Reflecting on 40k after a couple of games of 10th

I don’t really know what the point in Warhammer 40k’s 10th Edition is. I suppose by now we’re all well aware that a new edition of 40k isn’t there to really fix any issues with previous editions, but to make lots of money. I think the explosive success of 8th Edition taught GW that a full reboot of the game to get rid of all the bloat and complications (problems they created themselves) makes a ton more money than a simple fix of the previous edition.

10th is a very clunky game to play, while maybe not as clunky as 9th edition (towards its end), it’s still far slower and clunkier than Grimdark Future all the while offering you little extra in terms of army or unit personality.

The biggest shocker for me was my beloved Chaos Terminators, all lovingly geared up with Combi-Plasmas and Combi-Meltas, which all now come under a generic ‘Combi-Weapon’ profile that lack the anti-armour punch they once had. The thing is, within Grimdark Future my Chaos Terminators still have the same personality and punch they once had, all within a much more streamlined (and fun) system. So as a massive Terminator fan, there’s really no benefit for me to play 40k anymore.

Other issues you would expect to be fixed with a new edition either remain, or are somehow worse than they were before. Just one example is ‘Big Guns Never Tire’, in 9th Edition it read:

I apologise if you’re not used to the way GW writes their rules, that rule itself is longer than some entire systems I’ve played. Basically it means that a big stompy thing can still shoot it’s guns when smaller things get close, but it has to shoot at those smaller things. The rule makes sense, but is over complicated and is a symptom of two design decisions GW have made, one is the IGO-UGO turn structure and the other is how indecisive melee combat can be so units get locked in combat instead of being able to move away and fire. This is not a rule Grimdark Future or even my own Deathzap system have to worry about, since their core doesn’t generate a situation where it would be needed.

The 10th Edition version reads as follows (brace yourself):

So in 9th the rule was the big guys can shoot even while in engagement range, the new rule is they can still do that, but also be shot at. The rule has effectively doubled in length (I thought we were simplifying things?), and is explained multiple times for some reason, while still also not being that easy to understand or even really making in world sense. To add complication for 9th Ed players instead of getting -1 for heavy weapons you get -1 for everything bar pistols.

The rule doesn’t make ‘in world’ sense as although initially you may think the negative modifier to all weapons bar pistols is sensible for the monster or vehicle (I wonder how many monsters or vehicles have pistols?) as they are trying to shoot things they are also fighting, what doesn’t make sense is for that to effect other units firing at them. In fact when trying to avoid hitting your own guys engaged with a monster or vehicle you’d probably not want to use pistols at all. It doesn’t make sense that while my Chaos Marines are attacking an Imperial Knight’s ankles, the Landraider behind them suffers negative modifiers to shoot up at said Knight, meanwhile the Sergeant in the squad slightly further back can shoot just fine at the Knight with his Plasma Pistol.

It’s just a very confused and confusing jumble of rules that can have a tendency to get in the way of you having a good time.

I wonder if it would be possible to take the best bits of each edition of 40k and combine them into a single ultimate and actually good edition… or maybe you’d just end up playing Laserburn.