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Ruin wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
There has to be some way for the defender to lose a special weapon or sergeant before the other dudes though. If that literally never happens, why give them a Leadership stat at all?
It seems silly to me that every battle in the 41st millennium is won by a group of sergeants milling about after literally everyone else has been killed.

This is where I think someone mentioned 5th started down the road of complexity.
5th made it so you had to apply a wound to each model in the unit (for complex units) and then apply a second set... etc.
So then the saves were made in a pool for the generic guys and the Sgt and other special guys would have a save or two they had to make.
Say Orks manage to wound 20 times on some 10 Marines, you would apply to wounds for each model so the Sgt would have to make 2 saves.
I think 4th did not go that far.

4th had torrent of fire (or blows for HTH) so of those wounds the Orks caused on the marines they could allocate one of them to say, the Sgt with the power fist as they scored more wounds than there were squad members. Range and LOS could also be used to snipe special weapons/Sgt. out of squads as you could only remove casualties that were within range and LOS.

Can confirm "Torrent of Fire" in 4th Ed. Though it wasn't a bolded/breakout rule so it could be easy to miss, but it's right there in the Remove Casualties section.

The most interesting difference is that 4th Ed. lumps all the wounds from all the weapons being fired into that "wound pool". Then the defender decides which wounds to take first, and which wounds (Lascannon or Boltgun, for example) to apply to the singled-out model. So it's easy to force a save on a particular model, but hard to hit them with a powerful weapon.

In contrast, 7th Ed. does the hit-wound-save on a per-weapon basis. I.e. Boltguns hit/wound opponent saves, Plasmagun hits/wounds opponent saves, Lascannon hits/wound opponent save, all in the order the "shooter" wants.

When you compare the two and also consider wound allocation, there is more control/decision making for 7th. The shooting order of the attacker gives him a little more control over the damage he can do, and he could game the model position of the defender a bit. Also, because of wound allocations rules, an attacker can flank a squad to avoid the "tanker". It seems like an attempt to make squad vs. squad combat more interesting. That said, I'm really not a fan. I mostly find it cumbersome. For me, determining which unit fires at which enemy unit is control enough, much less which model.

On the flip side, the 4th Ed. version means that if I have a ten-man Tactical Squad with two Meltas land in front of some Broadsides, the Broadsides unit could take the Meltaguns on the Drones instead of the Marine player firing all his Boltguns to clear away the Drones, then using the Meltas on the Broadsides.

I was just messing around with my old fantasy artillery dice. Remember those? Anyway, I came up with a weird system for using it. It basically went like this:

Models would have two numbers needed to be hit and to be wounded. These would be 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10. To hit or wound you need to roll equal to or more than the models number. For example, a guardsman would be hit on an 8 or 10 but wounded on a 4, 6, 8 or 10. A space marine however would be hit on a 6, 8 or 10 but only wounded on an 8 or 10. The misfire symbol on the die is like a wildcard that can be used for whatever the situation calls for.

For example, plasma guns and other get hot weapons. If you roll a ! when rolling to wound, you score an automatic wound (so they have a better chance of wounding things in general) but you must then roll a dice yourself. And if the number equals your to wound number you too are wounded. So if a space marine who initially rolled a ! on the to wound roll then rolled an 8 or 10 they would also suffer a wound.

I was inspired by the special dice used in the Betrayal at Calath game. This sounds so complicated when trying to explain it but it is so easy when it's demonstrated.

EDIT:

In that broadsides with drones example, would be possible to reconstruct the system in a way so that the attackers can 'layer' their attacks to prevent that? Like, the marine player declares that the tacticals are targeting the crisis suit squad, and they're using their boltguns first. And that attack is completely resolved first before moving onto the melta guns? So they can try to clear away the drones using their weakest attacks before moving onto the big guns? Whilst still using majority saves and toughness too? That way, it might take 7-8 boltguns just to get rid of those two drones.

A couple easy things to make the game go faster are the following: get rid of the possibility of a 7th turn (make it a 4+ to go to turn 6); eliminate Overwatch or make it so units must pass an Initiative test to perform Overwatch; no more random Psychic powers and Warlord traits; Run moves should be another typical movement distance; and Cover needs to become a negative modifier to BS thus eliminating all those cover save throws (get rid of Jink except for Flyers). These things should speed up the game tremendously right off without sacrificing complexity.

Wow, my "want to play 5th edition" friend found "One Page 40k" here.
I would say looking at those rules certainly highlights how the 40k flavor can still be had with less complication.
Let us hope GW does not see them or the AOS treatment may come sooner to 40k (or is that a good thing... jury still seems out on this).

One thing that makes it difficult is the reinvention of rules modified from the main book that goes to my original point of not knowing the rules of other books.

Why not create all the special rules, put them in the brb, and then draw those special rules from the brb?

That way there's not six different ways to call fearless "fearless".

The way the brb reads it looks to be that intent, but every new codex just started to create new rules that were minor word changes than whats in the brb. I should be able to reference an ability my opponents character has out of my brb without having to look at his book.

 Talizvar wrote:
Wow, my "want to play 5th edition" friend found "One Page 40k" here.
I would say looking at those rules certainly highlights how the 40k flavor can still be had with less complication.
Let us hope GW does not see them or the AOS treatment may come sooner to 40k (or is that a good thing... jury still seems out on this).

Although I'm not an AoS player, it seems to me that the "AOS Treatment" only had a couple of really fundamental problems when it was applied to WHFB:

1) Mangling the fluff for the purpose of easier trademarking/copy protection. I understand that GW doesn't want another financial disaster like the CH lawsuit, but they could accomplish this by simply not being so overly-litigious (and also having a better understanding of how a 3rd-party after-market actually benefits their business).

2) Shipping the product without any sort of force organization/balance system. (Note, this did NOT have to be points - but there needed to be some kind of structure to provide a baseline expectation of "We've agreed to play at level X, Y, or Z, and everyone understands what this means." Lacking this kind of structure, the playerbase fractured almost immediately, to the point that there's now "factions" of players who are only willing to play "their" way, whether it be with the GHB or one of the competing sets of house-rules).

If they don't make these two mistakes, an AOSification of 40k might actually be pretty reasonable. Not gonna hold my breath though...

 Xca|iber wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
Wow, my "want to play 5th edition" friend found "One Page 40k" here.
I would say looking at those rules certainly highlights how the 40k flavor can still be had with less complication.
Let us hope GW does not see them or the AOS treatment may come sooner to 40k (or is that a good thing... jury still seems out on this).

Although I'm not an AoS player, it seems to me that the "AOS Treatment" only had a couple of really fundamental problems when it was applied to WHFB:

1) Mangling the fluff for the purpose of easier trademarking/copy protection. I understand that GW doesn't want another financial disaster like the CH lawsuit, but they could accomplish this by simply not being so overly-litigious (and also having a better understanding of how a 3rd-party after-market actually benefits their business).

2) Shipping the product without any sort of force organization/balance system. (Note, this did NOT have to be points - but there needed to be some kind of structure to provide a baseline expectation of "We've agreed to play at level X, Y, or Z, and everyone understands what this means." Lacking this kind of structure, the playerbase fractured almost immediately, to the point that there's now "factions" of players who are only willing to play "their" way, whether it be with the GHB or one of the competing sets of house-rules).

If they don't make these two mistakes, an AOSification of 40k might actually be pretty reasonable. Not gonna hold my breath though...

Don't forget the list of stupid rules

e.g.

Braying Warcry: Red-hot rage festers in the savage minds of Wargors, their only desire to rend and destroy. You can add 1 to all hit rolls made for a Wargor if, before rolling the dice, you let loose a primal warcry. Your warcry must use no actual words, but angry grunts and raging snorts are encouraged.

Pride of the Reiksguard: Helborg's skill is as legendary as his moustache is magnificent. You can re-roll any failed hit rolls when attacking with the Runefang so long as you have a bigger and more impressive moustache than your opponent.

The Mad Count: Marius Leitdorf is an exceptional swordsman, even if he is totally insane. If, during your hero phase, you pretend to ride an imaginary horse, you can re-roll failed hit rolls for the Averland Runefang until your next hero phase. If you actually talk to your imaginary horse you can re-roll failed wound rolls as well.

You can only make one first impression. AoS turned a lot of potential customers away when it asked them to talk to an imaginary horse for a bonus to wound. I don't blame those customers for not coming back to see if it has changed.

I've had an idea about precision shot. Would it be easier to resolve it at the "to wound" stage rather than at the "to hit" stage?

I thought this up while messing around with my old artillery dice. This idea also assumes that to hit and to wound have been merged together, and that any damage inflicted on a unit is allocated by its owner. The sequence would go like this:

1. Player A declares target.
2. Player A measures range.
3. Player A rolls to inflict damage.
4. Player B takes saves.
5. For failed saves, the player B allocates the damage caused. However if the save result is a ! (or a 1 on a regular die) player A allocates the damage caused by that result instead, and before player B allocates their damage.

So for a demonstration, a unit has to take four saves from a sniper unit attack, so they roll four dice. They pass on two dice and fail on the other two. One of the failed die was a 1, the other wasn't a 1 but is still a fail. The damage from the 1 result is allocated by the attacking sniper player first, and the damage from the other failed result is allocated by the target's player immediately after.

Is this making sense? I definitely feel like I'm making this sound more complicated than it is.

EDIT:

I will admit that those joke rules were silly but can't we have a sense of humor about it?

I think if cover goes to a BS modifier then precision should stay as to hit.

 Talizvar wrote:
Wow, my "want to play 5th edition" friend found "One Page 40k" here.
I would say looking at those rules certainly highlights how the 40k flavor can still be had with less complication.
Let us hope GW does not see them or the AOS treatment may come sooner to 40k (or is that a good thing... jury still seems out on this).

Wow, that looks really good. I wouldn't mind an AoS treatment (rules only... leave the fluff, for the love of god), so long as it gave us a quality reboot of the rules. It wouldn't even have to simplify it as much as the above example, just so long as things were at least workable. We've come to the point where everything's so unsalvageably bloated that we might as well burn those bridges down and start anew anyway. Those who want a better game would appreciate the movement in a new, fresh direction without all the baggage, and those who are content with the game as it is are usually the kind of people who'll be happy with anything GW puts out anyway.

Hello. I'm a 40k player for quite some time now. I quit just when 6th edition got released and started playing again less than half a year ago. Learning 7th edition was absolutely brutal.

- Formations were an entirely new thing for me, as well as list building with CAD/Allied Detachment(I still wonder why this one exists)/Formations. For more than a month after reading my Codex and Rulesbook, I still couldn't figure out how exactly I could modify my lists.
- As I started to get the grasp of formations and list building, I then started, as always, to learn the meta. I tried to find all competitive lists and read a lot of codices. What I soon came to understand, was that codices were useless. People were using all kinds of books I had no idea about. I was looking at different lists all containing formations I could not recognise or find in the codices. When I'm playing 40k, I really like to dwelve in all the armies, build lists for every army and learn just about almost all the armies. I really enjoy that process, it's something I have fun with. It also helps me stay on the competitive side and understand everything I get to meet on the table. I'll tell you something. It's half a year later, and I still haven't made it. There's so many books, formations, armies. It's endless. I've learnt most of what's competitive and most of the armies that appeal to me but I still feel like I'm scratching the surface. Also, it's impossible to get all the books. It's an absolute mess. The rules for this one game are spread SO much in like 1000 different books, that it's impossible to keep up. I really am not going to complain about game length or rules, there's people who played this edition way more than me capable of doing that. But, the way the rules are spread, it's just impossible for someone to get in. A very good idea would be, maybe keep the supplements! BUT, add an official GW Armybuilder than contains all of the rules for every army, or something along these lines. Maybe, create an online codex that gets all the rules updated everytime a supplement is released. Whatever. It's just impossible to keep track of this mess.

 necr0n wrote:
The rules for this one game are spread SO much in like 1000 different books, that it's impossible to keep up. I really am not going to complain about game length or rules, there's people who played this edition way more than me capable of doing that. But, the way the rules are spread, it's just impossible for someone to get in. A very good idea would be, maybe keep the supplements! BUT, add an official GW Armybuilder than contains all of the rules for every army, or something along these lines. Maybe, create an online codex that gets all the rules updated everytime a supplement is released. Whatever. It's just impossible to keep track of this mess.

I am a bit of a completionist and 5th edition was the last one (since 2nd edition) that I had all the codex's.
I agree it is nearly impossible to get hold of all the rules (or prohibitively expensive to obtain through GW).
I do not like depending on my opponent to be the only one who knows the rules for his army.
I have caught many a cheat or lapse/misremember of my opponent due to doing my homework.
Plus it makes a faster game if we can help each other remember everything.

I had high hopes for formations for allowing contained and balanced rules easy to publish but that is not working out so well.
They should publish a more expensive White Dwarf and use it to release rules for models launched that month so them and us do not need to wait and the power creep can be kept somewhat equal.
They would about annually publish a compilation of WD articles so then they are not stuck publishing back issues forever (and can charge moar!).

Just a thought on trying to consolidate varying information.
Reminds me of the days before cellphone/texting: You had voice mail, email, fax and a pager, any number of which someone would contact you on separate devices.
Having one point of contact is hugely easier.

Well they should definitely use white dwarf in that capacity. It would make it essential (which it should be) and it would allow all players access to everything.

Would you guys be cool with warscroll type documents free to access and download so that everyone can see any units abilities whenever they want?

 Future War Cultist wrote:

Would you guys be cool with warscroll type documents free to access and download so that everyone can see any units abilities whenever they want?

Cool with it? This is the sort of thing that GW should have been doing nearly a decade ago. If GW really wants to use the rules as a vehicle to sell models, than they should focus on making those rules as easily and freely available as possible. The whole gameplay aspect of a model's 'marketing' has no value if the people potentially interested don't have access to it.

I really don't see White Dwarf thing working. What if I join the hobby now and all the previous White Dwarf issues have the rules? How am I supposed to find earlier issues?

If they're going to make many updates, like they do, they should release, together with the supplements, an internet version that includes just pure rules. And, make it free and available to everyone. Or even available for a smaller fee, I don't know. I just don't want to be searching for old WD issues, Supplements and other books everywhere. I just need all my rules for my game to be available at all times easily. It really is not that fuckin much, is it?

 necr0n wrote:
I really don't see White Dwarf thing working. What if I join the hobby now and all the previous White Dwarf issues have the rules? How am I supposed to find earlier issues?

If they're going to make many updates, like they do, they should release, together with the supplements, an internet version that includes just pure rules. And, make it free and available to everyone. Or even available for a smaller fee, I don't know. I just don't want to be searching for old WD issues, Supplements and other books everywhere. I just need all my rules for my game to be available at all times easily. It really is not that fuckin much, is it?

Find out what issue and grab it at any game store that has a GW display. Guarantee they have a backlog of White Dwarf magazines that they're forced to buy but can never sell.

There's no GW in Greece. It's strictly only independent shops and they hardly ever have WD.

I think there's a formation compendium somewhere..

The same thing may exist for rulez...

As someone who only gets to play occasionally, my main beef is how spread out some of the formations are, and the relative imbalance between races.

I'm a weirdo completest and have most of the books (need that Angels book and Traitor's Hate though), yet not being game familiar, when I do play I sometimes have eyebrow raising at the formations that get deployed.

The formations/detachments thing is definitely a major issue. GW really needs to make all of the rules for these available for free on their website. Even if they don't want to do that they should at least have a master list of all of them and where to find them.

A good example of the problems with the game right now can be seen by watching a YouTube battle report (if you have the stamina!). 2 things stand out to me when watching a game, which are sometimes hard to spot when playing yourself:

1. The pre-game stuff takes too long. Even explaining how your army is constructed can take a few minutes - is it a CAD + Allies? Or double-CAD. Or collection of formations.... What rules do those formations get? Then you have the warlord traits, psychic powers, combat drugs etc.

2. So many dice rolls. Watching a single unit resolve an attack against a single enemy unit is torturous. Between rolling for different weapons, re-rolling all misses for TL, or just 1s for Preferred Enemy, then rolling to wound it can take a while just to get your wound pool. Then you have individual saves to take because you have a character 3rd in line to take wounds and you have to decide how many LoS you want to take assuming he even has to take saves. Obviously that's an extreme example but I would say it happens often enough to not be a rarity.

The 2nd issue can easily be solved by reverting to older rules. Majority Toughness and saves is good enough and if you remove special models last who cares as long as the game moves along?

I admit, one of my biggest hopes so far for 8th edition, are free basic rules, and data slates for EVERY unit from all the codexes that will be considered valid for the new edition. This would be lov3ly to have all of this on ONE single app. I have a ton of the codexes for 7th already on my tablet but I can't open several dexes all at once, I have to close the current one out and open up a different one to see the rules from that book. I still love having them on tablets much more than hard copies though. Much easier to wrangle that around then having like 4-6 books with me all at once.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Whitebeard wrote:
They need to ditch the D6 and go to the D20.

Oh god no. D6s are cheap, common, easy to see results on from across the table, and I don't want to roll an "ork number" of D20s. D6s are fine.

That is essentially the problem. GW would have to make the game a smaller, skirmish-level game.

They wouldn't sell as many models. The D6 keeps their pockets lined as it allows giant armies and ease of play. They are stuck with it, and will always be stuck with an inferior and archaic set of rules.

 Whitebeard wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Whitebeard wrote:
They need to ditch the D6 and go to the D20.

Oh god no. D6s are cheap, common, easy to see results on from across the table, and I don't want to roll an "ork number" of D20s. D6s are fine.

That is essentially the problem. GW would have to make the game a smaller, skirmish-level game.

They wouldn't sell as many models. The D6 keeps their pockets lined as it allows giant armies and ease of play. They are stuck with it, and will always be stuck with an inferior and archaic set of rules.

Are you essentially saying that big, non-skirmish games are automatically inferior and archaic because they can't use weird dice?

One could totally use a D10. The claims to the contrary are absurd. I've rolled 30 before with no problems.

I can't see GW going with D10s. They have their merits of course but I think their design philosophy is to stick with D6s.

Also, I finally got my own simplified system for 40k going. It gives every model seven basic stats and every weapon four stats. Long story short, everything is just "roll d6 and add A to get B. If B equals or beats targets C then it's successful". I hope to post it soon.

I can't see GW going with D10s either. They'd come up with a special Games™ Workshop™ Citadel™ FineDice™ D11™ and then sue anyone who tries to make their own D11s.

GW already uses polyhedral dice in the Burning of Prospero. I think those boxed games are test-beds for the main product lines.

I don't think gw would, either.

Another thing they need to ditch is the ridiculous TLOS/cover system. Just make it like Warmachine. Easier. No debate over whether a model can be seen or not.

And no, it doesn't ruin "realism".

 Whitebeard wrote:
Another thing they need to ditch is the ridiculous TLOS/cover system. Just make it like Warmachine. Easier. No debate over whether a model can be seen or not.

And no, it doesn't ruin "realism".

What's Warhmachine do?