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What would make 9th edition a perfect release in your eyes?

For me:
- Re-introduce USR's
- All CORE rules and USR's are available on an online document (Which gets updated as needed per FAQ and CA)
- Purchasing a hardcopy gives access to codex rules in a online document (Once again updated per change)

Bonus:
- Official army builder a la Batltescribe
- Official forums to ask rules questions in

I support all these things.

Though 9th isn't going to be a thing. GW will make more on CA than they ever will redoing the BRB.

I have no wishlist as it'll be more of the same. GW hasn't changed what it's always been it just put on a better pant suit and practices to smile more. If there is ever a 9th it'll just be more of the same. Promises of change with soon to be all over us bloat and madness after maybe initial stages of hope. 8th was my believe them moment and they are squandering it with how it's falling into predictable patterns once more.

I'll agree with these, but they dont need a 9th edition to do them.

on the final thing, GW + forum = bad idea. even if it is just for rules questions, you'll get every jerkwad asking the stupidest questions just trying to gain an advantage. any real questions would be drowned out with inanity.

Actual terrain and LoS rules

"Purchasing a hardcopy gives access to codex rules in a online document (Once again updated per change)"

I'd support this, a few gaming companies already do this. buy a book, email proof of purchase, and get a free PDF of the book it's great.

Damage phase like we have in Apocalypse. Just that.

Drop the "Codex" model of updating one army completely and then waiting years before changing anything about them. Update everyone more regularly.

Racerguy180 wrote:
I'll agree with these, but they dont need a 9th edition to do them.

on the final thing, GW + forum = bad idea. even if it is just for rules questions, you'll get every jerkwad asking the stupidest questions just trying to gain an advantage. any real questions would be drowned out with inanity.

I remember the AOL forums and chat sessions. Man...it was bad...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Drop the "Codex" model of updating one army completely and then waiting years before changing anything about them. Update everyone more regularly.

The update rate is exceedingly fast compared to the past. I don't know that you can update faster than this without totally upending any chance to process new changes in terms of balance.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Drop the "Codex" model of updating one army completely and then waiting years before changing anything about them. Update everyone more regularly.

The update rate is exceedingly fast compared to the past. I don't know that you can update faster than this without totally upending any chance to process new changes in terms of balance.

The problem is less the speed of updates and more the wildly uneven rate of updates and the degree to which some armies get "maintenance updates" with almost no content (ex. the current GK book) while other armies get comprehensive overhauls (ex. GSC). We also have issues with armies getting massive buffs and leaving other armies with no tools to do anything about them.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Drop the "Codex" model of updating one army completely and then waiting years before changing anything about them. Update everyone more regularly.

The update rate is exceedingly fast compared to the past. I don't know that you can update faster than this without totally upending any chance to process new changes in terms of balance.

The problem is less the speed of updates and more the wildly uneven rate of updates and the degree to which some armies get "maintenance updates" with almost no content (ex. the current GK book) while other armies get comprehensive overhauls (ex. GSC). We also have issues with armies getting massive buffs and leaving other armies with no tools to do anything about them.

Yea you're probably going to see updates come to armies that have models to push alongside the books. GK, in my opinion just needs more to leverage their strength - psychic ability. Access to more lores could easily make them a powerhouse, but still glass cannon in nature.

Hence Psychic Awakening being a possible boon to them.

I don't want 9th ed. I want 8th ed optimized. I don't really care if they make a PDF come with the physical rules, I'm just not going to buy the physical rules if they don't. I don't want USRs available in a document, you should not have to know this glossary of terms by memory and you should not have to look up what a rule does in the main rulebook.

CA2020 including shared WL traits and Stratagems for all factions as well as Relics for each faction and sub-faction. You get access to a limited number of Stratagems for your entire list, somewhere between 3 and 15. New codexes, including FW datasheets, no relics, WL traits or Stratagems. Fully released by 2022, same balance point we had in June 2019 with CA2023, perfectly balanced by 2024.

New codices only include additional datasheets and rules are written without fluff and use common terms instead of individualized terms, so basically USRs, except they're written on the datasheet and don't use names like Deep Strike and Outflank and instead use names like Reinforcements and Flanking Reinforcements. A codex lore and and datasheet compendium, no faction-wide abilities or changes like Combat Doctrines are included in codexes. If faction or sub-faction abilities are to exist they should exist in CA, although I would prefer if they do not. You need 3 sources to play, Codex, CA and Rulebook.

Expansions do not include rules that can be used in every game like specialist detachments, instead, they contain missions, some of which will include faction-specific Stratagems. They also contain different ways to play that have previously been featured in CA and beta-codexes, as well as new and updated datasheets, these datasheets are also available in errata for codexes.

A new codex won't change things a whole lot, balance might change a little bit with pts updates and rewritten datasheets, but relics, stratagems, traits, tactics, doctrines, doctrine focus all being absent means most of the balancing is left to CA and everything can be compared 1-1 and new releases don't have to be taken into account to as large a degree. Expansions like Vigilus will have no impact on tournament play and will instead purely be a casual experience unless you gear a campaign or tournament specifically towards it.

I'd really like the game to be balanced on less terrain-dense tables, it would be amazing if a wide array of different table set-ups were all more or less equally balanced or perhaps leave the 5 big LOS-breaking structures to be imbalanced and make that city-fight or something so both people know in advance that their lascannons are going to be inferior to mortars for that game and that mobility and melee will play a bigger role. All guns all the time should not be the default way of things unless you play with tournament terrain or have ways to cheat yourself into melee.

2 big LOS-breaking terrain pieces, four forests/ruins without boarded up windows and some scatter terrain sounds like a perfectly valid table setup and it's equal to more than what GW uses at Warhammer World tables I think. 3+ big pieces LOS-breaking terrain and boarded up windows on every window should not be required and bases for ruins should not be required to get a more or less balanced game.

I was just looking through some of the battle zone terrain generators for Vigilus Ablaze and they seem utterly unplayable, like a 67% chance of 4 or more of the table's 24 square feet being barren ice with no terrain features and another 1/6 result with zero LOS-breaking terrain. I criticized someone who made something very similar the other month and now I feel bad, his thing was probably as good as the official GW terrain generation rules.

Dumb Smart Guy wrote:
Actual terrain and LoS rules

Yeah, added realism generally.

Force org restrictions.

Less emphasis on power-ups and combos,

or at least one version of the game that doesn't play like a card game
with models for chits on a big table full of pretty - but mostly useless - terrain features.

Less combo hammer. While I initially liked strats and everyone getting unique faction traits to use from, as usual GW can't control itself and both of the above have spiraled out of control.

I don't even bother with the tactical forum anymore because its all about finding the right trait, cp, reroll aura and ally abuse rather than actual tactics like positioning, accounting for terrain, worrying about being flanked or something getting behind you. GW went to far with stripping rules from 7th to 8th.

 jeff white wrote:

Dumb Smart Guy wrote:
Actual terrain and LoS rules

Yeah, added realism generally.

Force org restrictions.

Less emphasis on power-ups and combos,

or at least one version of the game that doesn't play like a card game
with models for chits on a big table full of pretty - but mostly useless - terrain features.

Yes less combos please. If you want that kind of stuff go play mtg or something. And make legions/chapters/craftworlds/etc feel more unique from each other.

More combos please. If you don't want that kind of stuff go and play Kriegsspiel or something.

Seriously, I want an app with all the up-to-date rules.

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 jeff white wrote:

Dumb Smart Guy wrote:
Actual terrain and LoS rules

Yeah, added realism generally.

Force org restrictions.

Less emphasis on power-ups and combos,

or at least one version of the game that doesn't play like a card game
with models for chits on a big table full of pretty - but mostly useless - terrain features.

Yes less combos please. If you want that kind of stuff go play mtg or something. And make legions/chapters/craftworlds/etc feel more unique from each other.

How do you make chapters more unique without introducing combos? Do you just want lower costs for White Scars bikes/Iron Hands heavy weapons? When you add more unique rules you add more combos.

 harlokin wrote:
More combos please. If you don't want that kind of stuff go and play Kriegsspiel or something.

Less combos please. If you want that kind of stuff go and play MTG or something.

See, I can do that too.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
More combos please. If you don't want that kind of stuff go and play Kriegsspiel or something.

Less combos please. If you want that kind of stuff go and play MTG or something.

See, I can do that too.

Yeah, and your reply would have been great if my post hadn't been a sarcastic response to someone saying the same dim witted thing you just did.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Drop the "Codex" model of updating one army completely and then waiting years before changing anything about them. Update everyone more regularly.

The update rate is exceedingly fast compared to the past. I don't know that you can update faster than this without totally upending any chance to process new changes in terms of balance.

The problem is less the speed of updates and more the wildly uneven rate of updates and the degree to which some armies get "maintenance updates" with almost no content (ex. the current GK book) while other armies get comprehensive overhauls (ex. GSC). We also have issues with armies getting massive buffs and leaving other armies with no tools to do anything about them.

Yea you're probably going to see updates come to armies that have models to push alongside the books. GK, in my opinion just needs more to leverage their strength - psychic ability. Access to more lores could easily make them a powerhouse, but still glass cannon in nature.

Hence Psychic Awakening being a possible boon to them.

also GW HAS unleashed model updates from the rules. you still occasionally get big splash releases, and when those occur a new codex does come out (IMHO more because GW figures people are gonna not want to deal with a half dozen or more new data sheets not being in one central location) but you also see things like the admech tank that came out. It WOULD be nice to see stuff like that happen more often, not tied to a big event, not tied to a codex, just the odd "SUPRISE NEW MINI" release

+ terrain that impacts the game
+ battlefield management as a core skill
+ true line of sight dying in a garbage fire
+ IGOUGO dying in a garbage fire
+ positioning that matters other than knowing that garbage troops make great screens and to bubble wrap your stuff to stave off the alpha strike

+ listbuilding toned down and combos / synergy being toned down so that they are not exclusively what the game is about

+ a wider bell curve of power that does not churn yearly so that we are not forced to buy new armies every year to be able to have fun games without getting our faces rubbed into the table and told to git gud (see also: making list building *not as* important) (pps - refer to the *not as* portion in the statement about list building before flying off into anger about making list building not count at all)

Scrap 8th entirely and redesign the core rules to have mechanical depth closer to past editions. The biggest weakness of 8th is it's completely lack of substance in it's core rules resulting in extremely dull gameplay that requires piling on rules from the codex, supplements, buff auras, and stratagems. All this does is create combos to exploit and less to do with any sort of tactical gameplay. Also it's probably a very good idea to sack whoever decided that 8th's core rules where acceptable.

Better terrain rules, USRs (a core set of 5 to 15 rules), unit types with their own mechanics, mechanics that make positioning matter, mechanics that reduce combat effectiveness without just being "kill everything" (falling back, pinning, blind, jink snap shooting etc). Basically having compelling gameplay without the need to have a bunch of tacked on rules to have "combos" of modifiers.

The best chance for 9th would be an act of God like a meteor strike or Godzilla attacking Nottingham and a whole new team being brought in to right the rules with zero influence by marketing/legal/upper management.

I would like to see BETA units. Units that come out with rules, and then GW revises after a couple months of community feedback (Tournament/Meta).

I would also love to see more rules dedicated to how weapons interact with different targets. AT Weapons should be better at AT than Infantry weapons, and Vice Versa. You should get negative modifiers for using the wrong weapon on the wrong target type.

12" flamers standard, anti-infantry only.

Meltas becoming Assault 3, S8 AP4 D4 12" AT only guns.

Relics costing points not CP

CP being flat standard per detachment. No more, no less. Can't gain extra through play. 15 per Brigade, 7 per Battalion.

D10 dice become the standard.

Cheater's list.

Most of my suggestions are going to be "more like kill team."

-Dying at the end of the round instead of the enemy turn.

-Some form of alternating activation, whether that's by unit or by detachment.

-Command points coming by turn rather than a fixed pool at the beginning of the game, preventing combohammer

-Simplify but toughen up terrain rules, absolutely remove True LOS BS that allows you to fire all guns at full power at something you can see a tiny fraction of. A vastly simple, far more impactful terrain system than 8th has right now would be "If all models in a unit are at least partially obscured from the firing model by terrain or models other than those in the target unit, that unit receives the benefit of cover. VEHICLE and MONSTROUS CREATURE models must be 50% obscured or more."

-Army composition, rather than detachments, determines your command point generation. Only one faction? Bonus. Certain percentage of your points or more spent on troops? Bonus. Turn starts and your warlord is alive? Bonus.

I think the biggist thing for GW is working out what scale they want, and make sure each Faction can build to that scale from there own book.
Knights should have infantry, and other support units.
With the idea that a codex is made to play the same game, and less units stuck in limbo of a system trying to do to many things badly.
Use kill team for there single unit game.

Can't see the point around USRs to be honest as they invariably give rise to more exceptions down the road.

While I have a whole list of wishful thinking to make 40k something of a different, more thematic game...

I would settle for just speeding up the current one.

So take marines. They have a host of different rules, re-rolls, etc, etc. Players tend to optimise to them, so just make them part of the statline. Extra attack in first round of combat universal special rule? Just give them an extra attack on their profile. Bolters do a whole host of different stuff at different times? Really rationalise away the many different types and make them mostly assault weapons so they are a more constant beast (and have far fewer special rules, i.e. can rapid fire out to full range if x, or y, or who cares just give them 2 shots).

I think a lot of the rules for re-rolling, extra attacks, etc. etc. can just be rolled into profiles, yes things might get marginally better or worse, but they would require far less interpretation and memory games. Re-roll x would be a lot better as just +1 to hit – anything to reduce the amount of dice having to be constantly re-rolled.

One departure to the above would be a game slowing slightly tweak of the wound table. If a weapon is more than twice as strong as the target (i.e. str 8 vs toughness 3), auto wounds. If a target is more than twice as tough (toughness 8 vs str 3), auto fails.

And finally – better scenery rules. GW needs to reconcile its desire to make terrain with holes in it, its desire for some bizarre ‘true’ line of sight despite the silliness that entails, and the fact games like this work best with terrain that actually blocks line of sight.

Alternative Activations or something similar.

Scrap the no models - no rules policy

That is all.

 vict0988 wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 jeff white wrote:

Dumb Smart Guy wrote:
Actual terrain and LoS rules

Yeah, added realism generally.

Force org restrictions.

Less emphasis on power-ups and combos,

or at least one version of the game that doesn't play like a card game
with models for chits on a big table full of pretty - but mostly useless - terrain features.

Yes less combos please. If you want that kind of stuff go play mtg or something. And make legions/chapters/craftworlds/etc feel more unique from each other.

How do you make chapters more unique without introducing combos? Do you just want lower costs for White Scars bikes/Iron Hands heavy weapons? When you add more unique rules you add more combos.

You can have special rules that make factions more unique without combos and strategems. Look at 30k. It has rules and units that add flavor to the armies without strategems.

Ooh, let me try this

Removal of Command points and stratagems. Much like Formations in 7th. they're becoming bloated and unbalanced. In my specific group and your mileage may vary here, they are beginning to detract from the game. If not removal, then a severe reining in.

Fixed number of command points given per turn, much like Kill team. Remove the link between army composition and amount of command points.
A larger core set of stratagems located in one place rather than the same functional stratagems named differently in every codex.
A smaller selection of faction specific stratagems in the codex. Think around 5 per codex. Maybe one 1 army generic and the remaining for the core chapters / hive fleets / clans / dynasties etc.

Strats should be situational "I gotcha's" that add to the core rules / feeling of the game. Rather than a game in and of themselves.

Removal of CP rerolls and restriction on aura rerolls. We already roll 3 sets of dice for every action (hit, wound, armor) sometimes a 4th roll (Damage). Rerolls have ballooned that to 6 or 7 rolls for every single action. If you're unwilling to remove rerolls then, note, CP rerolls must go.

Rerolls auras have to be activated at the start of a phase, using command points and only work for the phase they're activated. If your captain wants to give rerolls of one, it costs 1 cp, only affects units 6 - 9" away and only lasts that shooting phase.

Return of USR's, it doesn't have to be the large selection of USR's from previous editions, but there is enough duplication that some USR's would be much appreciated. Updating one rule instead of updating 20 codexes to reflect the same rule change would be nice. For example, the rule below if foudn to need an update would only have to be updated one time instead of x number of times for each book.

Inspiring Presence - USR
The HQ model with this USR can spend 1 command point at the beginning of a combat phase to give all units wholly within 9" rerolls of to-hit rolls of 1 in either the shooting or assault phase or during overwatch.
This USR can be activated one time during each phase in a turn as long as the 1 command point is spent each time it's activated.


Bring back restrictions on allies.
Removal of semi-annual faqs, instead I'd rather see a rerelease of the core rules plus erratta plus chapter approved in a new book each year. remember the core rules were supposed to be only 8 pages or something like that. so it's not out of the realm of possibility to update those 8 pages, release updated point costs and missions and call it a yearly book.