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Tyran:
yeah its the 5th Edition Nid codex, I will take a look at the 4th ed one too.

Arschbombe:
Ah of course, I forgot about that, I just downloaded the "5th" edition book and you are right, its bleeding awful.

It also introduced the annoying tendency that no Tyranid creature was allowed to have T7+ or 2+ Sv and took away the ID protection from Synapse (which basically neutered Tyranid Warriors).

And it pretty much put all good options in the Elite slot.

 Formosa wrote:
s
The Bad:
Wound allocation rules are just bad and open to abuse.

That's a relatively easy fix - assign wounds in order of AP from 1 through -. That mostly prevents wound stacking.

Beyond that, 5th ed's wound allocation actually soft-discourages MSU builds, which is something GW has otherwise generally failed to do, by making it so that special weapons won't always be the last to die.

Then you're just left with the issues caused by Nobs and Paladins (which could have been prevented by not giving them such over the top weapon/wargear options).

Wyldhunt wrote:I feel like the modern hyper-verbose rules are, ironically, the result of them trying to be clearer. Like, the way most of the core rules are written in 10th seems like an attempt to avoid vague wording/unclear rules by spelling everything out in painful detail.

That's exactly what it is. But if you write rules in a way that is difficult to parse for the layman just to ensure no rules-lawyer edge cases, I don't think you can reasonably claim that you're writing a casual beer-and-pretzels set-up-your-dudes-and-smash-them-together sort of game.

The 'naturally' written rules of old- and then big FAQs to clarify things- is what casual games tend to look like. Just play the game and roll off if there's a dispute, then check the FAQ later.

Formosa wrote:so a little update regarding jumping to 5th due to my mate wanting to play it.

The good:

Lots of options for customisation
a clean set of rules as its all out and available
plenty of character, tone and artwork make this edition ooze theme.

The Bad:
Wound allocation rules are just bad and open to abuse.

balance is all over the place, the later codex's are very powerful while the early ones are usually bad, Chaos marines especially are pretty bad in 5th from what we are seeing.

redundant options, while plenty of options is good, too many is bad, some books just verge over to bad, for me the Tyranid codex hits the sweet spot for amount of options to redundant ones, even if the options are not as powerful as others.

Is it fun, absolutely, it seems to play better than 10th in terms of speed and flow but that is likely down to how familiar it is compared to things such as HH 1.0, there is also the added bonus that it will be easy to slot in newer units to 5th due to the USR system, we are going to add the new Necron and Tyranid units for our next game.

I suggest you try 5th Ed core rules using your choice of 3rd/3.5/4th Ed codices. You'll miss out on the stuff introduced in 5th, particularly for Tyranids (though you can probably backport it without too much trouble), but it greatly helps the balance and cheese.

Tyran wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

for me the Tyranid codex hits the sweet spot for amount of options to redundant ones, even if the options are not as powerful as others.

4th or 5th Tyranid codex? I have heard about people using the 4th one for their 5th ed games, it is rare to hear anyone praise the 5th one (because it sucked so much).

Indeed that is what our group does, 4th is superior in every way. same with chaos marines we use the 3.5 codex in our 5th ed games and it works fine. no chaos player will use any other dex for obvious reasons.

Arschbombe wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I remember enjoying games with the 5th edition one. Iirc, that was where they dropped some of the biomorph customization (weapons with strength based on the model strength, maybe bonded exoskeleton, etc.), but wasn't that also where they introduced the tervigon, hive guard, venomthropes. and maybe the mawloc/trygon? Of course, I mostly ran 'stealer spam at the time, so maybe I'm misremembering.

No, you're correct. The 5th edition book introduced the trygons, mawlocs, hive guard, mycetic spore pods, tervigons etc. It also nuked the carnifex to oblivion.

It was a cash grab because at that point every nid player had a ton of carnifexes and they wanted you to buy the new shiny, especially after they moved the trygon from a FW model to a plastic kit. it is super easy to shoehorn them in to the 4th ed dex rules.

A note on wound allocation, we just use the 4th ed rules instead-owning player applies wounds, wounded models must die first (for multi-wound units). fixes all the problems in that regard.

4th Edition 'Nids was Kelly. It was the era of Nidzilla.

5th was Cruddace, and the start of his reign of terror over 'Nids. It hasn't stopped since.

An anecdote on the drain.

2 big 40K guys came in today, one was getting rid of his space marines and ork armies, he is tired of 40K and is only keeping his night lords models because he like the way they look. the second guy had a huge blood angels and an ork army and he is also getting out because he hates 10th and where the game is going and is not motivated to stay in the game anymore.

 aphyon wrote:
[He] is only keeping his night lords models because he like the way they look.

Many would say that this was the true soul of 40K the whole time

aphyon wrote:An anecdote on the drain.

2 big 40K guys came in today, one was getting rid of his space marines and ork armies, he is tired of 40K and is only keeping his night lords models because he like the way they look. the second guy had a huge blood angels and an ork army and he is also getting out because he hates 10th and where the game is going and is not motivated to stay in the game anymore.

Did you try to get either of them to join your Oldhammer group? The latter individual definitely sounds like someone who might be interested.

Rihgu wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
[He] is only keeping his night lords models because he like the way they look.

Many would say that this was the true soul of 40K the whole time

Yes, indeed. The 8th Legion is definitely the "soul" of 40k.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

aphyon wrote:An anecdote on the drain.

2 big 40K guys came in today, one was getting rid of his space marines and ork armies, he is tired of 40K and is only keeping his night lords models because he like the way they look. the second guy had a huge blood angels and an ork army and he is also getting out because he hates 10th and where the game is going and is not motivated to stay in the game anymore.

Did you try to get either of them to join your Oldhammer group? The latter individual definitely sounds like someone who might be interested.

Rihgu wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
[He] is only keeping his night lords models because he like the way they look.

Many would say that this was the true soul of 40K the whole time

Yes, indeed. The 8th Legion is definitely the "soul" of 40k.

The first guy is a regular and he has played 5th with us, but i think he has hit 40K burnout, he still plays other stuff with us like battle tech. the second guy said he was going to come back and play 5th with us, but he is leaving the state in about 3 months so a short timer.

A friend, who was a big competitive player until 10th dropped, messaged me last night saying they felt burned out and were considering selling all their warhammer related stuff. Also stated that they no longer find the lore engaging and outside the HH books the fiction is subpar compared to the other scifi fiction hes been reading from other IPs.

chaos0xomega wrote:
A friend, who was a big competitive player until 10th dropped, messaged me last night saying they felt burned out and were considering selling all their warhammer related stuff. Also stated that they no longer find the lore engaging and outside the HH books the fiction is subpar compared to the other scifi fiction hes been reading from other IPs.

So my question is that "burned out" is something cropping up a lot and it's almost always tied with competitive play in this thread. Has the change and magnitude of the changes in 9th caused the burnout more than 10th itself? Because the ultra-rapid changes came in with 9th, which I'd wager people learned with less cognitive pressure/baggage than with 10th, it was easier to keep up with a "known" whereas 10th became a massive pile of "new unknowns" to learn on top of the rapid changes?

It feels like it's not 10th that's the problem so much as people hit 9th so hard and for so long that starting again feels too much, rather than the feel or rules even being the problem.

Dudeface wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
A friend, who was a big competitive player until 10th dropped, messaged me last night saying they felt burned out and were considering selling all their warhammer related stuff. Also stated that they no longer find the lore engaging and outside the HH books the fiction is subpar compared to the other scifi fiction hes been reading from other IPs.

So my question is that "burned out" is something cropping up a lot and it's almost always tied with competitive play in this thread. Has the change and magnitude of the changes in 9th caused the burnout more than 10th itself? Because the ultra-rapid changes came in with 9th, which I'd wager people learned with less cognitive pressure/baggage than with 10th, it was easier to keep up with a "known" whereas 10th became a massive pile of "new unknowns" to learn on top of the rapid changes?

It feels like it's not 10th that's the problem so much as people hit 9th so hard and for so long that starting again feels too much, rather than the feel or rules even being the problem.

That is certainly possible but I will say that the design of 10th looks to be quite flawed, dumbed down (but not quite to 8th index era dumb), and I suspect that some of the "soul" of the game is gone for people who liked what 9th was.

Coming from the perspective of someone who liked 7th despite the laundry list of balance issues in that era of 40k, the transition into 8th sapped the entire fun out of playing the game as it felt less like a tactical battle (lose of facings, individual model cover, cover saves in general, 80% of game mechanics, area of effect weapons, units falling back, etc) and more like playing a game of Risk. It wasn't because of everything being new but that the game just felt hollow and it didn't matter if it was winning or losing, the fun was just bland. Whenever I get the chance to play a game of 7th, I'm having a blast because the game checks the boxes for being something fun to play (even playing the objectively underpowered Orks).


While I found the tactical depth of 8th/9th to be terrible, there was still some amount of depth when it came to list building but now that aspect for the most part has been neglected. Perhaps the current edition of the game lost that aspect that many people found enjoyable and what it replaced it with is just bland.

Dudeface 811846 11609727 wrote:

So my question is that "burned out" is something cropping up a lot and it's almost always tied with competitive play in this thread. Has the change and magnitude of the changes in 9th caused the burnout more than 10th itself? Because the ultra-rapid changes came in with 9th, which I'd wager people learned with less cognitive pressure/baggage than with 10th, it was easier to keep up with a "known" whereas 10th became a massive pile of "new unknowns" to learn on top of the rapid changes?

It feels like it's not 10th that's the problem so much as people hit 9th so hard and for so long that starting again feels too much, rather than the feel or rules even being the problem.

When the main faction of a setting gets an index update, which gives people the false idea on what units to invest for this edition, and then the codex comes and invalidates that and the ways of playing get even more restrictive there is always going to be a huge drop off of players. If someone had a 9th-10th knight lists, then GW "adjusted" the armies more then they adjusted eldar, some of the players are not going to want to play. If someone likes playing their RW or WS biker lists, they can not do so anymore. And in general the number of players that played the game to have their classic marine stuff is huge. They don't have to be primaris haters, but not everyone wants to buy 6 primaris dreadnoughts and 2-3 lancers(somehow, considering they are sold out everywhere) just to have a playing chance.

Play styles for some armies has huge impact too. GK for example are the non engaging faction, and because of that it lives and dies on terrain placement and ends up with players having super long turns, because everything has to be checked and rechecked twice. The "non tournament" games are even worse then they were in 8th and 9th, because now some armies don't have those "tournament" builds they could use as a crutch when playing armies with better rule sets, but not optimised. Now some match ups are decided pre game. And the game didn't get less complicated for casual players, especialy if they play vs an army with an actual pro active rule set. Good luck explaining to someone who plays once or twice per week how effcient the Eldar Avatar teleporting around is going to be vs his army. It may not be as bad as playing Ad Mecha in 9th, but not by much.

Matched play 9th 100% burned me out, it shifted most of the skill to listbuilding and hoping your book had noninteractive secondaries. After a few months of it, i was already done and refused to play anything but tempest of war. Now with 10th, it is IMO, the best edition since i started playing 40k.

While it does have very major issues (points/wargear system mostly) once you're on the actual tabletop, the game feels very fun to play, it's faster than before and i feel like the mental load required is quite diminished.

 Vankraken wrote:

Coming from the perspective of someone who liked 7th despite the laundry list of balance issues in that era of 40k, the transition into 8th sapped the entire fun out of playing the game as it felt less like a tactical battle (lose of facings, individual model cover, cover saves in general, 80% of game mechanics, area of effect weapons, units falling back, etc) and more like playing a game of Risk. It wasn't because of everything being new but that the game just felt hollow and it didn't matter if it was winning or losing, the fun was just bland. Whenever I get the chance to play a game of 7th, I'm having a blast because the game checks the boxes for being something fun to play (even playing the objectively underpowered Orks).

Dakka would have you believe, "people that enjoyed 7th edition, or any edition with horrible balance, don't exists." Competitive mindsets are going to break any game they touch because their goal is to optimize win % and not to optimize fun %. I too really enjoyed my games of 7th edition, but I surrounded myself with players of like-minded individuals. We weren't trying to bring the most crunchy lists with the goal to win the best, instead we brought what we thought was cool or fun regardless of perceived "value" the unit would provide to a competitive player.

For all the decisions the rules team has made from 7th to 8th that I disagree with, the one that stands out the most was supporting the "three systems of play" nonsense.

Was talking with a few locals (not in my playgroup) and they have expressed that they wish people would play games for the sake of having fun, but the constant discussions of "this unit is trash" is really off-putting. When I suggested they run narrative events where winning isn't the primary goal, they all scoff that if the game isn't balanced then it isn't worth playing. The irony seems lost on these types since they won't play a game that they do not perceive as balanced, yet they aren't willing to admit that matched play is not balanced.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

Was talking with a few locals (not in my playgroup) and they have expressed that they wish people would play games for the sake of having fun, but the constant discussions of "this unit is trash" is really off-putting.

A unit being trash has a direct impact on the fun one person can have of a game tho. Let's say i'm a nurgle player that really likes the look of plaguebearers and i bring 60 of them, but all they can do is die and deal negligible damage, i'm not gonna have fun. Sure you don't need to only play the best units in a codex, but implying that competitive players ruined the game by declaring certain units are bad isn't really a good take IMO

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

Was talking with a few locals (not in my playgroup) and they have expressed that they wish people would play games for the sake of having fun, but the constant discussions of "this unit is trash" is really off-putting.

A unit being trash has a direct impact on the fun one person can have of a game tho. Let's say i'm a nurgle player that really likes the look of plaguebearers and i bring 60 of them, but all they can do is die and deal negligible damage, i'm not gonna have fun. Sure you don't need to only play the best units in a codex, but implying that competitive players ruined the game by declaring certain units are bad isn't really a good take IMO

Furthermore, while it's certainly not top tier, 60 plaguebearers is pretty good from a competitive player's mindset. You could win games pretty solidly just by standing in circles and deep striking in corners, without doing any damage and even taking a lot of casualties. I'm finding that standing in circles isn't the most engaging/fun gameplay, though, so even if I win by doing exactly that and having units that do it well, it doesn't feel like a good win.

Dudeface wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
A friend, who was a big competitive player until 10th dropped, messaged me last night saying they felt burned out and were considering selling all their warhammer related stuff. Also stated that they no longer find the lore engaging and outside the HH books the fiction is subpar compared to the other scifi fiction hes been reading from other IPs.

So my question is that "burned out" is something cropping up a lot and it's almost always tied with competitive play in this thread. Has the change and magnitude of the changes in 9th caused the burnout more than 10th itself? Because the ultra-rapid changes came in with 9th, which I'd wager people learned with less cognitive pressure/baggage than with 10th, it was easier to keep up with a "known" whereas 10th became a massive pile of "new unknowns" to learn on top of the rapid changes?

It feels like it's not 10th that's the problem so much as people hit 9th so hard and for so long that starting again feels too much, rather than the feel or rules even being the problem.

I think that's probably a good take. That's kind of what happened to me, I was a mid-tier competitive player through 5th, wasn't going to major tournaments but was doing well locally and managed to beat some of the guys who were considered top tier players when they came out to our events, etc. 6th released and on top of me not actually liking the rules all that much, it knocked me off my pedestal and I struggled to wrap my head around a lot of the changes and just... burned out. I was already exhausted by competitive play in 5th - it was the kind of thing where I'd play a 3 round tournament on a Saturday and I wouldn't want to touch the game again for another couple weeks, probably a couple months by the time 5th was done, but 6th just did me in.

Anyway, yeah. I think there's an element of frustration probably at play, the cracks were showing for many of the guys I know who are falling out now during 9th. I think the magnitude of change to go from 9th to 10th is probably more mental load than they can handle at this point. The changes during 9th were small but frequent, a lot of them were having trouble keeping track of the latest by the end of the edition and jumbling up revisions as they played. That frustration probably built upon itself and 10th is just the final straw.

 Rihgu wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

Was talking with a few locals (not in my playgroup) and they have expressed that they wish people would play games for the sake of having fun, but the constant discussions of "this unit is trash" is really off-putting.

A unit being trash has a direct impact on the fun one person can have of a game tho. Let's say i'm a nurgle player that really likes the look of plaguebearers and i bring 60 of them, but all they can do is die and deal negligible damage, i'm not gonna have fun. Sure you don't need to only play the best units in a codex, but implying that competitive players ruined the game by declaring certain units are bad isn't really a good take IMO

Furthermore, while it's certainly not top tier, 60 plaguebearers is pretty good from a competitive player's mindset. You could win games pretty solidly just by standing in circles and deep striking in corners, without doing any damage and even taking a lot of casualties. I'm finding that standing in circles isn't the most engaging/fun gameplay, though, so even if I win by doing exactly that and having units that do it well, it doesn't feel like a good win.

Not really, 10 plaguebearer has a pretty damn huge footprint thats easily screenable, and you still need to be able to kill your opponent to win at 40k. And in a book where nurglings exist, t heres no reason to run plaguebearers for a comp player

chaos0xomega wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
A friend, who was a big competitive player until 10th dropped, messaged me last night saying they felt burned out and were considering selling all their warhammer related stuff. Also stated that they no longer find the lore engaging and outside the HH books the fiction is subpar compared to the other scifi fiction hes been reading from other IPs.

So my question is that "burned out" is something cropping up a lot and it's almost always tied with competitive play in this thread. Has the change and magnitude of the changes in 9th caused the burnout more than 10th itself? Because the ultra-rapid changes came in with 9th, which I'd wager people learned with less cognitive pressure/baggage than with 10th, it was easier to keep up with a "known" whereas 10th became a massive pile of "new unknowns" to learn on top of the rapid changes?

It feels like it's not 10th that's the problem so much as people hit 9th so hard and for so long that starting again feels too much, rather than the feel or rules even being the problem.

I think that's probably a good take. That's kind of what happened to me, I was a mid-tier competitive player through 5th, wasn't going to major tournaments but was doing well locally and managed to beat some of the guys who were considered top tier players when they came out to our events, etc. 6th released and on top of me not actually liking the rules all that much, it knocked me off my pedestal and I struggled to wrap my head around a lot of the changes and just... burned out. I was already exhausted by competitive play in 5th - it was the kind of thing where I'd play a 3 round tournament on a Saturday and I wouldn't want to touch the game again for another couple weeks, probably a couple months by the time 5th was done, but 6th just did me in.

Anyway, yeah. I think there's an element of frustration probably at play, the cracks were showing for many of the guys I know who are falling out now during 9th. I think the magnitude of change to go from 9th to 10th is probably more mental load than they can handle at this point. The changes during 9th were small but frequent, a lot of them were having trouble keeping track of the latest by the end of the edition and jumbling up revisions as they played. That frustration probably built upon itself and 10th is just the final straw.

There's probably some truth to that, although I've actually found 10th to be less mentally draining than 9th. In 9th, I had to juggle so many different subfaction rules plus keep dozens of strats in mind at a time, plus remembering what warlord traits and relics were in play, plus the missions functionally had 7 objectives floating around at once (the primary plus 3 secondaries per player).

10th didn't do away with any of those, but it did reduce them all a bit. Subfactions exist, but we're not doing the mix-and-match thing any more. Strats exist, but you only have to worry about a handful of them, plus they're tied to your detachment's theme; which I personally find makes it easier to remember vaguely what strats my opponent has. Enhancements are basically our new warlord traits/relics, and so far it seems like there's usually only one or two of them in a given game. The missions are still more complicated than in, say, 8th, but they are just a bit less busy.

All of which has, so far, made 10th a lot easier for me to enjoy. In 9th, I was constantly stressing out about whether I'd forgotten to do X or use strat Y or moved onto the correct object for mission Z. Lots of thinking about stuff on the cards rather than on the table. In 10th, I'm spending more time thinking about the models on the table. I find myself wondering whether I should fall back with Unit A so I can shoot with Unit B rather than wondering if I can use strat 1 to trigger ability 2 to use strat 3 to pull off secondary 4.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Matched play 9th 100% burned me out, it shifted most of the skill to listbuilding and hoping your book had noninteractive secondaries. After a few months of it, i was already done and refused to play anything but tempest of war. Now with 10th, it is IMO, the best edition since i started playing 40k.

While it does have very major issues (points/wargear system mostly) once you're on the actual tabletop, the game feels very fun to play, it's faster than before and i feel like the mental load required is quite diminished.

Maybe it is faction dependened then. Because GK , with psychic powers removed, streamlined weapons etc not just feel, but also take much longer turns, then in 9th. The math, especialy vs factions with free rapid ingress, or out of sequance movment, as a GK has an insane level of complexity and requiers full and in depth knowladge of the opposing army and all of its rules and rules interactions.

I do know a lot of csm and eldar players, who are extremly happy about 10th. The unhappy people mostly just left and no longer play w40k. OPR for some reason had a huge influnx of players, and I thought it would be dead.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
A friend, who was a big competitive player until 10th dropped, messaged me last night saying they felt burned out and were considering selling all their warhammer related stuff. Also stated that they no longer find the lore engaging and outside the HH books the fiction is subpar compared to the other scifi fiction hes been reading from other IPs.

So my question is that "burned out" is something cropping up a lot and it's almost always tied with competitive play in this thread. Has the change and magnitude of the changes in 9th caused the burnout more than 10th itself? Because the ultra-rapid changes came in with 9th, which I'd wager people learned with less cognitive pressure/baggage than with 10th, it was easier to keep up with a "known" whereas 10th became a massive pile of "new unknowns" to learn on top of the rapid changes?

It feels like it's not 10th that's the problem so much as people hit 9th so hard and for so long that starting again feels too much, rather than the feel or rules even being the problem.

I think that's probably a good take. That's kind of what happened to me, I was a mid-tier competitive player through 5th, wasn't going to major tournaments but was doing well locally and managed to beat some of the guys who were considered top tier players when they came out to our events, etc. 6th released and on top of me not actually liking the rules all that much, it knocked me off my pedestal and I struggled to wrap my head around a lot of the changes and just... burned out. I was already exhausted by competitive play in 5th - it was the kind of thing where I'd play a 3 round tournament on a Saturday and I wouldn't want to touch the game again for another couple weeks, probably a couple months by the time 5th was done, but 6th just did me in.

Anyway, yeah. I think there's an element of frustration probably at play, the cracks were showing for many of the guys I know who are falling out now during 9th. I think the magnitude of change to go from 9th to 10th is probably more mental load than they can handle at this point. The changes during 9th were small but frequent, a lot of them were having trouble keeping track of the latest by the end of the edition and jumbling up revisions as they played. That frustration probably built upon itself and 10th is just the final straw.

There's probably some truth to that, although I've actually found 10th to be less mentally draining than 9th. In 9th, I had to juggle so many different subfaction rules plus keep dozens of strats in mind at a time, plus remembering what warlord traits and relics were in play, plus the missions functionally had 7 objectives floating around at once (the primary plus 3 secondaries per player).

10th didn't do away with any of those, but it did reduce them all a bit. Subfactions exist, but we're not doing the mix-and-match thing any more. Strats exist, but you only have to worry about a handful of them, plus they're tied to your detachment's theme; which I personally find makes it easier to remember vaguely what strats my opponent has. Enhancements are basically our new warlord traits/relics, and so far it seems like there's usually only one or two of them in a given game. The missions are still more complicated than in, say, 8th, but they are just a bit less busy.

All of which has, so far, made 10th a lot easier for me to enjoy. In 9th, I was constantly stressing out about whether I'd forgotten to do X or use strat Y or moved onto the correct object for mission Z. Lots of thinking about stuff on the cards rather than on the table. In 10th, I'm spending more time thinking about the models on the table. I find myself wondering whether I should fall back with Unit A so I can shoot with Unit B rather than wondering if I can use strat 1 to trigger ability 2 to use strat 3 to pull off secondary 4.

Agreed, but if you were a competitive player you lived, breathed, and died by the 9th edition rules, you knew them like the back of your hand, even if you were put through the ringer trying to keep up with the changes. 10th is a pretty substantial change to the rules, even if it doesn't seem that way. While GW reduced the mental overhead, if you were that invested into 9th, then learning 10th is like trying to learn Chinese after getting a Masters in German (or maybe Norsk or Dutch instead of Chinese, since there is some commonality, but its still a different language). You're tired, you're exhausted, you've mastered one thing, and now you're being asked to start over from nothing to master a new thing, and you just don't want to do it anymore.

Think of it in terms of spectrums and thresholds. Theres a spectrum of effort that exists in terms of learning rules - changes to points and minor revisions to special rules or scenarios exist at one end of the spectrum, learning a whole new game at another end of the spectrum. Jumping from 9th to 10th sits closer to "learning a new game" than it does "learning new points" or "learning how Armor of Contempt works". We all have a threshold as to how much effort we are willing to put into this before the level of effort exceeds our threshold of willingness or motivation to do so. That threshold shifts and changes over time depending on a number of variables, I suspect that for a lot of people the constant changes in 9th (and arguably 8th) progressively reduced that threshold over time (i.e. the process of "burning out"). I know in my own case I became increasingly frustrated with the pace of changes, as it felt like every time I was starting to get comfortable with the latest iteration of the rules GW threw a curveball that required me to rewrite my list because points went up and I had to start over and retool my list, often having to buy some new stuff to get my list back into a place where it could still do the things I needed it to do, etc. As someone that hasn't had much opportunity to play as a result of life events, it was an even bigger slap in the face because it meant that instead of playing games I was "doing work" to try to retool so that I could play games, further reducing the number of games I could play - and when I could play games, the games were often unsatisfying because I couldn't bring my "A game" as I had to familiarize myself with the shifts and changes in the meta and understand why I was struggling to win games in the present with a faction/list that was doing so well just 3-4 months prior.

I would guess that for many competitive players the changes to 10th which have been met with unfavorably (removing wargear points for example, reduction in strategems which seems to be something many competitive players disliked as well) probably resulted in their individual thresholds more or less bottoming out - thereby completely fulfilling that "burnout" process. I.E. - they look at the changes to the game they dislike and all the work they need to put in to learn how to play the new version of the game and say "man its not even worth the effort, this is too much for me to handle right now". As a result, the effort to learn 10th, which already was on the far end of the effort spectrum, is also well above many competitives players tolerance threshold, and they just quit rather than putting the effort in to learn the new thing.

I see the same parallels with my experience, the jump from 4th to 5th was relatively easy because 5th ed was mostly just a cleanup and tweaking of the 4th edition rules - my tolerance threshold was high and the effort required sat on the lower end of the spectrum. Then came 6th - I liked some of the changes, and disliked others, the tolerance threshold sat somewhere in the middle, but the effort required was higher than the change from 4th to 5th, so I was on shaky ground with 6th and not enjoying my time with it, and then they announced 7th and 7th doubled down on many of the things that I hated about 6th with few real redeeming qualities, and that tolerance threshold dropped real low, even if the effort level was on the shallow end of the spectrum, and I just quit. I came back in 8th after sitting 7th out because I adequately ran through my cooldown meter over the intervening years, because I was fully onboard with the vast majority of changes they announced to the game and because I wasn't carrying the baggage of a previous edition of the game with me, having sat out the preceding 3-5 years or whatever, my tolerance threshold was very high, and even though there was some effort involved with learning the new rules system, it wasn't a put-off. Likewise 9th - I had a pretty high tolerance threshold still as I really enjoyed 8th (though started getting annoyed towards the end when they started leaning further into a quarterly update cadence), and the changes were insubstantial so they sat at the shallow end of the spectrum, so making the transition was easy for me and many others - but then GW really hit my tolerance threshold repeatedly with constant updates and the ever-increasing bloat in the design of the new codecies, and I actually basically fell out of 9th by the end of the edition, was mostly just holding on knowing that a new edition was imminent in the hope that it would be something I could jive with.

And it kind of was. I liked most of the changes, at least initially. The effort needed to jump into 10th from 9th isn't nothing but its largely insubstantial, its an easy game to wrap ones head around. The removal of many of the worst aspects of 9th (the bloat) and the changes I mostly agree with (wargear points are overrated, IMO, sorry not sorry) pushed my threshold up enough for me to make the jump, but if I had a different perspective on the state of the game I could see me being pushed out of it (and to some extent I'm starting to sour on it - some of the things I liked upfront I'm finding are not the gumdrops and lemonade I thought they would be, like I find listbuilding tedious and boring now instead of an activity I could spend hours fixating on and tinkering with in my downtime).

Anyway, point is that even though 10th is an easier to learn, less intimidating ruleset, if you are coming into it drained by GWs constant BS and the absurd pace of rules revisions in the previous editions, and looking at the changes unfavorably, even though its an easy to learn set of rules your motivation for doing so is basically nonexistent and you cant be bothered.

Personally, im split on 10th. I didnt play any 9th and only played 8th before for the most part and while I enjoy some amount of simplification, i feel like the result isnt great because its still a 3-4 hour game at two players. I think their best use for those simpler rules is to go more into the direction crusades and Boarding Actions do if giving these cool, tweaked formats to the core rules of 40k rather than making a spinoff doomed to be abandonned.
A simpler, more direct ruleset allows to do these things and GW should capitalize on that as the edition goes on imo.

I do admit the gear and army systems are really restrictive and full of old legacy gear choices now invalidated by the fact almost every unit has a best gear option for no extra.
One thing I havent seen mentionned is the lack of terrain rules. There's only walls and BoC terrain in the rules. No dangerous terrain, no impassable yet see-through terrain, nothing to cover some of the scenarios that terrain could do. I have all kinds of cool made-for terrain for things like turnip28 that are useless from a rules-perspective just because they dont block any LoS.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

Was talking with a few locals (not in my playgroup) and they have expressed that they wish people would play games for the sake of having fun, but the constant discussions of "this unit is trash" is really off-putting.

A unit being trash has a direct impact on the fun one person can have of a game tho. Let's say i'm a nurgle player that really likes the look of plaguebearers and i bring 60 of them, but all they can do is die and deal negligible damage, i'm not gonna have fun.

That's because you're expecting more out of them than is reasonable.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Sure you don't need to only play the best units in a codex, but implying that competitive players ruined the game by declaring certain units are bad isn't really a good take IMO

They might not completely ruin games, but they do have a negative effect with this talk. People constantly hear this, they assume it's true, they then don't buy/use the units others keep claiming are bad.
This spreads & propagates. And then people complain that armies become more & more samey.
Now in a tourney? I don't give a damn if all your armies are cooky cutter, nothing but the "best" units, & you've all given up your free will on what to use because some YouTube guy declared x to be the way.
But then it seeps out into casual play....

Ok, so its bad if i don't bring plaguebearers in a casual game because people online are saying theyre bad?

How is that any different than me playing a few games with my plaguebearers, realising they don't contribute much to the game and then deciding not to bring them anymore?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Ok, so its bad if i don't bring plaguebearers in a casual game because people online are saying theyre bad?

How is that any different than me playing a few games with my plaguebearers, realising they don't contribute much to the game and then deciding not to bring them anymore?

This is fiddly to answer because it both makes no difference and it does.


On the one hand it makes no different mathematically - good is good, bad is bad and in a game built on numbers and tactics; if the numbers are bad the model is bad. This assumes a given situation and sometimes a unit is only bad in a certain situation and competitive play might well lean to an extreme that isn't present in a persons "local" game environment.


That said in general the patterns for good/bad are going to be fairly similar.



On the other hand what it can lead too is local players having armies beyond their skill level; or beyond the skill level of the isolated player group.
You can see this even more so in MTG and other card games where a "net list" might be a top tier list way way above what everyone else locally has. Everyone else might be beginner to intermediate level and mostly playing with "cards from a random pack"; if you then bring in a "net list" that's specifically crafted and is really good then a player can have a deck that's way above their skill level. Which of course means that their game performance gains a huge boost.



Now you can very well argue that this is just playing the game well, and it most certainly is. However we have to appreciate that not everyone wants to invest the same level of time and skill into a hobby. Some are totally fine being at beginner/intermediate level; or just want to have a steady advance of game skill from local game experience only.


So in a sense this is more of a potential group dynamic and game approach issue which can be terribly complicated or just boil down to different personal approaches to a hobby. It's also something much larger groups can often push past simply because there's a range of skills to suite. Whilst much smaller clubs could see more issue because you just don't have 20-30 other people to play against.





So I can see both sides and both arguments. There's no denying that the net can act like a big skill booster if used the right way. Again there is nothing wrong in this; its not outright bad; heck you can argue that the gretaer organisation and sharing if ideas REALLY helps push the quality within the game world and thus the experience. Just look at how painting has come along in the last 30 years for the average person. At one time you had 2 or 3 books (2 of which were from GW); now you've dozens of books; thousands of video and written tutorials. etc..

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Ok, so its bad if i don't bring plaguebearers in a casual game because people online are saying theyre bad?

No, it's bad when you don't bring them based only on what other people say.
It's bad when you bring them & then attach too much expectation to them.
I mean, they're M5/T5 demonic plague zombies with a 5++ save & a melee attack that currently come in units of 10. There's only so much that's ever going to do, so plan accordingly.
But if you like Plaguebearers for whatever reason? Then bring some along in a casual game.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
How is that any different than me playing a few games with my plaguebearers, realising they don't contribute much to the game and then deciding not to bring them anymore?

Because you've decided that for yourself. You've determined that PBs don't work in your force/however you're trying to play. Will they work in someone else's force? {shugs}

ccs wrote:
...That's because you're expecting more out of them than is reasonable...

Who defines "reasonable"? If I buy models I like the look of and put them on the table and then get blown up without doing anything why is that my fault for expecting the models I like to not be garbage, and not GW's fault for making them garbage?

CCS, do you believe you should just... Not listen to advice?

Like, I do get that personal experience is the best. But if I'm starting a new force, should I just buy whatever I like the look of the most, and then find out that it's a one-way ticket to being facerolled because what I like and what's good are very different?