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Perhaps that's a provocative thread question, especially coming from a person who hasn't played the current edition. In fact I haven't played an edition since 5th, where my friends and I split off with our own rules and continue to do so. But the thread on 'How is 10th Going For You' got me thinking: have players hit a wall with the 10th Edition 40K release?

I've tried to keep up with rule changes over the years to see what might be good or bad, adding or changing our rules with new ideas and what people think are good ideas for improvement. But what I've noticed lately is that there seems to be a gradual general dampening of enthusiasm for the 40K game. There are certainly exceptions of course, but the most obvious thing to me is the infrequency of posts on this very forum. Is this edition churn, oversaturation of product, a poor evaluation of Games Workshop's business practices or something else entirely?

On one hand the game overall appears to be very successful and GW is robust with profit. It just seems that something intrinsic over time has waned...punctuated by this last edition. Even though I no longer play the current rules and enjoy our version immensely, it would be a genuine shame to see 40K move inexorably toward its heat death. Is this premise simply incorrect? If not, what can be done to fix it?

Depending on where you look will get you different results.
Dakka is a largely negative place whether it's justified or not so you're going to see negative opinions.
If you go somewhere with more positive opinions you'll see the opposite.
The Internet is the worst place to gauge opinion because its largely polarised, hyperbole or intended to get a rise out of other people.
I have played 10th and have enjoyed it far more than 9th and 8th. I enjoyed 7th because I had Daemonkin but the edition was not good.

You're not the only one to notice this. I think theres a lot of people taking a passive "watch and see" approach, and the fact that as of tomorrow only 2 codexes have released probably has something to do with it - basically the 40k release schedule is not in full swing yet and theres been a lull in activity that has dampened the hype.

I do think that the changes to listbuilding have been a factor in all this though, theres basically been a complete removal of any limitations as to how you build your list outside of the total points of the army, which is governed only by the model count of the units you select and not their wargear. There is not a lot of "meat" there to keep people engaged. Its long been my POV that one of the things that keeps peoples attention on the game when they aren't at the table is the constant fiddling and tweaking with lists to try to squeeze the most out of it and optimize it. Its almost like a solo-game in and of itself. The new list-building system is too open and unrestrictive to create the tension needed for that to happen, and even I (someone who is a fan of the removal of wargear points) find listbuilding unsatisfying now. I think for that reason you're probably seeing less discussion and interaction because people are not being kept engaged. It doesn't mean they've stopped playing or wandered away (and it certainly hasn't drained the soul from the game), just that they aren't "hooked" like they were before.

For me at least, yes it has.

I'm a relative newbie, I got into 40k around the launch of 9th and didn't really start playing frequently until last year. I've been playing 3rd ed, heresy, and 10th, and 10th just drains my soul to play, especially loyalist marines. It just... doesn't feel like 40k to maybe. All the good of legacy systems and ideas have been drained, and it's left either the worst parts (Full turn/by turn with all the things to make it quicker sucked out), or mangled and botched ideas pulled from other systems (I.e. the AoS point system).

The best way I can frame it, is that GW has finally after 3 editions of trying, made the most sanitized, watered down version of 40k I've experienced in my short history with the game, and that saddens me.

Worst part is, that it'll work. It's not new player's fault, but it's hard to complain when you've never experienced anything prior. Sure, a lot of people started in 9th, but those that did, didn't actually get to play until at minimum, a year and a half into the edition, if not longer, and when they did finally get to play, it was such a complicated mess that only a handful persevered to properly get into the tabletop. Then they hear a new, streamlined edition is coming, and hop on, as their main complaint as someone with only their toes in the game has been addressed. So many players, if you didn't start in 8th or earlier, you have limited comprehension of how 40k was prior to 10th.

At the end of the day, i'm glad they have a game to get into and play, but it'll sadden me, that they'll never know 40k how it was, only as it is now, in it's stripped-back sanitized form.

For me absolutely. I have played this game off and on since 1997 and it has never felt as a lifeless as it has now.

I don't know whether it's them streamlining the rules to appeal to the competitive magic type players or them trying to poorly imitate warmachine or what but everything about this edition feels completely off as a war game. While it can be argued that 40K has not felt like a war game in years The point remains that they seem to be moving further and further away and into something that I can't even describe what it feels like

They don't reward tactics and strategy, there are weird advanced use cases of all the rules which you don't know unless you devote yourself to system mastery, which the average player is not going to know but the competitive player is going to, everything is more bloated than ever before with just the number of units and factions. The rules themselves are good but something about them just feel off and I don't know what it is.

It feels like it's in this nebulous place where it's trying to be unique but the only people who it's appealing to are the people that don't actually care about the game and only play it because it's popular.

I think the loud minority of people complaining about 9th being complicated have had a full monkeys paw moment drop on them with how 10th currently is. GW have managed to make the game a lot more bland and surface level simpler, while still having tons of awkwardness and bad complexity infecting every step of the rules and indexes. I have yet to see an Aeldari player who actually likes the index; sure it's strong, but it lacks flavour when compared to the brilliant 9th dex. Marine players, despite being the main source of complexity complaints in 9th are now bemoaning and wishing they had their supplements back, with a few of them also now finding their collections are becoming legends'd, or how the new points system feths you over if you want to run Bladeguard out of a transport. You can see instances of this happening all throughout the game, WE and Guard being the best examples for how little time they got to use their codexes in 9th combined with how bland and gak their indexes are. Only a handful of factions like arguably CSM managed to get an index that at least has some semblance of variety and internal balance, and squeezing any potential drop of flavour they can.

A lot of the local talk about the game is not that it's bad, or that people are not enjoying it; because they are for the most part, but a lot of that is the social aspect of the game and how easy it is to find a game and community surrounding it, which is something many other game systems seem to actively try and dissuade (shoutout to the KoW community for just staying inside their bubble and refusing to make an open and accessibly community for new players). But a really common view is that even though people may be enjoying 10th, in almost every instance, or the really big important ones, they preferred how 9th did things. Because make no mistake, despite what loud complaining dads on facebook said 9th was the most successful edition 40k has ever had. It had the most people playing it. It did a lot of things right. And to just throw everything out and start over again entirely, rather than building on and fixing its flaws, I think has led to some severe whiplash.

I was talking to someone on discord last week. They were someone who joined in the sort of tail end of 9th and confessed they felt really overwhelmed by it and had been looking forward to 10th initially. But they're now finding themselves just... a little bit bored of the game because indexhammer is for the most part truly the anathema to making a fun and varied army. Plus the mission system as-is creates an even starker need for specific cookie-cutter builds even more than previous editions as it prioritizes and rewards cheap throwaway mobile scorers to the exclusion of everything else. It's not like 9th were you could make a slower army and take specific generic or faction secondaries that weren't solely based on speed and capturing points. It meant you could experiment and do weird fun kooky armies that could still have the possibility of scoring (not optimally, but they still had the capability). In 10th if you do anything that strays outside of the one optimal build for your army, even in a casual environment, you will be scoring low on your secondaries almost constantly, which is made even worse by the random card nature of them. It is an exceptionally feelsbad experience for people. There's a difference between drawing dud unachievable cards for 2 turns in a row and scoring 0 secondaries, and picking Retrieve Battlefield Data in 9th as the best of a bad set of choices and maybe only scoring 4 or 8 points from it over the game, but that's still points you were able to get.

It's also funny to assign blame to 10th's issues onto comp players when 0 comp players I know are actually happy with how the game is currently.

It's not about comp players it's GW's desire to chase that tail with knee jerk balance reactions to gts and emphasizing that style. Again having played the game off and on for over 20 years 9th edition and especially 10th edition definitely feel like they are trying to reach out to the competitive gamer first and screw everybody else. And having people like ITC or that guy who ran Nova being part of their design philosophy was a huge mistake

But you are correct, it's like they streamlined the rules but kept all the poor interactions and half-assed the indexes

9th wasn't bad either at its core, the problem was ridiculous bloat with stratagems. Which could have easily been solved by simply making picking stratagems a sort of deck building equivalent, that is you would pick a handful for your army and that's all you had access to.

Everyone steps in at a different point where the soul is codified, so it will inevitably die when your personal image no longer lines up with the current game.

Which is basically the gaming equivalent of old man yells at kids to get off lawn - society evolves and your ingrained image of what it should be no longer aligns and you are no longer the IT generation.


I've watched 40k evolve from 1992, and the constant is it will change and people will no longer vibe myself included.


For me it started in 5th ed with Ward's superheroing of the fluff and now we have a game where everything must rotate around specific characters and nothing happens without them being involved, making a vast universe tiny.


The game went from being presented as a historic landscape of events and people involved that you could create in, where in effect the setting WAS the protagonist, to herohammer (literally) where it's no longer a setting, it's simply the backdrop to the actions of a bunch of protagonists.

Who by their very protagonism put paid to one of the central tenets of the original game - to be a man is to be uncounted amongst billions and that no matter what happens, you won't be missed.

Unless you're suffering from protagonism, in which the universe can't continue without you being dragged along with it, rather than it just existing and happening whether you survive or not.

Wayniac wrote:
For me absolutely. I have played this game off and on since 1997 and it has never felt as a lifeless as it has now.

I don't know whether it's them streamlining the rules to appeal to the competitive magic type players or them trying to poorly imitate warmachine or what but everything about this edition feels completely off as a war game. While it can be argued that 40K has not felt like a war game in years The point remains that they seem to be moving further and further away and into something that I can't even describe what it feels like

They don't reward tactics and strategy, there are weird advanced use cases of all the rules which you don't know unless you devote yourself to system mastery, which the average player is not going to know but the competitive player is going to, everything is more bloated than ever before with just the number of units and factions. The rules themselves are good but something about them just feel off and I don't know what it is.

It feels like it's in this nebulous place where it's trying to be unique but the only people who it's appealing to are the people that don't actually care about the game and only play it because it's popular.

Wait, you think 10th Edition appeals to Magic players?
As someone who has far too many Commander decks, hell no it doesn't.

A few older players at my new store quit w40k or moved to other games, because the game was too complicated and too "gamey" for them. Not sure if this counts as lack of soul.

The game is what it is. I don't think it is much different then it was in 9th, it just feels, and this time it is a me feeling, very corporation driven. I have no problem with companies wanting to make money first. Great, they make money, they will make more games to play. OP eldar? meh, that is the norm every edition. But telling people X is going to be fun to play , the removing it. Is a bad move . Removing assault marines, scouts, after giving them good rules, and then re releasing primaris version of the same models , but with load outs different enough so people can't use their bikes, assaults, scouts that is a middle finger to the people that bought GW models.

Wayniac wrote:

9th wasn't bad either at its core, the problem was ridiculous bloat with stratagems. Which could have easily been solved by simply making picking stratagems a sort of deck building equivalent, that is you would pick a handful for your army and that's all you had access to.

Adding an entire new pregame step where you would just do what everyone did anyway (only use a handful of strats) is uh, a decision they could have done I guess. I think you're just kind of exposing yourself as someone who didn't play very much of 8th or 9th.

I played a good amount and the shear number of stratagems was part of the problem. But what they did in 10th didn't really fix it Because it did the opposite problem and took away a lot of the flavorful ones

Wayniac wrote:
I played a good amount and the shear number of stratagems was part of the problem. But what they did in 10th didn't really fix it Because it did the opposite problem and took away a lot of the flavorful ones

Basically this.

9th had issues but you could have fixed them without turning characters into glorified sergeants, obliterating wargear and options, removing all choice and flavour from psychic powers, removing points etc., etc.

It's like GW didn't stop at throwing the baby out with the bathwater and started ripping out the entire bathroom to throw out as well.

Back in my day we didn't have strategems, and the game was fine.

Perhaps stratagems weren't a good place to put the flavor in the first place.

Perhaps instead you could have core rules deep enough to anchor faction differences in.

AV14 (core rule) and an Ordnance (core rule) Large Blast (core rule) made a Leman Russ feel unique in 4th edition.

Something like a Predator was less unique (an autocannon was a basic Imperial weapon, heavy bolters were basic Imperial weapons, AV 13 was kinda okay).

In 8th, the Leman Russ became almost indistinguishable from a predator:
- AV anything disappeared. Predator was T7 W11, Russ was T8 W12, same save. Considering anything could wound anything and the new wound chart meant that the only weapon categories effected were Str 4, str8, and str 14 and 15, this felt almost completely different.

- Predator autocannon became 2d3 shots, battle cannon became d6. Pred cannon could have been 4 or 2, doesn't matter. Ordnance had disappeared. Blast had disappeared.

The faction differences between these tanks and identity of one faction as "the tank faction" by comparison dried up, and has been hamfistedly rebuilt in myriad different ways ever since.

Every iteration of the rules since GW kiddie-pooled them has been trying to figure out how to restore identity and depth to the game. But without the core rules complexity to anchor those things in, it just becomes this mess we have now.

7th was awful and bloated. The solution was to fix 7th's problems, not burn it all down and say "job done"

A few things here.

Yes, right now 10th feels a little empty to me.

BUT:

1/ The first six months of any edition is rough for me, because it's the obligatory Marine Parade. This time around it's worse, because Horus Heresy is getting a lot of support, and it's pretty much wall to wall Marines... And then there's Legions Imperialis, which is Heresy era... So Marines.

2/ Since 9th, for me EVERYTHING has been Crusade. So the idea that everyone has playable armies right now is sort of a half-truth for Crusaders, because the bespoke dex content was the best, and there are some issues with porting the contents over. So go Tyranids... And of course, Marines.

3/ On the plus side: Crusade content for Marines has improved tremendously, while Crusade content for 'Nids maintained 9th's quality. It is true that they could have improved it- many of us think that an integrated planet-generation/ implementation would be an improvement... But 'Nids stayed the same, with only 3 planet types.

4/ Kill Team has been slow lately. I need tomorrow's Kill Team preview to recharge me. I incorporate Kill Team into 40k Campaigns, so for me, they're two wheels on the same cart.

I love a lot of the changes, but the inability to give units equipment that's paid for in points is really bad to me.

I'd remove strategems period and return it to weapon options costing points. Especially for characters. If I want to make my 60 point Cannoness a 150 point killer then let me. I'd also reverse a lot of these point reductions. I don't want 200 point Paragon Warsuits, I want 300 point Paragon Warsuits that are worth that price.

See, I'm not entirely opposed to strategems, I just have never cared for the implementation and how they have become basically the "core" mechanic of the game. IMO, strategems should be more like a feat from warmachine, maybe not once per game, but definitely not once per turn either. The focus on the game should be primarily on outmaneuvering and outattriting your opponent on the tabletop, not about managing an imaginary resource which you will use often to improve your units performance. Alternatively strategems should be like a once per game ability unique to a given datasheet that ties in directly with that units fluff kind of thing, and you can use a total of like 3 over the course of a game. I want the game to be focused on moving and shooting and fighting based on a units built in stats and rules, and not an exercise in figuring out the wombocombos and most optimal mechanical interactions that can be gained by stacking layers of rules on top of each other.

chaos0xomega wrote:
See, I'm not entirely opposed to strategems, I just have never cared for the implementation and how they have become basically the "core" mechanic of the game. IMO, strategems should be more like a feat from warmachine, maybe not once per game, but definitely not once per turn either. The focus on the game should be primarily on outmaneuvering and outattriting your opponent on the tabletop, not about managing an imaginary resource which you will use often to improve your units performance. Alternatively strategems should be like a once per game ability unique to a given datasheet that ties in directly with that units fluff kind of thing, and you can use a total of like 3 over the course of a game. I want the game to be focused on moving and shooting and fighting based on a units built in stats and rules, and not an exercise in figuring out the wombocombos and most optimal mechanical interactions that can be gained by stacking layers of rules on top of each other.

Maybe just take a leaf out of AoS's book and make them Command abilities on Characters?

This would also have created an opportunity for problematic auras to either be removed or (if made into Command abilities) to at least have an activation cost, rather than being always-on.

That would have actually been a great idea. They could have kept the aura abilities but it costs a command point or something. Basically like how you had abilities you could activate in Dawn of war 2 And they had a cool down before you could use them again.

In this case it would be like once a turn or something and cost a CP. That would have probably been the perfect way to address it.

The changes they made to characters are probably one of the worst things about 10th. They missed like the most important part of characters being able to join units by making it a requirement so that they're pretty much useless without a unit so it's the opposite problem

Ehhhhh. Okay. So there are things I do like about 10th. So I don't want to come across as thinking it's without merit. I like that there are fewer strats than before, I like how the game plays on the table, and I think some of the new detachments do a great job of being fluffy and changing how units behave.

But the stuff I used to think of as "the soul" of the game is largely the stuff that isn't around any more. Like, I hated the exact implementation of warlord traits and relics, but I loved being able to give characters more personality through quirky abilities or wargear options. Even pre-warlord traits, just being able to take an unorthodox (but still viable) build for a character could make them feel more "yours". Same with squads to a lesser extent. Once upon a time, giving a squad of kabalite warriors a power sword sybarite was an inefficient-but-viable build thanks to Furious Charge and their initiative.

10th has really gone out of its way to take away most of that juicy customization. There have always been more or less efficient unit builds in 40k, but 10th's list building system just makes taking or not taking some wargear a complete non-choice. And that's assuming said choice exists at all. The dark eldar armory that used to let you tell whole stories through your wargear options has now been reduced down to whether you take the good pistol or the bad pistol on 2 of your HQs.

So the "your dudes" aspect that I used to really like just isn't there at the moment. Even the detachment rules are kind of a factor here. Even though I vastly prefer the new detachment rules over their 9th edition counterparts, being able to mix and match a couple of army traits *did* potentially give you a sense of customizing your army to fit your fluff.

I think the missions might kind of be a factor here as well. Even though they're *slightly* less busy than the 9th edition missions, the 10th edition missions still have a ton going on. From 5th-8th, I could look at the mission and instantly come up with the skeleton of a narrative for why my forces were present. My opponents and I used to take a minute before the game and go,

"Oh, it's the relic. Clearly that data slate has the location of the planetary governer's bolt hole, and we're trying to rescue him/parade his corpse through the streets respectively."

9th and 10th missions just have too much going on to get that same feeling. Although Crusade is a bit better about this.

And on top of the rest, I do feel like the playstyles of my main armies have kind of been watered down. There was something very rock & roll about speeding a raider across the table, then charging out of it with an archon who had taken an extra hit of his drug dispenser (and thus had to roll for overdosing). There was something satisfying about opting to flat out or jink to give your wave serpents a save at the cost of their next turn's offense and then seeing that choice pay off. My space elves just don't feel fast or especially mobile any more. Maybe it's just because a lot of our speed-as-defense options are limited to specific units or come at the cost of CP (thus immediately dampening any feel-goods using it might have provided.)

tldr; I like tasty wargear options. Give 'em back! Grr!

Missions I think also have a lot of problems just because they're boring. It's basically just variations of the same crap. Hold x objectives

No

No.

I didn't play 9th, (I fell off cuz of Covid making in-person games undesirable, and didn't come back in at the tail end just because I'd been out for a while,) but I played a lot of 8th, 7th, 6th, and 5th edition, starting at the earlypoint of 6th just after Assault on Black Reach came out.

I enjoy the new edition quite a bit. I don't find it to be soulless at all - it's better than every edition I've played except 5th, which was such a different game that it's hard to compare.

6th edition sometimes felt soulless because of how much relied on luck and deathstars. Psykers could be brutally powerful or utterly pointless depending on whether you rolled a good power or not - leading to the issue of 'I showed up at the battlefield and ended up forgetting how to be useful'. Diviniation ended up being the favorite choice for every army because Prescience, the auto-pick option, was so much better than any of the alternatives. There were many ""choices"", but more often than not, only one choice was actually any good, and the others were all traps that you wanted to avoid at all costs.

7th edition felt soulless, particularly at the end. Sure, there were many, MANY more options, all of which had fluff excuses, but the ultimate result was that play revolved around ignoring everything except numerical optimization and cheese. Taking twelve MSU units of marines with no guns so that you could get twelve free Razorbacks was the very definition of soulless, meaningless gameplay to me. Indestructible deathstars were not fun to play against, and barely better to play with. 'Look Out Sir' was a hilariously bad rule.

Eighth edition too felt soulless, because Blast weapons were stripped out without any sort of real replacement, characters couldn't join squads, armor facing was gone. The detachment system was *awful*, leading to The Loyal 32 being spammed in every board because CP generation was critical and nobody cared how it got done. Power creep was a massive issue, too, with every new codex having huge balance issues. At every point in the edition, I recall there being an utterly dominant army that was almost impossible to beat unless you brought a hard counter that left you vulnerable to everyone else. (Remember when Iron Hands had to get immediately nerfed into the dirt because their supplement was just blatantly overpowered in every way?)

10th edition feels *much* better to me. Sure, there's currently fewer options because the codices aren't out yet, but the way it's built aligns with the fluff. Characters attaching to squads is back, but deathstars are kept out in the cold. Blast weapons are better, feeling mechanically distinct from other random-shot weapons. The rules are streamlined in ways that are easy to follow, and USRs are back.

Is it perfect? No. I wish there were more customization options, and I'm okay with *some* wargear choices being free, but wish others still had points values. However, the balance is good, the game is fun to play, and it's way less common to field an army that feels like it's breaking the fluff for a mechanical advantage.

EDIT:
In summation, my two favorite editions are 5th and 10th. Both offer wildly different experiences. 5th is (for me) the best of the "Chaos era", where RNG and jank rules were king, armor facings and templates caused both major problems and major fun. 10th is the best of the "Modern era", where balance is allegedly taken seriously.

(And to be clear, I've enjoyed every edition I've played. I've never 'hated the game', if it ever came to that, I would have just stopped playing.)

chaos0xomega wrote:
Its long been my POV that one of the things that keeps peoples attention on the game when they aren't at the table is the constant fiddling and tweaking with lists to try to squeeze the most out of it and optimize it. Its almost like a solo-game in and of itself. The new list-building system is too open and unrestrictive to create the tension needed for that to happen, and even I (someone who is a fan of the removal of wargear points) find listbuilding unsatisfying now.

100%, listbuilding was a great solo activity and point of engagement. It's pretty lifeless now.

 Insectum7 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Its long been my POV that one of the things that keeps peoples attention on the game when they aren't at the table is the constant fiddling and tweaking with lists to try to squeeze the most out of it and optimize it. Its almost like a solo-game in and of itself. The new list-building system is too open and unrestrictive to create the tension needed for that to happen, and even I (someone who is a fan of the removal of wargear points) find listbuilding unsatisfying now.

100%, listbuilding was a great solo activity and point of engagement. It's pretty lifeless now.

This is one thing I think could be improved on - If running formations gave extremely small benefits, it could encourage more listbuilding optimization.
The issue with 7th edition was that Formations offered massive, overpowering advantages that overwhelmed the game. The advantage from taking a formation became far more meaningful than the units contained within.

If you could get a small but noteworthy benefit - Like, IDK, getting to use one specific stratagem for free once per game if you follow certain listbuilding constraints - that would, I think, make things more interesting and engaging. (Like, 'If you take three squads of Terminators and at least two Terminator characters, and set them all up in strategic reserves, you may use Rapid Ingress without spending CP once per game on one of these units, even if you've already used it on a different unit that turn' or something.)

Though, in my experience, a lot of listbuilding time was spent just entering options and doing the math. It could be engaging to try and find places to shave points and optimize, but too much of that came from wargear having janky and unbalanced point values.

I still loved the idea of formations in seventh edition as a sort of shopping list or ideas for things to expand upon. The idea of having one thing and then singing Well if I got another one and this other unit I could run them all together and get a small bonus was a good thing. The problem was making some of them absolutely ridiculous and most of them pure garbage

I don't think that anything about the rules of 10e are killing the playerbase, even though I don't like them much. Lots of people quit in 6th/7th because of the frantic pace of bloat, how the wild fluctuations in the effectiveness of various units between releases led to an overstressed supply chain and things being out of stock constantly, and how poor mission design rendered units/builds/entire armies pointless. Lots of people came back or started in 8th because of the promise that the change in leadership and the change in design philosophy would correct those issues. People are starting to bleed away again because nothing has actually changed, and everything that was wrong with 6th/7th is still wrong, at least from a business model/player experience standpoint.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I don't think that anything about the rules of 10e are killing the playerbase, even though I don't like them much. Lots of people quit in 6th/7th because of the frantic pace of bloat, how the wild fluctuations in the effectiveness of various units between releases led to an overstressed supply chain and things being out of stock constantly, and how poor mission design rendered units/builds/entire armies pointless. Lots of people came back or started in 8th because of the promise that the change in leadership and the change in design philosophy would correct those issues. People are starting to bleed away again because nothing has actually changed, and everything that was wrong with 6th/7th is still wrong, at least from a business model/player experience standpoint.

I disagree - While there are still many problems, and price bloat is worse than ever, some things have definitely changed.
Power creep exists, some, but the balance is much better, and the efforts to keep the game balanced are considerably more deft and well done. There's no more 'Here's a new rulebook this month that has a formation that will utterly wreck the game balance but you need to go buy six more razorbacks if you want to win'.

In general, there's been a move away from new rules being a selling point all on their own. Yes, supplements still exist, but 'Buy this campaign book so you can get one new overpowered relic' is gone, and that's the problem that utterly dominated 7th edition and sent it crashing and burning into the ground.

7ths core was/is really good. There were some mistakes that should have been corrected in 8th instead of a complete rework of the core.

Most of the gripes of 7th are bloat/power creep related, which has been the same gripes every edition since end of 5th...