Taking the Axe to Warhammer 40,000’s Rules
Everyone is afraid of GW “Age of Sigmaring” 40K – But let’s be honest – the current rules have some SERIOUS issues – like these:
Now I’m not saying that Warhammer 40,000 should ever get shrunk down to 4 pages. That’s just silly, and dancing for bonues has no place in the Grimdark. That said, 40K has a bunch of clunky mechanics we have to endure to get in a evening of gaming. Here are just a handful of overly complicated rules sections that need to get the axe:
Wound Allocation – Having to calculate angles and trajectories to pull casualties correctly is just a pain. It slows down the game and really what is the point. There are so many simpler ways of dealing with this.
Angles of Fire from Vehicle Weapons – Wait, your 2nd edition Land Raider with it’s old school sponsons has a 5 degrees advantage over mine! And how the heck do the various Leman Russ sponsons over the ages work? Can my pintle mounted weapons see over some parts of my vehicle but not others? This whole system is just a mess and not worth the time. Go with simple fixed arcs and leave it at that.
The Psychic Phase is Too Hairy – Pre-game setup leaves a lot to be desired. All the charts, sub-charts, and rolling, rolling, rolling just to find what you get to use could be a lot faster. The fact that there is an entire strategy to buying various upgrades to hope to get that one power you need is a bad sign.
Allies – Let’s be honest, last edition Allies weren’t that bad. But now building an army is as straightforward as a pretzel. Do all the multi-codex, dataslate, & formation shenanegins make the game any more fun that previous editions – or does it just add extra time and a ton of math to the process?
Mixed Faction Units – This is just one of the red-headed stepchild of the Allies fiasco. Once you start adding multiple faction units to those oh-so popular deathstars you end up with a giant rules mess that is hard to make heads or tails of. So wait, Dark Angels and Thunderwolves – so what special rules apply to me (or can affect me)? I don’t know either.
I bet you have even more. What 40K rule mechanics would you take the axe to?
