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chaos0xomega wrote:
As others have said, the issue was largely poor implementation.

GW had multiple different USR's which did functionally the same thing but with a different modifier value (i.e. 4+ instead of 5+) - they should have been one USR written as USR(X) where X was the number of the modifier (i.e. "USR(5+)" means that the USR gives you whatever bonus on a 5+ roll).

GW also had USR's which conferred other USRs - this should never have been a thing to begin with and instead let USRs stand alone and call them out individually.

It just ended up with a massive amount of bloat that made it hard to remember what was what, and because they were only listed by name in a codex you had to flip open your core rulebook to find out what they meant. To make things a bit worse, DESPITE how many USRs there were, there still proved to be a lot of very common special rules which were *not* covered by USRs that probably should have been, so it kind of became the case of "what the hell is the point?"

Very much this but then GW (in typical GW fashion) threw the baby out with the bath water so now we have basically zero USR's and a ton of similar but different codex specific rules for mechanics that should be universal. On top of that because the majority of game mechanics and rules are codex specific, it makes it so rules are stuck interacting with the small hand full of basic core rules because you cannot write codex rules designed to interact with rules from a different codex. All of this resulting in having all the bloat of past editions with the depth of a kiddie pool.


Also I like to point out how the common parlance for a lot of these mechanics are called "melta, gets hot, relentless, deep strike, feel no pain, poison, look out sir, etc" because they basically do exactly what those USRs did without having to need a dozen different versions with nearly identical practical application.

As has been said numerous times, USR are fine conceptually.

Back in Ye Olden Days (3rd-4th and sorta-kinda 5th edition) the USR's all fit on 1-2 pages in the BRB. They were generic, but common, rules which gave flavor. Things like Fleet (modern run), Move Through Cover, and deep strike featured there.

Ontop of that, every army would have a couple of special USR's in their codex, such as Waaaaaagh! and They Shall Know No Fear.

Lastly, special units would have special rules unique to them. Such as Lictors having a unique terrain-based version of Deep Strike.

The problem with everything being bespoke is that it's extraordinarily difficult to tell if things are supposed to function differently.

For example, we have something like 6 different versions of the 'body guard' concept. Is this because different armies / units are supposed to be better at it, or just because they were written at different times by different people? Deep Strike suffers from the same issue, with the rule being written differently across many codex', meaning that you have to keep track of tons of different variations of the same rule which are functionally the same but offer different gimmies / loopholes to work around crap.

USR should be brought back on a couple of pages in the BRB to cover generic abilities. Stuff like +1 to hit & reroll auras, deep strikes, always strikes first, ect. This would make it so you could be confident if something was supposed to work a certain way. It'd also come with the benefit of KNOWING when a unit is supposed to have a special version of Deep Strike, rather than just janky and lazy cross-codex writing..

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Nothing. They were a punching bag for people who didn't actually understand what was or wasn't a design problem, and their removal has had a negative impact not a positive one.

This^^

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Nothing. They were a punching bag for people who didn't actually understand what was or wasn't a design problem, and their removal has had a negative impact not a positive one.

This.

It's simply the people that only grow up in the GW ecosystem praising them for whatever changes they made in a given edition. Exactly the same thing happened with blast templates (which we are now stuck with a bass ackwards system that apparently Dakka approves of as everyone on here spaced their models out at max coherency every game. Yeah, pull the other one... ). GW gets rid of them and BLAST TEMPLATES ARE THE DEVIL! is heard from the usual GW kool aid chuggers.

Exactly the same with USRs. Exactly the same with metal models. How many times have you heard someone spout the tired old bullgak of "mEtAl MoDeLs AlWaYs FaLl ApArT!!!" as if plastic is the be all and end all of materials and they simply aren't just using gak glue?

GW removes USRs and the usual crowd lap it up as a good thing. Try playing some other games and you'll see how good they can be.

 morganfreeman wrote:
Back in Ye Olden Days (3rd-4th and sorta-kinda 5th edition) the USR's all fit on 1-2 pages in the BRB.

3rd didn't have USRs.

Hell, the 3rd ed. rulebook didn't even have an INDEX!

At some point, there were just too many USRs. I like USRs as long as the number of universal rule stays low enough.

I would prefer 40k moving even closer to an AoS-style datasheet where it is almost completely self-contained and tells you basically everything the unit can do outside of the stuff that changes depending on allegiance and the like.

It's simply much more convenient. It's all spelled out right there and you don't have to do the page flipping.
That basically renders the concept of USRs redundant even if you use the same wording for abilities on many sheets.

It also recognizes that it's an asymmetrical, huge, and expanding game and that a tight list of USRs (which is is the only way they are actually useful) is a fool's errand. Nothing is going to last through a whole round of releases and updates and new ideas over the course of years. People want diversity in play-styles and new stuff because it's interesting and that inevitably demands rules that work in different or new ways. Because of this any USR list will inevitably expand and excepted to poinlessness.

rbstr wrote:
I would prefer 40k moving even closer to an AoS-style datasheet where it is almost completely self-contained and tells you basically everything the unit can do outside of the stuff that changes depending on allegiance and the like.

It's simply much more convenient. It's all spelled out right there and you don't have to do the page flipping.
That basically renders a list of USRs redundant.

It also recognizes that it's a huge and expanding game and that a tight list of USRs is a fool's errand. Nothing is going to last through a whole round of releases and updates and new ideas over the course of years. People want new stuff because it's interesting and that inevitably demands rules that work in new/different ways than before. Because of this any USR list will inevitably expand and excepted to poinlessness.

So why do we need six different methods of bodyguarding?

I, and most others, I think, are 100% on board with writing the rules on the datasheet. That's good for accessibility, and minimizing mental overhead. But it'd be nice if rules that do the same thing were worded the same way.

It literally does the complete opposite of everything you just said.

Bespoke rules means you constantly have to sift through hundreds of pages to find the exact unit you are looking for to see what tiny variation of Rule X this unit does.

USR are by their very nature more organized and simple because every. single. unit. follows that rule exactly how it's laid out in the main rule book. You learn it once and it's done. You don't have to learn 100 different variations of it.

AoS is the perfect example of how not to make a rules system. It's one of the worst systems ever devised. It's completely ass backwards.

The game should be expanded upon within the construct of the main system. If it doesn't, then don't expand in that way.

Thats the main issue with modern GW rules. They are so sloppy and slapped together with the vaguest rules possible, it doesn't account for expansion because the main rules were never built properly to begin with. There's simple no foundation for any meaningful additions outside pure bloat.

Everyone in favour of Bespoke rules says the same thing, well all the rules are there on the card so its easier to find. You understand USR's could be written on the card too, right? It completely destroys your main argument.

rbstr wrote:
I would prefer 40k moving even closer to an AoS-style datasheet where it is almost completely self-contained and tells you basically everything the unit can do outside of the stuff that changes depending on allegiance and the like.

It's simply much more convenient. It's all spelled out right there and you don't have to do the page flipping.
That basically renders the concept of USRs redundant even if you use the same wording for abilities on many sheets.

It also recognizes that it's an asymmetrical, huge, and expanding game and that a tight list of USRs (which is is the only way they are actually useful) is a fool's errand. Nothing is going to last through a whole round of releases and updates and new ideas over the course of years. People want diversity in play-styles and new stuff because it's interesting and that inevitably demands rules that work in different or new ways. Because of this any USR list will inevitably expand and excepted to poinlessness.

The problem with this is communication. USRs make it easy to explain to our opponent what your stuff does. Bespoke-everything does not. Nor is it necessary or useful to create many variations of the same effect, as is now the case with FnP, DS, etc.

If the core rules were deep and rich, the rules people wouldn't need to create so many new rules, or new kits, to keep the game interesting in the first place.

rbstr wrote:
I would prefer 40k moving even closer to an AoS-style datasheet where it is almost completely self-contained and tells you basically everything the unit can do outside of the stuff that changes depending on allegiance and the like.

It's simply much more convenient. It's all spelled out right there and you don't have to do the page flipping.
That basically renders the concept of USRs redundant even if you use the same wording for abilities on many sheets.

It also recognizes that it's an asymmetrical, huge, and expanding game and that a tight list of USRs (which is is the only way they are actually useful) is a fool's errand. Nothing is going to last through a whole round of releases and updates and new ideas over the course of years. People want diversity in play-styles and new stuff because it's interesting and that inevitably demands rules that work in different or new ways. Because of this any USR list will inevitably expand and excepted to poinlessness.

As i said in my previous post, USRs are simply for consistency in rules and universal understanding of mechanics.

Having everything spelled out on the sheet in no way makes USRs redundant - you can have invisible ones that are purely for the back end development so that the designers keep the mechanics the same.

It's also not accurate to conflate 'tight list' with USRs as though they require them. As it's purpose is rules consistency, it doesn't matter how many there are, only that when they are repeated, they are the same.

There is no reason at all to have 6 different body guard rules, 4 different deep strike rules, 5 different mighty charge rules. And by doing this you actively make the game more difficult for players to learn.

Your army and mine using the same mechanics means if I've learnt 'bodyguard', 'deep strike', 'mighty charge' then when you say 'those guys are using the bodyguard rule' I know EXACTLY what you're saying and can actually play the game properly.

rbstr wrote:

It's simply much more convenient. It's all spelled out right there and you don't have to do the page flipping.
That basically renders the concept of USRs redundant even if you use the same wording for abilities on many sheets.

As far as I’m concerned, far from making USRs redundant, using the same wording for abilities is exactly the point of USRs.

 JNAProductions wrote:
So why do we need six different methods of bodyguarding?

Why do all "bodyguards" need to operate the same way? There's no actual answer to either question, whole thing is arbitrary - they are different in order to be different. That's the whole point of having a diverse set a factions.
Savior Protocols and Silent Bodyguard explicitly do not do the exact same things because they aren't supposed to behave the same way.
There's a difference in risk/reward and how integral to they army the rules are. For example: S.Protocols is designed to improve survivability of a fairly fragile army by puting wounds on cheap units, with a trade off that you automatically take a mortal without rolling a save (that may have prevented the damage). S.Bodyguard lets you bounce a hit off an important character to a unit with really good saves and take the risk of hurting an expensive unit. Grots just flat out die to intercept hits, but that's what Grots are supposed to do, die in numbers that were previously considered impossible!

Could the drones operate like the Deathshroud terminators instead? Sure. But, even with the potential toughness changes, your shield drones would get a 4++ to bounce the wound entirely and have the the 5+++ after. So they got quite a bit stronger and they're supposed to apply to more units in the army than the termies are. So now you've gotta change the rest of the drone stats to achieve similar performance to before - which gets back to the facts it's all arbitrary in order to give armies and units certain a certain play-style.

Certainly, some bodyguard units are not good at that role. But it's not an issue that gets solved by simply having Bodyguard(2+), whichever version you pick to use, on all the drones, celestians, and termies.

rbstr wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
So why do we need six different methods of bodyguarding?

Why do all "bodyguards" need to operate the same way? There's no actual answer to either question, whole thing is arbitrary - they are different in order to be different. That's the whole point of having a diverse set a factions.
Savior Protocols and Silent Bodyguard explicitly do not do the exact same things because they aren't supposed to behave the same way.
There's a difference in risk/reward and how integral to they army the rules are. For example: S.Protocols is designed to improve survivability of a fairly fragile army by puting wounds on cheap units, with a trade off that you automatically take a mortal without rolling a save (that may have prevented the damage). S.Bodyguard lets you bounce a hit off an important character to a unit with really good saves and take the risk of hurting an expensive unit. Grots just flat out die to intercept hits, but that's what Grots are supposed to do, die in numbers that were previously considered impossible!

Could the drones operate like the Deathshroud terminators instead? Sure. But, even with the potential toughness changes, your shield drones would get a 4++ to bounce the wound entirely and have the the 5+++ after. So they got quite a bit stronger and they're supposed to apply to more units in the army than the termies are. So now you've gotta change the rest of the drone stats to achieve similar performance to before - which gets back to the facts it's all arbitrary in order to give armies and units certain a certain play-style.

Certainly, some bodyguard units are not good at that role. But it's not an issue that gets solved by simply having Bodyguard(2+), whichever version you pick to use, on all the drones, celestians, and termies.

I agree that any game needs variety, but you just made a distinction without a difference.

Complexity is not depth.

rbstr wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
So why do we need six different methods of bodyguarding?

Why do all "bodyguards" need to operate the same way? There's no actual answer to either question, whole thing is arbitrary - they are different in order to be different. That's the whole point of having a diverse set a factions.
Savior Protocols and Silent Bodyguard explicitly do not do the exact same things because they aren't supposed to behave the same way.
There's a difference in risk/reward and how integral to they army the rules are. For example: S.Protocols is designed to improve survivability of a fairly fragile army by puting wounds on cheap units, with a trade off that you automatically take a mortal without rolling a save (that may have prevented the damage). S.Bodyguard lets you bounce a hit off an important character to a unit with really good saves and take the risk of hurting an expensive unit. Grots just flat out die to intercept hits, but that's what Grots are supposed to do, die in numbers that were previously considered impossible!

Could the drones operate like the Deathshroud terminators instead? Sure. But, even with the potential toughness changes, your shield drones would get a 4++ to bounce the wound entirely and have the the 5+++ after. So they got quite a bit stronger and they're supposed to apply to more units in the army than the termies are. So now you've gotta change the rest of the drone stats to achieve similar performance to before - which gets back to the facts it's all arbitrary in order to give armies and units certain a certain play-style.

Certainly, some bodyguard units are not good at that role. But it's not an issue that gets solved by simply having Bodyguard(2+), whichever version you pick to use, on all the drones, celestians, and termies.

I imagine it makes playing against all these variants of mechanics more understandable instead of having to look up in their rule book every time your opponent does (insert codex specific name of game mechanic here) to understand what is going on. Its one thing to learn your own army's rules but its a pain trying to remember what all these mechanics do for all these other armies. Not to mention remembering what each faction's units and stratagems do. A lot of the stuff isn't complex to understand but its clunky trying to remember every name of every variation of a rule or mechanic.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Complexity is not depth.

Consistency is not balance either

USR as a high level core mechanics levek concept work like keyword (Reserves), (Deepstrike) might work but the issue is not everyone playing the game agrees on the level of simplification and similarities that should have to be excepted just so you can know every armies rules.

Not to mention it also will inevitably lead to units being over/undercosted or otherwise functionally broken for 6-9 months when some new units breaks one of these USR and that USR gets FAQ/Erattaed to balance the unit despite it screwing up other units.

USR's work in a static design space where sufficent pre release testing etc has been undertaken that's not the GW way see Iron hands if they had even half their bonuses as USR's could you imagine how game breaking it would have been to deathguard and a number of other codex's to see some of the USR's nerfed to rebalance them.

Ice_can wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Complexity is not depth.

Consistency is not balance either

USR as a high level core mechanics levek concept work like keyword (Reserves), (Deepstrike) might work but the issue is not everyone playing the game agrees on the level of simplification and similarities that should have to be excepted just so you can know every armies rules.

Not to mention it also will inevitably lead to units being over/undercosted or otherwise functionally broken for 6-9 months when some new units breaks one of these USR and that USR gets FAQ/Erattaed to balance the unit despite it screwing up other units.

USR's work in a static design space where sufficent pre release testing etc has been undertaken that's not the GW way see Iron hands if they had even half their bonuses as USR's could you imagine how game breaking it would have been to deathguard and a number of other codex's to see some of the USR's nerfed to rebalance them.

But this isn't even about balance-this is about making the game simple and easy to understand.

I think Privateer Press has the USR concept locked down pretty well*, I think GW should study and take notes. Warmachine/Hordes basically has a tiered USR system:

Theres what I call "tier 1" USRs which are *extremely* common and exist across multiple models in multiple factions and are "core mechanics" that feature strongly in general gameplay and have complex rule interactions - not things like +X modifiers to stats, but things that have actual meaning, such as Stealth which makes a model untargetable outside of 5", Pathfinder which allows a model to ignore the effects of terrain when moving, magical weapon that allows them to attack ethereal models, etc. Theres maybe a dozen or so of these (possibly more? I've never bothered to count them), and they are simply represented with a symbol in the relevant area of their stat cards - theres no need to write out all the details of the rule on the stat cards because their use is so common and they are generally so distinct that there is no confusion and everyone who has played more than a handful of games knows exactly what they do.

"Tier 2" USRs make up the bulk of the rules in the game, and they are generally either more mundane and less memorable due to shared commonality (i.e. Unyielding = +2 ARM while in melee range of an enemy model, Iron Flesh = +2 Arm and does not suffer blast damage), or because they are not common across models and factions (Berserk = When this model destroys one or more models with a melee attack, immediately after the attack is resolved it must make one additional melee attack against another model in its melee range), or because they are very flavorful and rare (Dark Domination = a paragraph of rules I will not type out that describes how this model can take control of an enemy model), OR because they are specific (Vendetta(X) = The model gains boosted attack and damage rolls against X models (where X is a keyword)). These make up the majority of rules found on any statcard and are written out in full so that the rules reference is immediately in front of you when you need it, and they are consistent across all models and factions - no having to deal with 6 different versions of the bodyguard rule or deep strike, etc.

"Tier 3" USRs are the only place where I think the games go awry, and are the reason for the * in my first sentence. These are typically "Tier 2" USRs which confer another Tier 2 USR, usually as the result of a spell (ex - Death Field: While within 3" of this model, friendly models gain Dark Shroud. Death Field lasts for one turn. (While in the melee range of a model with Dark Shroud, enemy models suffer -2ARM)"). I understand why these exist, and yes they do spell out all the details of the USR they are conferring so that you don't need to look it up, but to me this has always been the one weak spot in the game, as it is basically a shorthand for saying "this USR allows me to cast this other USR, or USRs, on another model". This means that if someone tells me that they are casting Death Field (for example) my mind cannot automatically go to knowing what that means, instead I have to mentally jump from Death Field to Dark Shroud, and then from there translate Dark Shroud into its effect - thats assuming that I even remember that Death Field = Dark Shroud in the first place. To me, it would be easier to just call this 'Aura 3": Dark Shroud', which immediately tells me that its giving dark shroud to any other model within 3" of itself, no need to associate the term with another "shell" term. Some of these can get pretty complex, but I'm strongly of the opinion that they could develop an effective "shorthand" that communicates all the relevant elements of an ability without needing to rely on a "shell".

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:


It's simply the people that only grow up in the GW ecosystem praising them for whatever changes they made in a given edition. Exactly the same thing happened with blast templates (which we are now stuck with a bass ackwards system that apparently Dakka approves of as everyone on here spaced their models out at max coherency every game. Yeah, pull the other one... ). GW gets rid of them and BLAST TEMPLATES ARE THE DEVIL! is heard from the usual GW kool aid chuggers.

Blast templates honestly suck and have from the very beginning, the fact that many here on dakka didn't realize any better until after the fact doesn't change that. I was very happy to see them pulled from the game, and very angry to see Warlord introduce them into Bolt Action 2nd Edition.

Mind you, I'm not sure that what GW replaced them with is an improvement, if GW was going to make template weapons do random number of hits then it should have done so in a manner which restricted the variance on the outcome, i.e. 3+d3 or some other method that sets a floor of some sort so that they aren't subject to wild swings of chance that make them functionally useless as a weapon.

Ice_can wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Complexity is not depth.

Consistency is not balance either

USR as a high level core mechanics levek concept work like keyword (Reserves), (Deepstrike) might work but the issue is not everyone playing the game agrees on the level of simplification and similarities that should have to be excepted just so you can know every armies rules.

Not to mention it also will inevitably lead to units being over/undercosted or otherwise functionally broken for 6-9 months when some new units breaks one of these USR and that USR gets FAQ/Erattaed to balance the unit despite it screwing up other units.

USR's work in a static design space where sufficent pre release testing etc has been undertaken that's not the GW way see Iron hands if they had even half their bonuses as USR's could you imagine how game breaking it would have been to deathguard and a number of other codex's to see some of the USR's nerfed to rebalance them.

"GW is bad at rules" is a poor argument for opposing (or supporting) specific chooses like USRs.

There are certainly Faction-based rules that use a single word/couple of words to represent something across a Faction (Inner Circle, Shock Assault, And They Shall Know No Fear etc etc), so its not like GW had completely abandoned the idea of USRs. They just put them in a Codex and not the main rule book. The keyword system also preserves some aspect of a single word unpacking a bunch of associated meaning. This makes their game design more flexible. I understand that this may drive some folks crazy. While I appreciate some level of consistency, I also appreciate variety. Bespoke rules offer that as the game progresses. I think that some don't like the GW method of FAQs for each book, but it allows for those "spot fixes" of bespoke rules that would not be possible with USRs.

In the 8th Ed Codex for my main faction got a new unit with a new ability. At least one other unit in another faction has since received that ability with identical working but in a different mechanism (Warlord Trait). I look at two Bike units in different Codexes that I have. One has Matchless Swiftness with an 8" fixed advance while the other has a 6" fixed advance. Based on the units it makes sense and why not just have it on the relevant datasheets instead of clogging up the main rulebook with a USR that would vary anyway. When you throw in Stratagems, Relics and Warlord Traits the idea of having a comprehensive list of USRs in the main rule book looks a little untenable. Its a sprawling game, and it seems to be doing rather well for what its worth.

 JNAProductions wrote:
But this isn't even about balance-this is about making the game simple and easy to understand.

And a shared group of rules will be far easier to understand (and update) than everything having "bespoke" rules.

 catbarf wrote:

This isn't an advantage to bespoke rules, it's an advantage to printing rules on the datasheet.

Very much this. Including the rules on the datasheet doesn't preclude them being universal and consistent.

This is actually the approach we're going with for Maelstrom's Edge V2 - rules will all be printed on a unit's rules sheet, but we're keeping to as tight a set of special rules as we can while maintaining some flavour.

WhiteDog wrote:
At some point, there were just too many USRs. I like USRs as long as the number of universal rule stays low enough.

I really don't get this argument. A game as wide-ranging as 40K is always going to have a lot of special rules... but consolidating them into USRs ultimately gives you fewer rules to learn than the current approach of multiple, similar-but-not-identical, bespoke rules.

Whatever people may say about so called bespoke rules being easier to update, they are more difficult in use. Sure, they appear on my data sheet with a special name, but if I want to play against you then I need to also learn yours and those special names and also those of every other bespoke rule for every other faction. it would be a lot easier and indeed faster to say “bodyguard USR 4+” than “bespoke BS because yada so 4+”. With the first, I can glance at a summary of units with USRs written next to them and know immediately about what every unit can do. With bespoke rules, I have to learn a new language every time I play a different army written by a different writer. Point here is that dropping USRs was even dumber than dissing USRs from an actual use standpoint especially given GW’s lip service about streamlining the game and making it more accessible. All I hear from GW is the Friedman fallacy with every announcement and I will be surprised if they else but disintegrate any remaining goodwill remaining in the grognard community still present after the fiascos of Ao$ and nu$tarte$.

People have been saying things like "Why should the bodyguard rules be the same for everyone!".

The great thing about USRs means that they can still use the same rule, but allow for flexibility in use.

Rather than a "Bodyguard" that applies to everyone in a blanket way, you have "Bodyguard (X)", and the "X" determines how good something is at being a bodyguard. It allows you to balance singular bodyguards (Ogryn Bodyguard) vs large numerous bodyguard units (Shield Drone squadrons) without having to invent new rules to balance the varying levels of quality.

It's an elegant solution that allows you to keep the amount of different rules to a minimum whilst still allowing for a form of standardised variation.

 JNAProductions wrote:
So, some people really love GW's bespoke rules approach. I'm not one of them, but I'd be curious to hear what the general thoughts are about why USRs are bad. I feel like a decent amount of ill-will towards USRs might be because GW did them pretty poorly in the past. Missile Lock, I'm looking at you!

40k has too many goofy things it tries to do for USRs to be feasible. There were several pages of USRs in the 7th ed BRB and most units STILL had some sort of bespoke rule. Bespoke rules just work better for how 40k tries to function as a game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

This isn't an advantage to bespoke rules, it's an advantage to printing rules on the datasheet.

Very much this. Including the rules on the datasheet doesn't preclude them being universal and consistent.

This is actually the approach we're going with for Maelstrom's Edge V2 - rules will all be printed on a unit's rules sheet, but we're keeping to as tight a set of special rules as we can while maintaining some flavour.

WhiteDog wrote:
At some point, there were just too many USRs. I like USRs as long as the number of universal rule stays low enough.

I really don't get this argument. A game as wide-ranging as 40K is always going to have a lot of special rules... but consolidating them into USRs ultimately gives you fewer rules to learn than the current approach of multiple, similar-but-not-identical, bespoke rules.

40k doesn't want rules that are universal and consistent. It does, and always has wanted to do wacky gak. 40k wants to have 20 different versions of deepstrike because it wants the option to have one where the ork misses and self destructs, and the one where they're actually warp entities and can land perfectly, the one where every model is now left handed, etc.

Even when they did have USRs, they had so many modifiers for each across so many different units that they ended up becoming essentially bespoke rules anyway. Which is what eventually created the issues with deathstars and such because the USRs would interact with each other in odd, unintended ways because they tried to be universal when everything about the design paradigm for 40k wants to be special snowflake.

You can argue that USRs are simpler or w/e, sure. But for what 40k tries to be, a ridiculous heavy metal album cover of a game/setting, bespoke rules just make more sense.

ERJAK wrote:
Bespoke rules just work better for how 40k tries to function as a game.

Yeah those bespoke rules sure are working out real well for 8th.

 jeff white wrote:
Whatever people may say about so called bespoke rules being easier to update, they are more difficult in use. Sure, they appear on my data sheet with a special name, but if I want to play against you then I need to also learn yours and those special names and also those of every other bespoke rule for every other faction. it would be a lot easier and indeed faster to say “bodyguard USR 4+” than “bespoke BS because yada so 4+”. With the first, I can glance at a summary of units with USRs written next to them and know immediately about what every unit can do. With bespoke rules, I have to learn a new language every time I play a different army written by a different writer. Point here is that dropping USRs was even dumber than dissing USRs from an actual use standpoint especially given GW’s lip service about streamlining the game and making it more accessible. All I hear from GW is the Friedman fallacy with every announcement and I will be surprised if they else but disintegrate any remaining goodwill remaining in the grognard community still present after the fiascos of Ao$ and nu$tarte$.

This "easier and faster" is only true if the intention of the rule is for it to always be applied in the same way. Not that many rules in 40k are meant to be applied the same way. Which is why the old USR system broke down. When you have a USR with a half dozen caveats and modifiers attached to it, that's just a bespoke rule that might also accidentally feth something up somewhere else. You had to learn a new language with every unit AND you had to contend with weird interaction between USRs.

AoS, since it's first generals handbook, but especially since AoS 2, has always been a far better tournament game than either 40k or WHFB had ever been. Before that it was a better grognard, homebrew, design my own rules because feth authority style game that GW had put out since rogue trader. It wasn't 'grognards' who hated AoS, it was just people who got shanghaid into buying a stupid amount of models by WHFB's asinine army construction rules and terrible pricing structure.

The old space marine models were gak and desperately needed an update because they looked so much like comic relief characters next to the newer stuff (An oldmarine army next to the new SoB plastics is about the same as putting the 2nd Ed Tyranid warriors up against the plastic Warriors. They literally look, not just like a joke, but like they're SUPPOSED to be a joke.) that they needed the majority of at least the infantry line completely redone. They chose to do this by going the primaris route rather than just redoing the old marines. Was this the best way to go about it? Probably, but they couldn't leave the most popular army in the game, the one that is supposed to be drawing in new players by being bad ass space super-soldier looking like clowns. The idea that there is a version of this update happens where you DON'T eventually kind of have to replace your entire minimarine force is utterly nonsensical and frankly shows a deep misunderstanding of how reality works.

ERJAK wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
So, some people really love GW's bespoke rules approach. I'm not one of them, but I'd be curious to hear what the general thoughts are about why USRs are bad. I feel like a decent amount of ill-will towards USRs might be because GW did them pretty poorly in the past. Missile Lock, I'm looking at you!

40k has too many goofy things it tries to do for USRs to be feasible. There were several pages of USRs in the 7th ed BRB and most units STILL had some sort of bespoke rule. Bespoke rules just work better for how 40k tries to function as a game.


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 insaniak wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

This isn't an advantage to bespoke rules, it's an advantage to printing rules on the datasheet.

Very much this. Including the rules on the datasheet doesn't preclude them being universal and consistent.

This is actually the approach we're going with for Maelstrom's Edge V2 - rules will all be printed on a unit's rules sheet, but we're keeping to as tight a set of special rules as we can while maintaining some flavour.

WhiteDog wrote:
At some point, there were just too many USRs. I like USRs as long as the number of universal rule stays low enough.

I really don't get this argument. A game as wide-ranging as 40K is always going to have a lot of special rules... but consolidating them into USRs ultimately gives you fewer rules to learn than the current approach of multiple, similar-but-not-identical, bespoke rules.

40k doesn't want rules that are universal and consistent. It does, and always has wanted to do wacky gak. 40k wants to have 20 different versions of deepstrike because it wants the option to have one where the ork misses and self destructs, and the one where they're actually warp entities and can land perfectly, the one where every model is now left handed, etc.

Even when they did have USRs, they had so many modifiers for each across so many different units that they ended up becoming essentially bespoke rules anyway. Which is what eventually created the issues with deathstars and such because the USRs would interact with each other in odd, unintended ways because they tried to be universal when everything about the design paradigm for 40k wants to be special snowflake.

You can argue that USRs are simpler or w/e, sure. But for what 40k tries to be, a ridiculous heavy metal album cover of a game/setting, bespoke rules just make more sense.

So what's the problem with just giving those Ork units Deep Strike regularly? Or type down Deep Strike: Caveat XYZ? Consistent wording and then the piece of garbage fluff part?

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
I will offer the advantages of bespoke rules as opposed to USRs. Likely an unpopular point of view in the this thread, but hey.

First, it allows for redistribution of the rules load. This in turn makes the game more accessible. Instead of a large core rule book with the USRs you can have a thin set of core rules that can be downloaded for free or given away in stores. You buy your box of miniatures and with the datasheet included in the assembly instructions you can play the game straight away with the unit(s) that you have. Two players only need to manage/carry the rules that are on their datasheets and not worry about cross-referencing mid-game with USRs in the main book.

Second, it allows the designers greater flexibility when creating units/Codexes and also to fix problems afterwards. I understand that some people only want one rule for a given capability, but it is a valid design method to have a variety of bespoke ways for different units to similar functions. A Company Veteran, for instance, is neither a Shield Drone nor a Grot.

Having been in the 8th Edition era for almost three years, I have to say that I prefer the bespoke method. GW can change editions without having to actually do an edition change with all the associated pain. As Codexes get updated we see new design ideas in the datasheets.

Cheers,

T2B

I don't think anyone disagrees with you. Having all the rules on the datasheet instead somewhere in another book is one of the things that worked well in 8th.
What most people (including me) are saying is that his could be improved on by standardizing certain rules to work the same for everyone (overheating weapons, bodyguards, re-rolls) so you don't need to scan each rule for minor differences and keywording certain things improve clarity and facilitate interaction with other rules (deep strike, explosions, auras).
I've gone through old codices all the way back to 3rd recently, and 8th edition codices are by far the most readable ones with almost all rules in places where they make sense. I could flip open a codex I've never read before and quickly find all the rules related to one model, weapon profiles, relics or psychic powers.