Anyone for 6th edition

[Admiral-Badruck]

Why are we talking about things that are what they are and things that could be may be if only. I am going to read this I would like it to have something useful. Or fact baced just MHO but rumors are thebigest waste of time I can think of right up there with listening to podcasts.

[Primarch]

Why are we talking about things that are what they are and things that could be may be if only.

Because things haven't always been what they are and won't always be either. You've got to stop living in the past or the present. This is the future! If you have nothing to contribute, then please feel free to contribute nothing at all (ie, posting a comment saying "I dont like this type of thread" is unnecessary). It was pretty obvious from the title and my first post that this discussion was about things which may or may not happen at some stage in the future. If that doesn't interest you, dont bother reading further.
Personally, I happen to like rumours. I spend my time hunting them down on the web, sifting through various bits and pieces and posting the more interesting ones here to start a discussion. Kind of like what that one guy does with podcasts.

[AndrewGPaul]

As well as Liturgies of Blood, Honour of the Chapter, Descent of Angels, Red Thirst, The Black Rage and None Can Stay My Wrath.

Because: 'Reroll to hit', 'fearless', 'pretty good at deepstriking', 'get a USR 1 time in 6', 'get 3 specific USRs' and 'ignore shaken and stunned' lack a certain impact. Likewise, Speed of Asuryan is there to give players a reason why they get a special rule. If you take away the unique names of the rules and boil it down to essentials, you take away the flavour of the rules and reduce the game even more to number crunching and rules lawyering.

That's what the background material is for. The rules section would be better saying "Since High Elves are reknowned for their supernaturally-fast reflexes, all High Elves have the 'Always strikes first' special rule", and then put "Always strikes first" in the stat block. Are you really saying that putting "Speed of Asuryan" instead of "Always strikes first" in the sta block in the army list is an improvement. It can hardly be said to be "reducing the game to number crunching" any more than all the numbers next to it!

Including unnecessary waffle in the rulebook is only a good thing if you're the guy selling ink to the printers.

In addition, I don't think any of those special rules are needed for flavour. Blood Angels managed fine in 2nd edition without any of that rubbish, and they were distinct enough.

[me_in_japan]

I'm kinda in favour of fluffiness in the rules. AGP mentioned representing ability via the statline, but thats exactly what they tried to do in the CSM codex, and its the rubbishiest, unfluffy piece of poo (see separate thread) theyve released in years.

I think that having fluff-appropriate names for special rules, and some (not necessarily bajillions of) special rules in each codex adds to teh character of the army. Its not necessary to learn all the special rules from all the codecii, just the ones for your own army. Its implicit in the nature of the game that you trust your opponent. I think 40k is aimed at the friendly gamer, not the tourney gamer, so as such a bit of waffly fluff is all to the good.

[Primarch]

I'm kinda in favour of fluffiness in the rules. AGP mentioned representing ability via the statline, but thats exactly what they tried to do in the CSM codex, and its the rubbishiest, unfluffy piece of poo (see separate thread) theyve released in years.

I think that having fluff-appropriate names for special rules, and some (not necessarily bajillions of) special rules in each codex adds to teh character of the army. Its not necessary to learn all the special rules from all the codecii, just the ones for your own army. Its implicit in the nature of the game that you trust your opponent. I think 40k is aimed at the friendly gamer, not the tourney gamer, so as such a bit of waffly fluff is all to the good.

I.....completely agree with M_i_J.
Something has gone terribly wrong with the universe.

[AndrewGPaul]

I'm kinda in favour of fluffiness in the rules. AGP mentioned representing ability via the statline, but thats exactly what they tried to do in the CSM codex, and its the rubbishiest, unfluffy piece of poo (see separate thread) theyve released in years.

Absolutely, or only compared to other books? And what is it that's wrong with that book? Again, the 2nd edition Chaos book didn't have the number of special rules the current one does, to my recollection.

Plague Marines, for example. What special rules do they need? What's special about them that needs a special rule rather than being T5? What special rules do they need, as opposed to having more army list options?

[Spevna]

Big Squig, a poster on Warseer, and his gaming group have done a 40K re-write. Here is a link to what they have done;

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=279315

If you get a chance, have a read through the rulebook and a codex just to get an idea of what they are trying to do.

I really like it and would love 6thEd to be similar.

[Konrad]

I'm pretty happy with the current edition. But then I'm pretty easy to please. I was happy with all the previous editions too, (except for some aspects of 2nd) I'm sure they will get around to making a 6th edition, or at least a "5.5". You can't totally re-write 40K, there are enough out of date Codexes as it is. Sisters and Chaos would make a good duo for a box set of plastics.
All a new edition really needs is to incorporate the errata, and a tweak here and there maybe. And Squats. HA! Wait! Wait! No Xenos, no beakies, no Guard........could it be........

[me_in_japan]

I'm kinda in favour of fluffiness in the rules. AGP mentioned representing ability via the statline, but thats exactly what they tried to do in the CSM codex, and its the rubbishiest, unfluffy piece of poo (see separate thread) theyve released in years.

Absolutely, or only compared to other books? And what is it that's wrong with that book? Again, the 2nd edition Chaos book didn't have the number of special rules the current one does, to my recollection.

Plague Marines, for example. What special rules do they need? What's special about them that needs a special rule rather than being T5? What special rules do they need, as opposed to having more army list options?

a fair question about the comparison to current codecii. I think my main problem with teh current CSM dex is that it doesnt let me do what I want to do with a chaos army, i.e. make a characterful warband, all of whom have some kind of distinguishing feature that says "nurgle". (when I say "all of whom" i dont mean individuals. squads of guys being identical is ok.)

I worry that, given the variety of unit types in 40k, if one differentiates them only by statline and USR then one is going to end up with 2 units in different codexes with identical stats/USR. Say, necron warrior and plague marine. Sure theyll have different guns (and thats a whole other can o worms. Do we go with USR for guns, too?) youd end up with:

Unit A:

WS4 BS4 S4 T4 W1 I2 A1 Ld10 Sv3+
Gun: Rapid Fire, S4 AP5
USR: FNP

Unit B:
WS4 BS4 S4 T5 W1 I2 A1 Ld9 Sv3+
Gun: Rapid Fire, S4 AP5
USR: FNP

wow. exciting. very evocative. Sure, the more experienced amongst us can differenntiate the PM from the 'cron, but it doesnt exactly draw a vivid picture, does it?

contrast:

Unit A:
WS4 BS4 S4 T4 W1 I2 A1 Ld10 Sv3+
Gun: Rapid Fire, S4 AP5 gauss weaponry: This gun flays its target, stripping the outer layers off atom by atom until all that is left is a flayed, shrieking skeleton. Then, that too is rendered down to its component molecules. All gauss weaponry can wound on at least a 6, even if the target is too tough to be wounded by the weapon's strength. Likewise, a gauss weapon always inflicts at least a glancing hit on the roll of a 6 when rolling to penetrate armour.
USR: Necrons are composed of fancy pants super metal stuff, which regrows when you shoot it or chop bits off. They have the FNP USR.

unit B:
WS4 BS4 S4 T5 W1 I2 A1 Ld9 Sv3+
Gun: Rapid Fire, S4 AP5
USR: Worshippers of nurgle are horrible stinky bloated bags of yuckiness, and as such a couple of bullet holes doesnt really put them off their stride. They have the FNP USR.
Plague marines often carry the shrunken heads of defeated enemy warriors with them when they go to war. By means of macabre ritual they shrink the heads, and, removing the brain, stitch shut the mouth, eyes, ears and nose. Thus prepared, the head is then filled with all manner of foulness - nurgling poo, scabby bits from under the plague marines armpits, and Beast of Nurgle dribble. The heads are thrown at enemy troopers whenever the plague marines draw near. To represent this, PMs have both assault and defensive grenades.

The latter two options use more ink (well, screen space) but they sure as hell colour in that mental image of necrons/PMs. Its also much more appealing to the inner eye if you know exactly what your guys are doing in-game when they get that -1 on the enemy assault.

So, dats why I vote for Fluffy Descriptions and Fluffy Waffle in the rules.

ps - dont know about you chaps, but about half an hour ago the bloody ground wobbled again. Freaks me out every damn time (and no disrespect intended to those up north, who clearly have it a lot worse than we do. Im just saying how unsettling it is being shaken around by the ground on a regular basis. Definitely my most disliked part of living here.)

[Primarch]

Big Squig, a poster on Warseer, and his gaming group have done a 40K re-write. Here is a link to what they have done;
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=279315
If you get a chance, have a read through the rulebook and a codex just to get an idea of what they are trying to do.

I see what they did there. They simply changed BS to the score it needs on the table and called Krak Grenades 'Tank Grenades.'
Ok, seriously though, they changed Initiative so that you're either Fast, Normal or Slow, allow you to pull any models you like from a unit (Hey whaddaya know we're back to the 4th ed. days where the specialists live twice as long as the rest of the squad) and made it so that players take turns in each phase rather than having all 3 phases in a row then switching. Admittedly the alternating phases thing would change how the game plays, but none of the other changes were actually necessary in my opinion. I like the changes to wound allocation as it means you can kill specialists if you're lucky instead of having 9 meat shields to kill before you get at the guy with the melta gun. Initiative works nicely as it stands (I've never heard of anyone complaining about it before) and most of the other changes seem cosmetic rather than having a purpose (lances and meltas have the same effect). Its probably simpler, but 40k is hardly rocket science to begin with.