"What Went Wrong in Warhammer 40k 7th Edition?" Topic

"I had originally made some drafts for posts about why Traitor's Hate didn't fix Chaos, how Wrath of Magnus wouldn't fix Thousand Sons, and how Legions wouldn't fix us spikey boys. In short, it boiled down to these being supplements, our codex being terribad, and GW's policy is that codices are the go-to for points and statlines. Within that framework, and based on previous supplements measured against the Emperor's lapdogs' formations, I made a list of demands required to make us playable, much like a demented hostage-taker with no hostage…"
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It's barely readable, like it was written in some sort of foreign language that is desperately trying to mimic English… Awful, and useless.

Muppets wibbling on about army builds and nerfing and how the latest rules, codex etc makes their army uncompetitive have completely and utterly missed the point of wargaming.

This sort of stuff gets kind of over-dramatic doesn't it?

Though I feel 40K has reached some sort of stumbling point where the need to field ever-larger models is starting to break the game apart.

Ironically, the most recent couple editions work pretty well if you go back to how things started: A couple of squads and a few characters :)

Did they finally outsource the rules development to China?

A couple of squads and a few characters :)

And no aircraft, one or two vehicles tops, no on-table artillery…

That fact that they started to make 40K scale mega-vehicles and Titans was as Weasel said …

Though I feel 40K has reached some sort of stumbling point where the need to field ever-larger models is starting to break the game apart.

work pretty well if you go back to how things started: A couple of squads and a few characters :)

That was the intent when it started. But you couldn't sell enough big expensive models that way. Then they tried Epic scale, but those models were not expensive enough because of their small size … So they went to "Mega" 40K versions. Where you had 2 foot Titans,[or larger] on a table that they could cross in 2 turns …

I don't think the big units is the problem exactly. I think one of the big problems is that they expect you to play with them on a 6x4 foot table still. I don't think that is in the rules it is just some sort of weird wargaming standard.

If you had an 8x10 foot table then you could probably put a couple of flyers and some titans or big tanks on it.

However I think the biggest problem is that it is so rules heavy.

The mini rulebook is 117 pages, almost all rules.

3rd editon rules ended on pg 42.

Too many special rules, too many different weapon types, too many different AP values for close combat weapons.

Going into it from 6th edition may or may not have been okay. I never played 6th edition. I played 4th but 7th was just a mess.

40K started out as a skirmish game in which you only need a few squads and a couple of vehicles for support. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader and Second Edition would actually bog down with the number of miniatures and models we see people use today.

Starting with Third Edition and with each subsequent new Codex, GW kept adding new units, vehicles and war machines to the various armies/races and the game evolved and expanded such that you can play ever larger games using many more figures. In a sense the players are to blame because we demand more and want bigger and better war machines. With the newer editions allowing for larger battles, 40K Apocalypse and Forgeworld, we're basically playing what used to be Epic scale (6mm) battles with 40K sized (32mm+) figures. Why? It looks better as long as we have the table space.

As for game balance, it's difficult for a game to maintain balance because of "Codex creep." Also, because of all the myriad army choices available, some armies are bound to match up better than others. The Chaos Space Marines codex (not the army-specific supplements and campaign books) was the first released under Sixth edition, so it's bound to be outdated given what had come after for all the other armies and races. I'm sure GW will redress their shortcomings with their next codex release for Seventh edition.

I don't think it looks better, to be honest:

No room to maneuver, no room to do pretty much anything except stand toe-to-toe and dump buckets of dice on each other. Epic has a place because 28mm+ was meant for small-unit tactics. And of course, if the price of an Epic unit was $X, the price of the same unit in 40K was ($X)^4, at least. No thanks.

"I don't think the big units is the problem exactly. I think one of the big problems is that they expect you to play with them on a 6x4 foot table still. I don't think that is in the rules it is just some sort of weird wargaming standard.

If you had an 8x10 foot table then you could probably put a couple of flyers and some titans or big tanks on it."

Pictors, I want to see pictures of that 8x10 table,and the aliens and/ormutants who play on it--or possibly the crane by which you suspend players over the table. Last I heard, miniature wargamers were still more or less human beings, and that means tables deeper than six feet are themselves not a feature but a glitch.

Same thing goes at the other end, where you sometimes find a microscale fanatic with stands too small to handle and players jammed too close together. The dimensions and capabilities of human beings are the start of game design, not something to be finessed like time scale.

I played on something like a 40x100 foot table a couple of times. I'm sure an 8x10 foot table would be no problem.

No one was a mutant, that I could tell, in the two really big games.

"However I think the biggest problem is that it is so rules heavy.

The mini rulebook is 117 pages, almost all rules.

3rd editon rules ended on pg 42."

The longer rule book is an improvement over previous editions. The "rules" may have been short, but every unit in every codex had unique special rules. Put aside memorizing all of the units from all of the codices, you had to buy all of them just to find out what the special rules were. At least those have been centralized and standardized!

I agree with you Javelin …

There really weren't that many special rules in 3rd edition. I liked that they were in the codicies, actually, as it usually made them easier to find. The problem with third was that there was not a uniform layout for the codicies. If they had all been fluff, lists, weapons, summary sheet with the pretty pictures inserted somewhere between fluff and lists or weapons and summary sheets it would have been easier.

Still having all the rules in one place sucks, I think, as I have this clunky rulebook instead of a small rule book and two small codicies for the rules I need.

Just to be clear, my original post was directed at the article, not the 40K rules. I just looked at it and realized that it didn't convey what I meant it to…

Yeah, it was pretty confusing, I thought you were talking about the rules. I didn't think they were that bad but to each their own :)

@Pictors: A 40 x 100 foot table? How did anyone reach the interior of it? I can't even visualize a table that big, unless you're talking about the floor of a gymnasium or something.

I dislike the publication of endless codices and splatbooks. I want all the rules needed to play in the main rulebook where everyone can find them and no one gets surprised by the one obscure rule found only on page 492 of an expensive codex that suddenly upends the game. I always figured the codices were just a money grab. I didn't mind the ones like "Waaagh! The Orks" from the RT days, because it really just gave fluff, flavor, and painting tips.

I like my rules to be like Starmada: everything is in the main book, and you tailor specific forces by applying combinations of the traits and abilities found there.

" I want all the rules needed to play in the main rulebook where everyone can find them and no one gets surprised by the one obscure rule found only on page 492 of an expensive codex that suddenly upends the game"- Javelin

I can relate when a guy pulls out one of the Forgeworld codex's. There was no way I could afford ALL of the different codex's and I was at a severe disadvantage if my opponents had them all. I was constantly experiencing " GOTCHA HA HA I WIN, I WIN" moments…

We played in a ball room. The table was divided into about 8 -10 sections which had places you could walk between. It really wasn't hard at all.

The first time I just watched Borodino. The second time it was Gettysburg and I got command of a unit of Confederate cav part way through. They were about shot when I took them over and were facing Union guys with repeating rifles. We had shotguns or something. I think we shot about 4" they shot 18" or something. I spent the entire time I played getting shot from here to there and back again.