Quote Originally Posted by snowblizz View Post
AV was an elegant solution to a problem of how to simulate the relative impermeability of vehicles vs infantry weapons while making both relevant on the same table. Tau/Aeldari shouldn't be allowed to ally and shouldn't be allowed as many good weapons. Don't blame that on AV:
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. I liked the AV rules and a lot of the changes that came in with them - AP1 having special properties against vehicles, 'Rending' keywords on what are nominally anti-infantry weapons to give them an edge, etc - and I thought that 8th Edition's practice of making everything into "a big monster" was as much as a step backwards as it was an innovation. I'd have liked to see more middle ground.

But my point was, the rules didn't explicitly ruin the game but they definitely changed what was important in the game, and forced it to become something very different to what it used to be. Whether or not it changed for the worse depended less on the changes themselves, and more on whether it changed what you wanted from the game. The game has always been playable, but that's not the same thing as always offering the same experience.

Some of it is meta-shifts from power-creeping codices, sure, but some of it is also dictated by underlying mechanics. Multiple Small Units (MSU) was a big thing a while ago that happened due to morale and targeting rules, for example - it went away for 8th edition and has recently re-emerged in most builds. Sure, Space Marines were the best at it, but other armies followed suit where they could because it was just the best way to play. Sucks to be an Ork player in such an edition, but then, that's nothing new either.