Raw Dogger is back with his thoughts on a possible new edition of 40k and if it happens sooner than later, what he’d like to see. Be warned, Raw Dogger writes humor pieces in an adult tone for an adult audience.
In the past few days we’ve received mostly reliable information pointing towards a new Warhammer 40k edition, but its still just rumors until we see it up for pre-order. I’ll be the first to admit that a change was desperately needed. GW really shot themselves in the foot with the 6th edition., IMO. The ally system, while genius from an accounting point of view, has been terrible for actual game play. The creators of the 6th edition either didn’t play test the possible combinations that inevitably sprung up or didn’t give a shit and only saw a way to sell models from different factions to players loyal to individual armies.
It’s amazing how quickly tournament gamers were able to find and exploit the broken army combinations when GW could have just released a beta version of the rule set and saved themselves the expense of making a new edition a year and a half after releasing the 6th edition. Who knew accountants and marketing teams could fuck up a complicated table top rule set so completely? Further mucking up the 6th edition of Warhammer 40k is Games Workshop’s insistence on retconning the shit out of their existing universe. If a new player were to walk in to their Fat Local Game Store and pick up the 6th edition rule book and then looked on the shelved products they would wonder if they had fallen down the rabbit hole with Alice. What is an Astra Militarum? WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MARBO GODDAMMIT!11!!
So now that we know a new and hopefully playable 40K edition will be here shortly, what kinds of things can GW do to bring some order back to game and stop forging a narrative all over our faces and chests?
- Do away with battle brothers. This will most likely get a lot of flack from people who play Tau or Eldar, or rely on Inquisitors with silly tricks to bypass core rules. The ally system was created by GW to sell more models. They didn’t play test it or move on from the preliminary idea that they would sell more models. Get over it and you will live a much happier life.
- Let units assault out of transports. If GW wants to sell models stop making (non-Necron) transports so useless. Why can’t models assault out of a transport if the vehicle didn’t move that turn? TELL ME WHY YOU COCKS.
- Change the cover rules for Monstrous Creatures. We’ve all been there. You score 3 or more wounds on a Wraithknight with Lascannons. You triumphantly take a lap around the table, praising your chosen god for blessing you with such a bountiful gift. Then Reece Robbins says ‘not so fast!’ He has a toe in a crater, so he gets an obscured save. He then rolls two 5’s and a 6. You quit playing 40k forever.
- Remove random charge distance. I don’t care what you say, it’s not forging a narrative when your dedicated assault unit or Daemon Prince fails a 4″ charge. That’s stupid and it sucks ass when it happens. Perhaps letting units either choose to make a regular charge or roll 2D6 on the chance they will be able to charge at a longer range? HUH?
- Bring back owning player wound allocation. Yes, this was abused in the 5th edition by Nobs and Nob Gobblers alike. The nearest model takes the first wound has lead to much more abuse such as characters tanking wounds and makes a difficult assault edition even worse. It also dramatically slows down the game with players taking more time making sure certain models are behind others and rolling dice one at a time while tanking wounds.
- Not let their marketing department write the rulebook. Look, we all know that GW is a model company that just happens to have rules for the models they produce. It’s how they themselves feel about their company, and it’s been well documented. It’s a fact since they became a publicly traded company GW has one person to answer to. It’s not the fans and it’s not the customers- it’s the shareholders. What Warhammer 40k needs right not is not a new way to have the players buy slow moving product (i.e. Super Heavies in standard games) or to have them need to purchase large amounts of new product they already own (i.e Super Heavies in standard games).
What Games Workshop needs to really do is sit down and think about the longevity of their company. Every time a new edition is unveiled there is the normal doom and gloom with people leaving the hobby for greener pastures. This is the first time that I have actually been scared that the majority of my friends would all leave. The Warmachine nights are far more populated than 40k nights at my Fat Local Game Store, and there are now reports that Warmahorde players are outnumbering 40k players at major tournaments on the west coast. I really think all need to put our collective hopes together and mentally FORCE Games Workshop from fucking their shit up for a 7th time in a row.
Let em know how you feel
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Yes!
I would also like to add… WTF happened to my cover saves?!!.
I agree MC should not be able to get them for having a toe in but for infantry digging trenches and hitting the dirt is as old as war itself.
Not in grim dark tho. Ignore cover seems to be everywhere now.
Ignores Cover will hopefully get toned down, I agree.
While I’d like to see that, I’m not sure how. The only thing I could think is the ability for a single model to pass it on to the whole unit. Come to think of it, its the ability for single models to pass their USRs (night fight, ignore cover, fearless, relentless, hit and run) to an entire unit that leads to so much imbalance now.
Why would Tau and Eldar players give flack for no BB? They are by far the most powerful solo books. I have never run allies with mine and have own multiple tournaments. Maybe not the big publicity tourneys, but 20 to 30 players nonetheless. The only thing that has allowed some armies to compete is BB. The biggest ones to give flack I should think would be Space Marine players.
I’ve found, personally, that the most vehement defenders of BBs use the Chapter Master amd Centurions, Tau, Eldar, or the Baron in the appropriate combinations.
“Let units assault out of transports. If GW wants to sell models stop making (non-Necron) transports so useless. Why can’t models assault out of a transport if the vehicle didn’t move that turn? TELL ME WHY YOU COCKS.”
THIS. This has been my biggest complaint about 6th edition.
I’d like to see this and assaulting form reserves come back, too.
Yeh assaulting from reserves was cool. Many times my friend would outflank with 50 guardsmen and bring it to me.
I also miss snikrot a little… dude was a beast
“The Warmachine nights are far more populated than 40k nights at my Fat Local Game Store, and there are now reports that Warmahorde players are outnumbering 40k players at major tournaments on the west coast”
Which major tournaments were that?? Where is my surprise mask? Known troll… Oddly enough… Trolling… Reece your better then to allow this nincompoop to post things here.
Rawdogger shouldn’t you be rage quiting a 40k game somewhere?
I’m too busy trolling you, Caleb Watson, to rage quit a 40K game. Thanks for reading, bruh!
I knew it you bastard!!
Nincompoop? Are you from the past?
I like old school insults! Nincompoop, scalawag, ruffian, etc. They have a certain panache!
Rapscalian!
Charges should be changed to a fantasy style where if the charge is failed they move forward towards there target the highest die rolled, changing back to a 6″ charge is just living in the past, and first guy hit first guy killed rule is a pretty good rule IMO and it take away the way more broken nobs shenanigans.
Assaulting out of any transport is cool though as will bring more less seen assault units into the game again like the scorpions and banshee’s and I think the kicker will be percentages in the force organisation like in fantasy will also do a lot to balance the game, so at 1500pts you wont see 3 wraith knights or 3 Riptides or massive seer councils as they wont have the points allocation for it.
Current wound allocation is a far worse mechanic than last edition’s. All last edition needed was to change from unique wargear to unique save and it would have solved all of its issues.
I would like a greater minimum charge length, personally.
Maybe you could do 4″ max or roll 2D6. It guarantees a ridiculous 2.5″ charge but still makes you risk for something longer.
That’s what she said?….Wait am I doing that wrong?
Thanks for the article.
In Second Edition there were allies allowed and after they removed it it had no real impact on sales in third, fourth, or fifth. Point is, this isnt a marketing scheme or anything as devious as that. Simply put, fluff reasons there are allies. It may have been done poorly, but it was no marketing ploy.
They let units assault out of transports in one edition. . . It was 4th and the domination of Rhino Rush was a bit insane. I understand the need for better transports, but lets not forgot what happens when you overdue it.
The Monstrous Creature cover save is a bit odd, but not game breaking. Kinda a really nit picky complaint to be honest.
Random charge distance is actually been okay for the most part, and I play dedicated assault armies primarily. Yeah it sucks when you fail that 4″ charge, but it rocks when you land that 9″ charge (which happens often enough).
So there is an issue with tricks in taking casualties currently and then you say to make it so the models owner allocates? My lord, stick a terminator with some Cultists and call it a frigging day! You want less abuse but admittedly want to bring things back that were abused when they existed. Sometimes I think you just like to bitch 😛
Marketing department does not write rules. . . Quit being dramatic. Also, you talk about quitting a ton and from the last Batrep you were in it sounds like you are either a bit of a baby or a bit of a rager (would be ironic considering your responses to folks on forums and such).
You do have some good points though, there are issues that need to be addressed and hopefully this is the time they are handeled. The Allies things needs to be tweekend, Allies are fine in general but the sharing of USRs and such really makes some of the combos devastating. Also the Psychic Powers need to be toned down a little bit, not a ton but some of them are just silly. I would also personally like to see a change to “Ignores Cover”, maybe an Ignores Cover 1, 2, or 3 instead of an outright negates.
Its been a very very long time, but i think you could assault out of a transport in 3rd too. Could b wrong though
Yeah, I think you could in 3rd though I am not 100% as it has been what feels like eons. I know you could in fourth as all I ever seemed to play against was Rhino Rush 😛
He probably means 3rd edition. Because IIRC 3rd was when Rhino Rush was the major thing to complain about 😛
Then yes 3rd edition 😛
Even if the marketing department didn’t come up with allies they sure as shit would have pushed it once it was on the table as a possibility. Same goes for Lords of War in regular games, that product was no moving and well, it kind of is now, kind of not. It depends on what your local meta permits.
That is the problem I am having with this edition. It’s like Pathfinder/4e D&D all over again, the community is split and GW supposedly pushing to make LoW even further entrenched in core is just going to make it worse.
I get that they don’t intend 40k to be played in pick up games, that they expect people to already have a lengthy discussion about the scenario they are going to be playing, etc but that is the worst kind of Ivory Tower thinking and how out of touch these guys are is really showing.
Not many people argue that Lord of War are good for regular 40k games, if there is a split in that debate it is a very very small minority who think it is okay.
Lets be real, Allies excisted in 2nd edition and there not a drop off in sales after they went away for 3rd, 4th, and 5th. The sales stayed the same, it was far from a marketing ploy. Allies make sense for the game and personally I enjoy them in the vast majority of games I play. The ones that stick in my craw (personally) are the Xenos Inquisitor in an Eldar/Dark Eldar army, that type of shit really bugs me, also the sharing of USRs is very unbalancing and should be removed as well. Allies however do not cause any major issues as a whole.
Also, players (us as a community) have been begging for more and more content for the last 15 years. We finally get it and flip our shit that it is not perfect 😛
Hopefully 7th will be a nice update for 6th and solve the major issues involved with the game right now.
No, you need to get real. Between 2nd and 3rd edition you didn’t see a drop because 40k was one of the only games in town for non-historical wargaming. Today people have dozens of increasingly popular alternatives that receive much better support from their creators and GW doesn’t seem to be reacting to this at all.
I am real last time I checked 🙂
You can cling to the notion that marketing or sales departments have anything to do with development but that is plain naive. Actually it is worse than naive, it is flat out ignorance.
Get a job and see how the different departments operate and then you will know that they all act independently and have no input over the others. That is how any decently sized compay works. An accountant can never walk into anyone else’s office and state “we are doing this because it sells”, that is just. . . Dumb to think that happens.
Im pretty sure that Senior Management execute the plans that will deliver the overall strategy of the company, and within that Im willing to bet that the profit margins of models are considered. To think that joe from accounting walks over to bob in rules development and tells him what to do is very naive, however to think that the VP of finance doesnt interact with the Vp of Development very closely is also very naive
Also wanted to point out that maybe GW is reacting to this and this is why we are seeing a huge increase in content releases (since this is exactly what the community has been begging for for the last 15 years).
Maybe they know we want this current rules set tightened up and that is why they decided to do another release of core rules to clean up our current edition (to be honest, the rules are fine for the most part, clear up the grey areas and change a few major things and it would be a tight set).
That honestly sounds like a company who is reacting in some way (maybe not the right way, but it is certainly a reaction of some sort).
Smurf – you are seriously suggesting that in a functional company, PD and Marketing don’t work together? Only in the most messed up silo environments does that happen. Marketing can have a huge positive impact on PD. They can also have a negative impact. But it’s certainly not optimal to prevent them talking to each other!
Allies are very much a marketing ploy. Pay any real attention to gw’s business practices and it’s pretty obvious.
Thanks to hull point, you need not concern yourself with Rhinos being too good. 5th ed most got it right, it just needed hull points and a revised vehicle damage chart. 6th did that, but also brought sevral unneeded nerfs with it.
The current wound allocation rules are terrible. They need to change. They are just about the single worst game mechanic in 6th edition. Sure, it’s not a balance problem, but I’ve had games go sour over people being pissy about wound allocation more frequently than anything else.
I find it Ironice that GW claims to be a models company, and that the models sell themselves regardless of rules, but then force in rules to sell slow moving models (low).
I like allies, just hate Battle Brothers. Its broken.
Agreed, Battle Brothers probably needs to to go, or at the very least sharing of rules needs to go between intermixed units.
Raw Dogger, It’s hard out there in the Grim Dark. Lonely and cold with nothing but your love/hate for a dead God-emperor to keep you warm through the cold galactic nights. Play infinity and laugh during a game, acquiesce to a rules conundrum and cheer when your opponent gets some awesome stunt off. Play warmachine and revel in a well crafted game filled with real tactical decision making and feel your blood boil with the righteousness of competition. Play malifaux and gape in awe at the best plastic miniatures on the market made just 2 hours from your house, in an immersive and continuing storyline with characterful pro/antagonists. Be good to yourself. Switch hobbies for awhile.
If you want you 40k, read a book.
I’d like this, but you forgot to mention Dropzone Commander gives him the Scale and Sci-Fi backdrop he craves.
First, if you’re new, this is the type of article Mr. Dogger always writes. It’s his editorial. All forms of media have different types of post. Do you all read the newspaper front to back? Including the horoscopes?
BB’s needs to be kept in check. Specifically the rules transferring. I always found it funny, like you can pick up some Walmart shoppers, and as long as a SEAL is with them, they can run recon on the Taliban. Some troops are trained a bit more than the Walmart shoppers, maybe there needs to be a list of USR that units are trained in, meaning they do not have them, unless someone joins their unit that can confer it. Or more simply, get rid of rules that confer to a squad as long as one guy has the USR.
There has to be a happy medium for assaulting out of Transports. Perhaps it counts as difficult, overwatch is at full BS (since they shooting at the doors), and/or can only be done if deployed before the vehicle has moved. Could be a fun way to give smoke launchers something extra, as it’s probably a bit crazy getting engulfed in smoke and attacked all in one go.
MC’s need to be balanced with and against vehicles. I’m not saying they should be the same, but there needs to be give take between the two, as currently MC’s are the better choice based on core rules. When MC’s are shot perhaps use LoS rules more closely related, if not the same, as when shooting at vehicles. Maybe vehicles can shoot all their weapons in different directions. Maybe on a 6 to wound, or a save of 1, the MC takes an additional wound (head shot).
I like random charge distance, but there needs to be something to help units make their charges when they are dedicated assault units, w/o it being Fleet. As of right now, Fleet is what I look for when picking assault units, but not all assault units should have it. Maybe let them reroll one die on their charge distance if they did not shoot. Or add the Movement (M) stat back in, and emulate Fantasy some more.
Wound allocation is tricky, and no matter how you write it, gamers will game it. I’ve got nothing for this.
No comment on how close the marketing and design departments are.
My God your second paragraph is just too funny, because I live in Radcliff Ky ( the civilian town attached to Fort Knox). Where half the population is either current or former military, and a good portion of those where in recon (19D Cav Scouts). So literally if a SEAL walked into Walmart, he could pick out a team to go pull recon on the Taliban.
Ahhh Irony
Wow….I have to disagree with almost every part of this article. Remove BB? WTF? Why? The allies system is awesome it may suck in a tournament setting but there is more to the game than playing a tourney army. Also….shouldn’t you be rage quitting out of a 40k game right now MR.Sleaze? Also where are da butt rape jokes at brah?Drop the soap in the shower lately and are to sore to crack wise?
I was told that my butt rape jokes offended you for some reason. Something about your dad? Anyways I’m a compassionate person at heart and if I’m told my man rape jokes are hurting Michael’s feelings or bringing up bad memories from his childhood I try to tone it down a bit.
Nice! Really don’t know why there is even some bullshit ‘adult audience’ warning in these articles to begin with. If you don’t like it get off. No one cares about your hurt feelings and you won’t be missed.
HAHAHAHAHAHAH! Oh no please bring on the man rape jokes! We should start a metal band called Man’o Man Rape
So buuuuttttbrutalll! The first song could be forcibly gaped. Bwahahaha
I think doing away with battle brothers is already an obsolete idea as far as balancing the game goes. Astra Militarum is powerful enough to get the vast majority of BB abuses in-codex, so if you simply ban Brostars, you just shift the balance toward the armies that can abuse the rules without needing BB to do it. The release schedule is moving faster than the community’s ability to balance things.
Ban BB now and you’ll mostly see Eldar, AM blobs, Skyblight and Daemon flying circuses at the top because those armies are sufficiently strong to take all comers without allies. You solve little, and actually end up limiting the number of armies that can compete.
Besides, you can’t outright ban BB if you also want to allow Tyranid formations. Their synapse won’t work on the formation. Then you run into issues with the Daemon warp storm table hitting CSM allies. Some thought needs to be given to how things would be done.
Removing BB solves a significant number of balance issues. Just because it doesn’t solve them all doesn’t make an important step forward.
I’m not sure it does that at all.
I just proposed limiting the number of IC’s that can join a unit to 1 on Dakka. I think that fixes a lot more problems.
Unless a vehicle has assult ramps/ open topped, count it as a disordered charge, ignores cover should be made into ignores stealth/shrouded, I think MCs and cover is fine they use it and like infantry can hug the dirt, and we all know the wraith knight/ Riptides should have been vehicles
And elite infantry should be able to score objectives like troops
The area terrain cover for MC’s is fair. I am sure Raw Dogger will recall the ludicrous amounts of firepower sent his way when he faced Reece’s new IG. There has to be a way to close in on that because you can’t outshoot it. Nevermind that AM can remove any cover save at-will.
I agree here Slaede, I think when people throw around the term MC asking for nerfs what they really should be saying is wraithknights and riptides. I know my Tyranid monstrous creatures get turned into mulch no problem cover or no, flying or not. There are a lotta MCs that aren’t riptides and WKs and honestly those shouldn’t even be MCs anyway… they’re pretty clearly walkers and just getting around draconian vehicle rules living a life of lies as MCs.
Removing (or altering) the Battle Brothers rules would be reasonable. So long as USRs from one army cannot be applied to another, having them join units isn’t as large an issue (and might satisfy some fluff-minded players).
Assaulting out of dedicated transport that did not move before the unit disembarked seems REALLY reasonable. However, if the transport is cracked (or explodes), the unit cannot assault. (as it is not prepared to). The benefit of assaulting out of an assault vehicle (e.g. Land Raider) is that it can move BEFORE disembarking and the unit can still assault. I’d also be open to making more vehicles ‘assault’ vehicles; if some nutjob World Eater wants to tear the hatches off his demon-possessed rhino so he can get to the action faster, who am I to say ‘no’? If some Banshees want to ride around in a Falcon with the back hatch open (you’ve seen the pic, right?), why not let the ladies get some air? Dark Eldar suffer (currently) a terrible disadvantage by having ‘open-topped’ vehicles without the ability to assault out of them (why, then, are they called, ‘raiders’?).
The first time I took a ticky-tac cover save for my Wraith Knight, I felt like a fraud. I got over it. However, taking a cover save from ‘area’ terrain should be different from taking a cover save from a ‘forest’ or a ‘ruin’. I don’t care what part of an MC’s base is in a crater (toe or the whole thing), a crater isn’t going to provide cover. Also, just because an MC has a toe in a forest shouldn’t qualify it for a cover save: Any shots that trace THROUGH the forest should get a cover save. If the shots don’t trace through the forest (i.e. target and firing unit are on the same side of the terrain piece), it shouldn’t get a cover save. Same thing goes for ruins (though I don’t think this is as much of a problem, since it’s understood that a model has to be obscured by some part of the ruins to gain a cover save).
As for random charge distance, yeah, I agree, failing a 3″ charge is ridiculous. I like the idea of either taking 6″ (difficult terrain rules notwithstanding) OR rolling 2D6. Additionally, I am in favor of moving the models the distance they rolled for their charge, successful or not.
Wound allocation continues to annoy me, particularly since my Dire Avengers aren’t so f’ing stupid as to ONLY shoot at the guy with the 2+/3++ (I don’t think they are, could be user error). I think you should assign one wound to a model, and not assign a second until every other model has had one assigned. So, you roll your one 2+ and then 4 yokels behind your Shield Eternal stud get splatted. This can speed up dice rolling AND give some control to the owning player.
Also: F the D.
Not that it really matters, but all open-topped vehicles are assault vehicles, so the DE don’t suffer in that regard.
I feel bad for the Dark Eldar player I keep beating in tournaments then (3-0), because he’s been playing them very, very wrong.
“Look, we all know that GW is a model company that just happens to have rules for the models they produce. It’s how they themselves feel about their company, and it’s been well documented.”
I have a question concerning this statement. How is it “well documented” exactly? I remember reading a couple years back that one of the developers made the statement that GW is focused more on models then they are on rules. Since then the only sources I’ve seen repeating this are bloggers and people making fun of GW.
I’m not trying to defend GW here or anything, but I’m just wondering if I’ve missed other times that they’ve said this since so many people online take it as absolute gospel that this is what GW believes. I’m genuinely curious if someone can point out other instances of this?
Citation needed
MC’s getting an area terrain cover save is fine, but FMC shouldn’t. Every other flyer must jink to get their cover save and in doing so snapshot next turn. FMCs get to have their cake and eat it too.
Except every other flier has an armor value which means they can literally ignore at least all of a certain S and under shooting. FMCs have the trade off that they have to take grounding tests for anything that hits them and have a toughness value which is pretty forgiving on shooters S, cover save is balanced I think.
Since FMCs don’t have an armor value they also can’t get one shoted outside of a WK hitting on a 6 and wounding on a 6.
I disagree with controlling player wound allocation. Wounds coming from the direction of the shooting unit makes deployment and movement even more important.
MC should get cover like vehicles. If 25% is obscured by terrain then they earned a cover save. The toe in a forest shinanigans needs to go.
GW marketing department will want battle brothers nerfed now or later in an effort to encourage players to expand their allied detachments into a full army.