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A death to Bubble Rules. Almost wholesale, although a few exceptions could be made. DeathBubbles have mostly replaced DeathStars.

Bring back Golden BB style threats to vehicles (but without reducing their average durability). So even a single Fusion Gun as a small chance to be devastating, but the game is no more killy overall.

Chapter Tactics go away. Some could stay as some form of "Operational Tactics" - either a rule you can pick from or maybe a Stratagem that impacts your army? Either way, less bloat from "free" rules to differentiate mostly-identical armies/units (a Dark Angel Marine is just as stealthy as a Raven Guard or as killy as a Blood Angel).

Weaker, less impactful Stratagems - performing unique and flavorful effects, sure. But they shouldn't completely redefine the game. This is a wargame, not a CCG.

And Death to the NoModelNoRules rule.

Release all codices at the same time, with the same design philosophy and utilizing the same game mechanics. Certain armies/units/whatever will always be better than others, if nothing else due to the vast quantity of them (see indices), but doing them one at a time will never work.

They will never do this, because they factor new books into packages/cycles with new models.

Digital living ruleset updated for free or for a fee. Frankly I don't care if it's the latter simply due to how ridiculous it is to reference rules/errata all over the cussing place. My time is valuable (as evidenced by the amount of it I waste on forums ), and I'm willing to pay for that convenience.

Bharring wrote:
And Death to the NoModelNoRules rule.

Thisssss.

In the same spirit, I'd like an end to all those mono-pose models that GW seem very fond of these days. Let us have kitbash-friendly models, with round joints for limbs and the head.

Character kits should include more customization options. If a character may have either a bolt pistol or a plasma pistol, both should be included in the character kit.

Indexes rather than Codexes to give all update - no Codexes just campaings and Index updates
Base rules as is.

Campaigns Rules and lore books seperate

Data cards from the start

Pts values for Relics

Pts value for "Chapter Tactics"

Base CP based on army pts size.

Alernative activations

 Vankraken wrote:
Scrap 8th entirely and redesign the core rules to have mechanical depth closer to past editions. The biggest weakness of 8th is it's completely lack of substance in it's core rules resulting in extremely dull gameplay that requires piling on rules from the codex, supplements, buff auras, and stratagems. All this does is create combos to exploit and less to do with any sort of tactical gameplay. Also it's probably a very good idea to sack whoever decided that 8th's core rules where acceptable.

Better terrain rules, USRs (a core set of 5 to 15 rules), unit types with their own mechanics, mechanics that make positioning matter, mechanics that reduce combat effectiveness without just being "kill everything" (falling back, pinning, blind, jink snap shooting etc). Basically having compelling gameplay without the need to have a bunch of tacked on rules to have "combos" of modifiers.

Past editions weren't any better, the rulebook was just longer and more convoluted.

6th and 7th were actually massively worse.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 jeff white wrote:

Dumb Smart Guy wrote:
Actual terrain and LoS rules

Yeah, added realism generally.

Force org restrictions.

Less emphasis on power-ups and combos,

or at least one version of the game that doesn't play like a card game
with models for chits on a big table full of pretty - but mostly useless - terrain features.

Yes less combos please. If you want that kind of stuff go play mtg or something. And make legions/chapters/craftworlds/etc feel more unique from each other.

How do you make chapters more unique without introducing combos? Do you just want lower costs for White Scars bikes/Iron Hands heavy weapons? When you add more unique rules you add more combos.

You can have special rules that make factions more unique without combos and strategems. Look at 30k. It has rules and units that add flavor to the armies without strategems.

No it doesn't. They're marines, they play like marines. Even with unique units they're just the same army 18 times outside of their combos.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Alternative Activations or something similar.

Scrap the no models - no rules policy

That is all.

No model no rules forever. Oh so you want me to buy a 40 dollar rulebook and several model kits I have to frankenstein pieces of together to get the loadout I actually want?

Feth. That.

Gadzilla666 wrote:
You can have special rules that make factions more unique without combos and strategems. Look at 30k. It has rules and units that add flavor to the armies without strategems.

I don't play HH so I'd appreciate some education. Unique units is not an option for 40k, especially not for custom chapters. Most HH characters don't buff their units, so it doesn't combo with anything. Fewer rules, fewer combos. When you have 3 different abilities that all improve a unit then that unit will become greater than the sum of its parts, the only way to fix it entirely is to not have all those rules or to make the rules so specific that the units become better at a lot of things, but not great at any one thing or all things. You'd have to change Captains to only work against Infantry and Lieutenants to only work against Vehicles and Monsters in order to stop the most basic combo in the Space Marines codex. Stratagems exacerbate the issue, but it's baked right into the datasheets of most 8th ed factions.

Dark Angels get a bonus to their melee attacks when using swords against equal-WS targets, there is a Rite of War that makes melee attacks against high T targets more effective. That's a combo against Dreadnoughts which will often be equal WS and always high T.

White Scars get a bonus to bikes, they also get a Rite of War that grants an additional bonus to bikes, that's a combo.

I don't see how you can give several additional rules or benefits to a unit without creating combos, unless you limited each unit to a maximum of 1 buff and then just gave out different buffs with different units.

 vict0988 wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:
You can have special rules that make factions more unique without combos and strategems. Look at 30k. It has rules and units that add flavor to the armies without strategems.

I don't play HH so I'd appreciate some education. Unique units is not an option for 40k, especially not for custom chapters. Most HH characters don't buff their units, so it doesn't combo with anything. Fewer rules, fewer combos. When you have 3 different abilities that all improve a unit then that unit will become greater than the sum of its parts, the only way to fix it entirely is to not have all those rules or to make the rules so specific that the units become better at a lot of things, but not great at any one thing or all things. You'd have to change Captains to only work against Infantry and Lieutenants to only work against Vehicles and Monsters in order to stop the most basic combo in the Space Marines codex. Stratagems exacerbate the issue, but it's baked right into the datasheets of most 8th ed factions.

Dark Angels get a bonus to their melee attacks when using swords against equal-WS targets, there is a Rite of War that makes melee attacks against high T targets more effective. That's a combo against Dreadnoughts which will often be equal WS and always high T.

White Scars get a bonus to bikes, they also get a Rite of War that grants an additional bonus to bikes, that's a combo.

I don't see how you can give several additional rules or benefits to a unit without creating combos, unless you limited each unit to a maximum of 1 buff and then just gave out different buffs with different units.

I think we are talking about different definitions of "combo". Rules like rites of war or character buffs make units better but still generally require good positioning, use of cover etc to work. What I'm complaining about is the strategem mechanic encouraging the building of lists just to generate as many cp as possible in order to stack strategems on units as much as possible instead of using them as situational tools. This sometimes makes the game feel like less of a war game and more like a card game. Many players even like to throw their cards on the table when playing strategems just like in a card game. I'm not opposed to buffs that add to a factions fluff but rules that encourage list building in order to get cp in order to play buffs takes away from the wargame ascetic for me personally. That said obviously others quite like those mechanics. Since this thread is just a wish list for what we would like to see in a new addition I was just throwing my 2 cents in.

I played 2nd edition through 3.5/4th (high school through shortly after college). I was unimpressed with the revamp that 3rd had created so I quit playing. I came back for a peek at 7th edition (while building a retro 2nd edition army). I found that the game was still operating on the rotten bones of the 3rd edition revamp. I was unimpressed and didn't bother buying back in.

I stated here on Dakka during the days of 7th that I couldn't fathom a revision of 40K that would get me interested again. 8th came out and changed my mind, for a while at least. I enjoyed the early days of 8th edition. Sadly I'm right back to where I was two years ago. 8th has become increasingly boring/unfun/obnoxious, and I can't see a way going forward that I'd suddenly fall back into it.

GW lost me as a true customer a couple years back. I mainly buy used models or parted out combo-boxes with eBay sales, etc. I cannot support their pricing methods anymore, and the ever increasing link between sales/game design. I've just absolutely fallen out of love with 40K. At my age I think it's just a game style I'm no longer interested in. Furthermore the way GW operates now I can't see buying any products from them going forward. Their sales policies/practices are silly and borderline insulting.

It's been a fun ride, and I won't be throwing my armies away, but I'll be playing 2nd edition or Index-hammer if I play in the future. After 25 years GW has more or less completely driven me away from supporting them.

I just want the damage via shooting to not be so insanely powerful that units like small skimmers are pointless to take, or elite units like terminators dont need a 4++/5+++ to even be viable.

ERJAK wrote:
[

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Alternative Activations or something similar.

Scrap the no models - no rules policy

That is all.

No model no rules forever. Oh so you want me to buy a 40 dollar rulebook and several model kits I have to frankenstein pieces of together to get the loadout I actually want?

Feth. That.

Or as people normally did, buy one kit and modify it however you want to fit, make your own, or buy a third party kit.

The issue was never "buy several kits to make this unit", it was "GW simply does not make a distinct separate model/kit for this unit". This incentivized other to make a kit, cutting GW out of the revenue loop.

Besides, its not like you dont already have to do that with many existing kits. Want a dev/havoc squad all with the same weapon? You're gonna need to buy multiple kits because they simply don't inclue enough weapons to do so.

Keep 8th edition as the back bone... but fix vehicle/terminators rules.

IE, if unit type is "Vehicle" or model equipped with Terminator dreadnought armour, then instead of the usual armour test based on D6 (and terminators getting additional inv save)... Make it something like a save is 4+ on 2d6 with no invulnerable saves. (stormsheilds termies make save at 3+).

That would emphasize your opponent to bringing high AP AT weapons and making those units worth taking...

Go back to 4th edition, but replace the horrible old vehicle rules with today's "vehicles are big multi-wound models" rules, and replace all the movement-related rules with 8th edition's Movement stat.

Boom, fixed.

ERJAK wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
Scrap 8th entirely and redesign the core rules to have mechanical depth closer to past editions. The biggest weakness of 8th is it's completely lack of substance in it's core rules resulting in extremely dull gameplay that requires piling on rules from the codex, supplements, buff auras, and stratagems. All this does is create combos to exploit and less to do with any sort of tactical gameplay. Also it's probably a very good idea to sack whoever decided that 8th's core rules where acceptable.

Better terrain rules, USRs (a core set of 5 to 15 rules), unit types with their own mechanics, mechanics that make positioning matter, mechanics that reduce combat effectiveness without just being "kill everything" (falling back, pinning, blind, jink snap shooting etc). Basically having compelling gameplay without the need to have a bunch of tacked on rules to have "combos" of modifiers.

Past editions weren't any better, the rulebook was just longer and more convoluted.

6th and 7th were actually massively worse.

For me 7th is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better because it's actually fun to play. And thats with all it's horrible imbalances and bloaty rules. Rather have something that has potential to be fun (when properly self regulated so armies going up against each other whee roughly in the same ball park of power) than a game like 8th that is so bare bones and bland that it can't be fun for someone like myself. And it's not a case of rose colored glasses as I gave 8th a good go but never had fun. Go back and play games of 7th and I'm instantly back to having a good time. That's even with using trash tier armies like Orks.

Outside of Formations getting out of hand and Invisibility I quite liked 7th.

 Eldarain wrote:
Outside of Formations getting out of hand and Invisibility I quite liked 7th.

If you remove formations and some of the redundant USR its a great edition.

EDIT: To increase clarity, the rules below would not use Initiative to determine who struck first. I would probably advocate simultaneous attacks (charging can grant +1 A and/or +1WS in this instance).

I want WS and BS to be numbers again and both to be compared to initiative (which should also be back as a defence stat).

I want your reflexes to actually mean something, I want genestealers and Harlequins to be really hard to hit, I want "Speed as a defence" to mean something.

Equal or lower 4+
Higher 3+
Half or less 5+
Twice or more 2+


Now shooting is not as easy, modifiers go onto BS and WS rather the hit roll which is severely limited. targeters = +1BS, master craft = +1WS ETC.

This would solve a lot of problems with shooting vs melee, and open up more variety in units.

 Vaktathi wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
[

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Alternative Activations or something similar.

Scrap the no models - no rules policy

That is all.

No model no rules forever. Oh so you want me to buy a 40 dollar rulebook and several model kits I have to frankenstein pieces of together to get the loadout I actually want?

Feth. That.

Or as people normally did, buy one kit and modify it however you want to fit, make your own, or buy a third party kit.

The issue was never "buy several kits to make this unit", it was "GW simply does not make a distinct separate model/kit for this unit". This incentivized other to make a kit, cutting GW out of the revenue loop.

Besides, its not like you dont already have to do that with many existing kits. Want a dev/havoc squad all with the same weapon? You're gonna need to buy multiple kits because they simply don't inclue enough weapons to do so.

I'd even go as far as saying that the idea that people needed to go out and buy extra kits for their options is wrong. If you were playing an army for a long enough time, you were going to end up with a bit box unless you intentionally threw anything you didn't use out. That meant you probably had something already that would at least get you a decent part of the way, and id you didn't there might have been someone in your local community that did (I literally bought a pack of tau suit weapons for a few dollars of someone from a flgs and have been adding them to my orks)

Games workshop could absolutely fix the problem of No Model No Rules if they were willing to do upgrade packs for things other than space marine chapter stuff, but I think the problem is that the reason No Model, No Rules exists, aside from the Chapterhouse case, is the same reason for the removal of the USR: A lack of trust in the players to actually understand their rules.

Hellebore wrote:
I want WS and BS to be numbers again and both to be compared to initiative (which should also be back as a defence stat).

I want your reflexes to actually mean something, I want genestealers and Harlequins to be really hard to hit, I want "Speed as a defence" to mean something.

Equal or lower 4+
Higher 3+
Half or less 5+
Twice or more 2+


Now shooting is not as easy, modifiers go onto BS and WS rather the hit roll which is severely limited. targeters = +1BS, master craft = +1WS ETC.

This would solve a lot of problems with shooting vs melee, and open up more variety in units.

No, that would just mean that melee armies struggle even more.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Hellebore wrote:
I want WS and BS to be numbers again and both to be compared to initiative (which should also be back as a defence stat).

I want your reflexes to actually mean something, I want genestealers and Harlequins to be really hard to hit, I want "Speed as a defence" to mean something.

Equal or lower 4+
Higher 3+
Half or less 5+
Twice or more 2+


Now shooting is not as easy, modifiers go onto BS and WS rather the hit roll which is severely limited. targeters = +1BS, master craft = +1WS ETC.

This would solve a lot of problems with shooting vs melee, and open up more variety in units.

No, that would just mean that melee armies struggle even more.

Under the current design I think melee army’s are just bad, and it won’t change until they really think about what melee army are supposed to even be. In so many cases GW seems to expect a melee army to just derp into a gun line and somehow survive long enough to get there. With no real support designed into them
Leads so much to very swingy poor strategic games.

Aye, but initiative was one of the reasons why Orkz sucked.

As for melee: Considering GW didn't manage to fix melee for basically ever now. i have no real hope that it will get better or equal as valid too shooting ever.

Also GW does not expect to run (Da jump and telly porta) but units not having access to these kinds of things automatically suck. (E.G. Khorne berzerkers.)

Not Online!!! wrote:
Aye, but initiative was one of the reasons why Orkz sucked.

As for melee: Considering GW didn't manage to fix melee for basically ever now. i have no real hope that it will get better or equal as valid too shooting ever.

Also GW does not expect to run (Da jump and telly porta) but units not having access to these kinds of things automatically suck. (E.G. Khorne berzerkers.)

You didn't read what I wrote then, nowhere did I say that Initiative was used to determine who struck first, it just determined how easily you were hit - as a defence stat. I would actually expect combat to happen simultaneously in this system, both sides determine casualties from those alive at the beginning of the round.

And this system would reduce the effectiveness of shooting by making it harder to get 2+ to hit (you'd need BS8+ to hit a space marine with I4 on a 2+).

Not Online!!! wrote:
Aye, but initiative was one of the reasons why Orkz sucked.

As for melee: Considering GW didn't manage to fix melee for basically ever now. i have no real hope that it will get better or equal as valid too shooting ever.

Also GW does not expect to run (Da jump and telly porta) but units not having access to these kinds of things automatically suck. (E.G. Khorne berzerkers.)

True, initiative I think should be more a defence style stat. Rather than what it was used for before.

The issue really is, that GW thinks a pure melee army is even a thing that works in game with tau needed to stay out of it by design. They need dedicated units to get them there, but they need to be used to create movement around the battlefield. Rather than just run into the enemy as soon as possible. Or other issues that remove responses to make them even viable :(

Not Online!!! wrote:
Aye, but initiative was one of the reasons why Orkz sucked.

As for melee: Considering GW didn't manage to fix melee for basically ever now. i have no real hope that it will get better or equal as valid too shooting ever.

Also GW does not expect to run (Da jump and telly porta) but units not having access to these kinds of things automatically suck. (E.G. Khorne berzerkers.)

Shooting can be the main focus for 40k, but to make melee more viable a few things needs to change no matter what. We can have 60/70 5 shooting and 30/40 % melee thats fine.


Honestly, IDK why we fight on each side others turns, why is that a thing? We dont shoot on each other turns (other than OW).

If we change melee to focus on just your turn like shooting, tweak the melee a bit it would be more fun and balance i think, now you have to really decided, do i melee or fallback. Gives more tactical depth.

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Release all codices at the same time, with the same design philosophy and utilizing the same game mechanics. Certain armies/units/whatever will always be better than others, if nothing else due to the vast quantity of them (see indices), but doing them one at a time will never work.

I've been dreaming of this since like forever!

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
Outside of Formations getting out of hand and Invisibility I quite liked 7th.

If you remove formations and some of the redundant USR its a great edition.

No it's not. It still suffers from every weapon that's not Ap1 or Ap2 being useless, tanks made of paper with useless special rules that only make them worse than anything else, monsters being simply better than anything else, an absolutely obnoxious psychic phase with no tactics whatsoever, a nearly useless CCphase with no options for the player, nearly useless morale phase (okay, that one 8th kept), random psychic powers, random Warlord traits, for Daemons even random equipment and overall useless Bloat with the most obvious being tank shock or soulblaze.

Personally I think they need to reintroduce a harsh penalty for falling back from combat. There needs to be some kind of counterattack or automatic damage for a unit that falls back; and don't say "well that unit can't fire or assault next turn" because in this edition that's not that much of a penalty.
Too many times I've finally gotten a unit into combat just to have the enemy run away and my unit get shot to pieces before they can do anything. Even something as simple as a "dangerous terrain" style test for retreating models, where you roll a d6 for each model retreating and for each 1 that unit takes a mortal wound would make me happy.

 Lord Clinto wrote:
Personally I think they need to reintroduce a harsh penalty for falling back from combat. There needs to be some kind of counterattack or automatic damage for a unit that falls back; and don't say "well that unit can't fire or assault next turn" because in this edition that's not that much of a penalty.
Too many times I've finally gotten a unit into combat just to have the enemy run away and my unit get shot to pieces before they can do anything. Even something as simple as a "dangerous terrain" style test for retreating models, where you roll a d6 for each model retreating and for each 1 that unit takes a mortal wound would make me happy.

additionally, some factions just, well fallback and shoot anyways.
Movement value should play a role imo.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Lord Clinto wrote:
Personally I think they need to reintroduce a harsh penalty for falling back from combat. There needs to be some kind of counterattack or automatic damage for a unit that falls back; and don't say "well that unit can't fire or assault next turn" because in this edition that's not that much of a penalty.
Too many times I've finally gotten a unit into combat just to have the enemy run away and my unit get shot to pieces before they can do anything. Even something as simple as a "dangerous terrain" style test for retreating models, where you roll a d6 for each model retreating and for each 1 that unit takes a mortal wound would make me happy.

additionally, some factions just, well fallback and shoot anyways.
Movement value should play a role imo.

Not sure how you would make their Move stat count?

Additionally GW need's to close the "tri-point" bs

 Lord Clinto wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Lord Clinto wrote:
Personally I think they need to reintroduce a harsh penalty for falling back from combat. There needs to be some kind of counterattack or automatic damage for a unit that falls back; and don't say "well that unit can't fire or assault next turn" because in this edition that's not that much of a penalty.
Too many times I've finally gotten a unit into combat just to have the enemy run away and my unit get shot to pieces before they can do anything. Even something as simple as a "dangerous terrain" style test for retreating models, where you roll a d6 for each model retreating and for each 1 that unit takes a mortal wound would make me happy.

additionally, some factions just, well fallback and shoot anyways.
Movement value should play a role imo.

Not sure how you would make their Move stat count?

Additionally GW need's to close the "tri-point" bs

very easy:
Fallback is counted as a move, +d6 however the combatants pursue with m+d6 aswell.
High movement units which are generally expensive can tie down units that way and break battlelines.
Secondly, the unit not falling back get's a bonus round that only generates half as many hits so that falling back actually is a punishment.

Further: tripointing has to do with consolidation ruling, i have no concrete idea of that but yes something must happen. Maybee the ability to sacrifice hostages?

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Lord Clinto wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Lord Clinto wrote:
Personally I think they need to reintroduce a harsh penalty for falling back from combat. There needs to be some kind of counterattack or automatic damage for a unit that falls back; and don't say "well that unit can't fire or assault next turn" because in this edition that's not that much of a penalty.
Too many times I've finally gotten a unit into combat just to have the enemy run away and my unit get shot to pieces before they can do anything. Even something as simple as a "dangerous terrain" style test for retreating models, where you roll a d6 for each model retreating and for each 1 that unit takes a mortal wound would make me happy.

additionally, some factions just, well fallback and shoot anyways.
Movement value should play a role imo.

Not sure how you would make their Move stat count?

Additionally GW need's to close the "tri-point" bs

very easy:
Fallback is counted as a move, +d6 however the combatants pursue with m+d6 aswell.
High movement units which are generally expensive can tie down units that way and break battlelines.
Secondly, the unit not falling back get's a bonus round that only generates half as many hits so that falling back actually is a punishment.

Further: tripointing has to do with consolidation ruling, i have no concrete idea of that but yes something must happen. Maybee the ability to sacrifice hostages?

In previous editions you just moved through units while falling back, I don't think it needs to be more complicated than that. I don't know about your fall back mechanic, you'd basically never be able to get out of a 1-on-1 combat with a unit with higher M stat. I guess that makes sense. I love tri-pointing, I think it's a great mechanic and it's part of why melee is so much better in 8th than 7th, that and consolidating into units you haven't charged instead of your units going on auto-pilot trying to get as many models into base contact as possible while keeping distance from units they didn't charge, because... Reasons.