Goatboy’s 40k: What I Want from 9th
Goatboy here to chat a bit about the future of the game and how I would like it to change and evolve.
I think the main rule as a whole are pretty good with the continued issue of specific supplements and books causing all kinds of rules layering issues. I feel that the new book as a whole should work at updating and fixing some rules instead of just rewriting and shattering it to pieces. But here are some of the top ideas I would like the new rules to explore and will see how many actually come to fruition when the new rules do come out.
1 – Rework the Detachments
I think the detachments as a whole need to be looked at again. I really like how AOS fits in the terrain features into their army build and it would be neat if 40k had something like that. Maybe have it attached just to the Battalion or at the very least have some other way to not take up one of the 3 detachments. Beyond just the Attachments themselves we could look at another system to lock in having X amount of troops or troop like options as well – something not like Battleline but maybe something similar. AOS is starting to allow certain things to shift and move around into the Battleline slot so it would be nice to see it show up in 40k.
2 – Rework Overwatch
Right now Assault is in a weird place. There seems to be too much influence on Overwatch and damage potential when charging into combat. I always felt that Overwatch was just not a fun rule as it could either do something amazing or do nothing at all for a lot of armies. How many times have you had an opponent roll 5 sixes with a few melta guns and you just explode. Or the times where you don’t hit with 20+ dice and get swept up into combat. Its just annoying and something that should be reworked. I don’t know if there is a way to make it simpler or just give more armies the ability to turn off overwatch in some way.
3 – Update Stratagems
I think we should really look at defaulting some Stratagems. The Double attack or Double shooting should probably be a locked in trait – with either high CP or something else to keep the older “better” ones viable in the codexes. There could be others with things like – guaranteed roll for a movement or something else. With so much reroll guaranteeing shooting it would be neat if some other things had a chance to lock in abilities. Just to continue in the vein of locking in some things and removing some of the swingie nature of the game.
4 – Remove Stacking Modifiers
There is too many stacks of similar rules in the game currently. The most someone should have is a -1 to hit, -1 to wound, etc. When you start to move into the vein of unhittable things it gets rough to deal with and properly balance. I think it would be better off to either change things to a Flat modifier – ie -1, +2, etc – without the ability to stack. It just helps the rules flow easier and allows for abilities like +2 or -2 to be something new and powerful.
5 – Create a Scalable Scoring system
40k needs to look at how AOS missions are written and move towards creating options like that. This would let games go a bit faster by having a simplified option and allow GW to look at how armies work and thus balance them in that direction. I’m used to complicated missions – but I feel we could look at reworking things to just make the game work easier. You could also ensure to build in some list building constraint ideas to help facilitate less focused strategies and push armies into something a bit more interesting.
6 – Build Detachments Abilities Based on Keywords
This has me looking at AOS and how they build things like Nurgle armies or Khrone armies. Creating some interesting army wide rules if certain thing are locked in would be cool. Of course this is needing to make sure everything is balanced but it would work out to be an interesting system.
7 – Limit Alpha Strikes
There has to be something to ensure games work from turn 2 on. With some of the Nerf’s and how armies and terrains are being built means going first isn’t always needed – but they need to look at allowing armies to still work well thru a barrage of death. Look at how Apocalypse works this with damage happening at the end of the game turn. This would be an interesting set of rules and allows both sides to fully go “off” and let armies get a chance to work with all their toys.
8 – Rework Terrain Rules
We need better set of rules for terrain. I don’t want everyone to have cover all the time but there has to be some things that can be simplified and still work well. Terrain is important but we need to have better rules other then having playing fields full of Walls and infantry hugging them all the time.
9 – Move the story Forward
I really like how we had a lot of movement before 8th edition came out. I was hoping we would see more in Psychic Awakening but it seems most of the books has an event happen and then it isn’t resolved by the end of it. It feels like everyone is waiting for another Cadia to fall and it would be nice to see something happen other then a continued stalemate/stare down between the good guys and the misunderstood guys.
10 – Release of the Default Rules for Free
AOS showed how powerful a free set of rules can be so having 40k follow in a similar fashion would be a cool thing. This way people could easily have the 20 or so pages needed to get started with the game and while having a hard cover book is nice to have – you don’t need it all the time. Plus it would allow them to update their main rules whenever an FAQ changes things easier and faster then just having a stream of PDF’s and answering questions.
I am sure there are a few other things we could see but this should be a nice place to start discussing ideas. I expect will see an announcement before long with all the rumors and chit chat we have seen lately. I’ve been happy with how they have responded in the game lately and hope this update continues that fashion of paying attention and making sure their game works.
~How close is this to your list for the next edition?
