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Take for example upgrade pistols for SM characters. Would it not be better to have a choice of say 3 profiles covering the major uses, then attach whatever names to them? Would fit better with the 'free upgrade' approach. Or is the shaving of 1 point, or choice of which sword to use something that you play the game for?

i'd love if we could get less profiles tbh, just consolidate all that bloat that doesnt matter.
Accursed weapons was a good start for CSM

we don't need 40 different variations of bolters too

I think there were discussions about that same topic just recently.
Usual potential for streamlining:
- CC power weapons like in 3rd-5th edition (sword/axe/maul the same; then claws, fist, chainfist, Hammer. I think combining Fist/Chainfist wouldn't be a problem with 40K's current scale)
- the multitude of Primaris Bolt weapons should be severely reduced

Becides those it gets tricky I think. Of course you can make categories like antitank, antiswarm, antielite infantry but within these you have different ranges and sizes so in the end you'll have the same plasma/melta/flamer/lascannon we always had.
There's certainly potential to streamline post-8th edition useless addons like the bespoken power klaws on beast snaggas and Trike Boss; you can turn eliminator lasfusils or what they're called into lascannons, Bolt rifles are bolters, Hellblasters have plasma guns, Heavy Intercessors have heavy Bolters and so on. The more I think about it It's becoming obvious that this is mainly a Marines/ Primaris problem.

I see a lot of the WYSIWYG issues we have in this game and how there are dud weapons constantly brought up such as grenade launchers, but as above, there were categories instead of names, it might be less of an issue.

Imagine if guardsmen had one or two "special weapon" profiles and you modelled as you saw fit, for example.

I don't see the need for this level of simplification, but I do agree that the Primaris weapon line needs trimming down.

I'd rather simplify a little (in line with what Sgt. Cortez said) then shrink the game size back down to how big games were around 4th edition to make those distinctions meaningful again.

Probably not going to happen though.

The bigger the game gets, the more profiles need to be abstracted into combined classes.

There is a lot of bloat that needs to be cut. Marine bolters being the prime example. I was fine with power weapons being lumped together before, and would not mater if it happened again.

On the scale that 40k is at these days is it worth differentiating between a grav or plasma pistol? Or just lump them together as “heavy energy pistol” or something similar and stick a single stat line on it. I think we are at that point. Places like KT still exist for that level of granularity.

 Valkyrie wrote:
I don't see the need for this level of simplification, but I do agree that the Primaris weapon line needs trimming down.

Its interesting for me - because most other wargames don't have it to this level. It is really a 'feature' of 40k, but I wonder how essential a feature it is. It is rare outside of a few models that we actually care, with mass in general being better than marginal upgrades (with of course the odd exception). I know chatting to designers in the past it wasn't something that was going anywhere, with the complicated nature of list building (not complexity, but complication) being a feature to involve people who might actually play very few games in their time with the systems before abandoning for other things. On that basis there is little incentive to ever reduce the bloat of say Primaris bolters, because why bother? All those (often false) choices do seem to build a level of involvement in players that most wargames instead get from their gameplay. The whole build list and take advantage of it in game is quite different to most wargames that have far simpler list building constructs. But look at which is the most popular?

I think also a lot of players would object to weapons with different names on datasheets all getting the same stats. The whole idea of 'unique name, unique profile' is pretty closely held to.

I like diversity in weapons. Indeed each race being given more specific guns in 3rd is one of the few changes I did like.

Now does that mean we need the current level of diversity? Genuinely couldn’t say, as ever due to me not having been actively gaming for years now.

I think the way upgrades are presented can be a bit much (Heavy Intercessors with your 57 Varities of Heavy Bolter, all tied to which version of gun the squad carries, I’m looking at you, pal) but that’s about the extent of my singularly uninformed opinion will allow.

Yep, cut the bloat. 40k has way too many overlapping weapons with different rules and profiles that have very little impact from a strategic point of view. 40k gameplay should be about commanding your forces, not making spreadsheets of math optimization to figure out which weapon variant has 3% better performance.

Only a couple of things need sorting IMO:
- Strats that were special rules should be reintegrated.
- Certain units need to be merged, such as Intercessors and Assault Intercessors.
- Certain weapon profiles should be changed from full weapons to just different firing types. Bolt Rifles, for example, keep different firing options cos Assault Bolters are very funny with the double-shoot strategem.
- Genericise certain weapon profiles. Options such as Accursed Weapons are IMO, a good idea as long as it's implemented army-wide rather than on specific units.

I'm not sure how prevalent these issues are overall as I dropped out of 9th some time ago to play other games and haven't bought a Codex since GSC where I played one game and then stopped with 40k.

Consolidate weapons commonly used by troops.

Expand the wargear options available for leaders.

a_typical_hero wrote:
Consolidate weapons commonly used by troops.

Expand the wargear options available for leaders.

Why?

The leader options appear to me to be mostly redundant. You either save points or get the wargamer they will likely use. Lots of the options cost the same but have obvious winners. What do you get by having more options that are rarely taken?

a_typical_hero wrote:
Consolidate weapons commonly used by troops.

Expand the wargear options available for leaders.

In a way I agree.
I think the consolidation of Marine profiles is the best way to go (we really don't need Intercessors and Tacticals to be separate entries, just give Intercessors the Tactical Marine options). We also don't need as many power weapons (two profiles for something like bladed power weapons and heavy power weapons for axes/mauls would work fine). I also wouldn't necessarily care if Chainfist and Lightning Claw would go, as much as they are legacy weapons.

However, for leaders, there should be LESS equipment too. Outside how Relics work, there's no point for a Captain to choose a Power Weapon over a Relic Blade. Why shouldn't Relic Blade just encompass any Power Weapon a Captain would use in general?

Make Firstborn their own codex so I don't have to look at all the garbage Primaris bloat.

I wouldn't mind, but it would hamstring GW's attempts to portray Primaris equipment as superior.

Are relic blades described as being more deadly than power weapons in the fluff or does a model wielding a relic blade look deadlier than one with a power sword? Either of those would be a good reason to have a unique profile for the relic blade. How many people are regularly switching up weapons on their leader? Do you need to know the stats of every weapon in the game? Is that realistic without getting rid of 99% of weapon profiles in the game?

Calling a plasma pistol an energy pistol makes me cringe, it feels very generic and is my biggest gripe with 40k clones like Grimdark Future. I want the nostalgia of using terms that have been in use forever.

a_typical_hero wrote:
Consolidate weapons commonly used by troops.

Expand the wargear options available for leaders.

Agree with this.

Dont need a datasheet for every model either. Just have a Space Marine Captain (for example) sheet and a long list of options like they used to. Brings the yourdudes fun back into the game

If you want an option that needs to be converted and dont want to convert, proxy or tough I guess if your opponent is to highly strung for that.

 vict0988 wrote:
Are relic blades described as being more deadly than power weapons in the fluff or does a model wielding a relic blade look deadlier than one with a power sword? Either of those would be a good reason to have a unique profile for the relic blade. How many people are regularly switching up weapons on their leader? Do you need to know the stats of every weapon in the game? Is that realistic without getting rid of 99% of weapon profiles in the game?

Calling a plasma pistol an energy pistol makes me cringe, it feels very generic and is my biggest gripe with 40k clones like Grimdark Future. I want the nostalgia of using terms that have been in use forever.

I’m not a huge fan of genricsizing names, but it’s a way to deal with bloat. We need to cut down the endless options, most of which are trivial distinctions. But is it worth keeping stormbolters, combi-bolters, and twin-linked bolters on the charts if the are all using the same stats? (As an example)

I don’t think it’s worth tracking if the captain has a grav pistol vs. plasma pistol. More then a stock bolt pistol? Sure. Pay your 5 points for the upgraded sidearm. I’m going to model it as plasma, refer to it as plasma, but it might show up as “upgraded sidearm” on the list builder. And I’m OK with that if it lets us get the armory page back under control.

YMMV, and I get that this is a bigger issue for some.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Yep, cut the bloat. 40k has way too many overlapping weapons with different rules and profiles that have very little impact from a strategic point of view. 40k gameplay should be about commanding your forces, not making spreadsheets of math optimization to figure out which weapon variant has 3% better performance.

Well 40k isn't real battle scale but larger skimish. But even for that too many bolter profiles

Here I made this handy chart!

These are all the Primaris-only weapons:


The crazy thing is that's not even all the weapons they use, because they can also get power weapons, power fists, combi-weapons and the like. I wouldn't be surprised if Primaris themselves use more weapon profiles than any other faction even before you have Firstborn stuff in there.

There's some goofy things going on with Firstborn/Real/TrueMarines too. Why is there a separate profile for a Twin-Bolter and a Combi-Bolter AND a Storm Bolter? Why did they suddenly differentiate between a Missile Launcher and a Centurion Missile Launcher? The Techmarine now has a Plasma-Cutter, when before it counted as a Plasma Pistol (the difference is that one is Pistol and one is Assault, now. Seems unnecessary) There's also some one-off items that could be consolidated, like the Wrist-mounted Grenade Launcher (which belongs to a limited edition Terminator Captain, I think), while there's also an Astartes Grenade Launcher. Seems like you could slam those two together.

Part of this is GW making a bid to make units "unique" and individual, but it overcomplicates the game.

Heck I've seen in AoS battletomes where the same simple ability - eg a +1 save - gets called multiple different terms within the same army, even sometimes between different versions of the same model.

The result is a LOT of overhead of terminology that makes it a lot harder to learn and remember the game.



Of course on the flipside AoS is also going into the other extreme, where different weapons are almost becoming the same. Where a sword or a spear are basically identical in stats (actually I think spears have still held out with +1 inch of range). The problem there is that they've bascially over-compensated the other way to where weapons are almost if not actually identical.

There is a happy middle ground where units have different weapon options for different situations and where different units can have different slots and unique features; whilst at the same time maintaining a simpler core of values and properties.






The core of the problem, as I see it, is that GW aren't building a single game system with a single focus. They've sort of got a team and community input and a feeling that different teams and rules developers pull in different ways because there's no overarching control; and because every X number of years the main rules change up entirely and the whole system starts over again.

It would not surprise me if this is also why codex and battletomes became steadily harder to read. Going from where all weapons stats were on a units profile page to where they are not scatter shot through the document; requiring many more page flips to find all the information; which in turn makes varied weapons feel harder ot keep up with and makes people want a much simpler system.

GW could keep a complex weapon setup and a varied approach if they made the rules documents easier and quicker to reference

 Nevelon wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Are relic blades described as being more deadly than power weapons in the fluff or does a model wielding a relic blade look deadlier than one with a power sword? Either of those would be a good reason to have a unique profile for the relic blade. How many people are regularly switching up weapons on their leader? Do you need to know the stats of every weapon in the game? Is that realistic without getting rid of 99% of weapon profiles in the game?

Calling a plasma pistol an energy pistol makes me cringe, it feels very generic and is my biggest gripe with 40k clones like Grimdark Future. I want the nostalgia of using terms that have been in use forever.

I’m not a huge fan of genricsizing names, but it’s a way to deal with bloat. We need to cut down the endless options, most of which are trivial distinctions. But is it worth keeping stormbolters, combi-bolters, and twin-linked bolters on the charts if the are all using the same stats? (As an example)

I don’t think it’s worth tracking if the captain has a grav pistol vs. plasma pistol. More then a stock bolt pistol? Sure. Pay your 5 points for the upgraded sidearm. I’m going to model it as plasma, refer to it as plasma, but it might show up as “upgraded sidearm” on the list builder. And I’m OK with that if it lets us get the armory page back under control.

YMMV, and I get that this is a bigger issue for some.

If plasma and grav weapons are so similar to each other that there's no reason to have both, and just generalize them together, then the problem is that the game has become too "streamlined" to properly differentiate them from each other. They're different weapons, that function differently, and if the game had a stronger set of Core Rules, then those differences could be better represented.

 Nevelon wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Are relic blades described as being more deadly than power weapons in the fluff or does a model wielding a relic blade look deadlier than one with a power sword? Either of those would be a good reason to have a unique profile for the relic blade. How many people are regularly switching up weapons on their leader? Do you need to know the stats of every weapon in the game? Is that realistic without getting rid of 99% of weapon profiles in the game?

Calling a plasma pistol an energy pistol makes me cringe, it feels very generic and is my biggest gripe with 40k clones like Grimdark Future. I want the nostalgia of using terms that have been in use forever.

I’m not a huge fan of genricsizing names, but it’s a way to deal with bloat. We need to cut down the endless options, most of which are trivial distinctions. But is it worth keeping stormbolters, combi-bolters, and twin-linked bolters on the charts if the are all using the same stats? (As an example)

I don’t think it’s worth tracking if the captain has a grav pistol vs. plasma pistol. More then a stock bolt pistol? Sure. Pay your 5 points for the upgraded sidearm. I’m going to model it as plasma, refer to it as plasma, but it might show up as “upgraded sidearm” on the list builder. And I’m OK with that if it lets us get the armory page back under control.

YMMV, and I get that this is a bigger issue for some.

Does grav pistols existing hurts you or your opponents if you never use them? Let's say they're more points efficient, you can still continue to use your plasma even if a better alternative exists. The upside is that the gameplay will be better able to portray the fluff when it is necessary if you don't make cutting down on options a goal in its sake. If there is no model or fluff reason for rules to be different, let them be the same, but that is not the case when you're talking about a plasma pistol vs a grav pistol, the fluff for them is different enough to warrant different profiles. Whether you have 3 units of Intercessors, each with a different weapon option or 3 units of Tacticals each with a different heavy weapon or a unit each of Tyranid Warriors, Termagants and Hormagaunts is the same difference.

They only way it really hurts me is when I need to flip through the pages of charts to find the right rules, as illustrated by Insectum7’s post above.

When 40k was a smaller scale game, the exact make of the sarge’s sidearm had an impact on the game. But when we have knights and primarchs stomping around, do we need that level of detail?

To be fair, pistols would not be the first thing I would consolidate. There are worse offenders that would be on the block first. It is a minor gripe of mine back from when they reintroduced grav guns that they fill a very similar role mechanically as plasma.

I think Grav Pistols/Guns have a reason to exist outside of Plasma Pistols/Guns. They just sorta suck right now.

I'm also not a fan of genericizing terms. Punchy names make things spicy and more memorable.

Generic names less so, but crappy names make things even harder to remember. I'm looking at you Intercessors, Inceptors, Invictors, Suppressors, etc. . .


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Because it's fun I'll repost the weapons reference from the 4th ed Marine codex. #ILoveYou4thEd



To be totally fair, not every weapon is on that list. The Cyclone Missile Launcher and the Hurricane Bolter are missing. That might be it, though. . .

There should only be 6 bolt weapons. PERIOD!

There have been many patterns of bolt weapons through the ages, but all with the same profile and that's what all the Primaris should have been and need to become.

Boltgun (Rapid Fire)
Strom Bolter (Rapid Fire)
Bolt Pistol (Pictol)
Heavy Bolter (Heavy Weapon)
Boltrifle (HunTR - That's right, make this a standard weapon type.)
Bolt Carbine (Assault)

Done!

Off-shoots that are really just multiples of one type of bolt weapon don't really count towards this. Examples: A Hurricane Bolter is just 6 boltguns. A Combi-bolter is just a boltgun + something. Etc.

Please for the love of all things holy simplify the weapons. I kinda miss the day when even xenos had the same weapons as imperials. So if you wanted to explain the wargear you just said, yeah he's got a meltagun and the opponant knew exactly what he was dealing with. No surprises.

Then you had modifiers. Like Master crafted. Again, standardised but added a bit of variation or flair to what the weapon does. I know some peeps dislike USR but it does make things easier once you know them, like modifiers in a video game.

So you have a boltgun, an ork has an assault version, a dark eldar has a poison version, a tau has a, i dunno, far shot version. Boom 4 variations of the same gun, one profile but all feel a bit unique in the same way. 20 modifiers, 50 weapons and you have a large number of unique weapons to spread around without needing 75 boltgun profiles alone.

 oni wrote:
There should only be 6 bolt weapons. PERIOD!

There have been many patterns of bolt weapons through the ages, but all with the same profile and that's what all the Primaris should have been and need to become.

Boltgun (Rapid Fire)
Strom Bolter (Rapid Fire)
Bolt Pistol (Pictol)
Heavy Bolter (Heavy Weapon)
Boltrifle (HunTR - That's right, make this a standard weapon type.)
Bolt Carbine (Assault)

Let's cut this down even more. Bolt rifles are just bolters. Bolt carbines are storm bolters (which can go back to being assault weapons). You have the basic rifle, the "squad light machine gun" storm bolter, the pistol, and the heavy machine gun. Done. None of the other stuff has any reason to exist.

(And dear god let's not make HunTR™™™™™ a standard weapon type, it at least needs to be something suitably generic like all the existing types.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nevelon wrote:
But when we have knights and primarchs stomping around, do we need that level of detail?

Exactly. On the scale between grots and knights/primarchs/etc a grav gun and a plasma gun are the same weapon, they don't need separate rules. Same thing with all the different power weapons. A game at the scale of 40k doesn't need to worry about optimizing your exact +/- 5% advantage against specific targets, it's a superior melee weapon and they can all go in a generic power weapon category with a single stat line.

 Nevelon wrote:
On the scale that 40k is at these days is it worth differentiating between a grav or plasma pistol? Or just lump them together as “heavy energy pistol” or something similar and stick a single stat line on it. I think we are at that point. Places like KT still exist for that level of granularity.

Yes, it is very well worth it. Because when your squads have access to multiple weapon options, there is a chance that maybe one will be actualy worth taking . If GW split marine weapons in to small weapon, anti infantry, anti heavy infantry and anti tank weapons, and somehow the anti tank weapons end up bad in an edition when having anti tank is important, you get potentialy years of no updated. For melee weapons it becomes even worse, especialy for factions where the melee weapons are important. If the hammer, sword, twin swords, staff and halabard are all the same, then they would need some very powerful rule set to balance a faction. Same with marine faction. If your top unit for melee, has swords and GW gives swords bad rules, then as marine you are screwed, because you are the first codex and waiting for update can be a 1-2 year.

It also limits the options for different factions. Lets say an edition is all about fist weapons. Power weapons are bad for all marines, but not for BA who have +1 to wound and for them stuff like power axes being different is important.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aecus Decimus 808907 11493007 wrote:

Let's cut this down even more. Bolt rifles are just bolters. Bolt carbines are storm bolters (which can go back to being assault weapons). You have the basic rifle, the "squad light machine gun" storm bolter, the pistol, and the heavy machine gun. Done. None of the other stuff has any reason to exist.

(And dear god let's not make HunTR™™™™™ a standard weapon type, it at least needs to be something suitably generic like all the existing types.)

So something like a reaver will have the same fire power as a terminator who costs double the points? And the gap between something like GK strikes/interceptors and terminators would become even bigger.