40K Deep Thought: What 9th Edition Needs to Fix
8th edition is over 2 years old now, and that means we have to talk about what the game really needs to be addressed in a new edition.
We are into 40K 8th’s third year. My how time flys! This, of course, means by 2019 standards, we need to start thinking about the next edition of the game. Age of Sigmar got a “soft reset” about 2 years into its life, and I would not be surprised to see 9th Edition arrive in 2020, or 2021 at the latest.
We have seen the game start off very clean and simple during the pre-codex days, and grow ever more complex as we have gone through over 2 dozen codexes. The game is a much richer place with new arrivals such as Adeptus Custodes, Chaos Knights, not to mention all the new Primaris marines.
GW has jumped back on the narrative bandwagon with the two-part Vigilus series and now the imminent kickoff of Psychic awakening. The first codexes are getting 2nd editions, so I think we can all sit back and talk about the “big picture” issues that a future edition will have to address. I’m not talking about things like “unit X is 2 pts to much”, but instead the big picture tuneups and tweaks the entire game needs. Here’s my list:
Soup/Single Codex Rebalance
8th is certainly the edition where allied-soup ruled the roost. We have seen GW start to move the goalposts in the other direction with limitations on soupy marines in the latest codexes. I look forward to how far they will take this in the future. I think they need to come up with two basic tiers of factions in the game – those designed to operate independently (like marines), and those that regularly operate in concert with other forces (say Astra Militarum). As long as the Design Studio takes this into consideration in advance, they can tailor codexes to work with or against the soup concept by design – instead of being open for exploits.
Knights/Lords of War Balance
I think we can also say that Knights and other big giant stompy models did really well this edition. Some of these units have no obvious drawbacks and are effective in all phases of the game. In general high durability factions in tabletop games like undead, Necrons, and anything incredibly difficult to take down has to be designed with care. Not because it’s not balanced for the points, but because high durability units can be frustrating and unfun to play against. I hope that 9th will see alterations in either the giant lords of war units or perhaps the missions themselves to rein them in a little. The big guys add a whole lot to the visual enjoyment of the game, but it shouldn’t revolve around them.
Melee/Shooting Balance
Boy does shooting rule the game right now. We have seen shooting and melee swing wildly back and forth ineffectively across the editions, but melee needs help in 9th edition. There are a million good ways to do it, but it is just too easy to safely choose shooting over the current risk/reward ratio of assaulting in 8th.
Unit Category Rules
8th Promised to clean up the game and make it easy to understand and learn for newcomers. The datasheets brought uniformity to everything in the game and I would say was a success. But just as the limited clean Stratagem system was allowed to grow into something complex over the last 2 years, so should some key unit categories. In particular, I think the super clean core rules can use perhaps a single extra page of detail to better flesh out:
- Vehicles
- Monsters
- Flyers
- Transports
Now I don’t a return to the dark era of the 35-page vehicle section of past editions, but even a couple of core rules for each category would help make them feel a little unique not like just different shaped generic targets for the enemy to blow up.
Army Construction
While the rules themselves have gotten a cleanup since 7th, building an army is at an all-time high in complexity. Age of Sigmar is seen as a fair balanced game with drastically simplified rules for building lists. The micro-detailing and minutia of adding up all those 1 and 2pt options across multiple books and Chapter Approved in 40K are unneeded. While Power Level has been widely ignored as too simplified and abusable – I’m sure a half-way house solution can be found that will allow army construction of a 2000pt list in under 20 minutes as can easily be accomplished in AoS.
~ What do you think most needs addressing in the game’s next edition?
