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 Jidmah wrote:
And no, choosing powers should stay dead. We all know everyone is going to chose the same ones every time anyways.

This may be true for the majority of competitive players, because if the sole goal is winning, that creates the conditions for there being a "best option."

But what you have to remember is that they haven't actually written off narrative play yet, and that utility powers really shine in a narrative context where people are designing custom story-based missions. The other factor is that prescribed powers disincentivize multiple instances of the same model, which is a thing I HATE about prescribed powers. Let's say that my favourite armour type is Phobos, and I'm building an entire detachment of Phobos units. Let's further assume the Phobos Librarian is my favourite model of all time, and I want to include three of them, and to really push this over the top, lets say I did some cool but relatively simple conversions- head swaps, chapter/ company shoulderpads, maybe swapping an arm for a bionic equivalent from a different kit.

Why should all 3 of those psykers be forced to have the same psychic power, simply because competitive players trying to win or players that only field one Phobos Librarian are most likely to pick that power?

If you give me three options to choose from, even if most people would always pick one... So what? Use that power, forget the other two and just... you know, shut up about it, because it doesn't actually wreck the game for you if do that.

Whereas, providing a only single option actually does wreck the game for some subsets of player, however low a percentage of the total player base they may be.

Furthermore, I want to challenge the premise that people would only pick one. You can break powers down into some general categories:

Melee Attack
Ranged Attack
Defense
Buff
Debuff
Heal

And you can see how those roles might appeal to you in certain situations and how determining which of those is best depends on what you want/ need the unit to do. If my army is full of deadly shooters, then the ranged attack option is probably redundant, even if it is an objectively awesome attack. And just because I listed six categories doesn't mean I'm absolutely set on tables of 6 abilities (though that does facilitate randomization, which has a lot of appeal to a subset of players). Maybe you give everyone the option an attack (which will be melee for some units and ranged for others), a defense and a third option, which could be either a buff/ debuff/ heal. That allows you to randomize on a D3, and cuts away "bloat" while still providing some degree of differentiation/ choice/ player agency.

On the wishlisty side of things, if we're talking about evolving 10th then the one that always springs to mind is to decouple BATTLELINE from specific datasheets, make it a USR, and have detachments determine which units are BATTLELINE for that detachment.

I believe the USR would give +1OC and allow you to select twice as many units as normal.

I appreciate this would need to come with an errata document with tweaked datasheets for the units that currently have BATTLELINE (and to confirm what is BATTLELINE for existing detachments), but it's one thing I'd like to see in 11th.

 Orkeosaurus wrote:
3) make character models and bodyguards into a single unit in all respects

I don't get this one, care to elaborate?

To be honest, I often whish a solo leader could just join a new unit, but I also remember what a rules nightmare this caused back in 5th-7th. Probably not worth it.

That's basically a list of minor tweaks that wouldn't change the way the game plays substantially but would simplify the ruleset and speed up play. Conversely though it wouldn't fix many of the fundamental complaints people have about the game.

Eh, I feel like many of those are more personal taste than actual problems, but I can see where you are coming from.

The big fundamental issues of 40k currently are scale/model count and IGOUGO. Addressing either would just be creating a new game, and we saw how well that worked with AoS. To put it in Douglas Adams' words, "This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

There also is the issue of the community being split twice, once between people who play multiple times a week and those who play 1-2 times a month. The former group requires regular updates to keep happy and engaged, the later struggles to keep up with all the balance updates and often only get one or two games with any given game state. Not much that can be done about this outside making the updates easier to digest for casual players.

The other split is that there is essentially just two game modes now: one is objective deck based competitive games and the other is crusade. Those two game modes cover a lot of players, but both have some issues. The competitive game is widely criticized as bland and repetitive (and I do agree).
Crusade's biggest issue is that while aimed at casual players, it requires non-casual amount of effort and skill to run. Speaking from experience here.
You simply cannot run a single game of crusade. If your schedule is extremely packed, if you switch your army every game or if you play pick-up games, no crusade for you. Due to this, play groups are essentially locked into one or the other playstyle, which results in players being stuck with a type of game they don't actually enjoy. Many posts in this thread tell this tale.
I'm not sure how to exactly tackle creating a single game crusade mode, but I'm sure it would make a lot of players happy.


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 PenitentJake wrote:
But what you have to remember is that they haven't actually written off narrative play yet, and that utility powers really shine in a narrative context where people are designing custom story-based missions. The other factor is that prescribed powers disincentivize multiple instances of the same model, which is a thing I HATE about prescribed powers. Let's say that my favourite armour type is Phobos, and I'm building an entire detachment of Phobos units. Let's further assume the Phobos Librarian is my favourite model of all time, and I want to include three of them, and to really push this over the top, lets say I did some cool but relatively simple conversions- head swaps, chapter/ company shoulderpads, maybe swapping an arm for a bionic equivalent from a different kit.

Then you should be playing a narrative game mode (=Crusade) and that game mode can provide you with battle honors and/or requisitions to customize your psykers. If that is valuable to you..
They could publish a whole narrative supplement with tables to roll on for your power that would put 7th edition to shame and it would be great.
But it has no place in the base game.

Furthermore, I want to challenge the premise that people would only pick one.

Not going into detail here, but we did have that, in pretty every iteration possible. Categories don't matter, the most powerful powers win. Whether it's guide or invisibility or da jump or the spacewolf chasm thing one-shotting carnifexes. The game will be balanced against those most powerful options and not picking them is just handicapping yourself. There is no need to print another 4 options for the five people who claim to pick them regularly on the internet.

 Jidmah wrote:

 PenitentJake wrote:
But what you have to remember is that they haven't actually written off narrative play yet, and that utility powers really shine in a narrative context where people are designing custom story-based missions. The other factor is that prescribed powers disincentivize multiple instances of the same model, which is a thing I HATE about prescribed powers. Let's say that my favourite armour type is Phobos, and I'm building an entire detachment of Phobos units. Let's further assume the Phobos Librarian is my favourite model of all time, and I want to include three of them, and to really push this over the top, lets say I did some cool but relatively simple conversions- head swaps, chapter/ company shoulderpads, maybe swapping an arm for a bionic equivalent from a different kit.

Then you should be playing a narrative game mode (=Crusade) and that game mode can provide you with battle honors and/or requisitions to customize your psykers. If that is valuable to you..
They could publish a whole narrative supplement with tables to roll on for your power that would put 7th edition to shame and it would be great.
But it has no place in the base game.

Sorry, PenitentJake, you're having fun wrong.

Taking choices because they're flavourful or thematic, or to try and give differentiate different characters in your army is verboten.

You are only permitted to take the absolute best option available, as confirmed by no les than 80% of Pro Tournament players.

Please report to your nearest Citadel Re-education Centre (TM) so you can be schooled in the only correct way to enjoy this game.

Not really sure its "having fun wrong" - but its an accurate observation that people overwhelmingly took the strongest powers and the weaker ones scarcely ever saw play.

The cry goes up "give powers a points cost them, so the weaker ones will be cheaper" - but that's rarely solved the problem. You are then left asking "is this points efficient, yes/no". Often the answer has been no. I mean to a degree we see that with enhancements now. Some are detachment defining - others are kind of trash, useful only for filling in 10 point gaps in your list.

I just want them to fix Aircraft and steal some terrain ideas from Horus Heresy.

I want dangerous terrain and minefields!

Tyel wrote:
Not really sure its "having fun wrong" - but its an accurate observation that people overwhelmingly took the strongest powers and the weaker ones scarcely ever saw play.

The cry goes up "give powers a points cost them, so the weaker ones will be cheaper" - but that's rarely solved the problem. You are then left asking "is this points efficient, yes/no". Often the answer has been no. I mean to a degree we see that with enhancements now. Some are detachment defining - others are kind of trash, useful only for filling in 10 point gaps in your list.

It's the same issue with a lot of wargear options in reality, much as people don't like to admit it.

 Jidmah wrote:

Crusade's biggest issue is that while aimed at casual players, it requires non-casual amount of effort and skill to run. Speaking from experience here.

You simply cannot run a single game of crusade. If your schedule is extremely packed, if you switch your army every game or if you play pick-up games, no crusade for you. Due to this, play groups are essentially locked into one or the other playstyle, which results in players being stuck with a type of game they don't actually enjoy. Many posts in this thread tell this tale.
I'm not sure how to exactly tackle creating a single game crusade mode, but I'm sure it would make a lot of players happy.

Crusade isn't casual play. One of the biggest misunderstandings this community constantly makes is believing narrative play is casual play. It isn't. Narrative play requires a playgroup dedicated to narrative play, hell it requires a DM (or CM I guess).

Casual play is just pickup games, often with random people, and arguably casual play is more a variant of competitive play (which are games with random people, juts in a tournament setting). What used to be aimed at casual players was Open Play, but we all know how that ended.

To be honest I'm unsure if there is a way to make a random pickup friendly game mode that isn't just Matched Play.

I'd argue against Jidmahs point of there always being a strongest option that the same was true for formations and they were burned because of it - only to return as detachments in 9th/10th with several detachments being well and often played per faction (see his own breakdown for Orks). Don’t let the idea of choice die because of the most aweful editions of the game (6th/7th).
With the current system in place it may well be that some psychic powers would be less optimal or thematic in one detachment, but offer exactly what you need in another one.
Also, there's always the chance that what is considered strongest might not be useful in your own meta or playstyle - like I realized in 8th when warp time was all the rage in the internet and I took it a couple of games only to realize that it was totally useless in all the time

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I'd argue against Jidmahs point of there always being a strongest option that the same was true for formations and they were burned because of it - only to return as detachments in 9th/10th with several detachments being well and often played per faction (see his own breakdown for Orks). Don’t let the idea of choice die because of the most aweful editions of the game (6th/7th).
With the current system in place it may well be that some psychic powers would be less optimal or thematic in one detachment, but offer exactly what you need in another one.
Also, there's always the chance that what is considered strongest might not be useful in your own meta or playstyle - like I realized in 8th when warp time was all the rage in the internet and I took it a couple of games only to realize that it was totally useless in all the time

Yeah. "GW did it poorly" is not the same as a bad idea.

 Tyran wrote:
Crusade isn't casual play. One of the biggest misunderstandings this community constantly makes is believing narrative play is casual play. It isn't. Narrative play requires a playgroup dedicated to narrative play, hell it requires a DM (or CM I guess).

Yes, that's what I was trying to say. I'm fairly sure the community understands that, that's why so many people are complaining. What I'm not so sure about is whether GamesWorkshop does.

All the fun, silly, asymmetric and complex missions go into crusade packs, mission objectives which are flavorful or fun become agendas, rules which do insane or extremely complex things become crusade relics, customization rules become battle traits. So all the stuff many veterans are asking for in this thread is there - just not in a game mode they are able to play. And even if they are, crusade's bookkeeping is just not everyone's cup of tea.

Casual play is just pickup games, often with random people, and arguably casual play is more a variant of competitive play (which are games with random people, juts in a tournament setting). What used to be aimed at casual players was Open Play, but we all know how that ended.

Casual play is pretty much everything that is not either competitive (trying your best to win) or organized in a crusade, event or league-style structure. Beer&prezelhammer, dadhammer, random pickup games, playing with your friend Bob who comes over to your town twice a year, a school's club or gaming night with a group of friends. All those games lack a game type which properly represents them.

To be honest I'm unsure if there is a way to make a random pickup friendly game mode that isn't just Matched Play.

Well, if they released more stuff like the Christmas missions, that would be a good start. Rules for a one-game-crusade would also be nice.


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 JNAProductions wrote:
Yeah. "GW did it poorly" is not the same as a bad idea.

Maybe it sounds more like a bad idea if you paraphrase it as "GW will get it right this time!" despite having hard proof that they failed for five editions and over a hundred publications with psychic powers in them.


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Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I'd argue against Jidmahs point of there always being a strongest option [...]

The part about formations is whataboutism, especially since you are cherry-picking an example GW got right more or less by fluke.
The problem with worthless options still exists in the game right now, at this very moment. There are posts about it in this very thread. They did not get it right, enhancements are proof of that. There is no reason to assume options for psychic powers would fare any different.

 Jidmah wrote:
Rules for a one-game-crusade would also be nice.

What the hell would that be?
The concept of Crusade is that you're units lv up & gain abilities over the course of several games (yes, there's some book keeping involved).
Do you envision leveling up turn by turn or something?

What will 11th be like?

For the first time in ages, I dont care or think about a new 40K edition at all. GW has made it loud and clear they want me playing other GW games instead.

Most likely just 10.5 edition with slight tidying up of rules and backwards compatibility.

Basically an "errata" edition.

Lots of really good post here since I looked in last.

Regarding Jidmah's request for one game Crusade, I see where he's coming from, even if the progression system is important to me personally.

Playing a single, stand-alone game of Crusade currently does offer these benefits:

1. A greater variety of asymmetric and diverse missions
2. A removal of Secondaries, which influence winning or losing, in favour of Agendas, which DO NOT have ANY effect on winning or losing.
3. Some built in narrative consequences...

What I mean by that last is if you were only playing one game, maybe you're trying to complete one of the trials of Sainthood (Sisters)- you either pass the Trial or don't, but either way, that's how the story ends. Maybe you're fighting to take one specific Territory in Commorragh. Maybe you play the GSC's Ascension battle. Maybe the Eldar are Guiding Fate, but they only have a single threat and not 3, so that you can do the single game success/ failure.

Of the three benefits, the first is probably the one most folks are looking for in a stand-alone game. The second benefit is weird in a stand-alone game: the dynamic tension between the desire to win and the desire to acrue experience, which I believe to be the coolest element of Crusade, is minimized when "Experience" as a concept is rendered irrelevant. Sure, you can still say "Hah ha! I'm defiling all your sacred shrines by painting them with the blood of their defenders!" but you're less likely to do that if it might cost you the victory since there's no tasty XP as consolation prize.

The third one is probably the hardest one to manage, because not every faction's bespoke content provides a narrative goal that can be accomplished in a single game... But many do- especially if you're willing to tweak a bit.

And all of that can be independent of progression if that's what you need.

I think the old narrative missions pre 9th edition were probably similar to what Jidmah and Jake hint at. Meaning you had rules for endless swarms, night fighting, killing important daemons, performing some Ritual, defending City walls against an attacker and so on.
GW just never cared to do the homework of saying: when playing this scenario, one side should have that many points of units that can do X, but only that many points of units that can do Y...
With 29 factions and millions of Variations you either have to go preset lists for this (as GW partly did in campaign books, but often it was still not enough or rendered moot by the next codex release) or put in some guidelines (which they did in 8th, but it was far too open and was nothing more than: one side shouldn't have more than 50% of units with fly).
What I'd like is either some pretty clear guidelines (either for each faction per mission, or list suggestions, or list archetypes- "the attacking swarm army should be Orks, Tyranids, GSC or Imperial guard and at least 60% should be made of battleline units") OR the One Page Rules way: just an awesome catalogue of objectives, deployment zones, catastrophic Events, sudden death objectives, narrative stratagems, terrain special rules, warzone rules, hero rules etc. An easy framework to build your narrative mission- with an amount of playtesting and adjusting by GW (or the players). NOT like every time GW did this in the past: here is what one of our writers made up last night, buy it for 50€ and we'll never come back to it again.

9th ed's Theatre of war rules gave some of that environmental add-in, and you could combine those with any of the idiosyncratic Crusade missions to achieve interesting narrative one-off games.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Orkeosaurus wrote:
3) make character models and bodyguards into a single unit in all respects

I don't get this one, care to elaborate?

To be honest, I often whish a solo leader could just join a new unit, but I also remember what a rules nightmare this caused back in 5th-7th. Probably not worth it.

Basically just drop the weird thing where once the bodyguard dies the character becomes a distinct second unit, who is somehow no longer half-strength due to more people in his squad dying. And especially getting rid of multiple characters merging with a unit and then splitting into two different units when the mooks die around them. Also no more buffs that disappear from the character when the bodyguard is dead. All of that is counter-intuitive rules overhead, without any of the possible benefits of allowing characters to leave and rejoin units like previously.

 PenitentJake wrote:
Furthermore, I want to challenge the premise that people would only pick one.

Not going into detail here, but we did have that, in pretty every iteration possible. Categories don't matter, the most powerful powers win. Whether it's guide or invisibility or da jump or the spacewolf chasm thing one-shotting carnifexes. The game will be balanced against those most powerful options and not picking them is just handicapping yourself. There is no need to print another 4 options for the five people who claim to pick them regularly on the internet.

I feel like the same objection can usually be made about having multiple psyker datasheets within an army. What's the practical difference between a Librarian who can choose a strong power or a weak power versus a Librarian with a strong power and a Terminator Librarian with a weak power? Mainly just that the latter screws over the guy who has his Librarian modeled with Terminator armor.

That said I would only let a psyker choose one power from a short list, not some crazy WHFB thing with 3 spells per character rolled on a Magic School chart or whatever they were doing for a while. That's asking your opponent to memorize more than is reasonable about your army. (Which is also my objection to 6 unique stratagems per detachment.)

 Jidmah wrote:
Not going into detail here, but we did have that, in pretty every iteration possible. Categories don't matter, the most powerful powers win.

My experience was that this sometimes meant a no-brainer pick, but more often was 2-3 fairly comparable choices and then the rest mediocre to crap. Which was at least more interesting than having no choice at all- and functionally no different from how they've fared with weapon options, now that those don't have points as a balancing factor anymore.

I mean, you might as well be saying they should just get rid of grenade launchers, meltaguns, and flamers for matched play because you're just going to take plasma guns anyways, so no point in having a choice. Just make at least a cursory effort to give different psychic powers distinct roles and utility and then the choice is worth something.

Here is my insane "crazy-guy-in-woods" prediction for 11th:

Alternating activations.

Maybe it's a separate game mode, maybe it isn't, but that's my thought. It would shake up the game in a huge way, people would talk about it, everyone would want to at least give it a go... and the end result would probably bump up the almighty sales figures in the end.

leerm02 wrote:
Here is my insane "crazy-guy-in-woods" prediction for 11th:

Alternating activations.

Maybe it's a separate game mode, maybe it isn't, but that's my thought. It would shake up the game in a huge way, people would talk about it, everyone would want to at least give it a go... and the end result would probably bump up the almighty sales figures in the end.

If it's done like their other games, it could work.

But I'm afraid that is too much of a change in the game for now.

leerm02 wrote:
Here is my insane "crazy-guy-in-woods" prediction for 11th:

Alternating activations.

Maybe it's a separate game mode, maybe it isn't, but that's my thought. It would shake up the game in a huge way, people would talk about it, everyone would want to at least give it a go... and the end result would probably bump up the almighty sales figures in the end.

Epic: Armageddon is already a thing, despite the total lack of support, and has always been a superior game.

It's been 40+ years of IGOUGO. Fantasy, 40k, Mordheim, Necromunda, Bloodbowl, and every other game GW has ever published. EA is the one exception (unless Warmaster used the same rules, I have no idea), and they abandoned it. They're not going to even entertain this idea.

If you want to try such a thing out, you should. 6mm EA minis aren't that hard to come buy, and all of the rules are free. You might just get hooked on it. Activate a unit...make a roll. Was it successful (it usually is)? Awesome, go on a rampage with whatever that unit can do. Try and "retain the initiative" if you're feeling confident, and activate another unit with a penalty to the roll. Or let your opponent take their turn, with the same rules.

But changing 40K to that? It'll never happen.

I haven't played since the very beginning of 6th and have been just now getting back into the game. But I really do like the list building for the most part and not having every wargear or weapon option cost different. It makes it much easier to bring what you want, not what you can afford, or what is the best bang for your points.

That said, I would like some way to easily add or remove a few points from a list. I like the idea of having some skills, abilities, etc that maybe you pay for an upgrade. Just to make some things flow a little better.

ccs wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Rules for a one-game-crusade would also be nice.

What the hell would that be?
The concept of Crusade is that you're units lv up & gain abilities over the course of several games (yes, there's some book keeping involved).
Do you envision leveling up turn by turn or something?

More like giving access to all the customization before the game, give some incentive to follow agendas instead of mission success and dropping the whole thing afterwards.

I guess you could also level up during the game, but feels like too much effort.


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 Orkeosaurus wrote:
Basically just drop the weird thing where once the bodyguard dies the character becomes a distinct second unit, who is somehow no longer half-strength due to more people in his squad dying. And especially getting rid of multiple characters merging with a unit and then splitting into two different units when the mooks die around them. Also no more buffs that disappear from the character when the bodyguard is dead. All of that is counter-intuitive rules overhead, without any of the possible benefits of allowing characters to leave and rejoin units like previously.

Gotcha, fully agree. There is no reason for characters to act any different from squad leaders or medics.


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 catbarf wrote:
I mean, you might as well be saying they should just get rid of grenade launchers, meltaguns, and flamers for matched play because you're just going to take plasma guns anyways, so no point in having a choice. Just make at least a cursory effort to give different psychic powers distinct roles and utility and then the choice is worth something.

I'm not opposed to giving psykers extra options, but those should absolutely not be army wide (like enhancements) and not a pool of options that you can cherry pick from. For example a CSM sorcerer currently has the "powers" Prescience, Gift of Chaos and two versions of Infernal Gaze. Just like many other units get the choice of trading a gun for an ability, the sorcerer could get a choice to trade Infernal Gaze for Death Hex. You should not be able to trade any "power" for Death Hex (because everyone is going to trade gift of chaos) and neither should you be able to get the same Death Hex on every other psyker in the army.

In general, GW seems to be doing a lot better when balancing two options against each other (plasma and melta both see play), I can't think a single instance where three or more options are well balanced against each other unless the choice is meaningless anyways.

On top of that, getting two weapons right is much easier than getting utility or mobility right. In addition, it's night impossible to correctly evaluate a model correctly that can switch between offensive, defensive and utility/mobility options. For example, an offensive power that could compete with Da Jump for a big unit of boyz would have to be insanely powerful, allowing Mortarion to trade his plague wind for a defensive or mobility option is functional identical to deleting plague wind from the datasheet.

Tyel wrote:
Not really sure its "having fun wrong" - but its an accurate observation that people overwhelmingly took the strongest powers and the weaker ones scarcely ever saw play.

The cry goes up "give powers a points cost them, so the weaker ones will be cheaper" - but that's rarely solved the problem. You are then left asking "is this points efficient, yes/no". Often the answer has been no. I mean to a degree we see that with enhancements now. Some are detachment defining - others are kind of trash, useful only for filling in 10 point gaps in your list.

To be fair, the last time psychic powers cost points was 5th(?) edition, and GW wasn't exactly giving quarterly balance updates back then. It seems like it would be pretty easy to just raise or lower the costs of powers until you saw a healthy mix of them being taken. It's basically the same as balancing multiple similar psyker datasheets with different abilities against eachother.

Alternatively, you could maybe overhaul (some) psykers a bit. They'd be more expensive, but you could do something like:
* Psykers have access to X different powers. X is probably like, 3.
* They can either use one power per turn, or use more with some sort of risk/downside. (Insert side tangent about how psychic tests should work here.)

So psykers end up feeling like they're capable of pulling off multiple types of psychic stunts, and it's up to the player to decide which powers to use as the situation demands. This solves the slight weirdness of having a librarian who *only* knows how to put up a telekinetic shield or only knows how to gate of infinity and nothing else. And it makes psykers more flexible so you're not wasting points by taking a psyker whose power is to reduce enemy charges when playing against tau or a psyker whose power is to grant an invuln save when playing against an army with little AP of note. You'd have to charge psykers some extra points to account for the increased flexibility, but I think it would go a long way to making them feel fluffy again.

 JNAProductions wrote:
"GW did it poorly" is not the same as a bad idea.

It kind of a is though. The models, rules and time to paint/play/etc is not free. Meaning if GW does something poor they are wasting their customers time and money. Their intentions are unimportant, because GW is not a 6 years old in kindergarden who thought that painting their face blue with an unwashable paint was a good idea. No, if GW writes a set of rules for lets say terrain, which exclude specific units from being worth taking, then it is very bad for A people that have/like those models, B unit and army disersity and C faction balance (because the haves will only get more as the edition progresses, while the have nots will get worse and worse with every new book added).

I mean GW says they produce the best models and best games in the world. I can even say, that maybe it is even their intention. But it isn't true. And there are consequances of it. Just ask how much fun a salamander or WS player is having this edition. Or how it is to like Ad Mecha robots. Or those people that liked bikes or terminator armies. Those people aren't having much fun. And a lot of them just stopped playing in 10th.

It'll be more of 10th. L shaped tables of exacting set up. Maybe they'll really stretch themselves and put in a tree in one of their table set ups. Really it'll just be another round of SM codexs and 12 more SM lieutenants while removing another 48 units across all books to Legends.

Karol wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
"GW did it poorly" is not the same as a bad idea.

It kind of a is though. The models, rules and time to paint/play/etc is not free. Meaning if GW does something poor they are wasting their customers time and money. Their intentions are unimportant, because GW is not a 6 years old in kindergarden who thought that painting their face blue with an unwashable paint was a good idea. No, if GW writes a set of rules for lets say terrain, which exclude specific units from being worth taking, then it is very bad for A people that have/like those models, B unit and army disersity and C faction balance (because the haves will only get more as the edition progresses, while the have nots will get worse and worse with every new book added).

I mean GW says they produce the best models and best games in the world. I can even say, that maybe it is even their intention. But it isn't true. And there are consequances of it. Just ask how much fun a salamander or WS player is having this edition. Or how it is to like Ad Mecha robots. Or those people that liked bikes or terminator armies. Those people aren't having much fun. And a lot of them just stopped playing in 10th.

As far as quality models/the best models in the world, I agree with your assessment that GW ain't it. You can get incredibly detailed original models printed from numerous Etsy storefronts for half or less what GW charges. Some (most, really) of them would even proxy well for GW games. Hells, there's an entire range of Adepta Sororitas models they'll print that are much better than anything GW ever designed. And that's just Etsy alone.

As far as the best games in the world, they do, if your definition of best is limited to "best selling" or "most popular." That said, some of their previous games were real standouts for me, but it was always the "off stuff" that they failed to support. We had endless hours of fun with old-school Bloodbowl/Dungeonbowl leagues, Necromunda leagues, Mordheim leagues, and Epic: Armageddon. Those games were just...fun. Mostly because they were much better balanced. It didn't really mean much if you picked to play Reiklanders over Middenheimers, for example, or Escher vs Cawdor...everyone was an Imperial Guardsman at the core. What mattered was how you chose to play them. Yes, there were oddities like Skaven or VC in Mordheim, or Spyrers and Ratskins in Necomunda, but if they became a problem we just asked people not to bring them to the leagues.

So, as to GW making the "best" games, they don't, not by a long shot. But they HAVE put out some enjoyable winners in the past. It does tend to be 1000% easier to find a game/league/event to play a GW game at though. That's what they have going for them.

Karol wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
"GW did it poorly" is not the same as a bad idea.

It kind of a is though. The models, rules and time to paint/play/etc is not free. Meaning if GW does something poor they are wasting their customers time and money. Their intentions are unimportant, because GW is not a 6 years old in kindergarden who thought that painting their face blue with an unwashable paint was a good idea. No, if GW writes a set of rules for lets say terrain, which exclude specific units from being worth taking, then it is very bad for A people that have/like those models, B unit and army disersity and C faction balance (because the haves will only get more as the edition progresses, while the have nots will get worse and worse with every new book added).

I mean GW says they produce the best models and best games in the world. I can even say, that maybe it is even their intention. But it isn't true. And there are consequances of it. Just ask how much fun a salamander or WS player is having this edition. Or how it is to like Ad Mecha robots. Or those people that liked bikes or terminator armies. Those people aren't having much fun. And a lot of them just stopped playing in 10th.

As I've said to you before, literally every mechanic is a bad idea if you assume GW will go out of their way to implement it badly. It's valid to point out possible pitfalls that would need to be avoided, but it's not valid to say that an idea is bad because there's a way to diabla ex machina it into being executed badly.

But we know how GW implements mechanics. They have the same design team. At least since 8th ed they have been consisten in what they do and how they shape the game.

GW talking about rules right now, is like that dude who tells you that he is just about to make a great break through and join the national team in wrestling. At 39 years of age.
Now I am not saying ALL stuff GW writes is bad. Fantasy came out well, but from what I have been told it was based on the best iteration of WFB ever made. I play AoS and with all its problems, it is okeyish too. But the way GW handles w40k, and I am basing this on 3 editions of expiriance now, there are clear paterns in how they function.

They know that the terrain rules they have generate HUGE problems. They know it. They know the rules had to be abstract for a game with so many models (as it happens in AoS). Yet they cling to a semi RPG system ment for skirmish games.

People beg for something else then IGYG in phase/turn structure. And aside of how it would work under the army structure in w40k, we know how GW handles rotating model activation. We have it in Kill Team. And each seson the same thing happens, There is one or two factions that litteraly break the system.

Or to not force people to read my stupid and bad writing. Past actions tells us a lot about future actions. And GW does not have a good record implementing new or supporting old mechanics.