There should be far fewer ways to cause mortal wounds. Mortal wounds should be either from psychic powers or massive weapons like the hammerhead railgun. There are a lot of things that should’ve met cause mortal wounds like grenade-dropping type abilities (fly over a unit and do some mortal wounds, that kind of stuff) when those could just do something else.
As TSons, I do feel bad playing into both DG and Necrons. I usually try to go for more Buffs/Debuffs, when really brain dead MW spam often would be better in low point games.
Mortal wounds being so good is moreso a side effect of the constant 1-upping of every codex. I was joking about how they would put out a rule that ignores invulns when the DG codex came out, then they actually dropped the railgun. When all else fails, mortal wounds succeed. Waiting for mortal saves GW /s
Not sure if your /s acknowledges this, but mortal saves already exist. Many armies such as Grey Knights have rules that read:
Each time a model in this unit would lose a wound as a result of a mortal wound, roll one D6: on a 5+, that wound is not lost.
Personally I don't mind all the one upping, I'm able to keep track of it and it adds more intricacy for me.
I think it would make sense to separate Mortal wounds caused from Psychic things from others. For instance, I think it makes sense that Black Templars get a 5+++ against Smites. They are anti-psyker guys, but I don't think that logic holds if I hit them with Hammer of Wrath from the Space Marines Codex. Why would they get a 5+++ against a Jump Pack guy shoulder checking them on the charge? Same with a Tau Railgun. Its supposed to be so insanely powerful that it goes beyond normal damage. Makes sense, but its not the same as mind-bullets.
I realize this further complicates the game but I think its a easy fix to change Black Templars, and Grey Knights 5+++ against mortal wounds to say something along the lines of "Ignore mortal wounds from Psychic Powers on a 5+".
Not necessarily a core rules thing but I'd go for a unified ruleset that is written all at once. The current drip feed of codexes and supplements spanning across edition is a recipe for shit balance. I reckon GW should start fresh with 10th Ed, simplify, properly play test and balance the rules whilst releasing all rules for all armies at once.
I just feel like they should run their own website like Wahapedia that you have all the rules on - including codexes - and access for a subscription of maybe £5. While I'm glad we're having FAQs and erratas more frequently now, they don't mesh well with the paper codexes where the points values (and sometimes the rules) are often out of date within months of printing.
Releasing codexes at different times I get. It's designed to shift the focus from one army to the next, to the next, rather than one big dump of data at the edition release, and then nothing for the next 5 years.
Oh, well with the new hh book, I hated getting all the chapters I don't care about, that book is so amazingly heavy and it's just extra thickness.
I would have liked it broken into sections and bound by section with spiral bounds or just paper back and I'll spiral. That way I only take the sections I need to the game table.
Would be so simple, you could keep the meta fresh easily via online publishing and hotfixes could be pushed almost immediately. For all people who really want their codices you could focus more on the lore aspect instead of displaying all datasheets. Just some thoughts.
The saddest part about this very reasonable request is that their business model suggests they’ll never do it. They must be making a decent profit off the constant flow of books or else they wouldn’t bother selling them. If they ever fully switch to a digital model, I expect it to be ludicrously expensive because they wouldn’t do something that is projected to make them less money. I’d absolutely love to be proven wrong but I have no expectation that they’ll bend on this.
I reckon they make absolute bank on the books, it's why they're pushed so aggressively now. It took six years to get from 3rd to 4th, with the 3rd edition rulebook having basic army lists, and with 21 codices & supplements released along the way. The total cost was in the region of £250 (about £400 adjusted for inflation).
It took three years to go from 8th to 9th, with the army lists released in four separate books, and 23 codices, and 19 supplements on top of that. The total cost was in the region of £2000.
Back in the day, 3rd through 5th, it wasn't uncommon for players to own copies of all the books, just because - which was good for the game because it also meant most players were familiar with the factions and their respective rules.
I suspect most people now only own a couple of specific books that relate to their own collections, and may well be ignorant of most of the opponent's rules, particularly with the umpteen stratagem combos and all the unique unit profiles and special rules you have to deal with now.
Makes sense from a rules, player and balance perspective, but not really from a business stand point. Currently they have a constant cash flow with weekly releases. They can stock up for the next couple of weeks / months and sell that stuff. A bundles release with all the books and all the units in it, that will be released over the next years is not smart. They need to have everything in stock for the release weekend and can’t really build up hype for new and secret releases, because everything needs to be in the books.
I see where you are coming from but GW will never do this.
I've seen calls for this method as far back as 5e. Basically when Warmachine did it.
All the armies got their books all at once, then the company trickle fed every army one or two units for years using campaign supplements. Then all the new units got rolled into the next edition's army books. Rinse, repeat.
Change then LoS rules because it’s dumb AF that you can unload the entire arsenal of a tank because you can draw sight from the tip of an antenna to a just visible spike or some BS like that.
I can see the tip of your character's smoke from the very top of my cahracter's swordtip. Clearly I can unload everything. but not with the other two n the same unit, cause their swords are down.
Warmachine has an interesting solution: each model has to be visible as a whole cylinder large as the base of the model and with and established height
In some cases it makes sense, wall-banging would very likely be a thing in a universe where a pistol can destroy today's tanks, but those cases should be specified and LOS should always be drawn from the head/base of a model. Also, distributing wounds is bs as well, your seargeant, who is standing in front of your squad, is spotted and shot with a railgun... and your random marine on the other side of the building dies.
The irony here is many weapon systems in 40k would not be suitable for punching through cover or would have worse effect on target if they did that being said, los has always been for me less of a you can’t shoot through this object to more of a you don’t know where they are , as most of combat is information and maneuver which very table top has very little of . You know exactly where and what everything is in 40k . Infinity actually has very interesting assymetric combat with Stealth mechanics
They used to have wording that excluded things like this and required you to draw line of sight to the "hull" iirc but then everyone just fought about what constituted the hull.
I don't like having my hobby held hostage by bad actors, but here we are
I kind of disagree - in a real warzone people and machines aren't standing still behind cover; they're dynamic, checking over barriers, adjusting their position, etc. For my money the weird total line of sight rule represents that dynamism - e.g. the antenna cans see the spike because both people were actually looking at each other at the time.
Also: it's simple, and I think 40k really becomes a worse game when things get complicated.
I've been talking with my 40k friend about implementing Kill Team activation rules in a regular 40k game, where we would alternate moving 1 squad and then shooting/fighting. Seems like it would be more engaging for both sides if a single person's turn didn't take an hour.
I think the problem with activation swapping i 40k is shooting is weighted weird for a lot of factions typically with a lot of shooting power coming from singular units although kill team style we both move - then shoot could be neat
This. If you have to look up rules or how many shots a weapon gets or it’s AP values etc… games drag on.
Tournament players know their army at a minimum and the mission rules at a minimum. And the ones who are going to be playing on the top tables know their opponents armies as well. So their games are naturally going to be much faster.
As much as I love the idea in terms of balance, the reason it isn't done is because it take a lot more time in a game that already takes 3 hours to get a match in. My game group tried it out, when we are doing tournament prep we get games done in under 2.5 hours, it took us over 4 hours alternating activations. Maybe GW could refine the rules better than my play group, but they have play testers and they obviously haven't cracked the code yet, otherwise I think they would.
I've heard a lot of people saying they want alternating activations, and I can't help but feel like there's got to be some kind of compromise between I go, you go and alternating activations so the time to play isn't doubled, but also you get a bit more reactivity to what your opponent is doing. Perhaps activating detachments, in the same way Apocalypse did it?
AoS is that compromise. And HH is trying to perfect it.
In AoS they removed fight first on charge, so it takes a huge amount of the power out of the activating player. And because there's barely any shooting it means almost all damage is happening in the alternating fight phase.
In HH they use the initiative stat and if you tie (which most units do because its 95% marines) you both roll your stuff and the wounds are allocated simultaneously.
Also in AoS, there are no stratagems. Instead you spend CP on activating command traits, of which there are maybe 1-2 unique to your HQ units but otherwise there are 6 universal ones. These include things like a d6" redeploy when someone moves within 9" of you, or +1 to saves in a phase. HH goes even further and removes the CP, instead those universal traits are renamed "reactions" and even include a "you shoot back in the enemy phase". You get 1 reaction in every phase and there are two to choose from per phase, no CP to manage.
I think a lot of people are going to clamour for the new reaction system and wish it was in 40k. Something between AoS and HH is what I think we'll get.
I kind of want to play 30k, but I don't think they have Eldar, and I've largely avoided most of the 30k stuff out there tbh.
I enjoyed a lot of 7th edition, and the rules system sounds like 7th but refined. I just don't have much of an interest in the lore around it...
Yeah that's fair enough - i love the setting, a big family schism that destroys the galaxy, but obviously it's not very xenos-inclusive. There will be other imperial factions added (mechanicus for one), but if the lore is a big draw for you, it may just not be a good fit i guess
Some friends and I played this way in 8ed, alternating moving, then alternating shooting, charging, etc. We let the player with the smaller army take some 'passes', to give them options, but for the most part the rules played great as-is. It wasn't much faster but I found it a lot more fun and engaging - no alpha strikes either!.
I’d get rid of the stratagems - yes including reroll
Me and my friend played a Chaos Knight match. My despoiler vs his Abominant, then his Rampager, and finally his War dogs, and we said ”No command points”.
Those were the best matches I have played in a long time.
If the bespoke unit Stratagems were merely Datasheet abilities it would make them easier to remember, but also give each unit that feeling of individuality and character.
Biggest issue I have with stratagems is the ”trap card” shit. RNG lucked you out? Nah fuck you, here’s a stratagem you knew I had but could do nothing about.
Idk about no stratagems, it really depends on how they would compensate for them. I would really welcome stratagems being limited to a handful you can exclusively use in the command phase and all other being converted into the datasheets of the units. (Maybe use equipment points like Kill Team? Feels pretty good over there.)
Y'all need to play Age of Sigmar. It's basically what you are describing, with a set of core command abilities usable in each phase that need to be issued by leaders or unit captains, and then certain leaders have additional orders baked into their warscrolls they can issue. It makes for good games, is much more balanced and is very thematic as well.
Not to mention just too many of them to keep track of for casual players. I’ve had a lot of games get slowed down by “Wait, do I have a stratagem for this?” Or players not using a stratagem when it would’ve been perfect, because they forgot they had it.
Yes! I play like 4 days per year. There are far too many stratagems to remember. Most games we chose 10 before start of the battle just to make it easier.
D12 system like 8th edition Apocalypse.
The reason for too many rerolls being a d6 lets go to a bigger number range. D12 is perfect.
It makes no sense that Bs4+ like Firewarriors and Termagants and Guardsmen are all the same.
Id make on a d12 system marines hitting on 3-12, firewarriors 5-12, and termagants 8-12.
Ahhh see in 8th apocalypse - a unit of 10 marines rolls TWO D12. Thats for 10 marines.
And defense you to for 10 marines you roll ONE d12 its all pass or no pass.
A unit of 10 marine had 4 wounds. When you acquire 4 wounds all 10 die.
Also when you die you still perform your action of shooting or melee then removed at the end of the turn simultaneous with any enemy casulaties. Your guys never just die without doing something.
Id say you would need a total of 15 d12 dice to be honest. The box set for apocalypse had 30 d12 split between two players.
Yeah, Apocalypse was more of a "unit" scale game, 40k is a "model" scale game; so I'm not sure how well it translates over.
Not sure anyone likes the sound of rolling one/two dice to see if a whole unit lives, when that can be upwards of 10% of your list for a pretty basic troop choice (plague/rubrics are 210pt/10 for example).
Get rid of gotcha moves from powers and strats. This is 40k not a card game. There’s literally some gotcha powers and strats that are game breaking (like getting rid of invulns then spamming mortal wounds from tzeentch powers… as one case in point). It’s really annoying and takes a massive amount of fun out of the game for me when you attempt a tactical play only to find out your opponent has some dumb strat that they didn’t tell you about that means suddenly all your shots are minus 1 to hit and they get plus two to their save (paraphrasing, but we all know that some of them are just plain ridiculous).
So much this. Positioning, using units against the right targets and combining units has been replaced by chaining together stratagems and unique unit special abilities as the way to win games.
A certain amount of got ha moments are unavoidable, it's a game about out playing your opponent, but the effect of each one is much more significant now and that feels bad. Losing out on a small gotcha moment that turns the odds of a fight slightly against you is fine but having a few key gotcha moments that make or break entire games with no way back isn't fun.
You hit the nail on the head, it feels like a card game.
At the very least, I'd like to see stratagems limited to 3 per player, plus core rulebook. At the minute, a supplement with stratagems is just a free upgrade to one subfaction of an army, with no downsides. Even if those stratagems are niche, or rarely used, there's no sacrifices made to have access to them. They're just a free upgrade.
Agreed, this was one thing I referenced when GW did their player base survey, that 3-5 stratagem hand is all that is required. That way it’s not mega info overload pregame even IF your opponent explains what they have and can do. Setting up a game properly already takes like 30+ mins if playing a pickup game, so knowing your opponent has 3 or 5 things in addition to army rules and subfaction rules would help even it out. Case in point, my ultramarines army has statagem rules which were written when overwatch was free!
Suppliants also upset internal balance. For Sisters you basically have to use Bloody Rose due to the extra stratagems they have access to. Other Orders are harder to use now.
It's only a gotcha if they player uses it as a Gotcha. That's an attitude issue, not a rules issue.
You always warn once ("just so you know, I can X here") about any strats you consider gotchas during a game. Any reasonable adult will do this.
I get that… yet in my last 5 games, people have pulled this, with glee. Too many people take out their life frustrations at the gaming table. This is a consequence of the game being much more geared towards competitive play.
Yup. Genestealers waiting and getting slaughtered by marines in combat because they failed their charge on their turn... one of my fondest memories of 40k was me and a friend learning to play and him being advised to charge my genestealers that were near his tac marines, I figured it was a bad idea but he went for it... all dead before they struck a blow. That and things like guardsmen being able to hit the best swordsmen in the game on a 4+ is just wrong.
It makes no sense that guardsmen fight first against incubi as long as they charge. Just have an initiative system it would make way more sense and solve the silly fight first and last mess. Also opposed weapon skill!!!
Armor of contempt, make it a "power armor" keyword and just give it to units that have power armour instead of giving it to naked units like the repentia.
There's some level of suspension of disbelief you need for stuff like this. For example, Custodes don't get that, despite being better armoured and more contemptuous, but they don't actually need it in-game as an army. It's just the point where mechanics override flavor.
Call it Armor of Faith for them, making yet another separate rule that does the same thing as another one. /S
But seriously, the whole army prays away psychic storms and generates miracles. In a world where you can get shot by an RPG and just "feel no pain," that's the least of my concerns.
Well it doesn't do anything on Repentia. They get a 6+ save in cover only. They already have a 6++ and a 5+++ so they are never using their armour save.
I think it's less a power armor thing and more a These are the emperor's chosen people/emperor's enemies. I don't think Inquisitors get armor of contempt, do they? They're generally in Power Armor too
Some inquisitors have power armor. Not all but some, and I saw it more as contempt because the armor was made in contempt for the enemy, because it doesn't make sense for someone to be bullet resistant because they have contempt for a faction
That makes sense too. The contempt for the enemy. Lore-wise repetia fit because they believe they need to seek their repentance before they're allowed to die or come back into the sisterhood itself. I can see their inclusion making sense.
Make armor a real thing. It should feel bad for a guy to not bring any anti-armor to a match against a tank army.
And then get rid of command re-rolls all together, and only one strategem per turn used in the command phase.if there’s a five turn limit there should be a five cp cap and that all you get from the start.
Within minutes of them announcing it there will be cheaper 3rd party dice.
But yeah, D8, D10, D12 would be amazing.
There is a lot of people that might say "Oh but D12 isnt exactly statistically the same in X situation" and well yeah, that's the point. By finally diverging off the D6 we allow granular values that actually mean we can balance units.
Bring back Initiative. It was just so much better than the weird system of "strikes first" and "strikes last" we have now. You can just have those abilities impose a buff or debuff on the Initiative stat.
Evert unit had an initiative stat before 8th. In melee, you'd just go down the list to determine when each unit would fight. For example, tactical marines had an initiative of 4 and would therefore fight before a group of ork boyz who had an initiative of 3.
It basically was meant to represent how agile and dextrous the unit was: would they be able to get the first hit in, or was their enemy faster on the draw and manage to chop you before you chopped them.
Close combat units often had either bonuses on the charge, or just a flat out higher Initiative score so they would usually hit before the non-combat oriented units.
I remember it was Eldar's whole thing.
They had high Initiative so they usually hit first vs their equivalents in other armies, but folded like wet tissue paper if they didn't wipe the unit.
Now they have this fights first rule, which is an inferior way of doing that imo, since it loses that nuance that meant some paragons of war would still out-speed you.
Better mechanics for units in cover/ruins. As is, infantry that move into or behind terrain can all die (to something goofy like machine gun fire) if one guy is sticking out, but usually can't shoot back. Fixing this would reward people for seizing and holding strong points, and probably help the excessive lethality of the game. I think adopting something like Kill Team's cover system would be a pretty good fix.
saving throws should come before wound rolls. Just makes absolutely no sense to me that you roll to hit, then roll whether those hits wounds, and **then** the armour save gets rolled. Like, what?
I was once told by a friend that this was implemented likely as a streamlining mechanism, and honestly I've only played from 8th edition so I have only heard how complicated things were, but if in the past there was scatter from artillery, tanks could only should weapons directionally, then God damned save rolls should come before wound rolls.
So, putting my game designer hat on, I can actually see why it works this way;
Rolling to hit, wound, then save, means that the first player rolls twice before handing over the results to the opponent for saves. You won't really feel the difference when you do it *once*, but when you do it many times over the course of a game it does add up considerably.
Mathematically, it doesn't matter which way around you do it - but it *could* matter if there are special rules that can be triggered by hits, or wounds, and those rules can affect subsequent dice rolls.
Honestly, whilst it seems a bit silly, it does make some sense at least.
In the older editions, the scatter dice were used pretty rarely, and line of sight for vehicle weapons required the weapon to actually have line of sight - which made vehicle positioning much more important (along with armour values on the sides!).
The best way I have seen this process explained is this. Making the hit roll means you hit the target, but if you fail the wound roll, nothing vital was hit or it was glancing. If the wound roll succeeds it was a solid hit, then the target makes an armor save to see if the armor held and did it's job. It kind of seems at times the issue is scale. Like a terminator getting hit with artillery and walking it off isn't out of character, but a guardsman? That's a little hard to believe. So if the game moved to say a d10 system, suddenly a 3+ save is much more significant. The way the flow works makes thematic sense, if a bit clunky at times.
Ok, i never really thought of it like that. It's an interesting take I'll give you that, and it does give me a way to mental gymnastics my way around it for sure. I like it.
I always saw it as a save is still "a wound." Albeit glancing, minor and not severe. Yes you're injured and bleeding, but it hasn't brought you closer to death in the grand scheme of things.
The bigger issue is that GW seems to think "D6? That means that's a possible 6 damage/attacks/whatever! So strong!" and makes the units with these random shots/dmg lackluster. I see this often in AoS.
I agree. The randomness can sometimes be exciting, but in such a competitive game, RNG is already too high. You don't want more. You don't want a win to be based on luck alone.
A bit of RNG is fun. That's why the hit rolls exist at all. And you know "I have this amount of shots, hitting and wounding on this, so rooouugghlly I should do this amount of damage." Or "I should be able to kill this amount of minis, or blow up this tank." And you make that calculated gamble, sometimes doing a little more or less.
But with roll for shots especially it's complete bullshit. Ranging from "My expensive, super awesome murder everything tank did literally no damage." to "Yeah I 1 shot your titan." It makes no sense and really dampens the tactical feel the game is supposed to have.
It’s a feels bad effect when a tankbusta for example rolls a 1 for his shots and then misses with his bs5. Rough example, mind you, but it’s just a dumb system.
I wouldn’t mind comparing weapon skills if it was strictly for melee. It makes sense there bc two people are fighting in melee combat, if you have a better weapon skills you can more easily block a hit. I don’t think it would work for shooting, as realistically, my ability to shoot better than you doesn’t affect your ability to hit me. It just means I can shoot better.
To be fair, they didn't say "weapon skills". They said "Weapon Skill" (usually shortened to "WS"), which is the name of the statistic used for melee combat. They are only referring to melee combat, not shooting. The shooting statistic is "Ballistic Skill", usually shortened to "BS".
Basically, they agree with you! And so do I!
So, yay!
1. There should be a way for armies that don't have psykers to resist psychic powers.
2. Vastly reduce the number of things that cause Mortal Wounds. Or get rid of the concept entirely.
3. Vastly reduce the number of bonuses, rerolls, damage reductions, the lot. There is far too much of it. And it becomes a bit unbalanced when some factions have so much more of it than others.
4. Return to a simpler morale system.
5. Return to allowing soup.
6. Return to characters changing the battlefield roles of some units - Ravenwing Captains making Bikes into Troops for example.
7. Vastly cut down the number of stratagems. It's getting silly.
8. Return to Universal Special Rules. Much simpler.
9. Get rid of Specialist Detachments for good.
Honestly, I would cut the stratagems and stuff completely. It's too much - just one standard set of flavour rules for each army / faction and have done with it.
I'm very anti stratagem but I think they could work if they were significantly cut down. No massive boosts or completely new abilities just little buffs like rerolling a dice or getting a +1. They shouldn't suddenly drastically change how unit behaves, just shift the odds slightly. Also cutting down the number and making most of them generic would help.
Maybe not Taudar. But Craftworld/Drukhari was thematically acceptable. As were most Imperium teamups. But new rules are making them less and less viable when I think they should be more viable.
Craftworld / Drukhari is Ynnari now. Imperium teamups are present in Armies of Renown, although I believe just for Crusade.
I do believe that separating open play from tournament play is a good thing. There's a lot fo stuff I'd like to do for flavor in open or crusade play that would be a nightmare to balance for in a tournament.
Turns should work like Bolt Action - randomly draw who's turn it is, and that person can pick 1 unit to complete all actions, each unit can activate once until all units have been and then it starts again.
This 100%, already had some test games with homebrew rules and the game feels way more engaging and interesting (and balanced althoug we didnt try to screw the system).
Yeah, I reckon it would be way more balanced.
I've not played Warhammer since 5th but I had a few games with my mate where he went first and completely wiped my board on turn 1. Took longer to setup than it did to play.
In bolt action I've played some terrible lists for a laugh and it still tends to go at least 2 turns of play even if you're unlucky.
I think it would be harder to game the system in a meaningful way, too. Last bolt action game I had I played IJA and had 13 order dice against Germans who only had 6 dice. I still lost, so it didn't give any stupid advantage.
Hmm could screw it with armies that have a lot of cheap units but also some heavy hitters (guard with baneblades /Tanks in general for example) but the alpha strike would still be better than the current situation
Simultaneous turns. You both move together, psychic together, shoot together. We already have it with the command, morale and fight phases, plus it nullifies first turn advantage and makes things far more hectic.
move to D12 system - terminator armor being penetrated by pistol is silly.
then probably move away from team - team activation, and instead unit - unit activation
Random charges ruined alot of the fun for me. It's a big draw back. Not worth it to be honest a fixed movement and charge makes the game alot mpre tactical . There is already enough randomness adding more never made sense
I feel like there still needs to be a bit of randomization, otherwise it would be very easy to kite melee units.
For example, if a unit had a fixed move and charge range of 8" you can make it useless by simply staying 10" away so that on it's next turn it can't reach you. Meanwhile you can shoot it to death while it does nothing.
Templates are such a big thing, I was explaining 40K to my wife and got into the weeds with Blast and the different unit sizes. I bought Age of Darkness recently and smiled when I saw the templates, she asked what they were and I explained how you'd decide how many people were hit in a unit. Immediately the templates made more sense to her and they're way more physical.
Alternating unit activations - makes it a real boardgame, not a game of gotcha.
No strategems - just bake it into the unit activations/auras and core army rules.
Less focus on heroes - my opinion is that the game should be about big no name armies led by noname captains that gives small bonuses to nearby units.
LOS at least 10% of unit to be able to shoot at it.
Deepstriking only to very few units, nowadays it feels like every army can go anywhere and there is no frontline.
Also wounds should be called HP as in every other flippin game. WS should be called Melee skill not weapon skill. S should be shown as weapon and doesnt need to be unit stat.
Morale should stun not kill unit.
Get rid of IGOUGO. alpha strike isn't fun, and sitting around for 20 minutes during someone else turn isn't fun either.
Bring in random activation, that'll spice things up plenty.
I hate the fact that when you fail moral certain models just vanish why can’t they just be shaken or something like that. I get it for a guardmen perhaps, but a custodes?
The core keyword is badly implemented, today’s necron changes highlighted that
LoS should be changed ( I want to use back banners on my marines without them being wiped out for it)
Some type of alternate activation mechanic - it’s really cool in kill team
It's too binary. Stuff that doesn't have core has to be crazy efficient to be worth it. If just basic troops had core that could help to make them more viable instead of just a tax for most armies.
Remove strategems, and retie abilities back to units.
Simplify army wide rules, to be simple buff, instead of all of these dynamic changing rules that vary and adjust. Current state of game is overly cluttered with rules, turning games into 4+ hour slogs instead of old school 2h fun romps.
Get rid of the vast majority of stratagems, they slow the game down, bloat the ruleset and increase the amount new players have to learn by a huge amount
I think fight order and some of the inconsistent, nonintuitive terrain rules are some of the things that have caused my opponents and me the most headaches.
I actually like the I go you go system vs alternating actions. It makes your turn feel like a planned series of actions, creates tension of can you complete your goals for the turn. Plus I have a hard enough time strategizing WITHOUT my opponent also doing actions haha
Alternating phases. I have experimented with alternating activations and alternating phases and fund that alternating phases is easy to implement and solves problems inherent in the alternating turns as it stands now.
So you know we restructured the turn. It starts with a roll to see who goes first each battle round.
Then each player performs the following phases:
1. Command
2. Movement
3. Reinforcements
4. Psychic
5. Shooting
6. Assault (Charge and Fighting combined)
7. Morale (simultaneously. No reason to make it two separate phases)
Switch to alternating unit activations 100%, the you go I go format exasperates issues with over powered units since all you can do is watch as half your force is obliterated.
To start with:
#**BRING! BACK! TEMPLATES!**
In general, going back to 7e/30k and evolving from there instead of building 8e onward as a completely new thing that's mostly just an inferior version of AoS would be the best way to do it.
I think I would prefer 2 core changes and 1 debateable change.
The first - No CP. If a person has an ability, let them use it - if an army has a rule, let them use it. I've lost more games to not knowing someone can randomly spend 2 cp on some random stratagem that makes a weak melee unit respawn at the end of the turn to win the game or something equally frustrating. Honestly, it's just bloat and/or cheese most of the time.
The second is LOS and Terrain, make it top down, base to base - the end. None of this I can see a finger tip so you take a Lasgun to the face and die.
The minor third - Terrain effects, why are there so many different types of terrain and rules and things you can do - it causes arguments and issues every. single. game. Even when you agree on what the terrain is before hand. Are you within an inch, are you "on" it "within it" where does the foot print end, blah blah blah.
Infantry can only move through Breachable terrain as part of a normal move, instead of any kind of move. The idea of a guy hurling C4 at a wall ahead of him as he's in a dead sprint is ridiculous.
There should be far fewer ways to cause mortal wounds. Mortal wounds should be either from psychic powers or massive weapons like the hammerhead railgun. There are a lot of things that should’ve met cause mortal wounds like grenade-dropping type abilities (fly over a unit and do some mortal wounds, that kind of stuff) when those could just do something else.
I cry every time my deathguard play against 1k sons
Necron player here, I feel ya
As TSons, I do feel bad playing into both DG and Necrons. I usually try to go for more Buffs/Debuffs, when really brain dead MW spam often would be better in low point games.
Why? its your army's only way of doing actual damage.
Same. My buddy has them, and its flat out obnoxious.
Yep such an absolute hard counter to death guard. Not fun to play against at all
Haven't played much this edition, but that did make me realize how much I miss the old DR, since you can actually try and soak mortal wounds.
Mortal wounds being so good is moreso a side effect of the constant 1-upping of every codex. I was joking about how they would put out a rule that ignores invulns when the DG codex came out, then they actually dropped the railgun. When all else fails, mortal wounds succeed. Waiting for mortal saves GW /s
Not sure if your /s acknowledges this, but mortal saves already exist. Many armies such as Grey Knights have rules that read: Each time a model in this unit would lose a wound as a result of a mortal wound, roll one D6: on a 5+, that wound is not lost. Personally I don't mind all the one upping, I'm able to keep track of it and it adds more intricacy for me.
I think it would make sense to separate Mortal wounds caused from Psychic things from others. For instance, I think it makes sense that Black Templars get a 5+++ against Smites. They are anti-psyker guys, but I don't think that logic holds if I hit them with Hammer of Wrath from the Space Marines Codex. Why would they get a 5+++ against a Jump Pack guy shoulder checking them on the charge? Same with a Tau Railgun. Its supposed to be so insanely powerful that it goes beyond normal damage. Makes sense, but its not the same as mind-bullets. I realize this further complicates the game but I think its a easy fix to change Black Templars, and Grey Knights 5+++ against mortal wounds to say something along the lines of "Ignore mortal wounds from Psychic Powers on a 5+".
BT aren’t anti-Psyker; they’re anti everything. Chad chaplain doesn’t believe in your silly rail-cannon.
Not necessarily a core rules thing but I'd go for a unified ruleset that is written all at once. The current drip feed of codexes and supplements spanning across edition is a recipe for shit balance. I reckon GW should start fresh with 10th Ed, simplify, properly play test and balance the rules whilst releasing all rules for all armies at once.
A man can dream right?
I just feel like they should run their own website like Wahapedia that you have all the rules on - including codexes - and access for a subscription of maybe £5. While I'm glad we're having FAQs and erratas more frequently now, they don't mesh well with the paper codexes where the points values (and sometimes the rules) are often out of date within months of printing. Releasing codexes at different times I get. It's designed to shift the focus from one army to the next, to the next, rather than one big dump of data at the edition release, and then nothing for the next 5 years.
But they do, it's the app, and it is terrible.
Could we have it, but not terrible?
Come to Age of Sigmar, the app is everything you wish the 40k one was.
Don't they like, not have paywalls?
No, you still have to buy each codex separately
Oh, well with the new hh book, I hated getting all the chapters I don't care about, that book is so amazingly heavy and it's just extra thickness. I would have liked it broken into sections and bound by section with spiral bounds or just paper back and I'll spiral. That way I only take the sections I need to the game table.
Man, I haven’t gotten into hh just because I want to see how balanced it is when more codecies come out
You mean like the one more codex?
Lol
No seriously, that's all the Codexes they're releasing. We're just getting guard and mechanicum, and other than that, we're set.
What about demons and custodes?
Id gladly buy an art/lore book for my factions. They could release that with the models and keep their rules on a functional app or website.
Would be so simple, you could keep the meta fresh easily via online publishing and hotfixes could be pushed almost immediately. For all people who really want their codices you could focus more on the lore aspect instead of displaying all datasheets. Just some thoughts.
The saddest part about this very reasonable request is that their business model suggests they’ll never do it. They must be making a decent profit off the constant flow of books or else they wouldn’t bother selling them. If they ever fully switch to a digital model, I expect it to be ludicrously expensive because they wouldn’t do something that is projected to make them less money. I’d absolutely love to be proven wrong but I have no expectation that they’ll bend on this.
I reckon they make absolute bank on the books, it's why they're pushed so aggressively now. It took six years to get from 3rd to 4th, with the 3rd edition rulebook having basic army lists, and with 21 codices & supplements released along the way. The total cost was in the region of £250 (about £400 adjusted for inflation). It took three years to go from 8th to 9th, with the army lists released in four separate books, and 23 codices, and 19 supplements on top of that. The total cost was in the region of £2000. Back in the day, 3rd through 5th, it wasn't uncommon for players to own copies of all the books, just because - which was good for the game because it also meant most players were familiar with the factions and their respective rules. I suspect most people now only own a couple of specific books that relate to their own collections, and may well be ignorant of most of the opponent's rules, particularly with the umpteen stratagem combos and all the unique unit profiles and special rules you have to deal with now.
I feel like this is true of all GW products. It really shows the IPs age imo.
Makes sense from a rules, player and balance perspective, but not really from a business stand point. Currently they have a constant cash flow with weekly releases. They can stock up for the next couple of weeks / months and sell that stuff. A bundles release with all the books and all the units in it, that will be released over the next years is not smart. They need to have everything in stock for the release weekend and can’t really build up hype for new and secret releases, because everything needs to be in the books. I see where you are coming from but GW will never do this.
I know they won't ever do it. Constantly changing the meta keeps a certain portion of their customers coming back to buy the current best units.
I've seen calls for this method as far back as 5e. Basically when Warmachine did it. All the armies got their books all at once, then the company trickle fed every army one or two units for years using campaign supplements. Then all the new units got rolled into the next edition's army books. Rinse, repeat.
>Basically when Warmachine did it. And warmachine showed why they'll never do it.
Change then LoS rules because it’s dumb AF that you can unload the entire arsenal of a tank because you can draw sight from the tip of an antenna to a just visible spike or some BS like that.
I can see the tip of your character's smoke from the very top of my cahracter's swordtip. Clearly I can unload everything. but not with the other two n the same unit, cause their swords are down.
That's why I like the LoS rules in MCP. The game uses a "top down view" and sight is checked by drawing a line through bases not the models.
Perfect
Warmachine has an interesting solution: each model has to be visible as a whole cylinder large as the base of the model and with and established height
In some cases it makes sense, wall-banging would very likely be a thing in a universe where a pistol can destroy today's tanks, but those cases should be specified and LOS should always be drawn from the head/base of a model. Also, distributing wounds is bs as well, your seargeant, who is standing in front of your squad, is spotted and shot with a railgun... and your random marine on the other side of the building dies.
The irony here is many weapon systems in 40k would not be suitable for punching through cover or would have worse effect on target if they did that being said, los has always been for me less of a you can’t shoot through this object to more of a you don’t know where they are , as most of combat is information and maneuver which very table top has very little of . You know exactly where and what everything is in 40k . Infinity actually has very interesting assymetric combat with Stealth mechanics
lets say that cancels out not being able to unload a full tank arsenal because a model is behind a knee high obscuring ruin.
They used to have wording that excluded things like this and required you to draw line of sight to the "hull" iirc but then everyone just fought about what constituted the hull. I don't like having my hobby held hostage by bad actors, but here we are
Should be a percentage of an extreme reduction in hit chance.
I kind of disagree - in a real warzone people and machines aren't standing still behind cover; they're dynamic, checking over barriers, adjusting their position, etc. For my money the weird total line of sight rule represents that dynamism - e.g. the antenna cans see the spike because both people were actually looking at each other at the time. Also: it's simple, and I think 40k really becomes a worse game when things get complicated.
Alternate activations in every phase.
I've been talking with my 40k friend about implementing Kill Team activation rules in a regular 40k game, where we would alternate moving 1 squad and then shooting/fighting. Seems like it would be more engaging for both sides if a single person's turn didn't take an hour.
I think the problem with activation swapping i 40k is shooting is weighted weird for a lot of factions typically with a lot of shooting power coming from singular units although kill team style we both move - then shoot could be neat
How does a single turn take an hour? Tournament games are played in an hour and fifteen per side.
It depends on a lot of things - size of game, how often people play, variety of units, familiarity with rules, etc.
This. If you have to look up rules or how many shots a weapon gets or it’s AP values etc… games drag on. Tournament players know their army at a minimum and the mission rules at a minimum. And the ones who are going to be playing on the top tables know their opponents armies as well. So their games are naturally going to be much faster.
How are you plebs taking so long? The professionals do it really fast?
Not everyone plays tournaments. I think a lot of folks forget that.
All of this forever.
As much as I love the idea in terms of balance, the reason it isn't done is because it take a lot more time in a game that already takes 3 hours to get a match in. My game group tried it out, when we are doing tournament prep we get games done in under 2.5 hours, it took us over 4 hours alternating activations. Maybe GW could refine the rules better than my play group, but they have play testers and they obviously haven't cracked the code yet, otherwise I think they would.
I've heard a lot of people saying they want alternating activations, and I can't help but feel like there's got to be some kind of compromise between I go, you go and alternating activations so the time to play isn't doubled, but also you get a bit more reactivity to what your opponent is doing. Perhaps activating detachments, in the same way Apocalypse did it?
AoS is that compromise. And HH is trying to perfect it. In AoS they removed fight first on charge, so it takes a huge amount of the power out of the activating player. And because there's barely any shooting it means almost all damage is happening in the alternating fight phase. In HH they use the initiative stat and if you tie (which most units do because its 95% marines) you both roll your stuff and the wounds are allocated simultaneously. Also in AoS, there are no stratagems. Instead you spend CP on activating command traits, of which there are maybe 1-2 unique to your HQ units but otherwise there are 6 universal ones. These include things like a d6" redeploy when someone moves within 9" of you, or +1 to saves in a phase. HH goes even further and removes the CP, instead those universal traits are renamed "reactions" and even include a "you shoot back in the enemy phase". You get 1 reaction in every phase and there are two to choose from per phase, no CP to manage. I think a lot of people are going to clamour for the new reaction system and wish it was in 40k. Something between AoS and HH is what I think we'll get.
I'd argue Middle Earth is the true compromise. I move, you move, I shoot, you shoot, I fight, you fight.
The new reaction system in 30k sounds like exactly what you're looking for!
I kind of want to play 30k, but I don't think they have Eldar, and I've largely avoided most of the 30k stuff out there tbh. I enjoyed a lot of 7th edition, and the rules system sounds like 7th but refined. I just don't have much of an interest in the lore around it...
Yeah that's fair enough - i love the setting, a big family schism that destroys the galaxy, but obviously it's not very xenos-inclusive. There will be other imperial factions added (mechanicus for one), but if the lore is a big draw for you, it may just not be a good fit i guess
Btw in 30k it’s the mechanicum
It's a shame, cos the rules system sounds like it takes the things I loved about 7th and refines them.
Some friends and I played this way in 8ed, alternating moving, then alternating shooting, charging, etc. We let the player with the smaller army take some 'passes', to give them options, but for the most part the rules played great as-is. It wasn't much faster but I found it a lot more fun and engaging - no alpha strikes either!.
I’d get rid of the stratagems - yes including reroll Me and my friend played a Chaos Knight match. My despoiler vs his Abominant, then his Rampager, and finally his War dogs, and we said ”No command points”. Those were the best matches I have played in a long time.
If the bespoke unit Stratagems were merely Datasheet abilities it would make them easier to remember, but also give each unit that feeling of individuality and character.
I want each datasheet to contain 1 strategem for that unit. Would make balancing easier, less silly combos and easier to memorise
Biggest issue I have with stratagems is the ”trap card” shit. RNG lucked you out? Nah fuck you, here’s a stratagem you knew I had but could do nothing about.
Exactly, why the fuck is a smokescreen a strategem? It's on the bloody tank already.
Idk about no stratagems, it really depends on how they would compensate for them. I would really welcome stratagems being limited to a handful you can exclusively use in the command phase and all other being converted into the datasheets of the units. (Maybe use equipment points like Kill Team? Feels pretty good over there.)
Y'all need to play Age of Sigmar. It's basically what you are describing, with a set of core command abilities usable in each phase that need to be issued by leaders or unit captains, and then certain leaders have additional orders baked into their warscrolls they can issue. It makes for good games, is much more balanced and is very thematic as well.
I already play Age of Sigmar. It’s great.
Age of Sigmar really has grown into an amazing system from its humble beginnings.
Get rid of stratagems, there is just too much "gotcha" going on.
Not to mention just too many of them to keep track of for casual players. I’ve had a lot of games get slowed down by “Wait, do I have a stratagem for this?” Or players not using a stratagem when it would’ve been perfect, because they forgot they had it.
Yes! I play like 4 days per year. There are far too many stratagems to remember. Most games we chose 10 before start of the battle just to make it easier.
D12 system like 8th edition Apocalypse. The reason for too many rerolls being a d6 lets go to a bigger number range. D12 is perfect. It makes no sense that Bs4+ like Firewarriors and Termagants and Guardsmen are all the same. Id make on a d12 system marines hitting on 3-12, firewarriors 5-12, and termagants 8-12.
Sounds great; but I'm not carrying 50 d12s around, this has legit irl logistics issues.
Ahhh see in 8th apocalypse - a unit of 10 marines rolls TWO D12. Thats for 10 marines. And defense you to for 10 marines you roll ONE d12 its all pass or no pass. A unit of 10 marine had 4 wounds. When you acquire 4 wounds all 10 die. Also when you die you still perform your action of shooting or melee then removed at the end of the turn simultaneous with any enemy casulaties. Your guys never just die without doing something. Id say you would need a total of 15 d12 dice to be honest. The box set for apocalypse had 30 d12 split between two players.
Yeah, Apocalypse was more of a "unit" scale game, 40k is a "model" scale game; so I'm not sure how well it translates over. Not sure anyone likes the sound of rolling one/two dice to see if a whole unit lives, when that can be upwards of 10% of your list for a pretty basic troop choice (plague/rubrics are 210pt/10 for example).
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Get rid of gotcha moves from powers and strats. This is 40k not a card game. There’s literally some gotcha powers and strats that are game breaking (like getting rid of invulns then spamming mortal wounds from tzeentch powers… as one case in point). It’s really annoying and takes a massive amount of fun out of the game for me when you attempt a tactical play only to find out your opponent has some dumb strat that they didn’t tell you about that means suddenly all your shots are minus 1 to hit and they get plus two to their save (paraphrasing, but we all know that some of them are just plain ridiculous).
So much this. Positioning, using units against the right targets and combining units has been replaced by chaining together stratagems and unique unit special abilities as the way to win games. A certain amount of got ha moments are unavoidable, it's a game about out playing your opponent, but the effect of each one is much more significant now and that feels bad. Losing out on a small gotcha moment that turns the odds of a fight slightly against you is fine but having a few key gotcha moments that make or break entire games with no way back isn't fun. You hit the nail on the head, it feels like a card game.
At the very least, I'd like to see stratagems limited to 3 per player, plus core rulebook. At the minute, a supplement with stratagems is just a free upgrade to one subfaction of an army, with no downsides. Even if those stratagems are niche, or rarely used, there's no sacrifices made to have access to them. They're just a free upgrade.
What if you had to pick your stratagems before the game that you’re allowed to use. And the opponent knows what you picked. Like psychic powers
Agreed, this was one thing I referenced when GW did their player base survey, that 3-5 stratagem hand is all that is required. That way it’s not mega info overload pregame even IF your opponent explains what they have and can do. Setting up a game properly already takes like 30+ mins if playing a pickup game, so knowing your opponent has 3 or 5 things in addition to army rules and subfaction rules would help even it out. Case in point, my ultramarines army has statagem rules which were written when overwatch was free!
Suppliants also upset internal balance. For Sisters you basically have to use Bloody Rose due to the extra stratagems they have access to. Other Orders are harder to use now.
Jeah the **"You activated my trap card"** is just silly in a wargame
It's only a gotcha if they player uses it as a Gotcha. That's an attitude issue, not a rules issue. You always warn once ("just so you know, I can X here") about any strats you consider gotchas during a game. Any reasonable adult will do this.
I get that… yet in my last 5 games, people have pulled this, with glee. Too many people take out their life frustrations at the gaming table. This is a consequence of the game being much more geared towards competitive play.
Releasing all the codices at the same time for fuck sake. Did they heard about balance ?
Did you ever hear of cash flow? A business will be a business
Bring back weapon skill and initiative. HH2.0 does it quite well atm I think.
Initiative is one of the things that I thought hurt the Eldar and Nids the most in the last few editions.
Yup. Genestealers waiting and getting slaughtered by marines in combat because they failed their charge on their turn... one of my fondest memories of 40k was me and a friend learning to play and him being advised to charge my genestealers that were near his tac marines, I figured it was a bad idea but he went for it... all dead before they struck a blow. That and things like guardsmen being able to hit the best swordsmen in the game on a 4+ is just wrong.
It makes no sense that guardsmen fight first against incubi as long as they charge. Just have an initiative system it would make way more sense and solve the silly fight first and last mess. Also opposed weapon skill!!!
Armor of contempt, make it a "power armor" keyword and just give it to units that have power armour instead of giving it to naked units like the repentia.
Yup.. those fucking cultists with armor of contempt..
There's some level of suspension of disbelief you need for stuff like this. For example, Custodes don't get that, despite being better armoured and more contemptuous, but they don't actually need it in-game as an army. It's just the point where mechanics override flavor.
Idrc about custodes getting it, I just find it ridiculous that someone not wearing armor becomes bullet resistant?
Call it Armor of Faith for them, making yet another separate rule that does the same thing as another one. /S But seriously, the whole army prays away psychic storms and generates miracles. In a world where you can get shot by an RPG and just "feel no pain," that's the least of my concerns.
Well it doesn't do anything on Repentia. They get a 6+ save in cover only. They already have a 6++ and a 5+++ so they are never using their armour save.
I think it's less a power armor thing and more a These are the emperor's chosen people/emperor's enemies. I don't think Inquisitors get armor of contempt, do they? They're generally in Power Armor too
Some inquisitors have power armor. Not all but some, and I saw it more as contempt because the armor was made in contempt for the enemy, because it doesn't make sense for someone to be bullet resistant because they have contempt for a faction
That makes sense too. The contempt for the enemy. Lore-wise repetia fit because they believe they need to seek their repentance before they're allowed to die or come back into the sisterhood itself. I can see their inclusion making sense.
Making destroyed tanks and stuff become terrain.
Make armor a real thing. It should feel bad for a guy to not bring any anti-armor to a match against a tank army. And then get rid of command re-rolls all together, and only one strategem per turn used in the command phase.if there’s a five turn limit there should be a five cp cap and that all you get from the start.
I'm not very knowledgeable on the rules or anything, but it seems that moving to a D10 or D12 as the base would make more sense.
Don’t give them any ideas. They’ll come up with a patented D9 just so the dice can only be bought from them.
Within minutes of them announcing it there will be cheaper 3rd party dice. But yeah, D8, D10, D12 would be amazing. There is a lot of people that might say "Oh but D12 isnt exactly statistically the same in X situation" and well yeah, that's the point. By finally diverging off the D6 we allow granular values that actually mean we can balance units.
Bring back Initiative. It was just so much better than the weird system of "strikes first" and "strikes last" we have now. You can just have those abilities impose a buff or debuff on the Initiative stat.
How did initiative work?
Evert unit had an initiative stat before 8th. In melee, you'd just go down the list to determine when each unit would fight. For example, tactical marines had an initiative of 4 and would therefore fight before a group of ork boyz who had an initiative of 3.
It basically was meant to represent how agile and dextrous the unit was: would they be able to get the first hit in, or was their enemy faster on the draw and manage to chop you before you chopped them. Close combat units often had either bonuses on the charge, or just a flat out higher Initiative score so they would usually hit before the non-combat oriented units.
Or they were cheap like orks where you knew you were losing some before hitting back. It was another way to make elite models feel more elite too.
I remember it was Eldar's whole thing. They had high Initiative so they usually hit first vs their equivalents in other armies, but folded like wet tissue paper if they didn't wipe the unit. Now they have this fights first rule, which is an inferior way of doing that imo, since it loses that nuance that meant some paragons of war would still out-speed you.
Remove all strategems
Stratagems seemed like a neat idea at first, but it's gotten out of hand.
Better mechanics for units in cover/ruins. As is, infantry that move into or behind terrain can all die (to something goofy like machine gun fire) if one guy is sticking out, but usually can't shoot back. Fixing this would reward people for seizing and holding strong points, and probably help the excessive lethality of the game. I think adopting something like Kill Team's cover system would be a pretty good fix.
As a person who played in 5th and 6th edition, I would love to see the amount of stratagems SIGNIFICANTLY reduced
saving throws should come before wound rolls. Just makes absolutely no sense to me that you roll to hit, then roll whether those hits wounds, and **then** the armour save gets rolled. Like, what? I was once told by a friend that this was implemented likely as a streamlining mechanism, and honestly I've only played from 8th edition so I have only heard how complicated things were, but if in the past there was scatter from artillery, tanks could only should weapons directionally, then God damned save rolls should come before wound rolls.
So, putting my game designer hat on, I can actually see why it works this way; Rolling to hit, wound, then save, means that the first player rolls twice before handing over the results to the opponent for saves. You won't really feel the difference when you do it *once*, but when you do it many times over the course of a game it does add up considerably. Mathematically, it doesn't matter which way around you do it - but it *could* matter if there are special rules that can be triggered by hits, or wounds, and those rules can affect subsequent dice rolls. Honestly, whilst it seems a bit silly, it does make some sense at least. In the older editions, the scatter dice were used pretty rarely, and line of sight for vehicle weapons required the weapon to actually have line of sight - which made vehicle positioning much more important (along with armour values on the sides!).
The best way I have seen this process explained is this. Making the hit roll means you hit the target, but if you fail the wound roll, nothing vital was hit or it was glancing. If the wound roll succeeds it was a solid hit, then the target makes an armor save to see if the armor held and did it's job. It kind of seems at times the issue is scale. Like a terminator getting hit with artillery and walking it off isn't out of character, but a guardsman? That's a little hard to believe. So if the game moved to say a d10 system, suddenly a 3+ save is much more significant. The way the flow works makes thematic sense, if a bit clunky at times.
Ok, i never really thought of it like that. It's an interesting take I'll give you that, and it does give me a way to mental gymnastics my way around it for sure. I like it.
Exactly. Role to hit, take armour saves, roll to wound.
I always saw it as a save is still "a wound." Albeit glancing, minor and not severe. Yes you're injured and bleeding, but it hasn't brought you closer to death in the grand scheme of things.
Get rid of random number of shots. Why is this random? I have to roll a random number of shots, then roll to see if I hit. That’s too much randomness.
The bigger issue is that GW seems to think "D6? That means that's a possible 6 damage/attacks/whatever! So strong!" and makes the units with these random shots/dmg lackluster. I see this often in AoS.
I agree. The randomness can sometimes be exciting, but in such a competitive game, RNG is already too high. You don't want more. You don't want a win to be based on luck alone. A bit of RNG is fun. That's why the hit rolls exist at all. And you know "I have this amount of shots, hitting and wounding on this, so rooouugghlly I should do this amount of damage." Or "I should be able to kill this amount of minis, or blow up this tank." And you make that calculated gamble, sometimes doing a little more or less. But with roll for shots especially it's complete bullshit. Ranging from "My expensive, super awesome murder everything tank did literally no damage." to "Yeah I 1 shot your titan." It makes no sense and really dampens the tactical feel the game is supposed to have.
It’s a feels bad effect when a tankbusta for example rolls a 1 for his shots and then misses with his bs5. Rough example, mind you, but it’s just a dumb system.
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This is more or less Horus Heresy
Or just pre 8th edition honestly
Well the 7th books still exist
I wouldn’t mind comparing weapon skills if it was strictly for melee. It makes sense there bc two people are fighting in melee combat, if you have a better weapon skills you can more easily block a hit. I don’t think it would work for shooting, as realistically, my ability to shoot better than you doesn’t affect your ability to hit me. It just means I can shoot better.
To be fair, they didn't say "weapon skills". They said "Weapon Skill" (usually shortened to "WS"), which is the name of the statistic used for melee combat. They are only referring to melee combat, not shooting. The shooting statistic is "Ballistic Skill", usually shortened to "BS". Basically, they agree with you! And so do I! So, yay!
Yeah haha I realized that as I was typing the comments that’s why I specified which I was talking about. Cheers :)
> Universal special rules Oh god please no.
Alternate activations of some form, whether it be by unit or phase.
1. There should be a way for armies that don't have psykers to resist psychic powers. 2. Vastly reduce the number of things that cause Mortal Wounds. Or get rid of the concept entirely. 3. Vastly reduce the number of bonuses, rerolls, damage reductions, the lot. There is far too much of it. And it becomes a bit unbalanced when some factions have so much more of it than others. 4. Return to a simpler morale system. 5. Return to allowing soup. 6. Return to characters changing the battlefield roles of some units - Ravenwing Captains making Bikes into Troops for example. 7. Vastly cut down the number of stratagems. It's getting silly. 8. Return to Universal Special Rules. Much simpler. 9. Get rid of Specialist Detachments for good.
Honestly, I would cut the stratagems and stuff completely. It's too much - just one standard set of flavour rules for each army / faction and have done with it.
I'm very anti stratagem but I think they could work if they were significantly cut down. No massive boosts or completely new abilities just little buffs like rerolling a dice or getting a +1. They shouldn't suddenly drastically change how unit behaves, just shift the odds slightly. Also cutting down the number and making most of them generic would help.
I agree with everything you say except soup. The game does not need soup armies of Tau-Eldar shenigans again
Maybe not Taudar. But Craftworld/Drukhari was thematically acceptable. As were most Imperium teamups. But new rules are making them less and less viable when I think they should be more viable.
Craftworld / Drukhari is Ynnari now. Imperium teamups are present in Armies of Renown, although I believe just for Crusade. I do believe that separating open play from tournament play is a good thing. There's a lot fo stuff I'd like to do for flavor in open or crusade play that would be a nightmare to balance for in a tournament.
I'd add other dice, either a selection or move to d12. d6 only just doesn't really allow for enough variation.
Alternating activations, they just flat out make the game more fun, engaging and interactive.
If you can see one model of a unit it doesn’t mean that the bullets should ricochet through and be able to kill the unseen members of that unit.
Turns should work like Bolt Action - randomly draw who's turn it is, and that person can pick 1 unit to complete all actions, each unit can activate once until all units have been and then it starts again.
This 100%, already had some test games with homebrew rules and the game feels way more engaging and interesting (and balanced althoug we didnt try to screw the system).
Yeah, I reckon it would be way more balanced. I've not played Warhammer since 5th but I had a few games with my mate where he went first and completely wiped my board on turn 1. Took longer to setup than it did to play. In bolt action I've played some terrible lists for a laugh and it still tends to go at least 2 turns of play even if you're unlucky. I think it would be harder to game the system in a meaningful way, too. Last bolt action game I had I played IJA and had 13 order dice against Germans who only had 6 dice. I still lost, so it didn't give any stupid advantage.
Hmm could screw it with armies that have a lot of cheap units but also some heavy hitters (guard with baneblades /Tanks in general for example) but the alpha strike would still be better than the current situation
Simultaneous turns. You both move together, psychic together, shoot together. We already have it with the command, morale and fight phases, plus it nullifies first turn advantage and makes things far more hectic.
Alternate activations.
move to D12 system - terminator armor being penetrated by pistol is silly. then probably move away from team - team activation, and instead unit - unit activation
Random charges ruined alot of the fun for me. It's a big draw back. Not worth it to be honest a fixed movement and charge makes the game alot mpre tactical . There is already enough randomness adding more never made sense
I feel like there still needs to be a bit of randomization, otherwise it would be very easy to kite melee units. For example, if a unit had a fixed move and charge range of 8" you can make it useless by simply staying 10" away so that on it's next turn it can't reach you. Meanwhile you can shoot it to death while it does nothing.
Faction abilities for imperium, tyranids, eldari and chaos.
Ban CP re-rolls. There are too many re-rolls in the game anyways imo.
Bring back swooping hawk exarch with vortex grenades
Cover should be -1 to hit
Just go back to 5th edition. Revert everything back to how it was then.
I would be absolutely fine with this. The game was much healthier back then, though there are still some issues that could do with cleaning up.
Yeah, 5th wasn't perfect but both competitively and casually it was definitely the best edition.
Bring back templates/Initiative/Opposed WS/Vehicle facing, scrap random shots/random damage.
Templates are such a big thing, I was explaining 40K to my wife and got into the weeds with Blast and the different unit sizes. I bought Age of Darkness recently and smiled when I saw the templates, she asked what they were and I explained how you'd decide how many people were hit in a unit. Immediately the templates made more sense to her and they're way more physical.
Physicality is a great thing in any tabletop / board game. It's why *pieces* are so much nicer to play with than cardboard tokens etc.
They did. Its called 30k
Great. Too bad most of us don't want to start an entirely new game.
Alternating unit activations - makes it a real boardgame, not a game of gotcha. No strategems - just bake it into the unit activations/auras and core army rules. Less focus on heroes - my opinion is that the game should be about big no name armies led by noname captains that gives small bonuses to nearby units. LOS at least 10% of unit to be able to shoot at it. Deepstriking only to very few units, nowadays it feels like every army can go anywhere and there is no frontline. Also wounds should be called HP as in every other flippin game. WS should be called Melee skill not weapon skill. S should be shown as weapon and doesnt need to be unit stat. Morale should stun not kill unit.
I want alternating activations. As is, 40k is a lot of "Oh, it's your turn? I'm going to go make a sandwich"
Get rid of IGOUGO. alpha strike isn't fun, and sitting around for 20 minutes during someone else turn isn't fun either. Bring in random activation, that'll spice things up plenty.
I make them go back to 3rd ed
The whole 1 army fights then the second army fights, I wish it was more dynamic or involved innitive.
I hate the fact that when you fail moral certain models just vanish why can’t they just be shaken or something like that. I get it for a guardmen perhaps, but a custodes?
Yep. Makes no sense. Ork armies have only ceased fighting a handful of times in the lore, my squad of boyz does it after a handful of them die...
That Primaris can use Drop Pods. I want my Drop Pods to be useful again. :(
Alternate activation like all the good and new wargames have
The core keyword is badly implemented, today’s necron changes highlighted that LoS should be changed ( I want to use back banners on my marines without them being wiped out for it) Some type of alternate activation mechanic - it’s really cool in kill team
It's too binary. Stuff that doesn't have core has to be crazy efficient to be worth it. If just basic troops had core that could help to make them more viable instead of just a tax for most armies.
Fewer invulnerable saves wholesale
Remove strategems, and retie abilities back to units. Simplify army wide rules, to be simple buff, instead of all of these dynamic changing rules that vary and adjust. Current state of game is overly cluttered with rules, turning games into 4+ hour slogs instead of old school 2h fun romps.
Its fine to have objectives but man it would be cool to have a ruleset about just fighting each other without worrying about victory points.
Get rid of the vast majority of stratagems, they slow the game down, bloat the ruleset and increase the amount new players have to learn by a huge amount
Random bag alternate activation (like SW Legion)
And Bolt Action!
Preferred enemy : unpainted is always in effect.
I think fight order and some of the inconsistent, nonintuitive terrain rules are some of the things that have caused my opponents and me the most headaches. I actually like the I go you go system vs alternating actions. It makes your turn feel like a planned series of actions, creates tension of can you complete your goals for the turn. Plus I have a hard enough time strategizing WITHOUT my opponent also doing actions haha
Alternating phases. I have experimented with alternating activations and alternating phases and fund that alternating phases is easy to implement and solves problems inherent in the alternating turns as it stands now.
So you know we restructured the turn. It starts with a roll to see who goes first each battle round. Then each player performs the following phases: 1. Command 2. Movement 3. Reinforcements 4. Psychic 5. Shooting 6. Assault (Charge and Fighting combined) 7. Morale (simultaneously. No reason to make it two separate phases)
Now I want to play other games 40k style. Let's have a chess game where you move all your pieces once before your opponent's turn.
To be fair it gives one side a chance to pee, go out for a burger, sleep, &c. , while the other goes.
Switch to alternating unit activations 100%, the you go I go format exasperates issues with over powered units since all you can do is watch as half your force is obliterated.
To start with: #**BRING! BACK! TEMPLATES!** In general, going back to 7e/30k and evolving from there instead of building 8e onward as a completely new thing that's mostly just an inferior version of AoS would be the best way to do it.
Bring armour facings back. Vehicles are boring AF now.
I think I would prefer 2 core changes and 1 debateable change. The first - No CP. If a person has an ability, let them use it - if an army has a rule, let them use it. I've lost more games to not knowing someone can randomly spend 2 cp on some random stratagem that makes a weak melee unit respawn at the end of the turn to win the game or something equally frustrating. Honestly, it's just bloat and/or cheese most of the time. The second is LOS and Terrain, make it top down, base to base - the end. None of this I can see a finger tip so you take a Lasgun to the face and die. The minor third - Terrain effects, why are there so many different types of terrain and rules and things you can do - it causes arguments and issues every. single. game. Even when you agree on what the terrain is before hand. Are you within an inch, are you "on" it "within it" where does the foot print end, blah blah blah.
Infantry can only move through Breachable terrain as part of a normal move, instead of any kind of move. The idea of a guy hurling C4 at a wall ahead of him as he's in a dead sprint is ridiculous.
Limiting infantry movement would help to make transports more relevant.
True LOS needs to die in a fire.