Its insane, I feel like all money spent is on advertising and if they put even a tenth of that into rules management. What a bait and switch to have them say it’s free and then take the army builder away and thennnn now the codexes again are going to cost us every time we want to have the rules for the armies we love
Also new, and the idea of having to take an errata and paste certain sections on to outdated core rules is really unappealing. Atom is right when he says casual players will ignore them, I’m still getting a grasp on basic concepts so trying to adjust to these nuances isn’t going to benefit me.
I'm not expecting too many updates to the PDFs.... word on the street is that even with a paid sub to Warhammer+, you still need the Tyranid codex to get non-index rules in the army builder...😐
I totally agree. Infinity, for example, has both free rules and free army builder app. Which means that, if I want to buy the manuals, it's only for lore. I can skip the initial box (rulebook + lore book) altogether, if all I was ever interested in were just the rules. And the free app makes it a breeze to create lists and playing with them, testing new armies I could be interested to buy. But I suppose this would be too much for GW, given their history.
They are free they release points changes when they do them and theres even core rule commentary which gives you all the changes to core rules for free
If they do any sort of paywalling/ locking rules behind codex's or an app then it's not free. I should be able to look at any factions rules/ points cost for free on an official free app or website so I know what I'm potentially playing against.
Literally none of GW’s major competitors have free factions rules. Bolt Action, Star Wars Legion, its all behind a paywall. One Page Rules is an indie project, and frankly isn’t really that well thought out.
The central problem is the 10th wasn't ready. It clearly had not been sufficiently tested and worked on in house. All these changes should have happened after a wave of balance testing prior to release. Instead they rushed out a broken system because they set an unrealistic release schedule. And most of these changes were pretty tone deaf in not addressing the underlying issues. (It feels like the people in charge of making the decisions have never played many of these armies, so they just threw out point changes because they had no clue what the actual problems were) Which means another round of changes pretty much has to come out again in the next couple months.
Going out on a limb here, but I'm going to assume the ones in suits working for the shareholders are to blame for issues such as these - proper playtesting takes time and therefore money, and that line needs to go up!
@@absolutfreak5012 you'd be assuming GW actually cares ... With the kind of things that I've seen them do over the years and with other companies showing infinitely more consumer friendly behaviour I've given up on GW ever producing a game that I'd want to play. To me they're just selling models with games attached.
The constant rules changes has certainly made it a lengthier process for me to get in to 40k. I was hoping to get some games of 10th in before they started... I failed.
I’ve been painting the Imperium subscription to get into 40K, and to a new player it’s super confusing about what what rules they’re teaching you in the magazines have changed. I’m tempted to stick with the “old” edition and get codices and rule books on discount.
I think a good idea is either to play it how it was before to get a sense of how the game works and leave parts away like Stratagems to get an easier understanding of the game and add the more complex one later or get a combat patrol.
As always. A greatly enjoyable well thought out take on things. Ive seen quite a few people recently say they are near a point of giving up paying attention to updates, and just playing the rules as they are. Or even just actively choosing to adjust rules for the people they play with and ignoring anything that comes out from GW, unless youre constantly playing at a club or big events, these kind of updates are unbearably tedious.
I think it is also worth noting that they probably hit the panic button due to the Aeldari invasion, and rolled out changes they were already planning earlier than expected. As a new player, it really wasn’t a good look seeing that tournament result with the top 6 places all being the same faction.
To be fair, the last time the Eldar were fucking everyone that hard, Slaanesh was born, so GW had to act quickly or they would have had another new chaos faction get born into existence. Then they would have a couple problems. First, as we saw with Votann, it has to be overpowered because it’s new. Second, they would have to nerf it into oblivion once they sold enough models because it’s chaos and chaos isn’t allowed to be strong. P.S. this was all sarcasm before anyone gets upset, I’m just trying to make you smile. 😁
I just wish the books and rules were separate. I love my fancy leviathan book, for the pretty pictures and story stuff. But now, it’s not really worth considering as a rule book since it’s already been changed. All Digital rules and then print media for the world building would be great. Same for up coming codexes. If they just filled them with art, painted minis,. And faction fluff then give the rules online, it would be fantastic.
That's pretty much what we were expecting from the first press release: free data cards for life. It definitely feels like they don't want me to play with my toy soldiers, and they certainly don't want me to buy any more.
It WOULD be fantastic, but then not as many people would buy the books. It’s just a fact that there are people that buy the books because they think they have to for the proper rules. GW will do whatever they think is correct to maximize sales/profits. Having books be all art/fluff would be very consumer friendly with all rules online….but then every edition they cannot seemingly sell you the same faction fluff with updated rules.
Rules shouldn't be paywalled, especially if I'm already paying a subscription to use them. I would absolutely buy a codex for the lore and art (though even that's becoming repetitive) but I am seriously considering never buying a single rulebook this edition. Doubly so if they plan on rewriting the rules every few months.
Rules updates aren’t a problem when the game has fundamental problems. It would be like complaining that your buggy pc game gets fixed. Problem is printed rules still being the way GW insists on sticking to. Having you 35£ book be out of date from between you order it and that it arrives.
What annoys me is how gw were talking about how they understand that players don't like power levels and so it'd be points from here on. Then they just made points functionally power level.
@@rogueflight5386that is blatantly untrue, points charge you per model, unlike power level. Power level charges you for a whole unit, regardless of wether or not it is full strength.
@@rogueflight5386 that's my whole point, they aren't the same thing. GW got rid of points in order to force people into playing with power levels. They renamed power level to points and hoped that no one would notice.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the changes to stuff like Oath of Moment and the things they are announcing for the Space Marine codex were done MONTHS or even a YEAR ago given the printing schedules and timelines involved...so some of these changes aren't even reactionary ones, but have been planned from the beginning...which is also pretty insidious but I guess that's something for another day lol
they had to publish fixes for the not space dwarves practically the same day they started selling the codexes ... maybe it's different for their poster boys, but ... the time between creating the new space marine codex and publishing them in hardcopy will force them to go through the same thing again. Unless ... these updates are already included in the codex and the game itself didn't get the updates in time for launch. I don't like either option ...
At this point my friends and I will just be the curmudgeon comrades and run our armies off 9th, which at least is static. Our schedules are erratic and make flgs matches unlikely at best, so the odd beer and peanuts matches we might be able to get in together might as well run off rules that we can get more comfortable with time rather than confused to keep up.
Late 9th is my favourite edition of 40k so far, significantly better than 10th in many respects. The big advantage of 10th is the reduced number of stratagems, so my playgroup houserule it so that at the start of each battle a player picks 6 faction specific stratagems and can't use any others that game.
This is 100% the case for me. I played one game in 2nd edition and have been painting only since. When 10th came out I was intrigued to try playing and picked up the Leviathan box set. Before I can even finish painting it (I know I'm being slow) the rules and points have changed multiple times and GW have made various choices I don't agree with. I've already decided to sell my minis and move to a miniature agnostic game like Stargrave, instead of buying overpriced figures.
infinity and bolt action are good skirmish games. for larger force games, I play battletech. I quit 40k after 2nd version as well. I still enjoy space hulk (original).
As in, the second edition that came out in 1993? Brother. if you have been painting since then and haven't played, time to look in the mirror and accept that it's time to move on from the hobby. At least the playing part.
@@Anjohl That's what I'm saying, and what the point of this video was. I first tried to play in 2nd edition and haven't tried to play since. I was going to try and get back into playing in 10th edition, due to all the hype and it being marketed as a simplified game. I play other tabletop games and RPG's, and I'm comfortable with how games are meant to work, but because of how GW have done things they've turned away a prospective new player (and probably more than just myself). It might not be so clear to someone who's been mired in GW's practices for some time, but this isn't a good way to run a game or a business
My buddy is already tired of the rules changes and he normally loves broken quirky rules. We're going to start playing one page rules. I've personally hated strats and command points myself so one page is right up my alley
Good for you! I myself gave up on 40K shortly after 8th Edition's launch (2017), and my 40K armies went unused for several years. I discovered One Page Rules two years ago, and absolutely love it. My beloved 40K armies once more grace my table, via a game that's easy to play and loads of fun.
I learned of WH40K while living in the caribbean as many of my friends were british and had armies. From 1996-2000 onward i followed the industry and game without diving in. By 2007-2010 i finally took the plunge with 8th edition. I quickly realized that youd spend almost more money on codexes and rule books. I bought the 9th edition rule book but took a step back at that point. Following everything - i agree all the weird name conventions make it hard for ppl to know what they need. I also find it strange that rhe industry still buy products from them when they launch things then within months relaunch - index cards then a codex, then rule updates pdf. Its just terrible.
I'd suggest giving Space Weirdos a try. Not only is the game a ton of fun to play, but there's a fan-made warband builder app that's absolutely incredible.
@@JRufu As long as you have people who play it, or are wiling to look at spaces beyond GW. Where I live, almost anything not Warhammer is unheard of, and there's no support/nobody who cares about it.
Points are actually NOT the correct way to balance units since not all weapon options are equal power. For example, a balance issue with Fire Overwatch could warrant a 45 points increase on a Tyrannofex because of its Acid Spray, but then it makes every Tyrannofex running Fleshborer Hive entirely unplayable. The correct way to balance these units is to tweak individual weapon profiles PER datasheet, a capability GW was bragging about early in 10th, but seems to have forgotten about.
Same thing with certain armies have dramatically underpowered or overpowered army rules. Their core functionality needs to be changed. But points are both the lowest effort way to make changes, and the one that makes GW the most money. If you dramatically lower the points of 3/4s of the armies, all those players likely have to go buy more miniatures to get back to their point cap.
It's not so much forgotten but intent. At some point prior to release they mentioned an alternating update strategy where one quarter will be pointed and another covering rules and points. The recent update was intended for just points, but due to major imbalances they hit both
@@LegendSF the weird thing is, most players in 8th hated PL, it was too coarse to balance. They've pretty much leaned into the exact thing nobody wanted. I never played 9th, I decided to sit it out. I'll sit out 10th as well.
It feels like 40k rules have recently been driven almost exclusively by competitive players. I just get left a bit confused by it all and even more nervous to play anyone.
"The causal player" is basically just a model buyer. Their gaming experiences are far too difficult to collate to be of value. Win rates at GTs are easy to math out.
@@MyCleverName But the narrative player, on the other hand, can be worked with. The competitive player often wants things that actively detract from the narrative experience. For example, blast markers and armor facings. Both things that were evocative and immersive (watch literally any tank focused WW2 documentary and you'll wonder why the fuck these were removed). But they caused sweaty tryhards to argue until they're blue in the face about whether the blast nicked 4 models or 3, or whether it went in the 156 degree 20 minute direction, or 156 degree 14 minute direction. Things necessary to make a streamlined "board game" do not make for a good immersive "tabletop wargame". This game has been heavily influenced by, in fact, BOTH the "casual' and the "competitive" player to the detriment of the narrative player since GW started getting feedback from the major tournament circuits leading up to 8th Ed's launch. The casual in the sense that the rules are ever more watered down, "simplified" and "streamlined" to make it easier for new and casual players to get into it. But then, that's not because of the sweaty tryhard. That's because GW wants to grow the userbase and they're willing to sacrifice me, a long-time "wargame" grognard, if it means getting 10 new players interested in playing "40k, the video game, the boardgame." Which, of course, I also understand, 'cause I've given them the bulk of my money already and I'm well versed in all of the "tricks" to save money, so retaining me is less valuable. And that, you'll learn as you get older, is a fact of life. Things you enjoy move on as you rapidly become "no longer the target audience".
@@briancripps496One Page Rules might be worth a look for you. There have been games from other companies, mostly historicals, that mostly evolved to keep you playing because the publisher did not make mini’s. That’s never been the GW business model though. Their evolution is designed to keep selling more, more, more, and other companies adopt their strategies. Having been both a tournament and casual player in FoW (IMO, the rules were no longer a good tournament set since v3 messed up the Axis), and been a play tester, and worked on writing games, I can tell you that tournament and narrative play cannot likely be maximized in the same rules set. You can do really well having add on rule sets for one or both though.
They have been. All these changes are knee-jerk reactions to tournaments. Whether good or bad changes, they change stuff around constantly based on what GTs see, and that's nonsense. They are listening to the loudest minority because so many content "creators" and blogs are all tournament crap, so it sounds like they're the biggest people when they're not. So they're affecting the entire game based on a tiny fraction that go out of their way to abuse everything. Many things aren't actually issues outside of tournaments, so why hurt the majority of the game for the worst group of players?
@@Nobleshield I used to hear this all the time from tournament haters when the game companies didn’t pay nearly enough attention to tournament outcomes. The reality is that the top tournament players usually know more about balance than the publishers. This is sometimes off a bit due to the meta or undiscovered synergies or tactics, but they generally find what’s too good very quickly. It is very frustrating to casual players, but if nothing is done about imbalances it often filters down to store pick up games very quickly.
Adam, I played my first game of Majestic 13 last weekend and absolutely loved it. I would appreciate if you would consider doing another video on it since it is such a unique take on the table top experience. The flow of the turn order and rules system blew me away, and didnt feel repetitive or mechanical at all. Great work on this and i hope more people give it a go since the barrier to entry is relatively low compared to other skirmish games. Thanks for sharing this project with us and i can't wait to see how you and Vince expand upon it in the future.
I like it when rules get updated, but in my opinion GW never understands how this should work. What I think GW should do is this: - Make the rules and the army lists completely for free as a downloadable PDF and/or in the app - Update/balance the rules (if necessary) and point costs every half a year - no more, but no less either - Please no codexes and annuals anymore - they are outdated faster as someone can read through them anyways - For those who need some fluff for his/her army, make Armybooks without any rules which can last longer than an edition of the game
Rules and balancing twice a year would be great, but GW sorely lacks the ability to get it right the first time. That's why we currently need the quarterly updates. Even with the current schedule, Eldar are still running the meta after several rounds of nerfs. GW just can't figure it out.
Everything and anything involving rules should be free and the codexs should be more like collectors items, if you want the fluff and art buy the codex, if you just want rules here you go have fun.
With regards to the numbering convention of the "field manual", we started with version 1.0, then had a very minor tweak for 1.1 which fixed a few errors, then a narrow adjustment to anything with towering or indirect for 1.2 (I might have those the wrong way around) and then the actual balance update for 1.3 which is the latest one.
They’re patching it as one would patch a video game, But the problem is…everything in video games happens automatically-no one has to update their brain to implement the changes in a patched version of StarCraft.
Balancing and patching is important. But you can rely on GW to never rely on the stability of rules and army building. I enjoy ASOIAF for the stability in army building AND free accessability of their companion app, cards and rules.
@@balazszsigmond826 As Alex said, it's Game of Thrones, but Tabletop wargame, based on Book-lore. So you play one of the important factions, pick units, add heroes or generic leaders, pick two or three civilians for extra actions and you are done. The Starter boxes have *literally* everything you need to play, but you will most likely need to print the current tactic cards and unit profiles for games outside Starter vs Starter.
The more recent changes to Towering (no more shooting the entire board off the table, but you can still shoot back at things plinking from cover), the nerfs to Aeldari and Genestealers (any one faction with 60% win-rate or higher is terribly unhealthy for the game, let alone two), and the nerfs to Custodes (they were a powerful melee army that also hard-countered other melee armies, so they were making a lot of other lists and even factions irrelevant) were probably well-deserved, but it feels like they could've caught that in playtesting if they'd had a slower, steadier release schedule. Other things which they could've caught in playtesting, but notably DIDN'T change recently include: Sisters of Battle having a downright awful Detachment Rule and literally no anti-tank weapons in their own Index thanks to Meltas being left behind. Ad-Mech's entire miserable state. Death Guard not at all feeling like Death Guard (they buffed them recently, but not in a sensibly thematic way). And on and on. Really, 10th so far has been pretty botched, and a lot of the recent rule changes feel like GW is building the track as they run along it.
That's because they are. 10th was rushed, they couldn't/wouldn't do a sort of "Preview Version" while they hashed out the final rules because of printing schedules (yet another reason why sticking to print nowadays is a joke), so they released it half-assed. Also apparently they got rid of almost all their external playtesters because of leaks, and we know from past experience the internal team is basically a bunch of incompetent monkeys pushing models without understanding advanced gameplay (which is also a mistake IMHO, the game feels so much more complicated now than it used to)
I kind of disagree, in that these were changes that needed to happen. Battleshock was basically meaningless prior to the data slate, whereas now you have to carefully consider when and if you need to spend that CP to auto-pass. The changes to the strats were clunky, but probably necessary for balance. The points adjustments were definitely needed. A lot of armies that were utterly unplayable have suddenly begun to win tournaments, and by the same token, tournaments are no longer being utterly dominated by Aeldari. I think that the answer would have been to leave 10th in the oven for a while longer or have more testers, but for whatever reason it was launch in effectively a beta state, and they've been patching as they go. We'll get another update in December, but then just quarterly points and six-monthly rules updates, at least in theory.
I was a 40K player back in Rogue Trader days and the first couple of editions. I tried to get back into 40K recently and gave up. To complicated and too many changes too often. I decided to just read lore/books and enjoy 40K games on TH-cam. I did get into Battletech as I played the OG game and it's great. New stuff, but not a firehose of it. Continuity through the game system over decades. Great lore. Fun community. I love it.
Those kinds of changes are really important especially early on. They also announced early on that there will be multiple changes early into the life of 10th and then it would slow down a bit, but what would have been the alternative? I think that if new players join the hobby or olders return they will be much more pushed away from the game when they hear that one army has a +75% winrate and only 3 armies are viable competitively, while multiple other armies are close to if not below 30% winrate. Like, I agree with a few of the sub points, GWs naming is horrible and their scattergun balance always hit's some random units that don't deserve it but I prefer this approach massively to the alternative.
@@Illersvansen That is not the point being made in the video though. I agree with what you said the edition needed more playtesting, but this video is about it changing a lot early and that being bad not about it releasing too early.
I broadly agree. The two concerns I have are; A/ they seem to be balancing at 2k points -- those of us who are more 'casual' and play CP or 1k - it's unclear how these will impact B/ They want to treat it more like an online game, where making changes can still be a big deal, but the friction is way less as opposed to people buying, building and painting. It makes sense they are going after the vocal players with these changes, as that drives overall sentiment - but as you highlighted there's a huge cost in time for everyone of they want to keep up
While its fair to say that re-pointing every unit in the game for a new edition is always going to be a challenge, its also true that some changes they've had to make are due to not-good-enough playtesting. They should absolutely have understood how OP and feels bad Indirect Fire was ahead of launch, especially when combined with OG Devastating Wounds.
GW purposely puts OP rules in the game to get people excited to buy into the new edition. Once they reach a certain sales goal then they start changing the rules in an attempt to get players to basically re-purchase what was just released months earlier. The disappearing data slates is the thing that really pisses me off. I was about to purchase the slates for Space marines when the clerk at my GW store candidly told me they would be outdated once the codex came out and no updated slates would be available for purchase. F*ck that noise.
I believe they should have two sets of rules...one for the 5% that do tournaments, and one that seldom changes for the other 95% of us. 9th ed pushed a friend of mine and me into Kill Team, now 3 months later, the 10th rules are pushing many in my area to go to AoS...or other games/companies entirely.
Warhammer 40k have become a physical video game, with patches all the time instead of a finished and play tested version at the release. I just wait for them to ban older models in tournaments and in store games! 😂 I really agree with Adam. A pdf with tweeks every 6-12 months but not several in the months after release. If the game isn't ready for release wait for it to be! Tournament players will definitely never be satisfied. Nor will players be happy when their lists is nerfed. That's why the should take it easy with changes. Because they cannot please everyone anyway! This is why I always rather play 6th edition fantasy because it was a good edition! 😊
I’m sure I remember GW stating when eighth edition dropped that this would be the last edition of 40k and further amendments would be small tweaks possibly supplied to customers in pdf form or was there not enough profit in that?
I saw an interview with a 17 year ex-GW employee recently who revealed that most 40k players are casual and don't last longer than a year or two. This kind of churn won't really affect them. And competitive players like the balance tweaks, for obvious reasons. The ones who suffer are somewhere in between, the "long term casual" players. Apparently it's a small enough market to neglect. If that's you, there are better options than 40K. It sucks but it's true.
@@DannySisto Me too. Compared to the other groups, we buy waaaay less stuff, so it kinda makes sense. GW is huge and needs to move a lot of product to keep the lights on. It is what it is.
I started 40k just this month. Ended up choosing Space Marines - theres a lot of changes to take in when I'm still figuring out the starting ones. Its not fun that a cool new book is already outdated and you need to make adjustments in it. But... I'm fairly used to Errata after dnd, the bans and restrictions in mtg... I'm sure I'll get use to this as well.
Haven't played the game since 5th edition. Tenth was going to be the edition to get back into it. Already was not completely sold on the list building mechanics, but bought the Leviathan box so was still set on ploughing ahead. Bought the Tyranid Codex only to discover the points cost in it were no longer valid on the day of its release! Not planning on making anymore purchases for now, gonna see if the game settles first. If not I'll probably just switch to one-page-rules.
I'm sure rules balances will annoy some and make others rejoice. I just use whatever is in the core book and never look at errata. The folks I play with do the same, so none of the updates matter in our world.
Even with a new edition that just released for OPR's Grimdark Future, the rules remain free for the basics and just a flat $5 for everything and it's all updated and available at the launch of the edition. As opposed to GW charging $1,650 to get the core book (90) and all the codexes (60 ea, 26 factions) over the edition if you want all the rules... more really when they also release stuff like Arks of Omen, and you'll be waiting almost 3 years to get all the rulebooks for the edition just in time for them to be obsolete by 11th edition in a bit under 3 years from now (RIP late codexes). Total rip-off in my opinion. Yeah, the constant changes both from balance updates and from codex releases have me avoiding 40k until such time as there is a nice site with all the current rules available for free. I'll just play OPR's Grimdark Future instead with my 40k minis.
Not tu mention OPR army builder - it does everything better for free than GW's app does for money. It's just better software, made by one dude. This is just ridiculous, stop supporting GW, people
@@donthaill7210 I do, but it doesn't have the dataslates last I checked, and either way it still means waiting until the edition is months away from changing before the last codexes release. I'm lucky to play chaos marines this time around so my full rules will release within the first year, but how many factions are stuck playing a barebones index for years? I've never liked GW's slow codex release business model. The frequent sweeping balance changes just make that even worse, but not having them doesn't do well either because GW has never done good enough playtesting. The official price tag is just an added insult. So I can wait years and hope a 3rd party site doesn't get lawyered down while relearning the rules every few months, or just play a game that updated everything at once when it changed edition.
So glad my group jumped to OPR when we came back to the hobby. Its nice to have a system where our main concern is just collecting the coolest looking models. As much as I loved 40k back in 2nd edition.. its nice to have a simple system that doesn't require GW's live service-like system with their rules updates. I recall way back in GW stores, they used to try to sell the game to parents by saying its a better value than video games because you don't have to keep buying DLCs. Ever since I've returned to Warhammer, they feel awfully similar but Warhammer being pricier.
Great video, thanks for articulating the issue. I would add to the problematic consequences the bad feelings caused by buying printed material (rule book, codex...) that is sometimes obsolete before release. I think the problem is that GW is trying to have it both ways: 1) offer a quality, balanced experience for the competitive crowd, with frequent updates 2) keep designing and testing the game as a beer&pretzels casual experience We can add to those contradictory goals 3) the shareholder-induced "need" to perform a full refresh every 3 years so they can keep selling rule books to existing players, which in turn leads to change for change sake, preventing to really improve the game foundations over time. If they are serious about 1) and want to have a mostly balanced set of rules + codex and point values, they need to drop 2) and get more serious about in-house testing, and start trying to absolutely break the game before it gets released. Which costs money and time. Failing that, they could "beta-test" a new edition and publish core rules + indices long in advance to let the community do the breaking for them (and actually take the feedback into account, of course). For 10th, I think it didn't take long for the community to discover some of the issues with either the core rules of specific armies. But releasing stuff in advance for community feedback would also be in contradiction to their desire of secrecy and fear of diminishing excitement if stuff is revealed too early (+ lead times for printing material). I can't know how/if they will move going forward, but one thing is sure, the current statu quo is very frustrating.
I largely agree. I was really hoping to give 10th a go but I've only played a Combat Patrol game so far and now we're into the cycle of changes and updates. I don't like the constant churn of changes and updates...this is something they've pulled from Magic: The Gathering and the "competitive" scene and the fact that GW wants to be a minis company, a publishing company, and a game company, but can't ever seem to put it all together. There's nothing out there that says a minis game needs constant changes and new editions...my old Battletech books are pretty much just as good now as they were when I got them 20 - 30 years ago; the rules haven't changed much yet they continue to come out with new material and minis and all that. This constant churn is something GW has convinced themselves and their players needs to happen but it really doesn't. Sadly, it seems like most GW players feel they need the company to hold their hands and lead them to every game and rule and tell them exactly how it all works and there's little room for creativity and adjustment. But that's a slippery slope because once you start giving in to the complainers online, forever will they complain and you will find yourself constantly trying to change things to please the most recent group of whiners only to create another group with those changes. I like the lore and the setting and the models....but the game aspect is rather off-putting in many ways.
sadly the changes had to happen. 10Ed at launch had a horrible ballance. nothing was thought out and if you happen to play an army in the more extreme ends of the ballance spectrum (like Eldar or DG), you basicly can't play the game as it was. with a faction like DG, you where always at an uphill battle, even if your friends watered down their lists. if you played something like Eldar, you where banned from using like 70% of your units, because almost everything was so strong and undercosted, that you won by default.
I have been playing since 7th, mostly played in 9th, and a big thing that was an issue early into 9th was that GW was too scared to change the rules when things needed to be changed. I appreciate the changes GW have made to 10th so far, the first change was just updates to typos and errors (Plague Marines coming in a box of 7 but not having a points cost for fielding 7 ect.) which is good. Their second change was a nerf to Towering, Indirect Fire, and Eldar, because those things were absolutely dominating the early meta (Eldar had a +70% one week and +65% for the rest), which was important to address, letting us know they were aware of the issues. And the most recent change was a major boost to several armies that were below 40% win-rates (DG, IG, Sisters) which is gonna be good for the long term health of the game, and also needed nerfs to top armies (GSC with +60%, Eldar again ect). I can understand the issue people have with the constant changes but this is just the first growing pains of the edition, we can’t expect that GW will get every single thing right (and don’t get me wrong, they still have a bunch of things that need to be fixed, as a DG player I am not super happy with not being a tanky army) but we shouldn’t feel like the change is wrong when it is the correct thing to do rather than let things stay broken and bad. And their own schedule is gonna be points changes every 3 months, and Balance Dataslate every 6 months, not 3 times in 3 months.
You remember back in 7th or 6th, when everybody used to krak slap vehicles in the back armour in close combat? And then someone pointed out that actually the rules said you could only use one grenade? That will be a normal occurence with rapid rules changes.
You are SO right Uncle Atom! GW actually has been doing this throughout the whole 9th edition that you missed :) They would update the game every 3 months with all sorts of rule tweaks, and then on top of that, every 6 months they would update points. I'm not even a casual player, I do a lot of competitive tournaments and stuff - but this crazy pace of updates nearly drove me away from the game. Now I see that GW seems intent on keeping this pace up in 10 edition as well. This time, they just might succeed in driving me off.
The one time I actually disagree with you as I feel that the changes were needed. However this would sit better with a digital rules set and ideally should not have been needed if it was playtested properly in the first place
I agree but they basically use customers to do their beta testing. And publish busted codexes in print, then it's up to you to attach a forest of post it notes inside the already overloaded tome.
Agree. I don't think they should have released any codices before spring or summer next year. I think these sort of changes will lessen as time goes on and the edition 'matures'.
As a casual player who got into Warhammer by way of model kits and is still mostly just interested in building and painting the models, I've always said the biggest barrier of entry to this thing isn't that people are intimidated by the painting aspect, it's that both main games are too damn complicated. I don't see how anyone who doesn't play five games every weekend will be able to play them without spending 80% of their time sifting through rules they can't remember and getting annoyed that they forgot something half a turn later - and if you spend that much time playing, you don't have time to build and paint. When 10th edition was announced I was actually pretty optimistic because while it seemed like they had overcorrected a bit, it still seemed like the game would ultimately be more fun because you'd spend more time thinking about strategy and less trying not to forget aura ability #24254 affecting whatever unit you were rolling for at any given point. But these constant updates now are actually worse than the core rules being overly complicated - it's just impossible to keep up with all of this, and they still refuse to make it available digitally (not just list building, we need auto-updating datasheets/warscrolls) and then wonder why people go to 3rd party providers of this information. I only play home games with friends, and I've pretty much decided we're just going to ignore updates from here on out because it just isn't any fun trying to keep up with all of this crap. Like my buddy who (unlike me) has been playing for decades always says, I just want to push my little toy soldiers around and have fun, this doesn't have to be such a headache. I'm also not a fan of what's happened to Combat Patrol - I get that the basic idea of "just buy these two boxes and download this PDF, and you actually have a complete game" makes sense as a point of entry, but as a casual who's been around for a while, this now means I can no longer play 500pts games with the models I already have, which is exactly what I've been doing.
This is the exact reason I play other games now. It's utterly ridiculous to have your books and then also have to keep track of loads of print outs or pdfs. Especially when a company like mantic can nail it so well even on the free version of the compendium site.
These changes were all made because the tournament scene was dominated by Eldar to the point “fate dice” were so strong with the Wraith Knight and many other units Eldar had, there had to be an Emergancy change as Eldar could only lose to the mirror. 2 months later it was still the case and there were other rules being manipulated. This seems like it’s all happening very quickly but there was no play testing before 10th edition came out so the 1st 4-5 months of 10th edition was always going to have several changes. Things will settle down now.
The problem with all these changes is that 40K isn't a computer game like World of Warcraft or League of Legends. The have digital player data so they can see the effects of their changes and adjust accordingly. IMO, the 10th edition rule changes are a result of inadequate game testing with the player base before release. So now they have to go back and "try" to rebalance/fix the game in the absence of real data like WOW or LOL. Basically an educated guess.
Just adding my 2¢, I’m essentially a new 40k player. I’ve been collecting models since sometime in 7th edition, but had played only once until 10th launched. 10th edition got me really excited as the barrier of entry seemed much lower then previous editions. Simpler rules, index cards to have unit stats easy to access during games without flipping through a book, as well as much simplified list building. All of those aspects got me to try 40K again and I have thoroughly been enjoying it! I’m painted models and playing games and having a blast. As far as the rules updates and points balancing goes, I have actually found it to be very refreshing. It has been a positive for me to see GW quickly respond to balance issues rather then let them fester for 6-8 months. I have been a competitive wargamer in a couple of other game systems, so the concept of errata and balance changes aren’t as foreign to me as they might be other new 40k players. I’ve been getting burnt out on those other systems due to a lack of updates or attention to balance by those companies. While I’m not a “competitive” 40k player and have no plans to be one, I can appreciate the fact that competitive scenes are healthy for games as they tend to show areas that need balancing, which can filter down to a more balanced game for all players. TLDR; New player here, like the quick balance updates, love 10th, enjoying the game!
In our club, we are on deciding which edition we should play together. Following the changes is almost impossible for someone who likes to play a couple games each month.
Another thing problematic with changing too quickly, is the physical product we buy for a fair amount is obsolete too quickly or even already obsolete when it hits the market. (Codex Tyranides) Also they changed Main rules instead of changing Units, changing Index Units (Wraith Knight) instead of impacting every unit may be better. Also as a casual gamer, I'm really upset to take time to paint a unit so the next time I played, because of Tournament players spam, my unit is nerfed and too costy in points. (Harpy, Biovores, Tyrannofex). For the Biovores, Spore Mines should absolutely not be able to score objectives... They are living ammunition. Games Workshop punish every player for a few and they think they do that for a better/more enjoyable games. I really don't think this is the way to go, it is discouraging. Thanks for the video ! If you haven't check Ash from Guerrilla games, he did a similar video~
I started 40k late in the 8th because of that 8-page rule set. Watching 9th and 10th role out has only reinforced my appreciation of what 8th sought to do, even with all its flaws. I will stick with my 8th core rule book and those first indices, thank you very much!
Got into 40K in 2005 and had the current books at the time, new edition came out I worked hard and saved my money and I paid the $50+- for the new rules book,etc. Never once got to use it because our GW store and local hobby shop closed and nobody else around cared to play or moved away etc. and here I am in 2023 having not played another game since and part of the reason is exactly what this video is about. GW likes money that’s for sure. I still love the lore and do my best to keep up but a lot changes so fast in this franchise.
I believe that this need for adjustments shows the lack of testing. The best example would be last year's release of Leagues of Votann: playing a game immediately shows the big issue, and yet it SOMEHOW made it into the hardcover rulebook.
1st reason for i have quitted the 40k for other more stable games like specialists or 30k or other brand games, in 40k is basically impossible use a list for more the one month, is insane
As someone that has had life get in the way of playing shortly after 10th launch. I need to essentially relearn my LoV and 10th edition core in general. The changes are meant to focus on two things. First, the competitive scene. They're the whales that spend the most on the products. They're also the "free" advertising for the game by broadcasting the results. TH-cam channels capitalize on that too. The second focus, is to move plastic. Constantly shifting rules, points, and other adjustments. Shift what is good and what isn't. Which pushes players into buying models they may not have. Or buy them sooner than they would. They're creating their own version of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). The casual gamer is NOT the focus with these changes.
I’ve not met many 40K players who don’t try to exploit or break the rules, GW have millions of play testers (the community), why does everyone moan, you’ve created a monster, who’s learned to react to you! For years GW has been about selling, try other systems, they do work and there’s more to gaming than 40K. I’ve only played 40K with my mates, we create house rules based on enjoyment, the game works best when you remove the exploiters…………..
as an old player that's collected since 3rd and active since 5th, this is pretty normal for GW. usually new editions come out broken in ways they dont notice. the first errata is usually just a few months in,. you can pretty much ignore errata unless your playing competitively. as for the naming stuff, after the chapterhouse debacle, they renamed everything since they pretty much had zero copyright to their IP
I think the thing is - games where player go against players in a contested manner and in a complex way will always strive for something like balance and at the same time try to introduce new things. the latter messing the fromer up sooner or later. consequently, trying to keep a balance things will enter an interative circle of introducing-rebalancing. but after a certain time - and a certain amount of complexity - it is no longer possible to achieve a stable balance while keeping the essence of the game mechanics, thus - either by choice or helplessness - a stable balance is sacrificed for a dynamic balance... where things are in constant motion and you get the overlord and the underdog of the current status quo.
100% this I'm a casual player who just wants to play from the rulebook. That is now completely out of date. Plus my army is now in its codex and three index cards released 3 months ago have been replaced.
@@zwibak if you spend a lot of money and precious hobby time painting an army only to have the points increased or rules changed overnight because of statistical results in tournament play, then after a while your player base becomes angry and won’t have faith to continue to buy your product. Warmachine was an early adopter of online points and online rules with their War room app. They freely nerfed units and my community like many others gave up on the game
One of the worst parts is the printed rules will likely be outdated by the time they hit shelves or you'll get a Codex release like Votaan that's utterly broken, making the Codex itself almost pointless. I do think this 'fix it in post' approach only harms 40k. The constant release cycle and changing editions every 4 years also means less time getting a focused ruleset. 40k has never been perfect but the constant shifting of rules/points over an edition, the nerfing and buffing of units repeatedly, can only lead to player dissatisfaction as that shiny new unit they spent money and time on is virtually unplayable etc.
As I casually play with friends (10th) I was unaware there had been any rules and points updates. Going to continue to play 10th with the default launch rules.
I get what you are saying and I agree, changing the rules a couple of months after the new rules release is insane. However, building a list without their app is easy just using excel. Mine is a little complex because I am pretty much adjusting the sheet to fit in the stat's for the troops, their weapons and special rules. But a straight listing of force choices and their points cost is dead simple and you can use the data cards for the other stuff. When you rely on your own stuff it is much more flexible.
Here's my thoughts... firstly, 10th is good system. It's much better than I initially thought i would be. However, I think GW have used the community to Beta Test it and that is why we have seen such big changes. I agree that hopefully now they will lay off. If the next print run of the rules incorporates the new changes then even better but I won't hold my breath. As for the Insane Bravery strat, it was changed because Battle Shock wasn't having a big enough impact on the game, which I can understand. But, if a player is spending all their limited CP on that multiple times then they aren't using them on the more impactful strats. GW should have just left it as it was.
Ive played one game of 40k and one game of one page rules and I definitely prefered OPR over 40k. Maybe after 10 games or so of OPR ill want to try 40k but im sticking with OPR and trying to get more pkayers into it at my store
As a player who mostly just enjoys competitive play and the tournament scene, yes, I like that games workshop is being proactive and making continuous changes that are primarily striving for balance. I don’t like that the information is in multiple places, it should always be in one place, and it should always be free to know how to play the game regardless of what army you’re trying to play or what rules you’re trying to use for that army. I feel like most people in my area that play frequently, partake in competitive play to some extent, this is including the overall scene at 2 different stores. I could be totally wrong, but it seems like when you look at the community as a whole, the people who play weekly, usually lean towards the competitive side of 40K.
The rules of 40k and watching the drama around it all has been what keeps me from buying/playing anything games workshop. I discovered Battletech and jumped full on in that instead, the rules seem more balanced and all around better. Also looking into one page rules as a much better (and free) system based on my research.
Wait a sec my dude, if you read the fine print on the rule update only counts towards Matched Play and Crusade. So Combat Patrol is unaffected. But it's also the part that kinda makes me the most mad at GW because they have not updated the Quick Start or the Core Rules documents last time I checked. Also why is it up to me to rename said docs if I want to keep track of them and not some weird serial numbers!?
As a new player building an army, I honestly like the proactive rules balance. I've been following the competitive events while building my own Astra Militarum army, and the way that certain armies just continuously ruled the roost was a lot more disheartening than shifts that work on moving away from that. I'm not looking to go to an event any time soon, treating my models more like art projects, and if I were on a shorter timetable, that might be more upsetting to me, but I'd rather the game be pretty well balanced when I get to play it, even if I need to check for updates before games. Edit: That being said, I do think that they ought to make all the rules available in one place online. They're a model company, so prioritizing getting to sell some extra books over maximizing the number of people buying models seems silly, to me. If they'd just do that, that'd solve a lot of issues.
The insane bravery change makes much more sense thematically than the old rule. Why would bravery make a unit who missed their shot miraculously change the past to now allow them to succeed. The change now allows for a more authentic approach rather than being basically "pY to win". For example if you are in a situation where you have a high value enemy unit which absolutely must be eliminated, you can now imagine that your unit with high bravery can persevere against the odds to make the killing blow. Instead of the reverse, where bravery essentially meant that you can correct a bad role. It allows for much more "cinematic" gaming experience.
I'm army building, which is good for GW because they can harvest a portion of my income. I haven't dropped a single dollar on the rules and I don't intend to in the near future. I honestly cannot keep up. I'll build and paint a bit, but my enthusiasm is kinda low. If I cannot get a foothold on the shifting rules and meta, then I may not get back to actually playing until 11th edition (12th?). I can get my gaming fix by jumping into battletech (insert other tabletop game here) because the rules are much more static. Does GW do this intentionally because it maintains a constant revenue stream? I think so. In an economy where people are seeing other prices rise, wouldn't GW want to play a bit more of a long game? If we had solid rules, the competitive scene might slow a bit, but it would not stagnate. Each time a top faction is established, I believe players will dig deep and find a way to unseat them. They always do. Then the meta chasers will buy a new army just as they do now, and the rest of us wouldn't have to feel taken advantage of. Wishful thinking.
One of the easiest ways to look at this is much like current day video game development and releases. 10E was not finished, this was a rushed product that had to be dropped at the three year rotation window. Why? No reason other than money. However they thought that they could just release the product without proper development or play testing, and simply let the players do the work fo4 them. That’s why you have such massive changes right out of the bat. Easy response take your models and play something else. GW doesn’t care about the player nor the game at this stage.
I’m a casual player that only play a couple of games a year lately. But I think the main problem for me ruleswise is that I only buy the physical books. So whenever there are changes or faqs, I often don’t even know. And the next time I but a rulebook is when the new edition releases. I think it’s a good thing that GW is mending their rules at certain intervals, however they shouldn’t be so reliant on books. If they would revamp the whole situation that everything is easily accessible online or via an app, then you can keep up to date that way. But since there are different ways to get hold of the rules, then a casual player might meet another casual that did apply the faqs/updates and you could potentially have an inbalanced game. If GW did the updates at more regular intervals, like quarterly, then you’d only have to check up once every couple of months to get accustomed to the changes. Plus putting every change in red just looks messy. Edit the rules that people use, give bullet points to the changes and have people play the game.
Maybe I'm late to the party here, but I'm of two minds: Constant rules updates are kind of fun, because you never know what to expect and it might fundamentally change how you play the game and what you can do with a certain list. Maybe my buddy was kicking my ass a week ago, but now that his points went up and my unit got a buff, I'm actually able to compete with him. But, yeah, it's a lot to keep track of; as mentioned, maybe the thing I just bought and haven't gotten around to building or painting yet, now sucks and I also need to go back and review all the new stuff before I'm allowed to play, because what I knew is now totally different. The one thing about the rules updates is that it keeps that thing pretty constant in my mind and makes me excited for what could be around the corner. But, I also really appreciate that Bolt Action has been a mainstay in my life for several years now and all I really need to think about is what army I want to play, because the rules are always going to be there for me. I don't have to memorize any new stuff and I can just jump right back in where I left off. But, at the same time, it can sometimes feel a little stagnant, because aside from playing in a different theatre, with different list rules, there's not much difference between each game. Bring a tank, armored car, 3-5 infantry squads, etc, etc.
I think your analogy of the goal post was good, I don't mind a rules change once or maybe even twice per edition as long as it's what they intended. As for points that is the easiest way to fix things fast and I don't mind it at all but it should be easy to find and use. I'm just getting back into 40k since 7th and I'm going to give them a chance but if things keep on the same path I'll probably stop playing and switch to hourus heresy.
For the most part these changed have been well received; to see a community torn apart by rules changes look at what AMG did with x-wing. There was already a small portion playing 1.0 but AMG’s new rules split the remaining community more, so now there’s 2.5, 2.0, and 1.0 players.
Free, up-to-date digital rules and army building in the app would make these updates much easier. You could possibly even generate excitement if you marketed it well - this works well for some war games (OPR) and video games (LoL)
I find new and returning players already have it hard as it is. I am returning to 40k after leaving during 7/8th range. After getting a Tyranid half of leviathan I am still trying to figure it all out. Not only are the changing rules making it that much harder to figure out. The codex for 9 and 10 are so similar and the core rules are hard to read on the app, I havent bought anything yet, and may not for a while. This is why I left initially as rules changes were frequent and hard to know if your opponents had updated as well unless you track everything! I believe that there should be annual updates and two year edition updates to give time for things to really settle in before making changes.
All of these changes I think would be fine if the end goal was to make a “perfect” rule set, but GW wants a new major rule set every 3 years. These changes would work for a system like Battletech where they want a single rule set for the game, but instead they want a constant rebirth of a hype train.
Great video sir, and I would agree that there seems to be a large amount of changes happening to core rules very soon after the book has been released. While its a good thing to have a living ruleset, it eliminates the physical copy as it is redundant before you get it in hand is how it feels. As a veteran player of 40k since 4th edition, I like the changes and think the game is more streamlined and accessible to new players, but if there are going to be fundamental changes to the core rules as veteran and new players alike learn the game, then I agree, its a good way to push people away rather than draw them into the game.
I think GW is trying to hard to be a live service. It works for video games etc. because the environment is controlled and the updates are manditory. In this case it just seems that either they don't know what they are doing or are using it to adjust sales( take you mentioned marines- x is cheaper, now you need y to fill the point gap; x+y is invalid, now you need to go and buy z) The need or at least percieved need to keep spending (i.e. for the app) just leaves a sour taste in my mouth
I think what your missing is 40k is becoming a live service game, just like computer games, Hence the lore is moving now, when I was a kid the lore was in stasis, it was more like digging through a history than following an ongoing war Constant updates is impetus for constant engagement, which means more dedicated fans
Yeah it effectively killed my motivation to keep building my Tyranid army. I don't want to re-learn how to play this game every 3mo because they can't build a solid rulebook. It feels like we're all in an open beta.
Privateer Press’s Warmachine MkIII Did quarterly changes of their points and rules… …it was exasperating, Guerrilla Miniature Games has a good video about it (comparing Warmachine to 40K) PP’s constant changes + bloat + tournaments going to 2D terrain kinda drove me back to 40K during 8th edition. Got a good Horus Heresy group at my FLG and my fully painted Primaris Raven Guard are in the closet with no new models on the paint bench because why try to optimize for the new edition if it won’t matter in three months.
100% agreed, huge switch in rules and focus, we just finally had a complete edition and then it was dumbed down, simplified, and we’re back at square one again.
Since they just put out a new edition and new rules for all of their armies, I think most of the rules changes were necessary. However, I wish they didn’t have a schedule of putting a new version of the rules and all of the codexes every three years. Instead of the rules commentary file, they should have revised their core rules document. But they probably wouldn’t want to do that, because they still wanted to sell the physical books.
I suspect things will settle down as time goes on. Right now we are still getting a lot of issues from the idexes that ideally should have been caught before release (Eldar were clearly an issue at release). I'm also annoyed at how many rules changes are happening, but I have hope it will settle down.
I wish I was surprised that people were running GT events with Index rules. What is it about those 40k players who need to share their W/L/D ratios with make do army lists? Sure, it might not happen where you (general, not Andy specifically) are, but it's the ones who do that lead to GW making these changes.
I gave up on Heavy Gear after there was a churn of new editions & supplements in the late aughts/early 2010s. The last straw for me was a new playtest document that threw out the old dice rolling mechanism for something that was actually more complicated. If I ever use my HG minis again I'll either play 2nd edition (which was flawed but I had actually had fun playing) or some other rules entirely.
Soooo... will they be updating the next print runs with the errata? Because they just released the rules book, and now it's... not really usable to play with if you want to play at a store or competitively?
You could always discuss with the people you play with and stick to a rules version you prefer, obviously the app usage would likely not be usable but at least you would have a stable game. There is nothing forcing you to use rule changes.
As a new player I find it quite annoying that they have changed the rules but not updated the Core Rules PDF with the changes.
Its insane, I feel like all money spent is on advertising and if they put even a tenth of that into rules management. What a bait and switch to have them say it’s free and then take the army builder away and thennnn now the codexes again are going to cost us every time we want to have the rules for the armies we love
This is why I play a 30 year old version of the game and convert units to that as it amuses me.
Also new, and the idea of having to take an errata and paste certain sections on to outdated core rules is really unappealing. Atom is right when he says casual players will ignore them, I’m still getting a grasp on basic concepts so trying to adjust to these nuances isn’t going to benefit me.
Whoa
I'm not expecting too many updates to the PDFs.... word on the street is that even with a paid sub to Warhammer+, you still need the Tyranid codex to get non-index rules in the army builder...😐
All rules/ points for every faction need to be FREE! It's kind of ridiculous how quickly they become outdated.
I totally agree. Infinity, for example, has both free rules and free army builder app. Which means that, if I want to buy the manuals, it's only for lore. I can skip the initial box (rulebook + lore book) altogether, if all I was ever interested in were just the rules. And the free app makes it a breeze to create lists and playing with them, testing new armies I could be interested to buy.
But I suppose this would be too much for GW, given their history.
They are free they release points changes when they do them and theres even core rule commentary which gives you all the changes to core rules for free
If they do any sort of paywalling/ locking rules behind codex's or an app then it's not free. I should be able to look at any factions rules/ points cost for free on an official free app or website so I know what I'm potentially playing against.
Literally none of GW’s major competitors have free factions rules. Bolt Action, Star Wars Legion, its all behind a paywall.
One Page Rules is an indie project, and frankly isn’t really that well thought out.
@@wyatttyson7737 Would be the perfect opportunity for GW to be the first major player to introduce completely free rules for everything then.
The central problem is the 10th wasn't ready. It clearly had not been sufficiently tested and worked on in house. All these changes should have happened after a wave of balance testing prior to release. Instead they rushed out a broken system because they set an unrealistic release schedule. And most of these changes were pretty tone deaf in not addressing the underlying issues. (It feels like the people in charge of making the decisions have never played many of these armies, so they just threw out point changes because they had no clue what the actual problems were) Which means another round of changes pretty much has to come out again in the next couple months.
Going out on a limb here, but I'm going to assume the ones in suits working for the shareholders are to blame for issues such as these - proper playtesting takes time and therefore money, and that line needs to go up!
It doesn't need to be "ready" it's going to sell now.. and in three years it'll be time for 11th edition.
The issue is that GW knows that people will buy every book they put out so they're incentivized to update every few months
How they can't figure this stuff out in a spreadsheet is beyond me
@@absolutfreak5012 you'd be assuming GW actually cares ...
With the kind of things that I've seen them do over the years and with other companies showing infinitely more consumer friendly behaviour I've given up on GW ever producing a game that I'd want to play. To me they're just selling models with games attached.
The constant rules changes has certainly made it a lengthier process for me to get in to 40k. I was hoping to get some games of 10th in before they started... I failed.
Join HH.
I’ve been painting the Imperium subscription to get into 40K, and to a new player it’s super confusing about what what rules they’re teaching you in the magazines have changed. I’m tempted to stick with the “old” edition and get codices and rule books on discount.
Play OPR!
I think a good idea is either to play it how it was before to get a sense of how the game works and leave parts away like Stratagems to get an easier understanding of the game and add the more complex one later or get a combat patrol.
As always. A greatly enjoyable well thought out take on things. Ive seen quite a few people recently say they are near a point of giving up paying attention to updates, and just playing the rules as they are. Or even just actively choosing to adjust rules for the people they play with and ignoring anything that comes out from GW, unless youre constantly playing at a club or big events, these kind of updates are unbearably tedious.
Very true - if you play with friends mostly, I certainly see ignoring most of this. Thanks for watching!
I think it is also worth noting that they probably hit the panic button due to the Aeldari invasion, and rolled out changes they were already planning earlier than expected. As a new player, it really wasn’t a good look seeing that tournament result with the top 6 places all being the same faction.
To be fair, the last time the Eldar were fucking everyone that hard, Slaanesh was born, so GW had to act quickly or they would have had another new chaos faction get born into existence. Then they would have a couple problems. First, as we saw with Votann, it has to be overpowered because it’s new. Second, they would have to nerf it into oblivion once they sold enough models because it’s chaos and chaos isn’t allowed to be strong.
P.S. this was all sarcasm before anyone gets upset, I’m just trying to make you smile. 😁
I just wish the books and rules were separate. I love my fancy leviathan book, for the pretty pictures and story stuff. But now, it’s not really worth considering as a rule book since it’s already been changed. All Digital rules and then print media for the world building would be great. Same for up coming codexes. If they just filled them with art, painted minis,. And faction fluff then give the rules online, it would be fantastic.
That's pretty much what we were expecting from the first press release: free data cards for life.
It definitely feels like they don't want me to play with my toy soldiers, and they certainly don't want me to buy any more.
It WOULD be fantastic, but then not as many people would buy the books. It’s just a fact that there are people that buy the books because they think they have to for the proper rules. GW will do whatever they think is correct to maximize sales/profits. Having books be all art/fluff would be very consumer friendly with all rules online….but then every edition they cannot seemingly sell you the same faction fluff with updated rules.
Rules shouldn't be paywalled, especially if I'm already paying a subscription to use them. I would absolutely buy a codex for the lore and art (though even that's becoming repetitive) but I am seriously considering never buying a single rulebook this edition. Doubly so if they plan on rewriting the rules every few months.
That would cut off a revenue stream for gw, I buy old codexes for fluff, but I would never spend what GW asks for them brand new.
It's a blessing in disguise. They altered the deal, pray they don't alter it farther!.
How did we reach the point where a tabletop game ends up receiving more patches than a video game?
Because GW is so out of touch with wargaming that they think having constant patches like LoL or whatever is what people want.
Only one game in particular.
Rules updates aren’t a problem when the game has fundamental problems. It would be like complaining that your buggy pc game gets fixed.
Problem is printed rules still being the way GW insists on sticking to.
Having you 35£ book be out of date from between you order it and that it arrives.
What annoys me is how gw were talking about how they understand that players don't like power levels and so it'd be points from here on. Then they just made points functionally power level.
points are always power level, the problem with power levels was that it was a second way that was less granular than points to do the same thing.
this... this honestly killed the entirety of my motivation for 40k for the time being.
@@rogueflight5386that is blatantly untrue, points charge you per model, unlike power level. Power level charges you for a whole unit, regardless of wether or not it is full strength.
@@KameSennin4209 and yet in 10th i am charged for a whole unit, whether i take every model or not, so it is in fact, power level
@@rogueflight5386 that's my whole point, they aren't the same thing. GW got rid of points in order to force people into playing with power levels. They renamed power level to points and hoped that no one would notice.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the changes to stuff like Oath of Moment and the things they are announcing for the Space Marine codex were done MONTHS or even a YEAR ago given the printing schedules and timelines involved...so some of these changes aren't even reactionary ones, but have been planned from the beginning...which is also pretty insidious but I guess that's something for another day lol
they had to publish fixes for the not space dwarves practically the same day they started selling the codexes ...
maybe it's different for their poster boys, but ... the time between creating the new space marine codex and publishing them in hardcopy will force them to go through the same thing again.
Unless ... these updates are already included in the codex and the game itself didn't get the updates in time for launch.
I don't like either option ...
At this point my friends and I will just be the curmudgeon comrades and run our armies off 9th, which at least is static. Our schedules are erratic and make flgs matches unlikely at best, so the odd beer and peanuts matches we might be able to get in together might as well run off rules that we can get more comfortable with time rather than confused to keep up.
I'm still on 7th homie. You guys are like 10 years behind the curve. Idk why anyone is surprised anymore.
Late 9th is my favourite edition of 40k so far, significantly better than 10th in many respects. The big advantage of 10th is the reduced number of stratagems, so my playgroup houserule it so that at the start of each battle a player picks 6 faction specific stratagems and can't use any others that game.
this is the way.
Try OPR
This is 100% the case for me. I played one game in 2nd edition and have been painting only since. When 10th came out I was intrigued to try playing and picked up the Leviathan box set. Before I can even finish painting it (I know I'm being slow) the rules and points have changed multiple times and GW have made various choices I don't agree with. I've already decided to sell my minis and move to a miniature agnostic game like Stargrave, instead of buying overpriced figures.
infinity and bolt action are good skirmish games. for larger force games, I play battletech.
I quit 40k after 2nd version as well. I still enjoy space hulk (original).
@@bruced648 Thanks for the recommendations! I'll definitely check those out
also check out One Page rules. thay have a fun alternating activations system, and are miniture agnostic.
As in, the second edition that came out in 1993? Brother. if you have been painting since then and haven't played, time to look in the mirror and accept that it's time to move on from the hobby. At least the playing part.
@@Anjohl That's what I'm saying, and what the point of this video was. I first tried to play in 2nd edition and haven't tried to play since. I was going to try and get back into playing in 10th edition, due to all the hype and it being marketed as a simplified game. I play other tabletop games and RPG's, and I'm comfortable with how games are meant to work, but because of how GW have done things they've turned away a prospective new player (and probably more than just myself). It might not be so clear to someone who's been mired in GW's practices for some time, but this isn't a good way to run a game or a business
My buddy is already tired of the rules changes and he normally loves broken quirky rules. We're going to start playing one page rules. I've personally hated strats and command points myself so one page is right up my alley
OPR has an optional command point system in the "Full" Rulebook that is $5 for the PDF that they keep up to date
Good for you! I myself gave up on 40K shortly after 8th Edition's launch (2017), and my 40K armies went unused for several years. I discovered One Page Rules two years ago, and absolutely love it. My beloved 40K armies once more grace my table, via a game that's easy to play and loads of fun.
OnePageRules is great. I dumped 40K during 9th edition, and I'm never going back.
My friend and I stuck with 7th. It's dense, but really really fun.
Hell yeah. Once i rebuild my armies (house fire) I'm going to try and start a OPR group here.
I learned of WH40K while living in the caribbean as many of my friends were british and had armies.
From 1996-2000 onward i followed the industry and game without diving in.
By 2007-2010 i finally took the plunge with 8th edition.
I quickly realized that youd spend almost more money on codexes and rule books.
I bought the 9th edition rule book but took a step back at that point.
Following everything - i agree all the weird name conventions make it hard for ppl to know what they need.
I also find it strange that rhe industry still buy products from them when they launch things then within months relaunch - index cards then a codex, then rule updates pdf.
Its just terrible.
Every day with my limited time and funds, I'm being pushed towards Stargrave / Zona Alpha, and I might just order the former in the coming days
Good for you. Enjoy the hobby space beyond GW, it's much more enjoyable.
OPR for me.
I'd suggest giving Space Weirdos a try. Not only is the game a ton of fun to play, but there's a fan-made warband builder app that's absolutely incredible.
@@JRufu As long as you have people who play it, or are wiling to look at spaces beyond GW. Where I live, almost anything not Warhammer is unheard of, and there's no support/nobody who cares about it.
Stargrave is fantastic
Points are actually NOT the correct way to balance units since not all weapon options are equal power. For example, a balance issue with Fire Overwatch could warrant a 45 points increase on a Tyrannofex because of its Acid Spray, but then it makes every Tyrannofex running Fleshborer Hive entirely unplayable. The correct way to balance these units is to tweak individual weapon profiles PER datasheet, a capability GW was bragging about early in 10th, but seems to have forgotten about.
Same thing with certain armies have dramatically underpowered or overpowered army rules. Their core functionality needs to be changed. But points are both the lowest effort way to make changes, and the one that makes GW the most money. If you dramatically lower the points of 3/4s of the armies, all those players likely have to go buy more miniatures to get back to their point cap.
That's not a problem with points, that's a problem with slapping zeroes onto power level and pretending they're points.
It's not so much forgotten but intent. At some point prior to release they mentioned an alternating update strategy where one quarter will be pointed and another covering rules and points.
The recent update was intended for just points, but due to major imbalances they hit both
@@LegendSF the weird thing is, most players in 8th hated PL, it was too coarse to balance. They've pretty much leaned into the exact thing nobody wanted.
I never played 9th, I decided to sit it out. I'll sit out 10th as well.
That was the problem with the old power level. I had a field day as a deathwatch player spamming all those maximize gear
It feels like 40k rules have recently been driven almost exclusively by competitive players. I just get left a bit confused by it all and even more nervous to play anyone.
"The causal player" is basically just a model buyer. Their gaming experiences are far too difficult to collate to be of value. Win rates at GTs are easy to math out.
@@MyCleverName But the narrative player, on the other hand, can be worked with. The competitive player often wants things that actively detract from the narrative experience. For example, blast markers and armor facings. Both things that were evocative and immersive (watch literally any tank focused WW2 documentary and you'll wonder why the fuck these were removed). But they caused sweaty tryhards to argue until they're blue in the face about whether the blast nicked 4 models or 3, or whether it went in the 156 degree 20 minute direction, or 156 degree 14 minute direction.
Things necessary to make a streamlined "board game" do not make for a good immersive "tabletop wargame".
This game has been heavily influenced by, in fact, BOTH the "casual' and the "competitive" player to the detriment of the narrative player since GW started getting feedback from the major tournament circuits leading up to 8th Ed's launch. The casual in the sense that the rules are ever more watered down, "simplified" and "streamlined" to make it easier for new and casual players to get into it.
But then, that's not because of the sweaty tryhard. That's because GW wants to grow the userbase and they're willing to sacrifice me, a long-time "wargame" grognard, if it means getting 10 new players interested in playing "40k, the video game, the boardgame." Which, of course, I also understand, 'cause I've given them the bulk of my money already and I'm well versed in all of the "tricks" to save money, so retaining me is less valuable.
And that, you'll learn as you get older, is a fact of life. Things you enjoy move on as you rapidly become "no longer the target audience".
@@briancripps496One Page Rules might be worth a look for you.
There have been games from other companies, mostly historicals, that mostly evolved to keep you playing because the publisher did not make mini’s. That’s never been the GW business model though. Their evolution is designed to keep selling more, more, more, and other companies adopt their strategies.
Having been both a tournament and casual player in FoW (IMO, the rules were no longer a good tournament set since v3 messed up the Axis), and been a play tester, and worked on writing games, I can tell you that tournament and narrative play cannot likely be maximized in the same rules set. You can do really well having add on rule sets for one or both though.
They have been. All these changes are knee-jerk reactions to tournaments. Whether good or bad changes, they change stuff around constantly based on what GTs see, and that's nonsense. They are listening to the loudest minority because so many content "creators" and blogs are all tournament crap, so it sounds like they're the biggest people when they're not. So they're affecting the entire game based on a tiny fraction that go out of their way to abuse everything. Many things aren't actually issues outside of tournaments, so why hurt the majority of the game for the worst group of players?
@@Nobleshield I used to hear this all the time from tournament haters when the game companies didn’t pay nearly enough attention to tournament outcomes. The reality is that the top tournament players usually know more about balance than the publishers. This is sometimes off a bit due to the meta or undiscovered synergies or tactics, but they generally find what’s too good very quickly. It is very frustrating to casual players, but if nothing is done about imbalances it often filters down to store pick up games very quickly.
Adam, I played my first game of Majestic 13 last weekend and absolutely loved it. I would appreciate if you would consider doing another video on it since it is such a unique take on the table top experience. The flow of the turn order and rules system blew me away, and didnt feel repetitive or mechanical at all. Great work on this and i hope more people give it a go since the barrier to entry is relatively low compared to other skirmish games. Thanks for sharing this project with us and i can't wait to see how you and Vince expand upon it in the future.
I like it when rules get updated, but in my opinion GW never understands how this should work.
What I think GW should do is this:
- Make the rules and the army lists completely for free as a downloadable PDF and/or in the app
- Update/balance the rules (if necessary) and point costs every half a year - no more, but no less either
- Please no codexes and annuals anymore - they are outdated faster as someone can read through them anyways
- For those who need some fluff for his/her army, make Armybooks without any rules which can last longer than an edition of the game
Brilliant! This would be amazing. But GW can't comprehend selling an item they can't sell a slightly different version of again.
Rules and balancing twice a year would be great, but GW sorely lacks the ability to get it right the first time. That's why we currently need the quarterly updates. Even with the current schedule, Eldar are still running the meta after several rounds of nerfs. GW just can't figure it out.
A nice thought but it will sadly never happen as long as their current way brings in enough money
They would never get rid of codexes lmao. They need that to make money. I just refuse to play this game. I'll build but playing 😂😂😂😅😅😅😅😅
Everything and anything involving rules should be free and the codexs should be more like collectors items, if you want the fluff and art buy the codex, if you just want rules here you go have fun.
With regards to the numbering convention of the "field manual", we started with version 1.0, then had a very minor tweak for 1.1 which fixed a few errors, then a narrow adjustment to anything with towering or indirect for 1.2 (I might have those the wrong way around) and then the actual balance update for 1.3 which is the latest one.
They’re patching it as one would patch a video game,
But the problem is…everything in video games happens automatically-no one has to update their brain to implement the changes in a patched version of StarCraft.
Balancing and patching is important. But you can rely on GW to never rely on the stability of rules and army building. I enjoy ASOIAF for the stability in army building AND free accessability of their companion app, cards and rules.
What is an ASOIAF?
@@balazszsigmond826 A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones)
A Song of Ice and Fire published by CMON. It’s a rank and flank based on the BOOKS by George RR Martin, not the show. It’s a hoot.
@@balazszsigmond826 As Alex said, it's Game of Thrones, but Tabletop wargame, based on Book-lore. So you play one of the important factions, pick units, add heroes or generic leaders, pick two or three civilians for extra actions and you are done. The Starter boxes have *literally* everything you need to play, but you will most likely need to print the current tactic cards and unit profiles for games outside Starter vs Starter.
The more recent changes to Towering (no more shooting the entire board off the table, but you can still shoot back at things plinking from cover), the nerfs to Aeldari and Genestealers (any one faction with 60% win-rate or higher is terribly unhealthy for the game, let alone two), and the nerfs to Custodes (they were a powerful melee army that also hard-countered other melee armies, so they were making a lot of other lists and even factions irrelevant) were probably well-deserved, but it feels like they could've caught that in playtesting if they'd had a slower, steadier release schedule.
Other things which they could've caught in playtesting, but notably DIDN'T change recently include: Sisters of Battle having a downright awful Detachment Rule and literally no anti-tank weapons in their own Index thanks to Meltas being left behind. Ad-Mech's entire miserable state. Death Guard not at all feeling like Death Guard (they buffed them recently, but not in a sensibly thematic way). And on and on.
Really, 10th so far has been pretty botched, and a lot of the recent rule changes feel like GW is building the track as they run along it.
That's because they are. 10th was rushed, they couldn't/wouldn't do a sort of "Preview Version" while they hashed out the final rules because of printing schedules (yet another reason why sticking to print nowadays is a joke), so they released it half-assed. Also apparently they got rid of almost all their external playtesters because of leaks, and we know from past experience the internal team is basically a bunch of incompetent monkeys pushing models without understanding advanced gameplay (which is also a mistake IMHO, the game feels so much more complicated now than it used to)
I kind of disagree, in that these were changes that needed to happen. Battleshock was basically meaningless prior to the data slate, whereas now you have to carefully consider when and if you need to spend that CP to auto-pass. The changes to the strats were clunky, but probably necessary for balance. The points adjustments were definitely needed. A lot of armies that were utterly unplayable have suddenly begun to win tournaments, and by the same token, tournaments are no longer being utterly dominated by Aeldari.
I think that the answer would have been to leave 10th in the oven for a while longer or have more testers, but for whatever reason it was launch in effectively a beta state, and they've been patching as they go. We'll get another update in December, but then just quarterly points and six-monthly rules updates, at least in theory.
Warmachine has been operating out of an app for years. They also went to a subscriber model, but players can still build 5 lists without paying.
I was a 40K player back in Rogue Trader days and the first couple of editions. I tried to get back into 40K recently and gave up. To complicated and too many changes too often. I decided to just read lore/books and enjoy 40K games on TH-cam. I did get into Battletech as I played the OG game and it's great. New stuff, but not a firehose of it. Continuity through the game system over decades. Great lore. Fun community. I love it.
I’ve been playing BattleTech recently, whose Core Rules haven’t changed in almost 40 years. Kinda wild!
Those kinds of changes are really important especially early on. They also announced early on that there will be multiple changes early into the life of 10th and then it would slow down a bit, but what would have been the alternative?
I think that if new players join the hobby or olders return they will be much more pushed away from the game when they hear that one army has a +75% winrate and only 3 armies are viable competitively, while multiple other armies are close to if not below 30% winrate.
Like, I agree with a few of the sub points, GWs naming is horrible and their scattergun balance always hit's some random units that don't deserve it but I prefer this approach massively to the alternative.
"but what would have been the alternative?"
Release a game that's actually somewhat balanced and play-tested in the first place?
@@Illersvansen That is not the point being made in the video though. I agree with what you said the edition needed more playtesting, but this video is about it changing a lot early and that being bad not about it releasing too early.
That's the reason why I stay at 9th Edition with my friends
I broadly agree. The two concerns I have are;
A/ they seem to be balancing at 2k points -- those of us who are more 'casual' and play CP or 1k - it's unclear how these will impact
B/ They want to treat it more like an online game, where making changes can still be a big deal, but the friction is way less as opposed to people buying, building and painting. It makes sense they are going after the vocal players with these changes, as that drives overall sentiment - but as you highlighted there's a huge cost in time for everyone of they want to keep up
I completely agree. A points hike for a unit at 1000 points is disproportionate compared to a 2000 point army.
OnePageRules: "allow me to reintroduce myself"
While its fair to say that re-pointing every unit in the game for a new edition is always going to be a challenge, its also true that some changes they've had to make are due to not-good-enough playtesting. They should absolutely have understood how OP and feels bad Indirect Fire was ahead of launch, especially when combined with OG Devastating Wounds.
GW purposely puts OP rules in the game to get people excited to buy into the new edition. Once they reach a certain sales goal then they start changing the rules in an attempt to get players to basically re-purchase what was just released months earlier. The disappearing data slates is the thing that really pisses me off. I was about to purchase the slates for Space marines when the clerk at my GW store candidly told me they would be outdated once the codex came out and no updated slates would be available for purchase. F*ck that noise.
@@deanm375 Yeah, I don't think they're that clever. I think they just miss some obvious OP rules combos. I suppose the net effect is the same though!
I believe they should have two sets of rules...one for the 5% that do tournaments, and one that seldom changes for the other 95% of us. 9th ed pushed a friend of mine and me into Kill Team, now 3 months later, the 10th rules are pushing many in my area to go to AoS...or other games/companies entirely.
Warhammer 40k have become a physical video game, with patches all the time instead of a finished and play tested version at the release.
I just wait for them to ban older models in tournaments and in store games! 😂
I really agree with Adam. A pdf with tweeks every 6-12 months but not several in the months after release. If the game isn't ready for release wait for it to be! Tournament players will definitely never be satisfied. Nor will players be happy when their lists is nerfed. That's why the should take it easy with changes. Because they cannot please everyone anyway!
This is why I always rather play 6th edition fantasy because it was a good edition! 😊
I’m sure I remember GW stating when eighth edition dropped that this would be the last edition of 40k and further amendments would be small tweaks possibly supplied to customers in pdf form or was there not enough profit in that?
I don't remember that! Try and find a link anywhere?
I saw an interview with a 17 year ex-GW employee recently who revealed that most 40k players are casual and don't last longer than a year or two. This kind of churn won't really affect them. And competitive players like the balance tweaks, for obvious reasons. The ones who suffer are somewhere in between, the "long term casual" players. Apparently it's a small enough market to neglect. If that's you, there are better options than 40K. It sucks but it's true.
I'm in that group and I've been moving away from 40k.
@@DannySisto Me too. Compared to the other groups, we buy waaaay less stuff, so it kinda makes sense. GW is huge and needs to move a lot of product to keep the lights on. It is what it is.
Actually GW plan on releasing 10.5 edition rules sometime next year they forgot to mention that bit
I started 40k just this month. Ended up choosing Space Marines - theres a lot of changes to take in when I'm still figuring out the starting ones. Its not fun that a cool new book is already outdated and you need to make adjustments in it. But... I'm fairly used to Errata after dnd, the bans and restrictions in mtg... I'm sure I'll get use to this as well.
Haven't played the game since 5th edition. Tenth was going to be the edition to get back into it. Already was not completely sold on the list building mechanics, but bought the Leviathan box so was still set on ploughing ahead. Bought the Tyranid Codex only to discover the points cost in it were no longer valid on the day of its release! Not planning on making anymore purchases for now, gonna see if the game settles first. If not I'll probably just switch to one-page-rules.
I'm sure rules balances will annoy some and make others rejoice. I just use whatever is in the core book and never look at errata. The folks I play with do the same, so none of the updates matter in our world.
After 3 games of 10th, I'm playing OPR, Mordheim, Kill Team,and Battletech more in response.
Even with a new edition that just released for OPR's Grimdark Future, the rules remain free for the basics and just a flat $5 for everything and it's all updated and available at the launch of the edition. As opposed to GW charging $1,650 to get the core book (90) and all the codexes (60 ea, 26 factions) over the edition if you want all the rules... more really when they also release stuff like Arks of Omen, and you'll be waiting almost 3 years to get all the rulebooks for the edition just in time for them to be obsolete by 11th edition in a bit under 3 years from now (RIP late codexes). Total rip-off in my opinion.
Yeah, the constant changes both from balance updates and from codex releases have me avoiding 40k until such time as there is a nice site with all the current rules available for free. I'll just play OPR's Grimdark Future instead with my 40k minis.
Not tu mention OPR army builder - it does everything better for free than GW's app does for money. It's just better software, made by one dude. This is just ridiculous, stop supporting GW, people
@@donthaill7210 I do, but it doesn't have the dataslates last I checked, and either way it still means waiting until the edition is months away from changing before the last codexes release. I'm lucky to play chaos marines this time around so my full rules will release within the first year, but how many factions are stuck playing a barebones index for years? I've never liked GW's slow codex release business model. The frequent sweeping balance changes just make that even worse, but not having them doesn't do well either because GW has never done good enough playtesting. The official price tag is just an added insult.
So I can wait years and hope a 3rd party site doesn't get lawyered down while relearning the rules every few months, or just play a game that updated everything at once when it changed edition.
So glad my group jumped to OPR when we came back to the hobby. Its nice to have a system where our main concern is just collecting the coolest looking models. As much as I loved 40k back in 2nd edition.. its nice to have a simple system that doesn't require GW's live service-like system with their rules updates. I recall way back in GW stores, they used to try to sell the game to parents by saying its a better value than video games because you don't have to keep buying DLCs. Ever since I've returned to Warhammer, they feel awfully similar but Warhammer being pricier.
That point regarding late edition codexes is so true. I’ve decided to flat out stop buying any printed GW material from now on.
Great video, thanks for articulating the issue. I would add to the problematic consequences the bad feelings caused by buying printed material (rule book, codex...) that is sometimes obsolete before release.
I think the problem is that GW is trying to have it both ways:
1) offer a quality, balanced experience for the competitive crowd, with frequent updates
2) keep designing and testing the game as a beer&pretzels casual experience
We can add to those contradictory goals 3) the shareholder-induced "need" to perform a full refresh every 3 years so they can keep selling rule books to existing players, which in turn leads to change for change sake, preventing to really improve the game foundations over time.
If they are serious about 1) and want to have a mostly balanced set of rules + codex and point values, they need to drop 2) and get more serious about in-house testing, and start trying to absolutely break the game before it gets released. Which costs money and time. Failing that, they could "beta-test" a new edition and publish core rules + indices long in advance to let the community do the breaking for them (and actually take the feedback into account, of course). For 10th, I think it didn't take long for the community to discover some of the issues with either the core rules of specific armies.
But releasing stuff in advance for community feedback would also be in contradiction to their desire of secrecy and fear of diminishing excitement if stuff is revealed too early (+ lead times for printing material).
I can't know how/if they will move going forward, but one thing is sure, the current statu quo is very frustrating.
I largely agree. I was really hoping to give 10th a go but I've only played a Combat Patrol game so far and now we're into the cycle of changes and updates. I don't like the constant churn of changes and updates...this is something they've pulled from Magic: The Gathering and the "competitive" scene and the fact that GW wants to be a minis company, a publishing company, and a game company, but can't ever seem to put it all together.
There's nothing out there that says a minis game needs constant changes and new editions...my old Battletech books are pretty much just as good now as they were when I got them 20 - 30 years ago; the rules haven't changed much yet they continue to come out with new material and minis and all that.
This constant churn is something GW has convinced themselves and their players needs to happen but it really doesn't. Sadly, it seems like most GW players feel they need the company to hold their hands and lead them to every game and rule and tell them exactly how it all works and there's little room for creativity and adjustment. But that's a slippery slope because once you start giving in to the complainers online, forever will they complain and you will find yourself constantly trying to change things to please the most recent group of whiners only to create another group with those changes.
I like the lore and the setting and the models....but the game aspect is rather off-putting in many ways.
sadly the changes had to happen. 10Ed at launch had a horrible ballance. nothing was thought out and if you happen to play an army in the more extreme ends of the ballance spectrum (like Eldar or DG), you basicly can't play the game as it was. with a faction like DG, you where always at an uphill battle, even if your friends watered down their lists. if you played something like Eldar, you where banned from using like 70% of your units, because almost everything was so strong and undercosted, that you won by default.
I have been playing since 7th, mostly played in 9th, and a big thing that was an issue early into 9th was that GW was too scared to change the rules when things needed to be changed. I appreciate the changes GW have made to 10th so far, the first change was just updates to typos and errors (Plague Marines coming in a box of 7 but not having a points cost for fielding 7 ect.) which is good. Their second change was a nerf to Towering, Indirect Fire, and Eldar, because those things were absolutely dominating the early meta (Eldar had a +70% one week and +65% for the rest), which was important to address, letting us know they were aware of the issues. And the most recent change was a major boost to several armies that were below 40% win-rates (DG, IG, Sisters) which is gonna be good for the long term health of the game, and also needed nerfs to top armies (GSC with +60%, Eldar again ect). I can understand the issue people have with the constant changes but this is just the first growing pains of the edition, we can’t expect that GW will get every single thing right (and don’t get me wrong, they still have a bunch of things that need to be fixed, as a DG player I am not super happy with not being a tanky army) but we shouldn’t feel like the change is wrong when it is the correct thing to do rather than let things stay broken and bad. And their own schedule is gonna be points changes every 3 months, and Balance Dataslate every 6 months, not 3 times in 3 months.
You remember back in 7th or 6th, when everybody used to krak slap vehicles in the back armour in close combat? And then someone pointed out that actually the rules said you could only use one grenade? That will be a normal occurence with rapid rules changes.
You are SO right Uncle Atom!
GW actually has been doing this throughout the whole 9th edition that you missed :) They would update the game every 3 months with all sorts of rule tweaks, and then on top of that, every 6 months they would update points.
I'm not even a casual player, I do a lot of competitive tournaments and stuff - but this crazy pace of updates nearly drove me away from the game. Now I see that GW seems intent on keeping this pace up in 10 edition as well. This time, they just might succeed in driving me off.
The one time I actually disagree with you as I feel that the changes were needed. However this would sit better with a digital rules set and ideally should not have been needed if it was playtested properly in the first place
100% agree
I agree but they basically use customers to do their beta testing. And publish busted codexes in print, then it's up to you to attach a forest of post it notes inside the already overloaded tome.
Agree. I don't think they should have released any codices before spring or summer next year. I think these sort of changes will lessen as time goes on and the edition 'matures'.
As a casual player who got into Warhammer by way of model kits and is still mostly just interested in building and painting the models, I've always said the biggest barrier of entry to this thing isn't that people are intimidated by the painting aspect, it's that both main games are too damn complicated. I don't see how anyone who doesn't play five games every weekend will be able to play them without spending 80% of their time sifting through rules they can't remember and getting annoyed that they forgot something half a turn later - and if you spend that much time playing, you don't have time to build and paint.
When 10th edition was announced I was actually pretty optimistic because while it seemed like they had overcorrected a bit, it still seemed like the game would ultimately be more fun because you'd spend more time thinking about strategy and less trying not to forget aura ability #24254 affecting whatever unit you were rolling for at any given point. But these constant updates now are actually worse than the core rules being overly complicated - it's just impossible to keep up with all of this, and they still refuse to make it available digitally (not just list building, we need auto-updating datasheets/warscrolls) and then wonder why people go to 3rd party providers of this information. I only play home games with friends, and I've pretty much decided we're just going to ignore updates from here on out because it just isn't any fun trying to keep up with all of this crap. Like my buddy who (unlike me) has been playing for decades always says, I just want to push my little toy soldiers around and have fun, this doesn't have to be such a headache.
I'm also not a fan of what's happened to Combat Patrol - I get that the basic idea of "just buy these two boxes and download this PDF, and you actually have a complete game" makes sense as a point of entry, but as a casual who's been around for a while, this now means I can no longer play 500pts games with the models I already have, which is exactly what I've been doing.
This is the exact reason I play other games now. It's utterly ridiculous to have your books and then also have to keep track of loads of print outs or pdfs. Especially when a company like mantic can nail it so well even on the free version of the compendium site.
These changes were all made because the tournament scene was dominated by Eldar to the point “fate dice” were so strong with the Wraith Knight and many other units Eldar had, there had to be an Emergancy change as Eldar could only lose to the mirror. 2 months later it was still the case and there were other rules being manipulated. This seems like it’s all happening very quickly but there was no play testing before 10th edition came out so the 1st 4-5 months of 10th edition was always going to have several changes. Things will settle down now.
The problem with all these changes is that 40K isn't a computer game like World of Warcraft or League of Legends. The have digital player data so they can see the effects of their changes and adjust accordingly. IMO, the 10th edition rule changes are a result of inadequate game testing with the player base before release. So now they have to go back and "try" to rebalance/fix the game in the absence of real data like WOW or LOL. Basically an educated guess.
Just adding my 2¢, I’m essentially a new 40k player. I’ve been collecting models since sometime in 7th edition, but had played only once until 10th launched.
10th edition got me really excited as the barrier of entry seemed much lower then previous editions. Simpler rules, index cards to have unit stats easy to access during games without flipping through a book, as well as much simplified list building. All of those aspects got me to try 40K again and I have thoroughly been enjoying it! I’m painted models and playing games and having a blast.
As far as the rules updates and points balancing goes, I have actually found it to be very refreshing. It has been a positive for me to see GW quickly respond to balance issues rather then let them fester for 6-8 months. I have been a competitive wargamer in a couple of other game systems, so the concept of errata and balance changes aren’t as foreign to me as they might be other new 40k players. I’ve been getting burnt out on those other systems due to a lack of updates or attention to balance by those companies.
While I’m not a “competitive” 40k player and have no plans to be one, I can appreciate the fact that competitive scenes are healthy for games as they tend to show areas that need balancing, which can filter down to a more balanced game for all players.
TLDR; New player here, like the quick balance updates, love 10th, enjoying the game!
In our club, we are on deciding which edition we should play together. Following the changes is almost impossible for someone who likes to play a couple games each month.
Another thing problematic with changing too quickly, is the physical product we buy for a fair amount is obsolete too quickly or even already obsolete when it hits the market. (Codex Tyranides)
Also they changed Main rules instead of changing Units, changing Index Units (Wraith Knight) instead of impacting every unit may be better.
Also as a casual gamer, I'm really upset to take time to paint a unit so the next time I played, because of Tournament players spam, my unit is nerfed and too costy in points. (Harpy, Biovores, Tyrannofex).
For the Biovores, Spore Mines should absolutely not be able to score objectives... They are living ammunition. Games Workshop punish every player for a few and they think they do that for a better/more enjoyable games. I really don't think this is the way to go, it is discouraging.
Thanks for the video ! If you haven't check Ash from Guerrilla games, he did a similar video~
I started 40k late in the 8th because of that 8-page rule set. Watching 9th and 10th role out has only reinforced my appreciation of what 8th sought to do, even with all its flaws. I will stick with my 8th core rule book and those first indices, thank you very much!
Got into 40K in 2005 and had the current books at the time, new edition came out I worked hard and saved my money and I paid the $50+- for the new rules book,etc. Never once got to use it because our GW store and local hobby shop closed and nobody else around cared to play or moved away etc. and here I am in 2023 having not played another game since and part of the reason is exactly what this video is about. GW likes money that’s for sure. I still love the lore and do my best to keep up but a lot changes so fast in this franchise.
I believe that this need for adjustments shows the lack of testing.
The best example would be last year's release of Leagues of Votann: playing a game immediately shows the big issue, and yet it SOMEHOW made it into the hardcover rulebook.
1st reason for i have quitted the 40k for other more stable games like specialists or 30k or other brand games, in 40k is basically impossible use a list for more the one month, is insane
As someone that has had life get in the way of playing shortly after 10th launch. I need to essentially relearn my LoV and 10th edition core in general.
The changes are meant to focus on two things. First, the competitive scene. They're the whales that spend the most on the products. They're also the "free" advertising for the game by broadcasting the results. TH-cam channels capitalize on that too. The second focus, is to move plastic. Constantly shifting rules, points, and other adjustments. Shift what is good and what isn't. Which pushes players into buying models they may not have. Or buy them sooner than they would. They're creating their own version of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).
The casual gamer is NOT the focus with these changes.
I’ve not met many 40K players who don’t try to exploit or break the rules, GW have millions of play testers (the community), why does everyone moan, you’ve created a monster, who’s learned to react to you! For years GW has been about selling, try other systems, they do work and there’s more to gaming than 40K. I’ve only played 40K with my mates, we create house rules based on enjoyment, the game works best when you remove the exploiters…………..
as an old player that's collected since 3rd and active since 5th, this is pretty normal for GW. usually new editions come out broken in ways they dont notice. the first errata is usually just a few months in,. you can pretty much ignore errata unless your playing competitively. as for the naming stuff, after the chapterhouse debacle, they renamed everything since they pretty much had zero copyright to their IP
I’m in the middle of building 1k of World Eaters, and Ultramarines to play 10th. With all these changes though I’m considering playing OPR instead.
I think the thing is - games where player go against players in a contested manner and in a complex way will always strive for something like balance and at the same time try to introduce new things. the latter messing the fromer up sooner or later. consequently, trying to keep a balance things will enter an interative circle of introducing-rebalancing. but after a certain time - and a certain amount of complexity - it is no longer possible to achieve a stable balance while keeping the essence of the game mechanics, thus - either by choice or helplessness - a stable balance is sacrificed for a dynamic balance... where things are in constant motion and you get the overlord and the underdog of the current status quo.
100% this I'm a casual player who just wants to play from the rulebook. That is now completely out of date. Plus my army is now in its codex and three index cards released 3 months ago have been replaced.
You’re exactly right. I’ve been saying for years that too many knee jerk points and rules changes killed Warmachine. Look out GW !
Can you elaborate?
@@zwibak if you spend a lot of money and precious hobby time painting an army only to have the points increased or rules changed overnight because of statistical results in tournament play, then after a while your player base becomes angry and won’t have faith to continue to buy your product. Warmachine was an early adopter of online points and online rules with their War room app. They freely nerfed units and my community like many others gave up on the game
One of the worst parts is the printed rules will likely be outdated by the time they hit shelves or you'll get a Codex release like Votaan that's utterly broken, making the Codex itself almost pointless. I do think this 'fix it in post' approach only harms 40k. The constant release cycle and changing editions every 4 years also means less time getting a focused ruleset. 40k has never been perfect but the constant shifting of rules/points over an edition, the nerfing and buffing of units repeatedly, can only lead to player dissatisfaction as that shiny new unit they spent money and time on is virtually unplayable etc.
As I casually play with friends (10th) I was unaware there had been any rules and points updates. Going to continue to play 10th with the default launch rules.
I get what you are saying and I agree, changing the rules a couple of months after the new rules release is insane. However, building a list without their app is easy just using excel. Mine is a little complex because I am pretty much adjusting the sheet to fit in the stat's for the troops, their weapons and special rules. But a straight listing of force choices and their points cost is dead simple and you can use the data cards for the other stuff. When you rely on your own stuff it is much more flexible.
Here's my thoughts... firstly, 10th is good system. It's much better than I initially thought i would be. However, I think GW have used the community to Beta Test it and that is why we have seen such big changes. I agree that hopefully now they will lay off. If the next print run of the rules incorporates the new changes then even better but I won't hold my breath.
As for the Insane Bravery strat, it was changed because Battle Shock wasn't having a big enough impact on the game, which I can understand. But, if a player is spending all their limited CP on that multiple times then they aren't using them on the more impactful strats. GW should have just left it as it was.
Ive played one game of 40k and one game of one page rules and I definitely prefered OPR over 40k. Maybe after 10 games or so of OPR ill want to try 40k but im sticking with OPR and trying to get more pkayers into it at my store
As a player who mostly just enjoys competitive play and the tournament scene, yes, I like that games workshop is being proactive and making continuous changes that are primarily striving for balance. I don’t like that the information is in multiple places, it should always be in one place, and it should always be free to know how to play the game regardless of what army you’re trying to play or what rules you’re trying to use for that army. I feel like most people in my area that play frequently, partake in competitive play to some extent, this is including the overall scene at 2 different stores. I could be totally wrong, but it seems like when you look at the community as a whole, the people who play weekly, usually lean towards the competitive side of 40K.
The rules of 40k and watching the drama around it all has been what keeps me from buying/playing anything games workshop. I discovered Battletech and jumped full on in that instead, the rules seem more balanced and all around better. Also looking into one page rules as a much better (and free) system based on my research.
Wait a sec my dude, if you read the fine print on the rule update only counts towards Matched Play and Crusade. So Combat Patrol is unaffected. But it's also the part that kinda makes me the most mad at GW because they have not updated the Quick Start or the Core Rules documents last time I checked. Also why is it up to me to rename said docs if I want to keep track of them and not some weird serial numbers!?
I’ll have to go back and check - I’m not sure I saw that. Thanks for watching!
As a new player building an army, I honestly like the proactive rules balance. I've been following the competitive events while building my own Astra Militarum army, and the way that certain armies just continuously ruled the roost was a lot more disheartening than shifts that work on moving away from that.
I'm not looking to go to an event any time soon, treating my models more like art projects, and if I were on a shorter timetable, that might be more upsetting to me, but I'd rather the game be pretty well balanced when I get to play it, even if I need to check for updates before games.
Edit: That being said, I do think that they ought to make all the rules available in one place online. They're a model company, so prioritizing getting to sell some extra books over maximizing the number of people buying models seems silly, to me. If they'd just do that, that'd solve a lot of issues.
The insane bravery change makes much more sense thematically than the old rule. Why would bravery make a unit who missed their shot miraculously change the past to now allow them to succeed.
The change now allows for a more authentic approach rather than being basically "pY to win".
For example if you are in a situation where you have a high value enemy unit which absolutely must be eliminated, you can now imagine that your unit with high bravery can persevere against the odds to make the killing blow. Instead of the reverse, where bravery essentially meant that you can correct a bad role.
It allows for much more "cinematic" gaming experience.
I'm army building, which is good for GW because they can harvest a portion of my income. I haven't dropped a single dollar on the rules and I don't intend to in the near future. I honestly cannot keep up. I'll build and paint a bit, but my enthusiasm is kinda low. If I cannot get a foothold on the shifting rules and meta, then I may not get back to actually playing until 11th edition (12th?). I can get my gaming fix by jumping into battletech (insert other tabletop game here) because the rules are much more static. Does GW do this intentionally because it maintains a constant revenue stream? I think so. In an economy where people are seeing other prices rise, wouldn't GW want to play a bit more of a long game? If we had solid rules, the competitive scene might slow a bit, but it would not stagnate. Each time a top faction is established, I believe players will dig deep and find a way to unseat them. They always do. Then the meta chasers will buy a new army just as they do now, and the rest of us wouldn't have to feel taken advantage of. Wishful thinking.
One of the easiest ways to look at this is much like current day video game development and releases. 10E was not finished, this was a rushed product that had to be dropped at the three year rotation window. Why? No reason other than money. However they thought that they could just release the product without proper development or play testing, and simply let the players do the work fo4 them. That’s why you have such massive changes right out of the bat. Easy response take your models and play something else. GW doesn’t care about the player nor the game at this stage.
I’m a casual player that only play a couple of games a year lately. But I think the main problem for me ruleswise is that I only buy the physical books. So whenever there are changes or faqs, I often don’t even know. And the next time I but a rulebook is when the new edition releases. I think it’s a good thing that GW is mending their rules at certain intervals, however they shouldn’t be so reliant on books. If they would revamp the whole situation that everything is easily accessible online or via an app, then you can keep up to date that way. But since there are different ways to get hold of the rules, then a casual player might meet another casual that did apply the faqs/updates and you could potentially have an inbalanced game. If GW did the updates at more regular intervals, like quarterly, then you’d only have to check up once every couple of months to get accustomed to the changes. Plus putting every change in red just looks messy. Edit the rules that people use, give bullet points to the changes and have people play the game.
Maybe I'm late to the party here, but I'm of two minds: Constant rules updates are kind of fun, because you never know what to expect and it might fundamentally change how you play the game and what you can do with a certain list. Maybe my buddy was kicking my ass a week ago, but now that his points went up and my unit got a buff, I'm actually able to compete with him. But, yeah, it's a lot to keep track of; as mentioned, maybe the thing I just bought and haven't gotten around to building or painting yet, now sucks and I also need to go back and review all the new stuff before I'm allowed to play, because what I knew is now totally different.
The one thing about the rules updates is that it keeps that thing pretty constant in my mind and makes me excited for what could be around the corner. But, I also really appreciate that Bolt Action has been a mainstay in my life for several years now and all I really need to think about is what army I want to play, because the rules are always going to be there for me. I don't have to memorize any new stuff and I can just jump right back in where I left off. But, at the same time, it can sometimes feel a little stagnant, because aside from playing in a different theatre, with different list rules, there's not much difference between each game. Bring a tank, armored car, 3-5 infantry squads, etc, etc.
I think your analogy of the goal post was good, I don't mind a rules change once or maybe even twice per edition as long as it's what they intended. As for points that is the easiest way to fix things fast and I don't mind it at all but it should be easy to find and use. I'm just getting back into 40k since 7th and I'm going to give them a chance but if things keep on the same path I'll probably stop playing and switch to hourus heresy.
For the most part these changed have been well received; to see a community torn apart by rules changes look at what AMG did with x-wing. There was already a small portion playing 1.0 but AMG’s new rules split the remaining community more, so now there’s 2.5, 2.0, and 1.0 players.
Always great content Uncle A! I was on board after your first line haha
Free, up-to-date digital rules and army building in the app would make these updates much easier. You could possibly even generate excitement if you marketed it well - this works well for some war games (OPR) and video games (LoL)
I find new and returning players already have it hard as it is. I am returning to 40k after leaving during 7/8th range. After getting a Tyranid half of leviathan I am still trying to figure it all out. Not only are the changing rules making it that much harder to figure out. The codex for 9 and 10 are so similar and the core rules are hard to read on the app, I havent bought anything yet, and may not for a while. This is why I left initially as rules changes were frequent and hard to know if your opponents had updated as well unless you track everything! I believe that there should be annual updates and two year edition updates to give time for things to really settle in before making changes.
All of these changes I think would be fine if the end goal was to make a “perfect” rule set, but GW wants a new major rule set every 3 years. These changes would work for a system like Battletech where they want a single rule set for the game, but instead they want a constant rebirth of a hype train.
Great video sir, and I would agree that there seems to be a large amount of changes happening to core rules very soon after the book has been released. While its a good thing to have a living ruleset, it eliminates the physical copy as it is redundant before you get it in hand is how it feels. As a veteran player of 40k since 4th edition, I like the changes and think the game is more streamlined and accessible to new players, but if there are going to be fundamental changes to the core rules as veteran and new players alike learn the game, then I agree, its a good way to push people away rather than draw them into the game.
I think GW is trying to hard to be a live service. It works for video games etc. because the environment is controlled and the updates are manditory.
In this case it just seems that either they don't know what they are doing or are using it to adjust sales( take you mentioned marines- x is cheaper, now you need y to fill the point gap; x+y is invalid, now you need to go and buy z)
The need or at least percieved need to keep spending (i.e. for the app) just leaves a sour taste in my mouth
You'd think they hadn't heard of the concept of play testing games before they're released. . .
I think what your missing is 40k is becoming a live service game, just like computer games,
Hence the lore is moving now, when I was a kid the lore was in stasis, it was more like digging through a history than following an ongoing war
Constant updates is impetus for constant engagement, which means more dedicated fans
Yeah it effectively killed my motivation to keep building my Tyranid army. I don't want to re-learn how to play this game every 3mo because they can't build a solid rulebook. It feels like we're all in an open beta.
Constantly updating and changes rules to pamper to competetive play worked really well for Privateer press................Oh no hang on
Privateer Press’s Warmachine MkIII
Did quarterly changes of their points and rules… …it was exasperating, Guerrilla Miniature Games has a good video about it (comparing Warmachine to 40K)
PP’s constant changes + bloat + tournaments going to 2D terrain kinda drove me back to 40K during 8th edition. Got a good Horus Heresy group at my FLG and my fully painted Primaris Raven Guard are in the closet with no new models on the paint bench because why try to optimize for the new edition if it won’t matter in three months.
100% agreed, huge switch in rules and focus, we just finally had a complete edition and then it was dumbed down, simplified, and we’re back at square one again.
Since they just put out a new edition and new rules for all of their armies, I think most of the rules changes were necessary. However, I wish they didn’t have a schedule of putting a new version of the rules and all of the codexes every three years.
Instead of the rules commentary file, they should have revised their core rules document. But they probably wouldn’t want to do that, because they still wanted to sell the physical books.
I suspect things will settle down as time goes on. Right now we are still getting a lot of issues from the idexes that ideally should have been caught before release (Eldar were clearly an issue at release). I'm also annoyed at how many rules changes are happening, but I have hope it will settle down.
I wish I was surprised that people were running GT events with Index rules. What is it about those 40k players who need to share their W/L/D ratios with make do army lists? Sure, it might not happen where you (general, not Andy specifically) are, but it's the ones who do that lead to GW making these changes.
I gave up on Heavy Gear after there was a churn of new editions & supplements in the late aughts/early 2010s. The last straw for me was a new playtest document that threw out the old dice rolling mechanism for something that was actually more complicated. If I ever use my HG minis again I'll either play 2nd edition (which was flawed but I had actually had fun playing) or some other rules entirely.
Soooo... will they be updating the next print runs with the errata? Because they just released the rules book, and now it's... not really usable to play with if you want to play at a store or competitively?
You could always discuss with the people you play with and stick to a rules version you prefer, obviously the app usage would likely not be usable but at least you would have a stable game. There is nothing forcing you to use rule changes.