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I'm hugely thankful there are fewer stratagems. The detachments thing is okay but they need to make an Imperial Agents one or an Imperial Navy one or something. The unit abilities are interesting a fair amount of the time. I haven't played the standard missions yet, only crusade.

Im always weirded out when someone says the 7th edition core rules were good.

They weren't.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
7ths core was/is really good. There were some mistakes that should have been corrected in 8th instead of a complete rework of the core.

Most of the gripes of 7th are bloat/power creep related, which has been the same gripes every edition since end of 5th...

I'd partly agree, but ultimately I think the issue with 7th edition was that every codex was fundamentally unbalanced in some way or another and the base rules created too much disparity. Even if you kept the core of 7th, it was pretty much necessary to reboot every single codex from the ground up, and the design philosophy behind those codices needed to change heavily.

That said, I'm glad Horus Heresy still exists for folks who like the rules.

Answering the question in the title: No. 8th edition did.

 amanita wrote:

But what I've noticed lately is that there seems to be a gradual general dampening of enthusiasm for the 40K game. There are certainly exceptions of course, but the most obvious thing to me is the infrequency of posts on this very forum.

Ita more of a case of people just don't post on internet forums much anymore. 'Forums' for the most part are a past trend, most of the chatter these days in on social media etc.

 amanita wrote:

Is this edition churn, oversaturation of product, a poor evaluation of Games Workshop's business practices or something else entirely?

Just the usual if you ask me. None of those thinhlgd are new issues. There's always corners of misery, frustration, fatigue and joy. People might walk away forever or just for a whike, take a break or play sonething else for a while. 40k will be there when they get back.

 amanita wrote:

On one hand the game overall appears to be very successful and GW is robust with profit. It just seems that something intrinsic over time has waned...punctuated by this last edition. Even though I no longer play the current rules and enjoy our version immensely, it would be a genuine shame to see 40K move inexorably toward its heat death. Is this premise simply incorrect? If not, what can be done to fix it?

I doubt it's correct. Just part of the 'doom cycle'.

Its nothing we've not seen before. People said this when kirby was in - 'the death spiral is imminent if gw doesn't change course'. Arguably they were not wrong - there was that one year where the only thing keeping their backside out of the fire was the runaway success of the betrayal at calth boxset. Then roundtree took the helm and gw turned a corner. Gw will in all likelihood still be a thing in 20 years with a game that is totally different from the modern game and unrecognisable from its origins. If things start to turn bad, out of no other reason than self interest, they will right themselves. That the game is different now to previous incarnations is a thing. Ira neither good nor bad, tastes simply change. game design is different to what it was 10 or 20 or more years ago too.

To me, the "soul" of 40K has alvays been its setting, lore and miniatures. So for me, the soul is still healthy.. As for the 40K game, it has never felt very satisfactory to me, my best memories of playing games in the 40K setting involve games such as Space Hulk, Epic, Advanced Space Crusade, and in more recent times, KillTeam. Still remains to be seen if the upcoming Legion Imperialis game will live up to its Epic roots..

I wish GW just stuck to making the models their priority, sold all their books for all the previous editions in addition to just the current one, and would let players decide how they want to have fun with their toy soldiers. It is obvious by now they haven't got a clue on how to make a 28mm game in the scale of 40K work, whereas they have a history of making decent games for smaller or much larger conficts just fine..

Active player from 3rd to 7th. Kept bying some codices over the editions (The line must be unbroken!) and finally returned in the end tail of 9th.

I don't recognise the game I returned to. At first I thought that it just was an effect of my personal life, ”growing up” (lol, NEVER!) with marriage and a kid. But opening up my army cases and bitz boxes gave me that same wonderful feeling of seeing really old friends. So the building and painting part of the hobby is the same as it always was.

But the game... I do not dare to say all to much about the general rules set as I have yet to play any 10th myself, but the indexes... just why. I really tried to do my best to like and “accept” what was given to me. Returning to my old gaming club. Kitbashing and building to make a new army “mine”, despite the limitations. Leaning towards the Imperial Agents to fill the gaps and “enjoy the possibilities” of the new edition. But GW gonna GW. The new edition have not been out half a year, and they have alredy rendered one unit unplayable with a points increase of 314% (Yes, really. 35 to 110).

From 2nd to 7th the ”feel” of the Imperial Guard remained more or less consistant. 8th seemed a bit weird to me and 9th threw it out the window. It is a static skeleton of its former self, just a big pile of individually cool things that somehow is supposed to be clobbered together to a functioning force. Lots of new gorgeous models, sure. But you are not allowed to do anything with them. The modelling part of the hobby is more or less thrown out of the window in my opininon.

10th have drained the soul from the current rules, not to mention the fluff... For those of you that like the new I can't do anything other than congratulate, but I still have all my old books and I'll just return to what I liked.

Uhhuh. You realize right that you can't say it was 314% increase without accounting that model size in unit about doubled?

Too cheap unit isn't just cost per model but cost per unit. Too cheap unit is problem even if stat's are all 1's and price per model high for stats.

Just look at ripper swarms(unit bound to get same nerf eventually). 20 pts for unit. Make every stat 1 and every list would still have 3 units

For me, the 10th ed core rules are good, and the new models continue to be (mostly) great. 10th could be great, but the "soul" issues I see are all focused entirely in areas where players should be able to make choices, but these get taken away for no merit worthy reason.

Weapons have been consolidated way too hard - players used to be able to tweak options to make specialist units, not anymore. No idea why this is meant to be a good thing.

OG units are removed from the game. Some (but not all) are put into Legends, which for no reason in particular continues to be "almost matched play legal".

Endless bait and switches from GW. Buy this model on MTO! buy this model on last chance to buy! Buy these models from Horus Heresy! Sike, no longer fully rules supported.

And the indices are a little boring TBH. Regardless of any moaning about the new format, there are so many missed opportunities. Why don't cool models like the necromunda squats have imperial agent style rules for Votan? Why is it that daemons can join chaos marines, but you don't do anything cool with it like let a juggerlord lead bloodcrushers? I'm not exactly advocating for a return of the wild west of 2nd ed rules, but we know that GW of old would have tried to sneak some rule of cool options in.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
For me absolutely. I have played this game off and on since 1997 and it has never felt as a lifeless as it has now.

I don't know whether it's them streamlining the rules to appeal to the competitive magic type players or them trying to poorly imitate warmachine or what but everything about this edition feels completely off as a war game. While it can be argued that 40K has not felt like a war game in years The point remains that they seem to be moving further and further away and into something that I can't even describe what it feels like

They don't reward tactics and strategy, there are weird advanced use cases of all the rules which you don't know unless you devote yourself to system mastery, which the average player is not going to know but the competitive player is going to, everything is more bloated than ever before with just the number of units and factions. The rules themselves are good but something about them just feel off and I don't know what it is.

It feels like it's in this nebulous place where it's trying to be unique but the only people who it's appealing to are the people that don't actually care about the game and only play it because it's popular.

Wait, you think 10th Edition appeals to Magic players?
As someone who has far too many Commander decks, hell no it doesn't.

At most they kind of WANT to appeal to that demographic. They just do a too bad job with it and forget that most TG wargamers are not in that demographic.

Space Marines are a key part of the soul of 40k.
Most Firstborn have been discontinued as of 10th, including the boxy Dreadnought (Even In Death, He Still Serves), and the Land Speeder, with the replacements being...questionable (The Storm Speeder in particular is a meme machine for Battle Brother Tinnitus).

So, there's that...

I don't think things are dying; they're just changing. People don't stick with things forever, by the nature of what we are as human beings. That said, change doesn't necessarily have to be good, at least in people's opinions.

tneva82 wrote:
Uhhuh. You realize right that you can't say it was 314% increase without accounting that model size in unit about doubled?

Too cheap unit isn't just cost per model but cost per unit. Too cheap unit is problem even if stat's are all 1's and price per model high for stats.

Just look at ripper swarms(unit bound to get same nerf eventually). 20 pts for unit. Make every stat 1 and every list would still have 3 units

The problem I'm having with that is that a unit could not be "legal" for more than a few months. No matter how you twist it, for me to play those same models I have to pay 110 instead of 35 points . Which makes it a non-choice.

Changes happen, but come on! Now I have to convert another 5 dudes because GW thought that their stagnant brickbuilding points system had to be even more rigid (Ooohhh only a 57% increase in points for 10!). But as I said, it wont be any 10th for me. Good for you who like it, but I still find it to be a mess that is not worth the few hours a week I can spend with this hobby.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Im always weirded out when someone says the 7th edition core rules were good.

They weren't.

I'm always weirded out when someone says the 7th edition core rules were bad.

They weren't.

Heresy shows 7th rules were fine and needed cleanup, and it was codex creep and overpowered formations/detachments that ruined it.

Still, something is missing from the current editions. Even just look at the miniatures. A lot of the old ones just had way more "life" than the new. Compare a space marine army around 5th or 6th edition to 8th/9th/10th. The old one carries a lot more appeal, both visually and in composition, and I can't fully explain why.

There's something about the game from 8th edition onward that makes it feel less like a real wargame, which it actually felt like from second to 7th (I'm not counting rogue trader of course because that was a completely different beast). But the game also doesn't feel like a rogue trader RPG with wargaming elements either.

Wayniac wrote:
Heresy shows 7th rules were fine and needed cleanup, and it was codex creep and overpowered formations/detachments that ruined it.

To be fair, the "cleanup" that Forgeworld did for Horus Heresy was actually fairly substantial.

And there were still issues with HH1, especially with regards to Psychic powers. When the majority of forces could get two Psykers max there were others that could do it out the wazoo and get a whole extra 10-20 minutes of game turn.

Word Bearers gave a rough start and then the Thousand Sons came along to really rub salt in the wound with Ruinstorm just adding to the pile.

Thousand Sons are still really good with Psykers in HH2 but they don't dominate every game they play anymore.

10th is 40k stripped of almost everything that made it a wargame, without anything added in to make it more like a wargame.

It’s now just a less intuitive, less balanced, and much less fun version of MTG. With the added caveat of being incredibly expensive and involved to play at a baseline.

A wargame is a realistic simulation of warfare. 40k has never been a wargame because it has never been a realistic simulation of the lore and much less realistic warfare.

Doubly true as the lore itself isn't what you can call a realistic. Or even consistent while at it.

It has always been a game that at its best has been able to trick its players into believing chainswords are realistic and viable weapons.

No. The soul was drained ages ago. I would say 5th edition.
10th is the best edition since 5th.
6th lasted a week and a half.
7th was a power gamers fetish.
8th no one remembers.
9th was the worst edition ever.
10th feels more like good ol' Warhammer again.

The slow death of 40k has been:
The removal of customization, the fleshing out of the lore, and the popularization of factions and units that don't belong in the table top game.

Uptonius wrote:
the fleshing out of the lore, and the popularization of factions and units that don't belong in the table top game.

Ok explain these last two to me.

The last one in particular feels like "how dare other people like stuff I don't like".

Unless we talk about objectively quantifiable things like sales data or market share, every point on a list like this is "how dare other people like stuff I don't like". And stating it is as much of a rebuttal as the original statement was undeniable proof of it.

 Tyran wrote:

Uptonius wrote:
the fleshing out of the lore, and the popularization of factions and units that don't belong in the table top game.

Ok explain these last two to me.

The last one in particular feels like "how dare other people like stuff I don't like".

Yeah, I would just ignore that for the sake of your sanity.

 Tyran wrote:

Uptonius wrote:
the fleshing out of the lore, and the popularization of factions and units that don't belong in the table top game.

Ok explain these last two to me.

The last one in particular feels like "how dare other people like stuff I don't like".

I would assume Flyers/Superheavies, neither of which really belonged in 40k as a company game, and ever since they were added it seemed to be the catalyst that started making 40k less of that and more a Frankenstein game.

Uptonius wrote:
No. The soul was drained ages ago. I would say 5th edition.
10th is the best edition since 5th.
6th lasted a week and a half.
7th was a power gamers fetish.
8th no one remembers.
9th was the worst edition ever.
10th feels more like good ol' Warhammer again.

The slow death of 40k has been:
The removal of customization, the fleshing out of the lore, and the popularization of factions and units that don't belong in the table top game.

You sound confused.
Please Explain:
So if the slow death of 40k is due to removal of customization, fleshing out of lore, popularizing of factions & units that you don't think belong on the table.....
How does it feel more like good ol' Warhammer again?

Wayniac wrote:
I would assume Flyers/Superheavies, neither of which really belonged in 40k as a company game, and ever since they were added it seemed to be the catalyst that started making 40k less of that and more a Frankenstein game.

While true, flyers were introduced in 5th with Vendettas, Stormravens and Necron croissants.

And to be honest by 5th the average game was already in the 1850-2000 range and at that size a superheavy isn't as ridiculous. I mean if you can fit a dozen tanks then you can fit a Knight.

Wayniac wrote:

Still, something is missing from the current editions. Even just look at the miniatures. A lot of the old ones just had way more "life" than the new. Compare a space marine army around 5th or 6th edition to 8th/9th/10th. The old one carries a lot more appeal, both visually and in composition, and I can't fully explain why.

It's the monopose, over-repeated CAD designs throughout the armies, belief the "GW way" is the only way to paint them (e.g. Marines must be edge highlighted, because someone said so...), the general tone on the internet that any GW model over ~8 years old is "trash" and desperately in need of an update (so won't be included in said armies) and a lack of incentive (or even knowledge) to convert. Every single army now just looks far too samey and homogenised. It's just boring to look at people's armies now that are mainly composed of modern GW plastics. Sure, they look good, but there's no life to them. Coupled with the internet's general obsession with "the meta" and where random army placed in some tournament in bumfeth nowhere, and you just get the same things repeated ad nauseum.

 Grimtuff wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

Still, something is missing from the current editions. Even just look at the miniatures. A lot of the old ones just had way more "life" than the new. Compare a space marine army around 5th or 6th edition to 8th/9th/10th. The old one carries a lot more appeal, both visually and in composition, and I can't fully explain why.

It's the monopose, over-repeated CAD designs throughout the armies, belief the "GW way" is the only way to paint them (e.g. Marines must be edge highlighted, because someone said so...), the general tone on the internet that any GW model over ~8 years old is "trash" and desperately in need of an update (so won't be included in said armies) and a lack of incentive (or even knowledge) to convert. Every single army now just looks far too samey and homogenised. It's just boring to look at people's armies now that are mainly composed of modern GW plastics. Sure, they look good, but there's no life to them. Coupled with the internet's general obsession with "the meta" and where random army placed in some tournament in bumfeth nowhere, and you just get the same things repeated ad nauseum.

Yeah, that sounds right. And the scale creep on models so that even relatively new but still old ones don't look right against brand new ones.

MkIII is a great example The new ones are only a couple years old, and yet they look completely out of place with the brand new ones coming out, to where it looks awkward having both types next to each other. It's ridiculous. There's no reason each new set has to be larger than the previous ones. On top of that, they just feel hollow. Like I have looked a old battle reports from 5th edition, and while the overall quality is definitely better now, they don't look nearly as good.

 Tyran wrote:

Uptonius wrote:
the fleshing out of the lore, and the popularization of factions and units that don't belong in the table top game.

Ok explain these last two to me.

The last one in particular feels like "how dare other people like stuff I don't like".

Factions: Gray Knights, Death Watch, individual chaos god factions, Knights, Chaos Knights, Harlequins and Votann.

Grey Knights and Deathwatch were better as single unit additions.
Chaos should not be organized and categorized.
Knights are for epic.
Harlequins and Squats were gone for a reason. They were a waste of time and resources that could have been put into better things... Like editing rules and play testing.

I didn't stutter.

I hate Grey Knights lore and that's too far for me.