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 alextroy wrote:
I don't think they will be missing army construction rules

Army selection is equally straightforward: pick a faction, a warlord, and the units you like (just no more than three of any one type*), and stay within your points limit. That’s it!

You no longer have to fit your army into a force organisation chart, or compromise on the army you really want. It’s a simple and liberating system, and opens the door to all kinds of fun, thematic or unusual armies.

These big changes to rules and armies mean that the current range of codexes are being retired. The rules in them don’t work with the new edition, but remember that the rules for all your units will be available free online at launch.

Note the * is that Battleline units will be up to 6 rather than 3 of one type.

What "type" are Termagants, based on what we've seen so far?

 Dysartes wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
I don't think they will be missing army construction rules

Army selection is equally straightforward: pick a faction, a warlord, and the units you like (just no more than three of any one type*), and stay within your points limit. That’s it!

You no longer have to fit your army into a force organisation chart, or compromise on the army you really want. It’s a simple and liberating system, and opens the door to all kinds of fun, thematic or unusual armies.

These big changes to rules and armies mean that the current range of codexes are being retired. The rules in them don’t work with the new edition, but remember that the rules for all your units will be available free online at launch.

Note the * is that Battleline units will be up to 6 rather than 3 of one type.

What "type" are Termagants, based on what we've seen so far?

unknown since its not information thats relayed on the datasheet. But its most probably gonna be battleline considering their historic role.

Pretty stoked that they are adopting more design choices from Age of Sigmar.

The one that really excites my play group is the reduced number of relics/traits etc. While at first glance this could seem like a reduction in choice, it really isn't. In AoS they reduced the number of relics/spells/traits/etc that you have access too, but they did so by cutting all the unused fluff ones and made every option in the book an actual useful choice.

Much rather have less options, but each option is viable, than a dozen options but only 30% of them are useable.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
Pretty stoked that they are adopting more design choices from Age of Sigmar.

The one that really excites my play group is the reduced number of relics/traits etc. While at first glance this could seem like a reduction in choice, it really isn't. In AoS they reduced the number of relics/spells/traits/etc that you have access too, but they did so by cutting all the unused fluff ones and made every option in the book an actual useful choice.

Much rather have less options, but each option is viable, than a dozen options but only 30% of them are useable.

ehh, theres still duds in AoS sadly.

But yeah, having the game closer to AoS will probably make it more enjoyable for me

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

...In a perfect world, i should be able to bring litterally any list and still feel like i can accomplish something in game...

I think this is an unreasonable ask of any game. I cannot recall any game (tabeltop or otherwise) that can meet this demand. Every game that has a competitive community devolves into meta tier lists. The only possible way to have a "balanced" game is if both players have access to the exact same resources. For 40k, if you also make objective scoring and casualty removal happen at the end of a battle round (after both players have moved/countered) then you could be closer to balance as well.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

ehh, theres still duds in AoS sadly.
But yeah, having the game closer to AoS will probably make it more enjoyable for me

Of course, but seeing them cull a lot of the fluff and keep the good ones while buffing a few others really has made AoS more enjoyable

 JohnnyHell wrote:
I mean, they’re value/9th detachment-fit boxes, retrofitted into a new game mode. The game mode may well work and be fun but the origins are very clear here.

It can be both, really. I imagine people will find that units will operate differently from the main game.

Anyway, it's another interesting experiment with a lot of glowy words from GW and there will be no shortage of people lining up to kick it in the nuts if it doesn't work.


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 VladimirHerzog wrote:
unknown since its not information thats relayed on the datasheet. But its most probably gonna be battleline considering their historic role.

My assumption is that battleline will be defined by the army so that stuff like Ravenwing might see bikes be battleline, which is why we don't see it on the termagant sheet. Just guessing though.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

...In a perfect world, i should be able to bring litterally any list and still feel like i can accomplish something in game...

I think this is an unreasonable ask of any game. I cannot recall any game (tabeltop or otherwise) that can meet this demand. Every game that has a competitive community devolves into meta tier lists.

Yeah, as i pointed out litterally after the part you quoted....

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

The only possible way to have a "balanced" game is if both players have access to the exact same resources. For 40k, if you also make objective scoring and casualty removal happen at the end of a battle round (after both players have moved/countered) then you could be closer to balance as well.

Bruh, theres more than 40k in the wargaming sphere, and many other games don't feel as unbalanced as 40k, which is really the only thing we're asking for. Not a perfect 50% winrate for everything, but being close enough to it while also having multiple possible builds with factions. 40k isnt chess, trying to force players to a single list isn't gonna get traction except as a cheap "test the hobby" entrpoint.

There is a new video up that explains more gameplay stuff:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/03/27/what-does-simplified-not-simple-mean-for-the-new-edition-of-warhammer-40000

Combat Patrol intrigues me. I like the idea of dipping my toes into other armies and playing small, quick games. That said, I can't shake this feeling that it's basically a re-wrapping and reintroduction of 7th ed. formations. You pick a formation box; I pick a formation box... let's play. That formations are more-or-less making a return, combined with the 7th ed. Unbound army creation and that stratagems are still a thing... all make it difficult to get excited.

Moving BS and WS to the weapon profile gives me hesitation also. They claim they're eliminating redundancy, but then introduce what will be the most redundantly printed thing ever. The BS and WS traits could be printed once on the unit stat line; instead, they've chosen to print it X number of times for each weapon option. With the reintroduction of USR's it makes even less sense. If you want a weapon to be -1 or more To Hit... the old USR was called Unwieldy. I cannot see the practicality or a benefit; it just screams incompetence. I sincerely hope that there's something about the new design that we aren't yet aware of that justifies this change.

I am also concerned about what the missions will look like since that smug PoS Mike Brandt is still in the picture.

I want to be excited, but for the first time ever (playing since 2nd ed.) I am having a difficult time getting excited for a new edition change.

News from the video:
more stratagems that allow you to do something in your opponent's turn.
Psychic phase no longer exists. Psychic powers are written on the psyker's datacard
no more buff stacking with relic strat warlord trait on a unit.

the last part i like the most.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
Pretty stoked that they are adopting more design choices from Age of Sigmar.

The one that really excites my play group is the reduced number of relics/traits etc. While at first glance this could seem like a reduction in choice, it really isn't. In AoS they reduced the number of relics/spells/traits/etc that you have access too, but they did so by cutting all the unused fluff ones and made every option in the book an actual useful choice.

Much rather have less options, but each option is viable, than a dozen options but only 30% of them are useable.

And in a competitive, stand alone pick-up game, that's certainly true.

But what I've been trying to get people to remember for three years or so is that this isn't the only way the game is played. The great thing about relics that a competitive player would never take is that you can use them as objectives in narrative battles so that an objective isn't just an abstract game mechanic, but an actual item.

In our campaign, territories need to be occupied by a detachment in order to be held, so there are a lot of characters- If I'm holding 5 terriotries, I've got five commanders- more than you'd be likely to have in 2k Matched game.

Some relics may not be powerful, but they fit a theme. In a non-competitive campaign that last a year or so, you get to indulge in all of that stuff.

PenitentJake wrote:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
Pretty stoked that they are adopting more design choices from Age of Sigmar.

The one that really excites my play group is the reduced number of relics/traits etc. While at first glance this could seem like a reduction in choice, it really isn't. In AoS they reduced the number of relics/spells/traits/etc that you have access too, but they did so by cutting all the unused fluff ones and made every option in the book an actual useful choice.

Much rather have less options, but each option is viable, than a dozen options but only 30% of them are useable.

And in a competitive, stand alone pick-up game, that's certainly true.

But what I've been trying to get people to remember for three years or so is that this isn't the only way the game is played. The great thing about relics that a competitive player would never take is that you can use them as objectives in narrative battles so that an objective isn't just an abstract game mechanic, but an actual item.

In our campaign, territories need to be occupied by a detachment in order to be held, so there are a lot of characters- If I'm holding 5 terriotries, I've got five commanders- more than you'd be likely to have in 2k Matched game.

Some relics may not be powerful, but they fit a theme. In a non-competitive campaign that last a year or so, you get to indulge in all of that stuff.

Crusade's complex rules were an impediment to narrative games, not an aid.

If you're already using a homebrew campaign system and aren't concerned with balance, you can pretty easily make up your own relics.

You don't need GW to spoonfeed you rules to have a narrative. Especially not at the detriment of casual and competitive play.

Watched the video. My hot take is...

1. We're returning to how older editions (3rd, 4th and 5th ed. era) handled psychers; where there is no pshychic phase and no psychic disciplines. Psychic powers are now unit 'actions' done at a specific point as described in the power. Also, the number of powers and the powers themselves are limited and specific to the unit.

2. Stratagems are still very much a thing and there will still be a lot of them. Not as much as 9th ed., probably more like 8th ed. There is the Core strats. (but more of them) + faction strats. (they said average quantity is 6 faction strats,). So, I surmise each faction will have access to a total of around 20 stratagems. Still far too many in my opinion.

3. We'll be returning to 5th ed. era army construction where your warlord will unlock certain things (e.g. more stratagems (yup, even more), army rules (yup, even more) and possibly what units count towards Battleline). So, we're not pairing down as hard as we're being led to believe.

some notes from the video:

been working on it for 2 years
community has said rules are in loads of diff places/hard to keep track of
"tried to focus on the datasheets, make those the one stop shop"
stratagems should be reactions or one-off cinematic things ("impactful")
"still has a lot of depth and decisions, but less decisions before the game"
"fewer big choices before the game" and "[those decisions] unlocks rules/stratagems"
"not flicking through 30 odd stratagems"
psychic powers on sheet (sounds kinda like command abilities in AOS?)
"cut down on downtime"
USRs specifically mention deeps strike, FNP
"common language for rules is important"
ON BLOAT: Studio has a clear process for adding rules, and mentions if they added detachments, it would replace something. Want to limit stuff on top of stuff
calls out "gotcha moments"
hyped combat patrol for both beginners and if you want to get a game done within an hour

Doesnt seem like its for me but wasnt expecting it to be, will continue enjoying older editions and other games. Am looking forward to the box set reveal and wether theyll do a big value box like at start of 9th

 oni wrote:
Watched the video. My hot take is...

3. We'll be returning to 5th ed. era army construction where your warlord will unlock certain things (e.g. more stratagems (yup, even more), army rules (yup, even more) and possibly what units count towards Battleline). So, we're not pairing down as hard as we're being led to believe.

they specifically said that those extra rules would be "instead" and not "in addition".

So there will be a specific ruleset for Ultramarine first company and Ultramarine second company, with each completely independent (that sentence is an example by me, not them)

 oni wrote:
Watched the video. My hot take is...

1. We're returning to how older editions (3rd, 4th and 5th ed. era) handled psychers; where there is no pshychic phase and no psychic disciplines. Psychic powers are now unit 'actions' done at a specific point as described in the power. Also, the number of powers and the powers themselves are limited and specific to the unit.

2. Stratagems are still very much a thing and there will still be a lot of them. Not as much as 9th ed., probably more like 8th ed. There is the Core strats. (but more of them) + faction strats. (they said average quantity is 6 faction strats,). So, I surmise each faction will have access to a total of around 20 stratagems. Still far too many in my opinion.

3. We'll be returning to 5th ed. era army construction where your warlord will unlock certain things (e.g. more stratagems (yup, even more), army rules (yup, even more) and possibly what units count towards Battleline). So, we're not pairing down as hard as we're being led to believe.

1. Yes

2. No? If there are 14 or so core strats, if all 23 factions(?) Have access to those same 14, it's hardly a huge mental load and they'll be generically applicable which is good.

3. The "yes more" is the only layer of rules and strats mentioned. You really want to misrepresent what they say to justify being angry here.

edit : got covered

 oni wrote:

Moving BS and WS to the weapon profile gives me hesitation also. They claim they're eliminating redundancy, but then introduce what will be the most redundantly printed thing ever. The BS and WS traits could be printed once on the unit stat line; instead, they've chosen to print it X number of times for each weapon option. With the reintroduction of USR's it makes even less sense. If you want a weapon to be -1 or more To Hit... the old USR was called Unwieldy. I cannot see the practicality or a benefit; it just screams incompetence. I sincerely hope that there's something about the new design that we aren't yet aware of that justifies this change.

Honestly, the mess that is the tyranid codex (particularly the twenty odd varieties of 'talons') justifies this change (same with the piles and piles of space marine bolters).

With the new system, they don't have to keep writing and adding and subtracting and rewriting weapons to brute force their way to an approximation of game design. They can just assign appropriate numbers that produce desired design outcomes.

Voss wrote:

 oni wrote:

Moving BS and WS to the weapon profile gives me hesitation also. They claim they're eliminating redundancy, but then introduce what will be the most redundantly printed thing ever. The BS and WS traits could be printed once on the unit stat line; instead, they've chosen to print it X number of times for each weapon option. With the reintroduction of USR's it makes even less sense. If you want a weapon to be -1 or more To Hit... the old USR was called Unwieldy. I cannot see the practicality or a benefit; it just screams incompetence. I sincerely hope that there's something about the new design that we aren't yet aware of that justifies this change.

Honestly, the mess that is the tyranid codex (particularly the twenty odd varieties of 'talons') justifies this change (same with the piles and piles of space marine bolters).

With the new system, they don't have to keep writing and adding and subtracting and rewriting weapons to brute force their way to an approximation of game design. They can just assign appropriate numbers that produce desired design outcomes.

The other angle being how things interact with modifiers, a USR giving you -1 to hit atm means that a bunch of other stuff of totally irrelevant.

 nordsturmking wrote:


Psychic phase no longer exists. Psychic powers are written on the psyker's datacard

Basically a lot like the universal Command Abilities in AoS. I really like that approach as it gives me agency how to react to my opponent to some extent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac wrote:

USRs specifically mention deeps strike, FNP

I imagine the USRs are going to be those who the community treated as a USR despite their varying names. That includes namely Deep Strike and FNP. I could imagine scout being on the list as well, but overall I imagine the USR list to be tiny.

PenitentJake wrote:

And in a competitive, stand alone pick-up game, that's certainly true.

But what I've been trying to get people to remember for three years or so is that this isn't the only way the game is played. The great thing about relics that a competitive player would never take is that you can use them as objectives in narrative battles so that an objective isn't just an abstract game mechanic, but an actual item.

In our campaign, territories need to be occupied by a detachment in order to be held, so there are a lot of characters- If I'm holding 5 terriotries, I've got five commanders- more than you'd be likely to have in 2k Matched game.

Some relics may not be powerful, but they fit a theme. In a non-competitive campaign that last a year or so, you get to indulge in all of that stuff.

Sounds like your play group is making up their own missions because the cookie cutter missions that GW offers do not fit within your play groups narrative tastes... what is stopping your group from also creating their own relics?

Voss wrote:

 oni wrote:

Moving BS and WS to the weapon profile gives me hesitation also. They claim they're eliminating redundancy, but then introduce what will be the most redundantly printed thing ever. The BS and WS traits could be printed once on the unit stat line; instead, they've chosen to print it X number of times for each weapon option. With the reintroduction of USR's it makes even less sense. If you want a weapon to be -1 or more To Hit... the old USR was called Unwieldy. I cannot see the practicality or a benefit; it just screams incompetence. I sincerely hope that there's something about the new design that we aren't yet aware of that justifies this change.

Honestly, the mess that is the tyranid codex (particularly the twenty odd varieties of 'talons') justifies this change (same with the piles and piles of space marine bolters).

With the new system, they don't have to keep writing and adding and subtracting and rewriting weapons to brute force their way to an approximation of game design. They can just assign appropriate numbers that produce desired design outcomes.

I do not see how these are relatable. The bolt guns and talons have no effect on unit BS or WS.

 oni wrote:

Voss wrote:

 oni wrote:

Moving BS and WS to the weapon profile gives me hesitation also. They claim they're eliminating redundancy, but then introduce what will be the most redundantly printed thing ever. The BS and WS traits could be printed once on the unit stat line; instead, they've chosen to print it X number of times for each weapon option. With the reintroduction of USR's it makes even less sense. If you want a weapon to be -1 or more To Hit... the old USR was called Unwieldy. I cannot see the practicality or a benefit; it just screams incompetence. I sincerely hope that there's something about the new design that we aren't yet aware of that justifies this change.

Honestly, the mess that is the tyranid codex (particularly the twenty odd varieties of 'talons') justifies this change (same with the piles and piles of space marine bolters).

With the new system, they don't have to keep writing and adding and subtracting and rewriting weapons to brute force their way to an approximation of game design. They can just assign appropriate numbers that produce desired design outcomes.

I do not see how these are relatable. The bolt guns and talons have no effect on unit BS or WS.

The talons do have lots of different varieties of re-rolls, number of attacks per profile, and raw stats. They've got special rules tied to them because the game doesn't have a clean way of making some weapons more accurate or striking more. Having special rules (including USRs) to represent those traits is a perfect example of how not to use special rules- they're essentially raw stat changes that only need special rules because of how the game is formatted, rather than because they actually do something special.

Putting the to-hit, strength, and attacks directly on the weapon profile does a couple of beneficial things. It allows those values to be tweaked independently, so options can be differentiated and balanced against one another without having to explicitly reference a core statline. It's also cleaner to simply read left-to-right and have all your relevant offensive characteristics on a single line, not having to bounce between the weapon stats, the model stats, and the weapon special rules to compute the final value.

It does mean that they can no longer make a single profile for a piece of wargear and make that available to all units that share that piece of wargear, but GW's been moving away from that model for a long time already. In old editions you had a short list of common wargear and then unit stats that made use of that wargear, in 8th/9th you had huge sprawling lists of wargear with seven different scything talons or eighty-six bolt weapons, and now everything will be bespoke to each unit but also readily available on the datasheet so you don't need to deal with the full list at all.

(Also FWIW I prefer the old model from a design standpoint- simple ranged weapon profiles, and melee weapons that just add abilities to your base melee profile- but I'll happily take this new approach over how 9th currently does it)

 oni wrote:

Voss wrote:

 oni wrote:

Moving BS and WS to the weapon profile gives me hesitation also. They claim they're eliminating redundancy, but then introduce what will be the most redundantly printed thing ever. The BS and WS traits could be printed once on the unit stat line; instead, they've chosen to print it X number of times for each weapon option. With the reintroduction of USR's it makes even less sense. If you want a weapon to be -1 or more To Hit... the old USR was called Unwieldy. I cannot see the practicality or a benefit; it just screams incompetence. I sincerely hope that there's something about the new design that we aren't yet aware of that justifies this change.

Honestly, the mess that is the tyranid codex (particularly the twenty odd varieties of 'talons') justifies this change (same with the piles and piles of space marine bolters).

With the new system, they don't have to keep writing and adding and subtracting and rewriting weapons to brute force their way to an approximation of game design. They can just assign appropriate numbers that produce desired design outcomes.

I do not see how these are relatable. The bolt guns and talons have no effect on unit BS or WS.

Consider each weapon as a package, rather than a group of unrelated stats. From a game design standpoint, it solves a lot of issues that GW has been struggling with (what's been mentioned already, but also +/- modifiers, bonus attacks for merely having the weapon, even if you don't use it, and all sorts of conditional stuff. Plus a lot of nitpicking with GW's terrible rules writing goes away, especially in the realm of stacking modifiers that defy mathematical principles. Don't know about you, but I don't miss the days of people arguing about whether S4 +1 x2 equals 9 or 10, depending on when the +1 happens).

As catbarf mentioned, there is a benefit to the old, original system, but you need a common list of weapons rather than the sprawling excesses of the last few editions.

Given the editions stated goals, I like it. This simplifies a lot of issues with rules writing, stacking bonuses (and player's selective reading) in a pretty broad stroke: these are the numbers, the end.
Now its going to be a problem if GW starts writing exceptions, but that's always true. At least they seem more aware of that this time.

Voss wrote:
Don't know about you, but I don't miss the days of people arguing about whether S4 +1 x2 equals 9 or 10, depending on when the +1 happens).

Or a weapon hitting at -1 but then it doesn't matter because the target has a 'hit at -1' ability anyways and modifiers don't stack etc etc.

Having weapon profiles bespoke for each unit rather than 'universal' is undoubtedly going to cause some of the same problems that bespoke abilities rather than USRs did ('wtf, why is this unit's bolter S5?'), but I think this is the best way to handle the giant mess of weapon profiles and, more importantly, will be cleaner in actual play. And at least any subtle differences in stats will be visible numbers and keywords, rather than subtleties of wording like 're-roll any' versus 're-roll misses'.

I don’t like they have removed WS/BS from the stat line as I think referencing them should be available for the game.
Even if they put the stat used on the weapon profile itself again if they really needed.
But I not really that optimistic anymore.

I like some of the stuff spoonfed to us. My main complaint about 9th edition was the abundance of army rules, subjaction rules, and how they interacted with warlord traits, relics and strategems. The current approach appears to be less cluttered. But I'm still afraid they may add all this right back in once the first few codices dropped ...

Apple fox wrote:
I don’t like they have removed WS/BS from the stat line as I think referencing them should be available for the game.
Even if they put the stat used on the weapon profile itself again if they really needed.
But I not really that optimistic anymore.

Why? What do you benefit from having a static profile that doesn't match the weapons on the card?