7th ed 40k and it's failings

[Mr Farson]

G'day

 

I've been flicking back through my vasta array of supplements for 6th / 7th the last few weeks as I've been robbing it blind for conversion into 30k 2.0

 

I played quite a lot during 7th and it's quite possibly my favourite era of 40k apart from 4th.

 

I've been wracking my brain for problem areas of 7th where people spit bloody murder about the edition but I'm coming UK short

 

-Free Razorbacks in the various marine decurion formations

-Taudar

-Invisibility 

-War convocation 

 

Are there any other big uns that I'm missing? 

 

 

[Evil Eye]

My main gripes with 7th come down to a few things:
>Formations allowing for way, WAY too much in the way of free stuff with zero downside. Not even "You can't take this thing you probably weren't going to take anyway" ala 4E chapter tactics- just straight up "Use this formation and you get free transports for everyone".

>Post-Chapterhouse meaning some factions (my poor Tyranids) got absolutely butchered in terms of options.

>Allies were still an unholy mess.

>Extremely bloated USR section.

>Superheavies and flyers being a common occurrence in regular games was absolutely a mistake.

>Way too many supplements needed (especially Chaos, who got like 5 books trying to make them actually fun, then struck gold with Traitor Legions...a few months before 8th).

That said, the core of the rules was solid enough (being the 3E "engine" at its heart) and with some very basic house rules to cut out or rework the dumb stuff I think you could realistically have a more enjoyable game than 10th. Sure it falls apart when you take it to the competitive level, but that's true of literally every edition ever. Especially now TTS is a thing and people have figured out the optimum strategy and list builds within a day of an edition going live.

 

I'd still rather play 4th core rules with a mix of 3rd, 3.5 and 4th edition Codices and supplements but 7th is workable as a base game IMO.

[Craig]

The Olden Demon YouTube channel recently released a video on the subject. You should have a look.

[NTaW]

I had a lot of fun playing 7th edition, and while I don't have an overall insight into the mechanics anymore I do remember some acute pains I faced.

 

Formations handing out must-have rules but being super specific on the units you need. For my Necrons I remember it was a token Tomb Blade for better Reanimation rolls across the army, or a Spyder to be able to take Wraiths. Formations also came to each faction slowly, with some simply unable to compete until the end of the edition.

 

Psychic powers being off the chain and hard to counter. I specifically recall Kaldor Draigo and the 2++ with rerolls. It took an extravagant number of attacks to bring that bastard down.

 

Skyfire being an afterthought added into armies to deal with Flyers. I liked how Flyers worked, but -having- to take a flakk missile squad in addition to my Stormraven was weak.

 

On that note, the Heldrake specifically ignored firing arcs and cooked Marines like Trogdor burninates the countryside. I habitually faced two at a time in lists and it was honestly easier going up against two Daemon Primarchs in one game in 8th.

 

There's a lot of good stuff I like from the edition, and I'd play it again if there were people around me interested. I'd probably have an easier time finding people to play 8th though since I find a lot of people I've met over the last few years entered or returned to the hobby around that point.

[Evil Eye]

3 minutes ago, NTaW said:

and cooked Marines like Trogdor burninates the countryside.

The Baleflamer counting as strength D against thatched-roof cottages was a killer.

 

(But yes, the Heldrake was horrible. Not nice to look at or play against.)

[N1SB]

2 hours ago, Mr Farson said:

I've been flicking back through my vasta array of supplements for 6th / 7th the last few weeks as I've been robbing it blind for conversion into 30k 2.0

 

Brother Farson, for your purposes, it wasn't a problem with the rules.  It was GW creating an arms race that forced ppl to chase the meta.

 

I agree with what you guys said, and iirc it went kinda as follows.  Heldrakes w/ Baleflamers forced ppl to buy Stalker tanks (for Marines), but nobody really liked either model Hobby-wise.  If your opponent had a (Wraith)Knight, you needed Knights to counter him.  If he had a Formation, you needed a newer & better Formation.

 

Memorable moment - someone in our FLGS took on this challenge of making a viable Dark Eldar army.  Friend messaged me to come down and see.  I arrived, I found how he made the Dark Eldar viable: ally with Craftworld Eldar and spam Wraithknights with D Cannons.  The Dark Eldar was only a quarter of his points.

[Rain]

As has been touched on, the issue boils down to GW very nakedly making decisions that were awful for the game to sell more models. This backfired, as the lost sales from the people that these changes drove away outnumbered the extra sales of Razorbacks and Necrons.

 

The most egregious example was the ally rules (introduced in 6th), which largely destroyed faction identity, and actively punished you for trying to play the faction that you picked, and not some silly soup that covers all of your chosen faction’s shortcomings. 

They then decided to “fix” this issue by introducing formations, which again was a very naked marketing exercise with tax units that they were otherwise having trouble moving off shelves, and hundreds of points worth of free models for some detachments. 

[Emperor Ming]

7th and 9th were the problem children

 

Everything got so overpowered and so bloated, its of course the only two game resets we have had so far.....

 

I couldn't stand either of those eds, and while balance atm is better than ever

 

There seems to be an awful amount of ap2 d2/3 weapons

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

I remember the rules in the main being okay. The problem was Formations and Supplements. 

[HeadlessCross]

7 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

My main gripes with 7th come down to a few things:
>Formations allowing for way, WAY too much in the way of free stuff with zero downside. Not even "You can't take this thing you probably weren't going to take anyway" ala 4E chapter tactics- just straight up "Use this formation and you get free transports for everyone".

>Post-Chapterhouse meaning some factions (my poor Tyranids) got absolutely butchered in terms of options.

>Allies were still an unholy mess.

>Extremely bloated USR section.

>Superheavies and flyers being a common occurrence in regular games was absolutely a mistake.

>Way too many supplements needed (especially Chaos, who got like 5 books trying to make them actually fun, then struck gold with Traitor Legions...a few months before 8th).

That said, the core of the rules was solid enough (being the 3E "engine" at its heart) and with some very basic house rules to cut out or rework the dumb stuff I think you could realistically have a more enjoyable game than 10th. Sure it falls apart when you take it to the competitive level, but that's true of literally every edition ever. Especially now TTS is a thing and people have figured out the optimum strategy and list builds within a day of an edition going live.

 

I'd still rather play 4th core rules with a mix of 3rd, 3.5 and 4th edition Codices and supplements but 7th is workable as a base game IMO.

Allies was one of the few highlights for 7th due to a few reasons:

1. If your army had essentially the same unit as an other army but it was significantly worse in every aspect, you had a way to bring in that unit via Counts As. As well this goes hand in hand with one creating a model and not having good rules to represent it with. A great example was the blinged out Deathmark I got to use with the Vindicare Assassin rules. 

2. Fluff to allow more flexible armies that might have existed anywhere from obscure tidbits to doing themed armies.

3. Instantly allowed people with smaller collections but diverse models to still put together a potentially cohesive army for 1500-2000 point games. 

[MARK0SIAN]

I’d generally second those people saying the core rules weren’t too bad, it was the codexes and formations that made 7th edition a nightmare. 
 

One thing that might help is tracking down the Horus Heresy rulebook that was released after 7th edition switched to 8th edition. It didn’t change loads but it did get rid of some of the least fun aspects of 7th such as invisibility. 
 

From a personal perspective, some of the least fun aspects to play against in 7th were:

 

Invisibility

jump shoot jump 

formations with too much free stuff

the psychic phase in general

the amount and power of the buffs you could stack on a deathstar unit/character that made them essentially unkillable

 

Mercifully, I was spared having to deal with aircraft very often so I can’t speak from personal experience about those but I have no trouble believing the people who say they were an issue.

[No Foes Remain]

I'm still 99% sure that formations were 40k writers trying to get Rites of War from 30k into 40k while not understanding that they need limitations to make it balanced, which then just cause it to sink and make said writers think that they need to remake it completely leading us to 8th.

 

 

And supplements, book and rules bloat to end it all....