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 Dysartes wrote:

Tyel wrote:
11th... What? "Players were bored of standing in circles, so now they'll stand in terrain instead".

In fairness, that will at least make what we see on the table make a little more sense - for example, Eldar Guardians taking cover rather than scratching their butts in a random bit of empty ground.

... with the irony of them now being easier to shoot than when they were standing on the empty ground.

 Dysartes wrote:

Tyel wrote:
11th... What? "Players were bored of standing in circles, so now they'll stand in terrain instead".

In fairness, that will at least make what we see on the table make a little more sense - for example, Eldar Guardians taking cover rather than scratching their butts in a random bit of empty ground.

If only we could choose to put the objective markers inside buildings if we wanted too...

Tyel wrote:
Have GW even said what they are trying to achieve in 11th?

I may be reading tea leaves, but didn't they say the goal was to put the narrative back into the focus of the game?

They are making game-play rules changes that are also narrative in nature:

Objectives as terrain pieces, not random circles is narrative-centered.

Layered Detachments allow for more army customization is narrative-centered.

Detection Range is narrative-centered.

Victory Conditions based on opposing armys narrative focuses is narrative-centered.

 alextroy wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Have GW even said what they are trying to achieve in 11th?

I may be reading tea leaves, but didn't they say the goal was to put the narrative back into the focus of the game?

They are making game-play rules changes that are also narrative in nature:

Objectives as terrain pieces, not random circles is narrative-centered.

Layered Detachments allow for more army customization is narrative-centered.

Detection Range is narrative-centered.

Victory Conditions based on opposing armys narrative focuses is narrative-centered.

Then again, last time they explicitly tried to make the game 'Forge The Narrative™', it led to gibberish like Creed and the Grey Knights defending the psychic wasp monsters of Fifteen from the Chaos stronghold thirty feet away...*


*actual plot of the inaugural 6th edition White Dwarf battle report

"Forging the Narrative" became such a meme that every time I go back and peek in my old 6e apocalypse book, seeing those little 100% unironic tidbits scattered through the book is like taking psychic damage.

At least now rather than telling you to "Forge the Narrative" they are making the rules fit the narrative.

 Dysartes wrote:

Tyel wrote:
11th... What? "Players were bored of standing in circles, so now they'll stand in terrain instead".

In fairness, that will at least make what we see on the table make a little more sense - for example, Eldar Guardians taking cover rather than scratching their butts in a random bit of empty ground.

Honestly, I think this is a nice little change in terms of theme/narrative. In past editions, my group would tend to stick objective markers near/on cool pieces of terrain and toss out a short sentence about why that piece of terrain was important. Bell tower? Sounding the alarm for reinforcements. Big chonky building? Has some of the last functioning cogitators in this part of the city. Bridge? Bridge.

Reframing things from "this empty patch of ground is important" to "this ruin is important" instantly makes it a bit easier for me to throw a story onto a game. Even if there technically wasn't anything stopping you from putting terrain near your objectives in 10th.


My inner optimist is hoping that modest changes like this and whatever the narrative missions end up looking like will help make the game feel more thematic again. Not that we have a ton of evidence one way or the other yet.

Jaredthefox92 wrote:
Before everyone takes out their pitchforks. Hear me out.

I've been playing Warhammer 40k since around the 2022. I started collecting since 2019 and I have gotten into the game around the tail end of 9th edition. While I had my gripes about the 9th and 10th's rules I've eventually got accustomed to all the keywords and shortening of the rules. Fast forwards to the soon to be launch of this upcoming edition and I'm not really all that excited. I have Orks and Necrons, my Orks I've been playing for the most. I know we're getting a lot of neat models but I'm thinking that for now I'm going to just binge play if a friend in my LGS asks or perhaps around August once the 11th edition had two months to settle in.

Not sure if I'm gettingd, if I just want to try Bloodbowl or Necromunda, that or I'm just wanting to really be patient until around Autumn. I just don't get the hype around the 11th atm. I would like for things to be fixed, but with the whole theme around Armageddon I'm sort of in a 'been there done that' mood. (I've been into the lore since around 2012, so Armageddon was important in 2014-2015.)

I don't know, perhaps I just need to take a break from 40k until around Halloween? It could be I just have moved onto Bloodbowl. I am still going to gradually collect and hobby paint. I prefer the casual hobby side of Warhammer over the big tournament stuff anyways.

I'm the last person to recommend 40k, but it sounds like you may just need a little break. Spend a little time in BB or Necro and come back to 11th if/when you get the itch. Gaming interests ebb and flow and it's never a good idea to force yourself to play something you're not feeling. As an example, I'm a Grimdark Future fanatic, but I take breaks for other games often. Sometimes for months at a time as with the Necro 95 campaign we're starting in June.

So take a break, dip into a small game for a while and see if thepassion returns.

 alextroy wrote:
At least now rather than telling you to "Forge the Narrative" they are making the rules fit the narrative.

Kind of. I think they are focusing on rules which feel extremely abstract and gamey and try to make them feel more natural. Which is a fair thing to do, and was requested by many. Whether they get it right is a completely different topic, but so far it looks promising.

However, I feel like people are just pulling the video guy's words out of context and adding their own interpretation.

11th will absolutely not feel like Rogue Trader again. It will not suddenly turn the foundation laid by 9th and 10th into a highly narrative game.
It will remain a game with a lot of non-obvious skills you need to master to win games regularly, just like 10th. Stratagems are still around, target priority is still a difficult skill to master and to know when to "go" and when to keep hiding will still decide games.
Someone who didn't like 10th will very likely not like 11th. However, someone who did enjoy 10th to some degree will likely enjoy 11th more due to those changes.

My opinion, anyways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Honestly, I think this is a nice little change in terms of theme/narrative. In past editions, my group would tend to stick objective markers near/on cool pieces of terrain and toss out a short sentence about why that piece of terrain was important. Bell tower? Sounding the alarm for reinforcements. Big chonky building? Has some of the last functioning cogitators in this part of the city. Bridge? Bridge.

Very good point, this will make narrative games feel so much nicer. I didn't even think of making bridge objectives, and we have some awesome bridge terrain.

 alextroy wrote:
Detachments allow for more army customization is narrative-centered.

My issue with this (and I've not got into 9th/10th for many other reasons) is that while the idea of detachments giving Your Guys flavour is great, in reality it always just feels like asinine stuff like "These guardsmen are the toughest mofos around who practice at the target range for 12 hours a day! Reroll 1s to Hit and Wound with lasrifles" which just feels like piddly nonsense. Yes the "orders system" is also nonsense when viewed at the wider fluff (why do they get to yell at each other to shoot harder and SMs don't?) but at least it's a broad rule that gives the whole faction flavour. "You're extra good with jump packs so gain +D3 to your charge range when jump pack troops charge" just feels like playing around at the edges and results in a million tiny facets players have to face and figure out. At least in Ye Olde Days when it was more likely to be white dwarf supplumentary material it seemed to be more simple yet interesting sort of stuff like "all your cool death world guardsmen are WS4 now" or "line your dudes up into a firing line and gain an extra shot each" that tweaked the base army composition or profiles.

 RustyNumber wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Detachments allow for more army customization is narrative-centered.

My issue with this (and I've not got into 9th/10th for many other reasons) is that while the idea of detachments giving Your Guys flavour is great, in reality it always just feels like asinine stuff like "These guardsmen are the toughest mofos around who practice at the target range for 12 hours a day! Reroll 1s to Hit and Wound with lasrifles" which just feels like piddly nonsense. Yes the "orders system" is also nonsense when viewed at the wider fluff (why do they get to yell at each other to shoot harder and SMs don't?) but at least it's a broad rule that gives the whole faction flavour. "You're extra good with jump packs so gain +D3 to your charge range when jump pack troops charge" just feels like playing around at the edges and results in a million tiny facets players have to face and figure out. At least in Ye Olde Days when it was more likely to be white dwarf supplumentary material it seemed to be more simple yet interesting sort of stuff like "all your cool death world guardsmen are WS4 now" or "line your dudes up into a firing line and gain an extra shot each" that tweaked the base army composition or profiles.

This sentiment is partly why I've been wanting to scrap stratagems and instead dedicate the page space to expanded detachment rules. Instead of 6 special moves that are locked behind both your CP resource and the once-per-phase limitation, give us more interesting detachment rules that define the behavior of the entire army and leave you room to do something mildly complicated. Let the speedy detachments get something like the old jink/flat-out/turbo-boost rules. Let the regimented rank and file army have some interesting rewards for arranging their guys just so. Maybe let the all-vehicles-all-the-time detachment have something reminiscent of the AV system or defensive weapons or whatever.

Let your choice of detachment really tell a story and change the way your army behaves instead of generally just being some kind of abstract gamey bonuses and a cool move that one unit gets to use once per turn.

My problem with a lot of things like Stratagems is that they are a pain to learn and fit into the gameflow.

In the past things like Detachment Rules/subfaction rules were easy because they were typically +1 to something which you could just write in on your army list (and which in theory should be auto-added into stats on an army builder app....). So they fit into the natural flow of the game very easily.

Stratagems exist as a list on their own and as GW expands the list you have multiple lists in different publications. Suddenly each action that happens requires you to remember a dozen abilities on this multi-publication list. This is all through the game in every phase of the game for both players.

It's a pain and the result is often that you memorise the use of a handful and just repeat those same ones over and over.

It's "messy" and would be easier done by just giving units Overwatch (for example) on their unit card. Constant quick reminder that you've got it to the player and doesn't actually change the game at all.

Less page flipping; faster play; easier to learn etc...

I always found my own strategems easy enough to learn. Even back in 9th where there were a million for your codex, I just wrote up a quick reference sheet just of the strategems that were relevant to my units which cut out like 2/3rds of them and it all fit on a single A4 page.
From there it didn't take long to remember the most used ones and retain awareness of the more niche ones.

The bigger problem with strategems is knowing what your *opponent* can do.
Every game now just kinda feels like I'm playing always expecting the most wild and unpredictable gak. Suddenly a unit moves twice as far as you expect and all of your counter-positioning is moot. Suddenly a unit doubles their damage output and your casualty allowance flies out the window etc etc.

Only when you play against the same armies on a regular basis to you start to get a feel for what a unit can do, but there's so many now I rarely play the same army more than once an edition lol.

I really miss back before strategems when you could just know what a unit could do. The move stat was how far it could move, the gun was what it could shoot, etc.

For me, it's not really about memorizing the strats; it's about how they're locked behind that CP and once-per-phase wall. Strats are the majority of the rules used to convey the story/flavor of your detachment. But instead of seeing that flavor across multiple units throughout the game round, you only get to see one or two cool tricks on one or two units across a game round.

The example I always go to is modern to-hit penalty strats (Lightning Fast Reactions on eldar for intsance) vs 7th edition's Jink or prior editions' Flat-Out saves. They're all mechanics meant to represent a pilot taking evasive action, but Jink and Flat Out saves were both more satisfying to me. Jink and Flat Out both made you weigh the cost of extra protection vs giving up some of your shooting. You could do those actions with every skimmer in your army; not just one per turn. Flat-Out had you moving the vehicle farther, so you could visibly see this connection with the idea that your vehicle was moving fast and thus harder to hit.

And then you have something like LFR that only one skimmer is allowed to do each turn, and then only if you have the command points to spare. And then you don't have lingering changes to the game state (having moved the model, being unable to shoot, etc.) to connect you to the idea that your skimmer just did an evasive maneuver.

So with all that in mind, I like the idea of reallocating some of the game's "complexity budget" to mechanics that are "more present" the way jink and flat out were, and stratagems seem like a natural choice of things to sacrifice. (Noting that many factions will probably have at least one detachment whose expanded rules end up looking vaguely like Guard Orders or eldar Battle Focus.)

I think there's also something to be said for the here-and-gone nature of stratagems making it harder for your opponent to feel like they're engaging with some strats. Not necessarily because your opponent needs to "memorize" your strats per se, but because the way a given strat may or may not come up a couple of times in a game and players probably aren't pausing to discuss what the fluff of that strat is meant to represent.

My eyes glaze over when my Blood Angels opponent tells me their melee unit gets lethal hits and rerolls and blah blah blah because the commander said to stab better or whatever. Whereas the various incarnations of the Red Thirst in past editions were kind of omnipresent and conveyed the idea that these marines were frothing berserkers.

Spending CP to move a crisis suit squad after shooting is somewhat better, but it's a thing available to one(?) detachment. Whereas it used to simply be known that moving after shooting was a thing battle suits could and would do and that this helped define the playstyle of the tau.

Off the topic of strats and gameplay and more on the "another edition" side.

Even when I first started playing, I always had that goal/wish/dream to put together the entire chapter of my chosen army (SW). Ever since the Primaris stuff, I've thought about it as an entire first-born chapter.

I get a lot of enjoyment out of adding to my collection and getting closer to that dream.
I had a lot of fun fielding my troops, win or lose.

I was coming to terms with the rules changes that genericized the game because I could still collect and use my collection. I was getting a bit of a grasp of some of the changes, new terms, new units, etc. but then they started legending things.

Just saw a rumor that rino and variants are likely next. So what does GW plan for the future of legends once all the old units are no longer in the rules? Are the new legends getting balanced with the old legends stuff before they are published? I'm at least hoping there can be pure legends lists for all factions people could still play with new editions into the future. I don't know. Still so much uncertainty and I'm definitely not starting over with my collection.

Legends is essentially just a promise from GW that you are allowed to put any model you bought from them on the table..
Them finally adding legends to the app also means that promise will stick around for at least another edition.

It also means that they won't make any effort to make legends units good enough to compete.

As for the rhino, I wouldn't be too worried. There is a real sized one outside of warhammer world to remind them that it's important, and they have pulled over other iconic units to the primaris side as well - terminators, drop pods, land raiders are all goiing to stick around.

 Jidmah wrote:
Legends is essentially just a promise from GW that you are allowed to put any model you bought from them on the table..
Them finally adding legends to the app also means that promise will stick around for at least another edition.

It also means that they won't make any effort to make legends units good enough to compete.

I assure you that (overall) you are wrong about that.

Would you mind adding any content to your post?

The main reason Legends exists is so the competitive meta doesn't involve models that GW doesn't sell and new players cannot buy. GW has models they don't want to keep in production and SKUs it needs to clear from distribution to replace with new products. That's really all there is to it.

I think the disagreement is with "It also means that they won't make any effort to make legends units good enough to compete."

I mean this is probably true to some degree. They have no reason to buff underperforming datasheets. But equally no real reason to nerf overperforming datasheets.

Its an ecosystem that neither GW or the competitive scene really care about.

Can't say I've ever really tried to calculate the average power of a legends datasheet. Arguably it gets harder because being good in 40k is increasingly about functionality, rather than this or that unit being 10% stabbier/shootier/tougher than the other for the points.

 Jidmah wrote:
Would you mind adding any content to your post?

I think the context was clear that I think you don't know what your talking about concerning Legends units & wether or not they're effective/competitive.
Are there some duds? Of course there are. But that's also true just cracking open any given Codex.

Here's an example of an effective Legends unit:
https://assets.warhammer-community.com/eng_06-05_wh40k_faction_pack_space_marines-x64jvocbpe-got9m0shcn.pdf (FERREN AREIOS)
Shooting wise, with his heavy bolt pistol he isn't anything special by himself. But he's costed the same as any other SM Captain, has 3 useful "choose 1" options, carries an improved thunder hammer,
can be attached to a fair # of units, and since he lacks the UM Keyword he can be used by any SM player no matter what chapter they run.
He also doesn't trigger those who go on about "Legends are BrOKen!" It's a SM Captain with a thunder hammer....

For any Legends unit you can present as non-competitive? I bet I can give you 3+ that are.

Here's two more to go with Ferren.
Orks: Grot Tanks.
Imperial Agents: Daemonhost(s)

ccs wrote:

Imperial Agents: Daemonhost(s)

You made me curious so I looked up Daemonhosts, and wow.

I can't say whether they are good or bad gameplay-wise, but this funnily enough has to be one of the greatest disparities between lore power and tabletop power in a game that already famously doesn't care much for such things.

That's actually hilarious.

That's my biggest worry. It will never be the same as the edition I grew up with, but I can learn to deal with the new rules. But to have to either counts-as with my whole collection or spend a ton of money and replace them on top of dumbed down rules from what I played?

I want to believe that GW will do something cool with legends.

*edit to add*
It doesn't make sense that units are moved to legends because the sculpt isn't sold anymore. I think it's the other way around. They stop making sculpts because the unit is moved to legends. Otherwise they would just change the model and update the kit, like dreadnaughts, rhinos and land raiders from 1st to 2nd. Why not update the current units with the Primaris look instead of creating all new units, then legending the old, eventually to be forgotten?

If this happened back from 2nd to 3rd, maybe not as big a deal, but nullifying most everyone's entire collection after 10 editions and 40 some-odd years?

kaotkbliss wrote:

*edit to add*
It doesn't make sense that units are moved to legends because the sculpt isn't sold anymore. I think it's the other way around. They stop making sculpts because the unit is moved to legends. Otherwise they would just change the model and update the kit, like dreadnaughts, rhinos and land raiders from 1st to 2nd. Why not update the current units with the Primaris look instead of creating all new units, then legending the old, eventually to be forgotten?

If this happened back from 2nd to 3rd, maybe not as big a deal, but nullifying most everyone's entire collection after 10 editions and 40 some-odd years?

Well, first of all, I doubt most players collections are 40 years old at this point. Mine is over a decade and I'm relatively old these days by community standards.. Also, yes, it makes far more sense to stop supporting 40 year old purchases than 5 year old purchases.

Second, those are odd examples as most of these are not actually in Legends, but they did actually update all of these sculpts and called them the Redemptor, Impulsor and Repulsor. Of those 3, one was a proper success and hasn't really been challenged, but the other two seem to be at best side grade enough that GW seems interested in keeping them around.

Third. Manufacturing, stock, sales and distribution drive way more decisions than rules. I assure you that no one thought it was just too hard to make rules for a Bike with Sidecar and decided that it was time to stop producing the model.

So using your example, why not just make a new, updated attack bike model and say "ok, there's the new attack bike"? They still sell new models, stop spending money on creating the old ones, and players don't get upset.

Eventually a lot of the ancient players (myself included) replaced old rhinos, land raiders and dreadnaughts with the new models.

This legends move is nothing more than invalidating old players models and trying to get them to re-buy everything.

Ok, sales were down at whatever point and they needed a way to boost them. Sure, the easiest way is to invalidate everyone's collection and make them re-buy, and I know I'm in the minority because I've been out of the game for a long time and so my whole collection is old models. So now I have around 200 models I want to use but can't, or at least won't be able to for much longer.

I did not mean to turn this into a legends debate. I was more trying for a "Why I'm scared for the new edition" thing.

kaotkbliss wrote:
So using your example, why not just make a new, updated attack bike model and say "ok, there's the new attack bike"? They still sell new models, stop spending money on creating the old ones, and players don't get upset.

They probably will someday, but that requires design time, production, marketing the works and it competes with whatever else they're doing. You can't release everything all at once, which is why its taken a little under a decade to resculpt the line. At the moment though, those models aren't in production and aren't available for sale.

kaotkbliss wrote:

This legends move is nothing more than invalidating old players models and trying to get them to re-buy everything.

To an extent, but the key is these models do still have rules and GW has always maintained that they are legal. It's a system that GW has supported for years since its introduction and continues to expand support of with each major update. It's players who continue to insist otherwise. It's players who self censor themselves to the point of not playing things because maybe they will only have Legends rules in 5 years. GW isn't stopping you from playing with your stuff and not taking advantage of the support provided out of fear that it might not last is exactly why these kinds of things don't last.

To some extent that is true, but we should definitely not absolve GW of all responsibility there. They are pushing matched play a lot and giving it way, way more attention and post-launch updates than they do anything else.

They could do a lot more encourage accepting Legends than they are. But they won't, because Legends almost by definition are not tournament legal, and 40k is increasingly streamlined for an environment where every game could mechanically be a tournament game. It's like the game's turning into an esport. You see players who will never -actually- attend a tournament in their life still obsess over the latest winrates and tierlists from their favourite content creator channel.

Just as an example, GW could try to actually balance them. As is, GW just releases legends and then leaves them behind, which isn't great if you want to use them since GW is notoriously dubious at first-try balancing (and will seemingly always be). Could you imagine if they had released 40k 10th edition and then just not done any post-launch balancing? This edition would be just as infamous as 7th if they did that.

They are doing more though. Adding them to the app is huge and easily my biggest hurdle to using them in 10th.

As for balance; they seem fine? Ultimately if they're not in the tournament meta they're not going to get the kind of volume of results to show any real concerns with power level. Most models do not get updates. Mostly just things that stand too tall getting hammered down outside of the full edition revamps.

Ultimately, my POV comes from having gone down the hardcore, tournament only super competitive path and realizing how many of its problems were of my own making. What a lot of people see as a push into tournament play is honestly just making a better game. Where we lose out on a lot of the fun is when we choose to ignore everything else. When we stop designing good looking terrain or playing the scenarios included in the narrative packs. It is a choice to go to our casual game nights not willing to take even 200 points of fun models lest we risk losing a game that has absolutely nothing on the line. The good news is, game balance these days has generally improved to where those 200 points probably won't be the deciding factor and I'm pretty happy encouraging people to just play with their toys.

Personally my issue with a lot of Legends units isn't that they're bad for the points, it's that the rules seem really half-assed.

My Avenger, which has always had modeled pylons for outboard stores, can't take any missiles or bombs anymore.

My Cyclops demolition vehicle, a remote-controlled bomb intended to blow up entire sections of trenches, which needs to trundle into the enemy lines without getting shot... does an average of 2 mortal wounds if it manages to go off.

My Stone-Crusher Carnifex just straight up doesn't have rules anymore, Legends or otherwise. I can just run it as a normal Carnifex, but there's no good representation for the bio-flail.

There's a lot of stuff like this with the Legends rules and it's way more frustrating than if they were just weak for the points.

To a great extent this is true in the main rules too, sadly. Look at the fun rules Orks used to have with the 5e Trukk and Shokk Attack Gun, for example.

I want that game back.