40k is broken- what I hope to see in 6th edition

[fellclaw01]

I've been playing 40k for over 20 years -starting at 2nd edition and it always has been my favorite wargame. I remember how fun the first game I played with was (with just the starter set stuff and a rhino for an objective) and how once we started to get large armies the game was filled with special rules and units it didn't seem so fun anymore

...then third edition came out and special rules went away and we had hordes of basic troops and tanks and the game was fun again.... It felt like war. Now several editions later the details came back and I'm starting to get bored again. What really highlighted it to me is going to my new local gaming store after playing a few games after a few years of playing in a small war gaming group with similar tastes

Not to criticize the guys but the armies I came up against we're woefully boring, not because of the lack of painting, rantpant proxying but because of their composition ie one was a scarab farm with 10 troops at 1250. I don't blame the players they want to win and are affective a picking some awesome wargear combinations and tactics to boot- I blame the game

I think this comes to the heart of the fluff bunnies v the competitive gamers issue. Fault lies with neither side, I feel the responsibility lies with the games developers- their lack of play testing , focus, codex creep, whatever means for an army to be effective for example Necrons you have to take advantage of specail rules etc, it is the game developers responsibility to deliver a balanced system that doesn't have half the victory achieved via the list development. I also don't buy the attitude -it's not designed for compeditive play- read we can't be bothered getting it right and we need codex creep to sell miniatures

I don't have any problems with gamers who want to win, competition is a key element to warfare but the best (the most fun) systems should be robust enough to not allow crappy boring lists to be. Über compeditive(compeditive is okay) because just like vortex grenades it starts an arms race and it becomes the norm

Games workshop is tring to shoehorn too many things into the game and I am finding the games not just not that fun anymore. I remember one of the most beardy WACC gamers (a very close friend btw) ever react in horror to 3rd Ed as he had lost all his specail this and that. After we finally coaxed him into a game of third Ed he told me how much fun he had as it was just like when he first played the started 2nd Ed set as it was like blokes shooting at bloke pretty much like real war.

What I would like to see
- warhammer 40k be a wargame again
-significant reduction in specail rules and elimination of stackable abilities
- elimination of extra army options provided by specail charactures and all sc to be overpriced to prevent overuse
- charactures of all types to be less effective
- basic troops to be kings- far more cost effective than Elite, FA or Heavy support
- varying builds with their own strengths and weaknesses ie mech gets far fewer units or other drawback to counter benefits

What do you guys think? I just want 40k to be fun

[Renegade]

I would simply boost the price of heavy and special weapons, unless a dedicated team. It would spell the end of melta vets or anything like them, and boost special weapon/heavy weapon squads and their equivalents. Bringing back things like traits and doctrines would also help matters.

[antennafarm]

40k IS fun. like anything else, it might get stale after a while, but you find new ways to make it interesting.

also, if you're looking for a wargame to feel like war and not a game, then you clearly have never been to war.

it might feel cinematic, or epic, but unless you're napoleon sending movement orders from a hill, this game has as little to do with war as chess. it's a set of rules and labels, and that's it.

if you want it to be like war, how about logistical trains, injuries affecting performance, weapon jams, one or two guys in a squad freezing up (and not a whole squad breaking), non-holding objectives ("never leave a fallen comrade" sorts of things). how about, when your vehicle is disabled ("wrecked," i guess), the scramble to destroy every piece of sensitive equipment in it before the enemy can capture it? war isn't simply "blokes shooting at blokes."

or just WANT to have fun (and figuring out how - maybe buy battle missions, or maybe house rule stuff, or make your own rules, or take a break and paint, or whatever). it makes life so nice, to choose positive routes that create instead of those that simply tear down and produce nothing.

[Kawauso]

I'm in the camp of those who find the game fun as-is.

Looking forward to a new edition, but I don't think 5th is un-fun.

And I happen to like special rules quite a bit...without them, what would be the point of taking certain units? What would Death Company be, for example, without Rage, or Relentless, or Furious Charge or Feel no Pain?

I think the game would be really boring if it were just legions of basic troops with loads of basic weapons firing at each other.

The basic troops should remain as they are: the meat and potatoes of your army. Some armies have very desirable troops, and some don't. But either way, they're fairly well-represented in most armies. And when they aren't on occasion...why's that bad? I like that I'm able to make a minimum-troop, armour-heavy Space Marine list, if I feel like it. Variety is part of what makes the game fun for a lot of people.

You could always try something like a minimum 3 Troop choice rule on the FOC with your gaming group if you're looking for something a little more plain. Personally, though, I'd hate if the next edition of 40k wound up more along the lines of what you're looking for. I feel right now the game has a pretty good handle on complexity and scale, and overall the balance is alright, too (though it could always be better).

[fellclaw01]

House rules are fine and I do use them (and probably more moving forward) but it would be nice to move away from having to take certain army compositions to compeditive, having to use house rules to have fun play the game the way you want indicates something wrong with the rule set

IMHO GWs attitude that the game is only for casual play is the problem- it allows people to build broken combinations of wargear ultimately killing off variety in the game

[daboarder]

try changing the scenario's, Go play some of the old missions from 3rd and 4th edition like raid or breakthrough.

[Lightcavalier]

I found that the whole issue with 40k comes down to who you play with. I used to play a great deal with people who were always getting ready for the next tournament...it got tedious and the cracks in the system became glaringly obvious.
Then I moved, to a place where tournaments were a rarity. People got together and slapped down what they had with whatever wargear they wanted (very white dwarf battle report style) and narrated their way through the game. It was the most fun I have ever had with the game. Playing the game as GW designed and promoted it to be played. I didn't care who won or lost, or if my dice betrayed me...so long as the stories got increasingly more epic.
I moved again to a more tourney oriented location, and it has never been the same.

I agree that GW fails to examine certain aspects of their game before they publish it. I really do think they went way over the top on certain aspects of Codex Grey Knights. But it is also incredibly fun to watch as 40 grey knight terminators and some friends take on hordes of spawned termegaunts for 6 turns.

Its not about who wins or looses, its about how you payed the game.

[antennafarm]

fellclaw, i don't know if it's necessarily a 'problem,' it just IS. they've always been pretty forthcoming with that attitude, and if the rules are secondary to the models, so be it. it's still fun, which i suspect is the intent behind the game/codex designers. it's not designed for tournaments, so thinking it a fault that it's not perfectly balanced when that was never really its intent (although i think it's more or less balanced, with a few discrepancies). i think the best way to look at the actual game rules is, basically, the GW design team's house rules, which are secondary to the modeling aspect (read: SALES) at GW. people who take it so seriously just seem silly in that view, no?

i think i agree with Lightcavalier: it's all about your gaming group, although i have no issue playing against 'broken' lists and whatnot because it actually makes me think harder as an individual player and overcoming those issues. the first time i beat wolves with my dark angels (it was a loganwing/long fang sort of mess), i almost jumped out of joy.... but i still had fun every time i lost.

[Kawauso]

Then I moved, to a place where tournaments were a rarity. People got together and slapped down what they had with whatever wargear they wanted (very white dwarf battle report style) and narrated their way through the game. It was the most fun I have ever had with the game. Playing the game as GW designed and promoted it to be played. I didn't care who won or lost, or if my dice betrayed me...so long as the stories got increasingly more epic.


I can't + this enough.

I've never played with a truly competitive group, but I can't really imagine playing with people who don't get caught up in the narrative fun of 40k games. I hope I won't have to, whenever I get around to finding a new play group.

[jonsgot]

What I would like to see
- warhammer 40k be a wargame again
-significant reduction in specail rules and elimination of stackable abilities
- elimination of extra army options provided by specail charactures and all sc to be overpriced to prevent overuse
- charactures of all types to be less effective
- basic troops to be kings- far more cost effective than Elite, FA or Heavy support
- varying builds with their own strengths and weaknesses ie mech gets far fewer units or other drawback to counter benefits

What do you guys think? I just want 40k to be fun

I think you are going to be out of luck as long as Matt Ward is at GW. In fact I think you may even like 6th less. Although 2nd edition was around for quite a while there were 2 phases to it. Pre and Post Dark Millennia. The Pre DM phase was full of basic armies, then the Codex was born and everything changed. The armies started to get more complex. Then the DM expansion happened and the whole game got over taken by wargear, Psychics and strategy cards. I think we are about to see the DM phase of 40k reappear. Hopefully I am wrong.

[jonsgot]

I played a 9k game yesterday. The things that spoilt the game were close combat and wound allocation. Both are too complex and cumbersome. I'm confident they will clear up wound allocation in 6th. I'm not so sure about combat. Not that they have ever changed rule book without messing with close combat a bit.

The Characters made the game enjoyable. Imperial Guard 1 man armies and the Howing winds of Njal Stormcaller. This element added narrative to the game and I think that's something we will see more of in 6th Ed.

GW are focused on what sells model's. Second editions was a hay day for 40k. When 4th came out people left the system in droves (playing fantasy instead). Not becuase of the over complex rules, but because the charature of the game had been lost. 4th Ed wasn't that bad the exit had more to do with 3rd ed and by the time 4th came out everyone had got broad and didn't want to invest into a whole new set of rules. Fifth Edition has seen 40k become the most popular system again.

[eldargal]

I've been playing since 2nd, and honestly 5th is the best it has been. 2nd was a bizarre amalgamation of a skirmish and battle game, it took hours to play a match at 1500pts and it tended to get bogged down in ridiculous minutiae. It also had the balance of a drunken crackwh*re on a trapeze wire. Things changed with 3rd when the ruleset was streamlined to make the game more about large battles than skirmishes and the trend has continued.

However, GW does seem to have learnt that books really need to be balanced against each other, they have done it successfully with 8th, despite hte silly 6th ed rumours I think it is quite likely we will see a BETTER balanced game this time around.

[GrogDaTyrant]

I've been playing since 2nd, and honestly 5th is the best it has been.

... despite hte silly 6th ed rumours I think it is quite likely we will see a BETTER balanced game this time around.

I humbly disagree with both those points. I personally did not find 5th edition enjoyable, and it sure as hell didn't feel particularly "balanced" to me. The whole No Retreat fiasco reeks of just a way to over-correct for the colossal blunder of 6pt Ork boyz. Especially since it only goes off Armor Saves.

I personally have a very strong hunch that GW will do what they've always done... The new edition will just be a 'shake-up', without being an improvement overall. Rather every 'improvement' to a rule, will be offset by some other convoluted mess-up. It is their tried and true way to keep themselves in business by ensuring they will be able to do the same thing 5+/- years from now.