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 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Does AoS still give discounts for large units? That would be a way to do it, tho you might have to do points slightly differently. Aka 10 hormogaunts for 80 points, may add another 10 for 60 points.

Horus Heresy actually has a good system for this imo.

It might be 150pts for the base squad of 10 (a nominal 15pts apiece), then you can add up to another 10 at 10pts apiece.
That means you're getting a discount and are encouraged to run larger squads.

This was a huge attraction for me when i was getting started with HH. So I have 3 maxed out tac squads and 1 maxed out assault squad. I really like the baked in points discount because I like the book covers from the novels with all the mass troop formations. and that was one of the reason I wanted to play HH to begin with.
I would love this for Orks, Guard and everything else under the current system. I'd like this for 10th.

I want 10th 40k to be split into 2 distinct formats.

Matched (tournament/competitive) play which follows the current structure that 8th/9th established. Casual (narrative/open/pick up game) play which has more robust ruleset that isn't designed to be gamed and can allow for inherently broken things. USR's, return of WS/BS paradim that pre-8th had, AV facings etc. Basically HH ruleset brought into the fold and marketed as the "Role playing" format. The "tournament" format can keep the bland boring rules they got in 8th/9th

I don't understand why the current answer to "narrative" play is yet more rules bloat on top of the 9th core rules that are designed for competitive play. Just support both pre 7th/HH ruleset as narrative, and the new paradigm as matched. Done.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
I want 10th 40k to be split into 2 distinct formats.

Matched (tournament/competitive) play which follows the current structure that 8th/9th established. Casual (narrative/open/pick up game) play which has more robust ruleset that isn't designed to be gamed and can allow for inherently broken things. USR's, return of WS/BS paradim that pre-8th had, AV facings etc. Basically HH ruleset brought into the fold and marketed as the "Role playing" format. The "tournament" format can keep the bland boring rules they got in 8th/9th

I don't understand why the current answer to "narrative" play is yet more rules bloat on top of the 9th core rules that are designed for competitive play. Just support both pre 7th/HH ruleset as narrative, and the new paradigm as matched. Done.

I guess I'm confused as to the how. How is HH or why would we, consider HH a "role playing" format ? I don't get that at all. My group plays it as a wargame. I don't grok where the role playing comes in.
Please elaborate.

 Nevelon wrote:
I’d rather have one guy per squad throw grenades than spend 1ppm for frags and 2ppm for kracks.

I would like to see them being used in melee again. Melta bombs and krack grenades should be able to be used on the big guys knives can’t scratch.

i don't think it would have to be that high points wise or even effect the points cost of some models. with infantry some models are at the top of what a points increase would make vs others at the lower end. as an example i think guardsmen are at the top of what a 5 point per model unit can be so give em each a grenade throw and need to go to 6 points (the codex needs lot sof help otherwise, only comparing it to other 5 point per model units). firstborn marines on the other hand in tac squads are barely worth 9 points a model as is, so might stay 9 points with being abel to throw grenades. Would be on GW to balance though so if they did it i imagine they would just slap it on for free to everythign and leave some armies without grenades as they currently are

 Nevelon wrote:
I’d rather have one guy per squad throw grenades than spend 1ppm for frags and 2ppm for kracks.

I would like to see them being used in melee again. Melta bombs and krack grenades should be able to be used on the big guys knives can’t scratch.

Here's a thought: Skip the "thrown grenades" profile. It's fundamentally a skirmish mechanic that GW decided really needed to be in their company-scale wargame for no good reason. In all the discussions of all the things right and wrong about the game in the ten years of 3rd-6th I cannot remember anyone ever saying "wouldn't it be great if thrown grenades had their own shooting attack profile?," and the way blast weapons work now the circumstances in which you care enough to throw a frag grenade are so narrow they're just eating rules space/book space to no purpose. (Grenades as melee attacks, sure, but make them a specialist tool you do have to pay points for rather than an automatic always-on-every-squad thing.)

G00fySmiley wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
I’d rather have one guy per squad throw grenades than spend 1ppm for frags and 2ppm for kracks.

I would like to see them being used in melee again. Melta bombs and krack grenades should be able to be used on the big guys knives can’t scratch.

i don't think it would have to be that high points wise or even effect the points cost of some models. with infantry some models are at the top of what a points increase would make vs others at the lower end. as an example i think guardsmen are at the top of what a 5 point per model unit can be so give em each a grenade throw and need to go to 6 points (the codex needs lot sof help otherwise, only comparing it to other 5 point per model units). firstborn marines on the other hand in tac squads are barely worth 9 points a model as is, so might stay 9 points with being abel to throw grenades. Would be on GW to balance though so if they did it i imagine they would just slap it on for free to everythign and leave some armies without grenades as they currently are

Those are the points from memory when we last had to buy them as upgrades. Which was 3-4th? Been a while. I think assualt marines might have got free frags. I never paid for them; better things to do with the points.

AnomanderRake wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
I’d rather have one guy per squad throw grenades than spend 1ppm for frags and 2ppm for kracks.

I would like to see them being used in melee again. Melta bombs and krack grenades should be able to be used on the big guys knives can’t scratch.

Here's a thought: Skip the "thrown grenades" profile. It's fundamentally a skirmish mechanic that GW decided really needed to be in their company-scale wargame for no good reason. In all the discussions of all the things right and wrong about the game in the ten years of 3rd-6th I cannot remember anyone ever saying "wouldn't it be great if thrown grenades had their own shooting attack profile?," and the way blast weapons work now the circumstances in which you care enough to throw a frag grenade are so narrow they're just eating rules space/book space to no purpose. (Grenades as melee attacks, sure, but make them a specialist tool you do have to pay points for rather than an automatic always-on-every-squad thing.)

Back when frags were just assault grenades that helped you when charging into cover I remember a lot of people complaining that it made no sense, and that they wanted to throw them and blow things up. Part of the flavor lost from 2nd, that was gradually added back. Might have been local to the circles I was in, but there were arguments on how grenades should be done.

40k doesn't even really have a proper scale-identity. It's a horrible mismatch.

I'm not opposed to being able to throw grenades, but if it's a thing only one guy per squad feels gamey to me.

 Nevelon wrote:

Back when frags were just assault grenades that helped you when charging into cover I remember a lot of people complaining that it made no sense, and that they wanted to throw them and blow things up. Part of the flavor lost from 2nd, that was gradually added back. Might have been local to the circles I was in, but there were arguments on how grenades should be done.

Wasn't just your group. We often had people wanting to throw grenades/wondering why they couldn't. Especially krak grenades. :IG player: "I don't want to charge those SM, I just want to lob krak grenades at them."

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Allow every trooper in a squad to throw a grenade in the same turn (Frag, Krak, etc.). If this turns out to be too powerful then you can add a "Cooldown" (ability not available in the next X turns) rule of one turn to it. This obviously means you need to use unit cards for all models on the table and indicate the status of units with tokens.

I played a while ago a scenario of 2nd and it added to the gameplay. Only allowing a single member to throw a grenade feels gamey/awkward.

I think the problem there is some armies literally don't have grenades, so to make it work they would in some cases need to increase cost of some grenade equipped models slightly or decrease others without grenades. i guess alternatively they could just give everybody grenades some bio grenades for tyranids and scarab grenades for necrons to name a few.

Also in theory with grenades not sure every member of the unit would have enough to throw them every turn, a universal stratagem might be cool though to just have whole squads throw them

Only units who used grenades in the past would get them. Otherwise you would need to create new units for a faction. This means Tyranids and Necrons would miss out. It´s kinda like with horses in WHFB. Dwarfs and Skaven never had access to them which was fine to make clear distinctions between factions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nevelon wrote:

G00fySmiley wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
I’d rather have one guy per squad throw grenades than spend 1ppm for frags and 2ppm for kracks.

I would like to see them being used in melee again. Melta bombs and krack grenades should be able to be used on the big guys knives can’t scratch.

i don't think it would have to be that high points wise or even effect the points cost of some models. with infantry some models are at the top of what a points increase would make vs others at the lower end. as an example i think guardsmen are at the top of what a 5 point per model unit can be so give em each a grenade throw and need to go to 6 points (the codex needs lot sof help otherwise, only comparing it to other 5 point per model units). firstborn marines on the other hand in tac squads are barely worth 9 points a model as is, so might stay 9 points with being abel to throw grenades. Would be on GW to balance though so if they did it i imagine they would just slap it on for free to everythign and leave some armies without grenades as they currently are

Those are the points from memory when we last had to buy them as upgrades. Which was 3-4th? Been a while. I think assualt marines might have got free frags. I never paid for them; better things to do with the points.

AnomanderRake wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
I’d rather have one guy per squad throw grenades than spend 1ppm for frags and 2ppm for kracks.

I would like to see them being used in melee again. Melta bombs and krack grenades should be able to be used on the big guys knives can’t scratch.

Here's a thought: Skip the "thrown grenades" profile. It's fundamentally a skirmish mechanic that GW decided really needed to be in their company-scale wargame for no good reason. In all the discussions of all the things right and wrong about the game in the ten years of 3rd-6th I cannot remember anyone ever saying "wouldn't it be great if thrown grenades had their own shooting attack profile?," and the way blast weapons work now the circumstances in which you care enough to throw a frag grenade are so narrow they're just eating rules space/book space to no purpose. (Grenades as melee attacks, sure, but make them a specialist tool you do have to pay points for rather than an automatic always-on-every-squad thing.)

Back when frags were just assault grenades that helped you when charging into cover I remember a lot of people complaining that it made no sense, and that they wanted to throw them and blow things up. Part of the flavor lost from 2nd, that was gradually added back. Might have been local to the circles I was in, but there were arguments on how grenades should be done.

GW wanted to force players using the basic guns of their troops each turn. That´s why the "throw grenade" mechanic was discarded. Another factor was the need for dumbing down the game and thus robbing the player of options. Back in the day you would lob grenades at near opponents and blast foes farther away with your bolters. It just spiced up the game.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
I want 10th 40k to be split into 2 distinct formats.

Matched (tournament/competitive) play which follows the current structure that 8th/9th established. Casual (narrative/open/pick up game) play which has more robust ruleset that isn't designed to be gamed and can allow for inherently broken things. USR's, return of WS/BS paradim that pre-8th had, AV facings etc. Basically HH ruleset brought into the fold and marketed as the "Role playing" format. The "tournament" format can keep the bland boring rules they got in 8th/9th

I don't understand why the current answer to "narrative" play is yet more rules bloat on top of the 9th core rules that are designed for competitive play. Just support both pre 7th/HH ruleset as narrative, and the new paradigm as matched. Done.

7th edition was bad. Narratively, competitively, role-playingly, it was bad. No reason to put any effort into preserving it. Last I heard, even HH was abandoning it for a better redone ruleset. I do love the idea that 'roll a 3 to kill the tank instead of a 2 if you hit it from the front' is somehow not 'bland and boring'. BS works exactly like it does now, it just made you refer to a chart instead of just telling you what your hit roll was(oh but BS 7 let you...blah blah blah, no one cares. Like 3 units in the game had BS 7+ and 2 of those didn't have guns). WS didn't have a 'paradigm' either. It ALSO just had a chart. 'My number high so I need 3, your number low so you need 5' wasn't exactly revolutionizing anything.

Also, I've said this many times before and I'll say it again. 40k is not AT ALL designed for competitive play. Just because YOU don't like certain decisions they made doesn't automatically make them 'competitive' or 'tournament' based.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warhead01 wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Does AoS still give discounts for large units? That would be a way to do it, tho you might have to do points slightly differently. Aka 10 hormogaunts for 80 points, may add another 10 for 60 points.

Horus Heresy actually has a good system for this imo.

It might be 150pts for the base squad of 10 (a nominal 15pts apiece), then you can add up to another 10 at 10pts apiece.
That means you're getting a discount and are encouraged to run larger squads.

This was a huge attraction for me when i was getting started with HH. So I have 3 maxed out tac squads and 1 maxed out assault squad. I really like the baked in points discount because I like the book covers from the novels with all the mass troop formations. and that was one of the reason I wanted to play HH to begin with.
I would love this for Orks, Guard and everything else under the current system. I'd like this for 10th.

Horde units are arse. There's a reason AoS basically removed having more than 1 maxed out unit.

Grenades in melee feels so fething stupid IMO.

"Watch out boys, i'm gonna frag these dudes that we're fighting in hand to hand"

ERJAK wrote:
40k is not AT ALL designed for competitive play. Just because YOU don't like certain decisions they made doesn't automatically make them 'competitive' or 'tournament' based.

Well, the fact that the entire mission pack and secondary scoring system in the core rulebook were lifted straight from ITC would seem to suggest that the rules for 9th were designed with competitive play in mind.

What else is it supposed to be? Coincidence?

Not to mention how originally tournament-specific rules like RO3 got baked directly into the core rules. It's pretty clear that if you're playing Matched Play, GW assumes you're playing in a tournament or a competitive environment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Grenades in melee feels so fething stupid IMO.

"Watch out boys, i'm gonna frag these dudes that we're fighting in hand to hand"

You can't take the game mechanics of assault that literally without running into all sorts of problems.

'Sorry, Brother Tacitus, you can't shoot your missile launcher at that stationary battlewagon because Brother Fisticus and an Ork are having a fistfight a hundred yards away. Please consolidate a few yards closer and wait until the entire squad is out of hand-to-hand combat before you may shoot.'

Oh, and Anti tank weapons get -1 for shooting at infantry. Infantry weapons -1 for shooting at armour.

Stratagem should be much more limited and be used as a form of "Combat Ruse" or something like that.

Like having 2-3 for the whole game, one use only, and something like "Ha! I call an artillery strike!" or "I'm jamming your radars and communications for this phase/turn" or "My tyranids are raining acid making movement slower" as some kind of trap cards.

 Galas wrote:
Stratagem should be much more limited and be used as a form of "Combat Ruse" or something like that.

Like having 2-3 for the whole game, one use only, and something like "Ha! I call an artillery strike!" or "I'm jamming your radars and communications for this phase/turn" or "My tyranids are raining acid making movement slower" as some kind of trap cards.

That would be fun. It's a pity 40k is designed around something different rn.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Grenades in melee feels so fething stupid IMO.

"Watch out boys, i'm gonna frag these dudes that we're fighting in hand to hand"

There was a mini-story of Ragnar Blackmane either thrusting a krak grenade or melta bomb into the throat of a Carnifrx or Hive Tyrant while fighting it in hand-to-hand combat. There is nothing wrong about using a magnetic grenade or bomb vs. a vehicle in close combat either.

There was also a rule in 2nd that allowed models using grenades/bombs vs. vehicles to move away a few inches to avoid the resulting explosion.

 warhead01 wrote:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
I want 10th 40k to be split into 2 distinct formats.

Matched (tournament/competitive) play which follows the current structure that 8th/9th established. Casual (narrative/open/pick up game) play which has more robust ruleset that isn't designed to be gamed and can allow for inherently broken things. USR's, return of WS/BS paradim that pre-8th had, AV facings etc. Basically HH ruleset brought into the fold and marketed as the "Role playing" format. The "tournament" format can keep the bland boring rules they got in 8th/9th

I don't understand why the current answer to "narrative" play is yet more rules bloat on top of the 9th core rules that are designed for competitive play. Just support both pre 7th/HH ruleset as narrative, and the new paradigm as matched. Done.

I guess I'm confused as to the how. How is HH or why would we, consider HH a "role playing" format ? I don't get that at all. My group plays it as a wargame. I don't grok where the role playing comes in.
Please elaborate.

Personally, I would like to see the narrative side of the rules move more to a "DnD" style rule set. Most people do not play tabletop RPGs to "Win" but rather to design an interesting scenario that will be fun to play out.

For narrative games, completely move away from points or power level being balanced entirely. Use it as a way to suggest balance for an encounter, but it is not a hard and fast limit. Encourage players to design lists in tandem with your opponent and scenario that would make for an interesting game.

Rather than have set missions and set rewards for winning, have rules for designing your own missions or even chains of missions to create a campaign. Have suggestions for designing missions with more than 2 players that are not just divide into teams and fight. For example, one player has a huge swarm of Tyranids, while 3-4 players with a handful of marines try to fight their way through to an evac point and survive.

At most stores I have played at, there is usually a crew of people who want to play 40k like chess and some who want to play it like DnD. Some people will only play 1v1 2k matched play games. The other crew will say "hey we got 5 players here today, lets put 1 objective in the middle of the table, everyone gets like 500 points of whatever and all fight over it".

40k has always been in that weird in-between place where the competitive rules need to cater to all the fluff and flavor while the narrative rules also need to have balance.

Let the competitive/matched play rules get stripped back and lose flavor for the sake of balance.

Let the narrative rules have flavor and story without needing to worry about balance.

I think that most of this discussion has been about this dichotomy. The matched play rules are bloated with stratagems and wargear that only really serve narrative functions. The narrative side of the game is hampered by the rules being made somewhat for competitive balance.

I have a legit thing I'd actually like to see:
Multiple player teams. So like a 2v2 or a 3v3, or a 3/4 player free for all.

 svendrex wrote:

 warhead01 wrote:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
I want 10th 40k to be split into 2 distinct formats.

Matched (tournament/competitive) play which follows the current structure that 8th/9th established. Casual (narrative/open/pick up game) play which has more robust ruleset that isn't designed to be gamed and can allow for inherently broken things. USR's, return of WS/BS paradim that pre-8th had, AV facings etc. Basically HH ruleset brought into the fold and marketed as the "Role playing" format. The "tournament" format can keep the bland boring rules they got in 8th/9th

I don't understand why the current answer to "narrative" play is yet more rules bloat on top of the 9th core rules that are designed for competitive play. Just support both pre 7th/HH ruleset as narrative, and the new paradigm as matched. Done.

I guess I'm confused as to the how. How is HH or why would we, consider HH a "role playing" format ? I don't get that at all. My group plays it as a wargame. I don't grok where the role playing comes in.
Please elaborate.

Personally, I would like to see the narrative side of the rules move more to a "DnD" style rule set. Most people do not play tabletop RPGs to "Win" but rather to design an interesting scenario that will be fun to play out.

For narrative games, completely move away from points or power level being balanced entirely. Use it as a way to suggest balance for an encounter, but it is not a hard and fast limit. Encourage players to design lists in tandem with your opponent and scenario that would make for an interesting game.

Rather than have set missions and set rewards for winning, have rules for designing your own missions or even chains of missions to create a campaign. Have suggestions for designing missions with more than 2 players that are not just divide into teams and fight. For example, one player has a huge swarm of Tyranids, while 3-4 players with a handful of marines try to fight their way through to an evac point and survive.

At most stores I have played at, there is usually a crew of people who want to play 40k like chess and some who want to play it like DnD. Some people will only play 1v1 2k matched play games. The other crew will say "hey we got 5 players here today, lets put 1 objective in the middle of the table, everyone gets like 500 points of whatever and all fight over it".

40k has always been in that weird in-between place where the competitive rules need to cater to all the fluff and flavor while the narrative rules also need to have balance.

Let the competitive/matched play rules get stripped back and lose flavor for the sake of balance.

Let the narrative rules have flavor and story without needing to worry about balance.

I think that most of this discussion has been about this dichotomy. The matched play rules are bloated with stratagems and wargear that only really serve narrative functions. The narrative side of the game is hampered by the rules being made somewhat for competitive balance.

This split already exists, nothing stops you from designing lists in tandem with your opponent with 'unbalanced' sides.
Nothing stops you from making narrative missions with different teams working together.

Open play and Matched play are already split.

Your split would accomplish nothing that is not already possible and would suffer the exact same thing that happens now, when 'strangers' meet at a club to play pick-up games they will gravitate to an easy set format that doesn't require discussion.
Your 'DnD' style rules were languish just as badly as the Open and Narrative rules do now.

The 'competitive' rules that are played everywhere are played for a very good reason. You can walk up to a complete stranger with a 40k army and say "2k points game?" and you can play with both sides knowing what the rules are without any further discussion.

You dont want to play like that, and that is fine. You want to talk and make interesting story driven games created by talking together to make something fun. That is fine, so go do it. Talk to people and have those games, the rules already allow you to do that.
The person telling you "No I only play 2k Nachmund games" is still going to turn you down after the rules are split.

 Ordana wrote:
This split already exists, nothing stops you from designing lists in tandem with your opponent with 'unbalanced' sides.
Nothing stops you from making narrative missions with different teams working together.

Open play and Matched play are already split.

Your split would accomplish nothing that is not already possible and would suffer the exact same thing that happens now, when 'strangers' meet at a club to play pick-up games they will gravitate to an easy set format that doesn't require discussion.
Your 'DnD' style rules were languish just as badly as the Open and Narrative rules do now.

The 'competitive' rules that are played everywhere are played for a very good reason. You can walk up to a complete stranger with a 40k army and say "2k points game?" and you can play with both sides knowing what the rules are without any further discussion.

You dont want to play like that, and that is fine. You want to talk and make interesting story driven games created by talking together to make something fun. That is fine, so go do it. Talk to people and have those games, the rules already allow you to do that.
The person telling you "No I only play 2k Nachmund games" is still going to turn you down after the rules are split.

I guess I mean that I would like to see GW design the rules more with this split in mind. When players complain about rules bloat, I feel that a lot of the bloat comes from rules that do not do a lot game play wise, but are important flavor wise.

eg. the discussion on grenades. Should the rules be bloated with another entire weapon type just for a situational weapon? Should grenades be a stratagem or wargear that costs points? or could the competitive side of the game not have grenades at all for simplicity and have optional rules for grenades for narrative games.

eg. the discussion on stratagems and how many there should be. Should every codex have a ton of situational stratagems so that famous old quotes or wargear have a place in the current game? (such as "power of the machine spirit" or "smoke launchers") or could the competitive side of the game only have a small number of specific strats and then more of the situational stratagems are moved to the narrative rules.

I agree that the split does already exists, and that most pick up games will always be played with the matched play rules as a default as that is a better way to play with strangers. I think that games workshop has basically ignored this split and has tried to make a single ruleset that works for both sides of it, rather than recognize that split and lean into it rather than fight it.

Well, I just spent about 3 hours typing out an essay on this topic. A topic that I have wanted to discuss for ages. But I hit the wrong button on mobile and lost it all. So long story short.

40k (IMHO) has been garbage since 4th edition came out. I hate pretty much everything about 40k at this point and don't think anything can be done except completely redesigning everything from the ground up. Company, game and lore.

 svendrex wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
This split already exists, nothing stops you from designing lists in tandem with your opponent with 'unbalanced' sides.
Nothing stops you from making narrative missions with different teams working together.

Open play and Matched play are already split.

Your split would accomplish nothing that is not already possible and would suffer the exact same thing that happens now, when 'strangers' meet at a club to play pick-up games they will gravitate to an easy set format that doesn't require discussion.
Your 'DnD' style rules were languish just as badly as the Open and Narrative rules do now.

The 'competitive' rules that are played everywhere are played for a very good reason. You can walk up to a complete stranger with a 40k army and say "2k points game?" and you can play with both sides knowing what the rules are without any further discussion.

You dont want to play like that, and that is fine. You want to talk and make interesting story driven games created by talking together to make something fun. That is fine, so go do it. Talk to people and have those games, the rules already allow you to do that.
The person telling you "No I only play 2k Nachmund games" is still going to turn you down after the rules are split.

I guess I mean that I would like to see GW design the rules more with this split in mind. When players complain about rules bloat, I feel that a lot of the bloat comes from rules that do not do a lot game play wise, but are important flavor wise.

eg. the discussion on grenades. Should the rules be bloated with another entire weapon type just for a situational weapon? Should grenades be a stratagem or wargear that costs points? or could the competitive side of the game not have grenades at all for simplicity and have optional rules for grenades for narrative games.

eg. the discussion on stratagems and how many there should be. Should every codex have a ton of situational stratagems so that famous old quotes or wargear have a place in the current game? (such as "power of the machine spirit" or "smoke launchers") or could the competitive side of the game only have a small number of specific strats and then more of the situational stratagems are moved to the narrative rules.

I agree that the split does already exists, and that most pick up games will always be played with the matched play rules as a default as that is a better way to play with strangers. I think that games workshop has basically ignored this split and has tried to make a single ruleset that works for both sides of it, rather than recognize that split and lean into it rather than fight it.

Ok yes GW could do more for non-matched play games then just putting out some crusade rules every codex. Bring out an open play supplement with fun scenario's, asynchronous battles and creative stratagems ect.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Grenades in melee feels so fething stupid IMO.

"Watch out boys, i'm gonna frag these dudes that we're fighting in hand to hand"

There was a mini-story of Ragnar Blackmane either thrusting a krak grenade or melta bomb into the throat of a Carnifrx or Hive Tyrant while fighting it in hand-to-hand combat. There is nothing wrong about using a magnetic grenade or bomb vs. a vehicle in close combat either.

There was also a rule in 2nd that allowed models using grenades/bombs vs. vehicles to move away a few inches to avoid the resulting explosion.

thats what melta bombs are for, throwing a nade in combat against infantry is dumb as feth

Pretty sure they weed out the melee grenade guys in training long before they get to use real grenades.

To be fair, if you are clad head to toe in power armor and are standing in a carpet of rippers, dropping a frag grenade at you feet has a low change of doing anything bad to you, and is going to clear out a large number of those pesky gribbles.

Uptonius wrote:
Company, game and lore.

They pretty much did all that once Roundtree came in.

 Ordana wrote:
Bring out an open play supplement with fun scenario's, asynchronous battles and creative stratagems ect.

You mean what Chapter Approved used to be before Tournament Edition 40k turned into something far more sterile and awful?

There are sooo many things I want to quote on this page of comments that it would take forever. So instead of doing that, I'll just address as much of the stuff as possible.

First: There are a lot of people who only play matched that assume a lot of the rules they use are "baked into to the game" or are "core rules."

In many cases, they aren't- rather they are clearly identified as Matched Play rules, and the most recent ones are actually "Nachmund Matched Play" rules. This includes Ro3, mono-subfactions, the air cavalry ban and I'm sure there others besides.

Next: When talking about the "split" in game modalities, I agree that improving that split is possible, and something GW should consider... But it's important to think about who you are serving and how.

From what I've read online, MOST matched players seem to want strats severely curtailed; most would also like a far more flexible set of load-out options because they far prefer customization via weapons with associated points costs than customization via layered rules like stacking traits, strats, auras and purity rules. Some matched players want it to go further than that: there are folks who want to do away with subfaction rules to varying degrees, but I think if you curtailed strats and gave them old style equipment customization, most would be really, really happy, and some of the other things which bother them would matter less in a world where the biggest problems were dealt with.

With narrative play, it's a bit more complex to satisfy people because most of us want the customizable equipment, and just because we're narrative, it doesn't always mean we love strats either... Though we do tend to like sub-faction content. I think the thing about narrative players is that we're less likely to feel the need to know exactly how all the strats of every conceivable enemy work so we can win MOAR, which likely makes a lot of us more tolerant of strats, even if they aren't our favourite mechanic.

In terms of some of the suggestion for improving narrative play, I think a big book of How To Campaign has a lot of potential. How to design asymmetrical, themed, linked missions; rules for generating theatres of war; maps to figure out where in the galaxy factions and subfactions are located for those who like to keep it cannon, and of course different campaign systems. The key here is that a lot of us already know how to do all that stuff, so they have to be careful to give us enough crunch to be useful, but not too much because it's yet another layer.

Crusade is a great system, but I think it's important to point out that there should be narrative content that can be used with or without the progression system- and some of the stuff mentioned as material for the Big Book of Campaign Mojo would fit that bill, so they should write it in such a way that everything in it CAN work with Crusade, but none of it NEEDS Crusade... while all of it is 100% narrative.

Now about Crusade specifically: the recent rules for Armies of Faith and the White Dwarf Torchbearer rules were phenomenal, and this is something that Crusade needs more of for non Imperial factions. Chaos and Eldar in particular are excellent candidates for these kind of hybrid faction/ sub-faction combos. To a lesser extent, Tau/Kroot, GSC/Guard, GSC/Nids could also get some of this; Crons and Orks have it rougher.

Finally, Open Play needs more love. A deck that could be combined with the existing Open War deck in various ways to spice it up a bit, or a mission pack where the missions interact with the deck(s). "Build Your Own..." type rules really fit open too- it could become the haven for kitbashers and scratch builders because it's philosophy is pretty much "Use it if you got it." This would be very different than the building we see in Crusade, which tends to be linked to the progression system.

I was going to write more... but this is enough for now- it's already a wall of text.

PenitentJake wrote:
In many cases, they aren't- rather they are clearly identified as Matched Play rules, and the most recent ones are actually "Nachmund Matched Play" rules. This includes Ro3, mono-subfactions, the air cavalry ban and I'm sure there others besides.

Which, at this stage, is a distinction without a difference.

The most common method of playing the game is pick up games, thus matched play is the default, therefore things like Rule of Three are the standard and default. We don't have to like it, but that is the way the game is played in most instances.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Grenades in melee feels so fething stupid IMO.

"Watch out boys, i'm gonna frag these dudes that we're fighting in hand to hand"

That's not how they were used. Frags were thrown on the way to CQB, which should be pretty intuitive.

And then you could plant melta, krak, and sometimes frag (4th) on vehicles (occasionally monsters) in CC.

I mean, I'm also down for some throwing rules too. Just sayin that the 3-6 paradigm also works. 7th bungled it by limiting CC attacks to just one per squad. Dummies.

A perfect 10th edition, to me, would be a another reboot.

Refocus games around smaller forces. Not skirmish scale, but maybe more 1000-1500 instead of the more commonplace 1750/1850/2000pt games. Reduce the scale focus, maybe don't worry so much about making Primarchs and entire factions of Superheavy walkers and leave that to rules systems that can more appropriately address that scale where I'm not also worrying about a single grot with their blaster too as an individual game piece.

Expand the statlines or take different approaches to things like T and W. If 90% of infantry in the game are T3/4, and there's almost nothing T1/2, maybe we rethink that stat's purpose/existence/function.

Reduce unit counts, whiz-bang rules/wargear/etc (we don't need 40 different kinds of bolter), etc.

Drop the current Stratagem concept in its entirety. It's a dumpster fire and there's really not a lot to salvage there.


I miss being able to play 40k and carry all the current books in a backpack (including FW, and without snapping my spine or dropping 4 digits on books), and being able to memorize pretty much all the game/unit/faction rules. The single largest impediment to playing currently is dealing with a huge volume of rules and customized wargear, from a gazillion sources, at astronomical prices, with increasingly silly naming conventions. Too much stuff and complexity that doesn't really add any depth and reduces playability.