Warhammer 40K: Old Edition Rules I Miss In 10th Edition
Goatboy here with the rules I miss from past Warhammer 40K editions, and what GW should add to add to 10th Edition.
I have been playing this game for a while and I do sometimes wonder if some of the older rules would bring back some of the random fun we had in the game in the past Edition. I really like current 10th Edition and find it to work a heck of a lot better than the nonsense we have played in the past. However, there are just some things I miss from time to time.
Flamer Templates
I do miss templates. In fact it is one of the old joys from the game when pulling out a unit with a bunch of flamers, covering the enemy unit in the template, and cackling at the sheer amount of hits you are going to cause. It is just something that was a ton of fun to play with back in the day. Now I hated the dumb little mini circle templates and units that threw out 12+ of them. Yeah you heard me – there were units in regular 40k that played 12+ template games, usually living on a Skyshield they brought, and just make you question why this was ok. I don’t miss those. But man it was awesome to throw a flamer template down and watch the sheer panic on your opponent as you counted how many models it hits and did some basic math. I also like the bigger templates too as it was just fun worrying if they scattered around and caused some issues for you as well.
I do wonder if we could bring back some of this joy by just cleaning up some of the flamer “hits”. I always thought flamers should be d3+3 to help clear some things up. I am sure it would cause some of these oops all flamer units to get a point increase but it would just allow for a bit of fear when facing down a Redeemer Land Raider or Infernus unit. It might also make those Salamander players excited to bring their green boys to the tabletop.
“I miss my old Initiative stat…”
Initiative Stat
The next thing I sometimes wonder if it would be cool to bring back would be some kind of Initiative stat. I do wonder if it is some of my D&D game coming to mind when starting a battle round and trying to roll decently enough to be good in the beginning of the battle. Or at least get a chance to throw that Fireball first before your Monk decided to get too close to the blast zone. I know the “Fights first” mechanic is supposed to bring some of that to the game but wouldn’t it be neat to have some kind of “rule” that allowed your superior fights get some kind of advantage? I don’t want to bring back Weapon Skill as the game has moved too far from it but I wonder if Initiative would be neat to have back? You could have some things that say bring it down to 1 instead of saying Fights Last. It might make things too complicated but it would be cool to justify some of the combat fighters skill in another way beyond just having a buttload of attacks.
Characters Joining Units
Finally I think we could easily add a new basic stratagem to the game. Something that would bring back some of the old mojo of your character being able to rejoin a unit. What if you allowed your HQ choices to “shift” to different bodyguard units during a game or after their old protectors have died on the table top? Wouldn’t that be neat to just have that option to join up with a different unit they are able to join during a game? It might barely be used but it would be a cool little default stratagem to have. It would allow some of those models that stand back up a chance to gang up with a new crew of misfits and just give you more options that are not over powered. I always like having more options to help your heroes out so just having more fun things would be neat to have.
What other old rules do you miss from past editions? I wonder if there would be a better game experience to bring back the auto fallback if you fail your Leadership? It would force things to move away from objectives, might make leadership matter, and be worth it? Or it could make for really silly games where your unit “escorts” off a unit to the table edge? I know there are some old goofy rules we could bring back or tweak to shift 40k a bit.
If you could only pick one old 40K rule to bring back – what is it?
