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So, one of the main points of contention of 8th vs other editions was the removal of USRs in favor of "bespoke rules."

Advocates point to the fact you have all your rules on the same sheet, and thus don't have to play "lookup." It also did not help that 7th had 80+ USRs, and numerous "unique" rules on top of that, a poor set of building blocks. Most comedically, one of the USRs (Missile Lock) spent the first half of 7th completely unused before being used for Blacksword Missiles. One USR for one weapon for one unit in one codex: Meanwhile, several other codexes had unique rules all representing some form of "missile that locks onto a foe."

Inversely however, badly-worded rules/modified rules now need to be duplicated via FAQ, while minute differences in word rulings can make "intent" hard to parse. ("May fire its weapons twice," vs "may be chosen to shoot twice" among other cases).

So what is the alternative, between an overdone bunch of USRs that end up being ignored in favor of bespoke rules, vs a tide of ambiguously-worded bespoke rules?

Why not just make USRs flexible and clear enough in the first place? This is more of a general discussion point, but as a rule of thumb, the following principles should apply when adding USRs to a game:

-The rules should be Composable: Did you know that a Warlock's Reveal Psychic Power was once unable to penetrate Imperial Guard camo? See, what happened was that in 5th edition, a Camo Cloak granted Stealth. The problem? Stealth was a * USR, meaning that as long as at least one model had it, the whole unit benefitted. Thus, a Lord Commissar could hide an entire unit with his cloak. Come 6th Edition, the Camo Cloak granted its bearer a +1 Cover Save. This amusingly granted protection against Eldar trickery, since Reveal only negated Stealth and Shrouded (and not any other modifiers to cover). Now, had there been a Grants Unit[Another USR] USR, you could separate Stealth from Grants Unit[Stealth] and there's now no need to copypaste unique versions of USRs with a minute exception. Warmachine does this to some degree, with Field Marshal[Rule], Granted/Tactics:[Rule], No Sleeping On The Job/Veteran Leader[Unit/Unit Keyword] and other cases.
-The rule names should say what they do: If I said one unit had Rage, and another unit had Hatred, would you know without context what these rules mean? Combining composition with indicative names, does Charge Bonus[+1 Attack] or Charge Bonus[reroll attacks] have the same degree of ambiguity? Leave the "fluff" independent of the actual function, to avoid room for creative interpretation.
-The rules should be atomic: A Relentless unit could fire as if stationary and still assault. A Slow and Purposeful Unit was functionally Relentless, granting this to the unit, but also preventing the unit from Running, Overwatch, or Sweeping. So what does a Heavy Battle Servitor do? It doesn't run, it shoots as if stationary and can still assault, and can shoot two weapons. Now, if there was a Cannot[Action] rule and a "Fire Another Weapon" rule (incidentally, there was no "fire two weapons" USR. You had Monstrous Creatures, Multitrackers, Decimator Protocols, Attack Bikes, etc. but apparently nobody thought to make a "shoot two weapons" USR), you could make Relentless (or Grants Unit[Relentless])+Cannot[Run, Overwatch, Sweep]), and avoid the need for extra rules.

In short, a smaller number of indicatively-named, composable and atomic rules can create an extensible building block for rules, while leaving a smaller number of components in need of FAQ/less room to debate over what the rules "really" mean.

No. Just no.

My five year old son can play 8th. 7th and before was a cluster and a half.

USRs just mean you end up having rule conflicts and other lookup table nonsense that I hated in other editions.

Datasheets and mobile app style rules (AKA: Game cards) are better than whatever it is you want. I don't think I've looked at the core rulebook in a month tbh, I shouldn't need to.

Going AoS style datasheets in 40k was the best thing to happen to this game in a long time. USR's are a pain and you always end up with exceptions and other nonsense.

Even though I think7th edition was a very bad system, it wouldn't hurt 8th edition to have some USRs, namely:

Feel no pain
Deep Strike
Infiltrate
Flyer
Vehicle/ tank

Maybe, just maybe, also one for reroll 1s to hit as every codex has that rule.
These would be enough, right now vehicle isn't even needed and would only be necessary if they'd have something like fall back and shoot or shoot out of CC, which they don't have and seems counterintuitive for many people.

Besides, 8th edition actually has an USR, it is called FLY and it is a very strong one.

I would ask though...how many people actually use the name for their actual rule? If someone asks me what something does, I'll simply say "ignores wounds on a 5+" or "feel no pain on a 5+".

I don't believe this actually is creating bloat - the universal special rules still exist, just using different names so that they can be individually altered later via Chapter Approved if a unit becomes broken.

What is gained by generalizing though?

Like if you made a USR for rerolling 1s - call it "Field Tactics."

Great. Sounds good right? Well now you have to split it by type of roll. Rerolling hit rolls of 1. Wound rolls of 1. Save rolls of 1. So you have [Field Tactics]: Hits. And, then, you have to ask about scenarios where this is specific to certain factions. Like [Field Tactics]:Hit; Target: Imperium. And then you further need to specify if it is based on inches, like [Field Tactics]:Hit; Target: Imperium. Radius. 6".

And then you have to ask yourself if that's somehow clearer than saying "All units within 6" that share keyword <BLAH> can reroll hit rolls of 1 against targets with the Imperium keyword."

Very little is gained by abstracting rules into USRs.

USRs are synonymous with bloat. The idea of having rules contained on one sheet is the way to do it.

So, WMH actually has Leadership [Keyword]: Rule.
All models of Keyword within that model's CMD radius benefit from that rule.
Example: Janissa Stonetide has Leadership[Runeshaper]: Battle Wizard.

Incidentally, these rules are also printed on the card just for reference.
By doing this, it allowed for individual rules to be FAQed in one place. (Ex: How does Battle Wizard work with Impact Attacks?)

"<Blah> Leader: Vs Imperium, reroll 1s to-hit.

Define it as a 6" radius or base it off the model's Leadership according to taste.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
So, WMH actually has Leadership [Keyword]: Rule.
All models of Keyword within that model's CMD radius benefit from that rule.
Example: Janissa Stonetide has Leadership[Runeshaper]: Battle Wizard.

Incidentally, these rules are also printed on the card just for reference.
By doing this, it allowed for individual rules to be FAQed in one place. (Ex: How does Battle Wizard work with Impact Attacks?)

"<Blah> Leader: Vs Imperium, reroll 1s to-hit.

Define it as a 6" radius or base it off the model's Leadership according to taste.

The key point there is that they still have the rules printed on their statline. WMH has hundreds of USRs but they aren't printed in the rulebook. Every single one is on the unit stat cards which is exactly what they've done in 40k 8th but when GW does it it becomes a problem?

Also not to mention that the FAQ document is a mess because they messed up one USR at the start of Mk.3 and now EVERY model with the Flank ability required an FAQ which was at least 5 models per faction so there's like 50 FAQ entries fixing one rule.

Edit: On top of this they've also recently changed the Shield Wall wall rule in the CID so they'll have to do that again for that one rule.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
So, WMH actually has Leadership [Keyword]: Rule.
All models of Keyword within that model's CMD radius benefit from that rule.
Example: Janissa Stonetide has Leadership[Runeshaper]: Battle Wizard.

Incidentally, these rules are also printed on the card just for reference.
By doing this, it allowed for individual rules to be FAQed in one place. (Ex: How does Battle Wizard work with Impact Attacks?)

"<Blah> Leader: Vs Imperium, reroll 1s to-hit.

Define it as a 6" radius or base it off the model's Leadership according to taste.

The key point there is that they still have the rules printed on their statline. WMH has hundreds of USRs but they aren't printed in the rulebook. Every single one is on the unit stat cards which is exactly what they've done in 40k 8th but when GW does it it becomes a problem?

Also not to mention that the FAQ document is a mess because they messed up one USR at the start of Mk.3 and now EVERY model with the Flank ability required an FAQ which was at least 5 models per faction so there's like 50 FAQ entries fixing one rule.

Edit: On top of this they've also recently changed the Shield Wall wall rule in the CID so they'll have to do that again for that one rule.

40k doesn't use consistent naming for its rules. In one system, Tough is Tough, yet in another, Disgustingly Resilient is not the same as Fortune is not the same as Sturdy construction.

WMH does have its bloat of course. Assault vs Gunfighter vs Point Blank vs Dual Attack is the most notable one of course. And it still uses non-indicative names in a lot of cases (what exactly is an ashen veil anyway?).

However, concepts like Granted/Tactics/Leadership would have solved the issue 40k had with "duplicated rules," or obtuse rules like "a unit that is only composed of models with the White Scars Chapter Tactic has the Hit and Run USR." ("An Independent Character is considered to be its own unit that has joined another unit. Would my Captain grant Hit and Run to an ally unit?"). It would mean not having "Stealth vs +1 Cover Save," "Preferred Enemy vs Rerolling 1s to Hit and Wound," or other copypastes due to the rules not being scopable.

USRs do exist in 8th but they are just all over the place and have different names. If someone is playing Tau and asks what Manta Strike is, they will be told that it is deep strike so why is Manta strike even there? I'd personally go with a USR setup and put a condensed version on a unit card with the referenced page number in the BRB that provides more details, examples, and reference page numbers rules for any other that might modify it.

For example, a DS squad might not need the rules for the Homing Beacon USR on their card. However, if you are reading up on DS in the BRB I might see that it calls out Homing Beacon on pg XX so I decide to read that and find out that if I setup within 9" of an allied HB unit, I can setup more than 6" from an enemy unit. This is a useful, related piece of info to know about DS that would have no reason to be on a unit card if they don't have the HB USR.

The advantage of USRs are that they can be used to apply clear depictions of the special rules that affect all armies in the game that can be easily updated as needed without addressing each individual army. If you combine this with a free PDF of the rules that gets updated as needed, it will mean less hunting through multiple documents or trying to determine what is the most up to date FAQ.

I think the problem with USRs is when their isn't a lot of control on the designers and they start making things up that don't really apply to many armies, are variations of similar effects, or decide to use a special rule when there might be a perfectly serviceable. Would you need a USR for defensive grenades that cause +1 armor save vs an enemy that charges for that assault phase? Unless defensive grenades really get expanded beyond being a Tau thing, probably not. Do you need a USR that grants +1 Str on a charge, one that does +1A on a charge, and one that lets you re roll misses on the charge? One version should be decided on and enforced as the really hard hitting charge mechanic. Then there is a big shock that 8th gave me, that Howling Banshees didn't get the same Always Strike First that Slaanesh got. It seemed very appropriate and I can see it popping up in other armies' units like GS and Witches. I forget what Banshees got instead but I remember being WTF about it as swinging first was kind of their thing.

If you can keep your design team focused on using what's there and only creating new USRa when it gives more depth to the game and affects multiple armies. The Homing Beacon example was one that I just threw out there but it is something I could see in units in many armies and there has been a precedent for it before, just with different mechanics. I could easily see it as a USR.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Inversely however, badly-worded rules/modified rules now need to be duplicated via FAQ, while minute differences in word rulings can make "intent" hard to parse. ("May fire its weapons twice," vs "may be chosen to shoot twice" among other cases).

Where is the problem?

One allows you to fire twice at target X. The other allows you to fire twice picking different targets. Not only it's not difficult, it also perfectly shows how you can fine tune seemingly similar rules...

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
So, WMH actually has Leadership [Keyword]: Rule.
All models of Keyword within that model's CMD radius benefit from that rule.
Example: Janissa Stonetide has Leadership[Runeshaper]: Battle Wizard.

Incidentally, these rules are also printed on the card just for reference.
By doing this, it allowed for individual rules to be FAQed in one place. (Ex: How does Battle Wizard work with Impact Attacks?)

"<Blah> Leader: Vs Imperium, reroll 1s to-hit.

Define it as a 6" radius or base it off the model's Leadership according to taste.

The key point there is that they still have the rules printed on their statline. WMH has hundreds of USRs but they aren't printed in the rulebook. Every single one is on the unit stat cards which is exactly what they've done in 40k 8th but when GW does it it becomes a problem?

Also not to mention that the FAQ document is a mess because they messed up one USR at the start of Mk.3 and now EVERY model with the Flank ability required an FAQ which was at least 5 models per faction so there's like 50 FAQ entries fixing one rule.

Edit: On top of this they've also recently changed the Shield Wall wall rule in the CID so they'll have to do that again for that one rule.

40k doesn't use consistent naming for its rules. In one system, Tough is Tough, yet in another, Disgustingly Resilient is not the same as Fortune is not the same as Sturdy construction.

WMH does have its bloat of course. Assault vs Gunfighter vs Point Blank vs Dual Attack is the most notable one of course. And it still uses non-indicative names in a lot of cases (what exactly is an ashen veil anyway?).

However, concepts like Granted/Tactics/Leadership would have solved the issue 40k had with "duplicated rules," or obtuse rules like "a unit that is only composed of models with the White Scars Chapter Tactic has the Hit and Run USR." ("An Independent Character is considered to be its own unit that has joined another unit. Would my Captain grant Hit and Run to an ally unit?"). It would mean not having "Stealth vs +1 Cover Save," "Preferred Enemy vs Rerolling 1s to Hit and Wound," or other copypastes due to the rules not being scopable.

You seem to be intent on imagining a problem that doesn't exist. Your so called answer would result in a people checking their codex for a units rules, then checking through a huge USR section in the rulebook where pretty much every rule needs it's own page to spell out all the massive number of variations and differences that can be applied to that USR. Pretty much the most bloated, arse backwards way of doing things.

USRs still exist, there are just far fewer of them. On the one hand it's great, because 7th became a bloat boi, but it would be so much easier for GW to treat the USRs left as USRs. Would it be so hard to just call all the 9" deployments deep strike, or FNP FNP? It's what all the user base who joined sometime before 8th call it anyway.

 Irbis wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Inversely however, badly-worded rules/modified rules now need to be duplicated via FAQ, while minute differences in word rulings can make "intent" hard to parse. ("May fire its weapons twice," vs "may be chosen to shoot twice" among other cases).

Where is the problem?

One allows you to fire twice at target X. The other allows you to fire twice picking different targets. Not only it's not difficult, it also perfectly shows how you can fine tune seemingly similar rules...

Can a unit of Vior'la Tau Breachers withdraw from melee and shoot? The Stratagem as written says "a unit may be chosen to shoot twice this phase." The normal rules say you may not "choose a unit" to shoot if it fell back.

Meanwhile, Ecstatic Sensations lets a unit "shoot again" at the end of the Shooting Phase.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Imateria wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
So, WMH actually has Leadership [Keyword]: Rule.
All models of Keyword within that model's CMD radius benefit from that rule.
Example: Janissa Stonetide has Leadership[Runeshaper]: Battle Wizard.

Incidentally, these rules are also printed on the card just for reference.
By doing this, it allowed for individual rules to be FAQed in one place. (Ex: How does Battle Wizard work with Impact Attacks?)

"<Blah> Leader: Vs Imperium, reroll 1s to-hit.

Define it as a 6" radius or base it off the model's Leadership according to taste.

The key point there is that they still have the rules printed on their statline. WMH has hundreds of USRs but they aren't printed in the rulebook. Every single one is on the unit stat cards which is exactly what they've done in 40k 8th but when GW does it it becomes a problem?

Also not to mention that the FAQ document is a mess because they messed up one USR at the start of Mk.3 and now EVERY model with the Flank ability required an FAQ which was at least 5 models per faction so there's like 50 FAQ entries fixing one rule.

Edit: On top of this they've also recently changed the Shield Wall wall rule in the CID so they'll have to do that again for that one rule.

40k doesn't use consistent naming for its rules. In one system, Tough is Tough, yet in another, Disgustingly Resilient is not the same as Fortune is not the same as Sturdy construction.

WMH does have its bloat of course. Assault vs Gunfighter vs Point Blank vs Dual Attack is the most notable one of course. And it still uses non-indicative names in a lot of cases (what exactly is an ashen veil anyway?).

However, concepts like Granted/Tactics/Leadership would have solved the issue 40k had with "duplicated rules," or obtuse rules like "a unit that is only composed of models with the White Scars Chapter Tactic has the Hit and Run USR." ("An Independent Character is considered to be its own unit that has joined another unit. Would my Captain grant Hit and Run to an ally unit?"). It would mean not having "Stealth vs +1 Cover Save," "Preferred Enemy vs Rerolling 1s to Hit and Wound," or other copypastes due to the rules not being scopable.

You seem to be intent on imagining a problem that doesn't exist. Your so called answer would result in a people checking their codex for a units rules, then checking through a huge USR section in the rulebook where pretty much every rule needs it's own page to spell out all the massive number of variations and differences that can be applied to that USR. Pretty much the most bloated, arse backwards way of doing things.

Hence the use of rules with indiciative names. Rather than call it Rage or Furious Charge, Powerful Charge vs Relentless Charge vs Brutal Charge, call it Charge Bonus[the actual effect]. So Charge Bonus[+1 attack], Charge Bonus[+1 Strength], Charge Bonus[+2 MAT], Charge Bonus[Ignore Terrain Move Penalty], Charge Bonus[+2 DMG], etc.

Programmatically, this essentially argues against copypaste and in favor of functional composition, and in favor of nonobfuscated naming.

Imo, the main reason to have USRs isn't so much for the players, it's for the devs. Right now 8th is suffering from the problem that there's no real way to make large scale changes because there's not enough universal definitions. By making everything granular, they've lost the ability to make simple changes to lots of things at once.

For example, if GW wanted to say that x weapon or ability negated Feel No Pain, then they are out of luck because FNP doesn't exist. They'd have to do something convoluted like say abilities that let you ignore wounds but that aren't saves. But then that could cover things beyond FNP. And makes it difficult to exempt units. And leaves the possibility of endless bickering over if a specific such rule is affected, which defeats the purpose of a simplified rule set.

It would have been nicer if they'd actually keyworded more stuff. Especially weapon types. Look how clunky it is to word rules that affect only certain families of weapons (eg Bolt weapons). It turns into a paragraph every time. And if they ever wanted to make a change to the game like All Bolt weapons gain an extra AP, then we'll end up with a bunch of edge cases again. Or what if they wanted to give a new rule to all Marines?

It's not that these things are impossible, it's just that they are extremely clunky, which dis incentivizes trying to make fixes.

I'm a lot less worried about USRs that I am about them establishing a Glossary of Terms and a Style Guide to keep them from mucking up the rules with imprecise language.

Who in their right mind decided it would be a good idea to use the word Wound in so many different ways in 8 pages of rules? Models have Wounds. You roll to Wound. You allocate Wounds. Argh

 alextroy wrote:
I'm a lot less worried about USRs that I am about them establishing a Glossary of Terms and a Style Guide to keep them from mucking up the rules with imprecise language.

Who in their right mind decided it would be a good idea to use the word Wound in so many different ways in 8 pages of rules? Models have Wounds. You roll to Wound. You allocate Wounds. Argh

This is what they really need to worry about being consistent with terminology.
You can't use the same word for different meaning then be surprised when people aren't clear what you mean.

Also bringing all the FAQ Errata and rules together in a cohesive manor would help so much.

Would CA 2018 having the errataed core rules and points lists and codex errata layed out in one book that is easily referred to be so bad for their products.

I VASTLY prefer to have all the rules in the rule book. Don't think you can make me buy a rulebook, an army book AND data cards. That's just milking your customers. Besides, what good are the datacards if you're just going to change rules & stats on the fly via FAQs and ANOTHER annual rule book?

The problem with having all the rules in the rule book is that you have to have a PLAN. You have to know what armies will have what rules, and how the rules will interact with each other. That means you have to playtest.

GW prefers to have their playtesters pay retail.



"Well Howard, the new edition is in stores. Do you think we have a good product?"

"We won't know until the first Grand Tournament."

 MagicJuggler wrote:
So, one of the main points of contention of 8th vs other editions was the removal of USRs in favor of "bespoke rules."

Advocates point to the fact you have all your rules on the same sheet, and thus don't have to play "lookup." It also did not help that 7th had 80+ USRs, and numerous "unique" rules on top of that, a poor set of building blocks. Most comedically, one of the USRs (Missile Lock) spent the first half of 7th completely unused before being used for Blacksword Missiles. One USR for one weapon for one unit in one codex: Meanwhile, several other codexes had unique rules all representing some form of "missile that locks onto a foe."

Inversely however, badly-worded rules/modified rules now need to be duplicated via FAQ, while minute differences in word rulings can make "intent" hard to parse. ("May fire its weapons twice," vs "may be chosen to shoot twice" among other cases).

So what is the alternative, between an overdone bunch of USRs that end up being ignored in favor of bespoke rules, vs a tide of ambiguously-worded bespoke rules?

Why not just make USRs flexible and clear enough in the first place? This is more of a general discussion point, but as a rule of thumb, the following principles should apply when adding USRs to a game:

-The rules should be Composable: Did you know that a Warlock's Reveal Psychic Power was once unable to penetrate Imperial Guard camo? See, what happened was that in 5th edition, a Camo Cloak granted Stealth. The problem? Stealth was a * USR, meaning that as long as at least one model had it, the whole unit benefitted. Thus, a Lord Commissar could hide an entire unit with his cloak. Come 6th Edition, the Camo Cloak granted its bearer a +1 Cover Save. This amusingly granted protection against Eldar trickery, since Reveal only negated Stealth and Shrouded (and not any other modifiers to cover). Now, had there been a Grants Unit[Another USR] USR, you could separate Stealth from Grants Unit[Stealth] and there's now no need to copypaste unique versions of USRs with a minute exception. Warmachine does this to some degree, with Field Marshal[Rule], Granted/Tactics:[Rule], No Sleeping On The Job/Veteran Leader[Unit/Unit Keyword] and other cases.
-The rule names should say what they do: If I said one unit had Rage, and another unit had Hatred, would you know without context what these rules mean? Combining composition with indicative names, does Charge Bonus[+1 Attack] or Charge Bonus[reroll attacks] have the same degree of ambiguity? Leave the "fluff" independent of the actual function, to avoid room for creative interpretation.
-The rules should be atomic: A Relentless unit could fire as if stationary and still assault. A Slow and Purposeful Unit was functionally Relentless, granting this to the unit, but also preventing the unit from Running, Overwatch, or Sweeping. So what does a Heavy Battle Servitor do? It doesn't run, it shoots as if stationary and can still assault, and can shoot two weapons. Now, if there was a Cannot[Action] rule and a "Fire Another Weapon" rule (incidentally, there was no "fire two weapons" USR. You had Monstrous Creatures, Multitrackers, Decimator Protocols, Attack Bikes, etc. but apparently nobody thought to make a "shoot two weapons" USR), you could make Relentless (or Grants Unit[Relentless])+Cannot[Run, Overwatch, Sweep]), and avoid the need for extra rules.

In short, a smaller number of indicatively-named, composable and atomic rules can create an extensible building block for rules, while leaving a smaller number of components in need of FAQ/less room to debate over what the rules "really" mean.

You are trying to fix problems that 8th doesn't have. 7th had those problems. 8th doesn't need your fixes, as there is no conflict between rules and no rules that are "hard to parse". Having two wordings for the same thing isn't exactly clean writing, but it doesn't cause a single problem in 8th.

There is nothing to be gained for the players from a central look-up for unit rules.

As far as I'm aware you have posted multiple times that you will no be playing 8th and keep to 7th - the vast majority of the players find 8th to be the better system and very few people playing it regularly want USR back.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

phydaux wrote:
I VASTLY prefer to have all the rules in the rule book. Don't think you can make me buy a rulebook, an army book AND data cards. That's just milking your customers. Besides, what good are the datacards if you're just going to change rules & stats on the fly via FAQs and ANOTHER annual rule book?

You just need your army book to play. The basic rules can be printed from the home page, datacards are merely for comfort. The only other thing found in the BRB is missions and matched play rules, most of which are common knowledge by now. As long as one player has it or your location provides one, you're fine. Good look playing 7th without the BRB.

The problem with having all the rules in the rule book is that you have to have a PLAN. You have to know what armies will have what rules, and how the rules will interact with each other. That means you have to playtest.

No, that means being unable to change for the rest of the edition. Codices like custodes or knights or dark eldar would not have been possible with that approach.

The only way to successfully collect keyword rules is an online document that is updated with each release.

"What if you wanted a gun that negates feel no pain?"

This is a good point. The wording would essentially read a bit more complex.

Something like: "Abilities that negate the loss of wounds, such as Disgustingly Resilient, do not apply to damage dealt by this weapon."

Is this a bad thing? I don't know. Personally, I don't have a problem with it, i hated USRs in 7th edition.

Meh.

Every system I've ever seen with USRs has always had some way to break it.

Charge Bonus[+1 attack] is all well and good, until you end up with
"Charge Bonus [+1 attack] except when the enemy is in terrain, then it's Charge Bonus [+1 Mortal Wound on a 6]. If it's a vehicle, there's no Charge Bonus at all, but the enemy cannot fire overwatch."

You end up oversimplifying the game, and have things that end up awkwardly hamfisted to fit the overly restrictive system, or with !USRs anyways when the devs have to go more into detail about what they mean.

The good thing about NOT using a USR is you only have to focus on each unit on a case by case basis rather than change one USR and impact a multitude of units.
Thank goodness they added keywords so various bubble ability units have limits on what they can buff.
You can call an ability the "squirrelly kill-craze of death!" with +1 to hit in melee and there could be some 5 other units with different named abilities that do the exact same thing.
The rules folk can focus on stat balancing and the creative writing group can call it anything they want.

Yes, it will be harder to memorize all the funky abilities but GW is then able to "forge the narrative" so they can special snowflake the exact same ability as they see fit.

7th edition, is that you? It's me, Margaret.

 Marmatag wrote:
"What if you wanted a gun that negates feel no pain?"

This is a good point. The wording would essentially read a bit more complex.

Something like: "Abilities that negate the loss of wounds, such as Disgustingly Resilient, do not apply to damage dealt by this weapon."

Is this a bad thing? I don't know. Personally, I don't have a problem with it, i hated USRs in 7th edition.

Ignore[Rule] or Nullify[Rule] (preferably, it would be ideal to agree on the duration of a Nullify ability; ideally until the end of the opponent's player turn or so), with either a ! as a wildcard qualifier or otherwise. I suppose if you really wanted, you could add a "Always[USR]" for immunity to negation, but ideally you should avoid the creep of "I ignore this rule," "oh yeah, I ignore this rule that ignores this rule," etc. But a lot of that boils down to designer discipline. (Admittedly, this is a theoretical discussion that idealizes not having GW ruleswriters).

So, a unit of Warp Talons may have Charge Bonus[Ignore[Overwatch]], or a Photon Grenade might have Nullify[Charge Bonus[!]].

Incidentally, I am in favor of weapons having Keywords too, to avoid Scunthorpe scenarios. So instead of a Fuel Relay benefitting all "burnas, skorchas, or weapons with 'flame' in their name," it would benefit all FLAMER weapons.

To be honest, some of the biggest imbalances in 8th right now are because GW has taken things to be too universal.

There is *zero* reason for new marine codexes to be coming out with the current crappy points values for stuff like marine bodies, CTs not on vehicles, units showing up again and again with the same terrible overcosted garbage. And remember how fun a Scion and an Infantryman paying the same points for a plasma gun was?

Nah. I like granular rules, for all their "15 kinds of differently worded infiltrate" side effects. Do I care if Scouts get to infiltrate 9" away while Rangers infiltrate 12" away while Kommandos infiltrate by popping out of a bush? No, they're doing things in different ways, and maybe if Kommandos had the very same Infiltrate as Scouts they'd be broken as balls because you could infiltrate your 90 Kommandos 9" away, roll and get first turn, and plow into your enemys army with 3" charge rolls.

It would all be a hell of a lot easy if they had army packs of easy to read datacards.

GW should just give us USRs with variables- it's baffling that they don't do that. Feel No Pain X Scout Y and so on instead of a dozen different names for just slightly different rules. It's dumb.

 sfshilo wrote:
No. Just no.

My five year old son can play 8th. 7th and before was a cluster and a half.

Pretty sure that was /thread

Personally, I disliked having the USRs in the BRB.

I like having everything on my unit datasheets in my codex. Much nicer. I wouldn't want to go back to the old way.


However, they really should have put keywords on weapons, and possibly even on Special Rules. Would help to clarify wordings, so there wouldn't be arguments over whether or not Da Jump or Gate of Infinity can take you beyond your deployment zone.

Blastaar wrote:
GW should just give us USRs with variables- it's baffling that they don't do that. Feel No Pain X Scout Y and so on instead of a dozen different names for just slightly different rules. It's dumb.

Remember, the more similar rules with different names, the easier it is to "forget" a minute difference. After all, Smite is Smite, FNP is FNP, etc.

I always liked how GW did USRs, but always disliked how they didn’t stick to them.

I dislike how 8th has handled its special rules, especially with the keyword system being introduced, how hard would it be to add feel no pain to a keyword, works with other rules they have.