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Made in us
Been Around the Block




Hey guys, just some ideas I had about some minor changes to cover saves.

1st: Weapons of strength 8 or higher impose a -1 to cover saves taken against them, since honestly something like a melta gun or railgun is probably going to go through most kinds of cover.

2nd, when a unit takes cover saves given to them by an intervening unit or model, for every save passed the intervening unit is hit by the saved weapon wound on a roll of 4+.
(basically, every saved cover save from intervening models has a 50% chance to take that saved hit instead).

Thoughts, opinions, derogatory comments about my mother?
   
Made in gb
Lord of the Fleet






London

Bad idea: Keep it simple. Cover is fine as it is now.

Valk
   
Made in gb
Lieutenant Colonel




Hi all.
If you want a sensible , proportional alternative to the fixed roll to hit, then an arbitary save to represent concealment.

Roll to aquire before /instead of to hit .(Aquire means spot, positivley identify, and bring weapons to bare.)

If all units get Stealth value from 1 to 5.Easy to see units like MCs and large tanks get stealth value 1, where as more sneeky units like scouts and komandoes get stealth 4 or 5.

The attacker has to roll over the targets stealth value to aquire them.

Use the following modifiers

Acquisition modifiers.(Add to attackers acquisition roll)
Target unit attacked acquiring unit last action +3

Target unit within 18'' +1.

Equipment modifiers,+variable (targeting equipment etc.)

Stealth modifiers.(Add to targets Stealth value.)
Attacking unit over 36'' away.+1

Target unit in cover +1

Equipment modifiers,+ variable.(camouflage , smoke dispensers etc.)

Remeber this is to aquire a UNIT .(One dice roll per unit.)If a unit fails to aquire a target it can not shoot!

' I dont care what the fething sensors say, If I can see it, I can fething shoot at it!'



   
Made in gb
Storm Trooper with Maglight





West Sussex, UK

Just make it like the fantasy system, with heavy and light cover. Make it so cover makes you harder to hit rather than offer you saves. So -1 to hit if your in light cover and -2 in heavy cover and so on.

Illeix wrote:The Eldar get no attention because the average male does not like confetti blasters, shimmer sheilds or sparkle lasers.


DT:90-S+++G+++MB--I--Pw40k02++D++A+++/WD301R++(T)DM+
 
   
Made in gb
Morphing Obliterator





Lord Bingo wrote:Just make it like the fantasy system, with heavy and light cover. Make it so cover makes you harder to hit rather than offer you saves. So -1 to hit if your in light cover and -2 in heavy cover and so on.


This is the best way to make cover more accurate.

taking up the mission
Polonius wrote:Well, seeing as I literally will die if I ever lose a game of 40k, I find your approach almost heretical. If we were to play each other in a tournament, not only would I table you, I would murder you, your family, every woman you ever loved and burn down your house. I mean, what's the point in winning if you allow people that don't take the game seriously to live?
 
   
Made in us
Guarding Guardian




Washington, DC

To better handle expert marksmen (with BS6+), I'd say those -1/-2 modifiers should be applied to the shooter's BS value.

 
   
Made in us
Slaanesh Chosen Marine Riding a Fiend




Inside a pretty, pretty pain cave... won't you come inside?

Hey guys, one thing about how the cover system works is that GW likes it this way because of the flow of the game and keeping the defending player involved. They like the shoot/wound/save model because the die rolls are always doing something positive and the hit/wounded model player remains involved during the other player's turn. That being said, I wouldn't mind a combination, such as light cover being -1 to hit due to being obscured and a 5+ save versus impact, or something along those lines, so long as it remained simple.

 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Burtucky, Michigan

Lord Bingo wrote:Just make it like the fantasy system, with heavy and light cover. Make it so cover makes you harder to hit rather than offer you saves. So -1 to hit if your in light cover and -2 in heavy cover and so on.



This is honestly one of the best ways to do it. And you hit on a 6 irregardless, that way you always have a chance to hit.
   
Made in us
Homicidal Veteran Blood Angel Assault Marine





Cover saves should stay the same because this is 40k, not fantasy. In fantasy you're losing mostly small amounts of people from shooting in the first place. Plus people aren't going to be dropping STR 10 AP 2 large templates down on you like in 40k, which is why cover is basically an invulnerable (In most cases).

It's to make it so that cover isn't merely just lowering the enemies ballistic skill, it's to show the people actually squeezing themselves in every bit of cover to avoid that death-bringing artillery shell.

 
   
Made in gb
Lieutenant Colonel




Hi again.
greyspark is right.
The current cover save method fits perfectly with the rest of the abstracted mess of a rule set 40k has become.

ANY sensible straight forward game mechanic or resolution method looks out of place in the current 40k rules, thats why GW dont use them!

40k is a dice rolling game developed to market Citadel Minatures.

It is NOT a simulation of any type of real world event to draw ANY parrallels to , and it shows.

This is why after a decade the proffesional game development team at GW towers, have achive so little actual game development!

TTFN
Lanrak.
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User



Boston

I think the real issue with the cover mechanics in this edition are in regards to how easy it is to get cover saves for models in the open. If you have large units like ork mobs, nids, or guardsmen combined squads, its far too easy to give cover to the entire army. It should go back to the old system where "Models out of cover die first". This is impossible with the new rules on wound allocation though, so at least compromise and have it that when a wound is allocated on a model out of cover, it doesn't get a save.

 
   
Made in us
Poxed Plague Monk



AK

PainTraina wrote: It should go back to the old system where "Models out of cover die first". This is impossible with the new rules on wound allocation though, so at least compromise and have it that when a wound is allocated on a model out of cover, it doesn't get a save.
THIS.

Saves shouldn't be determined before wounds are allocated...
Roll to-hit
Roll to-wound
Allocate wounds
Determine saves
Roll saves


This is how it works in the rules right now... only caveat is that cover saves magically extend over models not in cover.

for some things, like Kustom Forcefield and Venomthrope cloud, that is okay-- 6" is just to determine what units are affected, but the actual field extends to cover them.

But static area terrain and LoS blocking should not confer magical cover saves on every single model... it covers the ones that are actually shielded...

How do you still use cover to benefit?
You still have wound allocation!!!
You can allocate the nasty Lascannon blasts onto models that are getting the cover save and all the bolter rounds to the poor saps standing out in the open.

Cover still functions but it isn't the "1 guy ducked behind a wall, so his drinking buddy who's standing in the open waving a brightly colored flag with a target painted on his forehead gets a save against all damage" game it is now.





Also I still feel cover for intervening units isn't done properly. I'd prefer it just to be that you can allocate wounds against either of the units (so between the target and the intervening unit). Roll the 4+ cover save as normal and pluck out poor bastards as they die.

Also, since I draw LoS from my tank, it stands a fair bit taller than your infantry, so no... I'm not going to let you claim cover because the guys in back are crouching and waddling behind the clueless dopes in front.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/04/22 19:45:06


 
   
Made in us
Storm Trooper with Maglight



Buffalo NY, USA

As far as shooting through enemy units goes you guys are spoiled. It used to be that you couldn't shoot through an enemy unit because the unit completly screened anything smaller then a vehicle behind it, and common sense dictates that a friendly unit will not stand in the way of your Heavy Bolter and the enemy. This doesn't seem so bad until you got things like the Dark Eldar Grotesque FNP rules or Alpha Marines and their meat walls then things got fun...

Interveining units seems like it should be something like this: In the event that a unit friendly or enemy is blocking LOS to a target the Shooter takes a leadership role, if pass: you may shoot, if fail: then that target is no longer legal for that shooting phase but may still be assaulted or shot with weapons that do not require LOS.

I like In_Theory's suggestion about intervening units only because it justley rewards a player who properly sets up an Enfilade fire condition AND punishes the stupid goon who has his freindly squad stuck in the cross-fire. Rewarding and punishing tactics is something missing from the core 40K rules but IDK if that is a good or a bad thing.

ComputerGeek01 is more then just a name 
   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





Lord Bingo wrote:Just make it like the fantasy system, with heavy and light cover. Make it so cover makes you harder to hit rather than offer you saves. So -1 to hit if your in light cover and -2 in heavy cover and so on.


That's how it was in 2nd ed. They changed it because, along with overwatch and excessive AP modifiers, it produced games of heroic soldiers of the year 40,000 hiding in any piece of cover they could find. Games stalemated a lot.

The game has evolved so that a lot of killing is done by regular troops using rapid fire weapons - this ecourages aggressive play and close quarters gunfights. It is by no means perfect (oh lordy is it by no means perfect) but the move away from cover mods was a sensible one taken for good reason.

“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
Made in gb
Lieutenant Colonel




Hi sebster.
The WHFB rule set stopped being a sensible chioce for representing 40k games , after the model count increased beyond 2nd ed .(2nd ed was a large skirmish game , the largest size where rules are focused on individual models. 3rd ed 40k onwards is a 'Battle game' the rules should be focused on units .)

There are lots of simple and intuitive methods that DONT make obscurment into a force field type save.

But simple and intuitive doesnt sit well with the overcomplicated abstraction that 40k rule set has become.

That why GW devs dont use simple and intuitive rules anymore!

(14 pages to explain how models move across the playing area, is about 12 pages too many,IMO!)

ttfn
Lanrak.




   
 
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