Warhammer 40,000 has always had the problem of having too much stuff to remember between two armies. In 9th edition, the common sentiment was that there was way too many stratagems to remember per faction when really you would always use the same three to four stratagems over and over again.

Looking at you fire and fade.

So, come 10th edition a new design was brought forward to alleviate that common complaint.

Now, all armies have (or will have at time of writing) minimum four detachments. Each detachment has a bonus rule for your army, and six stratagems.

In a basic example of how this functions together lets take a look at an example.

Space Marines army rule is Oath of Moment. Pick a unit at the start of your command phase, all units in your army have full hit re-rolls against that target.

Easy enough to remember.

Then you pick your detachment. In this case, we’ll use the Stromlance Task Force and gain its ability: Lightning Assault. Allowing your whole army to advance and charge.

You then gain access to all the stratagems from Stormlance, which include Shock Assault, which gives you re-roll charges and the Lance keyword for a mounted Adeptus Astartes unit. Or the stratagem Full Throttle, which allows for an advance roll to be automatically 6 inches, or 9 if you’re mounted.

Add on to this that you also get unique enhancements per detachment and you can see the amount of customizability. Keep in mind that Space Marines have 7 detachments in their base codex then access to three more in the Dark Angels Codex Supplement, one in the Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Deathwatch and Black Templar Indexes.

That makes it so that each time you play a game against marines, you really have a chance to play against 14 different armies. With their only similarities being Oath of Moment, and what units they can take. Even then the ladder is only sometimes.

This is a pretty extreme example to be fair but if we look at other codex’s we can see it’s not that niche a situation.

Chaos Space Marines have eight detachments. Ranging from Vehicle spam to an alpha strike detachment. Tyranids have six, Necrons and AdMech both have five.

You might say that nobody plays some of these detachments because they’re bad. I would agree. But what about the one time you do play against them?

Do you have any idea what the Deathwatch detachment does? Or the Imperial Fists flavored one? I doubt it.

This is where the problem lies in Warhammer as of right now. I did quick math, and the number of the detachments at time of writing is 76. I might have messed that up give or take by two or three. But even if it was just 70, that is an insane amount of diversity in the armies. Even if it was 50, that would be still just as ridiculous. We don’t have 21 factions in the game, we have 76 essentially.

Green Tide and Dreadmob are different armies.

Canoptek Court and Hypercrypt play fully differently.

Crusher Stampede and Endless Swarm are night and day different.

Do you get what I’m saying?

I call this “backloaded” design. Where as demonstrated the way your army functions has a lot less to do with upfront choices like army selection, instead it has to do with choices during the second half of army construction. Two marine armies divert entirely in function once you pick your detachment, not your base faction.

Let’s talk Sigmar, and why 4th edition will succeed where 10th edition 40k failed.

In my opinion, Sigmar succeeds because they’ve started to use the opposite design of 40k. The “frontloaded” design present from what we’ve seen of Sigmar so far seemingly fixes all the problems I presented for 40k.

Let me explain.

In Age of Sigmar each army functions as follows:

Each army has their army rules. Some are more complicated than others, but a Fyreslayers army will always use the same Ur-Gold Rune Mechanics. All Sylvaneth players will use Awakened Wild Woods to teleport around the battlefield.

Your army will always have the same selection of prayers, spells, and command traits.

After your army rules you get a Battle Formation. It staples on an additional army rule. Each faction is launching with four Battle Formations.

Using Fyreslayers as an example once again their currently revealed Battle Formation is: Add 1 to wound if you charged.

So if we look at it all together, all Fyreslayer armies will do as every other Fyreslayer army can do, but with a small bonus.

The Battle Formation might buff a specific keyword, like how the Daughters of Khain Battle Formation buffs Melusai. But that’s where it ends.

You don’t gain access to a command ability which makes Melusai double move, or gain the ability to fight on death you didn’t know about.

Once you play against a Melusai unit, you know what it does. Just check if they got a bonus from the formation.

Age of Sigmar has 24 factions, not: 24 but really it’s 80.

To be fair, maybe Sigmar will be too simple, and armies won’t have enough variety and complexity. But I would rather designers be in a place where they can slowly introduce complexity rather than be in the situation that 40k is in now where you pull the slot machine lever each time you play a game.

Will you know what their faction does? Or will it be the only time you play against Deathwatch that year? (Maybe even decade the way that factions going) Or will you play against the current meta army you’ve had multiple reps into. Spoiler alert, they were both Marine armies and you have no idea what Dark Angels do.

10th Edition was pithed as “simplified, not simple” but it feels like the game is more complex than ever and will only worsen with each codex release.

My suggestion would be to approach a stratagems differently. I’ve always liked the idea of them being attached to datasheets. That way its: Army Rule, Small sub-faction bonus, and then each unit has a little trick you can spend command points on. It then returns to 21 factions with small sprinkles of flavor.

I’m not a designer though, so who am I to say. I just want the game to be approachable for the lower level of players who don’t want to memorize six armies in one.

It’s strange how so many of us, myself included, wanted to move to a system with less stratagems. The consequence hasn’t been made clear until recently and it feels too late to divert course for the next few editions.

Time will tell.

Until then, I implore you to give Sigmar 4th a shot. Maybe my feelings about it will prove to be wrong, wouldn’t be the first time, but it feels like they’re onto something with 4th and I’m looking forward to something fresh.

If I’ve sold you, I’m going to hyperlink the Edmonton Warhammer Leagues Sigmar league. I’m not affiliated, I just want the game to thrive, because after three editions of struggle to find its identity, I think it should be rewarded for the constant improvements and willingness to learn and try new things.

Also if you play Morathi you’re the problem. Not biased I swear.

That’s all for today, I hope you enjoyed it. I’ve been excited to write this one for a while now and hope I convinced you of something here.

Be safe, drink water.

See you next time.