Switch Theme:

How bad would AP/INVUL/Cover saves be if they were as overwhelming as shooting in the current met  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
»
Author Message
Advert


Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
  • No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
  • Times and dates in your local timezone.
  • Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
  • Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
  • Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.




Made in us
Tough-as-Nails Ork Boy





San Diego

So we all know that the current meta has the highest number of high strength low AP, in addition to special rules, shooting then any other addition. So just for fun what kind of overwhelming saves would amount to this shooting, has this been a problem in the past? Would it make the game more or less fun? I am aware their are ways to make 4++ rerollable blob units, so would this be an example or does it go beyond the current shooting meta.

 
   
Made in us
Douglas Bader






It would make the game suck. 40k is a game where stuff is supposed to die. Shooting being overpowered makes stuff die faster. Saves being overpowered makes the game a stagnant mess where nothing dies and there's no point in even attempting to attack. You just camp on your objectives all game and hope that at the end you somehow did a tiny bit of damage for a narrow win.

There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
Made in us
Tough-as-Nails Ork Boy





San Diego

 Peregrine wrote:
It would make the game suck. 40k is a game where stuff is supposed to die. Shooting being overpowered makes stuff die faster. Saves being overpowered makes the game a stagnant mess where nothing dies and there's no point in even attempting to attack. You just camp on your objectives all game and hope that at the end you somehow did a tiny bit of damage for a narrow win.


That makes sense, its how I feel sometimes when im playing against necrons

 
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





I can barely understand what you're asking. If you could please clear it up a little better and use proper sentence structure, it might help.

Assuming you're asking "Would it be more fun if saves were better?", I'd say no. If there is a problem with 40k, it's that it's too easy to ignore the challenges of the game, and you are too greatly rewarded for doing so. Part of that problem is lots of high strength weapons that can just delete armies at a time, but that's only part of it. Increasing the potency of saving throws wouldn't help there, but instead would just push units without those more potent saving throws further and further away from seeing actual play.

A good example right now are Necrons. Necrons can have 3+ saves, with 4+ cover (Ruins), and 4+ Resurrection Protocols that can be rerolled on a result of "1". Assuming you shoot at them even with a Lascannon, that model only has a less than 10% chance of biting the dust. Ask people how fun it is to play against such a force. Instead of having two armies blink at each other and then spontaneously cease to exist, you have two armies that just move and blob into each other and never die. Neither is particularly enjoyable.

 Galef wrote:
If you refuse to use rock, you will never beat scissors.
 
   
Made in us
Imperial Guard Landspeeder Pilot




On moon miranda.

As noted...look at Necrons and see how many people enjoy playing that game, very few. Having lots of stuff that just wont die makes for a very unfun game.

IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.

New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights!
The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.  
   
Made in ca
Insect-Infested Nurgle Chaos Lord






Before the 5th edition space marine codex, 3++ Invulnerable saves were almost unheard of. And in 4th edition, cover saves were a lot less plentiful (you had target priority instead, which meant that you had to pass a leadership test to target something not immediately close to you. I think. I played Tyranids which made your enemies shoot my monsters with no penalty so this never came up as an issue). Those days things died a lot easier.

Gwar! wrote:Huh, I had no idea Graham McNeillm Dav Torpe and Pete Haines posted on Dakka. Hi Graham McNeillm Dav Torpe and Pete Haines!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can I have an Autograph!


Kanluwen wrote:
Hell, I'm not that bothered by the Stormraven. Why? Because, as it stands right now, it's "limited use".When it's shoehorned in to the Codex: Space Marines, then yeah. I'll be irked.


When I'm editing alot, you know I have a gakload of homework to (not) do. 
   
Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter




Seattle

Of course, the reverse is to look at the Eldar and the Tau and ask how much fun people have playing those armies.

IMO, neither of these scenarios, as presented, is good.

It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised. 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




St. George, UT

Sadly models need to die. We all have that expensive or high pointed charished model that we spent hours converting or working up and it always sucks when they finally get removed from the table. But it needs to happen.

The problem is GW has given models far too many ways to live. Back when 3rd ed was introduced, one of the biggest promotion points was that models only had one save. Back then lascannons, missile lauchers, plasma cannons, etc. were all you needed to knock out a model. One shot AP3 or AP2 weapons meant something and were actually worth their cost.

Back then invs were 4+ with only a very few exceptions. The idea of rerolls were almost non existent. This made people actually have to use tactics and make calulated risks when moving into the open. Because most weapons, including small arms, could actually hurt.

But now, knowing your model could potentially have two saves, the idea of tactics has been replaced with just toughing it out. To combat this GW has increased the rate of fire of many weapons thus forcing more saves, which is probably the only way models can die. But at the same time devaluing models with single wounds or single shot guns.

Heck, just look at the newest SW codex release. The Wulfen have two wounds and two saves, thus they seem to be very good deals. But when now we look at dreads and people are dissapointed that they didn't get more attacks because in the current game, even 3 S10 attacks don't mean much.

Its actually a pretty sad state, and unfortunately there really is no way to go back. The rules have evolved to this state, its pretty much what caused the reboot from 2nd edition to 3rd. Too much bloat.

See pics of my Orks, Tau, Emperor's Children, Necrons, Space Wolves, and Dark Eldar here:


 
   
Made in us
Focused Fire Warrior



Rockwood, TN

With the overhaul from 2nd to 3rd edition (I believe that is where it happened) of how AP worked, it made things like power armour and terminator armour irrelevant. Termies didn't have an invuln save in 2nd. They had a 3+ armour save... on 2D6! Every weapon with a S value of 4 or greater took a point or two away from your save value, so a grot could kill a Termi by shooting through the eye hole if you rolled snake eyes, but you could roll an 11 and walk through a lascannon to the face.

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it. A lot of the problems we have with the game could be fixed swapping to a d10 and changing AP values to a negative modifier. It would make a 2+ save mean something. Sure I shot you with my plasma rifle, but hey, your termi armour still gets a save on say a 7+ while your power armoured guy gets one on an 8+. It also eliminates the need for an invuln AND a normal save plus makes marines survivable again while making things like Orks still eat it in the face for getting shot with a plasma gun.
   
Made in au
Unrelenting Rubric Terminator of Tzeentch





It's always about balance, and it will never be achieved.

Shooting vs Melee is a classic example, and Tau are the perfect example of what happens. Either the shooting is strong enough and you shoot your opponent off the board before they can reach CC and you win with minimal losses. See 6th Ed and 7th Ed for good examples. Shooting OP, nerf plox!

OR

Shooting isn't strong enough, and you can't shoot them down before they reach your lines and you lose. 4th would be a decent example here. CC 2 stronk, nerf now!

Either way, one army is getting stomped with no real way to counter and one side doesn't have much fun.

Same deal with # of high str low AP shots vs number of high toughness, incredible saves. On the one hand, we've got a cheap mobile troops unit running around with 4x str6 shots each and a 35 point gun that shoots 5 AP2 shots at 24" that immobilise vehicles on a 6 and are effectively wounding on 2's and 3's against anything worth shooting, all with what effectively amounts to shred and tank hunter, AP2 flamers that wound and pen on a 3+ regardless of target and do d3 wounds per hit.

To counter that, if you want to last more than a single shooting phase, we've got things like a 2++ with a re-roll available to multiple units from multiple codecies, a psychic powerer that makes everyone hit on a 6 only, T8 6W units with FNP that are effectively immune to poison and snipers in addition to anything below str 7 AP3 and basically have a 4+ cover at all times, multiple instances of units that move 12" with T5 and multiple wounds and 3++ saves.

Imagine the outrage back in 6th if 6th ed CSM was given possessed with the same stats as wraiths? You'd never hear the end of it and the heldrake would have seemed like a minor annoyance.

This is power creep, and it's the reason why the forums flourish, GW can still sell models and the gap between the haves witha 7.5 ed book and the have nots who aren't in line to get their dex updated anytime soon.

Be careful with what you wish for however, as those asking for a reboot might just get their wish...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/02/12 08:59:06


 Peregrine wrote:
What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
 
   
Made in us
Focused Fire Warrior



Rockwood, TN

 Drasius wrote:
Be careful with what you wish for however, as those asking for a reboot might just get their wish...


Exalted for truth.
   
Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter




Seattle

 Drasius wrote:
It's always about balance, and it will never be achieved.

Shooting vs Melee is a classic example, and Tau are the perfect example of what happens. Either the shooting is strong enough and you shoot your opponent off the board before they can reach CC and you win with minimal losses. See 6th Ed and 7th Ed for good examples. Shooting OP, nerf plox!

OR

Shooting isn't strong enough, and you can't shoot them down before they reach your lines and you lose. 4th would be a decent example here. CC 2 stronk, nerf now!

Either way, one army is getting stomped with no real way to counter and one side doesn't have much fun.

Same deal with # of high str low AP shots vs number of high toughness, incredible saves. On the one hand, we've got a cheap mobile troops unit running around with 4x str6 shots each and a 35 point gun that shoots 5 AP2 shots at 24" that immobilise vehicles on a 6 and are effectively wounding on 2's and 3's against anything worth shooting, all with what effectively amounts to shred and tank hunter, AP2 flamers that wound and pen on a 3+ regardless of target and do d3 wounds per hit.

To counter that, if you want to last more than a single shooting phase, we've got things like a 2++ with a re-roll available to multiple units from multiple codecies, a psychic powerer that makes everyone hit on a 6 only, T8 6W units with FNP that are effectively immune to poison and snipers in addition to anything below str 7 AP3 and basically have a 4+ cover at all times, multiple instances of units that move 12" with T5 and multiple wounds and 3++ saves.

Imagine the outrage back in 6th if 6th ed CSM was given possessed with the same stats as wraiths? You'd never hear the end of it and the heldrake would have seemed like a minor annoyance.

This is power creep, and it's the reason why the forums flourish, GW can still sell models and the gap between the haves witha 7.5 ed book and the have nots who aren't in line to get their dex updated anytime soon.

Be careful with what you wish for however, as those asking for a reboot might just get their wish...


Except all data points seem to indicate that GW is selling fewer and fewer models to fewer and fewer people, simply making up for shrinking sales and market-share with inflated prices.

As to the examples you provided? If melee is strong enough to win once/if they get into CC, the shooting army has the option of "more bodies" or "more dakka", maybe withdrawing out of charge range before turning around and firing again, possibly into a position where another unit can also fire, sitting behind DT or other barriers that act as a deterrent/speed bump to assault units, etc. You know, those things people once called "tactics". This "penalty", if one can call it that, is buffered by the fact that the shooting army has several turns of what is basically free attacks on the melee units. In a Pure Shooting vs Pure Melee match-up, "drown them in bodies" should be a viable tactic.

The real problem is that GW does not play their own game the way most people play their game, and so the most egregiously-broken units and builds are not seen by the studio, simply because they don't think to build them. Of course, recalling some of the battle reports from GW's internal players, it makes me wonder if they even know how to play their own game.

It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised. 
   
Made in ie
Tzeentch Veteran Marine with Psychic Potential





Kildare, Ireland

Nocturus wrote:
With the overhaul from 2nd to 3rd edition (I believe that is where it happened) of how AP worked, it made things like power armour and terminator armour irrelevant. Termies didn't have an invuln save in 2nd. They had a 3+ armour save... on 2D6! Every weapon with a S value of 4 or greater took a point or two away from your save value, so a grot could kill a Termi by shooting through the eye hole if you rolled snake eyes, but you could roll an 11 and walk through a lascannon to the face.


Ok thats not a bad ide- waaaait. Looks at forum tag 'water caste negotiator'.
That would make Pulse Rifles BRUTAL if they wounded on 3's AND forced 4+ saves on marines.

happymerchanttau.jpg

And its still not a bad idea if Tau were priced appropriately, but upping the costs of pulse armed soldiers won't make them any better against guard or orks.
You'd just be making marines cheaper to compensate, and nobody wants that.

Nocturus wrote:
I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it. A lot of the problems we have with the game could be fixed swapping to a d10 and changing AP values to a negative modifier. It would make a 2+ save mean something. Sure I shot you with my plasma rifle, but hey, your termi armour still gets a save on say a 7+ while your power armoured guy gets one on an 8+. It also eliminates the need for an invuln AND a normal save plus makes marines survivable again while making things like Orks still eat it in the face for getting shot with a plasma gun.


While that's true, D10's arent as readily available as D6's. I'd like a difference between a veteran marine and line astartes BS, and you could have different grades of powered armour for sisters/inqisitors and marines.

But I'd prefer to see the game scaled down to combat patrol or killteam before that happens.
   
Made in gr
Furious Fire Dragon





Athens Greece

One of the most fun games I played regarding rules was the old Warzone. Stats where on a scale of 1 to 20 and a d20 was used. Normal troops had a BS of 8-9 while elites where at 14 and super elites and characters where at 16+. There was a huge difference between those stats and modifiers applied to them according to range and other factors.

The d6 isn't enough right now for the diversity 40k needs. Most things are stuck in BS4 making the elite marine not so elite, while the +2 armor save isn't that great since it fails 1 in 6 times no matter what.


Got milk?

All I can say about painting is that VMC tastes much better than VMA... especially black...

PM me if you are interested in Commission work.
 
   
Made in us
Focused Fire Warrior



Rockwood, TN

 =Angel= wrote:
Nocturus wrote:
With the overhaul from 2nd to 3rd edition (I believe that is where it happened) of how AP worked, it made things like power armour and terminator armour irrelevant. Termies didn't have an invuln save in 2nd. They had a 3+ armour save... on 2D6! Every weapon with a S value of 4 or greater took a point or two away from your save value, so a grot could kill a Termi by shooting through the eye hole if you rolled snake eyes, but you could roll an 11 and walk through a lascannon to the face.


Ok thats not a bad ide- waaaait. Looks at forum tag 'water caste negotiator'.
That would make Pulse Rifles BRUTAL if they wounded on 3's AND forced 4+ saves on marines.

happymerchanttau.jpg

And its still not a bad idea if Tau were priced appropriately, but upping the costs of pulse armed soldiers won't make them any better against guard or orks.
You'd just be making marines cheaper to compensate, and nobody wants that.

Nocturus wrote:
I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it. A lot of the problems we have with the game could be fixed swapping to a d10 and changing AP values to a negative modifier. It would make a 2+ save mean something. Sure I shot you with my plasma rifle, but hey, your termi armour still gets a save on say a 7+ while your power armoured guy gets one on an 8+. It also eliminates the need for an invuln AND a normal save plus makes marines survivable again while making things like Orks still eat it in the face for getting shot with a plasma gun.


While that's true, D10's arent as readily available as D6's. I'd like a difference between a veteran marine and line astartes BS, and you could have different grades of powered armour for sisters/inqisitors and marines.

But I'd prefer to see the game scaled down to combat patrol or killteam before that happens.


I promise you, d10's are just as easy to find if you walk into any hobby store. Also keep in mind marines taking bolter hits in 2nd edition only got a 4+ save. My ideas aren't mutually exclusive though. The idea is to add the armour modifier AND swap to d10's doing just one doesn’t really change that much. Right now a marine shot by a pulse rifle has a 66% chance to pass the wound; however, on a d10 with a -1 modifier a marine has a 70% chance to pass. Statistically that is an improvement. Where this SHINES is if you get hit with something that was formerly AP 2 or 3, and instead of having a 0% chance to pass the save, gaining a 20-30% chance to save the wound on a 7 or 8.
   
Made in ie
Tzeentch Veteran Marine with Psychic Potential





Kildare, Ireland

Nocturus wrote:

I promise you, d10's are just as easy to find if you walk into any hobby store. Also keep in mind marines taking bolter hits in 2nd edition only got a 4+ save. My ideas aren't mutually exclusive though. The idea is to add the armour modifier AND swap to d10's doing just one doesn’t really change that much. Right now a marine shot by a pulse rifle has a 66% chance to pass the wound; however, on a d10 with a -1 modifier a marine has a 70% chance to pass. Statistically that is an improvement. Where this SHINES is if you get hit with something that was formerly AP 2 or 3, and instead of having a 0% chance to pass the save, gaining a 20-30% chance to save the wound on a 7 or 8.


I do like the idea of modifiers, but I'm a child of 3rd ed.
I enjoy how fast, in theory, the binary ap system is- you either get a save or you don't. Your marines in the open take 4 bolter wounds and 2 plasma wounds- you pull two models then roll 4 saves.

Modifiers would allow cover to be meaningful for armoured troops against small arms fire and that appeals to me from a sensible point of view, but conversely terminators in cover would be super hard to kill with small arms. Spare a thought for the humble lasgun and its noble wielder. He already feels like ablative shielding for the squad plasmagun as is.
Try shifting FNP power armour from 4+ cover with lasguns then talk to me about how they deserve a 30% chance to have an armour save from ap3/2 in the open.
   
Made in us
Imperial Guard Landspeeder Pilot




On moon miranda.

 Psienesis wrote:
Of course, the reverse is to look at the Eldar and the Tau and ask how much fun people have playing those armies.

IMO, neither of these scenarios, as presented, is good.
To be fair, theyre not exactly glass cannons either. Jink allows their vehicles 4+ cover saves on demand, same for Jetbikes, and they have great womping tough units like T6 infantry and GMC's along with conceal/fortune or W5 FNP 2+sv (w/potentially a 3++ to boot) MC's to boot. These armies can be very hard to kill in addition to bring super killy themselves.

IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.

New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights!
The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.  
   
Made in gb
Angered Reaver Arena Champion




Connah's Quay, North Wales

How fast things die is the main reason I find fantasy (or 9th Age now, we don't talk about AoS...) surperior to 40K. It's far to easy to evaporate units, denying all saves and killing on a 2+ whn in fantasy the only things that can obliterate units are powerful magic, and that can always backfire with Miscasts or counter played with a dispel scroll.

All 40k needs is to remove cover saves from the game completely (with jink being a seperate save) and replace it with to-hit modifiers. Fantasy has this and shooting lists aren't considered topping the meta, this is all you need to help make CC viable.

 
   
Made in au
Unrelenting Rubric Terminator of Tzeentch





 Psienesis wrote:

Except all data points seem to indicate that GW is selling fewer and fewer models to fewer and fewer people, simply making up for shrinking sales and market-share with inflated prices.

As to the examples you provided? If melee is strong enough to win once/if they get into CC, the shooting army has the option of "more bodies" or "more dakka", maybe withdrawing out of charge range before turning around and firing again, possibly into a position where another unit can also fire, sitting behind DT or other barriers that act as a deterrent/speed bump to assault units, etc. You know, those things people once called "tactics". This "penalty", if one can call it that, is buffered by the fact that the shooting army has several turns of what is basically free attacks on the melee units. In a Pure Shooting vs Pure Melee match-up, "drown them in bodies" should be a viable tactic.

The real problem is that GW does not play their own game the way most people play their game, and so the most egregiously-broken units and builds are not seen by the studio, simply because they don't think to build them. Of course, recalling some of the battle reports from GW's internal players, it makes me wonder if they even know how to play their own game.


Like I said, it allows GW to sell models when they wouldn't normally, because if you don't release a new shiny, there's no incentive to buy, so some sales are still better than no sales.

As for the examples, what part of shoot-them-off-the-board-with-minimal-casualties-or-lose did you not understand? I never said that you had to make a gunline behind and aegis and never, ever move. JSJ into and out of LoS is a thing, and Tau are one of the best at it. Using speed bumps of kroot to stall a charge for minimal losses (oh no, not my 70 point unit of kroot! whatever shall I do? Woe is me!) so you can pour fire into the unit next turn. It's not fun for the assault player to slog through 3 turns of heavy fire removing his army only to kill a single unit of kroot and then remove his last few model to your next shooting phase, the same way it's not fun to watch 3 phases of shooting bounce off 3 layers of saves achieving nothing while the melee rapretrain with no brakes rolls your battle line from one end to the other with nothing you can do about it.

I'm not talking about the difference between a choppy list and a shooty list, I'm talking about how difficult it is to ensure that a shooty list has enough shooting to whittle down an assault force sufficiently that if played well and the dice are not too bad, then they will lose a few units while still having a fighting chance but isn't so strong as to table people turn 1 or 2 or so weak that you only kill a handful of models before you're wiped out. Same thing goes for an assault force. It needs to be resilient enough to get to CC without being shot up badly enough that it can't do its job, but you don't want them to be unkillable rapetrains or made of wet tissue paper either.

At the moment, that balance is far too heavily towards shooting domination by a handful of codecies so that only a chosen few units with outrageous survivability can even hope to brave the storm of fire to make it to CC, so we end up with things like Codex: Thundercav or T5 wraiths with 3++/4+++ being the new standard on one side and everyone comparing anything else to scatbikes and wraithknights when they should be an abhorent outlier that gets FAQ'ed within days rather than the new gold standard.

If you want to continue being a snarky fool who doesn't think before replying, you'll be going on my ignore list.

 Peregrine wrote:
What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
 
   
Made in nl
Longtime Dakkanaut






Ever played or watched a game with reroll 2+ saves death stars or other high endurance tricks on both sides. It is so much fun you would not believe it.

Inactive, user. New profile might pop up in a while 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




If anything we need to make it easier to kill certain units/categories. It's frustating to pour shot after shot into something and have it do nothing even with average rolls.
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut






I think that cover saves should stack with armour or invulnerable. So you would get the cover save if provided and then an armour save (if applicable) or an invulnerable save (if you have one). I think feel no pain should be re-roll successful wounds instead of an extra save. So if you have Feel no Pain (6+), all successful to wound rolls of 6 would need to be re-rolled. Feel no Pain (5+) would be all to wound rolls of 5 etc.

Monstrous Creatures and Gargantuan Creatures should always have a reduced cover save too. Possibly getting a +1 to the to hit roll against Monstrous and Gargantuan creatures as they are so large.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/02/13 00:10:35


Square Bases for Life!
AoS is pure garbage
Kill Primaris, Kill the Primarchs. They don't belong in 40K
40K is fantasy in space, not sci-fi 
   
Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter




Seattle

 Drasius wrote:
 Psienesis wrote:

Except all data points seem to indicate that GW is selling fewer and fewer models to fewer and fewer people, simply making up for shrinking sales and market-share with inflated prices.

As to the examples you provided? If melee is strong enough to win once/if they get into CC, the shooting army has the option of "more bodies" or "more dakka", maybe withdrawing out of charge range before turning around and firing again, possibly into a position where another unit can also fire, sitting behind DT or other barriers that act as a deterrent/speed bump to assault units, etc. You know, those things people once called "tactics". This "penalty", if one can call it that, is buffered by the fact that the shooting army has several turns of what is basically free attacks on the melee units. In a Pure Shooting vs Pure Melee match-up, "drown them in bodies" should be a viable tactic.

The real problem is that GW does not play their own game the way most people play their game, and so the most egregiously-broken units and builds are not seen by the studio, simply because they don't think to build them. Of course, recalling some of the battle reports from GW's internal players, it makes me wonder if they even know how to play their own game.


Like I said, it allows GW to sell models when they wouldn't normally, because if you don't release a new shiny, there's no incentive to buy, so some sales are still better than no sales.

As for the examples, what part of shoot-them-off-the-board-with-minimal-casualties-or-lose did you not understand? I never said that you had to make a gunline behind and aegis and never, ever move. JSJ into and out of LoS is a thing, and Tau are one of the best at it. Using speed bumps of kroot to stall a charge for minimal losses (oh no, not my 70 point unit of kroot! whatever shall I do? Woe is me!) so you can pour fire into the unit next turn. It's not fun for the assault player to slog through 3 turns of heavy fire removing his army only to kill a single unit of kroot and then remove his last few model to your next shooting phase, the same way it's not fun to watch 3 phases of shooting bounce off 3 layers of saves achieving nothing while the melee rapretrain with no brakes rolls your battle line from one end to the other with nothing you can do about it.

I'm not talking about the difference between a choppy list and a shooty list, I'm talking about how difficult it is to ensure that a shooty list has enough shooting to whittle down an assault force sufficiently that if played well and the dice are not too bad, then they will lose a few units while still having a fighting chance but isn't so strong as to table people turn 1 or 2 or so weak that you only kill a handful of models before you're wiped out. Same thing goes for an assault force. It needs to be resilient enough to get to CC without being shot up badly enough that it can't do its job, but you don't want them to be unkillable rapetrains or made of wet tissue paper either.

At the moment, that balance is far too heavily towards shooting domination by a handful of codecies so that only a chosen few units with outrageous survivability can even hope to brave the storm of fire to make it to CC, so we end up with things like Codex: Thundercav or T5 wraiths with 3++/4+++ being the new standard on one side and everyone comparing anything else to scatbikes and wraithknights when they should be an abhorent outlier that gets FAQ'ed within days rather than the new gold standard.

If you want to continue being a snarky fool who doesn't think before replying, you'll be going on my ignore list.


Your reading comprehension leaves much to be desired, since the examples I provided were under the auspices of the proposed rules change but, nah, done with you.

It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised. 
   
Made in us
Focused Fire Warrior



Rockwood, TN

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
I think that cover saves should stack with armour or invulnerable. So you would get the cover save if provided and then an armour save (if applicable) or an invulnerable save (if you have one). I think feel no pain should be re-roll successful wounds instead of an extra save. So if you have Feel no Pain (6+), all successful to wound rolls of 6 would need to be re-rolled. Feel no Pain (5+) would be all to wound rolls of 5 etc.

Monstrous Creatures and Gargantuan Creatures should always have a reduced cover save too. Possibly getting a +1 to the to hit roll against Monstrous and Gargantuan creatures as they are so large.


We had a system similiar that, it was called Warhammer Fantasy. Cover didn't stack with armour, it was a PENILTY to shooting. Your BS 5 guy wants to shoot my guy who all you can see is his left leg from the knee down? Ok, you hit on a 4, but the rest of your BS 3 guys are hitting on 6s. Want to field that giant dragon like beast? Cool, he's a larget target, so I get +1 to hit etc. There are many ways to adjust the rules of 40k to even out some of the discrepencies between the more powerful and less powerful codexes without actually changing the codexes themselves. However, they require massive uphevial in the current rule set that will ALSO make everyone unhappy.

f anything we need to make it easier to kill certain units/categories. It's frustating to pour shot after shot into something and have it do nothing even with average rolls.


This is the Deathstar problem that ITC tried to fix by nerfing invisibility and 2+ rerollables in their errata. Problem is, shortly after they nerfed those, ranged D began to be introduced to 40k proper. D, in its unmodified form, is a hard counter to deathstars and rerollable saves, while the use of invisibility was a hard counter to ranged D. Sadly instead of backing off from what they already had in play to see how these two fell out in the balance, they simply changed how D worked in its place to further modify the game. These changes, plus their mission styles, lead their tournaments to be dominated by MSU, which is a throwback to 4th and 5th edition from what I remember. What I would like to see is a return to full sized squads of troops being a viable choice on the battle field again, not a hindrance. I don't agree with some of the changes to the newer codexes (9 man crisis suit squads?? Really?? Those guys are your elite and the fluff states that not that many firewarriors make it that far!), but it’s what we have to work with until something drastic happens.

Do I think I have the answers to fix all this? No. I'm not that vain, arrogant, or smart to believe I can tweak a game as massive as 40k and fix everything that slips through the cracks. Do I think ITC has all the answers? No, but I agree they are trying, doesn't mean they get it right every time.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Considering how annoying people find Necron Res Protocols, and the multiple re-rollable saves that exist currently, you can probably guess how something like that would go over. Even the biggest complaint about Riptides is that they are so hard to kill when equipped with a Stim Injector.

I'll pluck you like a flower.

Tau Painting Blog [Updated: 12/27/15 Happy Dronecember!] : http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/662024.page#8088404

LVO List Data Base (Submit your list if you played! Growing All the Time!): https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y28px3mgjeergdn/AADDpUf3n_u2QfkiYzDzHSh0a?dl=0 
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut






We had a system similiar that, it was called Warhammer Fantasy. Cover didn't stack with armour, it was a PENILTY to shooting. Your BS 5 guy wants to shoot my guy who all you can see is his left leg from the knee down? Ok, you hit on a 4, but the rest of your BS 3 guys are hitting on 6s. Want to field that giant dragon like beast? Cool, he's a larget target, so I get +1 to hit etc. There are many ways to adjust the rules of 40k to even out some of the discrepencies between the more powerful and less powerful codexes without actually changing the codexes themselves. However, they require massive uphevial in the current rule set that will ALSO make everyone unhappy.


You're preaching to the choir my friend. No one loves or misses fantasy more than I. I would love nothing more than to have modifiers to hit in 40K, probably the reason why I made the suggestions I did is because I miss fantasy so much.

Considering how annoying people find Necron Res Protocols, and the multiple re-rollable saves that exist currently, you can probably guess how something like that would go over. Even the biggest complaint about Riptides is that they are so hard to kill when equipped with a Stim Injector.


Yep, I thought of that too. My biggest problem with 40K is that troops are pretty useless and more or less drop like flies. Monstrous creatures are indeed a problem that would need to be fixed. For example I think that they should do away with instant death at double toughness and just add a d3 or d6 wounds thing like cannons used to do in fantasy.

However, it makes no sense whatsoever as to why you would not get an armour save after a cover save if the weapon being fired at you could not otherwise penetrate your armour.

Also, I think the real issue isn't necessarily reanimation protocols, but the decurion being used in which they stack higher and can be re-rolled.

The problem when you open up a can of worms like this is that it has other far reaching effects on other parts of the game other than it's intended consequence. The whole system needs a re-write, not just parts of it.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2016/02/13 17:17:13


Square Bases for Life!
AoS is pure garbage
Kill Primaris, Kill the Primarchs. They don't belong in 40K
40K is fantasy in space, not sci-fi 
   
Made in us
Locked in the Tower of Amareo




You can't put to-hit modifiers back into 40K without increasing the die size. 2nd ed had these, and it made HORMAGAUNTS godly.
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





Having started with Fantasy, Armor Save and then Ward Save was super common, and I never found Feel No Pain to be annoying because its what I was used to. I've always felt that things die too readily in 40k, and it feels like a lot of people have the gold standard of 'wipe out more points than a unit cost in one round' as what is considered to be a 'good' unit.

Part of the problem right now is the game favors mid-high power, multiple shot units over everything else. There's no reason to take dedicated anti-tank weapons because their low shot value actually has little chance of depleting hull points over the course of a game, and things like Scatter Lasers, HYMP, and Grav are king of the hill when it comes to dealing with everything. So I think you can argue that part of the problem is things are too homogenized right now as far was what's effective. But I think people could stand a readjustment about what a good kill rate should be as well. Pulling off large handfuls of models a turn doesn't feel good for the person losing everything, and as such Necrons will probably always be fairly popular.

And that's not a bad thing, from where I stand. It forces you to play to the mission rather than just focus on killing everything. Which adds a premium to mobile, sneaky units that wouldn't exist otherwise.
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




I think a number of posters have hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately with the escalation in the game, rarely do you get a good game that comes down to the last turn. The game plays more like Magic the Gathering now or Warmachine with combos that can decide the game in turn 2-3 (which is unfortunate in my opinion). The example of Tau is a good one, either you weather their shooting (as a cc army), get into them and dismantle them, or they simply shoot you off the board in 2 turns- wow, that's a pile of fun. Play against KDK- most armies only have one shot to win, shoot them off the board. If you don't you're done, if you do, how much fun was it for the KDK player- if you don't, how much fun is it for you? Necrons, fire your whole army against theirs and kill 2 models- fun? As an old timer starting way back in the early 90's, it's sad for me, because I feel the game has passed me by- I paint, model, and try to get games in, but none of them are satisfying. Someone made a point about that big model they painted up dying- the heck with that, that is mostly the problem with the game now. What about the unit of 10 marines you painted that takes 3 times as much time to paint as that big gribbly, that is mostly just airbrushed? That Tac squad that almost any unit out there now can take out on turn 1 and those are usually done with secondary weapons, not even primary ones. Me, I would more than welcome a reboot in the game, because it has lost most of what made it fun. Things are meant to die, another posted wrote that, and I agree, but I would rather go back to the day where it took 2 turns or an army's massed firepower to take out a full squad of marines, or where the Carnifex was the biggest, baddest dude on the table (one of the biggest tragedy's is seeing the Nid Monstrous Creatures pale against the new Tau suits or Eldar Wraithknight)- sure new models needed to be created with new niches in the game, but bringing apocalypse into the normal game of 40k was very bad in my opinion- I understand GW did it for financial reasons as most people just simply refused to play with Apoc rules, so GW forced their hand, it wasn't good for business to have all the big expensive models relegated to just the occasional Apoc game.

I have been watching some of the NOVA games online and alot of battle reports lately- many of the tournament winning armies all have a gimmick (again much like Magic) that in some way breaks the boundaries of the rules, and in my mind, that just isnt a whole lot of fun. As someone else posted, the game has gotten too bloated, it could definitely use a change.
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





Arkansas

My buddy made a donkey cave for fun list for his irks a codex or so ago. Went something like max squads of arboys wiry doc attached 30 5+ fnp maxed out FoC took forever to kill anything. Was fun once never again. Slowed game to a crawl.

taskforce Harbinger 3000pts Ishvale Ash Rats Violet Fems+ 2000ptsHouse Cadmus Knights and Defenders 3500
Deathwatch 6500 
   
 
Forum Index » 40K General Discussion
Go to: