8th Edition 40k Officialy Announced

Here's a link to a new 40k website

https://warhammer40000.com/

Here's an FAQ they posted about the new edition.

https://warhammer40000.gw-hub.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/04/New-Edition-of-40K-FAQ.pdf

TL;DR The rules will be free, all current codecies won't be compatible. Seems they're most likely going to stick to a General's Handbook system for points where all factions have points in one book. They claim they aren't dumbing it down, but I'm hoping for a massive simplification of the core rules ala Age of Sigmar.

The last time they did a massive simplification was 3rd edition, widely recognized as the worst version of 40K ever. I don't play anymore, but that's the last thing I'd be hoping for.

Jackwraith wrote: The last time they did a massive simplification was 3rd edition, widely recognized as the worst version of 40K ever. I don't play anymore, but that's the last thing I'd be hoping for.

Worst version of 40k ever? Widely recognized? It was a massive departure from second ed, granted. But that was a good thing.

Have you ever tried to resolve close combat in 2nd ed in anything under an hour? Nobody ever moved, because everyone was on over watch. Then there was the problem of allies, which GW brought back. That stuff works great in the necromunda scale, but not anything larger. Second had some neat stuff, but GW wanted to sell models and in order to promote larger games, streamlined was necessary. Things started getting progressively stupid after 4th ed. Culminating in the utter shit fest that is now 7th ed.

I saw someone say in an other forum today that people who don't like 7th ed are cry babies that can't be bothered to learn a system.

I posit that people who love 7th ed are ignorant of how well war games can work nowadays, let alone the past 20 years, since they cannot pull their heads far enough out of their asses to see what anyone else has done. For example, UGOIGO is so fucking dated, it should be considered Paleolithic.

Some people expect a high degree of quality for the dollars they throw at something. I think going back to straight 3rd ed by this point old be an incredible improvement over the current edition. I'd go so far as to say even 2nd ed would be better, warts and all.

If the intention was to improve the game, it seems like GW should have been able to settle after four or five editions. But it's obvious that the biggest problem with 7th edition was that everybody already had it and they weren't able to make any more money off it.

If they left AoS mostly alone and got rid of Allies I'd consider playing again. As it is, it's min_max as fuck and favors army building navel gazing over tactics.

MEH

Meh. I was hoping the "big" announcement would be about Adeptus Titanicus. I really want to get into Armageddon but have no intention of getting into a full-blown minis game. Skirmish gaming with campaigns is where it's at for me.

Colorcrayons wrote: Worst version of 40k ever? Widely recognized? It was a massive departure from second ed, granted. But that was a good thing.

Well, let's just set the bar high here, shall we? Yes, cutting back on the excesses of 2nd Ed. was a good thing. But swinging the pendulum completely in the other direction wasn't. 3rd Ed. kicked off the era of the Space Marine in 40K and it took years for it to change to something equitable for any army that lacked a 3+ save unless you played very specific compositions. They spent the next 4 or 5 years making upgrades to everything to bring it back to much of what it had been in 2nd in order to make other armies playable. I'd learned to play Dark Eldar in 3rd Ed. just because I wanted to try the new army, but it was awful until they finally recognized that their new army wasn't selling (just like Terminators!) and introduced changes in White Dwarf; changes that they debated with DE fans on the Web, in GW's first excursion into direct communication with their fanbase (this was back when they had declared that people complaining were "Internet crazies", as opposed to their "real fans.") 3rd Ed. stripped out all the chrome that made the game interesting and varied. That's why the game grew. The pinnacle of that was the new Chaos codex (since the army was essentially unplayable until then) written by Pete Haines during what many referred to as 40K 3.5. Of course, Jervis decided that was too fancy, what with people having access to all kinds of weird items and being able to make Chaos champions that were unique and had actual flavor and story potential. So they produced the 4th Ed. codex that stripped all of that out and, of course, sales tanked again.

I got out of all of their games for many of the reasons Pete mentions, as well as the main one being the necessity of super-monster/Titan models in games. I didn't feel like spending $150 for one model. But there's almost no way that reverting to 3rd will help the game move forward. That's reactionary. There's a happy medium to be found between whatever the game is now/2nd edition and the bare bones dice chucking of 3rd. If they find it, good on them. But this being GW, I doubt it.

Colorcrayons wrote: Have you ever tried to resolve close combat in 2nd ed in anything under an hour?

Was 2nd edition the one where you added d6s equal to your number of attacks to your Weapon skill and that would determine how many hits you'd then test your strength against their toughness with? And you could parry (force a re-roll of the d6) if you had a sword? Or something like that? If so, that's the edition I learned on, back in ... '97 or so.

I thought people's problem with 3rd (which is where I started, so I have nostalgia for it) was the perceived blandness of the codecies? If 8th ends up like AoS, units will have special rules out the ass, but they'll all be conveniently slayed out on their warscroll and not spread across multiple tomes as it is now.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2017/04/40k-live-faq-round-up.html

Some info on the live stream FAQ they did today. Some interesting things I saw:

Free Rules? How will we get them?
Digital copies available and printed verisons at FLGS and Games Workshop Stores.

Warhammer 40k App for list building?
Working on it, not available for launch but it’s on the way!

How will points work?
Two different types of points!
1 – Powerlevel points – this is a basic, very broad brush gauge for a unit. It’s designed for Narrative play so you can have an idea of how powerful your army is and play in a more relaxed way.
2 – Matched Play Points – this is the very granular option. Weapons, options, etc. all have points costs – like the current system.

Will there be new factions?
Yes. and possibly some new ones at launch…

What’s the typical Game length (time wise)?
For a 1500 point game, shooting for a 90 minute game.

They also seem to be giving vouchers for people who recently bought books. Combine that with the lessons learned from AoS launch (points on launch!!), hopefully they can head off some of the wailing.

If they can pull off a 1500 pt game being reliably 90 mins, that's a major feat. But I'm skeptical.

Even combat patrol and kill team games take 90+ mins during the more streamlined years of 4th and 5th.

Colorcrayons wrote: If they can pull off a 1500 pt game being reliably 90 mins, that's a major feat. But I'm skeptical.

Same. That jumped out at me, too. I don't think I ever played a game of 40K that wasn't 2 hours, minimum. We once tried playing Combat Patrol or Kill Team games on the regular over our lunch hour at a store that was in walking distance for a lot of us. Couldn't do it. Setup time, measuring movement, and fistfuls of dice just takes too long. I did however play a couple games of Fantasy that went that short, mostly because someone failed a panic test early and watched a 600 point unit run off the board in turn 1 or something like that. Fantasy morale rules could be brutal sometimes. Not quite as bad as movement, pre-8th Ed., though.

Yeah that playtime seems a bit ambitious. Assuming it doesn't include setting up terrain and unpacking your 150 Ork Boyz.

Intrigued by the idea of two points systems. Assuming the power level points for narrative play will be like what's currently in AoS, where you pay points for a box worth of dudes (with some exceptions) and equip them however you want. So like 10 Marines cost X, Leman Russ costs Y,doesn't matter what you put on them.

Then have the more nitty gritty point system for match play where you're paying separate for krak grenades and whatnot.

I personally like the AoS system so would probably use the laxer, simpler point system against friends at home but it's nice to see they'll be supporting both.

And don't even get me started on WFB's morale system and my poor skittish goblins.

http://natfka.blogspot.com/2017/04/see-8th-ed-40k-qna-video.html#more

Here's a link to the full FAQ stream they did earlier.

OK, so after watching the FAQ, I think I understand these Command Points that will be in the new edition.

So the core rules will now come with 14 different Force Org charts, with more to come in the codecies. Each FOC will be given an allotment of Command Points. The core rules will come with generic abilities you can spend Command Points on, with more army specific ones coming in the codecies. Examples of abilities they gave were re-rolling dice or interrupting the sequence of attacks in close combat. Sounds like you can only spend one per phase but can spend them on your opponent's turn.

Hmm sounds like space hulk rules.

I wonder how many actions a tau fire warrior will get to spend in order to shoot that chaos cultist down the corridor?

But will the cultist spend a command point to unjam his gun from his failed overwatch shot?

Ha ha, yeah. 90 minutes. Does 8th also include a time dilation device? I will believe it when I see it.

So it looks like 5 books on launch day, I'm thinking one of those is going to be whatever the General's Handbook equivalent is. And then three "Grand Alliance" style books (Imperium, Xenos, Chaos). Probably the fifth is the campaign book. There is also apparently a "new faction" for launch day- I'm thinking this is the Ynnead.