Warhammer 40K: Can We Just Bring Back Universal Special Rules Already?
Let’s take a look at why USRs should come back to 40K.
Universal Special Rules (USRs) were a staple of most editions of 40K. These were basic special rules shared by a large number of units in the game. Rules like Feel No Pain, Deep Strike, Infiltrate and many others. In the old rule books a handful of pages would be dedicated to writing out these rules and what they did. Individual units then would simply have the rule listed on their date sheet. In 8th Edition GW did away with these opting instead to give every unit unique rules. This was touted as a way to simplify things. However an edition later this seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity that has already been walked back. Let’s take a look at why GW should just bring USRs back.
Slimming Down the Rules
During the lead up to 8th’s release it was announced that the game would be moving away from USRs. This was touted as a way to keep the rules smaller and simpler and make the game easier to learn. Rather than having to read through and learn a handful of USRs you would only have to bother with the rules that affected your units, which would be unique and tailored to the unit itself. On the surface it can be said that this was a success. The main rules in 8th were kept to 8 pages and didn’t have to waste space on USRs.
The thing is, all those rules are still there. However instead of being in one handy place, they were put on unit cards. It’s not like most USRs were removed from the game. GW simply changed where they were written. While it technically kept the core rules simpler and short, it doesn’t make the game any less complex. It just moves the complexity from the core rules to the unit rules. In a lot of ways this actually makes the game harder to understand as you must read each enemy unit to make sure you know exactly what it does. By 9th the Core rules themselves had grown significantly, doing away with the need for short core rules at all.
No Rule’s Ever Really Gone
Now despite saying that 8th did away with USRs, there were a couple of rules that stuck around that seemed a lot like USRs. The two most prominent ones were the Fly and Vehicle keywords. While most keywords don’t have any inherent rules attached to them, these two do come with some baggage. The Vehicle keyword is a grey area here, I would say. While it modifies a vast number of units in the same way, it doesn’t inherently do anything. It only comes into effect when interacting with other things, normally terrain and weapons. While it acts kind of a like a USR I don’t think it fully meets the rules.
Fly, on the other hand, seems a lot like an old USR. This is a generic keyword that affects a lot of units in the game. It comes with several inherent rules/exceptions to rules, that are not listed in a codex. To understand how fly works you have to have to main rules, and the fly rules are shared by all units with the rule. 9th Edition went even farther and added Aircraft rules. at A few related rules, such as Airborne, Supersonic, Hard to Hit, and Hover Jet also seem much like USRs. These rules are shared by many units across factions, with the same names and rules. The only thing setting them apart from USRs is that they are printed in full on the datasheets. 8th and 9th both had some version of USRs, even if they wont admit it.
Return of the USRs
The end of 8th Edition, and particularly 9th Edition have seen a slow reintroduction of USRs, even if no one wants to admit it. When Bolter Drill was first introduced as a rule for instance it effected multiple armies and factions. It was hard to see it as anything but a USR.
In 9th Edition we’ve seen a greater standardization of army wide rules. In particular this has been when it comes to deployment rules. When GW moved to get rid of USR each of these rules was given a special name per unit and fully written on the units datasheet.
In 9th Edition, Codexes have turned these into a standard rule. So for instance in 7th Edition Swooping Hawks and Warp Spiders both had the Deep Strike USR. In 8th it was split with Warp Spiders getting Warp Strike and Swooping Hawks having Children of Baharroth. In 9th these units now both have the army wide rule Sudden Assault. This rule is identical to the Marine rules Death From Above and Teleport Strike (in fact most players will just call it deep strike). 
Just Bring Back USRs
Ultimately I’m not sure why we can’t just bring back Deep Strike as a USR or other USRs. Is there a particularly good reason to have three rules (just from these two books) that do the exact same thing? Would it not simplify the game more to just have one rule with one name? I’m not saying go back to the 7th model where there were 100 USRs and every unit was just a combination of a bunch, but it seems for some very common things we should just bring them back.
Let us know if you think USRs should be brought back, down in the comments!
