It's been an internet rumor for a little while now, but the new White Dwarf has officially announced the impending arrival of the 7th Edition of 40K.

Does it seem unusually soon after the last Edition to anyone else...?

I dunno...a lot of water has passed under the bridge since 2012, still 2 years does seem a little soon.

Maybe they realized that 99% of 6th ed was stupid?

Maybe they realized that 99% of 6th ed was stupid?

I would love to hear more about this. I know 40k is a game designed to sell toy soldiers and not to be a good game, but I don't know any of the specifics.

The timeline sounds totally in keeping with GW's unapologetic profit-seeking. Only been two years? Sorry nerds, that $60 book isn't any good anymore! Better shell out another $60 if you want to keep playing!

I'll probably do the same as I do with Windows: skip the even numbers. Which means I might get on the programme with 7E. Maybe.

Games Workshop has one giant problem: their longtime customers already have armies and all kinds of minis and they need to find ways to sell more minis. One way to do that is Unbound Armies, so you can field 25 Riptides or 19 Land Raiders. Last edition they went for flyers and fortifications. Now that everyone has them and sales of those fell, they need to come up with something new. Dont know details but rest assured that the edition will be geared towards making you buy new minis.

It's all martketing.

Alex

I would love to hear more about this. I know 40k is a game designed to sell toy soldiers and not to be a good game, but I don't know any of the specifics.

Well... I'm not the ideal source, because I mostly disagree with the major criticisms of 6e. But the hilights are something like this:

It's way too ******* random! This covers terrain with random effects, random charge ranges, random psychic powers, warlord traits, and so on. And from the point of view of the Tourney crowd and anyone else who're primarily in it to win it, that strikes me as a pretty legit complaint.

Not so much warlord traits and terrain, perhaps, but the other random things can definitely change the course of a battle and completely screw you over.

For a gamer like me, who's in it for the friends and the beer, the chance to paint minis and make awesome terrain, and to write and play story-heavy campaigns, The New Random™ is pretty much an improvement all-round. It's been a huge benefit to the narrative of the battles, as I'm sure you can easily imagine.

Fliers! The addition was a game-changer, and if you're playing to win you are understandably not fond of change. I also think there was a lot of fear that fliers would take over the game, but in my opinion that hasn't happened.

I'm not altogether in love with all the fliers that have been added to the game. I think some of them need some tweaks. But overall I've been thrilled to add a lot of great and interesting minis to the game, and learning where and how they fit in. And how to take them out.

Pace of Armylist releases! Again, if you play to win you want the meta game to stay still so you can nail it. Totally understandable, and I really-honestly am not without a lot of sympathy for for this point of view. It's a wargame, not a RPG.

But - perhaps especially - to someone like me who's been playing since 1e and still approach it as the sort of game that 1e was (a narrative driven skirmish game), and by now has several assloads of minis and entire armies that are or have been in a state of limbo, sometimes for more more than a decade (now gimme back my Arbites you bastards! They're so old and disused they've fossilised), I am thrilled right down to my pinky toes that GW is finally getting their act together and publishing Armylists at a - to me - enormously much less aggravating rate.

GWs scattershot and mostly totally absent support for their own miniatures has always been my single greatest frustration with the game and the company. OK not always, but ever since 3e it's been a huge issue for me. And for everyone I play with.

Allies! I'm not sure this needs elaboration. It obviously throws a spanner in the meta game-works.

I assume it's also self-evident why it's a boon for guys with lots of armies and a more narrative approach.

The timeline sounds totally in keeping with GW's unapologetic profit-seeking. Only been two years? Sorry nerds, that $60 book isn't any good anymore! Better shell out another $60 if you want to keep playing!

6e was, in many ways, a kick in the teeth for the Tourney crowd. Not that they're the only ones who feel that way, but they're the loudest and the - in my opinion - most understandably pissed chunk of the player base.

It also appears that it was a small and experimental step in a very deliberate long-term move towards a more narrative-driven style of play with a lower barrier of entry and better support for long-term players with truckloads of minis.

That said, 7e is mystery pudding at this point. But the above seems to be the direction they're moving in, and in a strong way.

I'm not suggesting GW isn't in it for the money. Of course they are. But so is every other developer & publisher on the planet. If your approach to this is "they're just out to fleece everyone" , your perspective is going to be distorted.

No, they are out to fleece everybody. Fleece as in: trying to sell people products they might not crave without clever marketing. In particular, the point of each new edition is to provide incentive to buy new minis, which is where the money lies. Allies was a big part of that in 6E. "Oh, I can field Orks with my Crimson Fists now? How cool is that?! I'm going to buy an Ork army now!"

Alex

No, they are out to fleece everybody. Fleece as in: trying to sell people products they might not crave without clever marketing. In particular, the point of each new edition is to provide incentive to buy new minis, which is where the money lies. Allies was a big part of that in 6E. "Oh, I can field Orks with my Crimson Fists now? How cool is that?! I'm going to buy an Ork army now!"

Alex

I think the addition of fliers would be a much more obvious example of GW trying to push minis. But at least to me that seems like a win for everyone. GW gets to sell new minis, we get more tactical diversity and new models than aren't just slightly up-scaled remakes of existing ones.

I don't see how you can ever need anything wargame related. They're toys.

EDIT: If you want to rant and rage about the up-scaled line renewals and the general pricing, I'm with you all the way. But if anything the addition of Allies lowered the barrier of entry, and 7e's new FO options looks like they'll do the same. And like I said, fliers brought something genuinely new to the table - which I' pretty much always going to consider a win for the players.

The purpose of Unbound is to make players buy multiple minis of the same OP unit.

The purpose of Damonology is to make players add daemon minis to their stockpile.

The purpose of Allies was to give incentive for multiple army ownerships.

Such things are all very clearly marketing strategies.

Alex

PS I don't necessarily object to any of those rule changes but I do acknowledge their true purpose.

PPS Leaks about Daemonology seem to be out.

The purpose of Unbound is to make players buy multiple minis of the same OP unit.

The purpose of Damonology is to make players add daemon minis to their stockpile.

The purpose of Allies was to give incentive for multiple army ownerships.

Such things are all very clearly marketing strategies.

Alex

PS I don't necessarily object to any of those rule changes but I do acknowledge their true purpose.

PPS Leaks about Daemonology seem to be out.

I'm not sure whether you're aware of this, but Warhammer 40K has previously had all of those things.

Unbound Armies: from memory, it used to be you had to take 25% Troops, and could take up to 50% heavies and 50% characters. It also used to be that this system was the primary cause of the game's total lack of any semblance of balance. But I'm going to give GW the benefit of the doubt and assume their new approach doesn't have that side effect.

Given that assumption, this is a great change from my perspective. It makes it much easier to create highly themed armies and battles. It's also not going to affect how much I personally spend on the game. I have an annual 40K budget, and it is not subject to change (assuming I don't lose my job or get run over by a bus or something).

Daemonology: there's been a few ways to summon daemons. Lots and lots of them. And psyker spam your little black heart out. Not the primary cause of pre-3e 40K's total lack of balance, but certainly not helping any. But again I'm going to assume they haven't screwed it up.

Which again makes it a great change, because it too makes it easier to create highly themed armies and battles.

Allies: 1e in a nutshell was having multiple shifting allied forces running around and killing each other. Yet again helping remove any trace of game balance, and yet again I'm going to give GW the benefit of the doubt.

And yet again it facilitates narrative wargaming really well. And I'd argue lowers the barrier of entry into the hobby (the cash you gotta burn to start gaming), because it lets people run more armies, and more functional and interesting armies, for the minimal price. You don't have to buy an assload of troops and only then get to buy and play with the fun stuff. You can just buy and play with the fun stuff alone. And the more people you play with, the more true that becomes, assuming you don't have some weird aversion against borrowing each other's units.

And really, that goes for the other two changes as well. They let you focus on the stuff you want and doesn't demand you get stuff you might not be terribly interested in.

Or maybe not. Time will tell. But I hope I just showed you it's very easy to spin all of this stuff any way you please. And that there is no reason to do so before the facts are in.

And in case you're wondering why I'm so willing to give GW the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the effects the changes will have on actually playing the game, here's why: the playability of the core wargame has only ever gone up as far as I'm concerned. I'll grant that for competitive gamers, 6e may have been a step backwards. But then, if various 40K communities are to be believed, the hardcore competitive wargamers are a small minority. Most 40K players are 'casuals' like me.

Every marketing strategy can be rationalized and, yes, hardly anything is ever completely new.

It doesn't invalidate what I said above though.

Alex

It's way too ******* random! This covers terrain with random effects, random charge ranges, random psychic powers, warlord traits, and so on. And from the point of view of the Tourney crowd and anyone else who're primarily in it to win it, that strikes me as a pretty legit complaint.

Not so much warlord traits and terrain, perhaps, but the other random things can definitely change the course of a battle and completely screw you over.

I've seen/heard a few people connect the "It's way too ******* random!"-opinion with Tourney players, and this bothers me.

To me, the point of playing a wargame is as an interlectual excercise in tactics. There is little other purpose. If I want to forge a narrative, I'll pull out an RPG or start writing a book.

This is the point where I start, and I must say I hate how random 40K is becomming. Every time something changes (in the last decade or so) it feels more and more like it's all about rolling dice. Tactics feel less and less relevant. Which I think is a bad thing.

I'm not a tourney player, I do not feel even the slightest inclination towards such activities. I'm not nearly that competitive. Likewise I would reject the WAAC-y label, thank you so very much. But I like to think. And it feels like an excercise in who can roll the highest on a bunch of dice.

So yeah, I'm out.

I've actually found that the more I focus on the basics and tactics the easier a time I have beating stupid gimmicky tournament lists. I have won many 40k tournaments. Usually I run my straight up vanilla codex space marine force. People bring flyers and ally lists and all the meta-exploiting crap they want. The bottom line is that templates kill things, Tactical marines take objectives, a well placed squad of terminators with thunderhammers and storm shields with a well placed vindicator shell can upset the apple cart on anyone's day every time. That won't change in 7th ed

I'll just add my 2 cents here, un-asked for as it may be.

Mate, my two cents and a couple of walls of hype-train text were unasked for. Yours, however, were specifically asked for.

So thanks for giving your opinion. And now that I've read it, it's clear I basically straw-manned a hell of a lot of my fellow wargamers, so you have my unreserved apology. All I can say is it wasn't intentional.

Just as bad, I just about stated outright that GW can't cater to both you and me. And I really don't believe that. I don't even believe it would be very hard to do. The player base hasn't been splitting itself, GW has. And like a lovely little lemming my good sense got carried away by GW suddenly catering only to special little me's snowflake needs, over everyone else's. For no good reason.

... Man, the quality of my posts have really been scraping the bottom the last couple of days. Again, I'm sorry guys. I'll try to return to form. Maybe vitamins or something? Dang this is pretty embarrassing

So thanks for giving your opinion. And now that I've read it, it's clear I basically straw-manned a hell of a lot of my fellow wargamers, so you have my unreserved apology. All I can say is it wasn't intentional.

Just as bad, I just about stated outright that GW can't cater to both you and me. And I really don't believe that. I don't even believe it would be very hard to do. The player base hasn't been splitting itself, GW has. And like a lovely little lemming my good sense got carried away by GW suddenly catering only to special little me's snowflake needs, over everyone else's. For no good reason.

I know I do - usually when I'm tired.

... Man, the quality of my posts have really been scraping the bottom the last couple of days. Again, I'm sorry guys. I'll try to return to form. Maybe vitamins or something? Dang this is pretty embarrassing

And again, I know I do stuff like that when I'm tired, maybe the same goes for you?

It's way too ******* random! This covers terrain with random effects, random charge ranges, random psychic powers, warlord traits, and so on. And from the point of view of the Tourney crowd and anyone else who're primarily in it to win it, that strikes me as a pretty legit complaint.

Not so much warlord traits and terrain, perhaps, but the other random things can definitely change the course of a battle and completely screw you over.

For a gamer like me, who's in it for the friends and the beer, the chance to paint minis and make awesome terrain, and to write and play story-heavy campaigns, The New Random™ is pretty much an improvement all-round. It's been a huge benefit to the narrative of the battles, as I'm sure you can easily imagine.

Fliers! The addition was a game-changer, and if you're playing to win you are understandably not fond of change. I also think there was a lot of fear that fliers would take over the game, but in my opinion that hasn't happened.

I'm not altogether in love with all the fliers that have been added to the game. I think some of them need some tweaks. But overall I've been thrilled to add a lot of great and interesting minis to the game, and learning where and how they fit in. And how to take them out.

But - perhaps especially - to someone like me who's been playing since 1e and still approach it as the sort of game that 1e was (a narrative driven skirmish game), and by now has several assloads of minis and entire armies that are or have been in a state of limbo, sometimes for more more than a decade (now gimme back my Arbites you bastards! They're so old and disused they've fossilised), I am thrilled right down to my pinky toes that GW is finally getting their act together and publishing Armylists at a - to me - enormously much less aggravating rate.

GWs scattershot and mostly totally absent support for their own miniatures has always been my single greatest frustration with the game and the company. OK not always, but ever since 3e it's been a huge issue for me. And for everyone I play with.

Allies! I'm not sure this needs elaboration. It obviously throws a spanner in the meta game-works.

I assume it's also self-evident why it's a boon for guys with lots of armies and a more narrative approach.

6e was, in many ways, a kick in the teeth for the Tourney crowd. Not that they're the only ones who feel that way, but they're the loudest and the - in my opinion - most understandably pissed chunk of the player base.

It also appears that it was a small and experimental step in a very deliberate long-term move towards a more narrative-driven style of play with a lower barrier of entry and better support for long-term players with truckloads of minis.

The thing is that you do not need army lists, official rules etc for narrative style play. GW should just make clear "You can play this without all the formal rules to have a narrative game! Winning isn't all!" Allies didn't need official rules, they just needed something saying "If you are playing with mates, why not have armies from different factions ally up. It is supported by the background, it allows players to try new armies, and lets new players start with a small investment. Here are some suggested rules on how different factions might operate together." Instead they had the Allies Matrix... which is dumb, utterly abusive by competitive players, and just arbitrarily nerfs certain armies. Yes, Tyranids shouldn't be able to ally with anyone (neither should Necrons mind). But then don't have official competitive rules that allow anyone to ally. Leave those for friendly games between mates (support this kind of play, sure, but don't make it a legal free for all).

My main objection to flyers (and most of the bigger units) is that they don't belong in a game like 40k. 40k is a platoon to company infantry skirmish game. Flyers on this scale make no sense aside from the occasional off table support (essentially ordinance attacks from off table, or similar). These kind of higher level things should be left for games like Epic where they belong... and which GW should support properly.

Also, some of the fliers are just god awful ugly models. But I guess it seems they have gone this way with a lot of the models recently... the Imperial Guard truck thing they released recently is just... wrong. It is so bad , it is an assault on the very fabric of reality.

Narrative play has always been an option. Should GW have supported it more in the earlier editions... Yes. But Narrative play doesn't need official rules to support it, just cool models and background to play with, and good suggestions to encourage players to do it. More Battle Reports which break the normal rules etc. However, if you have formal rules for the construction of armies, keep them separate.

Yes, Tyranids shouldn't be able to ally with anyone (neither should Necrons mind).

Tyranids having "allies" actually make more sense than Necrons having allies - if you're forging a narative, wouldn't a Tyranid-IG or Tyranid-Tau alliance be just about the perfect way to exemplify the genestealer cults teaming up with the forces of the Hive Fleet they have summoned, before they are all devoured?

None of the Tyranid list is really well set up for representing Genestealer Cults well. Though, yes, you could have an Imperial Guard army splashing some Genestealers and maybe a Broodlord with that justification. Imperial Guard with a Carnifex? Erm... no.

Well, there was a Carnifex tamed by orks and improved using some Necron-Tech... I should totally use that in a Campaign once, simply because it's awesome.

To the overall Idea of a 7th Edition: Meh, I'm carefully looking forward to the new fluff, but since I stopped playing a few years ago, I'd rather stay with the PnP-Systems... that's the Role the Emperor determined for me: Participate in Roleplaying-Campaigns on both sides of the GM-Screen.

On the other hand, writing a narrative Campaign for a series of 40k Battles would be quite interesting, though it'd require the right players...

Big problem with the 7th Edition is not the 7th Edition itself (how would we know? it could be amazing for all we know at this stage). The problem is that armies are all separate release cycles. So whatever they do with 7th Edition, people will still be playing with the 6th Edition Imperial Guard and all its problems. People will still be able to field an unstoppable force of Imperial Knights or a line of Wave Serpents.

7th Ed. in WH40K doesn't carry the same weight as a new edition in most RPGs, for example. A lot of the play issues with the game are balance ones in the army lists and those will cross editions. For example, is there anything in the codexes these days that doesn't ignore cover?

Narrative play has always been an option. Should GW have supported it more in the earlier editions... Yes. But Narrative play doesn't need official rules to support it, just cool models and background to play with, and good suggestions to encourage players to do it. More Battle Reports which break the normal rules etc. However, if you have formal rules for the construction of armies, keep them separate.

The more narrative systems and mechanics, the better. But I wholeheartedly agree that stuff needs to be clearly marked "banned for competitive play". A rock solid core for competitive play is essential for everyone.

Things like randomly exploding low strength objective markers is great optional content, but it definitely doesn't belong in a competitive match where one side's objective capturing troops can die horribly to it, and the other side's ditto are functionally immune. For those who don't know, that's an example of what's in the 6e 'core' rules.

But let's wait and see. Considering all the flak they've taken and their recent sales drop, it's hard to imagine they haven't taken a long, hard look at what the player base has been saying.

The abundance of ignores cover stuff is the result of cover becoming so important, which is a result of armour becoming increasingly irrelevant (because of the dumb AP system, which has seen massive inflation in recent years), which is the result of armour being so important, which is a result of the daftness of true line of sight (so you usually can be shot regardless of where you are on the tabletop), which is a result of people massively misunderstanding the 4th edition terrain rules (which I think were probably the best of the post 3rd ed rules sets).

Me, I think I will play 1st and 2nd ed if I really ever want to play the tabletop again. 1st edition particularly can only really be played as a narrative game, and 2nd ed is chock a block full of the stuff, while as being a bit more regularised and refined (Assault aside... maybe reintroduce 1st edition assault rules to 2nd ed).

The simplicistic nature of 3E killed it for me (librarian powers?). I am fine with 5E actually, they just needed to price up mech. But then again that wouldn't have been enough to sell a new edition.

Alex

My favorite Edition was probably 4th. It was streamlined enough to neutralize most of 2nd Ed.'s 'power gamer' excesses, without the forced 'homogenization' of 3rd Ed.

I don't mind 7E per se, and I believe it will offer improvements compared to earlier rules.

At the same time, I have to agree about the timing. It starts to look like one of those NFL or World Soccer game series where you get a new edition every year.

There should be a law against companies releasing new editions before at least year has passed after updating every single army they have ever released.

GW should just make clear "You can play this without all the formal rules to have a narrative game! Winning isn't all!"

The funny thing is, they did!

If you check the 6E rulebook on page 108, it basically says "GW Codex army lists are the default, but if you want, feel free to make a game using whatever you want!" - such as any of their supplements, WD/CJ articles, Forge World army books, or even entirely homebrewed rules.

GW has been pretty open about the game much like they are open about the fluff, in that they leave it up to the individual players to agree on what they want to use. The only thing that matters is that your opponent is on the same page as you are. As far as GW is concerned, they just want to sell their minis.

To me, this insistence on a singular set of solid rules that we see from the community is just turning the game into something GW never actually wanted - just like the insistence on a "canon". It's a worrying rift between the developer and the customers, which has led to a lot of unnecessary confusion and unwarranted complaints in the past.

Again, if you play to win you want the meta game to stay still so you can nail it. Totally understandable, and I really-honestly am not without a lot of sympathy for for this point of view. It's a wargame, not a RPG.

But - perhaps especially - to someone like me who's been playing since 1e and still approach it as the sort of game that 1e was (a narrative driven skirmish game), and by now has several assloads of minis and entire armies that are or have been in a state of limbo, sometimes for more more than a decade (now gimme back my Arbites you bastards! They're so old and disused they've fossilised), I am thrilled right down to my pinky toes that GW is finally getting their act together and publishing Armylists at a - to me - enormously much less aggravating rate.

I'm certainly not a competitive gamer, but I think I actually would prefer a "static" 40k compared to entire armies being revamped every other year or so.

Why, you ask?

Because then those armies you complain about having been in a limbo could still be used just like on day one. Because then we wouldn't have a "Codex creep" where every new army has a big chance of being better than the previous releases (some might go so far as to say this is a cheap marketing ploy to cause people to change armies and buy new minis). Because then we wouldn't see entire armies changing in appearance/perception as new units are inserted into a game whose setting revolves around a standstill in 999.M41 (Centurions, Dreadknights, Storm Ravens, ...). And because then there's a far smaller risk of having the fluff of said armies change, and thus the appeal they had on the original buyer.

I dunno what armies you are playing, but as a SoB fan I have to say that I find their current rules from the PDF (because GW cannot be bothered to actually publish a book about them) lacking in comparison to even their very first Codex, and as an IG fan I am missing the orders and doctrines that allowed you to tweak your regiment towards a specific style reflecting the variety to be found in the Guard.

And let's not even get into the whole "Astra Militarum" rebranding, the Storm Trooper retcon, or that ugly Taurox.