From GW shareholders to Joe and Jane Hobbyist, here’s what the community thinks about the new Warhammer 40k rules updates!
First off, we want to start by saying we think rules updates for Warhammer 40k, in general, are a great thing! As it keeps the game more competitive, stops it from getting stale, and NERFS down the newest flavor of cheese.
The community was asking for more updates and in a way, GW is delivering, just perhaps exactly way we would have wanted. The other way to think about the seasons is they will keep things more organized in general. Meaning, we will have a better idea of when army updates are coming out, what books to expect, and with the quarterly changes, hopefully, a more balanced game.
Warhammer 40k Seasons seem in theory to be a better version of the War Zone Octarius books as they will be more organized into time frames and we know when they will be coming out. So maybe these Warhammer 40k seasons are actually a good way to keep such a big game organized on both releases and rules.
However, we just wish there was a little bit more of a middle ground. Instead of spending cash on your new codex, models, and then now two Chapter Approved books a year, GW should at least just give out the points changes for free. Playing the game with the minis you spend money on should just be a value add.
We’ve always said it, free rules updates (just like patching your computer programs) are the way to go!
Sure we think there is value to the Chapter Approved book, and definitely recommend buying it for the new missions and objectives for sure (again the points changes should be free IMHO). However, to us twice a year is a bit heavy-handed by Games Workshop.
The other thing to think about all these updates is the fact not everyone will keep up. If you’re mad about paying for new rules, you don’t have to! Just prepare for some more casual games, which there is nothing wrong with that.
If you do want to keep on the cutting edge of the rules, however, you can expect to shell out more cash for the rules now. So perhaps more now than ever, vote with your hobby dollars!
If you don’t want to pay for the new rules, don’t. If you want to stay up to date, then grab them.
What the Community Thinks About the New 40k Rules Updates
We polled a lot of people in the community the past few days, and they all had similar feelings about the changes. It keeps seems to keep the game moving for competitive players but that’s about it. If you’re just casually gaming on the weekends, the updates don’t generally change your point of view all that much. There are even a lot of players who just don’t really keep up with them as of now, which is totally fine too.
Let’s hear what the community has to say!
What the Community Thinks About the New 40k Rules Updates
We asked tons of content creators, store owners, big names in the tabletop wargaming space, and even some Games Workshop Employees and shareholders themselves what they thought of the new changes.
The more insightful responses are below, and almost all wanted to be kept anonymous because their opinion does not reflect the views of their employers and/or their brands. Memes by the one any only Sepulcher of Heroes. Here are some other comment threads in the 100’s on the same topic as well.
- I’ll still play I probably will just get some rules wrong lol
- I mean, it’s why I can’t really play competitively anymore. I don’t have the time or energy. So now I just buy, build, paint and play models I want to
- People that play in two tournaments a year also consider themselves “tournament” players.
So they harp on GW even though they go to LVO and a local GT or on the other hand locals that only play in RTTs also considers themselves “tournament” players.
So while you’re right, there’s likely 1000 actual tournament players in NA and maybe 2000 globally, they and tournament play are a highly visible aspect of GWs business. It’s a perceived audience. - If you’re talking about campaign books etc… it doesn’t have an impact at all around here. Hobbyists don’t chase the meta. We play with what we have for the most part and buy stuff to make out armies more effective over a longer time period (rather than month to month). Nobody I know gives a shit if their army might change by a few units in 6 months or a year. For example, say they came out with a new campaign book that changed the way Paladins and Purifiers worked. I might pick up the book because I’m a completionist, but for most people, it isn’t going to radically change their army. They might pick up a box of Paladins. But they aren’t all of a sudden running a super Paladin/Purifier-heavy army. I would for laughs. But I wouldn’t buy any new models. A lot of the people I know who buy the campaign books actually do it for the fluff and not the rules. Keep in mind that the majority of people I interact with could give a shit about the ITC or tournaments in general. When we host tourneys we intentionally make it so they are not ITC as it keeps the tryhards out and makes for a better general experience for everyone, though since the pandemic started, there have been no tourneys locally. I will admit 40k night is lighter than it used to be, but that is because the shop put a cap on how many people can be in the back room at any given time. And honestly, the folks I’ve been playing with, we’ve been way more into kill team than 40k. That’s largely because I’m super busy and don’t have time to do much else. At our place, 40k stuff doesn’t linger long. Recently, I saw a few of the battleforce boxes not move. And it was mostly Space Marines. The Necrons and sisters were gone. Dominion still lingers but I think that’s because The pandemic hit the already smaller AOS player base hard.
- To be honest, if you want to know what I am really doing. I have dumped gw for the most part for crisis and infinity. Everyone has said the same thing
They are all unhappy
- I have to agree with you. The rules should be free and designed to keep the game fun and interesting and balanced…but they should not require people to A) buy books constantly or buy entirely new armies just to compete in matched play
As a long-time investor in GW Stock, I love seeing them do what they do, but they are going to kill the golden goose if they keep this up. The way to increase revenue is to stop milking the same damn people and instead reach new markets (as they have been with all the licensing, etc,…but this should be their primary focus: grow their customer base instead of just trying to maximize revenue off of the existing customer base). Just my thoughts. - Yeah, this is going to be a problem for your average Joe and many hobbyists. I think the only thing that might keep people from saying F it all together is Wahapedia and Battlescribe since those get updated with those rules when they come out and relieve that stress of having to buy a $40-60 book. Even then though like you said how much longer is Battlescribe going to be around with the guy that makes and updates it AWOL since 2019? The big turn-off for this game is the entry cost then add to it how GW packages some of their products. Like a new person isn’t going to know that an Arminger is a War Dog and nowhere on its current kit does it say that. They really need to add a good digital platform as well because the excuse of Brexit and Rona holding up Codex releases is pretty old for the digital age that we are in. I don’t understand how stockholders aren’t questioning the fact that there are no digital sales for rules and codices.
Get The New Sci-Fi Ruler Miniature!
- I do think that having a GT that only lasts 6 months might be bad for the competitive scene.
Like rules should last for an entire season and then update.
To me, a season should be a year. I think certain video games can get away with short seasons because they are regularly patched and updated throughout the season. GW has a hard enough time trying to “patch” their game in a few months with FAQs and the data slate. I feel like have 6 month seasons is a bad idea - I’m very much against their current pace of rules. I had multiple customers tell me just this week that one of the reasons they don’t necessarily want to get too deep into 40K is it simply too complex
We haven’t even been able to finish our newest crusade which only started a few months ago
Right now narrative play is basically all the complexity of match play but with even more rules on top. I’m simply at a loss of how they think that is good for casual players
Makes me wonder what the point of that survey was… I can’t believe the majority of players said “please give us even more rules” - I honestly can’t say I have been paying attention. Just too busy. The Eldar/Chaos box looks interesting
- I think that 3D printing is a ticking Time Bomb for them so they are trying to cash grab as much as possible while they still can. I agree with you, I have already checked out from keeping on top of all of the new rules and supplements. Me and my friends just can’t keep track of it with life. So I completely agree with you, there is going to be an even bigger gap between people who play in tournaments and the average person. I think with their increased production rate of Miniatures and supplements and Robux they are trying to throw as much coal on the furnace while they still can. They definitely do have a limited shelf-life. I don’t know if 3D printing will kill them in 10 years or 20 but there is an expiration date for them and they’re going to have to change their business model.
- I think the problem is they focus on this and it’s shortsighted. When I was a kid, GW stores were like a weekend kindergarten. It was the shop my mum left me in as she went shopping. Nowadays it’s all 20-40-year-olds. GWs current boom is only because those of us who grew up with GW in the 90s now have disposable income to play our childhood dream.
But there are no current GW kids for the next generation. As we age, their player base will dwindle unless they do something to get the current generation of kids invested - Honestly as mostly a painter and someone who rarely plays any of the games. My personal reaction is that I don’t care.
But yes, in regard to how I view this will impact the industry. It’s not a good thing. Whilst I like the idea of a “seasonal” approach, a la Fortnite. You are right that with this hobby, by the time people get an army, build then paint it. They’ll have a month left to compete in the season.
Like with Kill Team, they are widely diversifying the games. Wanna play Warhammer? You need to be a Warhammer specialist, wanna play Kill Team? You need to specialize in that game, Wanna play underworlds? Same again.
Heroquest coming back kinda proved to me that GW’s lineup is an overblown complicated mess. And whilst their intent is to lock in more gamers with deeper systems. I worry that they are just gonna put off so many existing hobbyists who just don’t have time and instead of making more money, they’ll lose some players and force the hardcore to buy more. They may eek out a win from this but at a detrimental cost. - I mean, it’s driving me to look more at 30k and Oldhammer projects
The instability is crazy
Meanwhile, some armies languish with 8th ed rules
And FW is getting pointed into oblivion
I’m okay with a Chapter approved adjusting points every 6 months
But these campaign books, I even think people would be more accepting if all digital was still an option
Why are they trying to put a video game concept into a tabletop game though
It’s like the grind in destiny
- Since I got away from competitive 40K, I find less people actually give a damn about books, supplements, faqs, errata and “paywalls” than I used to think was the case. Seems far fewer people feel the need to stay on top of “the meta” than we tend to assume when we view every release through the lens of competition. That having been said, I’ve run into a lot of situations where two people are having a casual game and one person brings a unit or formation from a recent book and the other isn’t aware of it and is at a disadvantage, which leads to feel-badsies. Do most people in the hobby care? Honestly, I don’t think they do. Does this type of release schedule / business practice alienate the people who do care? Yes, it does. Are there better ways to get this kind of content out? Yes. Firstly stop putting any kind of new units, improvements, rules changes in these. If it’s a narrative campaign, make it just that. Any campaign rules need to be specific that they’re not for matched play. Matched play needs to be a separate thing entirely with one single update each year in chapter approved.
- Frequent updates are great. I doubt many people even own most of the books now
They hyped this damn app so much and now I just feel like they have left it - I mean, it’s why I can’t really play competitively anymore. I don’t have the time or energy.
So now I just buy, build, paint and play models I want to - Yeah, I was feeling an odd amount of stress in my life for some reason a while back and I did a little self-examination and found that I was putting stress on myself to get everything painted/stay up to date on all the new rules. I just kind of checked out and stopped caring what they were releasing and now before every game I kind of brush up on any changes and I feel better lol
- The problem is, GW is constantly releasing overpowered books. It’s evidence that they don’t listen to playtesters, playtesters have told me that they don’t really listen to them either, again perceived playtesting…
- Well, sounds like a lot of the store managers aren’t exactly hype for this either. Not enough people care. Casual players don’t buy things like this and competitive players WONT buy them. So they’re gonna sit on the shelf and collect dust. Stores will get too many copies of these and not enough codexes.
Final Thoughts
As we said before, the idea of keeping the game balanced is good. However, it seems like we all just wish they went about it a different way than directly into our pocketbooks during this difficult time.
The seasons also have the chance to keep things more organized- it’s just the fact of paying for more rules (and learning two sets a year instead of smaller updates to small things to balance) is not what perhaps anyone wants outside of those 1000- 2000 “tournament players” worldwide.
If they had a great working mobile platform that actually put everything in one place and just updated it for free, that would probably be the easiest, but we all know how the app has been going…
So, it’s really more about how Games Workshop is doing it rather than what they are doing (which is kinda the way it goes with a lot of community opinions).
We all want a balanced game and this could be the way to do it. To us, it just seems like most folks just don’t want to spend that much on rules, and we can’t really expect new players to can we?
Maybe a good approach to all of this is to take some of the ideas above and just play more chill games and hobby when you don’t feel like “playing” Warhammer 40k!
Here’s all the latest on the upcoming rules updates and points changes for Warhammer 40k.
- RUMORS: New 40k Points Changes In Chapter Approved 2022
- RUMORS: New 40k Core Rulebook & Rules Changes on the Way
- RUMORS: New Primaris Space Marines 40k Rules & Minis
- New 40k Chapter Approved GT 2022 Missions
- New 40k Grand Tournament 2022 Secondary Objectives
- Warhammer 40k Balance Updates & Rules Changes
- All The Tau 40k Rules So Far
- New Chaos Space Marines Rules & Rumors
- Eldar Release Rules & Rumors
- Adeptus Custodes 40k Release Latest
- Genestealer Cults 40k Rules & Rumors
All the Newest GW Model & Rules Previews For 2022
How do you feel about the shorter seasons and more Warhammer 40k rules updates?
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About the Author: Rob Baer
Rob Baer
Job Title: Managing Editor
Founded Spikey Bits in 2009
Socials: Rob Baer on Facebook and @catdaddymbg on X
About Rob Baer: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor of Spikey Bits, the leading tabletop gaming news website focused on the hobby side of wargaming and miniatures.
Rob also co-founded and currently hosts the Long War Podcast, which has over 350 episodes and focuses on tabletop miniatures gaming, specializing in Warhammer 40k. and spent six years writing for Bell of Lost Souls.
Every year, along with his co-hosts, he helps host the Long War 40k Doubles Tournament at Adepticon and the Long War 40k Doubles at Las Vegas Open, which attracts over 350 players from around the world.
Rob has won many Warhammer 40k Tournaments over the years, including multiple first-place finishes in Warhammer 40k Grand Tournaments over the years and even winning 1st place at the Adepticon 40k Team Tournament.
With over 30 years of experience in retail and distribution, Rob knows all the products and exactly which ones are the best. As a member of GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association), he advocates for gaming stores and manufacturers in these difficult times, always looking for the next big thing to feature for the miniatures hobby, helping everyone to provide the value consumers want.
While he’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (since 5th Edition) and has been hobbying on miniatures since the 1980s, Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and models made of both pewter and resin.
