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Some Random 40k Thoughts
Apr. 21st, 2025 08:19 amI've been thinking a lot about how frustrating the frequent updates to 40k are. I'll give an example. Most of my army is infantry. I enjoy this play style a lot, and I kind of like the challenge of trying to make that work in a faction that has historically been balanced around tanks. The way I have traditionally done this is through heavy weapons teams. By including a heavy weapons team in each squad, I basically had a bunch of 10 wound las cannons running around. That isn't a meta army build by any stretch of the imagination, but viable enough to make casual games fun.
But GW got rid of infantry squads with heavy weapons when they released the guard codex. This mean all I had available to me were the insanely fragile heavy weapons squads. But that was ok, because they were also very cheap: 50pts per squad of three. So yes, they could be killed easily, but I could include more than I could when I was slotting one per infantry squad. But then a bunch of competitive players were using mortar squads really well in one particular detachment, so GW increased the points value of heavy weapons squads in general to 65 points! That is actually a good price point for mortars, but not really for any of the other load outs.
Its not like I can't play now or anything. I just got some other alternative big guns: kasrkins and tanks. But I really liked my heavy weapons and its kid of sad having them just sit on the shelf. Plus, I didn't really want to use tanks. And now I kind of have to.
The first problem here isn't actually the points changes, but how broad the effect of each change is. Because heavy weapons squads are the same cost no matter the load out, GW cannot make mortars an appropriate cost without making all the other load outs too expensive. In isolation, I understand why GW does regular balancing, and I understand why they standardized points costs for units regardless of load out. To maintain the size and popularity of 40k, GW has prioritized two traits: balance and simplicity. Having monthly "balance patches" helps them maintain balance, and making each unit a standard points cost rather than making players pay per weapon makes it much easier for someone to pick up the game or a new faction.
But these two methods have substantial negative synergies. Namely, it is impossible to for GW to be precise when modifying points costs. This is what leads to the problem I've described above, where a whole unit gets sacrificed because one load out was unbalanced (not even OP, just unbalanced).
I have two thoughts about alternative ways that GW could maintain balance and simplicity simply using different methods that might minimize these negative synergies.
First, I simply do not think that charging points for weapons is inherently a barrier to entry for new players. In fact, list building is actually part of what makes the game fun, and too much simplicity can detract from that. For example, right now in the game heavy bolters are just worse than the main alternative on most vehicles: heavy flamers. So when building out my list, I don't really have to think about which I'm going to use. But if they were different points costs, then I would. That gives me something to fiddle with when I'm feeling the 40k itch but don't have a game coming up. Granted, in 3rd edition it used to be pretty overwhelming. The default for a squad of guard was just las guns, and everything, right down to close combat weapons, was additional points. It was good that GW reduced the total number of little, usually not even significant, things that players had to consider when list building. But just because it was too much to make players think about whether they wanted to spend 1pt per model on grenades doesn't mean the concept of points costs for upgrades was too complicated.
Thus my first proposal: make major weapon options cost points to upgrade, but have a viable default load out. Using a basic Cadian squad as an example: perhaps the grenade launcher and flamer are the default, and upgrading to a plasma and/or melta costs a little extra. Or the heavy weapons squad could charge extra to upgrade from the heavy bolter to the lascannon, and even more still for the mortar. This gives a lot of options to GW for balance: they can increase the base value of the unit if the unit abilities are too powerful, or increase the points costs for upgrades if a particular load out is too powerful. It gives new players a base load out that is, while not competitive, totally viable. And it makes list building a little more interesting.
Second, as a casual player the frequent updates are both difficult to keep up with and unnecessary. Plus, it kinda makes me feel like a sucker for buying a physical codex. When I played in 3rd and 5th editions, the codex were your rules. There were problems with this: if your codex came out early, you probably just ended up having a weaker faction because there was still power creep throughout the edition, but you didn't get updates. But overall this was an issue at tournaments, not in casual play. But there could still be issues where one faction is just crazy powerful and that needs changing. But on the other hand, it feels like a money grab to have an app that isn't fully functional without paying but also not being able to use your codex on it without paying for a physical copy, even thought the information in that physical copy is out of date before it even hits the shelves! Plus, since I only play about once a month, I pretty much only get to play my army once before having to rework it. And changing rules once a month is far more of a barrier to entry for new players than points costs for weapons upgrades! The problems balancing creates outweighs the problems it solves if you're a casual player.
Thus my second proposal: the print edition of the game is one edition behind the competitive edition. GW can release monthly balance patches all they like, but they only apply to major competitive tournaments. At the end of the edition, when the game has presumably reached maximum balance, when win rates are as close to 50% as GW can get them, then GW publishes to hard copy rule book and codices. Games with your friends, friendlies and casual tournaments at your LGS then use those rules, with no changes, for an entire edition while competitive tournaments move on to the next edition in its "experimental" phase.
Well, those are my thoughts. I've just been thinking about these things lately, and wanted to take the thoughts out of my head by writing them down so they don't take up so much mental space.
But GW got rid of infantry squads with heavy weapons when they released the guard codex. This mean all I had available to me were the insanely fragile heavy weapons squads. But that was ok, because they were also very cheap: 50pts per squad of three. So yes, they could be killed easily, but I could include more than I could when I was slotting one per infantry squad. But then a bunch of competitive players were using mortar squads really well in one particular detachment, so GW increased the points value of heavy weapons squads in general to 65 points! That is actually a good price point for mortars, but not really for any of the other load outs.
Its not like I can't play now or anything. I just got some other alternative big guns: kasrkins and tanks. But I really liked my heavy weapons and its kid of sad having them just sit on the shelf. Plus, I didn't really want to use tanks. And now I kind of have to.
The first problem here isn't actually the points changes, but how broad the effect of each change is. Because heavy weapons squads are the same cost no matter the load out, GW cannot make mortars an appropriate cost without making all the other load outs too expensive. In isolation, I understand why GW does regular balancing, and I understand why they standardized points costs for units regardless of load out. To maintain the size and popularity of 40k, GW has prioritized two traits: balance and simplicity. Having monthly "balance patches" helps them maintain balance, and making each unit a standard points cost rather than making players pay per weapon makes it much easier for someone to pick up the game or a new faction.
But these two methods have substantial negative synergies. Namely, it is impossible to for GW to be precise when modifying points costs. This is what leads to the problem I've described above, where a whole unit gets sacrificed because one load out was unbalanced (not even OP, just unbalanced).
I have two thoughts about alternative ways that GW could maintain balance and simplicity simply using different methods that might minimize these negative synergies.
First, I simply do not think that charging points for weapons is inherently a barrier to entry for new players. In fact, list building is actually part of what makes the game fun, and too much simplicity can detract from that. For example, right now in the game heavy bolters are just worse than the main alternative on most vehicles: heavy flamers. So when building out my list, I don't really have to think about which I'm going to use. But if they were different points costs, then I would. That gives me something to fiddle with when I'm feeling the 40k itch but don't have a game coming up. Granted, in 3rd edition it used to be pretty overwhelming. The default for a squad of guard was just las guns, and everything, right down to close combat weapons, was additional points. It was good that GW reduced the total number of little, usually not even significant, things that players had to consider when list building. But just because it was too much to make players think about whether they wanted to spend 1pt per model on grenades doesn't mean the concept of points costs for upgrades was too complicated.
Thus my first proposal: make major weapon options cost points to upgrade, but have a viable default load out. Using a basic Cadian squad as an example: perhaps the grenade launcher and flamer are the default, and upgrading to a plasma and/or melta costs a little extra. Or the heavy weapons squad could charge extra to upgrade from the heavy bolter to the lascannon, and even more still for the mortar. This gives a lot of options to GW for balance: they can increase the base value of the unit if the unit abilities are too powerful, or increase the points costs for upgrades if a particular load out is too powerful. It gives new players a base load out that is, while not competitive, totally viable. And it makes list building a little more interesting.
Second, as a casual player the frequent updates are both difficult to keep up with and unnecessary. Plus, it kinda makes me feel like a sucker for buying a physical codex. When I played in 3rd and 5th editions, the codex were your rules. There were problems with this: if your codex came out early, you probably just ended up having a weaker faction because there was still power creep throughout the edition, but you didn't get updates. But overall this was an issue at tournaments, not in casual play. But there could still be issues where one faction is just crazy powerful and that needs changing. But on the other hand, it feels like a money grab to have an app that isn't fully functional without paying but also not being able to use your codex on it without paying for a physical copy, even thought the information in that physical copy is out of date before it even hits the shelves! Plus, since I only play about once a month, I pretty much only get to play my army once before having to rework it. And changing rules once a month is far more of a barrier to entry for new players than points costs for weapons upgrades! The problems balancing creates outweighs the problems it solves if you're a casual player.
Thus my second proposal: the print edition of the game is one edition behind the competitive edition. GW can release monthly balance patches all they like, but they only apply to major competitive tournaments. At the end of the edition, when the game has presumably reached maximum balance, when win rates are as close to 50% as GW can get them, then GW publishes to hard copy rule book and codices. Games with your friends, friendlies and casual tournaments at your LGS then use those rules, with no changes, for an entire edition while competitive tournaments move on to the next edition in its "experimental" phase.
Well, those are my thoughts. I've just been thinking about these things lately, and wanted to take the thoughts out of my head by writing them down so they don't take up so much mental space.
