goonhammer article on 40k - that it's overwhelming now

[spessmarine]

https://www.goonhammer.com/what-even-is-warhammer-40000-let-us-find-out-together/

 

I thought this was an interesting read, a step back and assessing how the edition has really bulked up.

This is more geared to non-competitives so the perspective might not be relatable to some. It also hits up on some things I think are good design principles, that you should really get a good feel for units solely off their sheets. Rather than elsewhere like strategems or a faction rules dump.

 

A bunch of opinions but grounds for good contemplation.

 

[Scribe]

Hmm, wonder if it gains traction, that its just...flawed.

[mel_danes]

I'm an open war deck, matched points man. Keep it simple,way more fun that this pseudo ITC nonsense we have now.

[Evil Eye]

I feel like the return of USRs to some degree would help a lot. Not 7th edition levels of five billion very similarly-named and slightly redundant USRs, but enough to reduce the number of special rules to keep track of in codices. There is a balance to strike between everything being a USR (7th) and every single model having its own deluge of special rules (8th/9th). I maintain special rules are something that makes 40K interesting and fluffy, and I wouldn't want to throw them out altogether, as I feel it would oversimplify the game and make it kinda dull, but there is a middle ground to be struck.

[jarms48]

I feel like the return of USRs to some degree would help a lot. Not 7th edition levels of five billion very similarly-named and slightly redundant USRs, but enough to reduce the number of special rules to keep track of in codices. There is a balance to strike between everything being a USR (7th) and every single model having its own deluge of special rules (8th/9th). I maintain special rules are something that makes 40K interesting and fluffy, and I wouldn't want to throw them out altogether, as I feel it would oversimplify the game and make it kinda dull, but there is a middle ground to be struck.

 

This, I think 5th edition level of common USR would be nice. Truly unique ones can remain as such.

[apologist]

Consolidating a lot of the very similar mechanics (e.g. re-rolling ones, ignoring damage on the roll of a X, reducing save mods of -1 to 0, reducing damage of 2 to 1 etc.) would go a long way to making things easier to grasp, but I don’t think that’s enough to solve the underlying issue.

 

I agree with the article’s conclusion that 40k is over complex and overwhelming. Having been very positive about the underlying engine of 9th edition, I feel it’s been compromised by the amounts of chrome, and sundry bells and whistles.

 

The introduction of ‘Seasons’ hasn’t reassured me. Between codices, campaign packs, battlefronts(?) and Chapter Approved, there’s just too much to get a handle on. It makes the learning curve insurmountable for casual gaming groups – our group has (sadly) stopped playing or even largely discussing the game itself, instead concentrating more on modelling and painting.

 

At root, I think Open Play needs a champion in the studio – a way to present a stripped-down, simple game without presenting it as a beginner’s choice. You can play with just Rulebook, Codex and no cards, stratagems etc.; – and I argue that it makes for a more relaxing, enjoyable experience with fewer ‘gotchas’. I think that angle just needs a bit more light.

[Cpt_Reaper]

We should absolutely not repeat design choices from past editions. If we were to do that, why not just go back to those editions? If I had to live through 6/7th Editions again I might just quit, and I have very few fond memories of 5th Edition looking back. No, where 9th is, and where it is heading in the immediate future (6-12 months), might not appear to be the most conductive right now but we haven't even had a chance to try out seasons and what ever else GW have planned. I have no issue with content being introduced in campaign packs if they actually make Chapter Approved what is should be - a collection of content of the last 6 months in a single volume. No lore, just datasheets and mechanics.

 

Additionally I think, at it's core, the introduction of Open and Narrative as separate systems was a poor move. It created a "Them vs Us" mentality in the community, when the core gameplay itself should not do so. I am not smart enough to know how to fix said issue, but I feel 9th Edition can be improved without going backwards.

[Evil Eye]

At root, I think Open Play needs a champion in the studio – a way to present a stripped-down, simple game without presenting it as a beginner’s choice. You can play with just Rulebook, Codex and no cards, stratagems etc.; – and I argue that it makes for a more relaxing, enjoyable experience with fewer ‘gotchas’. I think that angle just needs a bit more light.

I agree here (and also with Narrative Play to some degree). I think something that would absolutely help is explicitly stating that you can use points or PLs for all three "modes"- whilst obviously it's common sense that you could play Open Play or Narrative Play with points, actually saying "Use PLs for quick and easy army building or points for more refined/advanced games, regardless of what kind of game you want to play" would immensely help cement Open and Narrative as "legitimate".

[MARK0SIAN]

I think the article makes a great point about how many different things can be interacting with and affecting a data sheet. It’s absolutely right that you can’t look at a datasheet and have any real idea what that unit will do on the table. Some will perform in line with what the sheet says and others will perform like a unit worth 3 or 4 times that many points because of a range of interacting buffs that can be laid on them from 4 or 5 different sources.

 

When you think about it, a single unit can be simultaneously under the effect of:

 

Faction rules

Sub-faction rules

Doctrine (or equivalent)

Psychic power

Character buff

Warlord trait

Relic effects

Stratagems

 

None of those come from the datasheet. How can anyone be expected to keep track of all that. It’s hard enough doing it for your own army, trying to do it for an opponents army, especially one you’re not very familiar with, is ridiculous.

 

The game has got too many moving parts. I’m also not a fan of going back to indexes but 9th has taken the complexity too far.

[Captain Idaho]

Stobz said it best in another thread and I paraphrase; if you have a couple months off the game it feels impossible to keep up as the work involved is so intensive.

 

I got to echo the sentiments. There's too much going on. Too many changes. I had my kids over Christmas and have worked and I frankly don't remember what the current Missions are for tournaments. And I don't mean I don't remember the rules, I'm not sure which are the actual current ones in what print.

 

As for universal rules; I find it funny how GW consolidated the universal rules a few editions back and it was heralded as a great common sense move, yet now they put all the rules on a datasheet, reprinted and each unit and army gets their own stuff and we're expected to keep up.

 

How am I supposed to coach my casual local gaming group if I have no idea of their rules and they are more and more exasperated by the work involved?

 

It is disappointing for sure.

 

Positive fixes? I'd be all in on simplified universal rules in a main rule book, a digital online mission pack that updates to the most recent and maybe a refocus on stats rather than special rules for EVERYTHING.

 

It'd need an edition change but bring it on. The game is hard work and I play for fun, not to sit an exam before I play what with the revision needed.

[Doghouse]

Stobz said it best in another thread and I paraphrase; if you have a couple months off the game it feels impossible to keep up as the work involved is so intensive.

 

 

That's the issue I am having, I've played every edition but 9th I stumbled and fell behind and now I have no idea what is going on. I've said it before but it feels like trying to jump off a bridge onto a moving train. I'm waiting to jump in to commit to the Chaos dex but right now all I see is expansions for armies that just got codexes and constant points changes, FAQs, sub-factions, power creep and nerfs. Until then I'm just waiting with little to no incentive to buy their stuff because the moment I commit they could change it all.

 

This could well be the first edition I never get a game in with to be honest, I'd rather they'd seen the draw of early 8th and the simple index system and stuck with that.

[AenarIT]

While I can understand that the complexity of the game is high right now, there's plenty of players (myself included) who love it. 
It's not easy to keep up with everything but it's not even necessary to know everything.
Once you get to the table you just have to share some information with your opponent and if you're unfamiliar with the faction just ask questions during the game ("does that unit have any way to reduce incoming damage?", "can you heroically intervene in some funky way?", ...). 

I hated 8th ed index with a passion and I hope 40K will never be dumbed down to that level again. It was just a statline game, a bit like AoS is right now afaik. 
 

USRs would be welcome, just 10-15 of them would cover most of the common rules (deep strike, invulnerable, feel no pain, +1 save in cover, -1 to be hit, transhuman, rerolls, ...). 
Even stratagems could be reduced to a smaller number, but those abilities should then return to the datasheets.

And most importantly a single digital database for rules would work wonders. But then again, in a way it already exists right now ;)

[Lord Marshal]

The only issue I ever really saw people have with USRs is the book keeping. People didn't want to crank open the BRB to look something up every two ten seconds.

 

I don't see why there can't be a coherent set of USRs that are still included and explained on the Datasheet/codex entry, rather than having ten differently named variations on Transhuman Physiology that're occasionally reworded slightly.

Edited January 16, 2022 by Lord Marshal

[Captain Idaho]

Easy of reference is always good, though it does save on space and ink at the printers not to repeat information. Plus by repeating it in a Datasheet you run the risk of variance creeping in, either by design or mistake and that puts us straight back to where we started.

 

Besides, if you're going to need to reference a rule, it's quicker to go to your bookmarked page in the main rules than flit between pages of a Codex. I've watched players doing that now and man it's tiresome, especially when it's turn 3 and you've seen the opponent use the rule twice or already.

[Dark Shepherd]

A small set of USRs would be cool, and as theyve hinted theyre reducing strategems then double universal strats and massively reduce strats

 

Nearly everyone has a fight after death/intervene 6 inches/transhuman strat so have 10 or 12 in main rules. Also means not waiting on codex for all strats. I also like idea of strat are played like cards so one use only OR each is one cp and costs 2 cp to use a second time

 

There is defo a lot to take in. And Datasheets should contain all the relevent info

[MARK0SIAN]

I think USRs for some common abilities is a no-brainer. Why we need 20 different versions of deep strike that all work the same I do not know. The only pro this current method has is that they could tailor those to the specific faction but they’ve shown no inclination to do so meaning you may as well just consolidate them under a USR. Same thing with FNP effects.

 

I’m not so sure about making some of the stratagems into generic rulebook ones though. Some of them (like transhuman) will have wildly differing returns for your CP depending on the faction. With that in mind, I don’t see how you could cost them fairly so that some factions weren’t getting an amazing ability and others were overpaying for it.

 

I’m definitely for limiting/reducing stratagems though, there’s way too many and they get used way too often.

[Kastor Krieg]

We still have USRs but we don't recognize them as such. 

Invulnerable Save is a USR.
Mortal Wound is a USR.

Heroic Intervention is a USR.

Core is a USR.

 

And so on. They need to be few, globally applicable, named and conceptualized so simplistically that they're recognizable to all faction players and obvious in what they do and mean for the immediate situation on the table.

[Panzer]

I heavily disagree on the notion of USRs.

It's just tedious to look at a datasheet, see some fancy named ability and then to have to look it up elsewhere to actually know what it does. I've played in those editions and was one of the people who knew by heart where those things are written if I needed to look it up but it always slowed down the game and for others who had to actually search for it in the rulebook it meant even bigger breaks in the gameflow. Keep the rules on the Datasheets. Who cares whether they all say the same. You can look at it and know what it does. That's good.

 

However I definitely do agree that there are WAY too many things that influence a unit.

Layers upon layers of special rules from outside of the datasheet plus multiple Stratagems that you may or may not want to use. Buffs from psychic powers is fine. An army-wide rule or subfaction rule is fine too. Multiple army-wide rules plus a faction rule that's actually two rules in one is not (Space Marines have frigging 4(!) army-wide effects in Angels of Death).

As for the Stratagem issue, there are way too many things that get outsourced into Stratagems instead of being a fix part of the Datasheet in the first place and I've been saying that ever since they got introduced. It's not a bad design in general, just how GW uses it is bad. There are definitely effects that I appreciate in Stratagem form and would like them to remain like that.

None of these things alone are the culprit, it's the combination of it all that makes it super annoying. Luckily there's a specific website that I won't be mentioning here where you can look up Datasheets and it lists all the Stratagems you can use on it right below plus a section where you have Stratagems sorted by phase. Makes life much much easier these days but it's a shame something like that is needed in the first place (and not provided by GW already).

 

And then there are secondary mission objectives. In general a nice idea but these days I'm not exactly playing regularly so I just don't know which secondaries I should take or even exist without having to look it up for several minutes. It's just not very casual friendly at all. We kinda returned to doing simple missions like in 8th for our every once in a while casual games just because it requires way less preparation.

Edited January 16, 2022 by Panzer

[Noserenda]

Yeah people forget we still actually have USRs... 

I wouldnt be too adverse to unifying the naming of them if that helps people, but keep them on the datasheet in full. It should be a one stop shop for the units abilities, hell id even put unit specific stratagems on there tbh, the way waha pedia displays them beneath the main sheet is extremely useful.

I think the game in general is definitely getting too bloated, and that was a terrible choice particularly during the pandemic when folks still cant regularly play easily to keep that mental load, loaded. AoS (Narrative/open ooi) isnt perfect but its been a real breath of fresh air for our group after bouncing off 40k a couple of times recently.

And for gods sake keep, even expand narrative and open play. If the only option for 40k was the :cussshow that is matched right now i dont think half of us would bother with it at all.

[phandaal]

I'm an open war deck, matched points man. Keep it simple,way more fun that this pseudo ITC nonsense we have now.

That is how I play these days. Open War deck, matched points, matched play list building rules. Maybe use a mission from a Crusade pack for something even more narrative.

 

It is also interesting how much things are streamlined when you take away secondary objectives.

[MegaVolt87]

Many USR's are mere stat mods. You could have a small boxed modifiers section of eg- -1D melee, RR 1D6 ranged dmg, ignore -1AP etc in the unit profile card. A USR should not be about just a raw stat modifier, it should reflect a mechanic with a stat condition to trigger. eg- recon vehicle- -1 to hit and reduces ranged AP attacks by -1 over 24', takes an additional +1 dmg on each attack within 6'. I don't consider -1D as significant enough to warrant a title and sentance to explain when a simple modifier in a box is good enough to show that.

[Rik Lightstar]

I'm definitely in agreement with the idea of USRs for broader abilities such as "Stealthy = -1 to hit over a certain range", "Scout = free move after deployment" for example.

 

As mentioned above, all of the weapon types are essentially USRs anyway along with things like Vehicles moving and shooting.

 

Some rules need to stay faction or even unit specific so they can be adjusted if they're over or under powered.

 

I don't have an issue with Stratagems in general, but I think you should have to buy them pregame with your Command Points.

It would work something like this:

- Your "deck of Stratagems" would be open information.

- You can buy multiples of each.

- The Battleforged bonus command points each turn can be used to play Stratagems from your discard pile or the Core Stratagems.

- If you don't include the Core Stratagems in your deck, you can only use them with the bonus Command Points.

- Stratagems that have 2 costs can be bought at either, with the restrictions applying with the lower tier, but the more expensive version can be used for either.

 

Having a more defined list of available options, and less decision making about the cost of using them would speed up the game quite a lot I think.

 

Rik

[Dark Shepherd]

I think USRs for some common abilities is a no-brainer. Why we need 20 different versions of deep strike that all work the same I do not know. The only pro this current method has is that they could tailor those to the specific faction but they’ve shown no inclination to do so meaning you may as well just consolidate them under a USR. Same thing with FNP effects.

 

I’m not so sure about making some of the stratagems into generic rulebook ones though. Some of them (like transhuman) will have wildly differing returns for your CP depending on the faction. With that in mind, I don’t see how you could cost them fairly so that some factions weren’t getting an amazing ability and others were overpaying for it.

 

I’m definitely for limiting/reducing stratagems though, there’s way too many and they get used way too often.

Transhuman possibly a bad example, could do some exceptions or asterixes in rulebook, but there are loads that are pretty much universal

[WrathOfTheLion]

Definitely agree to everything they mention.

 

However, I don't think not keeping up with it for months makes you totally lost if you're not playing competitive 40k. From my perspective, we still have a marked improvement from 8E.

 

 

 

That is how I play these days. Open War deck, matched points, matched play list building rules. Maybe use a mission from a Crusade pack for something even more narrative.

It is also interesting how much things are streamlined when you take away secondary objectives.

 

 

That's how I play as well, although sometimes just picking a mission out of a book vs the deck, and everything has been smooth sailing since the 9E launch. I personally think everything is pretty good for that kind of play right now, which is why I'd rather see them address problem areas elsewhere at least for a while vs starting a new edition.

[OldWherewolf]

It's not the game, it's the time we're willing to invest in it.  But that's true of anything, golfing, dancing, woodworking, programming, running, weight lifting, sewing, healthy eating, etc.  You get out of it what you put into it.

 

USRs have their own issues, print them in 1 place, and people have to look in 2 books vs. print them everywhere, then every codex needs an update whenever a USR gets updated, and people will complain about both. 

 

There's also trade offs between layers of rules and getting unique factions and subfactions.  I don't want my space wolves to be identical or Khorne Berzerkers, or Blood Angels to be SWs with jump packs.  I also want my Cadians to be different enough than Catachans (which I get today).  Ya, they all have lasguns, but they feel and play differently.

 

Personally, I love secondaries.  When I started in 2nd editions (only played 1 game of RT), it was just 1 - build your army (5 minutes), 2 - slam together, last man standing wins.  With overwatch, everybody stayed hidden all game because anything that moved got shot off the board.  Now, you have to come out and engage.  You have to plan ahead multiple turns, plan your movement, plan your shooting, etc.  You even have to plan ahead during list construction now.  The game rewards the more time you spend in it. 

 

So everything is a trade off.  Custom look and feel vs. Generic.  Interactive vs. Non-interactive. 

 

But the singular largest problem is players wanting to change the game *for everybody* to meet their particular (peculiar?) wants/wishes/desires.  You hear this in video games all the time.  90% of the players think they should be in the top 5%.   But they want to be in the top 5% without putting in the time and practice to be in the top 5%. 

 

Rather than trying to force GW to drop strats for everybody, find a group/game that doesn't want to use strats and drop them.  Don't want secondaries?  Find a group/game that doesn't want to use them and then don't.  Honestly, for learning games, I only recommend using 1 secondary each.  Then bump up as you get comfortable.

 

I had a learning game with a new army yesterday.  It was my opponent's 2nd game with his army.  We hardly got anything right.  Next game, I'm going to do better now that I've realized a lot of what I did wrong.  Next game, I'll use better strats, better unit usage, etc.  We both had a lot of fun, and spent about a half an hour talking over what went right and what went wrong. 

 

It's not the game, it's the time I'm willing to invest in it.