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So the idea of USRs coming back was to add to the simplicity and streamline the game (great). But then why does every single unit in the game have 1 or 2 named special rules, with many of them identical to other special rules in different armies, just with a different name.

For example, the Eldar Vypers, Storm Speeders Hammerstrikes, and Imperial Guard Hellhounds have identical special rules, but called ‘flush them out’ and ‘harrassment fire’ respectively. This would’ve been the perfect opportunity to have a rule with the same name, but no, that would make too much sense.

But then they do implement this with things like the ‘fire support’ rule on various transports. I don’t understand the inconsistency.

Because one of the design philosophies of the edition is that every unit has to have a unique special rule outside of the USRs but there is a limit of creativity and balance so they ended up doing this in the end.

 KingGarland wrote:
Because one of the design philosophies of the edition is that every unit has to have a unique special rule outside of the USRs but there is a limit of creativity and balance so they ended up doing this in the end.

Probably a combination of all three: Limited design space while trying to make Battle Line and/or iconic units more impressive with a bespoke that should have been a USR, their natural inclination to do half the job - they've had similar issues not fully utilizing the keyword system, and I'd guess a few were specifically left seperate in case they needed to change one rule on one unit, but not the one rule for every unit in order to give them SOME credit.

1- some of these rules vary sheet to sheet
2- units that would have only USRs as their rule ( Intercessors with 'Sticky Objectives' ) wouldn't look as appealing as other units
3- having too many USRs may not be the best way to launch a new edition that will be in flux and more can always be added later

 Daedalus81 wrote:
1- some of these rules vary sheet to sheet
2- units that would have only USRs as their rule ( Intercessors with 'Sticky Objectives' ) wouldn't look as appealing as other units

Only at first glance. Rules are rules no matter where they come from. The second look for people putting in the effort will prove out.

3- having too many USRs may not be the best way to launch a new edition that will be in flux and more can always be added later

Anything that's going to be a USR should be in the Core Rule Book even if they're not on the datasheets/models. That's most of what makes them USR's.

It's because, like pretty much everything else GW do with 40k, they've heard of this idea of USRs, but they don't really understand it.

There should be a threshold where if a rule is used more than X times it becomes a USR. I don't know what that threshold is, but there are definitely several rules that should get it. Stuff that automatically causes Battleshock, for example, or sticky objectives. I think this further reinforces the idea that the Indexes were written by people working in their own little silo and they never spoke to one another. It also suggests they didn't give themselves enough time to actually go through the datasheets once they'd been written.

Of the issue is that datasheets look empty without a special rule that isn't a universal one is an issue that has already been solved. Magic the Gathering has, for years now, printed the reminder text for basic abilities on cards that only have them. GW could easily have copy pasted the text for universal special rules onto datasheets that have the space for them. That just makes it easier to find the rules text and helps people learn them more quickly. But that would take looking outside their own ecosystem and that's not really something they ever seem to do.

The approach they have taken now is a recipe for situations where units get very similar special rules but where, according to the rules lawyers, there are slight differences that have a huge impact. Making such rules universal also makes it much easier to make modifications should that prove necessary because the named rule can just be called out and you don't have to list all the units.

I get that it can also be a balancing tool to be able to modify such rules only for specific units but that only creates a mess if they are small changes. For large changes, you just say that they lose rule X and gain rule Y.

Keywords also are something they could have put much more effort into implementing. They could for instance have used them to determine which characters can join which units in a far more elegant way than giving lists of units which will probably turn into a disaster when they inevitably release some new space marine units outside of a codex.

it is that easy, GW does not understand how to use those design ideas they read/hear about and just add them on top of whatever they think is cool
same with keywords, those are there because modern games have them, but they are not using them

 Daedalus81 wrote:

3- having too many USRs may not be the best way to launch a new edition that will be in flux and more can always be added later

so the solution is to have too many rules that are different in name only?

Slipspace wrote:
It's because, like pretty much everything else GW do with 40k, they've heard of this idea of USRs, but they don't really understand it.

There should be a threshold where if a rule is used more than X times it becomes a USR. I don't know what that threshold is, but there are definitely several rules that should get it. Stuff that automatically causes Battleshock, for example, or sticky objectives. I think this further reinforces the idea that the Indexes were written by people working in their own little silo and they never spoke to one another. It also suggests they didn't give themselves enough time to actually go through the datasheets once they'd been written.

They understand it, they just half-ass it. Even if they wanted to put in a minor deviation, doing something like:

Terminator Assault Squad:

Abilities:

Core:
Deepstrike

Faction: Oath of Moment

Bespoke:
Teleportarium Assault: Deepstrike - When Deepstriking this unit can land in engagement and counts as having charged this turn.

There's a way to make the Universals, and easily slap a modifier on it for some units.

The obvious reason that comes to mind is that, as usual, the core rules have been written by a haddock.

A quick glance at the USRs in 10th should tell you everything you need to know.
There are 30 abilities in total of which:
18 are weapon abilities (Assault, Sustained Hits etc.).
4 are deployment abilities (deep strike, scout, infiltrate, hover for some strange reason)
3 are non-weapon offensive (Fight First, Firing Deck, deadly demise)
2 are defensive abilities (FNP, Scout)
2 are character abilities (Leader, Lone Operative)

And that's it.

If you don't immediately see the problem, let me try to break it down for you. Imagine that you're writing the rules for units and are trying to stick to USRs:

- If you want to give the unit a defensive ability, your options are Stealth or FNP. If those don't fit, you're immediately creating a bespoke rule.
Why is there a USR that subtracts 1 from the hit roll of incoming attacks but no equivalent for the wound roll? Why is there no USR for Regeneration? Why is there no USR for reducing incoming damage by 1?

- It's a similar story with movement. Once models have deployed, there isn't a single USR that impacts movement. Again, why? Why isn't 'Charge after advancing' a USR? Why isn't 'reroll run and charge distances' a USR? What about the ability to fall back and still shoot/charge? We could even use the old name for it - Hit & Run. These were not uncommon abilities in 9th and all could easily have been turned into USRs.

These are just a few examples but the point is that the USRs are ridiculously constrained to the point that bespoke rules are basically guaranteed.

- Hell, for a final example, there are no USRs for Leaders beyond the core mechanic of deploying with a unit, despite this being a core selling point of 10th. Thus, we have dozens of leaders who all confer the exact same benefit to their unit (examples include Sustained Hits, use a stratagem for free 1/turn etc). Even if you don't want separate USRs for each possibility, you could literally just have a single USR to encompass the most common.

e.g. Exemplar [USR(s)] This model confers the named USR(s) to all models in the unit it's attached to.

But no, instead characters all have to have bespoke rules because no one in GW has even heard of a second draft.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
2- units that would have only USRs as their rule ( Intercessors with 'Sticky Objectives' ) wouldn't look as appealing as other units

Why?

Other systems can make units/cards look very appealing using nothing but USRs. For example, the mtg card Vampire Nighthawk has all of 3 words on it, all of them USRs. Despite this, it is an extremely appealing card and quite obviously so.

Why is it that GW cannot manage the same? Is it because some brainlet within the company decided that every unit needed to be on a massive card, with the USRs tucked away in a corner, so that if there is no rules text then all you have is a mass of white space?

 Daedalus81 wrote:
1- some of these rules vary sheet to sheet

Which has been a massive problem for GW over decades of rules: Rules that are all basically the same but with slight variations. They should have nipped this in the bud.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
2- units that would have only USRs as their rule ( Intercessors with 'Sticky Objectives' ) wouldn't look as appealing as other units

That's a daft reason not to use USRs.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
3- having too many USRs may not be the best way to launch a new edition that will be in flux and more can always be added later

It'd be a damn sight better than having 1000 unique rules across a 1000 data sheets.

I think the reason there are not as many USRs as are theoretically possible is cognitive load. There are only so many USRs you can keep in your head before you have to result to referring to the big, bad list of USRs to determine what your unit can do. Better to put the outliers directly on the datasheet since you will already have that in front of you while using the unit.

The question is how many USRs are too many and how often should a rule exist before it gets one of those important mentally available USR slots?

I have no idea on how many is too much except that it is somewhere between what we have now in 10th and what we had in 6th.

 KingGarland wrote:
Because one of the design philosophies of the edition is that every unit has to have a unique special rule outside of the USRs but there is a limit of creativity and balance so they ended up doing this in the end.

This is something GW tries to give every model all the time. It makes sense because a segment of the player base want models to feel "unique" beyond their appearance and "boring stats" so having named abilities is part of that. Even if this means that many of them have the same ability with a different name.


Basically you've a battle between the fluffy "I want unique names cause it makes them feel unique, powerful, interesting, cool" and the "just give the same thing the same generic name to be sensible and easy to learn"

Which in the end means that some editions one side wins more than the other. Both have their downsides, though many of us would argue that its far better to have lots of generic simple and easy to learn and use abilities and very few special ones; over GW's desire for every model to have "something special"

The more USRs there are the harder it is to remember what any of them do. That overload is why I was constantly flipping back to the glossary in 7th every time I selected a unit to act.

You know you can still write the USR on the unit card. The only difference is instead of "fancy random name per model" is it has the same name it has every time over.

MTG does this all the time. If there's room on the card the rule is printed in full; if not its just the rule name.

GW could easily adopt the same system with USR and modifiers to USR rules to cover the bulk of abilities in the game

If GW then didn´t change all their rules every 3 years it would just be a matter of time until you learned most of the USRs even if they were many more than there are now. Since you will have to relearn them completely (since even if they are almost the same there are still some differences between editions) every 3 years they have to keep the list of them much shorter. But that is on GW.

If there were 100 USR it would be too many to quickly learn fully but you would learn the most common ones and could just have a memory card for each army with the ones they use (doubt any 1 faction would use more than half) that aren't the super common ones like FNP, Deep Strike etc and after a few months or years you will remember almost all of them. Maybe not word for word but the gist of it and GW can still print them on the index cards with full rules so it isn't like you have to look it up in books. But they will be much more manageable and you can more accurately predict the behavior of the opposing army since there isn't an infinite amount of unique special rules going around.

Then the rules that aren't fit to be USR should at least have the same name if they are the same rules just on different models/armies so it will be much quicker and easier mental load to realise the 2 units have the same special rule and behave the same despite being in 2 different armies. Having to fully read an entire paragraph every time you face a model with the exact same rule as one you are currently fielding on your own because they have a different name is just a huge waste of time for everyone involved.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
The more USRs there are the harder it is to remember what any of them do. That overload is why I was constantly flipping back to the glossary in 7th every time I selected a unit to act.

But every single unit having 1 or 2 unique special rules is somehow easier for your memory…?

nemesis464 wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
The more USRs there are the harder it is to remember what any of them do. That overload is why I was constantly flipping back to the glossary in 7th every time I selected a unit to act.

But every single unit having 1 or 2 unique special rules is somehow easier for your memory…?

Exactly this. I got back into the hobby after a hiatus with 6th edition; referencing a couple of pages of USRs was far easier than the current situation. Nowadays it's necessary to basically look up every single unit in your opponent's Army at the start of every game just to see which exact version and wording of "It Will Not Die," "Objective Secured," "Pinning," "Fear," or "Rending" it has.

For those saying that all similar rules should be a keyword and pointing to MtG, maybe look a bit more closely:

https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/details.aspx?multiverseid=402101

https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=489212

https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=479593

Two have the same effect and one has almost the same effect, but because the effect isn't wide spread enough there isn't any need to make it a keyword. You should only keyword common effects, not effects that are on less than 1% of cards/datasheets.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
1- some of these rules vary sheet to sheet
2- units that would have only USRs as their rule ( Intercessors with 'Sticky Objectives' ) wouldn't look as appealing as other units
3- having too many USRs may not be the best way to launch a new edition that will be in flux and more can always be added later

Not sure about point #2. I see no reason why rules need to be "bespoke" to get excited about a particular unit. A solid stat line + appropriate USRs + good equipment options work just fine for me, personally.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Not sure about point #2. I see no reason why rules need to be "bespoke" to get excited about a particular unit. A solid stat line + appropriate USRs + good equipment options work just fine for me, personally.

Most casual players will be more inclined to look at a unit card with a lot of text and assume it does something interesting even if it really doesn't. In MtG we call cards like that a lot of text to do nothing and skilled players avoid those cards unless they find a niche use for them in a casual format, new players see a rare or uncommon with a bunch of text on it and get excited to try it. GW knows that some units are duds but would like newer and more casual players to get excited about them anyway so they made sure every unit, broken, good, bad, or unplayable all get something so players look through the book and feel better about the units they get to play with,

That's still not a good reason not to include more USRs, nor does it justify the frankly absurd notion that units without big blocks of text "wouldn't look as appealing as other units".

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Not sure about point #2. I see no reason why rules need to be "bespoke" to get excited about a particular unit. A solid stat line + appropriate USRs + good equipment options work just fine for me, personally.

GW knows that some units are duds but would like newer and more casual players to get excited about them anyway so they made sure every unit, broken, good, bad, or unplayable all get something so players look through the book and feel better about the units they get to play with,

GW also thinks a Havoc Squad should have 1 of each weapon because it's "flexible".

Why do we care what GW thinks?

 Canadian 5th wrote:
In MtG we call cards like that a lot of text to do nothing and skilled players avoid those cards unless they find a niche use for them in a casual format, new players see a rare or uncommon with a bunch of text on it and get excited to try it.

Uh, no. This is absolute BS and you're pulling it out of your ass to support a bad argument. This is not how the MtG community works. Casuals/new players are more likely to go "ooo dwagon!" rather than care about the text box.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
1- some of these rules vary sheet to sheet
2- units that would have only USRs as their rule ( Intercessors with 'Sticky Objectives' ) wouldn't look as appealing as other units
3- having too many USRs may not be the best way to launch a new edition that will be in flux and more can always be added later

Not sure about point #2. I see no reason why rules need to be "bespoke" to get excited about a particular unit. A solid stat line + appropriate USRs + good equipment options work just fine for me, personally.

I think Point #2 is more of a First Glance vs Deep Dive thing. At first glance, a unit with a bespoke rule stands out more than the one with a USR you can easily glance over - especially in the first release of a new system where you're not used to looking in specific places for those USRs. Its good at the beginning, but by the time we're a few months in people will be used to the newer system.

Hecaton wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
In MtG we call cards like that a lot of text to do nothing and skilled players avoid those cards unless they find a niche use for them in a casual format, new players see a rare or uncommon with a bunch of text on it and get excited to try it.

Uh, no. This is absolute BS and you're pulling it out of your ass to support a bad argument. This is not how the MtG community works. Casuals/new players are more likely to go "ooo dwagon!" rather than care about the text box.

Not in drafts they won't. They might over value splashy high cmc creatures but are more likely to get suckered in by a text box that looks like it does a lot but actually does nothing.

In constructed (Commander aside) I have no idea how new players on-board I have zero interest. In Commander they're probably going to start with a precon or a deck somebody else built for then and then have a more experienced player help them with upgrades.

I don't generally interact with that many new players outside of sealed events though and most friends I see getting into MtG are already into boardgames so my new player experience might not be representative.

Hecaton wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
In MtG we call cards like that a lot of text to do nothing and skilled players avoid those cards unless they find a niche use for them in a casual format, new players see a rare or uncommon with a bunch of text on it and get excited to try it.

Uh, no. This is absolute BS and you're pulling it out of your ass to support a bad argument. This is not how the MtG community works. Casuals/new players are more likely to go "ooo dwagon!" rather than care about the text box.

You are BOTH right and wrong as it depends on different casuals/new people

The point is more stuff on a model makes it look like it does interesting stuff yes, however at the same time if that interesting stuff is just different names over the same ability a dozen other models use then all the creator is doing is spreading confusion about the game and making it slower to learn.

Again you can use MTG. A card can have 5 abilities and if they are all standard abilities they can just use the standard key word. It can also have 2 abilities and still have them both as a standard, normal mechanics and just write them out with their full description if there is space.

Both of those cards would look "full" on the card itself, yet both are using standard game USRs.


GW avoids USR because they kind of have fluffy/casual people designing things which tends ot lean into "that sounds cool give it a fancy name instead of a boring USR" angle. Which likely DOES work for a segment of the buying population. That its also creating a problem for all of making the game more complex is a side effect.

Personally I think that GW doesn't like USRs due to their "fluff" perspective. They want to have flashy names for their units abilities but you can't give a Tau unit "Heckflame Surprise". They need to have "Beam me down". Both of which are identical in use to the Imperial rule "The Emperor sent me stat". Rather than give everyone "Deep Strike".

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Personally I think that GW doesn't like USRs due to their "fluff" perspective. They want to have flashy names for their units abilities but you can't give a Tau unit "Heckflame Surprise". They need to have "Beam me down". Both of which are identical in use to the Imperial rule "The Emperor sent me stat". Rather than give everyone "Deep Strike".

It would have been so simple to do both too -

Abilities
Terminator Assault: DEEPSTRIKE Many Space Marine Chapters employ an overwhelming alpha strike by sending the Terminator Squads of the first company down in a lightning assault from the Teleportarium to distract from the Thunderhawks landing the rest of the chapter to retake the world for the Imperium.

or alternately if they want to do USR with a mod:

Abilities:
Terminator Assault: DEEPSTRIKE Half(rounded up) of your Terminator Squads that deepstrike on the first tuyrn can Deepstrike during your movement phase, and still move as normally afterwards to represent a pre-battle insertion.

Both of them put some bling on the datasheet, use USR's and allow some quick and easy customization of a USR if they want it.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Not in drafts they won't. They might over value splashy high cmc creatures but are more likely to get suckered in by a text box that looks like it does a lot but actually does nothing.

Nope. BREAD is the first thing people learn about drafts. You're creating an argument with no basis in fact to support what you wish was true.

In other games people aren't impressed by flashy unit cards. They play either the units they thematically appreciate or what they think is gonna win on the table.