With 11th edition being released next Saturday, I'd like to take the opportunity to write about the edition that was, one last time.

I have played every edition of 40k from 3rd onwards, so I think my frame of reference is reasonably broad. Prior to 10th, my favourite edition was 5th edition, but with the linear passage of time, I think that can be chalked up to nostalgia bias.

10th edition represented a confluence of the 40k design team's knowledge. An expansion of what made 40k compelling and fun without (most of) the bits that made it impenetrable. During preview season, the mantra of “simplified, not simple” – was repeated an uncomfortable number of times.

A development ethos that was delivered on – at least in my opinion.

Yes,10th 40k had balance problems. Every edition of the game does. There are far better analysts than me who are happy to give you the play-by-play for factions like Eldar, Adeptus Custodes, Deathwatch, Orks, Ultramarines, and Chaos Space Marines, all of whom had their turn at the top of the pile.

From table .500, I never felt was the game’s balance issues were so egregious that I wanted to give up on 40k.

Now, before the new edition dropped, there was plenty of concerned commentary. A clean slate, the abandonment of wargear points, and the introduction of fixed squad sizes ruffled feathers. It was going to be an uphill struggle to convince a restless gaming public that the new edition was worth playing and could provide a solid wargaming experience.

Boy howdy, did the design team deliver with the detachment system.

The structure of a faction was entirely rewritten. Any given army comprised of a faction rule, a detachment rule, and unit special rules. Each detachment had six stratagems, which combined with the core rulebook stratagems.

Warlord Traits and Relics became Enhancements, but they cost points – so a newer player wasn’t forced to immediately engage with them.

The secret sauce of this system was that the design space was horizontal, not vertical. Over the course of the edition, the design team delivered a swath of new detachments, that changed the way an army could be played, without layering on additional rules.

Now, admittedly, it was a slow start – additional detachments weren’t introduced until codexes were printed.

Each codex got a fistful of flavourful detachments, which kept within the boundaries of the system. You got a detachment rule, four enhancements, and six stratagems. Even factions with middling datasheet rosters (i.e, not any of the four chaos legions) had multiple ways to build a playable army.

These changes removed the shackles of 9th edition. Previously some subfactions had been handcuffed to a series of bad special rules. Now, you had the freedom to pick. If you didn’t like a detachment, you could always try a different one. Brand new avenues of gameplay were opened up almost overnight.

I don’t want to mince words here. The detachment system places 10th at the top of the mountain for me. I cannot recall the last time Games Workshop designers produced such brilliance.

But that wasn’t all.

Another criticism I had of 9th edition was secondary mission play. On paper, faction- and subfaction-specific secondaries were fine – good, even – they represented a very flavourful way to play any given army.

In practice, you lived and died by the quality of your faction’s secondaries. Some factions had objectives that were comically easy to complete, and others had to struggle for every point.

Out that went with 10th, and in came a generic mission deck. These missions weren’t all good, and all three mission decks (Leviathan, Pariah Nexus and CA25-26) all have their highlights and lowlights.

This system isn’t perfect, either. There were several rounds of iteration, removing the once per game limitation on redrawing a mission, and allowing players to discard secondaries at the end of their opponent’s turn. In addition, certain cards that were difficult our outright impossible to achieve had discard or redraw stipulations.

Despite these improvements, it was possible for a player to get screwed by bad secondary draws and get locked out of the game, even in the tail end of the edition.

But I want to temper that statement – because anecdotally, I got screwed way harder by faction specific secondaries that failed to fire. The mission play of this edition is far more equal and doesn’t feature any scenarios where a bad call on your secondaries locks you into a slow and painful loss.

Returning to our overarching theme of horizontal design space, the generic nature of the mission deck ensures that when you play a different army, you already know what any given game might expect of you. Familiarity breeds confidence and assists in development.

I’ll say it again, louder for the people in the back - 10th edition is simplified, but it is not simple. I will go to the barricades on this.

We’ve now reached the point in the article where I write about the changes to list building.

Oh boy, here we go.

Let’s wind the tape back. In previous editions of 40k players had access to several variables when list building. Squad size, weapon selection, wargear for unit leaders – you get the picture. All of those had different costs associated with them, so you could tweak and fiddle to your heart’s desire.

This system was partially straightened out when we moved to 8th edition – a model cost X points, you added a weapon which cost Y, and sometimes wargear, which cost Z.

For example, a standard space marine might cost you 10 points, you’d pay an extra 15 points for a plasma pistol, and finally 5 points for a chainsword.

Models were on a different table to weapons, so building an army list was a time-consuming and annoying process. Listbuilding applications and websites mitigated this, unless you were a new player (foreshadowing is a literary device) or were doing hardcore theorycrafting in the wake of a balance dataslate.

This all went out the window with 10th. Instead, all units had a series of fixed costs based around unit size, and all weapons and wargear became free.

So rather than 4 Space Marines that cost you 40 points and a unit leader that cost 10 points with 20 points of wargear, you instead paid a flat rate of 50 points.

This system is not perfect, and certainly not without its detractors. There aren’t any levers and dials to fiddle with. There is no way to trim a single model out of a squad or change the weapons a unit is equipped with to sneak under the 2000-point limit.

Internal balance is also a bit wonky and inconsistent. For example, in a Battle Sister squad, a Multi-Melta will generally be better choice than a Heavy Bolter. In 8th and 9th, it was often correct to not have a heavy weapon at all to save space for more dedicated heavy hitters.

Furthermore, lot of units had weapon options simplified (reset your clocks). Bolt Rifles went from having three slightly different variants to a single profile. The same is true for Plasma Incinerators and Combi-weapons – but there are plenty of other examples.

The point is, you cannot lose yourself in pages and pages of minutiae that a seasoned player might use to eke out a slight advantage every second or third game. Players are presented with fewer choices. You add together the flat values for your units, add enhancements, then you play a game.

Is it less interesting? Yes. Does that make it bad? No.

In the simplest possible terms, the game is out there. Building an army list is not playing the game. I disagree entirely with the sentiment that because there aren’t levers to pull and knobs to fiddle with, that the system is bad.

If anything, the absence of complex list building mechanics in 10th, is a selling point, not a downside, particularly for new players.

Remember the design ethos – simplified, not simple.

As an example, a week after 10th released, Dad came for a game with Grey Knights. Being so busy with work, he’d not had the time to put together a list. It took him less than five minutes to slap his army together, without the assistance of an electronic list builder.

You couldn’t do that in 9th unless you were extremely familiar with the system and the supporting infrastructure. What we lost is little compared to what we gained.

Not just that, but there’s nuance around the discussion of internal balance that never comes up, which annoys me.

Our local Chaos Space Marine super-user pointed out all his Khorne Berzerker squads could now receive 2 free Plasma Pistols. It was framed as a bad thing, an absence of depth in list building mechanics – but, ironically, I don’t think it’s as simple as that.

A unit of Berzerkers is a melee combat unit. The question then becomes, how game-determinative are two slightly better shooting attacks from a unit that sometimes doesn’t shoot at all? Indeed, the observation is made that being able to shoot marginally better is probably worth a handful of points.

But therein lies the paradox. Berzerkers don’t need those pistols, so it doesn’t make sense to pay for them, even at 5 or 10 points a model, because they do nothing for the unit’s primary game plan - hit things. Yes, Plasma Pistols are cool, but money’s tight, so leave them on the sprue.

I cannot speak for the design team or the rules team. But it certainly seems clear that the philosophy for this system is to ensure that buying a box of miniatures, doesn’t give you decision paralysis if you use the cool looking weapons on the sprue. Something I am wholeheartedly in support of.

Now some of the more eagle-eyed readers amongst you will have already formulated your next argument based on the Battle Sister example. The unit’s primary function is shooting, which is advanced by having access to a heavy weapon. It’s not an automatic hard pass.

My response is simple. It might make the squad stronger, but not to such an extent that it would move above the power curve - even with a free Meltagun, a Multi-Melta, and a Combi-weapon. And it means that gamers of all stripes can assemble their models however they want, with all the cool guns. This point is just not the dagger you want it to be.

Let this be my final word on the matter. It was worth the trade-off.

So where does that leave us, on the eve of a new edition? I’d like to think in a pretty good place. I have spent more time with 10th than I have the last five editions combined. That doesn’t happen unless you have genuine enthusiasm for the ruleset.

It’s the perfect balance of army structure, improved mission play, and the absolute slam dunk that it is the detachment system. It combines to form a gameplay experience that is, one more time:

Simplified, not simple, and deeply enjoyable. For me, 10th edition is the new king of the mountain.

I am looking forward to 11th edition. But it’s going to be a hard act to follow.

Catch you next time,
Vulkan

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