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https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2YpFOYJiw9LXvz4s.pdf
reading through the rules commentary, there's some interesting rulings that stand out to me. stuff like

Army: A player’s army consists of every unit on their Army Roster and any units that are added to it over the course of the battle.

or

Any: If a rule applies to ‘any’, it means ‘one or more’. For example, ‘While this model is within Engagement Range of any enemy units’ is the same as ‘While this model is within Engagement Range of one or more enemy units’.

this isn't really how warhammer does its rules. the rules of this game have never been tight, and they never go out of their way to describe things that are easily understood. this strikes me as less of FAQs or erratas, but rather more in line with how MTG handles its comprehensive rules. the comprehensive rules include such catchy gems as:

100. General
100.1. These Magic rules apply to any Magic game with two or more players, including two-player games and multiplayer games.
100.1a A two-player game is a game that begins with only two players.
100.1b A multiplayer game is a game that begins with more than two players. See section 8, “Multiplayer Rules.”

and

104.2. There are several ways to win the game.
104.2a A player still in the game wins the game if that player’s opponents have all left the game. This happens immediately and overrides all effects that would preclude that player from winning the game.
104.2b An effect may state that a player wins the game.

this is because magic is a competitive game, and thus needs a tight rules system for rulings in tournaments. in contrast, no person has ever accused warhammer's rules of being too clear. this is a pretty clear change in ethos, i feel. GW moving towards competitive isn't a new thing, but this feels like another step in that direction, especially with the commentary being so long (20 pages). i wonder if someday we're going to see GW put out their own comprehensive rules that's as thorough as MTG. certainly, i don't think it would be a bad thing, since it would help remove vagueness (and everyone deals with that, even people who never touch tournaments)

curious what people make of this

I will be shocked if anyone has anything against more clarity and precision as a principle. I can understand if they feel GW is doing it poorly (as they often do, with most game things) that would make sense, though.

When we have people claiming you could shoot unit infinite times according to 10th core rules...yea not surprised gw clarifies even silly looking things.

Does this mean the end of people defending absolute ridiculous rules as literally written takes on rules forums when the intention is quite clear? Darn, those threads could be funny

 JNAProductions wrote:
I will be shocked if anyone has anything against more clarity and precision as a principle. I can understand if they feel GW is doing it poorly (as they often do, with most game things) that would make sense, though.

You want the rules to be as long as they need to get the point across. They need to be tight enough to cover most situations, without degenerating into a 10 page legal document just to describe what a player is.

There is a point I’d start complaining that the rules are too “clear”. The rulebook could cover 100% of every possible situation, but if it’s a 600 page impenetrable tome, that’s too much.

But considering our start point, we have a long way to go before we get to SFB levels.

 Nevelon wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I will be shocked if anyone has anything against more clarity and precision as a principle. I can understand if they feel GW is doing it poorly (as they often do, with most game things) that would make sense, though.

You want the rules to be as long as they need to get the point across. They need to be tight enough to cover most situations, without degenerating into a 10 page legal document just to describe what a player is.

There is a point I’d start complaining that the rules are too “clear”. The rulebook could cover 100% of every possible situation, but if it’s a 600 page impenetrable tome, that’s too much.

But considering our start point, we have a long way to go before we get to SFB levels.

so, I think what they're trying to do here, with a pretty short core rules that are mostly plain English, and a much longer "commentary" that contains the majority of the "tight" wording and loophole protection, is as good a compromise as we are going to get.

xerxeskingofking wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I will be shocked if anyone has anything against more clarity and precision as a principle. I can understand if they feel GW is doing it poorly (as they often do, with most game things) that would make sense, though.

You want the rules to be as long as they need to get the point across. They need to be tight enough to cover most situations, without degenerating into a 10 page legal document just to describe what a player is.

There is a point I’d start complaining that the rules are too “clear”. The rulebook could cover 100% of every possible situation, but if it’s a 600 page impenetrable tome, that’s too much.

But considering our start point, we have a long way to go before we get to SFB levels.

so, I think what they're trying to do here, with a pretty short core rules that are mostly plain English, and a much longer "commentary" that contains the majority of the "tight" wording and loophole protection, is as good a compromise as we are going to get.

I agree. They want to keep the RAW under control, so have a separate doc for RAI. It’s not perfect, but a reasonable compromise.

GW is always a bit haphazard with rules


They want a big refresh every 3 years or so as they feel this generates big sales spikes for them

They want the competitive market because it generates a lot of free marketing; awareness and social interactions which all encourage more playing and such of their game

They also want to not lock anyone out - they want the casuals; the keen; the rules lawyers; the super lazy etc..




The result is they end up with bits of each which kind of don't always agree with each other. Attempts to polish the writing to be clearer get hampered by their casual approach to rules structure and writing; attempts to create super casual rules get undermined by their regular rebalancing adjustments.
And the whole thing is undermined by the regular refreshes to the whole system.