Can GW win them back? We break down the rules, balance, and community updates needed to save Warhammer 40k in 11th edition.
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The Long War: Episode 523
Article Table of Contents:
Show Summary:
This week, the crew talks about the rules, balance, and community updates needed to save 11th edition. Here are the key takeaways, section by section:
- 00:01-03:35: Rob Baer, Kenny Boucher, and Wyatt open The Long War with some hobby-table nonsense about Wyatt accidentally ordering a gigantic Tamiya hobby saw that looks better suited for battlefield surgery than cutting plastic miniatures.
- 03:35-11:20: Wyatt’s Cave of Wonders asks whether it would be easier to secretly live in a casino or on a cruise ship for a year, which quickly turns into a debate about casino security, hiding among cruise ship crews, 1990s scams, and how much easier the whole scheme might have been before smartphones and modern surveillance.
- 11:20-15:18: Marvel Crisis Protocol gets a major rules update, with character and crisis cards changing across the game and many characters receiving more stamina. Rob likes that Atomic Mass Games is standardizing an older game through card updates instead of blowing everything up with a completely new edition.
- 15:18-19:53: Team USA wins the World Team Championships, including first place in singles and an overall team victory after a dramatic path through the event. They also talk about how the WTC has grown from a relatively niche competitive event into something much more visible across the 40k community.
- 19:53-24:29: Hobby and gaming releases roll through the news desk, including new 11th edition terrain from Squad Marks, Fallout: Wasteland Warfare second edition bundles, pre-painted terrain from Micro Art Studio, new Age of Sigmar Gargants, Monument Hobbies One-Step Wave Two paints, and a short delay for Dawn of War 4.
- 24:29-31:15: Games Workshop’s latest price increases take center stage, with roughly 1,600 products reportedly going up around four percent on average. Combat Patrols, Spearheads, Battleforces, Primarchs, paints, sprays, and big kits like the Baneblade all get discussed, while the hosts point out that some individual models have now crossed the $200 mark.
- 31:15-37:23: The new $40 Codex format gets a more positive reaction, since it’s cheaper than the previous $60 books and is supposed to feed future updates through the Warhammer app during 11th edition.
- 37:23-46:47: Viewer Q&A turns into a wider discussion about why Games Workshop can charge so much for plastic, especially compared with companies like Tamiya and Bandai.
- 42:30-46:47: Digital Codex codes become one of the biggest viewer requests, with several people asking GW to simply sell app access without requiring a physical book. They agree digital rules would be convenient, but also point out that collectors still buy physical books in huge numbers, giving GW very little reason to abandon the current model.
- 46:47-56:10: The conversation shifts to rules updates, stagnation, and whether 40k should slow down, after a viewer suggests longer-lasting Codexes and more permanent core rules. They argue that stale rules have historically hurt miniature games and that frequent updates help keep broken mechanics from hanging around for years.
- 51:00-56:10: Suggestions for updated rulebooks and even FAQ sticker packs lead into the realities of Games Workshop logistics, including global printing, multiple languages, warehouses, shipping delays, and the cost of coordinating worldwide releases. What sounds like a cheap little printed fix gets considerably messier once it has to reach stores across multiple regions at the same time.
- 56:10-1:11:28: The final Q&A asks which era of Warhammer 40k was actually the best, with late ninth edition getting the strongest vote for overall gameplay while early fifth edition earns plenty of nostalgia points. Seventh edition gets absolutely dragged for formations, free units, re-rollable saves, brutal “remove from play” mechanics, and an era where tournament games could become wildly one-sided.
- 1:03:00-1:11:28: The hosts close by remembering how community tournament packs helped rescue competitive 40k during seventh edition, particularly through ITC, NOVA, and AdeptiCon, which fixed or banned some of the worst interactions. Wyatt caps it with a story about a Knight rolling a six on the old Stomp table, instantly removing a Swarmlord and causing his opponent to rage-quit on the spot, which is about as seventh edition as a story can possibly get.
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