10th edition wishlisting/"How do we fix this mess?" thread

[UnkyHamHam]

48 minutes ago, phandaal said:

Yes. The name is what matters, not the weapon type. Space Marines have special rules for Bolt weapons. Sisters of Battle have special rules for using Melta, Flamer, and Bolt weapons together. Eldar have special rules for Shuriken weapons. Etc.

There was no need to invent an entirely new weapon type, but that is what the designers did. Extrapolate that design across the last 2 years and we get 9th in the state it is in now. A mostly solid core framework covered in layers of bolt-on exceptions and escalations.

Not saying I agree with the direction here, but IMO uniting multiple stand alone weapons (like shootas, sluggas, big shootas, ect.) into a single word category (like Dakka), seems to me, like it cuts down on bookkeeping and the overly worded approach to rules/strats/abilities. 

The fact that they are grouping them, is all I was saying was a solid idea. And now we can all just say dakka weapons when referring to that group, instead of having to name each one.  

Now, that being said, giving them in built new rules that replace assault and rapid fire, was maybe not ideal.  That I kind of agree with. Dakka Dakka Dakka rule or whatever should have just been the equivalent of Bolter Discipline, and they just needed the word 'dakka' pasted on the end of the profile to associate the bonus.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, Valkyrion said:

Me and my regular opponent both played with new armies last weekend, he Chaos Knights and me Custodes. He went first, and by the end of turn 2 he had no models left. 
I've no doubt that Alpha Strike is a thing, but it's not been an issue once all edition for any of our games regardless of faction. 

But there could be mitigation if it is a much bigger deal than I realise. Determine who is going first before determining deployment zones and deploying; whoever goes second picks the deployment zone and deploys all of their models last, whoever goes first deploys all of their models first, for example.

 

Regarding rules bloat - it's not the number of rules that are available to any given factions, it's all the possible interactions.
Just a very simple shooting example;
Crimson Fists Intercessors have exploding 6's on bolt weapons. 
They are in range of their Captain (reroll hit aura)
They are in range of their Lieutenant (reroll wounds aura)
A Master of Sanctity uses the Command Oratory stratagem.
He gives them Catechism of Fire.
It is the tactical doctrine.

That is 6 rules interactions that need to be accounted for for a basic infantry unit to fire its weapons before any dice are rolled, and it's not that unlikely a combo either.
If you then factor in rules for cover, the enemy units defences, more stratagems, what turn it is, psychic powers and so on then you could have dozens of effects in play that affects the shooting of just one unit. That is the bloat.

Alpha strikes hit less durable, hoard armies the hardest I think.

if you kill 15-20% of my guard infantry turn1 that’s a loss of a lot of lasguns and a lot of potential 6 down the drain.

I also think AoC helped a lot of factions minimize alpha strike potential a bit 

[sairence]

12 hours ago, Slave to Darkness said:

Roll to see who goes first each turn. Do you go all in on your turn hoping you go first next turn, or play it safe in case your opponent wins the turn. Hard to make plans when you dont know who is gonna get priority that turn.

Please no. Do you know the kind of damage my Guard can do by having two consecutive shooting phases?

And not being able to plan for my next turn or two strikes me as a massive downside. Didn't Sigmat have something like this is and it wasn't particularly well received?

[Redcomet]

37 minutes ago, sairence said:

Please no. Do you know the kind of damage my Guard can do by having two consecutive shooting phases?

And not being able to plan for my next turn or two strikes me as a massive downside. Didn't Sigmat have something like this is and it wasn't particularly well received?

It still has it. The only real thing about AoS i do not, besides how utterly skewed the game is towards shooting units

[Redcomet]

1 hour ago, UnkyHamHam said:

Not saying I agree with the direction here, but IMO uniting multiple stand alone weapons (like shootas, sluggas, big shootas, ect.) into a single word category (like Dakka), seems to me, like it cuts down on bookkeeping and the overly worded approach to rules/strats/abilities. 

The fact that they are grouping them, is all I was saying was a solid idea. And now we can all just say dakka weapons when referring to that group, instead of having to name each one.  

Now, that being said, giving them in built new rules that replace assault and rapid fire, was maybe not ideal.  That I kind of agree with. Dakka Dakka Dakka rule or whatever should have just been the equivalent of Bolter Discipline, and they just needed the word 'dakka' pasted on the end of the profile to associate the bonus.

Having different weapon stats seem better to me, than yet another army wide rule to remember to use. Having rules isn’t a problem, as long as they are easily accessible. A statline is easier to access to me, than a paragraph burried somewhere in a book that I have to remember 

[Captain Idaho]

Yeah it should all be in the statline as much as possible! People have to look at/remember the statline anyway after all. 

Which is why a reset of the game, with wider ranging stats (up to and beyond 20!) Would work better to provide the differences between things more cleanly than new rules.

Then when special rules are about, they are applied cleanly to smaller numbers of things and well controlled. 

Edited August 3, 2022 by Captain Idaho

[Scribe]

On 8/1/2022 at 8:24 PM, Cpt_Reaper said:

There are mechanically poor and mechanically superfluous rules. Smoke Launchers being a stratagem is but one stratagem that could be added to datasheets like it used to be. But What is another? What doesn't need to exist as a stratagem, datasheet rule or detachment ability?

Stratagems don't need to exist, at all.

[MoshJason]

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

Stratagems don't need to exist, at all.

Some strategems I really like! I feel like we should get rid of most of them except generics:

+1 CP to Re-Roll One Dice

+1 CP to Auto-pass Morale

+2 CP to fight first

And then have 2-3 Fluffy ones per army, and 1 fluffy one per subfaction:

+Lone Wolf (I think they got rid of this?) -- Where if someone kills all but 1 space wolf in a squad he can go Super Sayain (Generic Space Wolf)

+Martyrdom -- Gain a bonus when your Hero dies. (Generic SoB)

+Deny The Witch on 4+ (SoB)

 

Edited August 3, 2022 by MoshJason

[Scribe]

4 minutes ago, MoshJason said:

Some strategems I really like! I feel like we should get rid of most of them except generics:

+1 CP to Re-Roll One Dice

+1 CP to Auto-pass Morale

+2 CP to fight first

And then have 2-3 Fluffy ones per army, and 1 fluffy one per subfaction:

+Lone Wolf (I think they got rid of this?) -- Where if someone kills all but 1 space wolf in a squad he can go Super Sayain (Generic Space Wolf)

+Martyrdom -- Gain a bonus when your Hero dies. (Generic SoB)

+Deny The Witch on 4+ (SoB)

 

I'm not seeing it. The Stratagem/CP system just needs to go. The rerolls, the gotcha moments, it's just not worth it.

Put them into the unit, or a codex rule, and remove the system all together.

[Slave to Darkness]

4 hours ago, sairence said:

Please no. Do you know the kind of damage my Guard can do by having two consecutive shooting phases?

And not being able to plan for my next turn or two strikes me as a massive downside. Didn't Sigmat have something like this is and it wasn't particularly well received?

Donno about AoS, hate the setting, I couldnt even tell you the faction names. I see your point but alternate activation for units can give you the same result, I have seen many games of bolt action where one person draws dice again and again and the other player just waits until they draw a dice after getting wrecked for a turn, then the next turn the same thing happens again. IGUG or alt activations both have their limitations I guess. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

18 minutes ago, MoshJason said:

Some strategems I really like! I feel like we should get rid of most of them except generics:

+1 CP to Re-Roll One Dice

+1 CP to Auto-pass Morale

+2 CP to fight first

And then have 2-3 Fluffy ones per army, and 1 fluffy one per subfaction:

+Lone Wolf (I think they got rid of this?) -- Where if someone kills all but 1 space wolf in a squad he can go Super Sayain (Generic Space Wolf)

+Martyrdom -- Gain a bonus when your Hero dies. (Generic SoB)

+Deny The Witch on 4+ (SoB)

 

Or they could just go ahead and make those normal special rules.

[MoshJason]

13 minutes ago, Scribe said:

I'm not seeing it. The Stratagem/CP system just needs to go. The rerolls, the gotcha moments, it's just not worth it.

Put them into the unit, or a codex rule, and remove the system all together.

That's the thing --  there won't be any Gotcha moments, if the number of strategems is low enough.

At the beginning of 8th, there were only 3 strategems: Reroll One Dice, Interrupt Fight, Autopass Morale.

Those three added a ton of tactical flexibility for armies. They also really helped vs. the randomness of the game -- if you roll a Lascannon Damage shot, and get a 1, well, here's another shot! If an opponent makes a bunch of unlikely charges, well, for 2 out of 6 of your command points, you can recover from that. But if you burn them all out, well, I guess that's it. There's no getting any back.

CP worked best as a bonus to armies, and a limited amount -- there shouldn't be the whole, each turn you get some.

 

Add in a few fluffy things like -- "Oh, if you leave a Space Wolf alive, he goes Berserk" and it's very simple to tell your opponent you have 2-3 fluffy bonuses that *may* occur, and that you share the same 3-4 generic strategems. The issue with strategems now, is my opponent expects me to remember all 35 of his, when I've never played that army before, plus all 35 of mine, and the generic ones. It's too much, man!

 

EDIT: They also shouldn't be generic special rules -- these aren't things that happen everytime they are triggered -- A lascannon with 'MAY REROLL DAMAGE' is way more powerful than having a 1 CP re-roll that can be spent once per phase. 

Also, the fluffy things aren't things that should keep occurring -- like, if it costs 3 CP to have your Sisters Canoness come back to life after dying, that's something that you can only do once/twice, and will limit all your other strategems, where having it as part of her statline means its something that always occurs, regardless.

 

Edited August 3, 2022 by MoshJason

[Scribe]

59 minutes ago, MoshJason said:

At the beginning of 8th, there were only 3 strategems: Reroll One Dice, Interrupt Fight, Autopass Morale.

Those three added a ton of tactical flexibility for armies. They also really helped vs. the randomness of the game -- if you roll a Lascannon Damage shot, and get a 1, well, here's another shot! If an opponent makes a bunch of unlikely charges, well, for 2 out of 6 of your command points, you can recover from that. But if you burn them all out, well, I guess that's it. There's no getting any back.

I don't believe even those, are beneficial to the game, and actually feel removal of variance (at the expense of time via rerolling) is a detrimental effect.

I truly believe it's a terrible system we could remove with no loss.

[Valkyrion]

If you go back to basics, which I think in 40k is 1998-2003(?) and 3rd edition, then any 2000 point army could beat any other 2000 point army based on player skill, because the internet at large wasn't really a thing, so your average player wasn't googling winlists or meta or whatever, but even if GW suddenly decided to make 10th edition 3rd edition all over again but with new units, the internet at large would now tell you that this unit is good and this unit is bad.
It's not just Games Workshop making the game unfun. The players have a responsibility too, to not do the deliberately overpowered whatever-it-is so that the people playing casually for 30 years don't suffer for actually having 3 ravagers from 1998. 

Even in that last sentence - the word 'suffer' - none of us should have to 'suffer' through anything we should enjoy; we use this IP, this game, as a way to escape the 'suffering' or toil of day to day life. 
So why make it a chore?

[Captain Idaho]

Rerolls is a thing that slows the game down. Maybe they can be harder to come by? Leaders can give other benefits that won't make me just sit there and roll my eyes whilst the opponent rerolls 14 out of 35 dice and we both have to pick out all his dice etc. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Yep, let’s get rid of all the rerolls everywhere, and strats.

 

[MegaVolt87]

1 hour ago, Valkyrion said:

If you go back to basics, which I think in 40k is 1998-2003(?) and 3rd edition, then any 2000 point army could beat any other 2000 point army based on player skill, because the internet at large wasn't really a thing, so your average player wasn't googling winlists or meta or whatever, but even if GW suddenly decided to make 10th edition 3rd edition all over again but with new units, the internet at large would now tell you that this unit is good and this unit is bad.
It's not just Games Workshop making the game unfun. The players have a responsibility too, to not do the deliberately overpowered whatever-it-is so that the people playing casually for 30 years don't suffer for actually having 3 ravagers from 1998. 

Even in that last sentence - the word 'suffer' - none of us should have to 'suffer' through anything we should enjoy; we use this IP, this game, as a way to escape the 'suffering' or toil of day to day life. 
So why make it a chore?

 

Heavens forbid we move back to player skill and knowledge dictating the game instead a Prince of Persia timeshift on the turn with all the strats, bloat and re-rolls we have now. Roll all the strats into crusade where they belong and make more sense for narrative. 

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

I kinda disagree with the whole netlist/meta thing not as bad way back when. The ard'boys tourny was a thing back in 3rd and promoted bringing the most broken lists possible. 

As soon as that tourny finished you'd see a bunch of copy cat lists at the local gw/flgs

Was it as large or prevalent as now?..I dunno, its tough to say really.

Tldr meta chasing/netlists have loong been a thing

[Valkyrion]

23 minutes ago, MegaVolt87 said:

 

Heavens forbid we move back to player skill and knowledge dictating the game instead a Prince of Persia timeshift on the turn with all the strats, bloat and re-rolls we have now. Roll all the strats into crusade where they belong and make more sense for narrative. 

Insert 'Not sure if sarcasm' meme 

But yes, though the 'knowledge' part has changed massively over the years. You can't show up and play a stranger anymore. You could, even up to the end of 7th. That you wouldn't doesn't mean you couldn't, but I could put my army down on the tabletop now and play someone like Tau or Eldar or AdMech and they could say any rule they wanted, like 'you can only hit my guys on a 6', and it could be a real rule for all I know. In earlier editions it would have been eyebrow raising at the very least, but now? not so much. 

[The Emperors Champion22]

11 hours ago, Valkyrion said:

Me and my regular opponent both played with new armies last weekend, he Chaos Knights and me Custodes. He went first, and by the end of turn 2 he had no models left. 
I've no doubt that Alpha Strike is a thing, but it's not been an issue once all edition for any of our games regardless of faction. 

But there could be mitigation if it is a much bigger deal than I realise. Determine who is going first before determining deployment zones and deploying; whoever goes second picks the deployment zone and deploys all of their models last, whoever goes first deploys all of their models first, for example.

 

Regarding rules bloat - it's not the number of rules that are available to any given factions, it's all the possible interactions.
Just a very simple shooting example;
Crimson Fists Intercessors have exploding 6's on bolt weapons. 
They are in range of their Captain (reroll hit aura)
They are in range of their Lieutenant (reroll wounds aura)
A Master of Sanctity uses the Command Oratory stratagem.
He gives them Catechism of Fire.
It is the tactical doctrine.

That is 6 rules interactions that need to be accounted for for a basic infantry unit to fire its weapons before any dice are rolled, and it's not that unlikely a combo either.
If you then factor in rules for cover, the enemy units defences, more stratagems, what turn it is, psychic powers and so on then you could have dozens of effects in play that affects the shooting of just one unit. That is the bloat.

i mean that seems like a lot to stack onto one unit, otherwise thats a decent castle build no?

[Valkyrion]

Maybe so, I don't know. 

I do know that as a Crimson Fist player, I'm likely to have at least a Captain, a Lieutenant (or a dreadnought to spend CP on to turn him into a lieutenant), and either a Chaplain or Librarian, probably a chaplain, and probably upgraded with the Master of Sanctity. 

What I do know, is that I haven't spent 300 points and 3 HQ slots to make my (exploding sixes) intercessors really, game breakingly, good. Because that's not how it works. How it works is that someone with time and mathematics says something somewhere online that says 'such a unit, in this units Aura with this <combat doctrine> and this stratagem = win!'. 

that's the problem, I think.  It's a bit the players fault, because they shouldn't do it. But it's also GW's fault, because they shouldn't allow it in the first place. 

[Cpt_Reaper]

Just because a different mechanic works for another game doesn't mean it will work in 40k. I do not play other games because they have different mechanics that I find utterly unenjoyable. If the alternative activations came to 40k it would absolutely not work. How do you do that for a game where Custodes or Knights are fighting Guard? 40k is so much larger than nearly every other wargame out there.

Stratagems are here to stay. Could some of them be cleaned up, absolutely. The fights first/fights last could just all be updated to be fights first, with 1CP for one of your units to fight first and instead of "make target fight last" just have a 3CP strat make all your units in a single combat fight first.

If you absolutely must demand stratagems and re-rolls be removed, what would you replace them with? Because if you just take them away you're taking a large chunk of the mechanics 9th is built around and you're trying to remake an older edition. And I've said it before, I'll say it again and I'll say it every time it is suggested.

The old editions are gone. 10th should move forward, not try to remake anything before 8th. A hard reset this soon after 8th will be catastrophic for the game.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

22 minutes ago, Cpt_Reaper said:

Just because a different mechanic works for another game doesn't mean it will work in 40k. I do not play other games because they have different mechanics that I find utterly unenjoyable. If the alternative activations came to 40k it would absolutely not work. How do you do that for a game where Custodes or Knights are fighting Guard? 40k is so much larger than nearly every other wargame out there.

Stratagems are here to stay. Could some of them be cleaned up, absolutely. The fights first/fights last could just all be updated to be fights first, with 1CP for one of your units to fight first and instead of "make target fight last" just have a 3CP strat make all your units in a single combat fight first.

If you absolutely must demand stratagems and re-rolls be removed, what would you replace them with? Because if you just take them away you're taking a large chunk of the mechanics 9th is built around and you're trying to remake an older edition. And I've said it before, I'll say it again and I'll say it every time it is suggested.

The old editions are gone. 10th should move forward, not try to remake anything before 8th. A hard reset this soon after 8th will be catastrophic for the game.

I’d replace them with regular datasheet rules for units.

if it’s too powerful to be in a datasheet then it gets tossed. Some of those special rules can be limited to one use per game if it happens to be very powerful.

im not asking to recreate older editions, but the idea that armies can’t have flavor without strats is just not true, and older editions prove it.

[Cpt_Reaper]

4 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

I’d replace them with regular datasheet rules for units.

if it’s too powerful to be in a datasheet then it gets tossed. Some of those special rules can be limited to one use per game if it happens to be very powerful.

im not asking to recreate older editions, but the idea that armies can’t have flavor without strats is just not true, and older editions prove it.

What worked or didn't work in older editions is irrelevant. We're not playing them, we're in 9th. Stop comparing 9th to editions that came before 8th as they were so mechanically different that they may as well be another game.

If you put every stratagem in datasheets, you have successfully remade Universal Special Rules. Remember how everyone complained there were too many of those? Because I sure do. The removal of USRs was praised. Except now, instead of being in the Core Rulebook, you have them printed over and again on individual datasheets.

How about, instead of throwing out a mechanic that works well with a few outliers, we refine stratagems into being an improvement. I would start with making some of the common stratagems into universal strats. Advance and shoot, shoot while performing actions, fall back and shoot...they could be universal strats. As I previously mentioned, the fights first/fights last interaction can be refined.

Maybe, and I say this as I don't see it working well, you could choose a number of strats depending on your game size. In a standard 2000 point game you have 12 Command Points, so you can choose to bring 12 points worth of stratagems. Of course every strat would need to be revalued, with one use only strats being cheaper despite their inherent power.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

20 minutes ago, Cpt_Reaper said:

What worked or didn't work in older editions is irrelevant. We're not playing them, we're in 9th. Stop comparing 9th to editions that came before 8th as they were so mechanically different that they may as well be another game.

If you put every stratagem in datasheets, you have successfully remade Universal Special Rules. Remember how everyone complained there were too many of those? Because I sure do. The removal of USRs was praised. Except now, instead of being in the Core Rulebook, you have them printed over and again on individual datasheets.

How about, instead of throwing out a mechanic that works well with a few outliers, we refine stratagems into being an improvement. I would start with making some of the common stratagems into universal strats. Advance and shoot, shoot while performing actions, fall back and shoot...they could be universal strats. As I previously mentioned, the fights first/fights last interaction can be refined.

Maybe, and I say this as I don't see it working well, you could choose a number of strats depending on your game size. In a standard 2000 point game you have 12 Command Points, so you can choose to bring 12 points worth of stratagems. Of course every strat would need to be revalued, with one use only strats being cheaper despite their inherent power.

Put every strat into datasheets? No.

butnmost strats could either be an army wide rule, or a rule specifically in a unit’s data sheet.

you keep harping on not looking back, and that’s really stupid. Previous editions got some things right, and it is absolutely valid to hold those things up as examples