Black Blow Fly swinging through your neighborhood again… this time around I am here to spread the truth about a game many of us have played and let’s be honest there’s some hate out there. Yes I’m talking about Warhammer 40k. So let’s get down to business.
6th edition was the bastard child of Jervis Johnson and Mat Ward.
Escalation featuring the eldar Revenant Titan, networked fortifications – it was a huge mess. I think it’s fair to say most players would rather not have to deal with the new things like strength D. Trying to sale the game at the Apocalypse level failed in every way possible. The game takes too long to play and there are too many rules to remember.
We all like to see new armies but GW went overboard – Harlequins, Genestealer Cult, Scions, Skitarri, etc. It’s too much at too rapid of a pace. You can take all the new Chaos Space Marine supplements recently released and kiss them good bye. Everything is getting a reboot when 8th edition releases.
I have divorced myself from the game playing Horus Heresy exclusively which interestingly enough is a balanced game both externally and internally… the main reason why is that most of the armies draw from the same pool of units and special rules. Horus Heresy is often referred to as Space Marines 24-7 but it works and it works very well as a game. Very rarely have I ever had a game of 30k that devolved into long drawn out arguments about the rules. Forge World got something right and it’s kind of a big deal. What we can take from this as a lesson is if the armies are all balanced against each other it can work with most any external ruleset. Wrap your head around that GeeDub.
40k to me is a huge disaster zone right now with the imbalance between armies and over complexity of the rules. The funny thing to me is people who say that 8th edition will harken back to the age of 2nd edition… WRONG. 6th and 7th edition in their own way are both much more like 2nd edition with so so many rules that are needless, add nothing to your experience, offer totally no immersion and just make the game take that much longer to play – epic fail yet again.
Another big deal to me which is a total turn off to playing 40k is the über competitive side of the game. You can’t really polish a big pile of fresh poop no matter how hard you try and let’s be real… winning is fun but come on let’s have some self respect. If it takes fielding eldar and Tyranids to be competitive why bother ? To me the rules should be maintained SOLELY by GW…
I really don’t want to play by a set of house rules created by any third party according to how they think the game should be played. What you end up with is a Frankenstein’s monster that for the most part that just makes the top four armies that much better and yes there is a lot of collateral damage – how many times have you been asked to play by a set of house rules when you just want to play a pick up game for fun ?!
Screw that. What happened is you have a small number of super competitive tournament players that travel to all the major events putting a lot of leverage on the third party FAQ… we are talking about less than 500 players. They play the game simply to win and each victory is another notch on the collective bed post. They do not care about background or immersion… it’s really not a hobby to them.
They just want to win and the third party FAQ illustrates this mind set. I remember when the new psychic powers were released for Space Marines in the Army of Death supplement. The person in charge of the third party picked and chose which ones would be NERFed on a podcast much to the delight of competitive gamers who focus on the shooting phase.
Why should one person have that much influence ?!
So now the shoe finally drops… what can GW do to bring back a game we used to all love ? Eradicating all current codices and supplements is a huge step in the right direction. If your arm is unrepairable then lop it off. The game needs a fresh start much like 3rd edition when GW did the same thing. 3rd edition was a golden age in many ways. Get rid of needless rules that add nothing to your experience or immersion in the game.
Every army should be as equally competitive as possible. Get rid of formations and the current ally matrix. How messed up is Ynnari… you kill one enemy model and your opponent’s entire army gets to shoot and assault you – really GW ?!!
I really don’t want to play by a set of house rules created by any third party according to how they think the game should be played.
I am very excited about 8th edition. GW said they are going to give us what we really want and they have a lot of people onboard with them… a lot of people. Make it a hobby again. Über competitive gamers should not dictate how the game is played. Give the game back to the people again. It’s just that simple.
The game could make a huge come back as a hobby and less epic fail.
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About the Author: Steve Turner
