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Spinning off from the "How do you play 9th?" thread: It seems that a fairly substantial number of people answered "I don't play 9th". Well, considering that those people are participating in a 40k forum, it seems safe to assume that they have/have had a 40k army/armies. So, the question is: If you still have that 40k army/armies, and still use it, what ruleset do you use to play it with?

Please answer with every option that applies, and please feel free to explain why you chose that/those systems, and why you prefer them over 9th edition 40k.

konflikt-47.

If I can find a photo sharing site I like(IE not pay for) I'll continue the Scenarios from Germany Strikes!

Heavily houseruled system including core rules and unit stats.

Some "highlights" of the design philosophy:
- Alternate activation of units between players.
- Next to no re rolls and no stratagems.
- Extensive armouries for full customisation of your dudes.
- "Backwards compatibility" to every model released by GW in the past 22 years. So for example Chaos Lords with all the mobility options they ever had.
- Vehicles with armour facings and hull points exist in a rather good balance next to monstrous creatures.
- Rebalanced data sheets for all factions. Terminators and Land Raiders are properly tough and scary for their points.
- "Build your own subfraction" system for nearly all factions so people can build their army according to their own background. Think doctrine system for IG from 4th edition.
- Ongoing balance changes to units if something doesn't perform, performs too good or just doesn't feel right to the lore.
- No special rules are ever free. You pick the "Space Wolves" trait for your chapter, you pay for it.
- Added tactical dimension by restricting what a unit can do during it's activation by using a "command token" system where you have to assign a command to every unit before the battle round starts. So you can outplay your opponent by predicting what they will do to some degree.

Once I'm done with translation, I'll try to share a version of the game.

Hm my preferred option isn't listed. For the building and painting hobby, the rule set obviously doesn't matter that much. As I stopped playing 40k 8th edition and grew more and more disenchanted with 9th, I stopped building models with rules in mind. Now I try to keep things legal but don't care for performance anymore. In a lot of cases, I now own enough models that I can build whatever I want and supplement with other models to create legal squads.
On the gaming side, I am playing Five parsecs from home or Dropzone commander to get my fix on playing pretend general.

Seeing as HH isn't 40K but an option.

I play Total War: Warhammer 2. Once Immortal Empires drops next week for WH 3 I will play that as well.

9th doesn't hold a great deal of interest as I don't want to have to remember 150 rules for one unit (yes, that is a gross overstatement but is what it is)

For the moment its Rogue Trader and 3rd edition. The odd game in 9th. Looking forward to Xenos Rampant later in the year, and then hopefully 10th edition next summer.

Skirmish gaming is with Kill Team 2018 and Stargrave( Harlequin crew usually against Necrons ).

I play 4th sometimes. HH sometimes. And Star Wars Legion for just my generic sci-fi fix with good vehicle rules *and* a modern design (including armor facings and weapon fire arcs!). It's great fun as a tanker.

For 40k I'm playing through a Rogue Trader Narrative campaign with some friends, we started with 'Battle at the farm' from the RT rulebook, had a hard fought game defending the underway in 'skirmish on Rynns world, and the Fists are currently doing a few raids to disrupt the siege of new rynn city, with some Eldar raiders making a nuisance of themselves. lots of scratch building terrain, and trash bashing vehicles is involved, since we are using the RT book only.

Otherwise, I've been playing Firefight using 40k minis, Infinity to tickle my competitive itch, and Kings of War.

It's not listed, but Infinity gives me a good Warhammer feel whenever I need it, as I can play Military Orders whenever.

I play board games and WHFB 8th has recently been resurrected in my group. 40k was never my "primary" game (if I had a choice) so no longer playing it or buying stuff isn't a huge deal.

Not getting a fix due to the local community shifting away from what I liked (4-7th style of rules) to the modern version of 40k. Basically makes getting a game impossible as people who are active in the local community either hate 6th and 7th or are newer players and thus have zero clue what the heck the past generation of 40k was like. Eventually it became impossible to get a game and so the hobby was effectively taken away from me.

Its ironic that people hated the rules bloat of 7th for 9th to become an even worse case of rules bloat but the game has only a fraction of the mechanical depth that the older style of 40k had. Ugh.... its one of those things that is hard to move on from because I love the game it use to be but GW changed it into something I cannot find enjoyment with.

My 40k armies are currently on display in my glass cupboard, thats all they do.

But I do keep up with the changes to see if anything peaks my interest. Also i'm commiting to epic armageddon and havin' a blast with that.

 Vankraken wrote:
Not getting a fix due to the local community shifting away from what I liked (4-7th style of rules) to the modern version of 40k. Basically makes getting a game impossible as people who are active in the local community either hate 6th and 7th or are newer players and thus have zero clue what the heck the past generation of 40k was like. Eventually it became impossible to get a game and so the hobby was effectively taken away from me.

Its ironic that people hated the rules bloat of 7th for 9th to become an even worse case of rules bloat but the game has only a fraction of the mechanical depth that the older style of 40k had. Ugh.... its one of those things that is hard to move on from because I love the game it use to be but GW changed it into something I cannot find enjoyment with.

well if you're in the midwest and free sometime during feb 2023 lol, i have a chaos and a genestealer army both looking for a fight

i also dont understand the complaints of 7th when compared against latter 8th and now 9th. 7th was complicated no question there esp compared to 3rd (but i still like 7th very much, something satisfying about it). but 3 or 4 years of watching the 8th/9th batttle reports, still dont really understand what is happening. but i can figure out other game systems, like star wars legions, via battlereports though

oh, to OP, voted (house ruled) RT and Grimdark. Grimdark for larger games and RT for skirmishy. reasons being both are fun and not complicated.

really wanted to do 2nd with my students but turns out grimdark a better choice. hoping though to transition to 3rd or mantic firefight eventually

Wasn't 7th ed full of crazy special FoC, mind blowing eldar builds and armies that couldn't get +2 unmoded saves being practicaly unplayable?

Not saying that 8th or 9th is perfect, but they are nothing like the stories or videos I saw of prior editions. Eldar dude starts his army in the open facing backwards to his opponent, tyranid unloads with everything he has. Get tabled by turn 3.

Personally, RL is keeping me away form the hobby right now, with any time I do get going towards the Lord of the Rings game.

I have noticed that the 40k chat in my local club has been very quiet lately. Partly the summer holidays I'm sure, but I know a lot of guys have bought into HH 2.0 while some others have, like me, gone back to old flames like Warhammer fantasy or even Battletech.

You are missing an option for nowhere. My 40k models are sat in boxes while I use other company's models to play other company's games because I don't consider current 40k worth my time.

Kill team

ProHammer (see link in sig), which provides a unified ruleset compatible across 3rd-7th edition codexes. Our group continues to play and use ProHammer, and has no real interest to move on from it. We'll probably need to take a stab at converting the eventual new Squat codex to a 7th ed style codex.

The very, brief pitch for ProHammer is that it strives to find the sweet spot in rules that older editions failed to find (balance of shooting vs melee, survivability vs lethality, durability of vehicles, etc.). And it couples that with layering on a few new long-sought after improvements (reaction system, proper pinning/suppression/crossfire rules, old-school overwatch etc.). Overall, it reduces lethality across the board and puts more emphasis on position and maneuver and tactical decision making. Things like declared fire/charges, make decisions more weight and makes the game less of an optimization exercise to play.

In reading through the rules for HH2.0, I was really surprised to see many of the same ideas that ProHammer has had showing up in HH2.0. For example: HH2.0 incorporates a reaction system that works in many of the same ways as ProHammer (but ProHammer avoids the need to track reaction tokens since the reactions aren't as strong as full actions). The deepstrike rules in HH2.0 are almost exactly what ProHammer did, right down to having your opponent getting to reposition the unit if a mishap occurs. I doubt GW was looking at ProHammer, but it makes me think we were on the right track with our ideas.

My 40k collections is slowly moving to Kings of War (Daemons) and Warpath Firefight, specially custom or 3rd party armies (Raging Heroes Sisters of Mercy as Asterians)

Karol wrote:
Wasn't 7th ed full of crazy special FoC, mind blowing eldar builds and armies that couldn't get +2 unmoded saves being practicaly unplayable?

Not saying that 8th or 9th is perfect, but they are nothing like the stories or videos I saw of prior editions. Eldar dude starts his army in the open facing backwards to his opponent, tyranid unloads with everything he has. Get tabled by turn 3.

yeah i have read that too and don't doubt it, but i never played 7th in tournaments or with power gamers, just casual or fluffy games where not trying to win at any cost. 2nd edition (and first) have to be played in a similar attitude too otherwise break. i think 7th, whoever wrote it, were aiming to make a more rpg-like 41st millennium semi battle simulator more so than a game
(before the formation sales pitches went full force, which would have been fine had the formation rules been not OP)

sandor1988 wrote:
yeah i have read that too and don't doubt it, but i never played 7th in tournaments or with power gamers, just casual or fluffy games where not trying to win at any cost. 2nd edition (and first) have to be played in a similar attitude too otherwise break. i think 7th, whoever wrote it, were aiming to make a more rpg-like 41st millennium semi battle simulator more so than a game
(before the formation sales pitches went full force, which would have been fine had the formation rules been not OP)

Yes, agreed. I think, sadly, that 40k regardless of edition is at worst when playing in tournaments and/or with power gamers want to win at any cost. In short, the more "competitive" the game is played, the worse it is and the more the faults in the system are apparent. I respect that people want to play in tournaments and flex their skills, but the more the gameplay leans into that mode of thinking the worse the game is for everyone else - IMHO.

7th edition was fine - and the complexity concerns are completely overblown IMHO - especially relative to 9th. Sure, index era 8th edition was vastly simplified, but that's not really relevant today. Many of us are still using all the 7th ed codexes with ProHammer rules and it's perfectly fine. If you want a more casual game, just make a house rule to not allow formations and super-formations, just stick with the basic FoC.

We haven't yet even started playing 9th! Pandemic is still happening and some players from our group relocated for studies. Maybe we can finally start playing once 10th edition drops hehehe!

Kill Team is where it's at for me in temrs of games. Much prefer skirmish over modern 40K sized games anyway.

I Bought into HH 2.0 (Have the rules, my Liber and the models) but not sure I'll be playing it anytime soon. In it for the models mainly as I like to collect Rogue Trader influenced stuff like Spartan & Deimos pattern vehicles. No rush, I've got other hobbies and the rest of my life to keep the hours of the day spent. Could use twice the hours of the day to be honest!

Karol wrote:
Wasn't 7th ed full of crazy special FoC, mind blowing eldar builds and armies that couldn't get +2 unmoded saves being practicaly unplayable?

Not saying that 8th or 9th is perfect, but they are nothing like the stories or videos I saw of prior editions. Eldar dude starts his army in the open facing backwards to his opponent, tyranid unloads with everything he has. Get tabled by turn 3.

Yes, 7th had horrible balance problems and many factions could do some insane combos (rerolling 2+ saves for example). All the power creep and broken combos are what soured the edition (classic GW being terrible at rules writing) but if you set up a match with the intent to have a relatively fair matchup then the game was incredibly fun. It was a fun edition despite it's horrible game balance problems unlike now where the game is just not fun despite it's far better balance.

Playing 8th and 9th just felt like shuffling models around, doing the dice rolls, and removing models but it didn't feel like very compelling or interesting. Vehicles are just meat boxes, cover felt half baked, stratagems feel more like playing an instant in Magic the Gathering, the codex rules feel like layers of plastering while the core game is bare bones to the point that it has the mechanical depth that rivals playing Risk. Closest to fun I could get would be trying to make a mechanized Tau list to work but even then, I felt like I was fighting against the entire gameplay loop to find the fun bits. It's when you are playing an army with a lot of your favorite models and actually doing well but feeling nothing but boredom that it hits you that this game is just not fun to play. Repeat this process for weeks of boring game after boring game until you play a game of 7th again and the rush of fun comes flooding back.

For all the tedious things people disliked in the past, I found fun in such things as vehicle facings, closest casualties, blast weapons, cover, etc making positioning matter so much more. The unclear risk/reward assessment with things like deep striking in danger close or figuring out where to fire blast weapons at. Even stuff like chosing what to target even if the hotshot las guns my Scions have are useless against a vehicle I want my melta gun guys to blow up. Even the formations (for all the justified hatred they get) could be a ton of fun due to how fluffy they could be and some cool things they allow you to do. And I am not talking about the meta picks like Skyhammer but most of the other formations that rarely saw play because they weren't the OP junk.

Again, the fun potential was there in spades if both parties sitting down to play the game would agree to field lists that where closer to each other's relative power. Because frankly, it was a waste of both players time to see something like a tournament level Tau list go up against basically anything Dark Eldar could field.

I played 9th again today but I had to force myself to do it.

I think that this point I am just dropping the game for awhile. There is something about how shallow 9th is that just make the game a slog to play through. Every unit acts the same, there are no distinctions aside from wounds and toughness for how vehicles behave vs monsters vs infantry vs bikes.... Everything is so samey and stratagems range from useless to game breaking, making it hard to not run into a gotcha moment as every army has pages of unique stratagems.

I love having the special rules for each sub-faction. I like the idea of the super battle forged rules because it attempts to dissuade people from playing super friends but because they are so powerful it is a non-choice. There are some good things about 9th, most of which to me are how customizable your army is. I like being able to make my own sub-faction or use the lore existing ones that have unique rules. Stratagems, terrain rules, lack of role distinction, "center piece" model encouragement and so much more just drains the game as it is though.

I'm just spending my time and money on other games instead. I do WANT to like 40k but the current game state does not provide fun gameplay for me.

Lately I have been burning through my backlog and it feels really good. The time that I would have spent playing 9th is now extra time that I use to hobby.

Just recently I've moved into the Kill Team portion of the backlog. There is a bit of Kill Team in the area and I'm looking forward to giving it a try. The shorter duration is very appealing.

Epic Armageddon. Its a tactical game that relies on positioning and maneuver rather than army building and ccg mechanics!

 Sledgehammer wrote:
Epic Armageddon. Its a tactical game that relies on positioning and maneuver rather than army building and ccg mechanics!

Hell yeah! Stuff like transports, flyers and super heavies actually makes sense in that game

I stopped playing 9th quite some time ago. It wasn't a conscious decision but myself and all my friends just got very tired of the way the game was going, how complex everything was, the lethality, and the time it took to set the game up and all the bookkeeping involved.


We've been playing heresy since around the time of book 6 and we've only been focussing on it more as time has gone on. The feel of the game, simplicity to play, narrative focus and better atmosphere, aswell as the focus of modelling has made our go-to for the "40k" fix.

It is a shame because I really enjoy the 40k background and the models, but the game itself really isn't the immersive experience it used to be. I feel like it's gone more towards being a "magic the gathering with models" which is fine and I have no problem for people who like that.

I actually bought the new eldar codex when it came out as me and a mate were intending to play some crusade games, but after looking through the book just the sheer amount of overlapping rules and the "rules lawyer" wording of everything quickly turned us off it. And as there's also only so much time we can spends gaming, that time is getting spent on Horus heresy and lord of the rings

As an aside, and probably in contrast to many people here, I really enjoyed early 8th edition (pre imperial knights and marines v2) and pure indexhammer. Although it did suffer from the lack of depth that 9th does now, it was incredibly fast to get an army on the table and very simple to play.
You could get someone who hadnt played before into the game in about 10 minutes and the rules were concise and easy to pick up and follow. You could play 7th if you wanted immersion (obviously you'd need to be reasonable as the end of 7th was very open to some insane stuff like bike seer councils, necron decurions, and space marine battle companies) and 8th for quick play.

Now I don't even know how people manage to pick up 40k. I suppose children are better at learning fast so maybe that's it but as an adult who's been playing wargames for over 20 years I look at 9th and pity anyone who's trying to learn the game from scratch. Which is a great shame because warming is a great hobby and seeing someone new really get into it is so rewarding.

I am loving some houseruled 2nd at the moment. Once that gets stale, ill try some of these other options. Good thread!