th edition. Subjectively I would say 8th is too simplistic and plays a bit too much to a lower common denominator. It helps make the game be more accessible to those who like an easier entry point, beer and pretzel, or less complex game to play. What it doesn't do is provide the depth of mechanics to those who enjoy more complexity in their table top games. Its a trade off that goes against what I want from the game but I get why they went that route (same reason why Transformers, McDonalds, and MB make a lot of money). That isn't to say I am some board gaming elitist but that I'm a obsessive nerd who loves digging into hundreds of niche use rules and having loads of factors to consider when making decisions in a game. 8th wasn't designed for people like me where as past editions played more towards the rules nerd crowd.

Even now I still find myself loving 7th edition despite its horrific balance choices. It takes work to tailor a game to have a good matchup (finding the right armies and lists to go against each other) but when you get a good matchup its something magical to play. There is so much that could of been done to fix up the balance and adjust some of the core rules but the foundation for game mechanics was there for great gameplay to be had.

 Vankraken wrote:


I think its safe to say that 8th edition is objective a less complex game than 4th, 5th, 6th, or 7th edition.

When you are just considering the rules, I'd say you're right, and I think your assessment is absolutely fair.

Where 8th gains it's richness isn't it's rule set. It's the fact that for the first time, EVERY faction has unique subgroups that are represented by rules designed to reflect their background. It's the interactions of scale and the potential for campaign building. The integration of Blackstone, Kill Team, and Apocalypse has never been so smooth, and GW just keeps making it more seamless. Example- thus far, BSF has had the poorest integration. BUT the Escalation expansion that was just released introduces the concept of retinue characters.

See the bridge to Kill Team? Because once you're into Kill Team, the transition to 40k and onto Apocalypse is seamless.

So now you're a new player- you play a board game. Your character completes missions, earns rep, attracts a retinue. Guess what?

You've already got rules for the board game models that you already own for Kill Team. And now your whole team is being defined; the character you started with was already a legend from BSF, but the character's retinue is green. Kill Team fleshes that out, allowing each retinue member to grow his or her own story. +And suddenly you meet another Kill Team and you're a detachment! And again, you've already got rules for the models you own, as you prepare to take a Blackstone Hero into a third game system, and his retinue into the second.

Yeah, we lost things like firing arcs for vehicles and some cover rules that people really liked, and quite a few other things that did make former rule sets more complex. But sweet Emperor almighty, look at what we have gained!

If you've always enjoyed competitive solo games, whether in a tournament setting or just casually, and you are disappointed with the current state of the the game, before you throw in the towel, I would just suggest trying a narrative escalation campaign before you write this edition off as simple.You don't have to start at the micro BSF level if none of the available characters appeal to you, but seriously- grow an army from a kill team to a detachment to an army to an apocalypse force, unlocking the capacity to incorporate allied detachments as you explore and conquer territories.

I like inventing these campaigns myself, so Urban Conquest was my tool. But if you don't want to do the world building part yourself, no problem because you can just get the stuff from Vigilus and the background is done for you. Vigilus was small- it was only two books. A teaser to test proof of concept. Psychic Awakening is going to make it look like Blackstone Fortress looks like through the lens of Apocalypse.

There is an ocean of content that has never existed in this game's considerable history. For example, I'm working on designs to build 40k scale vessels as both 40k terrain and playable game boards for the mini-games. The Truehawk from Kill Team: Rogue Trader is my proof of concept piece, because I have a floor plan to work with; the lack of images of the ship's exterior does propose a challenge, but given the floor plan, I think it's easier than building something like the Clarion from BSF, where you have the exterior without the floor plan.

So, yeah... The Euclidian Starstriders could literally land on a 40k battlefield and become a detachment within an army if the combined force can survive the mission. And once that event occurs, they can stick with the army until it grows to Apocalypse, cuz you already got the free download for using them in that game too.

Just wait until next July when the Sisters of St Katherine's Aegis are on the verge of being wiped out by a Genestealer Cult and suddenly, the Clarion lands in the middle of the battlefield, and Taddeus the Purifier, Pious Vorne, Gotfret de Montbard lead retinues of frothing crusaders, death cult assassins and arcoflagellants that have been gathered over the course of the dozens of kill team battles that took place as they made their way from the Blackstone Fortress back to more familiar Imperial Territory.

Do I miss a few old rules every now and again? Honestly? Sometimes.

But was it worth it to get all this? Hell yeah!

PenitentJake wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:


I think its safe to say that 8th edition is objective a less complex game than 4th, 5th, 6th, or 7th edition.

When you are just considering the rules, I'd say you're right, and I think your assessment is absolutely fair.

Where 8th gains it's richness isn't it's rule set. It's the fact that for the first time, EVERY faction has unique subgroups that are represented by rules designed to reflect their background. It's the interactions of scale and the potential for campaign building. The integration of Blackstone, Kill Team, and Apocalypse has never been so smooth, and GW just keeps making it more seamless. Example- thus far, BSF has had the poorest integration. BUT the Escalation expansion that was just released introduces the concept of retinue characters.

See the bridge to Kill Team? Because once you're into Kill Team, the transition to 40k and onto Apocalypse is seamless.

So now you're a new player- you play a board game. Your character completes missions, earns rep, attracts a retinue. Guess what?

You've already got rules for the board game models that you already own for Kill Team. And now your whole team is being defined; the character you started with was already a legend from BSF, but the character's retinue is green. Kill Team fleshes that out, allowing each retinue member to grow his or her own story. +And suddenly you meet another Kill Team and you're a detachment! And again, you've already got rules for the models you own, as you prepare to take a Blackstone Hero into a third game system, and his retinue into the second.

Yeah, we lost things like firing arcs for vehicles and some cover rules that people really liked, and quite a few other things that did make former rule sets more complex. But sweet Emperor almighty, look at what we have gained!

If you've always enjoyed competitive solo games, whether in a tournament setting or just casually, and you are disappointed with the current state of the the game, before you throw in the towel, I would just suggest trying a narrative escalation campaign before you write this edition off as simple.You don't have to start at the micro BSF level if none of the available characters appeal to you, but seriously- grow an army from a kill team to a detachment to an army to an apocalypse force, unlocking the capacity to incorporate allied detachments as you explore and conquer territories.

I like inventing these campaigns myself, so Urban Conquest was my tool. But if you don't want to do the world building part yourself, no problem because you can just get the stuff from Vigilus and the background is done for you. Vigilus was small- it was only two books. A teaser to test proof of concept. Psychic Awakening is going to make it look like Blackstone Fortress looks like through the lens of Apocalypse.

There is an ocean of content that has never existed in this game's considerable history. For example, I'm working on designs to build 40k scale vessels as both 40k terrain and playable game boards for the mini-games. The Truehawk from Kill Team: Rogue Trader is my proof of concept piece, because I have a floor plan to work with; the lack of images of the ship's exterior does propose a challenge, but given the floor plan, I think it's easier than building something like the Clarion from BSF, where you have the exterior without the floor plan.

So, yeah... The Euclidian Starstriders could literally land on a 40k battlefield and become a detachment within an army if the combined force can survive the mission. And once that event occurs, they can stick with the army until it grows to Apocalypse, cuz you already got the free download for using them in that game too.

Just wait until next July when the Sisters of St Katherine's Aegis are on the verge of being wiped out by a Genestealer Cult and suddenly, the Clarion lands in the middle of the battlefield, and Taddeus the Purifier, Pious Vorne, Gotfret de Montbard lead retinues of frothing crusaders, death cult assassins and arcoflagellants that have been gathered over the course of the dozens of kill team battles that took place as they made their way from the Blackstone Fortress back to more familiar Imperial Territory.

Do I miss a few old rules every now and again? Honestly? Sometimes.

But was it worth it to get all this? Hell yeah!

Its absolutely fantastic that you get that much excitement and a rich experience from how GW has developed 8th and its associated game types.

For me though the fun is found in making my list, fielding it, executing my strategy/tactics, and playing out a battle that is complex. With that 8th fails to be fun because it lacks all the depth of mechanics that I find fun to play. All the integration of games into each other to carry over one thing to another would be good if the actual act of playing the game wasn't just so boring. I wish i could share in that enjoyment but playing 8th is just so dreadfully dull where as playing 7th still feels fun and exciting. I legit went into 8th (while hating primaris) with some degree of excitement as to how i can field my armies and make them work. Played probably a dozen games of 8th and i find myself always being bored. If the sum total of the time spent playing a game is boredom and feeling tedious then its not worth the time.

5th edition was/is my favorite since I believe it was the best edition for what I want 40k to be, which is each side having a few squads of infantry back by some monsters or vehicles depending on the faction.

The only significant changes I would make is having vehicles being a bit less durable (I had rhinos that could eat half an armies worth of shooting and that's a bit much for a 35 point vehicle) and clean up the wound allocation to stop things like nob bikers not losing a model until it's 11th wound. Other wise it was a solid rule set until codex creep set in.

My main gripe with 8th isn't really the rules themselves but all that GW has added to since 5th ended. Flyers and super heavies in standard games break the scale unless GW moves away from the D6 and make having any real chance of balance a hell of a task.

A game that is trying to have fair rules for a grot and a titan and everything in between just isn't going to pan out.

I would really like if GW went to a hybrid D6/12 for wounding/damage.

 Vankraken wrote:

Its absolutely fantastic that you get that much excitement and a rich experience from how GW has developed 8th and its associated game types.

For me though the fun is found in making my list, fielding it, executing my strategy/tactics, and playing out a battle that is complex. With that 8th fails to be fun because it lacks all the depth of mechanics that I find fun to play. All the integration of games into each other to carry over one thing to another would be good if the actual act of playing the game wasn't just so boring. I wish i could share in that enjoyment but playing 8th is just so dreadfully dull where as playing 7th still feels fun and exciting. I legit went into 8th (while hating primaris) with some degree of excitement as to how i can field my armies and make them work. Played probably a dozen games of 8th and i find myself always being bored. If the sum total of the time spent playing a game is boredom and feeling tedious then its not worth the time.

I would say that most of my fun is also found in planning my list and executing my strategy to secure victory over my foes.

However, I would say it's because of that that I find 8th so much more fun than previous editions. For the most part, everything feels balanced and stable mechanically, barring a few odd exceptions, with a considerable amount of strategic and tactical decisions to be made that can make or break the game from the very fine to the very broad and a lot of places in between, far more-so than 7th.

One criticism is that 8th is far more abstracted than previous editions. 7th had false depth from vehicle facings and arcs: they were there to keep track of, but they didn't really contribute meaningfully to the tactics or strategy of the game, they were just sort of there to manage. While they're largely insignificant from the adding tactical and strategic depth perspective and add a lot of ambiguity and bookkeeping, they do add a character and level of simulationism that make a wargame enjoyable than a highly abstract game like Chess.


I would say I'm very happy with 8th. The only edition I would go back to would be 5th; but as I said, I have no delusions that what I enjoyed about 5th would return in the days of Riptides, Primarchs, [and of course, a changed playgroup].

A.T. wrote:

TinyLegions wrote:
Personally I am a fan of the 5th. On the issue of wound allocation, I always assumed that a guy would "pick up" what the guy that got shot left

The problem with 5e wound allocation was the multiwound wargear rules which made it possible to spread damage around without removing models. You had to put 11 wounds on a nob biker squad before the first model died for instance.
And it was a little slow - honestly allowing players to remove what they want so long as injured multiwound models (excluding characters) are removed first would have served well enough.

You are right, that is a quirk in the rules that should be amended. If you are getting multiple wounds, than something should be killed after that.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
5th edition was/is my favorite since I believe it was the best edition for what I want 40k to be, which is each side having a few squads of infantry back by some monsters or vehicles depending on the faction.

The only significant changes I would make is having vehicles being a bit less durable (I had rhinos that could eat half an armies worth of shooting and that's a bit much for a 35 point vehicle) and clean up the wound allocation to stop things like nob bikers not losing a model until it's 11th wound. Other wise it was a solid rule set until codex creep set in.

My main gripe with 8th isn't really the rules themselves but all that GW has added to since 5th ended. Flyers and super heavies in standard games break the scale unless GW moves away from the D6 and make having any real chance of balance a hell of a task.

A game that is trying to have fair rules for a grot and a titan and everything in between just isn't going to pan out.

No argument with the supers. IMHO They don't belong in a standard game, and honestly, I don't use any supers so no love lost if they get axed all together. However I don't see a problem with flyers in a standard game, especially since they had them in the 5th with IG. My problem is how the rules were put together for flyers since then. I have to re-read how they handled flyers in the 5th, but for subsequent editions I agree that they needed to do something different other than sell you another vehicle for Air Defense. SM Flak missiles were a nice touch in the 6th.

Yeah, we lost things like firing arcs for vehicles and some cover rules that people really liked, and quite a few other things that did make former rule sets more complex. But sweet Emperor almighty, look at what we have gained!

From what I understand GK lost most of their rules, lost a ton of stuff that made some of their stuff good in prior edtions, got a rule set that punishs the GK playstyle in 8th ed, followed by bad update and FAQ and CA nerfs. I don't think there are many people playing GK left in 8th ed, and from people seem to be telling me, they were already on a down turn as new players go in prior edtions too, as GW seems to have some hate against them making them worse every edition since like 4th or 5th ed.

Am not sure that 8th suddenly made the game better. It maybe made the game better for people who were lucky enough to have good armies for it. Or which got good updates and new model lines from GW. And it is not like this is just a GK thing. What is necron player suppose to be happy about in 8th ed?

No longer auto-losing the match because 75% of your army was beaten seems like something Necrons would be happy about.

 flandarz wrote:
No longer auto-losing the match because 75% of your army was beaten seems like something Necrons would be happy about.

It made more sense in the context of the 3e game/era.

If you had a blob of 20 3e necrons sitting on an objective and shot all of them off the board then 10 of them would stand back up that turn and any that failed would get to roll again in later turns. If you had a monolith nearby you'd get back 15 of those 20 models. These rolls were made before calculating phase out. Unfortunately resurrection was conditional to other identical model types being nearby leading to later cron lists often being blocks of warriors and monoliths.

I am very tempted to go back to 3rd edition and just use the army lists in the back of the book. No Codexes. This means a lot of the current models wouldn't make an apperance... This isn't a bad thing.

If not there is always One Page Rules Grim Future, which is a cracking little system.

8th is the worst system GW have put out... even Battlemasters had more tactical depth.

 flandarz wrote:
No longer auto-losing the match because 75% of your army was beaten seems like something Necrons would be happy about.

Never had a problem with it. It seemed like a fair trade off for the advantages my Necrons enjoyed. It also made for a challenge. Also made the Necrons unique in how they played.

I preferred 4th to 5th because it didn't suffer as much from size creep, and because it had clear and well-defined rules for terrain and LOS rather than just saying "kneel down and eyeball it". Transports need some kind of happy medium between 4th (Penetrating Hit = unit disembarks and is Pinned, so nobody used non-skimmer transports) and 5th (parking lots of 35pt Rhinos that required a penetrating hit and a 6 to actually destroy), and consolidate-into-new-combat in 4th was really punishing to some armies, but it felt more like a wargame and less like a cartoon than anything that's come after.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Transports need some kind of happy medium between 4th (Penetrating Hit = unit disembarks and is Pinned, so nobody used non-skimmer transports) and 5th (parking lots of 35pt Rhinos that required a penetrating hit and a 6 to actually destroy)

Some or all of -
-'all pintle weapons, including missiles' becomes a valid choice for weapon destroyed, rather than picking off one stormbolter at a time
-add +1 to all damage rolls (glancing or penetrating) against immobilised vehicles, with a 7+ glance wrecking the vehicle
-any penetrating non-explodes results to an unarmed, immobilized vehicle wrecks it
-(game wide) basic obscurement is a 5+ cover save, and infantry cannot obscure vehicles.
-if using 4e books, roll shared vehicle costs back to 4e (50pt rhinos, etc)

At the other end of the scale a shaken vehicle should probably be allowed to move or shoot, but not both. Tanks were somewhat prone to being shaken out of games by low quality glancing hits.

Consolidating through combat might not have been so bad if there was a counter-play to it such as falling back away from a consolidation, shooting into combat, or otherwise breaking the chain. It was the usual 40k situation of one brave grot holding up the rampaging bloodthirster, or else one annoying grot preventing the ork horde from shooting said bloodthirster depending on who had the next turn.

PenitentJake wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:


I think its safe to say that 8th edition is objective a less complex game than 4th, 5th, 6th, or 7th edition.

When you are just considering the rules, I'd say you're right, and I think your assessment is absolutely fair.

Where 8th gains it's richness isn't it's rule set. It's the fact that for the first time, EVERY faction has unique subgroups that are represented by rules designed to reflect their background.

Factions' representation rules wise is largely illusory. Most special rules in 8th are 6-12 concepts with tiny tweaks by different names. Wheras other games utilize a more player-driven approach, focusing on taking actions with units, GW games just fiddle with the math, aside from few exceptions like GSC. 40k gives us "Your guys get a - to hit against my guys 'cause they're stealthy." Not "I chose a stealth/mobile force of scouts and assault marines. My scouts can move through terrain easier, and are good at pinning enemy units. The assault guys are fast and can make drive-by-attacks." Chapter Tactics and their ilk are poor band-aids attempting to compensate for an overly-simplistic ruleset that doesn't provide room to simply build an army that suits a play-style, and play that out on the tabletop. A better-written ruleset would allow players to build forces that operate differently from the same codex, without rerolls, + or - to hit, shooting/fighting twice, etc.

It's the interactions of scale and the potential for campaign building. The integration of Blackstone, Kill Team, and Apocalypse has never been so smooth, and GW just keeps making it more seamless. Example- thus far, BSF has had the poorest integration. BUT the Escalation expansion that was just released introduces the concept of retinue characters.

See the bridge to Kill Team? Because once you're into Kill Team, the transition to 40k and onto Apocalypse is seamless.

So now you're a new player- you play a board game. Your character completes missions, earns rep, attracts a retinue. Guess what?

You've already got rules for the board game models that you already own for Kill Team. And now your whole team is being defined; the character you started with was already a legend from BSF, but the character's retinue is green. Kill Team fleshes that out, allowing each retinue member to grow his or her own story. +And suddenly you meet another Kill Team and you're a detachment! And again, you've already got rules for the models you own, as you prepare to take a Blackstone Hero into a third game system, and his retinue into the second.

So BSF/KT/40k/Apoc have some sort of ladder system, where you can take one force to the next 'tier" of the game, and so on? That's great in principle, although I would think BSF would be a rather poor starter product considering its cost, KT as well for that matter.

But, in your own words, the "richness" of 40k 8th edition (I disagree that it is rich, but let's suppose that this is true) is in fluff rules and the ability to progress from one product to another. Not in the gameplay. Why don't you have a problem with this? Isn't the whole point to put our toys on the table and have fun with them?

Yeah, we lost things like firing arcs for vehicles and some cover rules that people really liked, and quite a few other things that did make former rule sets more complex. But sweet Emperor almighty, look at what we have gained!

If you've always enjoyed competitive solo games, whether in a tournament setting or just casually, and you are disappointed with the current state of the the game, before you throw in the towel, I would just suggest trying a narrative escalation campaign before you write this edition off as simple.You don't have to start at the micro BSF level if none of the available characters appeal to you, but seriously- grow an army from a kill team to a detachment to an army to an apocalypse force, unlocking the capacity to incorporate allied detachments as you explore and conquer territories.

I like inventing these campaigns myself, so Urban Conquest was my tool. But if you don't want to do the world building part yourself, no problem because you can just get the stuff from Vigilus and the background is done for you. Vigilus was small- it was only two books. A teaser to test proof of concept. Psychic Awakening is going to make it look like Blackstone Fortress looks like through the lens of Apocalypse.

There is an ocean of content that has never existed in this game's considerable history. For example, I'm working on designs to build 40k scale vessels as both 40k terrain and playable game boards for the mini-games. The Truehawk from Kill Team: Rogue Trader is my proof of concept piece, because I have a floor plan to work with; the lack of images of the ship's exterior does propose a challenge, but given the floor plan, I think it's easier than building something like the Clarion from BSF, where you have the exterior without the floor plan.

So, yeah... The Euclidian Starstriders could literally land on a 40k battlefield and become a detachment within an army if the combined force can survive the mission. And once that event occurs, they can stick with the army until it grows to Apocalypse, cuz you already got the free download for using them in that game too.

Just wait until next July when the Sisters of St Katherine's Aegis are on the verge of being wiped out by a Genestealer Cult and suddenly, the Clarion lands in the middle of the battlefield, and Taddeus the Purifier, Pious Vorne, Gotfret de Montbard lead retinues of frothing crusaders, death cult assassins and arcoflagellants that have been gathered over the course of the dozens of kill team battles that took place as they made their way from the Blackstone Fortress back to more familiar Imperial Territory.

Do I miss a few old rules every now and again? Honestly? Sometimes.

But was it worth it to get all this? Hell yeah!

Was it worth it? Hell no!

Okay, snark aside, much of what you describe are rules made by you and your group. Writing house rules or campaigns is not unique to 40k. I want to play 40k the war-game, not 40k the do-it-yourself RPG. (A "proper" role-playing game could be fun, Wrath&Glory isn't it.)

Some things that could improve gameplay:

Upgrade from IGOUGO to AA. Instead of turns and phases, units "activate," opening up possibilities for hit-and-run, suppressive fire and so on.

Remove superheavy vehicles, gargantuan creatures and perhaps flyers from "normal" infantry-based 40k.

Eliminate fixed to-hit rolls in most cases. Roll BS and WS into one stat, compare this stat with evasion to determine minimum roll required to succeed. Essentially use the old to-wound chart for hitting as well as wounding.

Eliminate armor saves, no longer necessary to give the opponent "something to do" on your turn. Keep invulns (40k wouldn't be right without them) and FNP.

Give every unit front and rear firing arcs. New bases have notches, older models can just have markings painted on their bases.

Clearly define arcs for vehicle weapons.

Armor facings return in the form of front and rear toughness values.

Abandon rolling for psychic powers. I don't think this has ever contributed to the game in a meaningful way since I've been into 40k.

Rejigger morale from battleshock's "models die because models died" approach to affect unit behavior. I like the MEDGe method of making an activation check, and units that fail that check take a compulsory action based on their level of suppression, but that's just one option.

I think they've done a little of this, but embrace turn-by-turn scoring of victory points, adopt something like schemes and strategies in Malifaux. Asymmetrical objectives make things more interesting, and if some objectives are unknown to the opponent, even better.

Command Points could even remain, in a different form. Give units/models like captains, chaplains etc. a command value. Each game turn, players generate a number of CP equal to the total command values among models/units +the turn number. Instead of MTG "combat trick" style stratagems, these could be used to reduce suppression on units, and or give them order s to enable special actions they otherwise could not take. Yes, orders have been guard's "thing," but this is probably the best way to implement cp.

With armor saves gone, change cover to increase units' evasion, or something. I like how some games have cover values, and the defending player can discard hits equal to that number, but this may not work for 40k's scale.


Some of 8th is better than other editions but, let's face it, 40k has always had problems. Just think of what 40k could be if we could push GW to make big meaningful changes (almost certainly via our wallets).

modified 2nd or early 3rd.