40K: The Case for FAQs
There has never been a greater need for FAQs in the game. Here’s why:
Here’s a little story to get you in the mood.
A set of expert players – people who have a very good reason to know every teensy loophole and conflict in the Warhammer 40K universe are having a conference call.
They are going over the current set of sticky 40K rules conundrums and making group decisions when an odd snag comes up.
Two sides form each insisting they are correct in their opinion on a particular rules question – and each are swearing up and down that the rules support their position.
The culprit?
A Stealth Update strikes again. At some point in the past few months a digital codex in question got updated with some rules clarifications (in this case it was Eldar, but there were others). One side of the conference call was looking at physical codices, and others had digital ones.
The Problem?
This updates are formally mentioned NOWHERE. The rules are different than the printed physical codex, and even the original digital codex if a customer didn’t update it.
Now of course this ruffled some feathers and in the intervening months, more of these stealth updates have been found.
The problem of course is HOW TO FIND THEM and HOW DO YOU EVER TRULY KNOW THE RULES of the game?
In theory the only way to find these would be to own an entire set of BOTH physical and digital copies of the rules, then compare then line per line, noting the changes. Now make sure to go and do this regularly to make sure others don’t sneak up on you.
Just the FAQ’s Ma’am!
Of course if the FAQs were updated, (or even available on the new GW site) this might all be a moot point – many of these stealth updates were to bring digital codices inline with past FAQs, but then of course with the recent FAQ relocation to the Black Library page – a bunch of FAQs went missing. Are they “really valid” at this point with no way to reach them from the official source?
For now we have to just sit on our hands, wait for a master FAQ update (it’s been about a year now), and just accept that anytime you walk up to the tabletop for a game, the rules you KNOW have a less than 100% chance of being true.
Let’s hope those promised FAQ Updates happen sooner than later.
