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 Lance845 wrote:
Nothing in 8th is even remotely close to as bad as 7th. being better than 7th does not make it good however.

I know i'm late, but i enjoyed 7th a hell of a lot more and i didn't play any formations at all. My greatest games (for enjoyment) was in 7th. I do think 8th is worst than 7th in almost every way.

8th has everything 7th has that is bad and even more.

7th had:
Super units, aka Deathstars
Super shooting, aka D weapons
Formations, not a bad idea, just some unbalanced (70% wasn't even used so really it was just a few that was a problem)
Rules bloat, lots of odd rules that needed to be trimmed down, with multiple books
A few bad rules, yes there was some bad rules

8th has:
Super units, aka units equal to Deathstars
Super shooting, aka massive never missing multi damage weapons that hurts armor no matter what other than invuls
PA books, not the same as formations, but super combos
Rules bloat, 4+ books for every army, lots of faqs and Big faqs
A few bad rules, sadly missing rules is also bad rules and some core rules are bad also


For 7th if you played the normal house rules that most events had, 1 formation, 1 unit with D weapons, it was actually pretty fun, a D weapon unit normally went for the Deathstars. A lot of my friends when to a major GT in 7th (Adepticon) and they had a Celestine with a smash captain bike deathstar with a D weapon in back (team event), every game Celestine and buddies died.

In 8th vs marines some units are almost unkillable, more so than than Deathstars in 7th. Also the normal marine now (primaris) has guns equal to ML in 7th basically, with the amounts of re-rolls, the range, 2D, some ap, etc.. its just on another level. And with how terrain (also nor more special rules like Night fighting, stealth, etc.. being able to stack, and terrain) it makes basic damage even scarier than in 7th.


Finally, and IMO the most important part, 8th TOOK AWAY almost all real flavor in many armies, the rules between armies are so extremely streamlined its not funny to make stratagems feel more special. When armies that had multi untis with a special rule that is taken out (like SJS) and made into a once a phase stratagem, it really sucks, there are literally over 40 of these rules that are technically gone. Also with the core mechanic changes it also removed a lot of flavor in rules for more special rules for units. Lastly the removal of units and gear b.c of Chapter house lawsuit took even more flavor away.


8th just feels like a raw dice game now with little to no options, your either have lots of trash units that are great for their points, or lots of super units that are just hyper efficient, either way the damage output is worst than 7th ever was. At least in 7th i wasn't scare to put 30 Troupes on the table without transports, or 40 Corsairs against without transports. In 8th thats not even possible without auto losing turn 1.



My greatest game ever spoiler

4+ books for every army?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
4+ books for every army?

CA, PA, Codex, brb, many will have others too like chaos or assassin, etc.., then there are also WD additives too, then if you wanted to play with more than 1 faction you might need even more.

If i wanted to play in an event and try to win with my army i do need 3 books (2 codex, 1 PA) before any of the others. SO fun having to keep 4 books on me just in case someone argues (and it happens).

Lamenting that you need the rule book to play any army is stretching the definition a bit.

Everyone needs the rule book. That's a given.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Lamenting that you need the rule book to play any army is stretching the definition a bit.

Everyone needs the rule book. That's a given.

Pointing out that i said both needs 4 or more books is stupid i was making a point you need more books in 8th than you did in 7th, but 7th had just as much rules bloat.

If you want to argue that its 3 vs 4 for some armies in 7th or in 8th sure ok go for it; i'll agree with that, and yes i count the BRB as it is a requirement. But, at leas tin 7th i had a armies that only needed 2 books or a book and a WD. I can't even do that in 8th with many army at this point.

EDIT: rewrite for grammar.

Look. You can like 7th if you want. People like michael bay transformers movies for some reason. Many people love a crap thing. Like what you like. But it is categorically a worse game than 8th. Its not debatable. 7th has so much bad going for it on every level of its design.

Again, you can like it. And thats great. But its still gak.

 Lance845 wrote:
Look. You can like 7th if you want. People like michael bay transformers movies for some reason. Many people love a crap thing. Like what you like. But it is categorically a worse game than 8th. Its not debatable. 7th has so much bad going for it on every level of its design.

Again, you can like it. And thats great. But its still gak.

I also was answer the OP, i feel 8th is really bad to play.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Nothing in 8th is even remotely close to as bad as 7th. being better than 7th does not make it good however.

This.

I disagree. I see 8th as being just as horrible as 7th, merely for different reasons. Balance may be better, but............................

The core rules are extremely dumbed down and lack tactical depth.

There are, what, 10-15 USRs by myriad different names? Combined with chapter tactics, creating the illusion of choice and diversity.

Gameplay is little more than move/shoot/stab/cast psychic power/opponent does the same/repeat

Because of the hyper-simple core, units are bland and homogenous, there are few (if any) special actions as seen in other games.

The game is counterintuitive, low immersion, and poor for narrative play (if your idea of "narrative" is an engaging story that unfolds organically as the game progresses).

7th was horribly unbalanced, but there were some good or fun ideas buried in there. 40k really needs a complete rewrite by people who know what they're doing, though. The game could be much more narrative, balanced, and competitive.



OP, if you think you would enjoy 8th 40k, then of course play it.

Speaking of narrative, Cities of death added rules that should have been a core part of the game.

People are confusing complexity for depth. 7th was complex. Needlessly complex. Draconian in its complexity. But it had all the depth of a sheet of paper. There is no tactical depth to taking the best formations or rerollable 2++ saves. 8th stripped out the complexity and arguably added strategems which could be argued to give the game the barest thinest tiniest bit more strategic and tactical depth. Not a lot mind you. But its something.

40k has lacked depth for AT LEAST 3-4 editions. 8th isnt much better but 7th sure as gak didnt have anything 8th doesnt in that regard.

If you're a new player or a one of only an edition or two back, 8th is amazing.

On first roll out 8th felt great. As it goes on however I become less enchanted with it as a game system. It's easy to pick up from the bare bones rules, but the bare bones nature also feels a bit light.

To get into the game it's more expensive than ever before and only goes up and up and up. Which may be a reason why they have such high profits but eventually they'll hit that breaking point and new players won't even approach the game.

Stratagems were good at first, felt good. Now, it feels like units are bland and you need stratagems to make them feel powerful or special. Which as some have said leads to Command point farming, and min max groups and just meh leads to so many samey armies that you know are just there to farm points for strats. That is a poor feeling and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

8th is better than 6th or 7th to be me and I think its a fine system it just isn't exciting or has enough depth to keep me loving like I used to. I still play it and can enjoy a game but I miss certain deepness in the rules that I hope one day return.

This is all opinion but if you're a returning player, give 8th a run it'll take a bit before you dislike or grow tired of it to be sure.

It's a step in a right direction but any speed they thought to gain in the game only comes in first/second turn hammerblows with CP generated slaughter phases.

The missions have gotten better and thats good. I just wish it was a deeper experience and less command point farming simulator mixed with stratagem splosions.

There is a tournament at the local GW for 40k in a coupe of weeks.
Few have signed up.
Skirmish games have made a comeback, though, Warcry etc.

The new models are nice, but the game is like Saturday morning cartoonish weak.

Some may complain that 7th was too complex, and at the same time that 8th is so much less so while being also "deeper"?

Meanwhile, it is a glorified card game with expensive plastic counters.

If I were coming into the game,
or returning as I was at the end of 7th,
I would also wait until a new edition before investing too much time and energy into learning this edition.

I might go to that GW tourney and watch,
but I will not be taking the time to play.

Then again, if you are 12 and just love to roll dice and can feel on a knife's edge about re-rolls upon re-rolls for rifles that don't need line of sight to target infantry on the other side of the table, then... go for it.

The question of "how it feels" is actually very interesting and forced me to consider the game in an other way.

So not talking about the rules themselves but only the feelings :

To me when I'm having a game it doesn't feel like I'm a commander in battle, with things such as manoeuvres, fog of war, units management, bluff, etc... It makes me more think of a computer game or magic the gathering game.

You got to make a plan involving your units choice, your faction trait and army stratagems. Then once the game begins you got to try to unfold your plan better than your opponent.

It can feel really contre-intuitive at time (firing from the antenna, 2 units separated by a thin wall engaged in CQC, etc......) but I guess that goes with the boarding game aspect : with simple rule you can't cover everything.

It can also feel frustrating because of the very high letality and first turn advantage, or the rock-paper-scissor aspect. When 1/4 of your army gets deleted before your first turn it can be hard to stomach.

As a whole it really feels like something between a boardgame and a wargame and a good way to start the hobby and a sure way to enjoy both a great universe and gorgeous miniatures. Almost every child, even the ones not too bright, can decently play the game and that's a good thing to me.

If you're after competition, I feel there are better rulesets but with much less events. If you're after narrative/simulation there are better rulesets, but with much less players.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Finally, and IMO the most important part, 8th TOOK AWAY almost all real flavor in many armies, the rules between armies are so extremely streamlined its not funny to make stratagems feel more special. When armies that had multi untis with a special rule that is taken out (like SJS) and made into a once a phase stratagem, it really sucks, there are literally over 40 of these rules that are technically gone. Also with the core mechanic changes it also removed a lot of flavor in rules for more special rules for units. Lastly the removal of units and gear b.c of Chapter house lawsuit took even more flavor away.

This is a key point for me. It seems almost like they streamlined the wrong parts of 7th.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

My greatest game ever spoiler

Spoiler:

This is a tl:dr of it.

The lists
I was playing Corsairs, nothing special, lots of Jump units, some bikes, Prince, 5 Barons, a heavy weapon team, a hornet unit and 1 warp hunter, no formations. Vs a WS player with Skyhammer formation (2 drop dops, 2 devs, 2 assault squads, very OP back in the day) lots of bike scouts for DSing special rule to help the skyhammer, then the rest was 5/10 man squads of marines with as many plasma as you can with something like 8 free Rhinos.

The game was played serious, practice for a tournament.

The game consisted of trying to out move and out play each other, we both had SJS/MSM units across the board, both had teleporting special rules, and both had strong funs, he had Plasma, i had Fusion, he had ML, i had Shuriken cannons. He had a super good Formations, i had 1 D weapon. It was basically a chess match of trying to figure out each others movements and using pawns to take more important units. With old terrain rules and other rules you couldn't just shoot at anything you wanted to vape it. 3 hours latey we both only lost about 40% of our armies and both had equal fire power left. This only mad it till turn 4, we called it and didn't care who won as it was just amazing, everything was just a perfect backa nd forth of unit took after unit.

While we're talking about fun games, one of my favourites was also from 7th:

I was using Dark Eldar, my friend was using Orks. He got first turn and immediately headed towards my lines at full speed.
'Perfect,' I thought. 'A lot of his units are now completely exposed and I should be able to get rid of several key vehicles before he can respond.'
So I moved into position... and watched as every Dark Lance, Blaster and Heat Lance completely fizzled against his trukks. I'm not sure I even killed a single vehicle.
Well, now I was the one who was exposed and my luck certainly wasn't restored during his counter-attack. Having failed to kill or pin any of his units, many of mine were completely open and were subsequently minced by the Ork hordes.
The game, after that, was hopeless. All I could do was retreat further and further into a corner, whilst the Ork tide closed in. My Archon and Haemonculus both fought with rare bravery, taking down some of the Ork characters and elites, but in the end they, too, were pulverised or dragged down beneath the seemingly endless tide.

The game was a foregone conclusion almost from the start (I think we rolled Kill Points, so I couldn't even try for objectives ), and yet there was something immeasurably fun about instead just trying to survive for as long as I could against the Orks.


I bring this up because I can't remember this sort of thing ever happening in 8th. I've seen a lot of games where one player gets a significant early advantage, but nothing remotely equivalent to that desperate struggle against the Orks. Usually, the result is that any stragglers are simply wiped from the table with a withering hail of fire within a turn or 2.


Obviously this is purely anecdotal and I can hardly hold it up as a reason for 7th being better than 8th, I just thought it was food for thought - especially for a game that likes to focus on the narrative aspect.

 IronSlug wrote:
To me when I'm having a game it doesn't feel like I'm a commander in battle, with things such as manoeuvres, fog of war, units management, bluff, etc... It makes me more think of a computer game or magic the gathering game.

I agree with this entirely, and it's really the main thing that has me lukewarm on 8th. 40K has always been fairly 'light' as a wargame, but back in 3rd/4th I remember mechanics like crossfire, tank shock, difficult terrain, and varying morale penalties that represented traditional wargame mechanics and had significant impact on the game. There were also a lot of trade-offs baked into the core mechanics- any unit with a Rapid Fire weapon shot at drastically reduced effectiveness if they moved, getting into melee rendered you safe from enemy shooting but wasn't easy to escape, you couldn't shoot a Rapid Fire weapon and charge in the same turn, you had to take a target priority test to shoot anything but the closest unit, and Deep Strike could get you right in an optimal position next to the enemy but it could just as easily scatter into the enemy or difficult terrain and the entire unit was destroyed. These trade-offs forced difficult decisions, all stemming from the core rules.

The biggest decision points I see in 8th are how to spend your command points, which units to activate your stratagems on, and target priority. They don't come so much from the core rules anymore, since most units can move, shoot with full effectiveness, and charge in the same turn, and Deep Strikers can come down wherever they want and immediately fire. The trade-offs now come from unit-specific and army-specific special rules, like units that can shoot twice if they don't move.

In part I think that's why 8th has suffered so much bloat, as to give a unit any kind of distinct role it needs a bespoke set of special rules that stack on additional buffs. You can't get meaningful roles/flavor from the units either through the core rules (eg Eldar Guardians having Assault weapons made them play very differently to Guard with Rapid Fire weapons) or through selectively overriding specific limitations (eg being able to move and shoot Heavy was a pretty cool buff). Instead everything has bonus AP or ignores AP or ignores cover or shoots twice or ignores LOS or re-rolls dice and, frankly, it's a bit much.

 catbarf wrote:


In part I think that's why 8th has suffered so much bloat, as to give a unit any kind of distinct role it needs a bespoke set of special rules that stack on additional buffs. You can't get meaningful roles/flavor from the units either through the core rules (eg Eldar Guardians having Assault weapons made them play very differently to Guard with Rapid Fire weapons) or through selectively overriding specific limitations (eg being able to move and shoot Heavy was a pretty cool buff). Instead everything has bonus AP or ignores AP or ignores cover or shoots twice or ignores LOS or re-rolls dice and, frankly, it's a bit much.

I think this is accurate, especially at the larger point games that are the standard. You can have fun games at 500 points as long as people have rules to bar cheesy and hard to kill/high damage dealing units (so say a steel legion mechanised platoon vs a CSM raiding party), but at the 1750-2000 point range it just seems like work (I fire my imperial guard lasgun squad - 60 dice later with a dozen re-rolls one enemy lays dead and some of the colour has drained from the world), not fun, where tricks around stratagems and alpha strikes predominate.

I think that some people aren't using all the tools.

Certainly anyone complaining that 8th is week for narrative hasn't played a streets of death campaign from Urban Conquest that starts at Kill Team scale and escalates over time to Apocalypse scale.

Anyone complaining about terrain probably hasn't used the Cityfight terrain rules.

Anyone complaining that armies aren't unique kinda mystifies me, since all armies now have different rules for their subfactions. My guess is that many of the players who make these complaints are space marine players, who have always had rules for generic SM vs Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Dark Angels. Or they are chaos players, for whom there has always been a difference between Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh or Tzeentch.

I can't tell you how grateful I am that the Cult of the Red Grief doesn't feel the same as the Cult of Strife or that the Order of the Bloody Rose doesn't feel like the Order of the Ebon Chalice. It's AMAZING! I've wanted it for so long, because I've never been a huge fan of marines but I always wanted what they had in terms of rules support for subfactions.

This is why it literally offends me when people complain about bloat, because I've wanted this level of distinction for non-marine armies since 1989! Now we finally have it after all these years, and some people seem to want to take it all away.

To be fair to those people, they are usually folks who want to win tournaments so badly that they feel they have to know everything about every army in order to play. And yeah, if you believe that, the game probably does feel bloated.

But many people are content to know everything about THEIR army, and figure out how other armies work based on experience. From that point of view, we're in pretty good shape.

Another recommendation I sometimes make to people is to use campaign rules only for games that are set during the campaign. This approach worked better for Vigilus than PA, because Vigilus special rules tended to revolve around the mechanic of specialist detachments, whereas the PA rules are more like codex updates and therefore harder to ignore when you take your army beyond the points in time and space where the campaign was actually going.

People who complain about immersion are an interesting case, because not everyone has the same definition for immersion. If you mean "The game snaps me out of the heat of the moment in a single battle to deal with a rules abstraction," then I think that's a pretty fair statement.

But when I talk about immersion, what I mean is "This detachment from the Order of the Bloody Rose was sent to reinforce the Order of Our Martyred Lady, because during the kill team recon missions that came before the 40k game we're about to play, the biggest obstacle was surviving against troops who excelled in physical combat," or Taddeus the Purifier formed the core of his army when he and Pious rescued Gotfret de Montbard, and together they tracked down the rogue Arcoflagellants who had been released into the Blackstone Fortress."

From that perspective, the game has never been more immersive. Again though, it depends on perspective.

PenitentJake wrote:


This is why it literally offends me when people complain about bloat, because I've wanted this level of distinction for non-marine armies since 1989! Now we finally have it after all these years, and some people seem to want to take it all away.

To be fair to those people, they are usually folks who want to win tournaments so badly that they feel they have to know everything about every army in order to play. And yeah, if you believe that, the game probably does feel bloated.

This is incredibly incorrect and a gross mischaracterization of people. The bloat isn't subfaction distinctions. That would be fine. It's the layers upon layers of rules. The optional this. The optional that. The beta rules. The books after books after books.

People want clear, concise, rules with depth. Not digging through 3 books to figure out how to build your army list. I want to look at a datasheet to know what my unit does. Not reference the datasheet and a card and another book to compile what the unit does.

The bloat is real and has nothing to do with winning games.

PenitentJake wrote:
...Anyone complaining about terrain probably hasn't used the Cityfight terrain rules...

Which don't help with the TLOS issue, and don't slow units down. They add an interesting dimension to attacking/doing damage, yes, but they don't help with a lot of other immersion problems relating to terrain.

Anyone complaining that armies aren't unique kinda mystifies me, since all armies now have different rules for their subfactions. My guess is that many of the players who make these complaints are space marine players, who have always had rules for generic SM vs Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Dark Angels. Or they are chaos players, for whom there has always been a difference between Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh or Tzeentch.

You know they copy-paste sub-faction rules between Codexes, right? Alaitoc, Sygies, Raven Guard, and Alpha Legion (off the top of my head) all had the same "-1 to hit for shooting attacks originating outside 12"" tactic before the new books started adding secondary bits to them.

This is why it literally offends me when people complain about bloat, because I've wanted this level of distinction for non-marine armies since 1989! Now we finally have it after all these years, and some people seem to want to take it all away.

People may be complaining because they wanted, say, Wild Riders or the Court of the Young King back instead of five pages of redundant and unhelpful flavour rules that are 95% pointless that they had to buy an entire extra book for.

PenitentJake wrote:
This is why it literally offends me when people complain about bloat, because I've wanted this level of distinction for non-marine armies since 1989! Now we finally have it after all these years, and some people seem to want to take it all away.

I agree with much of your post, but wanted to note to you my feelings on this, since I think I did say bloat in my post. By bloat, I don't mean having too many distinct armies and abilities, and I don't think that's what most people are talking about when they talk about bloat. Rather, I believe they talk about how many changes there are to the core rules, and how many layers there are. When the edition started, I needed 2 things; a Rulebook, and an Index. The last tournament I attended required the following from me:

- Codex: Tyranids
- Codex: Genestealer Cult
- Codex: Astra Militarum
- Vigilus Defiant
- Psychic Awakening: Blood of Baal
- Chapter Approved 2019
- Rulebook

And yes, I carried those around with me all day for 2 days. Theoretically I also should've had on hand the FAQ for each of those (though the FAQ for Chapter Approved wasn't yet published at the time of that tourney), but I figured my phone could suffice (and it did). This isn't a knock on having a unique force, just that in order to bring the force I was bringing required me to have... a lot of books. I honestly think that "bloat" would be less of an issue if Version 2's of books were just printed, like they did with Space Marines absorbing all the Vigilus stuff. Or if their rules were available in a subscription-based service that was updated instead. It's not the quantity of RULES that's an issue, so much as the quantity of SOURCES. Needing 14 sources of rules for an army makes my backpack look, well, bloated!

PenitentJake wrote:
This is why it literally offends me when people complain about bloat, because I've wanted this level of distinction for non-marine armies since 1989! Now we finally have it after all these years, and some people seem to want to take it all away.

I have to have something like six different books on hand just to play one faction. And for all that complexity, the game still makes no distinction between shooting an enemy 1" away and shooting one three feet away.

It's layers upon layers of special rules on top of a very bare framework. Lacking the design space to implement unique mechanics, there's constant repetition of the same few special rules. Are Raven Guard, Stygies AdMech, and Alaitoc Eldar really the same in combat doctrine, or is the -1 to hit the only viable option for lack of real stealth/fog-of-war/obscurement mechanics?

I've played other tabletop games that I felt had a good level of detail and deep gameplay, where I could learn the rules of other factions besides my own, without requiring so many books upon books upon books and rules upon rules upon rules to do so. Honestly, if the goal was to make a deeper 40K, I think some of the earlier rulesets would have been a better place to start, because the deeper core rules allowed for greater design space for faction/subfaction/unit variation.

I find 8th to be an uncomfortable blend of a streamlined, simplistic, shallow core system with tons of add-ons, special rules, and supplementary mechanics layered on top to provide depth. Stuff like stratagems, formations, doctrines, supplements, and subfaction traits feel more like bolted-on systems than part of the core gameplay experience. That's what I consider bloat.

PenitentJake wrote:

This is why it literally offends me when people complain about bloat, because I've wanted this level of distinction for non-marine armies since 1989! Now we finally have it after all these years, and some people seem to want to take it all away.

Bloat has nothing to do with all of this

I hoped that GW would jump on the train of 1 Codex/index per faction and than release smaller supplements for each sub-faction
Now we have got this only for half of the Marines and the rest is done again via campaign books mixing everything.....

8th Edition removed Universal Special Rules and created Datasheets because they wanted to get away from the "problem" that the uni entry did not had all the rules a unit used and people needed to look them up in different books.

Now we are there again, I need to look into different books to know what my unit is doing, so the solution did not worked out.
Not because it was a bad idea, but for the same reason USR did not work in 7th, fragmentation of the rules

While at the same time, not even half of the factions benefit from that bloat and get something from it.

https://onepagerules.com/portfolio/grimdark-future/

Highly recommend this ruleset for groups that aren't heading to competitive events and just want a great and intuitive set of rules that honors 40k and lets them use their models.

Likewise, I again suggest Apocalypse for your 1500-2k+ games. It just works better with more tactical depth, better terrain, better game.

 Yarium wrote:
It's not the quantity of RULES that's an issue, so much as the quantity of SOURCES. Needing 14 sources of rules for an army makes my backpack look, well, bloated!

This is probably the single biggest factor keeping me out right now. I can't even take stock of my CSM collection in 8th because there's just too damn much to keep track.

 Yarium wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
This is why it literally offends me when people complain about bloat, because I've wanted this level of distinction for non-marine armies since 1989! Now we finally have it after all these years, and some people seem to want to take it all away.

I agree with much of your post, but wanted to note to you my feelings on this, since I think I did say bloat in my post. By bloat, I don't mean having too many distinct armies and abilities, and I don't think that's what most people are talking about when they talk about bloat. Rather, I believe they talk about how many changes there are to the core rules, and how many layers there are. When the edition started, I needed 2 things; a Rulebook, and an Index. The last tournament I attended required the following from me:

- Codex: Tyranids
- Codex: Genestealer Cult
- Codex: Astra Militarum
- Vigilus Defiant
- Psychic Awakening: Blood of Baal
- Chapter Approved 2019
- Rulebook

And yes, I carried those around with me all day for 2 days. Theoretically I also should've had on hand the FAQ for each of those (though the FAQ for Chapter Approved wasn't yet published at the time of that tourney), but I figured my phone could suffice (and it did). This isn't a knock on having a unique force, just that in order to bring the force I was bringing required me to have... a lot of books. I honestly think that "bloat" would be less of an issue if Version 2's of books were just printed, like they did with Space Marines absorbing all the Vigilus stuff. Or if their rules were available in a subscription-based service that was updated instead. It's not the quantity of RULES that's an issue, so much as the quantity of SOURCES. Needing 14 sources of rules for an army makes my backpack look, well, bloated!

I wouldn't call that bloat. Likewise I wouldn't call bloat "too many rules". I actually really like how GW does datasheets for the most part because despite their being 48 different types of FnP or Deep Strike my big clever brain can file them all away under the heading FnP or Deep Strike without having to remember the individual names. I couldn't even tell you what Mortifiers FnP save is called because I automatically amend it to FnP, as does everyone else in my group.

Bloat is when an army has so many options that many of the are basically filling the same role in an army or render other options redundant or it becomes hard to create new units without doing so. Warmachine had a big issue with this at the start of Mk3 because each factions theme was basically maxed out in terms of possible units and PP tried to fix it by forcing theme lists onto everyone and making them all play sub-factions and it didn't work and everyone hates it.

40k does have bloat but mostly cause its been around for decades and they've been maintaining constant new model releases all that time but having expansion books isn't really bloat. You don't see D&D players complaining about having to bring along the entire release list for 5th Edition to every game (maybe you do, but presumably not). You buy as many books for rules as you choose to and if you choose to play three armies in one list with rules and options from every expansion then thats on you, but every army is functional with just a BRB and codex (despite what BCB says) for most people who play the game.

I'm not going to tournaments and only play with friends and other members from the same gaming club.
So far I only ever used Battlescribe for creating my army list and to print out all the relevant special rules my army composition has, including profiles. In addition to a few pages of condensed rules and stat blocks, I'm bringing the core rulebook.

After reading the last few comments about bloat it feels like I'm missing out on something. What am I doing wrong?

I could understand that in a competitive environment, opponents would want to have printed rules on hand to cross check in case of doubt, but why are you taking alle the physical books with you to casual play instead of a Battlescribe list?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Everyone needs the rule book. That's a given.

I tell new players to not buy it. Mine has been sitting on the shelf for over a year now. It's really only good for the deployment types (why aren't those in CA?!) and narrative missions.

You really don't need anything but one of those folding thingies out of a random boxed set or the free pdf on a phone.
My gaming case has Codex and CA inside and probably PA soon. Vigilus is a PDF on the phone, I really don't need an entire book for something that's written on my army list plus 2-3 stratagems.

I mean, it depends. If you play with a circle of friends (as is often the case in some areas), you really only need the one rulebook for the entire circle of friends.

To answer the OP: This is the best I have played since I think it was edition 3.5?

It IS utterly lethal.
Much of the fussing around of 6th and 7th is gone so play is pretty fast, speed rolling works well.

For those who are of the MTG or card game mindset, Strategems and command points are an interesting add-on to the game.

They have better differentiated the high hits vs high damage weapons.

Some would argue cover has been over-simplified but it is pretty clear.

It feels like it has taken a couple steps up from squad based combat and can handle more units in play without bogging down.
Any time I hear/feel the game is TOO simple we just need to play Killteam instead.
And if the game begins to bog down, you may need to be looking at Apocalypse to play your more "Epic" battles.

6th and 7th was almost impossible to deal with all the rules bloat to keep up with it.
8th has the general rules out there, the Chapter approved (with latest points list for EVERYTHING was well done) and the FAQs for between CA's makes it somewhat manageable.

The game "feels" complex enough to keep you engaged without being so much so you cannot understand armies you do not play.

I like it.