New Rules Incoming - 40k

[MusingWarboss]

So WS and BS are now moved from statline to elsewhere (Weapon was it) for this simplification.

Yet Necromunda went the other way and added back in stats that were junked in 1993!

 

[Ilgoth]

So WS and BS are now moved from statline to elsewhere (Weapon was it) for this simplification.

Yet Necromunda went the other way and added back in stats that were junked in 1993!

It is rather funny how the cycle repeats.

 

[Ben_S]

Necro is intended to be more granular/less streamlined than 40k, as fits the scale.

 

[MusingWarboss]

Necro is intended to be more granular/less streamlined than 40k, as fits the scale.

Hmmm… which would be ironic as it’s 90s version was based heavily on the then current 40k with extra bookkeeping and this edition is clearly heavily inspired by the original 40k, Rogue Trader. Hence putting those stats back in.

 

[Stoof]

So WS and BS are now moved from statline to elsewhere (Weapon was it) for this simplification.

Yet Necromunda went the other way and added back in stats that were junked in 1993!

Weapon profiles explained
Everything you need to take a shot or a swing at your enemies is now contained in an individual weapon profile – everything from Attacks to Weapon Skill to Damage [...]
Moreover, weapon profiles are tied to individual units – so a chainsword in the hands of a Space Marine is deadlier and easier to hit with than one held by a snivelling cultist."

Weapon profiles that vary depending on who's holding it. Presumably therefore every unit will need a table listing the stats of every weapon they could carry too. That definitely isn't going to be confusing.

(Maybe it won't be, but the varied stats for the same thing are a pain in the rear in Newcromunda).

 

[Ilgoth]

Weapon profiles that vary depending on who's holding it. Presumably therefore every unit will need a table listing the stats of every weapon they could carry too. That definitely isn't going to be confusing.

(Maybe it won't be, but the varied stats for the same thing are a pain in the rear in Newcromunda).

For sure it is, if you have multiple armies using same weapons - memorising gets more difficult.

But to me it seems like a good move in terms of balancing the game. From teasers I think all usable weapons were listed with all stats in the unit data sheets, right?

 

[Tiny]

Yeah that sounds a lot like AoS.

I'm not sure who at GW thinks constantly referencing cards to see the "to hit" roll for each particular weapon for each particular unit is easier or more streamlined than the old WS/BS system but they're wrong.

Its much easier to remember that a guardsman has BS3 (or 4+) than to remember that a guardsman with a lasgun hits on a 3+, a guardsman with a grenade launcher hits on a 5+ and a guardsman with a plasma gun hits on a 4+.

I gave up on AoS (at least partly) because it was an exercise in referencing a dozen different cards every turn.

 

[Troubled Child]

I'm not sure who at GW thinks constantly referencing cards to see the "to hit" roll for each particular weapon for each particular unit is easier or more streamlined than the old WS/BS system but they're wrong.

I get what they were attempting, some weapons are more accurate than others. I don't know why they didn't just go back to the good old days and and define it by range and cover. Maybe they don't think the kids these days can do basic addition and subtraction without a calculator?

 

[Ardavion]

I'm in the camp of "I don't know what this accomplishes, but it sounds like it doesn't accomplish it well" crowd.

A chainsword is inherently a chainsword, if a space marine wielding it makes it somehow better or worse, it should be because of a characteristic of the space marine (represented in their statline), which would then affect any other sword/melee-type weapon. Having that space marine quality reflected across multiple weapon statlines sounds like extra effort.

Similarly, if a master-crafted chainsword is better than a normal chainsword, it would be better for any wielder, so would be reflected in the weapon profile.

Having essentially "wielder" values subsumed into "weapon" profiles sounds like an attempt to obfuscate weapon stats, making it harder to port the weapon to different game systems (if you wanted to play with that new weapon, but in OPR or Necromunda etc).

 

[MusingWarboss]

Maybe they don't think the kids these days can do basic addition and subtraction without a calculator?

Possibly so. Then again, every kid has ac smartphone these days so accessing a calculator shouldn’t be an issue.

 

[Tiny]

What was wrong with the keyword system? The "Unwieldy" keyword added to all chainfists makes more sense than having a different chainfist profile for every single model with a chainfist. They got "anti-vehicle 3+" in there so why not "Unwieldy".

Also why does every single unit have a special snowflake ability like "Fury of the First" that means you can't possibly remember every unit's rules and need to reference the cards over and over? And the wording on these rules is absurdly verbose. They turned the "deep strike" keyword into an 8-line paragraph that then references another, separate and likely also wordy, stratagem. The Fury of the First rule also references Oath of Moment, which is another rule which isn't even on the card. Whoever is designing this stuff is terrible at game design.

EDIT: Upon second reading I see that the Deep Strike ability is still there, they just added an extra "special snowflake" rule to this unit in the form of Teleport Homer.

 

[MusingWarboss]

Whoever is designing this stuff is terrible at game design.

I think they’re designing a computer game. Computers are great at all that quick referencing stuff. Humans, not so much. Bit time consuming and a faff.

 

[almic85]

I already had my big whinge in the Sump about this but each new news article on warcom just seems to be enforcing the issues I predict.

I don’t get the fixation with having data cards. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Why replace a perfectly functional book with an unbound book? It’s daft.

Most people I know have limited game space to put things down and needing to spread 20 cards around the table and floor to have easy reading access to them seems horribly painful when you could just pick up a book and turn to page x for the rules.

The break up of the stats is also really hard to understand for someone that is used to playing the old editions. I get that it is easier for new players at a glance to just see the number they need to roll for a particular unit with a particular weapon, but it makes it harder to remember and work out what different units with the same weapon should be doing.

I can see me taking whole armies with a single load out now just to reduce the mental tax on remembering what they do.

And back to the cards again they only really work if they have ALL the rules on them to reference. It’s no good if you then need to reference back to the book as you may as well have just used the book in the first place.

I can also see that they are still forging forward with Stratagems and Command Points. I know they intend to simplify these to just “core” strategies but I guess that with the first codex release there will be some super special faction specific stratagems just for them.

It does seem that the way that they have simplified them is to just give units special rules again, which I am ok with as it means you can actually know what that unit will do by reading it’s rules rather than by having to memorise 150 unit specific stratagems.

Anyway I don’t hold up hope that this edition will be any significant improvement over 9th or 8th. At best it looks like a culling of bloat with a facelift, so at least they have filled the bloat. At worst it looks like I’m going to have trouble using the data card system until a codex comes out, so I might just skip playing it altogether and keep playing Necromunda and bloodbowl instead.

So it’s a win/win situation really.

 

[Tiny]

Just noticed there is no points value or weapon choices on that card. Are they going the AoS route where a unit has a set points value and you take whatever equipment you like?

Most people I know have limited game space to put things down and needing to spread 20 cards around the table and floor to have easy reading access to them seems horribly painful when you could just pick up a book and turn to page x for the rules.

This has to be the most annoying thing about datacards. Same with AoS. By the time both players lay out all their cards you need an extra 2-3 feet of table width. Seems daft when you can fit all the profiles for models and weapons on one A4 sheet if you keep all the special rules as generic keywords like back in 7th ed. Then you only need the book for reference when you can't remember what a certain keyword special rule does. Small cards like in Warmahordes or Malifaux are fine. A5 cards for each unit not so much.

 

[Ben_S]

I thought the common complaint was having to keep thumbing through one's book(s) to look things up. Whether or not you like having things on cards, it does seem to address that.

 

[DamianK]

The "new" weapon profiles are pretty much what is already done in kill team. And it works just fine. But I think key to this working well is having a limited set of universal rules across all armies, which can be easily memorised after a couple of games, and then all you really need is just to look up the datacard/datasheet and nothing else, so not much different from just having a book for looking up rules.
I don't have high hopes for gw, as they are notorious for adding a crap ton of additional bloat afterwards, but for the stuff they've shown so far, I consider it an improvement over previous editions. And I don't really buy into argument such as "but previously you only had to look up the models bs/ws, then weapon profile and then add any modifiers" which in what way is better than having that bs/ws moved to weapon profile? For most part, end result will be the same as before, it's just different formating.
For the datasheets taking table space... Again, how is having a stack of printed out sheets different to having a physical book on the table? If you spread them all out then yeah, sure, obviously it is going to take more space, but that is no different to having printed out A4 sheets with unit profiles, weapon profiles, special rules, etc. I personally prefer to have a laptop with pdf's, as I find it much faster rather than flip through a book each time I need to look up a weapon profile which is on Page 987, then go back to 152 where unit stars are, and then go to a different book which has the universal rules, etc. Etc. Ultimately, I don't believe it is as massive a change as people are making it out to be, but each to their own.

 

[Tiny]

I prefer to just use BattleScribe to print all my army’s rules and stats on an A4 page. That was much better than thumbing through a book or dozens of cards. Is that still a thing?

 

[Ilgoth]

I prefer to just use BattleScribe to print all my army’s rules and stats on an A4 page. That was much better than thumbing through a book or dozens of cards. Is that still a thing?

Yeah kind of is, but then again everyone seem to print out rules for themselves, so in practice it has rarely been a case.

 

[Malo]

Have GW mentioned anything about a companion app for this new version yet?

 

[Moonwake534]

My thoughts.

- The animated trailer is pretty cool. Looks like a new box dread, Biovore, mini-Carnifex thing and probably a new Hive Tyrant are possibilities if that is anything to go by.

- The studio description makes me less interested. I hear words like "streamlined" and "accessible" and shudder a little. It feels like they mean "AoS style datasheets where every unit has its own "special snowflake" rules which are slightly different to the same named rule on another unit". Still, if they remove the need for dozens of books and stratagems it may be interesting.

- They also say it will play faster... which since my last few games of 8th ed lasted 2 turns before we called the game because both armies were almost wiped out, seems like its probably not even worth setting up the scenery anymore.

- "We've never shown conflict at this scale" means "you'll have to fit even more minis onto the same size battlefield and they'll be wiped out before firing a shot."

- They already have a rules contradiction in that there are two different termagant datasheets on that launch page, one in the video and one in the article.



I hate this. More than anything.

I’m also excited for new rules