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I was listening to an established and popular podcast, yo dog, when one commentator suggested that, with recent changes to engagement ranges given certain terrain features, and with event organizers rejecting the rule, the era of treating GW rules and updates as gospel, the one and only best way to play, is over. In this case, the context was competitive, but I figure that the point holds for more casual settings, and more hobby centric settings too.

My question is how many here agree with the commentator’s assessment. Is the mood out there such that people are ready to make house or local are flexible rules arrangements or … something besides chasing the corporate meta?

There are always some GW rules that get rejected, in 7th it were the advanced Flyer rules that came quite at the end of the edition and served no purpose but making Flyers worse, 9th saw some matched play terrain expansion that I haven't heard about since which seems to have not been accepted, too.
It's a little arbitrary, though, as GW's "suggestion for minimum table size" seems to have been taken as "only playable standard table size" by many tournament organizers, for example.

The rule is being rejected because it's horribly broken and the issues it causes are much worse than the minor ones its trying to fix.

That specific constellation is the reason for the it being rejected, not a general change of the players' mindset.

I'm not sure if its widely accepted but our group doesn't use rules brought in because of tournaments (limits on flyers, ork buggies etc) or clear money grabs (old vehicles not transporting Primaris) everything else we use GW rules for what they are.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
There are always some GW rules that get rejected, in 7th it were the advanced Flyer rules that came quite at the end of the edition and served no purpose but making Flyers worse, 9th saw some matched play terrain expansion that I haven't heard about since which seems to have not been accepted, too.
It's a little arbitrary, though, as GW's "suggestion for minimum table size" seems to have been taken as "only playable standard table size" by many tournament organizers, for example.

Oh man i had forgotten all about those. They basically were like "Here you can play a game of aronatica while you also play a game of 40k!" And it was a hilarious collective of the entire community going Nah fam, im good.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Oh man i had forgotten all about those. They basically were like "Here you can play a game of aronatica while you also play a game of 40k!" And it was a hilarious collective of the entire community going Nah fam, im good.

Oh no, it was way worse than that. "Here, you can play a game of rock/paper/scissors where player agency is irrelevant (GW literally suggested rolling a die to decide your maneuver) and you RNG to determine what Narrative™ you Forge™". A game of Aeronautica Imperialis would have been way more fun.

 Jidmah wrote:
The rule is being rejected because it's horribly broken and the issues it causes are much worse than the minor ones its trying to fix.

That specific constellation is the reason for the it being rejected, not a general change of the players' mindset.

Well, that is not the way that the commentator seemed to understand the player mindset, but sure, this particular rule is a bad one, that is clear.

Even during this edition, we had one entire matched play publication being completely ignored by the Tournament organizers. Only a few of them recently started using the player placed terrain.

The problem is they throw darts at a board when they come up with new gak. Sometimes, it doesn't even tackle supposed problems either.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

It's a little arbitrary, though, as GW's "suggestion for minimum table size" seems to have been taken as "only playable standard table size" by many tournament organizers, for example.

Well that's easy. Cash. Itc etc weren't exactly shy about admitting they went behind it when they realized they can fit more players to same room for more profit.

 jeff white wrote:
My question is how many here agree with the commentator’s assessment. Is the mood out there such that people are ready to make house or local are flexible rules arrangements or … something besides chasing the corporate meta?

Over here Ars Bellica is the most popular tournament rule set, and it's always had a few house rules to try and fix the game a little bit - so ignoring/modifying some rules is nothing new.

That being said, the current update is a clusterfeth in itself, so we're ignoring some things outright, like having to pay for warlords WLT and the horrible issues of the Engagement Range change (assuming intent over wording). I also won't tell a NL dude to no longer play their Jump Pack characters just because GW decided to feth them over without lube (=legends).

It seems like they're a bit out of touch right now, generally speaking.

Sorry - what's this engagement range change, in broad terms?

 Dysartes wrote:
Sorry - what's this engagement range change, in broad terms?

Essentially it extends the engagement range to 2" when you can draw a line through obscuring area terrain (=ruins). The intent was most likely to prevent situations where you couldn't get into engagement range because a wall or something similar was in the way and the enemy unit was within <less than your base size> of that wall, which actually is a common tactic in competitive play.

However, what this did cause is that you can now charge someone and dip your toe into the ruin's base, fight them at 2", and then use the consolidate move to get off the terrain and prevent them from fighting back because they are no longer in engagement range.

IMO the pretty much replaced a "flamer can hit fliers" level issue with a "1+ armor makes me invincible" level issue.

In our group, most people didn't understand that change anyways, so it was super easy to drop.

https://www.goonhammer.com/ruleshammer-the-charge-phase/#Charging_Through_Walls

If you look at the 3 figures - GW are trying to solve the issues of figure 2. Because in rules, its a bit weird that you can charge through breachable walls - and fight through breachable walls - but if your opponent keeps back sufficiently far that you can't get into engagement range, but also leaves insufficient space that you can't place a model, then you can't. Its not an intended mechanic.

But their solution causes loads of presumably unintended interactions and is therefore considerably worse.

The answer is probably something like "use your imagination". If you make a successful charge roll (or heroic intervention etc) to get through the terrain and into engagement range, but can't place the model, mark up where you'd have got to, resolve the combat, then place the models as close as you are able to where they should be. If the defenders survive, place the charging unit on the other side of the wall, this represents them being pushed back. If the defenders are cleared sufficiently, it should now be possible to place attacking models on the other side of the wall.

The whole terrain system seems clumsy imho along with inadequacies in other areas, and GW seems to want to patchwork that ridiculousness in the same way, E.g. ‘granular’ invul saves. Then movement, I mean, after thirty five years, why is this sort of thing even a problem?

that is what happens when designer fight tooth and nail to keep any remnants of True LoS.
GW could just put that a rule that if a unit is in range to be charged but a wall blocks the placement of a model, then either assume the models are engaged or make the attacked models advance so that the succesful charging unit is in range. But GW did the classic X is the problem, in this case walls or terrain, so instead of fixing X, GW makes a change that changes Y, Q and Z.

 jeff white wrote:
The whole terrain system seems clumsy imho along with inadequacies in other areas, and GW seems to want to patchwork that ridiculousness in the same way, E.g. ‘granular’ invul saves. Then movement, I mean, after thirty five years, why is this sort of thing even a problem?

Because they didn't exactly improve their rules for 35 years, but tossed out the entire thing every few years and started from scratch. Completely ignoring feedback and living in an ivory tower also didn't exactly help the rules writers to hone their skills.
Essentially the 9th edition of 40k is a game that just had its 5th anniversary.

There is no much entice to write better rules, there is entice to write different use so people buy more stuff, when the game is growing and people are buying stuff.

The only time GW starts to really change an already existing system, is if sales drops, and the design guys start getting odd questions from the sales guys, who are getting unfun questions from the people who can lay off everyone. In such a situation everyone in the DT is going to be swift and full of ideas like a spring weasel, and constantly testing new stuff and doing design and fixs or changes that are suppose to convince people to buy more stuff.

Tyel wrote:
If you look at the 3 figures - GW are trying to solve the issues of figure 2. Because in rules, its a bit weird that you can charge through breachable walls - and fight through breachable walls - but if your opponent keeps back sufficiently far that you can't get into engagement range, but also leaves insufficient space that you can't place a model, then you can't. Its not an intended mechanic.

Why is it weird? In no other situation do I get to say "I have enough movement distance to get here but I can't place the model there" and pretend it's there. If I want to move to be on the other side of the wall to gain LOS for shooting purposes but my maximum movement distance puts the models halfway through the wall I don't get to move them to the other side and declare that good enough, they're stuck on the short side and don't get to make their full move. So why does melee get an exception?

TBH if you really hate the problem fix it by removing the breachable rule. It's a stupid rule that never should have existed in the first place and it causes more problems than it's worth.

Personally I just love that their terrain rules are fethed up enough that fighting in close quarters/dense terrain makes your arms and/or weapons longer and actually makes it easier to maneuver for an attack than fighting in an open field.

It fits in nicely with insane heavy cover rules that hamper defenders, but not attackers who just charged into the cover.


They've written better terrain systems than this. I have no idea what they were thinking (or how drunk the writers were when they wrote the semi-incoherent gibberish passing as rules).
That hills aren't terrain and buildings are units and can't be moved across (despite all the flat roof buildings that GW makes) just makes me wonder a lot.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Tyel wrote:
If you look at the 3 figures - GW are trying to solve the issues of figure 2. Because in rules, its a bit weird that you can charge through breachable walls - and fight through breachable walls - but if your opponent keeps back sufficiently far that you can't get into engagement range, but also leaves insufficient space that you can't place a model, then you can't. Its not an intended mechanic.

Why is it weird? In no other situation do I get to say "I have enough movement distance to get here but I can't place the model there" and pretend it's there. If I want to move to be on the other side of the wall to gain LOS for shooting purposes but my maximum movement distance puts the models halfway through the wall I don't get to move them to the other side and declare that good enough, they're stuck on the short side and don't get to make their full move. So why does melee get an exception?

TBH if you really hate the problem fix it by removing the breachable rule. It's a stupid rule that never should have existed in the first place and it causes more problems than it's worth.

Wobbly Models
It's right in the rules and seems to cover this.

 Blndmage wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Tyel wrote:
If you look at the 3 figures - GW are trying to solve the issues of figure 2. Because in rules, its a bit weird that you can charge through breachable walls - and fight through breachable walls - but if your opponent keeps back sufficiently far that you can't get into engagement range, but also leaves insufficient space that you can't place a model, then you can't. Its not an intended mechanic.

Why is it weird? In no other situation do I get to say "I have enough movement distance to get here but I can't place the model there" and pretend it's there. If I want to move to be on the other side of the wall to gain LOS for shooting purposes but my maximum movement distance puts the models halfway through the wall I don't get to move them to the other side and declare that good enough, they're stuck on the short side and don't get to make their full move. So why does melee get an exception?

TBH if you really hate the problem fix it by removing the breachable rule. It's a stupid rule that never should have existed in the first place and it causes more problems than it's worth.

Wobbly Models
It's right in the rules and seems to cover this.

wobbly covers the ground being to uneven for the model to stand, it does not cover "the model does no physically fit because there is a wall halfway through it"

This is the best most Gw rules fix ever because Blood for the Blood God!

More seriously -
I'm not really a fan myself. I don't know why they didn't go a different rout and say that the walls would just cancel the engagement range because the walls would prevent fighting, unless the terrain was breachable. GW gave 9th a lot of "flavorful" terrain rules that are very challenging to use at best. The then decided to use some further standardization for their Huge GT's but seemed to have abandoned any reasonable control over how that terrain format should work in favor of saying just run on through. Weird choice and it seems a bit lazy. But I do on some level think it was intentional. Khorne Bazerkers are in the shoot soon? I almost expect this terrain/engagement range stuff to get faq/retconned/fixed, in the next few months, after Khorne has made a splash.

 Blndmage wrote:
Wobbly Models
It's right in the rules and seems to cover this.

Nope. The wobbly model rule is for when you can place a model in a spot but you're concerned about knocking it over. It does not permit you to pretend a model is in a location where you can't actually put it. You can't "wobbly model" a model into the middle of a wall, floating at an arbitrary spot in mid-air, etc.

Actually, according to an article he wrote in White Dwarf, Jervis Johnson's intent with the AoS rules was that models CAN float in the air part way up terrain.
He was then baffled that people didn't understand this...

(Ref: 'Rules of Engagement' in January 2019 issue)

The 40k Core Rules specifically call out not being able to float when moving.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Actually, according to an article he wrote in White Dwarf, Jervis Johnson's intent with the AoS rules was that models CAN float in the air part way up terrain.
He was then baffled that people didn't understand this...

(Ref: 'Rules of Engagement' in January 2019 issue)

Well aos and 40k different rules and it's even specifically said you can float. Gets rid of impossible to attack top of ruin situatioN.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Actually, according to an article he wrote in White Dwarf, Jervis Johnson's intent with the AoS rules was that models CAN float in the air part way up terrain.
He was then baffled that people didn't understand this...

(Ref: 'Rules of Engagement' in January 2019 issue)

When a designers gets constatnly suprised by the players of his games, then there are some serious problems with his skills as a designer.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Tyel wrote:
If you look at the 3 figures - GW are trying to solve the issues of figure 2. Because in rules, its a bit weird that you can charge through breachable walls - and fight through breachable walls - but if your opponent keeps back sufficiently far that you can't get into engagement range, but also leaves insufficient space that you can't place a model, then you can't. Its not an intended mechanic.

Why is it weird? In no other situation do I get to say "I have enough movement distance to get here but I can't place the model there" and pretend it's there. If I want to move to be on the other side of the wall to gain LOS for shooting purposes but my maximum movement distance puts the models halfway through the wall I don't get to move them to the other side and declare that good enough, they're stuck on the short side and don't get to make their full move. So why does melee get an exception?

Probably because the rule is seen as being "gamey" by the designers and is a guaranteed way to prevent close combat with no real tactical manoeuvring on the part of the defender and it's all caused by a quirk of the interaction between the terrain rules and the engagement rules. It's just a really stupid interaction where, if the defenders were 1mm further back you could charge and if they were 1mm closer you could charge, but if they're in exactly the right place you're suddenly completely immune to close combat. It's different to the situation where terrain prevents a model moving due to its base size because that's a permanent feature of that terrain that isn't really changeable by either player.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

TBH if you really hate the problem fix it by removing the breachable rule. It's a stupid rule that never should have existed in the first place and it causes more problems than it's worth.

There are certainly a lot of ways GW could have fixed this problem properly, if they'd spent more than 10 minutes brainstorming a solution. In a wider context, I always thought Breachable was too liberally applied and wouldn't mind seeing it being used much less.

Slipspace wrote:
It's just a really stupid interaction where, if the defenders were 1mm further back you could charge and if they were 1mm closer you could charge, but if they're in exactly the right place you're suddenly completely immune to close combat.

How is this different from situations where +/- 1mm makes you completely immune to shooting? Or +/- 1mm is the difference between a movement path being blocked or not. Or a unit being 12.000000001" away completely immune to being charged no matter how many charge range buffs you have. You can call it "gaming the system" if you like but that's a huge part of 40k in general and I don't see how this one specific thing is any worse than the others, especially when the only reason it comes up at all is that "breachable" lets you magically teleport through solid walls without even slowing down.