Hello all,
Phat J here to talk about my personal wishlist for the next edition of Warhammer 40,000.
It’s no secret here in the office that I have been losing interest in Warhammer 40k for some time now. The game used to be my go to for entertainment. I wouldn’t even think of starting a new game system while I had 40k to play. Things have slowly shifted for me starting with the release of 7th edition and at this point it’s almost a chore for me to get my army out to play for a battle report or play on our live stream for a Tuesday Night Fight. It’s hard for me to pinpoint exactly where and why my interest waned but I find myself longing for the days when a twin linked S8 Autocannon was considered OP. Since 7th edition we’ve seen power levels grow uncontrollably. I understand the reasoning on Games Workshop’s part, if you introduce weapons that remove models on the roll of a die or allow people to take ‘free’ models by taking formations you encourage larger games becoming the norm which (hopefully) translates to increased sales of models, which I get.
It’s just becoming a bit too much.
Rules are coming out fast and loose and the community has never been as nasty to one another as they are now. Rules disagreements and arguments over what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is has populated the various 40k forums for what seems like years at this point. Thankfully, rumors of an 8th edition being released in the near future have given me some hope that Games Workshop is ready to reign in this crazy train. I have a couple of issues I would like addressed in the next edition that I feel would bring balance back to the force game.
D Weapons – This would be a hard one for Games Workshop to change since the rules and weapon profiles are printed in so many publications but I feel having a mechanic in a game that removes singe or whole units (stomp) is just bad for game balance. Yeah, you rolled a 6 so you won the game. Do you feel good about it? I certainly don’t. How many of you have apologized after rolling that 6 and seeing your opponent’s face. Feels bad man.
Free Units and Wargear – Adding a mechanic solely for the purpose of selling models was bad and Games Workshop should feel bad for doing it. It’s the definition of game imbalance when a game supposed to consist of 1850 points of models allows one player to have 300 points over their opponent. It doesn’t make any sense and causes a lot of frustration in the community. This also goes for summoning, which again gives one player a massive advantage in points in a game that is supposed to be defined by them.
Battle Brothers – The creation of Death Stars begins and ends with the Battle Brother mechanic. Do away with this and you will see the majority of the abusive psychic Death Stars rampaging through the community disappear. They started this already by not allowing Battle Brothers to start the game in different transports a la the FAQ Draft but I think this needs to be taken one step further and just get rid of the ally section completely.
Grav Weaponry – As a person guilty of not only getting the free transports in my White Scars Battle Company but of running 10 Grav Cannons in it, I can say with a straight face that Grav weaponry needs to be toned down. Grav weaponry is the reason vehicles collect dust on the shelves. Sure that new Forge World vehicle looks amazing but all it takes is a single 6 to immobilize it. I was at a tournament with said Battle Company and faced off against a Khorne Daemonkin army with several Maulerfiends. My first shot of the game was with a Grav Gun and I immobilized the closest one. The look on his face was absolutely tragic. You can imagine how the rest of the game went.
Yes I know this isn’t the most in depth look at the myriad of issues with current Warhammer 40k but these are the ones that make the game not fun for me at the moment. What do you think? Do you like the current state of Warhammer 40k? Are there any issues not covered here that really grind your gears? Let me know in the comments! Thanks for reading!
I don’t mind D, agree with the following comments on stomp. If super heavies et are to stay main stream D makes sense to remain also in my opinion.
Totally agree with everything else especially battle brothers!!
You know Jason you are absolutely right. Now I know why I hate battle Compony players and demons players. Because they get free stuff, transports, demons, Ad mech plasma,
I’m dirty tau scum that runs 3 XV-109 (flametides) but I’m still bound by the 1850 I can’t ally with demons or fit 2 Demi Componys into a single list. I’m stuck with other tau we don’t have deathstars (farsight bomb is not a deathstar anymore) however D weapons are ok just as long as GW can provide some kind of defense against it. Because the D3 wounds is not bad but completely removing things like stomp. I mean how can a wraithknight stomp a riptide to death they are about the same size.
Anyway I completely agree with you Jason GW needs to change this because deathstars are not fun to play against.
Well you could ally with chaos Marines and they have an even better ability to summon daemons than the daemon codex if you take the right unit. A daemon Prince with a spell familiar or a sorcerer with the possessed artifact from the crimson slaughter summon pretty reliably.
Though summoning really should either be toned down or made to be like AoS where it costs points to do it.
They could also significantly nerf DeathStars without going all the way to getting rid of Bros by only letting ICs Join Units of the same type as them. So no Bikes with Cavalry or Jump Infantry. Let Bikes/Jetbikes and Beasts/Cavalry count as the same, so Sammael can still hang with someone and Canis can roam around with his puppies.
D Weapons: Take ’em away from everything but Lords of War. Stomp should be restricted further too, probably removing the 6 result there as well as taking it away from LoWs that aren’t really “stompy”.
Psychic Powers: The big bads need to go. Invisibility, Electrodisplacement, Shifting Worldscape, all that sort of thing. Neither rarity nor high WC is a sufficient balancing factor with Army Construction being this open.
Grav: Definitely needs toning down. As I’ve mentioned before, my ideal here would actually involve changing how Salvo Weapons work in general, making them more like Rapid Fire Weapons. Even then, Grav Cannon would need at least one shot taken off, and Grav Guns might have to go down to just being Rapid Fire. Changing the automatic Immobilized result against Vehicles to Stunned would go a long way to help, too.
The really big one requires Codex changes as well as Core Rules changes, tho: The range of power levels in the Game needs to get flattened out. I’d personally rather see this happen by bringing down some of the things that are tossing around ludicrous numbers of shot and/or are ridiculously durable, since some of these things are starting to push the limits of the 1-10/d6 system, but bringing up a bunch of the things that are still basically stuck in 3rd Ed could help, too.
Totally agree with all the points made, great post!
I am fortunate to belong to a gaming community that doesn’t use too much D weaponry, superheavies, free points upgrades and Deathstars. Not everyone is so lucky.
GW could do a ‘generals handbook’ for competitive play. Giving reworked points etc for units, giving points for formations and toning down some rules etc for powerful mechanics such as destroyer and stomp. Just a thought
disagree with removing D just because of the stupid amount of str 10 ap 2 ignores cover and until the stupid deathstar is removed keep the D cause they absolutely deserve the D. also keep allies i dont care about battle brothers because i never use it to the extreme and with the formations i never have the space. also might be worth dropping pts back down. the free stuff would be fine if your army had to be like 2k pts or make it available to everyone so know one is left out. only the admech can honestly abuse it
Yeah, if you tone down the durability on one side and the D and ridiculous offense in general then it works.
I don’t think he said anything about removing D. He just said balance changes to it.
Currently I don’t think D is all that bad. It’s the 6 rolls that ruin games. An entire game shouldn’t come down to the fact that you rolled a 6 on the stomp table and just removed an entire unit or that your imp knight got lucky and rolled a 6 against my Greater Daemon and I just have to take him off the board. There aren’t too many other weapons in the game that get that insanely strong just by rolling 6. Weapons that get Instant Death on 6 aren’t even nearly as strong because at least those still allow saves and are negated by Eternal Warrior.
D doesn’t remove death stars, stomps do. D removes multi-wound models, particularly on a 6. Good thing is that the ITC has reduced the deathblow result (6+d6 wounds with no saves of any kind) from ranged D. It is still quite useful, but still, most death stars can look out sir on to a useless drone (fen wolf, command squad basic joe, Khorne dog, etc…)They need to remove re-rolls and FnP from the game, or at least the plethora that currently exists in the game. Grav needs to honestly go away. I am also not a huge fan of the current psychic phase. If one person has a psychic battery, than their turns take significantly longer than the other person’s turns do. That is especially true of the summoning armies. They are not “fun” and simply provide an annoyance to others. “Free stuff” is something I am ok with in moderation. The Storm Guardian formation from craft world eldar, for example lets them take a couple fusion guns or power swords for free. It does not allow them to bring 400-700 free points of stuff. I think that the Gladius/Lions blade are exceedingly good at scoring progressive objectives and no fun for either person to play. All that keeping D in the game promotes is the scarcity of models like the land raider. I think shooting in general needs to get cut down. Scat Packs, Warp Spiders, Grav Cannons with Grav Amps are some of the most notable things that people have grown to hate. They need to either tone down the str, volume of shots, or bump up the points cost of each of these items. The massed amount of ignores cover is nauseating. It is to the point where a cover save is almost considered a joke and negligible. At least, the age of the wave serpent has passed. I will not stop playing this game because of these things I have mentioned. I will adapt, and unfortunately that has caused me to create armies that people do not enjoy playing against in a tournament setting.
Things I wanna see go:
-Everyone in the imperium being battle bros with each other
-Different levels of allies and battle bros in particular. Just make everyone the equivalent of desperate allies.
-random psyker powers, warlord traits, and pretty much every other “Roll on a table to figure out what you actually brought to this battle” effect. Maybe just every roll off a table to determine results effect period.
Things that need tweaking:
-Grav. In its current state it’s just ridiculously overpowered vs everything that’s not a daemon or ork boy.
-Psychic powers in general. I’ve been saying for 3 editions now they need to be reigned in a bit and are just way too gamebreaking and easy to get off.
-The cover mechanic. I seriously think it needs to be split into an actual save from intervening stuff and a reduction in attacker’s BS for jinking and other fast movement
-Make move through cover let you ignore the init penalty for charging through terrain.
-Change vehicle damage to make the non-superheavies more survivable. Maybe have glances roll on the damage table (and can’t get and bonuses to doing so) but not remove a hull point, keep pens as they are, increase the number of hull points across the board.
-Make formations cost extra points for the special rules they’re granting.
-Make upgrades cost an amount relative to the model being upgraded. 10pts for +1 ld and attack on a space marine sergeant is fine, but not a guard or fire warrior one. Likewise power weapons and special weapons are worth more the better the body under them is.
-Bring back battlefield role swaps
-Let walkers move 12″ on open terrain
-Put D weapons and superheavies/gargantuan creatures back into apoc only
-Update kill team and roll it into the main book as an alternative play mode.
-Give vehicles some sort of ‘ablative armor’ save
Specific codex updates:
-Tyranids. Pretty much everything, really. Make instinctive behavior not a handicap. Give the medium size bugs some extra survivability. Give them rerolls to hit if you’re not gonna increase their WS/BS past 3. Make primes, zoanthropes, venomthropes, etc. be able to be split up as a squad upgrade like the 5th ed cypteks. More access to assault grenade equivalents.
-Sisters: Give them a real codex, even if it’s a mini one. Let them use acts of faith multiple times per game. Give them a benefit to taking a huge blob of sisters. Make individual sisters cheaper than marines.
-Space marines, increase the cost a couple points to account for ATSKNF being so stupidly powerful.
-Orks. Make the gorkamorkanauts assault vehicles and able to move 12″. Give them a rule that makes them immune to reductions in BS because they’re just putting too much dakka downrange.
-Tau. Make stealth suits cheaper and give them access to the pathfinder special rifles. Make the weapon costs for crisis suits cheaper. Tone HYMP down to heavy 3. Make double burst cannon on a tank actually worth something. Introduce some sort of light tank/IFV like a land speeder storm or razorback equivalent. Reduce the cost of devilfish by about 20 points. Reduce the base cost of the commander, there’s no reason for it to be 85 points naked. Make units entirely composed of drones fearless.
Almost forgot
-assault out of stationary transports or coming in from reserves should be a thing again.
Definitely! Removing all these restrictions will certainly make assault dedicated units more useful then waiting multiple turns to be effective.
Tau don’t need any of that. They need their op stuff nerfed desperately to bring it to the same kind of power level as everything else!
And what do you propose that would be. I really get annoyed when people say tau need to be Nerfed what are you going to nerf the riptides. Nerf the Y’vharra.
We already have Huge disadvantages. We are susceptible to phycic powers, instant death weapons. Eldar warp spiders, things that lower our leadership, the assault phase. so I don’t want to hear spacemarines players cry about tau when they spam grav that hits on 2s rerolling wounding on 2s rerolling or 3+ reroll saves. Or Eldar with D-spam and wraithknights Or conclave players with their free upgrades. Or the ungodly amount of special rules partaining to demons and summoning.
So please when you complain about tau being too OP make sure you know what your talking about because it’s obvious that you don’t. We play our so called OP stuff to still be relevant in competitive 40k.
The combo of cheap interceptor and smart missles which ignore LOS ofcourse makes tau one of if not the best counter armies to them (spiders). Not sure why a tau player would even bring them up as a op unit
Oh god…. here we go again.
A lot of great points! Thanks for taking the time to write this!
The more I think about how to change 40k for the better, the more I am happy to see shipping progress on all my sylvaneth models I ordered for AoS!
Top things to consider for an 8th edition in my opinion.
Get rid of instant death. This in and of itself will greatly increase the usefulness of certain units and reduces the power of just spamming high strength weapons.
Next, I would rework ICs. Don’t allow them to join units. What does this do? Literally eliminates death stars. It also makes them more vulnerable i realize, but you could make them all a little better giving more army wide buffs for having them. Again think of generals in AoS. Small exceptions could be made, like a IC could ride in a transport with another unit if there is room for him.
I think these two things alone would change the game entirely. And there are so many more things that could be done.
Though I think there should still be a look out sir if you are close to a unit. I think that would help keep characters from being picked off too easily. AoS is a less shooty game in general so a simple buff in stats is all characters need in that game to last longer than one shooting phase but in 40k almost every gun has a longer range than cannons in AoS. Army generals would die turn 1 every time to a competent shooting army.
Best Change the could make is ditch all the phases and make a unit activation system. Letting an army move,phy,shoot and assault before the other guy gets to do anything is and has always been bad game design.
It’s a Relic and should be discarded!
On a game the scale of 40k? No thanks. You think games take a long time now? Wait until every single person has to move/shoot one unit by unit. And then you get a guy who takes 5 minutes between each move like chess to figure out what he should do now.
Not to mention anything about how you balance a horde army vs an army with only one or two units.
The you-go-I-go mechanic works a lot better in games of a smaller scope and with a much more similar unit distribution (like the BaC box game). It gets messy in a game as big as 40k.
Agreed. Unit activation makes sense in skirmish, but at the scale of 40k it would be preposterous.
Plus, on top of the time factor, it would be nearly impossible just to keep track of turns. Do we need to make some sort of counters for all of our units (which could be like 20+ per side in bigger games)? We would need to remember how many actions each unit has taken each turn and potentially what actions each unit has taken if they are limited to one of each per turn. The amount of book-keeping associated with unit activation would make your head spin unless you kept all your games to like 1000 points or below.
For me, its about streamlining the game – taking out the stuff that just takes up time, and adds complexity, for no huge game play benefit. A non exclusive list
Psychic powers. For me this needs to be fundamentally revised. All the pre gaming rolling on tables is maddning. I much prefer the way it was in 5th edition. The powers were less powerful, and you chose the ones you wanted from a short list of codex specific options, You chose them at the list building stage, rather than taking up time rolling for them pre game. A simple leadership check to see if they go off was all that you needed.
Warlord traits. Let players choose their warlord trait pre game (probably tone down some of them). Again, saves time in the pre game phase.
Overwatch. Scrap it. It just takes up time and slows things down.
Challenges – again, complexity for no real gaming benefit.
Taking wounds from the front of a unit. How irritating is it when your opponent takes a bunch of saves one at a time on the chapter master at the front of the unit.
Now that I think about it ….. I much preferred 5th edition to 7th!!
EYIG
I’m with you on everything but psychic powers. I love the psychic phase. It makes my army a different army every game and really keeps things fresh when I play the same lists for a long time. That’s true even in an army like mine where 2 of my psykers are pre-selected.
To say i hate D weapons is a massive understatement… There is so much to hate about it and so little to love about it.
Whenever a 6 is rolled a battle is usually over, or the player removing the models starts playing like its over.
Free options is hard, but not realy a problem for me. Though i only use these formations when i know cheese wil hit the table.
Grav is just hard, not realy game breaking IMO. You can take plenty of saves against it and the amount of shots get reduced after walking. Though a skyhammer annihalation Grav cannon drop can huuuuuuuuuurt… But it is not unsurviveable.
In general what i hope is that they go AOS style on 40K. And by that i mean simplify the rules to such an extent that the rulebook gets at least a third thinner.
There is so much to take into account while playing that it takes out speed, creates discussions among the best of friends and OMG does GW love the grey area. They shoould leave notinh to interpetation. This is this, that is that. PERIOD!
Even so i still love 40K. But the amount of games i play has been greatly reduced since the horror that was 6th, and the abomination called 7th. From the moment 7th launched GW clearly showed which army is favorite and which can go to hell for all they care.( Poor Orks, Poor daemons, Poor CSM, Poor GK, Poor DE, oh… and sisters… never forget them!)
Grav is not OP but D weapons are? What marine faction do you play again?
I’m wishing for 40k something similar to the AoS Generals Handbook.
A single source of reference for all unit costs that can be changed/updated quickly without having to republish entire codexes.
If you make it a digital product, this would allow GW to apply tweaks of balance every now and then and push the updates to the gaming community.
(Exactly as you see in online multiplayer games)
For me the biggest problem is army Comp. Formations and Superheavies are more acceptable for larger games. But we keep trying to cram them into 1850 point games. If they added some degree of scalability to the rules, we would be in a much better place.
Like maybe Superheavies and Formations aren’t available until 2,500 points. Couple that with a limit on Warp dice and we’ve lowered the barrier for entry for smaller games dramatically while still allowing the Apoc types to use their toys. A more restrictive army comp that reduces spam here would also be great. Every player I know likes restrictions to their list building process. The Jervis dream of unbound for all was a failure, and its time to try something else.
I’m sure GW expects us to handle this sort of thing ourselves, but we’ve generally failed to do so, so they should make it explicit in the rules.
I agree with all of your points as well, but they are fairly trivial when you consider the problems with army comp. They could fix all of the items you list, and if they don’t fix army comp the game still won’t work very well.
It’s hard for me to nail down everything that I think should be changed because not all of it would actually benefit the game.
A couple big ones would be to make the six rolls for D and stomps still really good, but not game breaking. How itc already does ranged D is perfect and making the stomp roll of a six use the models strength and ap 2 would probably be a bit better. Still really good and would probably still one shot some things but at least they get a save.
Otherwise toning down battle brothers. I like allies, and I like being able to mix imperial factions together. But some combinations are just a little over the top.
Not sure how to best change allies but it does need some tweaking. Also, more ways to actually get into assault.
I would like to add “Feel no pain” to the list. At least the stacking of it with Iron Hands. Even if battle bros and psychic powers would be toned down you could still make a strong death-star with a Command Squad in a Medusa strike force. Everybody in it gets a 3+ Feel no pain! Chapter master with Gorgons chain a 2+! Add a libi-conclave, bikes and storm shields – voila: Deathstar!
You could even fit two command squads in 1850P:
2xStrike Force Command (Chapter Master+Command Squad, Chaplain+Command Squad, all on bikes)
1xConclave (5xLevel 2 on bike)
1xArmoured Task-Force (with three Whirlwinds and a Techmarine on Bike)
1xSome cheap Aux.
I pretty much agree with everything here. D was a terrible idea to begin with and should be replaced with weapons that maybe have one or two of it’s effects at best.
Free vehicles or wargear is pretty much the definition of pay to win and while it may create short time sales it is not good for the long term health of the game.
While free upgrades are bad enough I think another one that realy needs to be adressed is cost of upgrades in general. A power fist for an imperial commisar can’t cost as much as the same one for a Thunderwolf Cav, who gets 5 attakcks at Str. 10 for it.
This is even more important then it comes to movement upgrades. A bike for a Chapter Master doesn’t just make him 10% better. It makes him easily twice as useful as he would be without.
Instant death realy needs to go, it could come back as a special ability of some weapons (some of the former D maybe) which would also mean that Feel no Pain suddenly wouldn’t be only a fraction as good on T3 guys than on anyone else.
Grav is such a terrible design I wouldn’t even know there to start. The triad of Metal vs Vehicles, Plasma vs Heavy Infantry, Flamer vs light made sense and was the most basic block of 40k’s rock/paper/skissors design. The Grav Gun not only replaced them all it also pretty much instantly retired vehicles.
It doesn’t just need to be toned down, it needs to be given a specific purpose it is good for and not be the all round gun that does absolutely everything. Maybe small damage but some sort of slow effect, basicaly adding “control” as a fourth option to the other 3 weapons. In any case they already sold the damn things, so it’s not like they can’t afford to nerf them into the ground.
I forgot to mention that of course random rolling on charts for what you get for your army needs to go. That is just bad design to start with and will always be either silly weak or overpowered.
Psykers need a specific seleciton of powers that can be calculated into the effectiveness of their army. Not a 1 in 6 chance to just make you untouchable. That would also end this trend of either taking an army of them to make sure you get your powers or none at all.
Warlord Traits could be a list of choices or upgrades to buy. And once again they need to be tailored to the army and considered in context with the units that can benefit from them.
I think it would be cool if it still gave you more selections if you take multiple. Say you can’t unlock cursed earth unless you have 6 rolls on the table. I really love having a huge psychic army but I agree it can be silly when I get EVERY good psychic power in a game or ONLY DARK FLAME the next game.
One thing about D though: It should only get dropped if death-stars are taking care of, too. It is a major thing with stomp to hold them in check atm.
I think you can pretty much asume that anyone who wants to see those instant death results go also has a toning down of deathstars on their wishlist.
True. I just hope that GW sees it that way, too! 😉
This may not be popular opinions, but you know everything they did with AoS? I want it all done to 40k. I am not even joking. My enthusiasm for 40k has been dwindling steadily as I get into AoS because I see a game system that could be.
This includes everything from compiling all unit entries into dataslates with all the options and special rules on them for no constant rulebook referencing.
Release ALL the dataslates at once in the new format.
Release a central book with the points values for EVERYTHING so all you have to do is yearly update that one central book to fix the points values.
Standardize to-hit and to-wound and go tableless. I know the tables are easy to remember, but that doesn’t make them any less stupid.
Increase the wounds of everything to represent toughness, and do damage on weapons to represent strength.
Get rid of AP and go save modifying. I want this so much. I am sick of 40k’s “it’s all or nothing” saves mechanic.
Just so much I think would work so well for 40k. But alas I fear GW wont be as brave with 40k as they were with fantasy. They did it to fantasy because fantasy was already dying. 40k might be dying too, but not as much, so they would have a lot to lose, and I fear they would be aware of all the kneejerk hatred toward something from the idiots out there jumpink to conclusions on what could be a superior system.
I’m with you on all of those game mechanics. AoS needs Army Comp in the worst way, and theoretically the General’s Handbook does this, but I’m not nearly ready to call that a success.
Also, every game I’ve ever seen of AoS has ended in a big mobbing of the middle, and that isn’t the gameplay I’m looking for.
I want to stand up for the State of 40K. It is growing. To some people it seems like it isn’t, but that is mainly due to the fracturing of the community that is happening. At the same time that the ITC is relatively effectively bringing Tourney players together, at the local game store, the number of Cliques of 40K players is ever increasing, and the inter Clique play is declining.
Most of this has to deal with the rules lacking scalability and meaningful army comp. The barrier for entry for someone to get to an organized play level player is higher than it has ever been, so the number of players stranded either financially or by fealty to fluff is higher than ever as well.
As I said above. Scalability and meaningful army comp are what we need to help rebuild communities that are fractured.
So thinks I would like to see, is stomp reduced ( can not be used if the model charged that turn) and maybe have it be used in place of attacks.
Grav can go more in line with 30k blasts/big blasts rather than tons of shots, AP4
I would like to see the largest bonuses come from fielding an army from all one chapter/book, rather than from formations.
Introduce a drawback on STR D for non LoW. If Plasma is dangerous to use, I imagine D str tech is even more so.
Multiple IC’s One squad should be granted 1 IC that can join it.
Improve the Psy phase. Make it more interactive with real defense possible, lots of possibilities here, plus the tweeking of individual powers.
Agreed on all points except getting rid of the allies chart completely. I think allies add a fun dynamic to the game and have potential to create interesting list variety. However, Battle Brothers definitely does need to be changed. I do agree that the way it currently works gives Deathstars way too much power and makes them way too easy to build. I won’t try to come up with how they should be reworked, since I’ve already seen some better ideas than anything I could ever come up with (I don’t remember them off the top of my head, but I liked what I saw at the time).
One other thing I would add to this list is lowering the barrier to entry for new players by trimming down the complexity. My hope for this is that GW keeps the variety of options we currently have, but makes the game more approachable by scaling back the sheer volume of special rules. Some special rules are similar enough to each other that they’re kind of redundant, anyway.
Until deathstars get reigned in I feel that the d is a necessary part of the game otherwise some armies will have absolutely no way to deal with them.
I don’t think that battle bros needs to go away completely but there does need to be a limit on characters. Only allowing 1 named IC per detachment, and only allowing IC’s to join units within their parent detachments would go a long way to helping deathstars become more manageable without actually removing them. Some other considerations would have to be taken to limit the power on character formations like the conclave.
Instead of having grav immobilizing vehicles when they glance have them give the crew stunned result instead. Also remove the amps from the cannons available to tac’s and regular dev’s, having the amps on such a cheep platform is too much.
I’d also like to see walkers become MC’s. I’d love to feel confident about using dreads again.
Easiest way to eliminate deathstars:
Only one IC per unit (unless it’s a formation/detachment that specifically says all these characters form a single unit)
No joining battle brother’s units.
This would immensely lower the power of most of the deathstars in the meta and eliminate a lot of battle brother shenanigans in generally. Allies are still one of my personal biggest points of contention in 40k. I’m fine with combining two forces but they shouldn’t be allowed to integrate to the level they have with transports, joining each other’s units, and buffing each other on the field. Makes the game incredibly hard to balance when you have to factor in not only how a unit fits within its own ecosystem but how it can be abused by combining with other armies.
I’m more or less OK with 40k at this point. Its still more balanced than it was in 2nd edition for instance.
The truth of the matter is two fold.
1. Balancing a game like 40k would take more time than is reasonable to expect for a company to truly game test. Think of every single army out there and then think of all the combinations of battles you could try. It would take millions of games to play each list against each other enough time to get reliable data. There is just no way GW can game test for something as complex as 40k.
2. GW also just doesn’t understand what is good and bad. They really just don’t. For as much as I hear statements like the above about how GW planned on using XYZ to sell more models, I just think about all the terrible model releases with bad rules. Dark Angels fliers, all the Nid MCs that came out not too long ago, Bullgryns, Morka/Gorkanauts, etc… A lot of their points decisions are based on tradition rather than any reality (15 pt plasma pistols…250 pt Land Raiders).
The gaming community figures a lot of this stuff out usually within a year as to what is the best stuff and in what proportions, but that’s because we are playing more games collectively and communicating over broader spaces.
Let me hit your core concerns.
D Weapons/Stomp. Its a brutal mechanic, but I don’t mind it in a general sense. There needs to be something outside of the scope to show the truly powerful weapons. The real issue is points balance and game design. If true hordes were more viable, then D weapons/stomp wouldn’t be as game breaking because there would be enough little guys that they wouldn’t care. Hitting a hormagaunt with D is just sad.
Free Units/Wargear. Mostly this is a referendum on GW’s terrible point set up. I don’t have a problem with formations that try and re-create fluff. Warmachine does this to an extent whereby if you follow fluffy list building, you get your stuff buffed or cheaper/more stuff. There are other formations other than War Convocation and Battle Company that give free stuff, but either to lesser degrees or on worse chassis. I like how the Eldar one works, free heavies to the guardians. That’s legit. What I would’ve RATHER seen from battle company is that if you run 10 units of 10 guys you get free sarge upgrades and free HQ upgrades. Every sarge having a plasma pistol and power fist and being a vet wouldn’t be as game breaking as ALL THE TANKS, and it would be really cool looking. But, again, it has more to do with the fact that GW can’t price out things worth a darn.
Battle Brothers: This I agree with. It needs a big change. While I still want to have Inquisitors join IG units, I think they should be the exception. What I would suggest is that no one can join another unit from a different source (what’s even the terminology anymore) but psychic powers and other buffs for friendly units still work.
Grav: Just a completely broken mechanic. IMO, should be less about doing damage and more about crowd control. Basically, I think units hit by Grav should be forced to go to ground (because of GRAVITY) if they fail a simple test. Say, a 4+ on infantry and a 5+ on MCs. Vehicles get stunned on a 5+, FMCs who are swooping and fail are immediately grounded. Fliers who fail also test to crash. Grav cannons have better range and grav amps allow a re-roll. So, grav armed units would be insanely useful, but they themselves wouldn’t be doing a lot of damage.
Overall though, I think the real key is identifying what units are over and underpriced based on usage and then adjusting accordingly.
Great article Jason!
I have only played this game for two years, but I agree with your points overall. I think a lot balance would be restored to the force….er….game…. if every faction was capable of achieving similar results, and those results were factored against each other. For example, D weapons I think serve a purpose, but where it gets imbalanced is who gets them. Where’s the D in the current IG Codex? A supplement that gives it in a BaneBlade variant….maybe? I’m not saying IG needs D weapons, but they should be able to achieve similar results for similar investments in points (and real world $….but that’s a whole other factor).
It feels weird using the words “free” and “Games Worshop” in the same sentence, but free transports/etc… I think are fine….so long as everyone has that option. IG have to outnumber their enemies most of the time to win….but that’s kinda hard when the SUPER ELITE ONLY SO MANY IN THE WHOLE GALAXY Space Marines outnumber the IG on the board because of all the free stuff. Maybe the 8th Edition version of the revered CAD will have that as its benefit: if x size army, you get free transports for Troops or something.
Battle Brothers is definitely a mechanic that needs a serious overall. It is a crutch at the moment, which goes back to each Codex being balanced against each other (hard to do, of course, ….does Spock beat laser but lose to rock?). I think the intention is to let people use what they want, but it tends to let people who know the game inside and out create insane combinations that go up against “I got Mephiston because he’s cool.”
I would really like to see the Psychic phase balanced out. Right now its a case of the rich get richer and the poor get poorer: I have recently played an army that spits out 20 WC a turn and summons more daemons that summon even more WC-producing units.
What’s the counter to Stomp? Anything?
This looks like fun so here we go. First I want to say that so far as general fun games within a club and with people I know 7th edition is just fine; with FAQ coming along to sort out the ambiguous bits I think it is a great game that needs little change.
Where it goes wrong is when you take away all the social constraints,we all know it was not currently designed for that. This of course typifies tournaments and a certain sort of pick-up game with strangers. For those games it needs additional structure and the “3 ways to play” of AoS show that GW are really beginning to think in those terms. So the rest of this only relates to the tournament-style way to play because that is the only one that has any real issues IMO
1. Limit the number of Independent Characters by points level of game. Allow 2 at up to 1000 points, 3 at up to 2000 points etc.
2. Limit Lords of War. Allow 1 at games over 1000 points and up to 2000, 2 at games up to 2500 etc
3. Only one IC per unit – streamline Look Out Sir so it is declared per phase (like jink or Go to Ground) to speed it right up.
4. All S:D works like ranged D in ITC. Also a 6 on the Stomp table works exactly like a small blast S:D. The game needs something that can ignore saves – the current stomps are too binary.
5. Apply points for formations/detachments. Some can have a points cost of zero, the most extreme need to cost 100 or more points.
6. Simplify the points to units and use the exercise as an opportunity to fix the points of those units where it is just out of line now. As with AoS look at the comp systems out there already as one of the inputs to this exercise.
7. Re-rolls to hit become -1 to save instead, part of a master-plan to reduce/remove re-rolls from the competitive game.
8. Re-rolls to save become +1 to save instead, see above (a 1 still fails of course)
9. Ignore cover becomes -3 to cover save – so pretty much the same effect for a basic jink or ruins cover save but units with cover save bonuses become worthwhile again.
Far more fundamental but something I would love to see is a unified and simpler system of degraded performance for vehicles and MC as they take damage. It does not need to be as customised as the one in AoC and could be as abstract as -1 BS/WS/move/charge when wounded escalating to -2 when below half wounds/hull points. This would render Grav useless against vehicles – because Immobilised would cease to exist as such – which IMO would balance it out nicely
If you are ditching D weapons then do the same with super heavies and gargantuans. They got no bidness in 40k. Leave em in apoc where they belong. GW can try other marketing strategies to sell their apoc stuff rather than forcing it down the throats of 40k players.
I agree that they really have no place in a standard game of 40k. As with most things, including them in 40k in the first place was a way for them to move slow selling stock, but with the AoS renaissance we are experiencing I (hope) they see the error of letting the sales and marketing departments steer the ship. Doing that has caused the mess we are currently in.
Agreed. I still feel like I’m living in a werid paralel universe then someone place five bots on the table and claims it is a 40k army.
That said I think they could tone down Wraithknights and even Imp knights to tougher versions of normal walkers/monstrous creatures.
Take away their superheavy status, adjust point cost.
Strange that we all agree, but can’t seem to get an ITC vote on it.
Absolutely agree with every point made. I’ve been preparing my armies for purchase by FLG because I care so little for this game now, of which I have been playing since 2nd ed. Such a shame.