Chapter 3 Loose Canon: What GW and Black Library Thinks of Their Readers (Part 1)

"Quick Admiral Dembski-Bowden. The Rebels are using FORBIDDEN LOGIC!"

Note: This started off life as one article, but I had so much to say this is now a two-parter.

Part 1: Loose Canon

We need to get serious for a moment. Well, you don't, I do. This one may be a little esoteric, a bit specialist, a bit... picky. But I do feel it important, probably more important than any other part of this series (not that this takes much, but still). So, this chapter here is something from my more earnest interests, because it cuts to the core of where I am now, not where I have been. You could legitimately criticise me for being caught up in something I have chose to abandon. I am in effect pissing into a wheelhouse I used to be in. But this time, I'm sitting in my own, and GW, and Black Library in particular are pissing into mine. This actually cuts to the nub of something I'm actually still prepared to fight over: what is an author, and to whom do they owe their work, if anyone? This could be worryingly close to a serious conversation. Fortunately for me, GW and BL have made this topic a complete joke. So we're back to present form. This will be pretty long, so I will break it into sub-headings in case people want to read it in bits, or skip bits they're not interested in.

“The Mercenary Writer” (Some General Background and Statement of Intent)

Writing is a funny old endeavour. It has many layers to it, many outlets. The core principle of Writing is always the same: to appease an audience of largely strangers using concepts and devices as old as that of society itself, in order to teach, impress and/or entertain. Whilst the origins, and ultimate agreed forms of writing (especially stories) are simple and limited in type, in the modern age they aren't quite so straightforward. Ignoring the various forms writing can take since we moved beyond merely the printing press, there are also differing levels of agenda, and also different levels of story. We live in an increasingly savvy and interconnected world; a world built upon stories we love written by writers we adore, to the extent that some of us (including people who don't share such adorations) write stories that are directly connected to those stories. Stories can transcend being mere stories. They become IP, and IP is, apparently, negotiable.

I, like most card carrying geeks, feel deep love for, interest in and obsession with a multitude of IPs (Intellectual Properties, worlds or universes owned by a company or estate). Thus I'm familiar with those worlds, and always hungry for more. But the reality of such properties is that much of the material I could read is likely to come from another hand to that of its creator, for both good and ill. This particular rant-post (and it is little else) such as it is, is not to bemoan the work of what I am choosing to call “The Mercenary Writer” and their ilk. But I think it is worth dwelling on where these people are in this industry, what particular excuses they make for themselves, and what perspective they need to accept. Because as a writer of my own IP, I am about to be deeply bitter and scathing. I'm saying that upfront just so we're clear. We all have agendas, and mine is that many of these Mercenary Writers are lacking in perspective. Cool? Cool.

As I said, I'm a writer. I've been working on two principle IPs of my own in one form or another for over a decade. I'm a perfectionist, so sue me. I'm also an avid reader, and consumer of most geeky kinds of media. I find that we as an amorphous, massively divided community are on the receiving end of a lot of shenanigans from particular (usually corporate) interests; who are happy to exploit a noticeably devoted audience to make easy money with often pathetically low standards. I can already anticipate the Business Apologetics I am likely to receive for this opening. But save that for a moment. Let's just assume for a second that such business interests are legitimate enough to pass without comment. Whether or not companies are right to pursue what is from at least a dozen or so legitimate perspectives frequently dodgy, is it really right for such representatives to exploit those situations but also moan about the consequences of those actions?

My argument here is, categorically, no.

To my mind, the Mercenary writer is in a position of privilege. They benefit from a number of distinct advantages over other writers and too many of them espouse regret of having to deal with the consequences that come from gaining those advantages. Most Writers after all are not instantly granted access to a pre-existing audience, receptive to the core tone, genre and styling of that writer's work (even if it detracts somewhat from the usual fare for that IP). Nor are they free from the need to do so much world-building: even authors that base their work in our world either now or in history can often end up producing more constructs necessary of their inventiveness than some of the Mercenary Writers writing for IP. As a writer I cannot emphasise how difficult it is to build a world of your own, so having a pre-built one is a tempting thought. So too is already having an audience, skipping months to years of angst and fear about ones own output. Why still persist then, with your own stuff? Simply, freedom. The freedom to tell my own tales, to have the world I want, no compromises, no limits. Because, surely, there must be some limits right? It seems some Mercenary Writers actually disagree. They're victims, the poor things. Victims of petty, hateful sweaty, angry geeks who sit in their mothers basement spotting mistakes. Spotting inconsistencies. Noticing complete fabrications that make no sense in the pre-existing world. Oh woe is them! Shall we help? Well, not exactly...

You see, I don't actually think Mercenary Writers should be bitching like children about the consequences of the privilege they manipulate and directly benefit from to pursue the same craft as everyone else. Nobody is stopping them from writing. No one is stopping them from using someone else's IP. But here's the thing. Criticism is part of the business. So it is rather tiresome when big corporations use mouthpieces to put forward apologetics just to avoid some criticism. As a writer myself, I can't actually imagine a practice within the world of writing itself, beyond moral depravity, that is more odious, sinister or indeed damaging than denying your own responsibilities.

So, let's have an example. For that, I have Grade A Gold. “Loose Canon”.

We're All Right and None of You Are

I didn't really want to single out any individual writers or companies when I initially wrote this for my Non-GW Blog. Not that I have the clout to send a shit-storm in any person's direction, but I like to avoid making things personal. However, Games Workshop (and principally its literary satellite, Black Library) have represented what I feel is one of the most ridiculous attitudes to canon and continuity that I have ever encountered, and a particular writer decided to be a mouthpiece for that attitude: Black Library's Aaron Dembski-Bowden wrote a blog-post a while ago detailing it, called “GrimDark II: Loose Canon”. This article, such as it is, has since disappeared off the net, but it can easily be recovered and read. I've provided a URL to the article below, pop it into an Archive Website (such as Wayback Engine) and you'll be able to read it in full. I invite you to do so, as Dembski-Bowden tried to deal with a number of the issues I'm going to raise to the bits I quoted, so I would rather you read those so that I'm not straw-manning. I just found most of his excuses pretty feeble, and the few I have time for I will deal with either here or in Part 2. Anyway, here's the offending bit that bothers me, and this is common both of GW's overall attitude to their material, and similar to many other big companies that hire a multitude of writers to make cheap sales fodder for them:

“It’s all real, and none of it’s real.”                                                                                                  One of the great mistakes made by almost every fan of Warhammer 40,000 is to take the canonical rules of another license, and crowbar them into 40K. Usually, it’s an unconscious assumption based on a mix between common sense and Star Wars, which is a combination you don’t expect to see everyday. It also works about as well as you’d think.
...
I got it wrong myself, right up until I was in a meeting with the company’s Intellectual Property Manager – a situation I find myself in several times a year, as part of the Horus Heresy novel series team. When I was specifically asking about canon, he replied with something I’ve tried to take to heart: “It’s all real, and one of it’s real.”

First, I'd like to take this moment to congratulate Mr Dembski-Bowden for trying to tackle the issue of contradictions found in the IP he contributes to by providing two contradictory versions of the maxim he has chosen as his apologetics, and doing so within 4 paragraphs (two of which I've omitted for reasons of focus). With that exception I will try not to throw much shade his way. But if you read the article you can probably guess why I might be right not to pull many punches. Now, to regain the impersonal approach as best as I can, I am going to concentrate on the two maxims (as who knows which is right) and take issue with those, because they are utterly ridiculous in virtually every possible way. The obvious way being that essentially, this hand-waves the need to write well with consistency in the setting and to research it well, which for Mercenary Writing is basically the point. I will note that Dembski-Bowden tries to argue that this maxim does not excuse that (reading a lot of Black Library makes me question the idea that Black Library shares Dembski-Bowden's convictions, especially with the likes of C.S. Goto still a name on Black Library bookshelves), but if you need to take an aside to say “this maxim doesn't cover these two obvious corollaries, but trust me, doesn't undermine them” then your maxim is weak.

So why use such a maxim? Well, because geeks are devoted. If you sit in a position of authority, any maxim from that position of authority will get enough Internet Warriors parroting it as an absolute edict, whether it was intended as one or not. The originator of the maxim can always say that wasn't the intention (which is as easy to say as the maxim, and as easy as the things you say the maxim doesn't undermine and as likely to be completely untrue), but if you're in a position of power over geekdom, especially when professing to be “one of us” to that geekdom (as Dembski-Bowden does in his article) you should be savvy enough to know the responsibility involving edicts. Edicts are dangerous in fan communities. Because they often start as suggestions, and they end up often being empowered as holy writ and used regardless of their logical or academic worth.

I've seen GW Edicts used to effectively undermine linguistics or even more simply the act of human interpretative reading in favour of overtly literal interpretation because of the clumsy use of three words (Rules As Written). Stripped often of context and meaning, they are easy to misuse. That is not entirely the fault of the author, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't know better. It also means if you're going to use a Maxim, make sure that if you check anything in your article that you write (especially one which takes shots at parts of the fandom, regardless of whether you see those shots as playful or with actual venom behind them), it's probably the wording of that maxim you wish to espouse and any times you repeat it, lest you write multiple distinctly different things.

So, let's deconstruct those maxims and poke fun at them.

“All of it's true and none of it's true”

This is the most pernicious. It entirely undermines the idea of truth by rendering it moot. That isn't entirely an issue in universes with unreliable narrators, but take note that this (and the other maxim) ultimately undermines the role of the reader. You are not trusted to discern, to argue or to be confident in any truth you are presented with. You are merely told to distrust and embrace all, which is a self-defeating fallacy that tries to have it both ways. Let me put it another way: any lore interpretation, any take-away you have counts, except when it counts. You are invited to believe as you like, but your perspective is as worthless as your time, and any effort you spend trying to discuss or debate any aspect of it can be easily and entirely undermined by any one individual pointing to this maxim. It's essentially boasting that as a material to help you understand that universe (and note it is a fictional universe designed for a hobby of which part of that hobby is adding to it) it is entirely worthless. This is the equivalent of getting your car crushed at a scrapyard just so nobody scratches the paintwork.

“All of it's true and one of it's true”

This is probably the “correct” edict, given that of the two it is less stupid. It is still, however, as an edict, useless to the reader and renders them incapable of discernment and as a passive agent in the act of being talked to with all of the conviction of a snake oil salesman selling a homeopathic pill. Like the homeopathic pill, it is largely empty of meaning or usefulness, so watered down and pointless that it renders nothing useful or empowering to the user, whilst endeavouring to reassure the user of its worth. Whilst containing, at best, trace amounts of it. Some Black Library books are also probably banged by a leather drum too. It has a better affect than reading them. Now, this at least admits the truth is out there. How generous. But it offers no solution to figuring it out, and one could argue it exists purely to tell you that you have no right to decide which it is. I happen to feel that this is the intention, and regardless, it dangles the promise of a commitment to consistency it has every intention of not honouring.

Both are problematic for similar reasons. Principle among which is how intensely self-serving they are. They both exist to give the writer an alibi from their own responsibilities, and no matter how earnestly Dembski-Bowden claims he takes those responsibilities seriously, he has to explain those in his own words, and I just frankly don't believe that a writer who sees fit to provide an alibi from an obvious issue is that interested in those responsibilities beyond face value. It doesn't help that Dembski-Bowden goes to great lengths to point to obvious interpretive differences as the reason behind the need for the maxim. Why is this an issue? Well, there are a few reasons. Firstly, that demonstrates that no one is actually that interested in going “Right, we should probably agree on a logic behind how all these things work” but even beyond that (as for some reasons that's not always possible anyway) but these obvious examples are used as easy shoe-ins, straightforward “No arguments there” reasoning. But is a maxim really needed to explain authorial interpretative differences?

No. Here's why.

That is already an easy enough argument to make. The problem is not that authors have different views about how some things work leading to contradictions in rare or even moderately common cases nor is that somehow unreasonable. It's perfectly understandable. But using such reasoning for something much wider in scope forms the linchpin of something insidious. By using these issues as justification, it saves Dembski-Bowden from going “Yeah, all those writers who don't bother to research and don't care? We aren't firing or denouncing them. We just have this maxim so that you can use it to pretend they don't count any more...” whilst essentially being there precisely because of issues like bad or lazy writing so much more than the minor issues he lists. And whilst these small details may seem petty, it also doesn't change the fact that the contradictions are there and still happened. One has to ask the obvious corollary: does the existence of minor contradictions in storytelling justify a wholesale denouncement of the concept of canon?

Once again, the answer is no, and once again, the denouncement is entirely self-serving. The people who make the contradictions give themselves an alibi, merely at the cost of the value of the whole endeavour and everything it stands for. It provides grounds for undermining debate of the entire process and ultimately its only point of consistency is that it consistently alleviates the one source of responsibility, authority and blame, of blame and responsibility, retaining only the authority bit, naturally. Its self-serving nature betrays it from any iota of being well-meaning. They know you're going to find problems in the fluff. Here is an edict detailing how they'd rather make a dismissive excuse than accept those contradictions as an issue to one day deal with, or simply to accept. They'd rather pull the whole thing down around them than admit they are wrong sometimes.

They are basically throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Just to make sure they can't be accused of not giving a baby a proper bath. Whether you take my perspective or Dembski-Bowden's is for you to decide. If you take mine, I urge you not to buy Black Library. Their attitude undermines the value of their own fiction.

A Few Quick Rebuttals

This is basically it for Part 1, but I want to deal with a few of the potential issues brought on from my focus on this edict:

Am I Straw-Manning?

Maybe. I wont deny that I gloss over Dembski-Bowden's attempts to discuss nuance around the topic. But the fact is that he argues that fluff is so open to interpretation that it needs a maxim that he himself seems to have taken a not entirely obvious interpretation from to regulate whether people are right to be ignored about differing authorial interpretation (which also conveniently acts as an alibi for awful and canon-dismissive writers like C.S. Goto). Ultimately, the position appears to have less to do with genuine issues and how they are addressed and more the fact that GW's writers don't like criticism and rather than taking the bridge between producer and consumer for granted and exploring the nuance intelligently, they decided to just pull the bridge down to avoid the need for it. I'd describe the apologetics that GW use for in-universe facts as a shitshow, and I find that shitshow only further exacerbated both by Dembski-Bowden's efforts to explain it away and by the gullible fanboys who bought it.

Why Now? This Article Is Offline!

Writers can hold very long grudges. Particularly when it comes to things about writing that other writers do or say that rankles you, especially when those bastards are more successful than you. But I have more pressing reasons than authorial jealousy. I happened to notice within the recent Ork Codex discussion of their fluff in a style that clearly suggests that this edict is still the way GW views presentation of its own lore. So actually, this is very relevant, and their reluctance to enter the public arena to have it challenged since is as telling as most of their other actions.

But... But... Unreliable Narrator... Etc

Naturally this edict also suits the setting that 40k inhabits. On the face of it, this kind of attitude makes sense, until you look at it closely. Because it is pretty damn obvious that they aren't remotely consistent with it. For one, just look at the style they adopt. If they really embraced the idea of this kind of artificial mystery, there would be more scenes we weren't privy to. To use but one example, we are told, clearly, what happened to Ghaz when he retreated from Armageddon. How he is saved by intervention from Mork (and perhaps Gork). Why the detail? This also belies a major problem with this edict. If all of it could be lies, why worry about presentation? And indeed, that's part of the problem. Do they really believe it's all propaganda or do they just hide behind that excuse? It seems to be a much more commonly adopted position when talking about the origins of Orks, or the nature of Xenos, but when it comes to Space Marines, we have full details, biographies, dates and dialogue. If GW always played by their own rules, and used it thoughtfully, this would be relevant. It's pretty obvious however that it's just pulled out when people ask questions.

This is it for Part 1. In Part 2 we're going to talk more about Canon, and how Black Library's edicts on the matter are not only irrelevant, but erroneous. We'll conclude why Loose Canon is so damaging and why they need to readjust their attitude. Not that they will, of course, but they should.

******************

P.S. Here's a link to the Dembski-Bowden article used in this rant:

http://www.bscreview.com/2011/03/grimdark-ii-loose-canon/ (you will need to use an archive service like Wayback Engine to look at it though)

P.P.S. Aaron, if you ever read this, I used your surname 15 times. Typed them out individually, went through the document 3 times to make sure I'd spelled it right each time. You didn't even bother to check the two times you used one edict. So maybe next time leave the sass about your own fucking audience out of your corporate shill pieces, and maybe they wont think you're a douche. Peace.

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).

Chapter 1: 8th Edition Warhammer 40,00: The Edition With Big Promises and No Substance

Harsh? Sure, but I'd say its the real secret behind 8th's success.

Ah yes, New 40k™. It's been an interesting experience, I'll give it that. Although, I never thought I'd be concluding at long last “Right, this is where I get off” regarding the rollercoaster ride that is 40k when it is actually a herald of (trivially minor) improvement. Sadly the words “obvious improvement” are not quite the same as “competently written ruleset”, and 8th Edition definitely demonstrates this discrepancy. In fact that's probably the only thing it does in a manner that is above average. But loads of people say this game is great right, so why don't I agree? Well my core argument here is pretty simple: GW can easily big up 8th Edition as an improvement over 7th Edition because, fundamentally, that wasn't a challenge. It doesn't really take much effort to improve on a game written by halfwits with a hostile attitude to their own audience. So when the actual fear GW has of said audience rises from the realisation that this attitude so obviously affected sales to such a noticeable extent that it has single-handedly driven a reactionary counter-narrative all centred around appeasing that beast, is it any wonder that this fear overshadows any potential the game could have had by pandering to an idea of safeness and an off-handing of responsibility to succeed onto the audience itself; because fundamentally, that appears to be easier for them than actually doing their fucking job. And they still likely think that's all your fault for expecting the game to be something other than their low effort meal-ticket. 8th Edition's biggest sin is not the lack of trying: it's the astounding lack of improvement. 

Now sure, “improvement” is to some extent a subjective term, but when the very idea of rules being “simplified” becomes an accepted agenda all to itself, there is already a very selective metric of goalpost shifting in play. The idea of simplicity itself gets a free pass, because of course it's an improvement, it always is (I hope your sarcasm detector is switched on, because if you didn't hear a ding there, you need one. Or the clown hiding under your bed just came). But this is precisely the driving force behind the 8th Edition narrative. It's simpler. This itself seems to be a point of celebration, as is often the case on the internet. Sadly, this rather ignores the more pressing issues, such as the fact that this “simpler” ruleset is, deep down, essentially the same beast as its predecessor (i.e. a jerky FAQ-reliant cyclejerk). The rules themselves fall flat. They remove pretty much all depth, and throw 40k into the quick beer and pretzel style game type, sharing the stage with games such as Fast and Dirty, FUBAR, and 1-Page. This simplicity is poorly constructed (as evidenced by the huge amount of FAQ and Errata) and not actually that simple when you add in the complicating factors of the faction rules, with their clunky interactions and inconsistent wording.

8th Edition is an attempt at an Abstract ruleset, but only half-committed to, with FAQs frequently undermining it, showing that they just hadn't even thought it through. I mean sure, we all make mistakes, but you can't afford to make them at this level, especially when your public interaction wing is being so arrogant about how good your new game is, and the prices on your rulebooks; rules supplements; campaign books; supplement faction books and related rules accessories collectively cost nearly 5 times more than even the competing “Geek Trap” (i.e. Fantasy, Steampunk and Sci-Fi Synergy Wargames) in rules alone. This is not even counting the huge investment of money and time the rest of the package requires. 8th Edition is trying to grab all of your attention, to be your sole hobby, and needs hours of investment learning synergies and stratagems. Yet the ruleset itself brings no depth with it, nothing to stimulate any mind expected to devote itself to it. 8th Edition is the edition that put the Boutique fancifulness GW has had of itself for over a decade into absolute overdrive, and systematically demonstrates that you can indeed polish a turd if your audience doesn't need to think.

Since 8th Edition launched, the biggest promise, and, indeed, the keyword has been balance. GW, and specifically Warhammer Community have been throwing that word around with wanton abandon. GW has led the charge with countless articles about balance with self-congratulatory tones of “best yet” and such. But, as I alluded to in the introduction, is it any effort to make something appear balanced to an audience that didn't mind 7th Edition? Although ironically, if they'd been as silent to the masses as they were in their bad old days, perhaps less critics would have noticed the astounding failure of this bold claim. Of course, there's still time for this fabled “balance” to occur, but so far, the results are far from conclusive. Just into the new edition, I took part in an apocalypse game. It was the most one-sided game I have ever been involved in: the xenos side were annihilated by the Imperials, who mostly didn't move at all, and shot us off the board, after going second. In a mere turn, we'd lost all our super heavies and they'd lost none. They took the flyers off out of “generosity” and let us put our super-heavies back on. A turn later they'd took all our super-heavies out again. 16 points to nothing. It highlighted to me obvious inequalities in the basic factions, especially on the top end, just showing the destructive powers that imperials have, with easy hit rolls (and easy access to re-rolls). Whereas Xenos, mostly Ork, albeit, with some Pansee to help, were shrugged off the board without any effort at all. My own kill tally was a Landspeeder and a Culexus Assassin. With about 4k worth of points. Easily the worst game I have ever played. (Dim From The Future: As an aside, I'm still right. We've had basically a year of Knight/Guard/Custode soup being dominant and NOTHING has changed there, missing SEVERAL opportunities to address it. The balance claim, is bullshit. End of. Also, Apocalypse needing to now be a gimmicky movement tray spin-off also enhances my point. We are looking at a set of core rules so utterly fragile and inflexible that something that has merely needed a small patch for years has had to become a separate game entirely. Still so sure 8th Ed is better?)

In regular games of 40k, my experience has been dominated by two words: Alpha Strike. There are loads of almost brainlessly easy lists. 40K isn't a game that's balanced to suit a variety of playstyles: it's balanced around people who know how to abuse power lists. This is literally the problem 40k has had for the past decade or so, and 8th Edition hasn't only done nothing to address this problem, they're reinforced it as the principle defining aspect of the game! The only thing they've done to change matters is remove most of the obvious inequality-driven faction-selling bullshit, and that's not really an achievement (given that this stuff should never have existed in the first place if their staff even had half an idea of how a wargame works). This ability for list shenanigans is summed up best via “Command Points”, where players can min-max to the point where they can easily grant themselves a re-roll for virtually every crucial roll in the game, or take spam lists and hardly notice a downside. The scenario rules still favour the better destructive force, meaning that once you've realised which army list is the strongest, it's probably pointless continuing to play, because thanks to this stripped down, moronic system, there is nowhere for you to hide, outmanoeuvre or otherwise outplay a superior force. You're there, largely, to roll dice and remove models. Movement merely gives you the illusion that you're trying to achieve something, and against a lot of Imperial lists, they'll not be doing much moving, given that they'll eliminate you far more easily by just sitting there and leaf-blowering you off the board. When you get down to it, this all there is to the game: it's an algorithm of your list's damage output and literally nothing else. You're being lulled by a promise of “balance” that mostly centres around points tweaking and FAQ nerfs that will be driven primarily from GW's contact with the UK and US tournament scenes, as if things couldn't be more disgusting already.

This game feels very “by committee” and that's not surprising. GW is still the same dumbass corporate company that forced itself into the position of needing to pretend to give a fuck about you just so you'll go back to buying a few things every now and then. Of course, you don't realise that this is all your fault. You guys have standards, so GW now needs you to tell them how to do everything, and this is why they've served up two wargames with no actual features, so you can tell them how to make them not suck, seeing as they don't seem to have anyone with half a clue how to fix them without you. Much like Forging the Narrative, GW continues with the onus on player responsibility. Now not only do you have to make the best of a situation and suck it up if you want to actually enjoy a game, you now also have to help them run a beta that they're selling as a completed product and essentially do most of the design work. Unpaid. Once again, GW hides behind the easy positives. Opening up to feedback is one thing, but when the people giving the feedback are doing pretty much all of the work to make this game function, be balanced, and even to stop exploits printed into Codices that they charge £30-50 for, it's evident that the improvement is threadbare and not substantive. 8th Edition is effectively a blank canvas for us to fill in: a blank canvas that costs £40 plus supplements.

So what's so wrong with it? Why is simpler bad? Simpler isn't always bad. It's simply a matter of execution. 8th Edition's core has much less to it, meaning it has to do more with less, or needs to turn its back on a lot of features but offer a better experience: 8th Edition fails at both of these outcomes. Let's do a rundown of a few of the problems. Movement values are varied again for the first time since 2nd Edition, but the game as a whole makes movement largely pointless (heavy weapon types outright discourage movement, many armies wont need to move at all and your opponent will likely alpha strike with most things that they would move anyway) so the nuance of variable movement types merely creates inequalities for no real point. Shooting is overly dominant, to the point of brainless saturation: leaf-blower builds are astoundingly easy, overwatch is automatic in every sense (particularly when it doesn't make any), and the oversimplification (i.e. neutering) of cover has rendered shooting as the easy solution to most problems apart from alpha strike, and sometimes even also that. The removal of initiative was entirely unnecessary and has mostly just created a game that makes large scale games of any size a headache when it comes to the assault phase, removing a useful stat that offered multiple in-game features in favour of a gimmick with a definite tolerance ceiling (and a tendency for creating rules clunk, inequalities and daft rules fixes later down the line). Morale may speed the game up, but it essentially just rewards outright offence and list power (like everything else in this game) and removes a lot of nuance from the game. Scenarios, whilst better than they have been in about 3 editions, still basically favour list power and killing ability. Any 40k game is still basically playing slayer mode with a few options to move that you simply don't opt to do and eliminate your opponent from the board via targeted alpha strike or static leaf-blower fire. And that's not even an exhaustive list of core failings.

Besides, it's not just what features the game has, but also what it lacks (which is pretty much everything). The removal of Unit Types is already demonstratively a problem: removing much nuance, consistency and adaptability from the core, meaning that you have a deluge of slightly varied similar rules that add nothing to the game aside from more to read in army books, usually during games. Whilst not a necessity, it's more of a sideways movement for the game. As stated above, the lack of cover as an interesting or nuanced feature has helped render movement and positioning as largely pointless. Movement and positioning are supposed to be a key feature of any good wargame, but in 40k's case they are merely an issue of weapon or charge range, and barely anything else. The game also lacks a lot of consistency, such as failing to remain consistently an abstract style game: having no ceiling for wounding but perplexingly having one for hitting and so on (this is before multiple FAQ entries break the abstract style with exceptions no one could logically conclude from what the rules provide). The removal of templates takes away a tactile element of the game that helped break up all the dice rolling and they replaced them with... more dice rolling. But the main thing they removed from the game was the application of skill. Most of that is gone. Positioning doesn't matter (except for basic things any wargame, or tabletop strategy game such a Draughts or Go provides, making such a feature not even worth mentioning), very basic tactics are basically all you need to succeed if your list is basically better than the opponents' which will often be the case if you're vaguely a powergamer. There's essentially nothing you can do wrong, unless you're really going out of your way to lose (or you're unlucky with dice rolls), and the average 40k tactics seen in-game plays out like some of Mat Ward's battle fluff: your army attacks directly and superior might equates victory. As wargaming goes, it can't get any more basic or less satisfying than this.

40k's design is ultimately conservative. It's a product of borrowing from Age of Sigmar's also stripped down style (note that a simpler ruleset is first and foremost quicker to write, which is likely the only reason they opted for that style), but in spite of this conservatism, mostly fuelled by “mathshammer” and hollow promises, the game is heavily flawed. This is why I am so frequently critical of simplified rulesets. The fact is, that if you let less rules dominate the majority of your game, you absolutely have to make sure that those functions work flawlessly and that the minimalist words used do as much work as possible. It is absolutely fundamentally crucial that your approach remains consistent, and that game functions support each other. Writing a simplified ruleset well requires more skill than writing a comprehensive larger ruleset, and it is an entirely different skill-set. GW have demonstrated with both games that use this new style, that GW are incapable of even anticipating the most obvious of flaws and the problems that will stem from merely core rules alone. All the while GW enter (much like with Finecast) into a completely new aspect of the industry (quickplay simplified rulesets) and demonstrate out of the door that they fundamentally lack even the most basic capacity to do it well, all whilst charging boutique prices, as if they've fucking mastered it. Neither AoS, nor 40k 8th Edition as Core Rules alone are remotely as refined as other rulesets, such as Fast and Dirty and FUBAR, rulesets that are either significantly cheaper or just free entirely. If you actually want to play a game of 40k as GW intends you to, that means paying a minimum of £105 to play one game (Rulebook, Open War Cards, 1 Codex, Chapter Approved [Future Dim: Ignoring that you've had to buy yet another one even shittier than the first and Campaign Supplements so sparse of content related to campaigns that it needed to ransom new units, relics and formations just to get people to buy it) on top of the very expensive prices they are charging for their models, with a new aesthetic that out of the door isn't too far divorced from the shit you'll find in Toys R Us (Future Dim: whatever that is). Do remember that you're paying boutique prices for this game that is basically a beta (and plays like an alpha].

The sad thing is that Warhammer 40,000 is, at least in terms of balance, better than it has been in a long time but given the absolutely pathetic ante-upping dross it followed (an edition of the game that GW could have struggled to make worse than it was), that's really not difficult at all. Once you get over the fact that 8th Edition (most likely briefly) called time on the worst of the sales stimulus nonsense that the last 3 Editions had blatantly served up (with the editions merely reducing the amount of effort they could be bothered to summon up to hide that fact), it doesn't take much effort to see that there is basically nothing else to this game other than an effort to create at least the pretence of a slightly more stable meta whilst removing as much work from their writing duties as possible. But that wasn't achieved without a cost, and that cost was draining virtually all of the game's character and style to achieve it. Moreover, it fails to solve any of the issues that has plagued the game for over a decade, aside of trying to insist to fans that the days of sales-based inequality are over (which is very unlikely). There are only two major features to this game: it's simpler to play and it's not as bad as 7th. And frankly, anyone, even an outright amateur with no experience in this industry could have managed that, and a great many people would have easily done it better and not charged £40 for the core plus supplements. Frankly, this game is mediocre at best, and serves to highlight that even now, GW are clueless in their own industry but act like they're the best. If this is the best they have to offer, I'm utterly bewildered that they think this pretty underwhelming bare bones game is worth the decade or more of open indifference and/or hostility its own fanbase experienced during the Kirby Era. If this is supposed to be the Revolution, I for one do not feel emancipated. I feel indifference.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Dim's Exodus Series

(Wherein Dim attaches his name like faecal matter to a noun and the word “Series” part the 100^th)

40k was saved, but not for me. Now fuck off, Sam.

Opening Note: If by some kind of magic you find your way to this series without following the link I posted from my forum, welcome. I don't mind anyone reading this, but if some references refer to an audience I obviously don't have on this thing, or material (look at the sparse amount of entries) or references to names, events etc that make no sense, it's because this is aimed at my forum friends. This material is only here because technical issues prevent it being posted there. You are still welcome to read it, it will mostly simply be ranting about GW. If you're into that sort of thing.

An Introduction

This is a strange situation. I've mostly made my peace with GW at this stage, and having spent years criticising GW's stupid attitude to its own customers, a "romancing drive" seemed an apt time to end my tenure. On the face of it, it seems as if GW's turnaround has merely just been too little, too late for me. And largely I feel that is mostly true. However... It's not as if GW aren't actually up to the same sorts of shenanigans, nor are their games actual improvements in the ways that a lot of gamers had hoped. Nobody has bothered with the pushback yet, and I don't think the reason is a lack of things to push back against. After all at least with 7th Edition you had a game you could actually talk about... I mean, at least 7^th pissed people off. Critics of 8^th, like myself, are mostly bored above anything else.

I'm not convinced that New GW^TM is an actual thing, and I don't believe their games are better. I find it fucking hilarious that the apologists have picked up GW's banner with no sense of irony, shame or humiliation and resumed where they left off, in spite of GW vindicating pretty much every rational criticism sent at both at GW and the Apologists themselves. For a while I wondered why, but now I know. GW notices them. GW pretends to care about them, and after all if you've been consistently sucking corporate cock for 15 years it is about time the recipient at least condescended to provide some eye contact. Maybe even a brief ejaculation: "We're Listening^TM" they whisper like that woman from those Marks & Spenser ads. You can just feel their mouths swell with satisfaction can't you. And naturally, they swallowed it.

And there's a first for Dim. A decent analogy.

It's not easy biting your tongue, really. I actually tried taking some Apologist advice. Decided to quit. It wasn't easy, but I did it. I haven't played 40k or read a book about it in about 8 months. And it has been surprisingly liberating. But not effective. Whilst I am a fair bit happier I'm still pretty bitter, and irritated. I mean, I have no real interest in fighting for gamers as consumers. That ship has sailed. I'm not sure I believe in karma, but GW making their two principle games into stripped down army list simulators, with the vast majority of its variation and nuance stripped out of it and sold hilariously at boutique is precisely what this community of power gaming dicetards deserves. Any more effort than that is basically a waste. I do feel for everyone else, who at least expected some variable amount of “more” than 8^th is, but ultimately 8th is for everyone who feels they kinda liked 7^th anyway. Like I said, they deserve this.

So this isn't advocacy. This is more personal, really. I want to clear the air, say what I feel I need to say, because there's no actual reason for me to retain or bury these thoughts any more. I'm going to air them here and then be done with it, and move on. I do it here principally because it's a sizeable part of my 40k experience, and it seems apt to close it here. Besides, I know there's at least half a dozen to a dozen of you that will be entertained by this regardless of whether you guys agree with any of it or not. A few definitely won't, but a few of those people have discredited themselves to my mind, so at this point I don't care. I tried pulling punches last year. This time, I won't bother. To everyone else who likes 8^th but doesn't feel the need to treat every detractor like they're some sort of defective moron who needs only to see things that they already know are there, well, you guys can make up your own mind about my words or just not bother with the series at all. I'm not judging you either way.

So for the first, last and only time I'm issuing a content warning (given the analogy above it's probably a bit late but hey at least I'm doing the eye contact thing within a decade). I am going to be brutally honest and I'm going to say quite a few pretty harsh (but, as always, reasoned) criticisms of GW, some individuals within it and quite a sizeable portion of GW's fanbase. If that sort of thing bothers you, by reading beyond the intro you have at least been warned as to its content. As recompense for this series, I am going to try and finish Wurrgitz and I have something special planned for Christmas. A more proper send off to the "writey" parts of the forum. I will be returning to the Mek's at some point, given my new project (a friend is willing to play any edition with me so I'm looking at 3rd and 4th atm) but in terms of 8th, or likely anything in the future, 40k is dead to me. In every way that matters.

Just to cover a few more things, yes I filled in this year's community survey. I was constructive but quite scathing. Whilst I haven't played in a long while, I am still in a community that mostly plays 40k, so let's not try the ignorance card. I've watched enough games to know I'm not really missing anything of value. Much of this series will contain jokes, although considering my deranged sense of humour I make no assurances you'll find it funny. And yes, this really is it, this is my final series of “Dim tries to persuade everyone he's right in a verbose, rhetorical fashion through a series of articles with clickbait titles”. This is largely a release for me, and entertainment for you. That is its only principle function. I would be lying if I said I wasn't judging people... it would be unfair to dodge that accusation. But I wholeheartedly do not judge anyone for liking this game, for enjoying this game and for hoping it will only improve. I just cannot share your viewpoint in any three instances (and people patronisingly telling me to look at the positives are just fucking irritating at this stage), principally because most of GW's feedback is coming from the morons who defended 7^th Ed. But that's now your problem, not mine. Just putting that out there.

This isn't a message to GW by the way. Whether they would listen or not these days might get covered in a rant, but either way at this point I don't really care. Is this a message to you? Well, maybe, but I'm not obliging anyone to care or even read it. I'm going to do my best to make these rants fun and interesting, but I'm not as invested in the issues raised as I was when I wrote some of them. Some of them are being written now, but principally the motivation is to get this off my chest. I'm tired of hanging onto it. Ultimately, if even one person reads it and goes “Those sure are some opinions”, that'll do.

Finally some of you may be wondering, why here? Why now? Thought you were leaving and stuff? Well that might still happen. If I do stay, it wont be as a gamer supporting the current edition at the very least. Why post this on the forum? Well partly, I just find the obvious death of discourse in most of the sections of the forum to be incredibly depressing, almost as if all those blowhards who said it was better than ever were talking shit or something. I don't know. I just wanted to get people talking, hang out with some of my old friends on here, have a laugh, and talk about the good old days.

Oh and yes, each rant “article” will have a picture. Because at least one of you seems to need them.

So, to make this intro a Shakespeare sandwich: once more unto the breach dear friends. Once more.