games day interview with jervis, kelly, cruddace about 6th edition

found this on another site, thought you guy'd like the read too

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Q1. What were the key objectives of 6th Edition?
The ultimate goal of 6th edition according to Jervis was to tackle what both he and Matt described as ‘Associative and Disassociative’ rules and to add more realism to the game.

E.g. If a poisoned dagger had +1 WS in close combat, that would be deemed ‘dissacoiatve’ as it makes little sense. However, if it gave you a re-roll to wound, that would be ‘associative’ as it would capture the essence of a poisoned attack being made and potentially causing damage as a result of it being laced with some horrifying toxin.

Other examples of ‘associative’ rules included the abiltiy to throw grenades and the distinction between different power weapons. By making certain rules ‘associative’, the game adds more ‘weight’ to the feel of units on the table. Flyers crashing to the ground is another example of this, as is wound allocation in shooting (models vanishing from the front of units and not the back), Its all about realism.

Q2. Why include so much hobby and fluff info in the rulebook?
All three commented on the importance of seeing the hobby as a whole. A new player to 40k would grasp the broad depth of the hobby in one mighty tome. Again, Jervis mentioned the significance of adding ‘weight’ to the game and posited that all aspects were synonymous. In the opinion of the designers, the fluff adds an important aspect to the game as it puts the whole experience into context and provides a rich narrative for the tabletop game itself.

Q3. Why is the background of 40k so ‘Imperial centric’?
The designers consider the Imperium to be the largest empire of the 41st Millennium. The story really centres on the rise and fall of the Imperium and the Xeno Codex’s almost orbit this story. That’s pretty much the way its been written since Rogue Trader and there’s really no moving away from it as the central narrative to the 40k universe.

Q4. Why Hull Points?
According to Matt Ward, vehicles in previous editions didn’t seem to fit very well with the rest of the game system and made for odd and peculiar situations. He mentioned that there was little granularity to the vehicle rules compared to other unit types. The addition of Hull Points is therefore used to make vehicles more inclusive during a game and give them a continued presence even after having taken a few direct hits. Jervis said that it flattened out the extremes. Vehicles used to get obliterated in turn one or take damage that would render them ineffective for a turn or two which really didn’t flow too well. Hull Points therefore allow players to enjoy the attributes of their expensive vehicles without them vanishing off the table having done virtually nothing.

Q5. Did you consider moving the timeline on?
Not for this edition. They like the idea that the Imperium of man is ‘at the brink’. They don’t see the current epoch as being at a dead end and therefore, do not need to change it. They did not rule out the prospect of changing this in the future however. One good point that Matt made was that it has moved on anyway since 2nd and 3rd as we now have Tau, Dark Eldar, Sisters and Necrons.

Q6. Why allies and fortifications?
Jervis said that the old fluff in previous editions made many references to scenarios where different races forged alliances in various situations. He felt that later editions had polarised armies and made them rather restricted. They want to open up the game as a means to circumvent some of those restrictions and allow for more diverse tactics on the table. The fluff can now follow on and provide literature that encompasses those often tenuous alliances. Many alliances have obvious narrative value.

In terms of fortifications, Jervis considered these beautiful plastic kits as somewhat wasted given their aesthetic value on the table. Giving these kits rules and points values feeds into the ‘associative’ aspect of 6th edition. I do agree here as I often wished for rules regarding the 5 massive quad guns in my terrain box!

Q6. Why random charge distances?
This rule apparently came as a result of the ‘associative’ wound allocation and Overwatch rules. There are 2 aspects to this however. If your front line is going to take Snapfire hits, there needs to be some compensation for the front line going down and cutting your charge range. The random charge role helps a unit to get into combat regardless of having been whittled down at the front (provided you roll high enough), but it also adds a sense of realism in that battles are violent and chaotic – meaning that sometimes, for whatever reason, you just don’t make it far enough! Jervis acknowledged that some gamers don’t like having control removed, but argued that a swirling battle full of death, destruction and explosions wasn’t really an environment where controlled and predictable actions were likely! In his words, it adds ‘tension and drama’ to the game.

Q7. How difficult was it to add flyer rules into the game?
Matt Ward picked this one up. He said that it was relatively simple given that flyers were an extension to the revised vehicle rules. The team said that they had an idea of the mechanic due to Apocalypse but held off until 6th to fully include them. Seems as though they had been toying with the idea in 5th but the rest of the rules didn’t allow for it too well.

Q8. Why Challenges?
The team wanted to create the sense that characters were leading their troops into battle and not just skulking around at the back of units. It also gave lesser characters (i.e. SM sergeants) the opportunity to exhibit moments of heroics (leaping in to save their captain with one wound left from a rampaging Daemon Prince for example).

Q9. Why change the Psychic rules?
The team wanted to make Psykers more akin to Wizards in WHFB. They felt that a half page of rules in a codex simply didn’t do them justice, especially for the likes of special character psykers. Lets face it, a psyker firing d6 s4 AP- hits in the shooting phase is little more than a gun and therefore, a menial extension to the shooting rules. The team considered the random aspect of it more ‘associative’ given the dangerous and often unpredictable nature of warp manipulation.

Some extra tidbits:
· 6th Edition was actually finished 6 months ago

· They thought long and hard about using a points system similar to WHFB instead of FOC’s but it would have been to difficult as there was so much emphasis on FOC's in the Codex’s. New players would have found it too confusing.

· The reason that charges are not allowed on Deep Strike is to prevent the utter predictability of mega-hard units appearing anywhere and destroying whatever they want every game. There was a possible hint about Genestealers being able to do this at some point in the future!

· The new edition nerf’s some units and provides buff’s to others. The new Codex’s will rebalance incidents where this is too extreme.

· One guy complained that the new rules were adding unnecessary complexity (e.g loads of new universal special rules). Ward argued that it’s best to keep lots of the rules universal in the main rulebook. New codex’s can then have units with a variety of the SR’s and opponents will know exactly what to expect. He did caveat this though by saying that USR’s would still apply to certain characters in Codex’s.


I spoke to Matt Ward in person after the seminar and I really must emphasise that he’s a really nice, polite and engaging fellow who doesn't deserve the flak he gets from some members of the community. He deserves praise for his role in bringing us 6th edition. He explained that rule setting is always going to be ‘a moving target’ and what works for one person is going to upset another. He said that there were many things that were out of his hands because business decisions have to be taken into account when developing game systems and rules. A couple of key points that came out of that conversation:

· Flak Missiles are currently unavailable to all armies, but we’ll soon see them filtering through into the game.

· We can expect a new FAQ before the end of the summer.

· He spoke about Tyranids being a tad difficult to work with as they have (in the past) been a little one dimensional (i.e charge everyone into CC). He made a point about there being no vehicle rules in the Tyranid army and that its monsterous creatures need to be able to kill Daemon Princes so how do you balance it out? We shall see!



I spoke to Jervis for a long time about ‘associative and disassocaitive’ rules but I think I’ve covered that off.



Next I spoke to Phil Kelly (the dude) who again is a really sound guy (and by the way - he isn't leaving GW).

Phil said that there are currently 6 ‘projects’ on the go for 40k. I think he was referring to Codex’s. I asked him about Tyranids too and he said (rather excitedly) that he has ‘some really great ideas up his sleeve’ for the Nids. Sounds encouraging! It's worth noting that everyone I spoke to in the design team understands the need for Nids to get a boost.

He also shared his personal opinion on 5th edition and said (with the greatest of respect) that Alessio Cavorte seemed to want to make the game more competitive and simplified. He thought that this made the game a little to flat and generic in its function (which I personally agreed with). His words were that it ‘lost its craziness’. 6th has therefore moved to address this and give more feel and character to the units and the game as a whole. It does seem to be a consensus amongst GW staff that 2nd was a great edition in many ways (although obviously broken in others).

One other exciting thing that he mentioned was the release of expansions. He said that one example of an idea floating around is the introduction of relic’s which could be (for example) wargear from the Horus Heresry era, usable in today's battles. Possibly a new book or expansion but still just an idea at the moment.

Phil said that the quality of the new Codex’s far surpasses the paperback’s of 5th and beyond (I wonder how many are finished!?)



Lastly I spoke to Robin Cruddace. I asked him about GW’s release schedule and to my utter amazement, he said that they were aiming for some sort of release each month. Be it a codex or some sort of expansion. I would be surprised if this were true!

He said that there would most likely need to be a larger number of expansions between now and 4 years time so that you don’t reach a point where all codex’s for 6th are released with 2 years still to go before the next cycle. Take that how you will!

So there we have it folks. A very enjoyable day indeed – and most insightful!

Things of note, straight from the horses mouth's:

narrative, not competitive.

Buy more stuff. Allies/paints/fortifications. more releases faster.


Personally, i think they are going the wrong direction. One of the reasons hobbies such as Magic:TG last so long and remain so popular is the tournament scene. This is also true from video games. Any game with any real longevity has a pvp/competitive raid component which gives people reason to strive to be better at the game. Even so-called casual gamers will generally look up to more hard core players and buy more models/cards/upgrades in the secret hope that emulating "winners" will give them an edge against their friends.

Any intelligent store owner(including Darren) knows that sponsoring competitive tournaments drives business and interest in the hobby, both from current customers and others wondering what the hubbub is about. I don't see why GW doesn't understand this.

Yes, collecting and painting is a part of it, yes, the fluff needs to be cool. But the Game system should be rock solid and tactical, and i think this "narrative" bullshit is a knee jerk reaction to a small segment of the community continually complaining that the game ISN'T competitive enough. They are giving themselves an out... taking their ball and going home, as it were. they are even getting completely out of the "GW sponsored" tournament scene altogether. (which is another bad decision, many folks kept their armies mostly GW models just in case they attended a GW tourney.... now the only thing keeping folks from using Lego all the time is their opponents patience)


... wasn't supposed to be a rant, but i got there.

Did somebody say Lego?!

Follow my line of thought here.

I like the new system, its FUN. In many ways more fun than 5th.

It also has several very broken aspects which everyone has hit on. As far as the game SYSTEM is concerned, its not as much about skill: There's enough randomness that the difference between top and bottom players just got closer.

But the potenial to take a completely broken army, via allies and fortifications is through the roof. Challenge shenigans, as of right now, are the biggest thing going. It needs a fix ASAP.

But (related to the AB posts):

Lets say someone take the orphaned "leaked 6th" and polishes it.
Buys cheaper models to play with. (Mantic "Dwarf" Angels)
Cuz they're in it for the "competitve" aspect and could give 2 shits about narritive gaming.
Congrats GW, you just gave competive games absolutely no reason to continue playing.

They have simultaneously told competive gamer to take a hike, and made it more expensive to start up (cuz now you need allies/forts, etc/)

i'm inclined to disagree there; its not that they're telling people to buy more armies and buildings or kiss off. in fact, its ironic hearing that from you of all people, beau, given how many different codices you have armies for. for example, you have a 'lot' of marines, that can be fielded as ultra, blood, dark, wolf, or templar, plus chaos marines, plus imperial guard.... and you own a lot of buildings, including a Fortress of Redemption, which i recall some cool dude you know customized a deck plate to match your ultramarines army for the missile launcher section . most of us own more than one army, and chances are, they probably have a favorable level of alliance on the ally chart. except you nid players. dirty bugs. no one likes you, you break all the toys and eat all the snacks.

the fortification rules are optional; you don't have to use them, and if you do, it takes a good chunk of your army list. but before these rules came out for them, they were just ascetic table pieces that no one cared to put much effort into painting or even buying; why buy an Aegis or Bastion or Fortress when insulation foam, spackle, and krylon work just as well?

in my game saturday against jimmy, i took an Aegis with an Icarus cannon to test it out. worth about a typhoon speeder. did it help a whole lot? ehhh sorta, it would've helped a guard detachment more, and he kind of circumvented it by moving his storm raven of purifiers 12", then 6" move, shoot, and then 4" assault over the Aegis line into my guys. plus the squad was given Scout via grand strategy so it moved another 12 before all that happened. 34" first turn assault; who've guessed?

however, it got to be handy for my 5 scouts once Night Fighting became active. between the Aegis giving a 4+ cover, plus the +1 from camo cloaks, and the +2 cover from Shrouded because they were more than 24" from the unit shooting them, they had a 2+ cover. only lost 1 guy to over 13 armor save rolls, so that was cool.

as a whole, reading the why behind the changes they made for 6th makes alot of sense, to me anyways. and the Hull Points system doesn't make vehicles papercraft, they survived pretty well, apart from the stupidly lucky 1st turn shot to my predator executioner which, thanks to AP 1, made it explode.

the 2D6 for assault moves is actually nice as well. on average, you're gonna roll around 6 or 7", so most of the time, you'll assault move the same distance as in 5th. just some of the time, you'll go a little less. but rolling 2-4" isnt going to happen that often. and on the flip side, you might roll high and get a 10" assault like my HQ did and managed to kill off a whole 10 man strike squad with 3 phases of combat. neither of us expected that one.

the challenges part we ended up not even trying cause we both forgot about it, so i'm not sure what to think about it yet. chances are, if there's a choice of refusing a challenge and just carrying on the melee, i might just do that instead. cool as it may be, narratively, to see a sergeant kill a 250+pt MC, if i was the guy that owned the MC, i might be miffed that it got pistol cocked by a 23pt sergeant with a boltpistol, and dies.

Players like me weren't what I was talking about. Players who have largish collections and the like, have already drunk the Kool-Aid.

New guys who want to pick up a starter set and learn how to play, are the ones getting the shaft.

Now not only do you need an army, but you need a defense line or a bastion likely (only source of Skyfire until codexes are updated. That is insane, and an obvious attempt to make Flyers so good, people will flock to them... only to nerf them later.)

Competitive play (tournaments and the like like) are part of the hobby, GW needs to realize that. I understand where they are coming from, but a balanced ruleset would have benefited everyone. WAAC players are not going away, they'll take broken allies and club baby seals like they always have.

the 2D6 for assault moves is actually nice as well. on average, you're gonna roll around 6 or 7", so most of the time, you'll assault move the same distance as in 5th. just some of the time, you'll go a little less. but rolling 2-4" isnt going to happen that often. and on the flip side, you might roll high and get a 10" assault like my HQ did and managed to kill off a whole 10 man strike squad with 3 phases of combat. neither of us expected that one.

The problem with this thinking is that if your 10" away and declare a charge "hoping" you get there..... You've probably already made a huge mistake. Because your probably going to roll less than 10 and your standing within rapid fire range of whatever you're hoping to charge with the slimmest chance of actually getting there....

This is what i'm ranting about, the loss of tactical play. if i lose a game to bad dice rolls i want it to be consistent... as in several of them over the course of a game. Having something like a failed charge change an entire game? we might as well be playing rock paper scissors for all that your choices matter.

*shrugs* all i can say is go play a bunch of games with the new ruleset. you might be overexaggerating like my initial opinion of the chaplains crozius.

and the aegis and bastion arent the only thing with skyfire atm.

Hydra Autocannons have it. mortis contemptors that didnt move that turn have it. Land Raider Helios have it. Whirlwind Hyperios have it. Eldar Firestorm have it. thats just off the top of my head of things they've FAQ'd to have it.

and with them planning something as ambitious as a new release every month, we'll probably see our codices updated with anti-air weapons soon. that Flakk Missile for example. far as we're aware, since no one owns an ipad to D/L the 6th Edition digital copies currently on Itunes, no one has this yet but its going to be popping up soon in the codices.

my decision at this point now is to look at this ruleset with positivity and not complain about anything until i've tried everything out in it.

On the topic of 10" charges, I would generally recommend holding off on them unless you have a way to help pull it off (beasts, jump infantry, warlord +1" to charges ability, chronometron, etc.). Not everything on the field can shoot, either. So, if a bunch of dudes just got out of a rhino, charge the rhino to get into proximity to them for next round, as the vehicle can't combat lock you or overwatch you.

Mike S: I'm not complaining about the ruleset. I'm liking it for the most part. I'm complaining about GW not knowing their fan-base. They've simulatiously kicked a large amount of them in the buttocks, and made it more expensive to break into the hobby, although I think the "learning curve" for the new edition isn't as steep.

Every unit you listed for Skyfire either has no model, or is FW (so it's scratch build, or buy FW, AND we're a ways away from FW being "legal" 40K, which I'm okay with. Your only options for Skyfire being buying expensive resin models, kit-bashing, or buying a terrain peice... not so much.)

Mike B: There is stil tactical play, but its more on maneuvering of units, actual flanking (to make sure you take out the Aspring Champ or the plasma gun) and the like. Your example of random charges is exactly what I mean. More randomness means "skill" is degraded and an inferior player has a better chance of beating a superior one. Everyone is brought closer to the average.

Kharn ->berzkers strat.

Unit of berzerkers + champ with power weapon. unit tools around with kharne at the BACK of the squad. when you charge, the PW champ accepts any challenges, and the zerkers pile in/take wounds in INIT order. Kharne barrels in at the end(I1) and delivers his payload of STR7 AP2 Death.

win!

completely out of character... but effective.

I beleive a Lord of Change (greater Daemon of Tzeentch) is also Anti-Air.

As for the Daemon Prince thing, from what I understand, White Dwarf called em flyers, all Forein Language FAQs call em flyers, but the English one says Jump MC.

I think they probably wrote the WD and send out the version to be translated before deciding to chage it. So CSM-DP is just as fast as it always was.

As for the edition as a whole, it seems alright to me. And I dont think it rly hurts the competative nature of the game. Allies struck me as aweful at first, but the truth is that you still have to pay the points for everything and that is what balances the game in my book.

There are some units (like Oblitz for example) that get a little more bang for their buck, but on average things arn't that bad. I even though about the super Heavy spam with guard, but even with that, you are paying for every model, and as Beau mentioned, its not like 3rd where only some armies were allowed to spam slots, everyone can now.

Challanges however do seem a little funky to me. If a Daemon Prince runs solo into a unit, it can challenge, forcing the powerfist champ to either solo the 6 attack moster of doom, or it can cower and allow said monster to eat the squad without being fisted.

The other case taht comes to mind is that Powerfists in geneal have taken a nerf. Going down to init 1 for duels is a rather big issue. But on the other hand, it means that powerfist is no longer an automatic upgrade for every champion/seargent, which I kinda like.

As for Air in general, ya it seems that they are OP roght now, but more anti-air should be coming out soon hopfully (5pt updrade flakk missiles?)

SO thats my rant. 6th seems fine, dueling is a bit wonky, flyers too, but I prefer them to playing rhino bumper car games.

Rhaevyn wrote:The problem with this thinking is that if your 10" away and declare a charge "hoping" you get there..... You've probably already made a huge mistake. Because your probably going to roll less than 10 and your standing within rapid fire range of whatever you're hoping to charge with the slimmest chance of actually getting there....

This is what i'm ranting about, the loss of tactical play. if i lose a game to bad dice rolls i want it to be consistent... as in several of them over the course of a game. Having something like a failed charge change an entire game? we might as well be playing rock paper scissors for all that your choices matter.

If you've put yourself in a position where that dice roll will lose you the game, then you deserve to lose because I've outplayed you.

That's the tactics. Planning for those dice rolls. Taking the weight off of them. Making them less important. Having a backup plan and then a backup for that backup plan.

Anyone can win when the dice go their way. The good players will win when the dice are against them.

I don't mean to be all "Lern2play," but Lern2play.

Fantasy players thought random charge distances would ruin the game. Turns out, it makes the game quite good. Pretty much everyone loves them now, even if there was some pushback against them at first.

However, 40k has the single most tactical thing I've seen in a GW game in ages, and that's positional damage. If you can't figure out how that changes the entire game, then I feel sorry for you. There is so much to do with that one single rule. It's beautiful and brilliant.

I lost my whip coils to positional damage...

I actually really like positional damage, I've always kinda felt it silly that a player determines who is a casualty and who gets to live.

One squad shoots, and someone on the other side dies, particularly, the guy sticking his face out.

I'm ok with positional damage. Adds tactics and places huge importance on positioning of units from all possible avenues. The reasoning for previous methods (especially 3rd) was that the specialist weapons would always be picked up and used by other squad members because of their importance (made sense too).

If you've put yourself in a position where that dice roll will lose you the game, then you deserve to lose because I've outplayed you.

That's the tactics. Planning for those dice rolls. Taking the weight off of them. Making them less important. Having a backup plan and then a backup for that backup plan.

Anyone can win when the dice go their way. The good players will win when the dice are against them.

I don't mean to be all "Lern2play," but Lern2play.

your argument makes no sense Godhead. none. and following up with cliches...

You will lose games to bad dice... see that word, dice. plural. multiple occasions of on rolls of the dice. Losing games because you rolled a 4 on a charge you spent 3 turns setting up... that's not bad play or tactics, that's bad rules. Bad dice are rolling 1's to pen for an entire game. Bad dice is whiffing with your melta when you really want that land raider gone. Bad dice should not leave entire units sitting in the open unable to defend themselves and getting shot up/destroyed. its too large a part of the game to leave to chance. at least, in my( and many others) opinion.

Talk to Voth about losing games on a single dice roll (steal the initiative - another bad rule) and see how fuzzy it makes him feel inside.

oh! and I see your l2p and raise you one umadbro? ....... aren't we above this?

It's a game of dice.

If you don't like dice, go play something else.

I don't know what more can be said except that good players will reduce the opportunities for bad dice to lose them the game. A good player will still get stuck with awful dice once in a while, but that's not bad design.

I'm sorry you don't understand that, and I guess my sarcasm on the last sentence didn't come through effectively.

Again, if you need that charge to win the game, if you will literally lose if you don't make it, then make sure your guys are 2" away instead of 4" or 6" or 10". An even better idea would be to make sure that the rest of the game hasn't led to that point where a single charge will make or break you. Do you not understand that?

Charges are random now. If you don't account for it, you deserve to lose when the dice kick you in the jimmies. Period.

On the topic of positional damage, this is apparently a thing now:

GH.. lets just agree to disagree on one's ability to have an opinion that differs from the company line and still enjoy the product... and whether that opinion has any bearing on a persons skill at playing a game, OK?

Moving on...

The above makes sense Tom.

If the Draigo player is going to game and line his guys up in a row like that to abuse positional wound allocation, i don't see why his opponent wouldn't game and do the same. positional firing and tactical movement seems to be one of the positives that came with 6th. I'm excited to see it in action.

i find it largely far fetched that anyone would line their guys up like in the picture. it serves no tactical purpose and seems exaggerated just to prove a point. if the black player had the movement to get those 4 guys around the corner, hes probably going to have the movement to get the rest of his guys over there as well, or circling the draigo unit.. or whatever. not sitting in a nice little box for a template to drop...

It hadn't occurred to me before that since all ranged weapons are fired at the same time that all the wound allocation shenanigans would begin from the closest model. nice find

since you guys are bickering using my 10" assault as an example how 6th sux, lets be clear on what happened.

sevrin was 5" from the targeted squad. he rolled 3", but was able to re-roll thanks to a psycher power that turn, and re-rolled a 10" assault move. thanks to other psyker powers, he also had Str5, T5, 10 I5 attacks on the charge, vs a strike squad that was reduced to Str3, T3. and out of all those attacks, ONE actually rolled a wound.

Tom, if he lines up like that, you simply move over to shoot him from the side, then Draigo cant be a wound sponge.

To be clear, that's not my image, but rather an image straight from 3++. I am personally more of a fan of the chevron formation, which can be easily turned to face most threats, but still keep most guns in range.

No, I figured, just pointing out the straw man.

Has anyone tried to use the new rules to break coherency. Seems a viable tactic.