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No model, no rules: it's obviously stupid, we all hate it, but nobody ever seems to do anything about the problem. At what point do we acknowledge that GW is not looking out for the best interests of the community here and stop complying with NMNR? Why are we so concerned with "officialness" that we'll keep playing with obviously bad rules when it would be so easy to just collectively agree that NMNR restrictions do not apply? Is there any hope that major TOs will reject NMNR, as they did with bad GW rules in previous editions, or are they too committed to being good little corporate yes men to do anything that might risk their preferential treatment by GW?

There are some many things we could tell GW such as... $50 for a 20 year old IG kit?! Or $45 for 10 chaos cultists?!

No Models No Rules does not quite rise to that level of offensiveness, though if they choose to invalidate every IG infantry squad in the next codex, that might do it for me.

The only time will be if they lose sales, and someone has to work out what is wrong.

The must be made in plastic is probably a big issue for GW, there own issue of corse.
As well as trying to make the game simple, but tripping over itself so much.

It all ads to be a bit of a mess.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
There are some many things we could tell GW such as... $50 for a 20 year old IG kit?! Or $45 for 10 chaos cultists?!

Sure, but those are things we as players have no power over. We can't force GW to change their prices, we can make NMNR disappear.

Apple fox wrote:
The only time will be if they lose sales, and someone has to work out what is wrong.

But my point is that we don't need GW to recognize the problem. If GW posts nonsense like today's traitor guard datasheet with a rule that you can't take duplicate special weapons we as players can and should pat GW on the head condescendingly, tell them "no, that's stupid, it doesn't work that way", and play the game without that rule. TOs can at any time declare that NMNR will not exist in their events. But instead for some reason people seem to be content to grumble a bit about it and then meekly tear apart their existing models to get into NMNR compliance.

(And yes, I know that in the case of major TOs GW has bought their compliance and made their business success contingent on being good little corporate yes-men. What I don't understand is why the rest of us are willing to put up with NMNR.)

The problem usually comes down to how far the changes go, and disagreements over that. So allowing duplicate special weapons is pretty easy to implement and I don't think anyone would argue with it. But then you'll get all sorts of other changes argued for, like allowing SM Librarians to take bikes again. And then what about Archons and al the equipment they've lost thanks to NMNR?

I suspect most TOs just don't want the hassle of having to justify where that line is. There may be a negative perception issue from tournament attendees over rules changes like this too. How arbitrary are the changes? Is the TO just singling out their favoured/hated factions for certain treatment, etc.

[quote=Aecus Decimus 807085 11436720 when it would be so easy to just collectively agree that NMNR restrictions do not apply?

Step 1. You’ll need to buy shares. For it is the share holders and the share holders alone to which GW are beholden. Disliking that fact does not change that fact.

Step 2. No. More than that if you really want your voice heard.

Step 3. Try and remember why they did this. Namely, to leave less room for chancers to do knock-off models

Step 4. And as a potential result of what Step 3 is trying to avoid, see their overall IP eroded.

Step 5. Realise it might be more productive to encourage them to even out the faction love.

See….9th Ed has actually been pretty good, models wise. Yes Marines predictably got a decent haul of Stuff. But then….Necrons and Craftworld Eldar got a lot of new and/or updated kits. Orks did pretty well too.

Some however got maybe a Character Model - despite having holdover Finecast still in their range, which for me is a Must Redo Priority.

Now, the major updates, taken together in terms of Kit Count prove GW has quite the design and tooling capacity. Hell, whilst I’ve no researched this and half way expect some delicious egg on this handsome beardy face of mine as a result, I’d wager 9th Ed 40K has received more New Kits than some games have in their entire range.

If they just evened those offerings out, so each army gets at least three or four new kits? Everyone gets a tickle of the pickle.

But outside of that? What benefit does providing Rules for Models That Don’t Currently Exist have for GW and their bottom line?

Deadnight wrote:
What will the benefits be?

Are we talking solely about old legacy models etc?

Continued support for legacy models (which is itself a sufficient reason) as well as rule streamlining. Having 5+ different weapon profiles in a basic troops unit is not something that should be mandatory, uniform upgrade weapon choices consolidate that down into fewer profiles and let you resolve a unit's attacks with less time and effort.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
What benefit does providing Rules for Models That Don’t Currently Exist have for GW and their bottom line?

Again, why do I care? Like I said, I don't need GW to change the rules. We as players should reject NMNR and continue playing the game without it. Condescendingly pat GW's writers on the head, tell them "that's stupid and that's not how that works" every time they publish NMNR nonsense, and let the real game be one without NMNR. The only thing standing in the way of getting rid of NMNR is the cult of officialness.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But outside of that? What benefit does providing Rules for Models That Don’t Currently Exist have for GW and their bottom line?

I wonder if there's been some confusion from the OP not being clear about what changes they want?

To me, NMNR is mainly about no Librarians on bikes and things of that nature, but it seems like the OP might be taking more issue with the "only 1 model may have a plasma gun" and "1 model may replace its bolter with X, 1 model may replace its bolter with Y and Z, 1 model may have only X and Z and keep its bolter" etc.

I think there's a legitimate debate to be had about whether the approach of strictly only allowing what's in the basic kit to be what a unit can take is healthy or not. I think that's probably a slightly different debate to whether options that involve minor conversions should be made available in Codices again.

Slipspace wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But outside of that? What benefit does providing Rules for Models That Don’t Currently Exist have for GW and their bottom line?

I wonder if there's been some confusion from the OP not being clear about what changes they want?

To me, NMNR is mainly about no Librarians on bikes and things of that nature, but it seems like the OP might be taking more issue with the "only 1 model may have a plasma gun" and "1 model may replace its bolter with X, 1 model may replace its bolter with Y and Z, 1 model may have only X and Z and keep its bolter" etc.

I think there's a legitimate debate to be had about whether the approach of strictly only allowing what's in the basic kit to be what a unit can take is healthy or not. I think that's probably a slightly different debate to whether options that involve minor conversions should be made available in Codices again.

To clarify then: I object to both. I take the practical approach that getting rid of the kit restrictions within a unit's upgrades is a much easier thing to do, while the fact that GW makes things like bike upgrades separate datasheets instead of unit options makes it more complicated to fix those issues. Ideally both should be done, but IMO there's no excuse at all for us as players accepting the upgrade restriction form of NMNR.

Basically you are asking to's to rewrite codexes. No surprise not popular. Players don"t like having to determine what set of house rules are followed where.

And not something few to's could do. Would require huge co-operation and still result in split playerbse as before when to's start to do own house rules.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
There are some many things we could tell GW such as... $50 for a 20 year old IG kit?! Or $45 for 10 chaos cultists?!

Sure, but those are things we as players have no power over. We can't force GW to change their prices, we can make NMNR disappear.

Isn't it the opposite? Assuming players can make rational decisions when making purchases and are ready to vote with their wallets for non-predatory pricing practices, FOMO be damned?

Cyel 807085 11436799 wrote:

Isn't it the opposite? Assuming players can make rational decisions when making purchases and are ready to vote with their wallets for non-predatory pricing practices, FOMO be damned?

That works only for some factions. Mostly those that rarely or never get bad rules updates. For other factions playing the non GW designed FOMO list for an army often means, that the player who did that is going to have a very bad time. And voting with their wallet doesn't mean GW will do something about a specific model line, at worse they can just decide that an army or unit or build is not popular, even if cause of it is their rules writing and model support, and just make skeleton updates or soft remove the unit or faction or list.

What does GDIAF mean?

I like keeping the unit options to those in the box for squads, as when you have multiple squads it's a pain in the ass to try and source extra of whatever weapon for optimization. Saves money when you can just use what's in the box.

On the other hand, I would like to see weapon options more opened up for characters. Obviously, some armies are not really built for customized weapon options, and others have more avalibility to do so. Even allowing mix-and-match between existing kits. Like, let you mix-and-match arms between all the different primaris captains, instead of 6, or whatever, different specific loadouts.

It's not really an issue for most players. Both Bike Librarians and less restrictive options for many units already exist in Legends - which is available as a free PDF at https://www.warhammer-community.com/legends/#warhammer-40000

Tournaments are a special case since they use a limited subset for the rules for competitive balance purposes (sort of like how only newer cards are allowed in Standard Magic the Gathering tournaments), but for everything else there are official rules for almost every model that GW has sold in the last 20 years.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
... though if they choose to invalidate every IG infantry squad in the next codex, that might do it for me.

They are.

Join us in our rage.

 jaredb wrote:
What does GDIAF mean?

"Go Die in a Fire", last I checked.

* * *

Aecus - to give a solid example for discussion purposes, what would you do to the Plague Marine datasheet?

 Dysartes wrote:

 jaredb wrote:
What does GDIAF mean?

"Go Die in a Fire", last I checked.

* * *

Aecus - to give a solid example for discussion purposes, what would you do to the Plague Marine datasheet?

For every 5 models in the unit, you may replace one Boltgun/Pistol with one weapon from the special weapon list or from the melee weapon list.

Any model may replace its Boltgun/Pistol with two close combat weapon

Sergeant may replace its Bolt pistol with Plasma pistol
Sergeant may replace its Boltgun with plasma gun

And no artificial limiting where one in five becomes "One in five, but not the same weapon as any of the other one-in-fives".

So if you want to bring 1 Plasma gun at five and 2 at ten, go for it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Step 1. You’ll need to buy shares. For it is the share holders and the share holders alone to which GW are beholden. Disliking that fact does not change that fact.

Step 2. No. More than that if you really want your voice heard.

Step 3. Try and remember why they did this. Namely, to leave less room for chancers to do knock-off models

Step 4. And as a potential result of what Step 3 is trying to avoid, see their overall IP eroded.

Step 5. Realise it might be more productive to encourage them to even out the faction love.

See….9th Ed has actually been pretty good, models wise. Yes Marines predictably got a decent haul of Stuff. But then….Necrons and Craftworld Eldar got a lot of new and/or updated kits. Orks did pretty well too.

Some however got maybe a Character Model - despite having holdover Finecast still in their range, which for me is a Must Redo Priority.

Now, the major updates, taken together in terms of Kit Count prove GW has quite the design and tooling capacity. Hell, whilst I’ve no researched this and half way expect some delicious egg on this handsome beardy face of mine as a result, I’d wager 9th Ed 40K has received more New Kits than some games have in their entire range.

If they just evened those offerings out, so each army gets at least three or four new kits? Everyone gets a tickle of the pickle.

But outside of that? What benefit does providing Rules for Models That Don’t Currently Exist have for GW and their bottom line?

Ehhh....about the highlighted part. That may have been how this all started, but now they've progressed to a weird system of "You can kitbash this, but not that", for their own kits.

The obvious worst offender for that is the 9th edition CSM codex, where you have 4 very easily kitbashable kits: Legionaries, Havocs, Chosen, and the Raptors/Warp Talons kit, that have rather bizarre rules for what you can and cannot swap from kit to kit. Sometimes you can swap this gun from kit (X) onto kit (Y), but not another from kit (X). Or you can have any gun from kit (X), but only one of each, with no duplicates, despite their being duplicates in kit (X). Or the absolutely odd case were despite their being fully 10 copies of a particular weapon in the exact same kit used to build a unit, none are available by the rules. All of this is compounded by many of those options being available previously.

It's completely arbitrary, and doesn't make any sense, even within that framework.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 jaredb wrote:
What does GDIAF mean?

"Go Die in a Fire", last I checked.

* * *

Aecus - to give a solid example for discussion purposes, what would you do to the Plague Marine datasheet?

For every 5 models in the unit, you may replace one Boltgun/Pistol with one weapon from the special weapon list or from the melee weapon list.

Any model may replace its Boltgun/Pistol with two close combat weapon

Sergeant may replace its Bolt pistol with Plasma pistol
Sergeant may replace its Boltgun with plasma gun

Isn't it the plague marine kit that doesn't come with enough bolters to make the entire squad with the basic weapon loadout?
Or am I thinking of some other kit?

Sorry, MDG, but you are so far off the mark it is not funny.

Were it applied consistently across all books there would be not as many issues, but it is simply not and bass-ackwards applied by consulting animal entrails or praying to the stars to see what kit gets the treatment.

It is not even applied consistently within codexes. Looking at you Blightlord Terminators and Plague Marines. The former has NMNR half-arsedly applied. The latter has it applied fully to its (il)logical conclusion.

I don't mind 'no model no rules'. Its a company, I get it. What I detest is 'not in this box, no rules'. I don't understand why they think encouraging mixing and matching kits is bad. I can get a sniper rifle from a guard kit, why can't I add it to my scions for example.

And they wonder why they are losing so bad to 3-D Printing.

Asenion wrote:
And they wonder why they are losing so bad to 3-D Printing.

Tell that to their financials…

And I’ll again refer to my central point.

How does including options with no existing model benefit GW? What do they gain?

I am excluding from that stuff which did exist in model form (Biker Chaplain, for instance), because that is evidently a poor show, on account many people will end up with a model they can no longer use.

I’m talking stuff like Special Characters with no model. Unit options which don’t exist in model form. Where the benefit to GW in writing those into Books, when they’ve nothing to sell after the fact?

Hence my counter argument that a more constructive approach here is to request the many releases spread over a given edition are shared more equally across the various armies. Marines for example. Other than Firstborn Bikes and Attack Bikes, nothing particularly needs replacing - and I’m not sure there’s a lot of room for brand new units either.

So instead of giving Astartes a dozen new or updated kits each edition? Spread the design capacity across every army.

Right now that’s a bit of a pipe dream, because some armies (Craftworld Eldar) still have stuff in dire need of crossing the Rubicon Plasticaris, compared to others, where they’ve barely any Finecast or Metal options left (Necrons, Dark Eldar, Tyranids), and so if stuff was completely evened out (as in every army release gets an equal number of new releases in a given edition) some would still lose out compared to others. But as a goal to work toward, it makes sense. And just from a potential sales POV, I’m sure there are many who want a unit, but don’t want to buy metal or Finecast kits if they can possibly avoid it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Asenion wrote:
And they wonder why they are losing so bad to 3-D Printing.

Tell that to their financials…

And I’ll again refer to my central point.

How does including options with no existing model benefit GW? What do they gain?

I am excluding from that stuff which did exist in model form (Biker Chaplain, for instance), because that is evidently a poor show, on account many people will end up with a model they can no longer use.

I’m talking stuff like Special Characters with no model. Unit options which don’t exist in model form. Where the benefit to GW in writing those into Books, when they’ve nothing to sell after the fact?

Hence my counter argument that a more constructive approach here is to request the many releases spread over a given edition are shared more equally across the various armies. Marines for example. Other than Firstborn Bikes and Attack Bikes, nothing particularly needs replacing - and I’m not sure there’s a lot of room for brand new units either.

So instead of giving Astartes a dozen new or updated kits each edition? Spread the design capacity across every army.

Right now that’s a bit of a pipe dream, because some armies (Craftworld Eldar) still have stuff in dire need of crossing the Rubicon Plasticaris, compared to others, where they’ve barely any Finecast or Metal options left (Necrons, Dark Eldar, Tyranids), and so if stuff was completely evened out (as in every army release gets an equal number of new releases in a given edition) some would still lose out compared to others. But as a goal to work toward, it makes sense. And just from a potential sales POV, I’m sure there are many who want a unit, but don’t want to buy metal or Finecast kits if they can possibly avoid it.

Their financials are going to increasingly rely on emerging markets like China.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I’m talking stuff like Special Characters with no model. Unit options which don’t exist in model form. Where the benefit to GW in writing those into Books, when they’ve nothing to sell after the fact?

Don't be so intentionally obtuse. You have been in this hobby for as long as I have, if not longer and you know EXACTLY why GW used to put those in codexes. Because it encourages personalisation, modelling and kitbashing and growth of that part of the hobby. Why sell one kit when you can sell someone two or three to make that new unit? That is the benefit and you know it.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
No model, no rules: it's obviously stupid, we all hate it, but nobody ever seems to do anything about the problem. At what point do we acknowledge that GW is not looking out for the best interests of the community here and stop complying with NMNR? Why are we so concerned with "officialness" that we'll keep playing with obviously bad rules when it would be so easy to just collectively agree that NMNR restrictions do not apply? Is there any hope that major TOs will reject NMNR, as they did with bad GW rules in previous editions, or are they too committed to being good little corporate yes men to do anything that might risk their preferential treatment by GW?

House rule in weapon options that go beyond the kits.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How does including options with no existing model benefit GW? What do they gain?

It increases the value of their extant models to the consumer when they know they can be mixed with third party parts, or their own conversions, for effect.

ccs wrote:


Isn't it the plague marine kit that doesn't come with enough bolters to make the entire squad with the basic weapon loadout?
Or am I thinking of some other kit?

unsure honestly, but i know Chaos terminators didnt come with enough copies of their default loadout in 8th (which is why they added the whole accursed weapon thing ( which i actually liked ))


honestly i've just given up on 9th edition in favor of OPR. at least with that ruleset i don't get fethed by NMNR

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I’m talking stuff like Special Characters with no model. Unit options which don’t exist in model form. Where the benefit to GW in writing those into Books, when they’ve nothing to sell after the fact?

Don't be so intentionally obtuse. You have been in this hobby for as long as I have, if not longer and you know EXACTLY why GW used to put those in codexes. Because it encourages personalisation, modelling and kitbashing and growth of that part of the hobby. Why sell one kit when you can sell someone two or three to make that new unit? That is the benefit and you know it.

That’s…still not a benefit. Even when there’s a stock model, people still kitbash, convert and scratch build.

Think as a business thinks. Why include rules for something you don’t make? Especially in the vaunted days of 3D printing, where it seems everyone and their Nan can fart out entire armies willy-nilly.


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Asenion wrote:

Their financials are going to increasingly rely on emerging markets like China.

Could you at least try to couch your points in reality? Their 6 month and Annual reports are publicly published. Even a cursory look at them shows this simply isn’t the case. At all. They even break it down by global region.