So a few days ago the Big FAQ was released for 40k 8th edition. Anyone who read my previous post on 8th ed will know how I feel about it. But in a nutshell, its a bit of a mixed bag. I thought I'd do a follow up, as I feel it helps highlight some of the problems I have with 40k as it currently stands. Below are some ideas I have in response pertaining to how I would change the current 40k rules as we go into 9th in the (probably not too distant) future to hopefully avoid such shenanigans.
"Psychic Focus"
I may be a bit of an old hat when it comes to 40k, but for me psykers have always been powerful units that can manifest any powers they purchase at army creation (or randomly generated before the game in more recent editions). So where did this limit on psychic powers come from?
Why can you only cast one of each type of power, with the exception of Smite, once per turn, regardless of how many psykers have that power? When did this become an issue? Has it always been like this and I never noticed because most armies only ever had 1 or 2 spsykers at most? Or has it only happened since armies like Grey Knights and (neo) Thousand Sons came into the picture?
Am I to believe they really spent so long balancing this game and each codex that they have to place arbitrary restrictions on abilities? Perhaps they should remove the ability for psykers to cast more than 1 power per turn, instead, and reserve that rule only for the most powerful of psykers. That would make more sense to me, and be quicker and easier to keep track of.
Also, remove Deny the Witch. Its a holdover from Age of Sigmar that didn't need to be ported across.
Targeting Characters
Of course this would be an issue. There are many factors to the whole character spiel in 8th edition. Why can characters no longer join units or take bodyguards? Why bother with needlessly complex targeting restrictions when it comes to characters? Just bring back the Independent Character rule and all these problems go away. It was something they attempted to 'fix' in 8th edition, something that didn't need fixing, and is now just plainly broken.
And while I'm on the topic, why were certain models in units stripped away and made into single character models? Why is a nob with a Waaagh banner now a character in his own right? Why aren't Dark Eldar beastmasters part of a unit with their beasts? Why did they split up Imperial Guard command squads into their own constituent characters? If they insist on doing this, then the return of the Independent Character rules will, once again fix this issue, as then you could just put all these 'characters' back into their units where they belong.
Tactical Reserves
Why is this an issue? Reserves didn't need to be fixed either. What was wrong with placing units in reserve if you are allowed to by the scenario, and then rolling for each unit from turn 2 onwards? The unit would then automatically appear on turn 4 if it failed to appear sooner. It made reserves more strategic, but the randomness balanced it nicely. Should I place a unit in reserve and keep it safe but risk having it not arrive until late in the game? This is what I meant in my previous review when I spoke about removing tactical/strategic choice.
Now its a no-brainer. Keeping units, especially deep striking units, in reserve is always the better option, not only because they are safe from enemy fire, but also because you can now place them anywhere at any time, including turn 1, AND you can also still charge when you do so. I could have told you that was broken before they even playtested it (if they even playtested it), and lo and behold they're having to FAQ it.
And this can be extended to the Deep Strike and Infiltator rules themselves. Each of these rules had their benefits and drawbacks that were logical and balanced (Deep Strike had a chance to scatter and couldn't assault on the turn they arrived, and Infiltrators risked being stuck far ahead of their allies, alone and unsupported). A canny and experienced player could work to alleviate these drawbacks and maximise the benefits, which is a skill that is no longer relevant.
Battle Brothers
This became an issue in 5th edition when they added the Alllies rules. I know why they did it - so players could make super huge Imperial armies with multiple Space Marine Chapters and massive Imperial Guard regiments backing them up, maybe supported by other Imperial Agents such as assassins. The fact that other armies also benefitted from this rule was likely just an oversight on their part, amended a little with the highly restrictive Allies table. But this brought with it a slew of problems.
Now, Death Stars became a thing. If you had Allies, ALL units could now benefit from any special rules you decided to sling about, if both parties were Battle Brothers. Naturally, this again favoured the Imperial armies, all of whom were Battle Brothers with each other, much more than the other factions (Chaos Marines couldn't even summon daemons properly for a long time). To say this broke the game would be an understatement.
So 8th edition tried to fix it with the Keyword and Detatchment rules. And that's fine and it works for the most part. But of course the WAAC players found a way to break this too, so they had to push out a fix for it.
But a better fix, imo, would be as follows: all units from a single Detatchment must all be from the same Codex book. Its effectively the new Battle Brothers rule from the Big FAQ but simplified and easier to grasp - no need to check each unit's specific keywords; if its from the same codex then it can be in the same detatchment. This would fix it. Its simple, makes sense, and due to the nature of Detatchments, it won't hurt players who want to use a more diverse yet fluffy army (i.e. Chaos Marines and Daemons). This was proven in the Dark Eldar codex, where taking multiple Detatchments is actually encouraged, and works very nicely.
A few other points
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The Triumvirate of Ynnead thing was poorly handled in my opinion. It felt, for a time, like they were trying to unify all Eldar into one codex, and some part of me was worried that they would (with all the splitting up of Imperial factions to make even more Imperial factions, merging all the Eldar factions would have just been a kick in the gonads). A simple way to fix the Triumvirate would be to say that their rules affect all friendly units with the Aeldari keyword. Honestly, those paragraphs in the Big FAQ about this subject bored me with the list upon list of arbitrary restrictions in a pitiful attempt to balance this out. Hell, if push comes to shove, why not just make them a separate faction with their own codex? If they can string out and milk the Custodes into their own faction, I'm sure they can do it with the Ynnari.
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You can now only use 1 'ignores Wounds' roll (such as Disgustingly Resilient, etc.) for each lost wound. Um, ok. I thought this was a given. You can only use 1 armour save or Invuln., so why would you be able to use more than 1 'ignores Wounds' roll? This was just bad rules writing, if you ask me. Sure, they could have missed it, despite their incredibly thorough and rigorous playtesting /endsarcasm.
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This brings me to another point: the snowball effect of Mortal Wounds. Mortal Wounds were a mistake. They were a mistake in AoS, and they're a mistake in 40k. Here's how it goes - you have your basic Armour Save, which is generally good but susceptible to a weapon's AP. Then you have your Invulnerable, which is generally worse but is not susceptible to AP and can be taken against all wounds. But that wasn't good enough for GW. They had to ramp it up and add in Mortal Wounds which ignore ALL saves, both mundane and Invuln. But they still weren't done, as now things like Disgustingly Resilient can save against Mortal Wounds. This is the snowball effect. What next? What if they bring back Strength D weapons that now ignore abilities like Disgustingly Resilient? How do you fix this? Get rid of Mortal Wounds. They add nothing, NOTHING to the game. Next time, have it so players can take their Armour Save, then if that fails they take their Invuln., and after that they die. And things like Disgustingly Resilient could just confer a 6+ or 5+ Invuln. Much simpler and quicker.
Summary
Here are a few quick bullet points I'd like to see in 9th edition:
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Remove Stratagems and Command Points
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Remove Mortal Wounds
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Bring back Independent Character rules
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Bring back weapon templates
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Streamline and polish vehicle damage rules
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Streamline keywords and the detatchment rules
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Bring back a lot of the risk vs reward - reverse the rules for various weapon types (heavy and rapid fire), Deep Strike, Reserves and so on
Conclusion
I mean, am I crazy? A lot of this stuff didn't need changed in 8th edition, and now that it was changed they're having to FAQ it to clarify and fix things. Its good that they're on top of fixing their broken systems/rules, but why are these things even issues to begin with? I dunno, guys, I see a lot of hype and praise for 8th edition, and while I certainly think it has potential, its certainly not the be-all-end-all that people make it out to be... yet.
I've got some more games scheduled against a friend next week. We're going to try 40k 8th edition again, this time with armies we've specifically built with the new rules in mind. We'll try some games with Stratagems (my biggest bugbear with 8th), and some without to see which we prefer. I'm going into it with an open mind; loads of people clearly see something that I don't when it comes to Stratagems. Unfortunately I've not found anyone willing to inform me as to why they rate them so highly. But there we have it.
As a final note I'd like to stress that I don't hate 8th edition. I think it has the potential to be great, but it needs some serious work. The core rules are functional, I'd even say 'good', albeit in need of some minor tweaks, but its all the pointless changes and rules bloat that I take issue with. I give it until 9th for them to iron out the creases. (I put this at the end as a sort of disclaimer, if you made it this far and comment accordingly then I know you took my post seriously - if you just rant and rave at me for hating 8th edition I'll know you didn't read this properly).
