Chapter 2: Concluding the Review

Honestly, at this point, the Sonic Film looks like a better prospect.

As time goes on, I actually think this could be the worst edition this game has ever had. Not because it's a cynical, hateful mess like 7^th Edition was, but actually because 8^th Edition had so much potential to actually be a really good game, and instead became a conservative, underwhelming child's game with all of the depth of a mildly damp spoon. Sadly, most of the outsourcing of opinion of what this game needs to be is coming not only from GW's writers (whose attitudes are unlikely to have shifted in private, no matter how much they pretend to give a shit at this point) but from the active GW Fan community, and that is largely made up of gamers who have principally played from 5^th Edition onwards, and have basically experienced 40k as a Power Gamer's game where list potency was the order of the day, and the game was a necessary ordeal to test the voracity of their list. So asking this lot to help GW improve their games is a bit like asking a bunch of chimpanzees to design a skyscraper. And honestly, I'd have more money on the chimps succeeding. 8^th Edition is purest tedium. In a medium that has included “writing” from the likes of Mat Ward, to have decided to call it a day with this... fucking thing... is incredibly telling. I didn't think it could get any worse, and then I read the Ork Codex. I probably wont be touching that one in this series. If you think these two opening chapters are bitter, the bitterness I have for that Codex isn't fit for any human to read.

But I think what is astonishing about 8^th Edition is its contrast to 7^th, as if they spent more effort trying not to be that than they did thinking if the game as a whole actually worked in comparison to what it replaced. Because I think that's what bothers me the most. By GW focusing solely on top level list vs list match-ups, trying to get competitive play to be balanced, on the top end (it's not even balanced there, nor anywhere else) the game succeeds at a relatively fairer power difference than in 7th Edition (big whoop there, if they'd failed at that they really hate you guys). But to get that "success", we had to lose a lot of features: the potential to hurt your own models and the dilemma that represents; directionality, having to make actual decisions with your model placement and facing that mattered; mechanics that rely on judgement or gamecraft (such as templates) just because tournament players are a bunch of whiny little bitches; WYSIWYG functionality, so understanding the difference between a turret and a sponson, and the restrictions of what it could physically do; unit placement, which was not a sure fire I can place them where I like and count on them being there, adding a bit of jeopardy and drama to the game; the most unprecedented unit cull 40k has ever had, as tonnes of units go out with the Indexes they are in and will most likely not be coming back; having a crucial roll to clinch the game, knowing success or failure is like a coin toss you can't take again being undermined by easy access to re-rolls via list munchkinning; and to top this short list off: the game having a very defined miniature/points bracket within which it can conceivably function, which is an absolute first. Never has an Edition of 40k failed to be adaptable to the handful of miniatures, skirmish scale and the above 3000 points large battle scale without providing a deeply unsatisfactory experience that has to be solved by A NEW GAME ENTIRELY rather than a page or two of extra rules and some exclusive units. That's not even an exhaustive list, just the main examples I could think of.

If 7^th Edition's principal sin was expecting too much agency and discernment from its players, 8^th's principal sin is in removing all of it from them. You aren't trusted to discern what is or is not cover, how a weapon has affected your unit, what rules should apply and when, and what direction your models are even fucking facing is too much to expect from you. Open Play is a shrug. Narrative Play is a shrug full of half-baked scenarios that leaves its potential on the cutting room floor alongside the decaying corpse of 8^th's Proof-Reader. You are a vector for your own soulless corporate experience. You are there to put models down, maybe move them, roll some dice, take them off, and post contentedly about it on the heavily moderated facebook pages. The only complexity they give you is in list-building which is evidently where they think your concentration should be, and they make absolutely sure that it's a complete ball-ache for you. Any problem you have, you are expected to fix by emailing in to tell them. Your only agency in this entire game is as free interns for a company that couldn't give one less of a fuck about you and demonstrates that with half-baked core rules that assume your stupidity. They cash in the claim of “balance”, by putting out the overpowered bullshit in Codices anyway, getting the worst of the power gamers to flock to the book (spending big as they go) before “fixing” the issue later with errata, after the point at which their making money from said book no longer matters because pre-order culture and fanboyism drives their sales model anyway. You do have to praise the brass balls of a company that still decided to put out blatant overpowered bullshit in their books and then “responds to feedback” down the line to reassure people they want the game to be good, whilst demonstrating no personal determination on the part of their writers to even attempt competent fixes and savvy up front. You, the unpaid masses are the only balancing factor, and as most of you have been around powergaming to the extent that you think that shit is just the normal thing you do, you should now know full well why Knight Soup hasn't been nerfed yet.

8^th Edition is an exemplar of how wrong this hobby has gone, how determined gamers are to follow a perverse series of denouncements of any kind of nuance, innovation or design in favour of a simple metric that merely does one thing, i.e. pandering to the standard competitive dick-comparing contest that represents all competitive gaming. Warhammer Community's principle efforts are at rebutting any criticism with the standard smoke and mirrors corporate bullshit that always rallies thousands of Apologist Shills and cashing in coincidentally requested ideas that they were doing anyway as “We're listening, honest, Guv”. It would be tempting to denounce such things entirely, but in reality my principal objection is that even during 7^th Edition, 40k could actually satisfy more than one inclination. As it stands, 8^th Edition represents perfection for a very limited selection of outlooks, and shows very telling signs of clamping down on other parts of it (such as the Narrative and Conversion communities who are still very poorly catered for, if not even legislated against).

8^th Edition is a physical embodiment of the consequences of letting talentless mediocrity like that of Ward's writing represent the genuine article of GW's Brand. This is that consequence: an audience that has become addicted to the pursuit of an unequal meta, of a emphasis upon list culture and an instinctive hatred of casual play. With the “Casuals” exiled to the two modes GW do hardly anything to develop (Open and Narrative), they send a message that such modes are inferior (as they exile unsupported models to those modes to hammer that thought home), they divide the kingdom into the casuals and the true gamers, with the gamers receiving the attention. Said gamers thought Ward was fine. Thus 8^th Edition is everything they deserve. And what GW's Fans deserve is ultimately thus: basically nothing, and that is an apt summation of the game itself.

8^th Edition is mediocrity for the lowest common denominator. Whilst there's no shame in that, it's not worthy of a Boutique price tag. It achieves the bare basics, and offers nothing else of noteworthy inclusion. That is not to say people are stupid if they like this, but I think it's fair to say they're not particularly discerning. Nothing needs to be perfect, or even close to it, but GW gets a lot of free passes from their fans and charges a huge amount of money for nothing any other part of the industry can't reliably do better: apart from conversions and customisability, the principle things that GW's Core Rules are taking pains to cut from their product. To me at least, 8^th Ed is a dud. An indication of a true descent into a bygone age. I'll be looking elsewhere for the gaming experience I grew up with. It's clear GW is either unable or unwilling to deliver it (or both).