The future of 40k

Sigard

Ok, so the eye of terror campaign will soon be upon us, and 40k 4th edition is on the way. So what's going to happen? My local independent stockist told me some of the rumours that he heard from an 'official source' inside games workshop. Ok, so Blood Angels turn to Chaos, Ultramarines suffer some hideous casualties, and several special characters kick the bucket. (I didn't have the heart to tell him that some of these rumours have been around since before the 3rd edition). but he also mentioned that the fates of certain armies may be changed in the future based on tournament performance. For example, if the Dark Eldar were to top every tournament for the next three years, then this would be in some way reflected in their fluff; the point is, the players could have some bearing on the storyline, even after this summer. Now this would indeed be a nice change, and would encourage many players to get more involved in tournaments. So whaddya think?

Pugsley

Ok, so Blood Angels turn to Chaos

whoot! the blood god will be pleased with that one!

Basing the future of the game on tourny's sounds good, means the players play a part in the future of the game. Would be interesting to see what they come up with for the next wave of Tyranids aswell.

nesf

Hmmm, sounds a little bit like the CCG (collectable card game) Legend of the 5 rings (L5R)

They basically run storyline tournaments, where each tournament is representing a little bit of the plot resolution. I.e. if one particular clan wins alot of tournaments then in the next expansion to the game they will get something to represent that (although expansions tend to make the weaker clans stronger, in an effort to balance the game).

This works very well in a CCG, but I'm not sure how well it would work with a wargame.

-Padraig

Steve_o

I must say i like the idea of the players havin a part in decidin the future of the game. Makes it harder for GW to F**k it up!!!!

Sarky

Until an important campaign revolves around the Imperium doing a vast ritual to ressurrect the Squats, anyway.

de5p0i1er

there's always rumors around the new edition of 40k wouldn't beleve them all until I've seen some proof.

Lemming

Originally posted by de5p0i1er
there's always rumors around the new edition of 40k wouldn't beleve them all until I've seen some proof.

here here!

You wouldn't believe half the sh*te I'v eheard thrown around. Some of it by mates who also worked for GW.

The most notable I remember was when they were redrafting W40k for 3rd edition. They were (apparently) going to rename it W41K. The Emperor is dead. The Imperium goes f*cking nuts on eveyrone else, etc, etc. :rolleyes:

Sigard

The funny thing is, that 41k rumour was actually a little something that GW WAS working on before 3rd edition. There was gonna be an even darker storyline, and some armies were going to be radically changed. As it is, the Eye of Terror campaign is the closest we are gonna get to that idea.

Lemming

Currently - the future of w40k involves putting the background and history BACK into the game. It has become a bland "statistics" game where the only difference between armies (besides ashtetics) is teh stats sheets. There's bog all background to each army which gives them character and let syou get into it.

Talking to Jake Thornton about this at last years Gaelcon about why they did this to 3rd ed and this is what he said.

Basically the Sales Dept. told Design that they'd sell more - to which Design told them "You're mad!". Now Sales are telling them to put it back in.


Hence if you've noticed a difference between the early codex books and the latter ones like Tau, Necrons, etc. in terms of content.

They're currently redrafting 3rd ed. to some sort of 3.5 ed. to redress this.

Sarky

Yeah, that was my biggest problem with 3rd ed, and particularly when I first got my Codex: Orks. Buggerall fluff in it, I felt cheated. The army lists were clearer, but there was ridiculously little background, I mean the various clans were only mentioned, nothing like the detail in the 2nd ed codex.

I doubt we're wrong in believing that the fans want more background (being fans ourselves...). The Necron book was definately better in this respect, but for me, it's still not enough...

Pugsley

I agree about the codex's, the good old 2nd ed codex's were a couple of hundred pages long, and had a long backround at the start, usually about 10 pages long, and ontop of that every charecter had a story beside their stats. These big buggers came in at a large price, but they felt more like an army backround book with all the information you need in it to get into the game and to play the game. Now the codex's are about 70 pages long, contain one page of backround at the start, and the rest is what you need to know to play the game, but not enough to get into the game.

And whats with the simplistic wargear? the weapons are all the same, just diffrent strengths, even some of the special weapons unique to armies are just simple things like 'its a power weapon with +1 to hit', theres nothing special about it, they seem to have gotten very lazy with their rule boks in 3rd ed, 2nd ed had a great big wargear book, about 100 pages long or more and all it contained were the guns of the universe, and even at 100+ pages it couldnt cover them all, you needed the codex's for the rest. They done the same with psychic powers, physchers are useelss now, their spells are just basically weapons which they dont hold, theres no special rules for any spells except the eldar ones, which are simple things like 'the squad can re-roll failed armour saves' and the like. In the few games I have played I always liked having that great big rulebook and wargear book at the side of the table beside 2 gigantic codex's searching through for any info we were missing, added some unpredicatability to the game

Lemming

Originally posted by Pugsley

And whats with the simplistic wargear? the weapons are all the same, just diffrent strengths, even some of the special weapons unique to armies are just simple things like 'its a power weapon with +1 to hit', theres nothing special about it, they seem to have gotten very lazy with their rule boks in 3rd ed, 2nd ed had a great big wargear book, about 100 pages long or more and all it contained were the guns of the universe, and even at 100+ pages it couldnt cover them all, you needed the codex's for the rest.

I do think that they needed to do something about the amount of weapons in the game, as the system was beginning to grind to a halt in that respect, and they managed to make game-play more fluid by categorising weapons.

I don't think in that respect we should be going back to 2nd ed wargear, but certainly give some background on the weapons so you know what they are rather than a "close-combat weapon". A chainsword is still in the above category, but it's a bloody great sword with chain-teeth on it that make s ahorrible mess of an opponent. Detail ....

Some weapons should maybe be brought back to their former glory though (like chainfists and lightening claws, etc).

They done the same with psychic powers, physchers are useelss now, their spells are just basically weapons which they dont hold, theres no special rules for any spells except the eldar ones, which are simple things like 'the squad can re-roll failed armour saves' and the like.

Now I was vehemently against the removal of psychics in the manner they did it. Granted, certain characters (like Arihman) were obscenely powerful and just made games a reall pain in the ass, but at least one race suffered because of this. The eldar used to rely on psychics to balance the fact that they are actually quite fragile, and also that's what their history was.

Sarky

I miss my Warphed...:(

Pugsley

Originally posted by Lemming
Now I was vehemently against the removal of psychics in the manner they did it. Granted, certain characters (like Arihman) were obscenely powerful and just made games a reall pain in the ass.

My precious Ahriman, he used to rock, but now all he is is an over priced lascannon
But for his 2nd ed price he was hardly over powered, he was nearly as expensive as abbadon (now HE was a charecter, and he didnt get totally nerfed either, wahoo!)

Sigard

Ah yes, I fondly recall the psychic phase, just like everything about 2nd edition, where almost every game degenerated into a cock-fight between the two most uber models on the field. God I miss those days:D "Bah, what's a power fist hit, I still have another 2 lives " oversimplification has really castrated this edition, and I agree about the chainsword thing too.

Sarky

I still have that old 2nd ed wargear book. The drawings look a little outdated (a 1st/2nd ed thudd gun just looks silly...) but the grizzly detail has me enthralled. Blood'n'guts aplenty. You can't have a dark gothic universe of horror without them...

orangerooster

Whatever future is decided out of this i just hope that chaos win a little or a lot!The bad guys must win once in a while,obviously is not going to happen in warhammer due to the glaringly obvious fact that valtens just new sigmar and will kill off Archaon and everything will be nice and chaos free.I imagine thats next years big summer campaign.