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You can't copyright rules, but you can copyright the expression of rules.

So like the Kid said, I can reprint all of 40k's rulebook, as long as a word it differently.

Where I'm not sure is how this interacts with mechanics that have been patented.

Those Corsairs are nice, I wonder if there is an option to build them like a regular squad without all the specialists?

Both the Krieg Veterans and the Ork Kommandos can be built either as specialists or regular Veterans/Kommando boyz.

Although what would "regular" Corsairs be - like veteran Guardians? Those already exist kinda, I don't know what niche the Corsairs would fill.

EDIT: just saw this

 xttz wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

40k codex leaks indicated the unit would have some weapon options and the like, yeah. Actually, I want to say there were rumors about there being two different Corsair units in the book, one with a lot more options than the other, but I might be misremembering.

That's correct; there's a basic Troops version of the unit and a 'voidscarred' datasheet with more options under Elites.

Ok that makes sense.

In that case, it would make sense that the new Corsairs kit can be used to build both unit types. Which means that the cloaks and weapons might indeed be optional!

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
My well-read amateur's understanding of U.S. law is that you can paraphrase rules and reuse conventions, but cannot reprint rules unaltered.

That's why companies can make all those XXX-opoly games and not step on Monopoly's... well monopoly on that rule set (Monopoly's rules may also be in the public domain at this point, and the name and other identifying bits are protected under trademark law which does not expire, but you get the idea).

In the 80s and 90s Mayfair games made some great D&D-like supplements but renamed all the stats so as not to be a 1 for 1 copy of D&D. Health Points instead of Hit Points and the like.

So printing your write up or review of rules or original house rules is fine, but not scanning and posting GW rules.

As always if I'm off base please chime in.

That is correct. Mechanics are no copyrightable, but the specific expression of one, as written on a product, is. There is also the issue of trademarks, which sometimes is extended to specific gaming terms.

But the mechanics themselves are no subject to copyright.

Harlequins rules for KT in march WD

zamerion wrote:
Harlequins rules for KT in march WD

Watch their weapons actually have diffrent rules there

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

zamerion wrote:
Harlequins rules for KT in march WD

Watch their weapons actually have diffrent rules there

On the scale of KT it makes a lot more sense to have little bespoke rules for everything.

GW just put up a video on determining line of sight in Kill Team. It's a 3 minute video to work out how you see something. Three minutes.

The people talking about barriers to entry with this edition of the game sure weren't kidding...

 Nevelon wrote:
On the scale of KT it makes a lot more sense to have little bespoke rules for everything.

But writing rules for 3 different Harli weapons at 40k skill is just far too hard.

Meanwhile, in Marine land...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
GW just put up a video on determining line of sight in Kill Team. It's a 3 minute video to work out how you see something. Three minutes.

The people talking about barriers to entry with this edition of the game sure weren't kidding...

You say this like it is a long time to discuss any rule aspect. Feeling ?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Meanwhile, in Marine land...

Wow, what happened to this game?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
On the scale of KT it makes a lot more sense to have little bespoke rules for everything.

But writing rules for 3 different Harli weapons at 40k skill is just far too hard.

Meanwhile, in Marine land...

I posted this recently in another thread:

To be fair, I also think the marine armory is massively bloated. All those fancy little rules attached to the new guns can be either tossed, or move to a special rule on the squad. We don’t need special bespoke rules just because you have a fancy scope or a banana clip. 24” S4 rapid fire. All we need.

Again, keep that level of crunch in KT. Not the company scale game 40k has become.

I might occasionally have odd quirks, but at least I’m mostly internally consistant. (Unlike GW )

RPGs and squad level games I like the fact that sharp-eye bob has the marksman rifle, or ripper jones has a machete instead of the standard issue combat knife. It’s the place for it. 40k at the scale it’s at now needs a trim, and the marine armory should be the first place hit.

KT can go wild with options.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
GW just put up a video on determining line of sight in Kill Team. It's a 3 minute video to work out how you see something. Three minutes.

The people talking about barriers to entry with this edition of the game sure weren't kidding...

The problem is the video is too short. It moves along at a fair clip and frankly I'd need to watch it multiple times to get the content to stick - the abstracted distance mechanics do not help!

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Meanwhile, in Marine land...

Wow, what happened to this game?

Marines.

 alextroy wrote:
Feeling ?

Your assumption of emotion is weird. I don't care about KT as I never intend to play it. However, I find that it takes them 3 minutes to describe how to see things to be very funny (and stupid). I feel sorry for the players who have to put up with this needlessly complicated game with so many books and scattered WD articles just to get started, and an measuring device that exists so that they can sell you more useless tat.

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Meanwhile, in Marine land...

Wow, what happened to this game?

Would you say I have a plethora of bolt weapons?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Feeling ?

Your assumption of emotion is weird. I don't care about KT as I never intend to play it. However, I find that it takes them 3 minutes to describe how to see things to be very funny (and stupid). I feel sorry for the players who have to put up with this needlessly complicated game with so many books and scattered WD articles just to get started, and an measuring device that exists so that they can sell you more useless tat.

Says the guy from the outside looking in

You're also incorrect, you only need the rulebook to actually get started, unless you re one of those completionist weirdos who needs to "have it all"

You should give the game a go before bashing it. The LOS/targeting rules are notorious for being confusing to some, but they're hardly rocket science

 Nevelon wrote:
KT can go wild with options.

I actually prefer even my squad level games to not be too bloated. The benefit of squad level games to me is that you can build a force and get a game in quickly, if I wanted to spend all night playing a game I'd rather play a larger game than a more complicated one.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Feeling ?

Your assumption of emotion is weird. I don't care about KT as I never intend to play it. However, I find that it takes them 3 minutes to describe how to see things to be very funny (and stupid). I feel sorry for the players who have to put up with this needlessly complicated game with so many books and scattered WD articles just to get started, and an measuring device that exists so that they can sell you more useless tat.

Honestly, you are talking from a very weak postion here and what you are saying is objectively wrong. I have played more than a dozen games now and if anything, KT is very simple and easy to grasp. There is only one concept that could be better and that is the in cover vs obscured mechanic, because it is a bit counter intuitive and some of the wording when it comes to explosions on targets, because they are needlessly complicated formulated. I guess as a precaution, because rule lawers are trying to abuse the ever loving sh*t out of it. There are no WD rules needed to play the game, you only have additional factions. If anything the WD rules are great, because they help get the factions up to speed so that people can have more comprehensive teams until they get an official KT release. All you need is the main rule book and the rules of your faction. The only rule addtion that happened was that you can walk through doors and hatches and can climb ladders. The first ones are so simple, you wouldn't even have thought you need a rule for that. The latter one is also no issue, because if someone starts to rule monger about weather or not this model can climb the 1'' it's missing, than I would suggest they get their priorities towards "having fun while playing" in order. If anyone plays KT as a hardcore win at all costs Tournament game, then I feel sorry for them.

The measuring devices are actually not bad to be honest. I lol'ed at them first as well and the shapes could have been better, I would have gone for circle 1'', X 2'', triangle 3" and hexagon for 6", but even that is grasped quick enough. They tried a new concept that streamlines the game, boohoo. But they are very practical and I've come to no longer use the measuring tape. They really speed up the game process.


And also, KT is better than 40K in general, for the simple sake that you can feel that the design team is trying to have fun. KT has DKoK, even though 40K is crapping on IGs head since 5th edition. KT has maybe the most beautiful models for Orks, that look like 80s movies action heroes, while 40K is slapping boys players repeatedly in the face. KT has actually sort of normal looking Sororitas, where the regular are only getting releases if they have even more loadspeakers and cherubs and incence burners, than everything that is around. And now we are getting a release of a rag tag team of Eldar Corsairs, that might be some of the best looking models that were ever released for Eldar. And after 6 months, not even a single Murines because you need more Murines release that 40K is suffering from dearly. KT shoting and CC is fast, everything is done after 3 rolls and 1-2 rerolls max. Where 40K needs up to 5 rolls sometimes and rerolls and modifyiers and bookkeeping of auras and turn only effects and stratagems and and and.

If anything you might want to feel sorry with the people that have to keep up playing something that should be done by a computer simulation, but needs to be done by hand by players in 40K.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
KT can go wild with options.

I actually prefer even my squad level games to not be too bloated. The benefit of squad level games to me is that you can build a force and get a game in quickly, if I wanted to spend all night playing a game I'd rather play a larger game than a more complicated one.

I think the point is that on a squad/team level game it is not problem with each single model having different wargear, while on platoon level each team has different wargear
but a platoon level game, with each model having different wargear, while a squad level game with each model having the same wargear would be the opposite and does not make sense

how bloated or complicated the game is, is a different problem that can be related to wargear options

 GiToRaZor wrote:

The measuring devices are actually not bad to be honest. I lol'ed at them first as well and the shapes could have been better, I would have gone for circle 1'', X 2'', triangle 3" and hexagon for 6", but even that is grasped quick enough. They tried a new concept that streamlines the game, boohoo. But they are very practical and I've come to no longer use the measuring tape. They really speed up the game process.

I've only played a single game (COVID) so far and I've not been able to discern any advantage to the shapes (the ones used are not intuitive and your version would have been preferable). Have you found there's a benefit to the shapes?

I dont mind the shapes, but GW sure missed plenty of opportunities to use them creatively. With the way distances and measuring is handled now, they could have just as well used inches.

But once you memorize BLACK WHITE BLUE RED as 1 2 3 6, it's not really slowing things down all that much, and the gauges are appropriate for measuring most of the distances you need during a game. And since the range bands pretty much stop @ around 8-10" (everything being unlimited after that), a tape measure is kind of an overkill for the system.

Yeah, the shapes are frustrating because they don't currently serve much of a purpose that couldn't have otherwise been accomplished by just using numbers. They could have created some really cool, interesting, complex, and deep mechanical interactions using the shape system if they wanted to, but kinda phoned it in and left it as a really shallow half-assed implementation.

Half-assed implementation is a mega super awesome (tm) feature of GW Games.

Having played the game the only advantage I see to the shapes is they keep the distances quantified and stop you adding them into one group. So four Triangles rules wise is different to two Circles or one Square. However having played the game it does really slow things down. Using the measuring tool helps but it does not excuse having to replace the humble tape measure.

Yeah I see what they were getting by having each movement be a set number but it's really difficult trying to remember which shape is which. Even worse if you don't play Kill Team regularly and have to refer to a cheat sheet every time you forget what distance a square is.

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
Yeah I see what they were getting by having each movement be a set number but it's really difficult trying to remember which shape is which. Even worse if you don't play Kill Team regularly and have to refer to a cheat sheet every time you forget what distance a square is.

Well if you're using the measurement tool it shouldn't be an issue, right, because the shapes are coded to the measuring tool?

I think the bigger problem though is that intuitively the shapes don't really correlate to the distances, if only they had kept a straightforward logical progression to it where the number of sides on the shape translated to the number of inches of movement, so you could at least remember that triangle = 3" and square = 4", instead of triangle = 1", circle = 2", square = 3", etc. which makes no sense.

Evidently, as I understand it, the problem is that in playtesting they treated "color" as the key element rather than the shape, the shape was just there for accessibility with regards to people who may be colorblind. In that regard, the shapes were arbitrary to the design team and thus they didn't care to design the logical progression into it. Likely, they designed the game only ever referring to color, handed it off to graphic designers and developers, etc. who decided to add the shapes as an accessibility feature in late stage development/production, which in turn was also passed along to the plastics guys for the purposes of the movement tool, and nobody put any more thought into it because the concept of color was so ingrained into the teams head that they couldn't fathom the idea that the shape would matter.

Would probably make for an interesting psychological/sociological study to explore the color vs shape thing more, assuming the story is true.

Yeah, I don't even remember the shapes anymore, all I remember are the colours.

The problem with the Kill Team rules is that they are more expensive to get into than 40K Combat Patrol.

Lets be the very best cheapskates we can be for just getting up and running with both games for a very casual game. We'll even give Kill Team a sporting chance without including the essentials kit as the contents are easily substituted...

Kill Team: The softback rule book and getting lucky if this month's White Dwarf just happens to feature your faction of choice, and a taster of the options available to that faction to at least get it to the table...£36.

40K: Free download rules + hardback Codex containing full army rules + Warhammer Community Combat Patrol articles( includes the patrol detachment template )...£30.

...now lets have a pop quiz; as a Harlequin player which game should I go for next month, when both of those options are available?

SamusDrake wrote:
The problem with the Kill Team rules is that they are more expensive to get into than 40K Combat Patrol.

Lets be the very best cheapskates we can be for just getting up and running with both games for a very casual game. We'll even give Kill Team a sporting chance without including the essentials kit as the contents are easily substituted...

Kill Team: The softback rule book and getting lucky if this month's White Dwarf just happens to feature your faction of choice, and a taster of the options available to that faction to at least get it to the table...£36.

40K: Free download rules + hardback Codex containing full army rules + Warhammer Community Combat Patrol articles( includes the patrol detachment template )...£30.

...now lets have a pop quiz; as a Harlequin player which game should I go for next month, when both of those options are available?

We have to assume this being a theoretical discussion since places such as R****t are filled with posts where "cheapskate" users are looking, and finding, the full rules and codecii for both games for free.

if we skip the theoreticals and go into practicalities, the costs of fielding a "tournament grade" army for these systems should also be factored into the costs.. and must we really even go there?

So I'll just counter your argument with another:

"The problem with the Warhammer 40,000 game is that the armies are more expensive to get into than Kill Team."

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

Would you say I have a plethora of bolt weapons?

I love that word.. it means so much to me..