Okay, I can count myself as being the negative type with 40k.
BUT I have a ton of the models and books so have joy left in me for what is 40k, not so much the 7th edition rules.
I largely play with my friends and we have been springing some of the weirder rules on each other so we need some kind of armistice.
I pose to you all: What is a favorite list or even a single house rule or tournament rule / list that contributes some "balance" to the game? (or more sanity)
I do not want to "fix" the game so much (negativity in me is thinking it is not possible), just to tweak to enjoy it more!
Strategy, variety, combined arms, objectives... I want to be more general and less random number generator.
I will appreciate links to your favorites in the "proposed rules" and PLEASE explain why, the intent is important as well as the rule wording.
If we do not give this an honest effort I will crack open my original Necromunda boxes and hide in 40k gang warfare.
I would start with not allowing other units/characters to join another unit/character from a different army/codex as well as cannot apply their special abilities to other units that are not part of their codex.
P.S. I know, use 5th edition and update... yeah will go dig that BRB out right now...
I would like to make charges a little more strategic.
Overwatch used either as focused fire against one charging unit in its current form, or spread between all charging units to do no damage but reduce all charge rolls by 3 inches.
Charging units to receive +1 attack per model if the enemy unit being charged was fired at by more than two units that turn.
Victorious assault units can charge immediately into CC after winning an assault phase but fight at i1 and fight as if they were making a disordered charge, with no furious charge abilities.
-Invisibility drops BS and WS to 1.
-Rerollable 2+ saves are 2+/4+
-Blast are fired at a floor level in ruins. (you can't hit a model on the 1st floor and the 5th floor of a ruins with the same blast)
-Ruins and Forest are area terrain for infantry. Only time you don't get cover from being in area terrain is if the enemy shooting at your unit is also in the same piece of area terrain. You do get cover in a shared area cover situation if there is actual physical objects providing 25% cover to your models.
-Maelstrom objectives that are impossible to achieve due to lack of valid targets in the game are discarded and new ones drawn. (no psykers left alive in the game, draws kill a psyker)
-Objectives cards that score D3 are just 2 points.
Invisibility grants a -1 to hit modifier. Not a fixed value. It's just stupid.
Improve all warp-harness checks to 3+. There's practically no point in taking a Psyker, otherwise. They should be fun to play, not just a waste of 5 minutes per player turn while you do nothing.
Treat all allies as allies of convenience. Or no allies at all. The whole "Forge the Narrative" can eat a turd.
Where possible, play games between 1000 and 2000 points.
Alter the core rules such that objectives are placed AFTER deployment zones are determined. This allows for "defensive" style armies to play Eternal War Missions, and helps to offset the incredible movement advantage that certain... pointy eared... armies have. It also increases the value of fortifications, which my meta has completely abandoned as you can't "guarantee" a stronghold to guard.
Alter Maelstrom to allow a player to draw "X" number of objectives per draw, and then select which objective to keep. You can get boned, but you will usually draw something that you can achieve. 2 helps to balance, 3 starts to feel like a more cohesive game. As in, you're more likely to draw objectives that you already possess, and you're more likely to draw cards that say "kill something" that makes sense. Alter all random values to become a reasonable set value. IE: d3 = 2. d3+3 = 4, that sort of thing.
Enact a Gentleman's agreement, no more than "X" super heavies unless prior agreement. For example, I don't mind facing a pair of Knights at 1850 points, but more than that isn't fun. For either player, my Knight-wielding friend was surprised to discover. We're both having more fun with one or two knights max. He's mostly moved away from Knights, to be honest.
D-Weapons deserve a "let's talk about it and see what we all agree on" talk. Same with Stomps. Can you look out Sir a "6" on the stomp table? We said yes.
No Allies
No Lords of War
No Super Heavies
No Gargantuan Creatures
No Fortifications other than Aegis Defense Line
No ForgeWorld rules
No Apocalypse formations
No more than two CAD/detachments/formations/auxiliary
this +1
choose when reserves should come at the beginning of the game
remove most random dice roles (traits, powers, movement)
Me and some guys from Germany worked a year ago on small tweaks for 40k, but skipped it because no one was interested in (seems like 40k is perfect as it is....).
Some ideas were to streamline the rules (remove not necessary differences between walkers, tanks, monstrous creatures), remove random roles and take the wound allocation from starship troopers (very complicated written down but much faster in game).
Than there was the idea to remove additional saves and rerolls and rework the armour system (tanks should be wounded like everything else to avoid not necessary differences of "to wound")
PS:
The other question is, is there a 40k community out there which want to be ready and has a working LRB, if 40k makes the "AoS"?
TheCustomLime wrote:Return wound allocation back to the controlling player. That should shave off 20-30 minutes off your game.
Amen!
greatbigtree wrote:Invisibility grants a -1 to hit modifier. Not a fixed value. It's just stupid.
I might argue that a bit... invisible to me is... invisible.
Unless we are willing to argue varying degrees of invisible.
Improve all warp-harness checks to 3+. There's practically no point in taking a Psyker, otherwise. They should be fun to play, not just a waste of 5 minutes per player turn while you do nothing.
I would have to try that out, don't want that to lend too much advantage.
Treat all allies as allies of convenience. Or no allies at all. The whole "Forge the Narrative" can eat a turd.
Amen!
Where possible, play games between 1000 and 2000 points.
I agree there can be a "sweet-spot" for game size to the rules, I would prefer to not need this.
Alter the core rules such that objectives are placed AFTER deployment zones are determined. This allows for "defensive" style armies to play Eternal War Missions, and helps to offset the incredible movement advantage that certain... pointy eared... armies have. It also increases the value of fortifications, which my meta has completely abandoned as you can't "guarantee" a stronghold to guard.
I agree to the principle of it but to not be guaranteed to get that "perfectly" placed objective I feel is rather the point. It is for this very reason I like a good variety of models to deal with these situations.
Alter Maelstrom to allow a player to draw "X" number of objectives per draw, and then select which objective to keep. You can get boned, but you will usually draw something that you can achieve. 2 helps to balance, 3 starts to feel like a more cohesive game. As in, you're more likely to draw objectives that you already possess, and you're more likely to draw cards that say "kill something" that makes sense. Alter all random values to become a reasonable set value. IE: d3 = 2. d3+3 = 4, that sort of thing.
Sounds agreeable.
Enact a Gentleman's agreement, no more than "X" super heavies unless prior agreement. For example, I don't mind facing a pair of Knights at 1850 points, but more than that isn't fun. For either player, my Knight-wielding friend was surprised to discover. We're both having more fun with one or two knights max. He's mostly moved away from Knights, to be honest.
It is a bit like showing up with a knife to a gun fight.
Unsure on this rule specifically but understand the circumstances.
My Shadowsword tended to enjoy those encounters.
Maybe that super-heavies cannot be more than X% of the army points?
I know Imperial Knight armies would have an issue with it but it sucks to play a game with/against 3-4 odd models.
D-Weapons deserve a "let's talk about it and see what we all agree on" talk. Same with Stomps. Can you look out Sir a "6" on the stomp table? We said yes.
I agree with the look out sir (boy did that bodyguard give his all!)
kodos wrote:this +1
choose when reserves should come at the beginning of the game
Oh yeah, I would agree completely unless they MUST deepstrike like daemons then some randomness is needed.
remove most random dice roles (traits, powers, movement)
I would agree with this more with the psycher abilities, warlord traits and assault distances.
Me and some guys from Germany worked a year ago on small tweaks for 40k, but skipped it because no one was interested in (seems like 40k is perfect as it is....).
My eyes! they bleed! Perfect... hence why this post: to make the most of an irritating situation.
Some ideas were to streamline the rules (remove not necessary differences between walkers, tanks, monstrous creatures),
Agreed, hard outside, insides that are more squishy and reduce function
remove random roles and take the wound allocation from starship troopers (very complicated written down but much faster in game).
Will go look that up, not familiar with it.
Than there was the idea to remove additional saves and rerolls and rework the armour system (tanks should be wounded like everything else to avoid not necessary differences of "to wound")
I guess it boils down to: do you want the thing to have decreasing capability as it gets damaged or still be 100% good when down to it's last hit-point/wound?
I like the opportunity of giving the opponent the joy of possibly knocking out a critical weapon or immobilizing the model.
P.S:
The other question is, is there a 40k community out there which want to be ready and has a working LRB, if 40k makes the "AoS"?
Well I felt good work was done with Epic 40k.
Plus, I am looking at this as a means of recovery or we may try to go with Mantic's Maelstrom.
I am looking at multiple games at the moment but I am also considering of continuing my work with the fan-made 40k (we called it M41 to avoid copyright problems).
If the game gets the AoS treatment, the alternative rules should be already finished (so now would be a good time to start again.)
I guess it boils down to: do you want the thing to have decreasing capability as it gets damaged or still be 100% good when down to it's last hit-point/wound?
Yes
we made a generic table for all big things no matter if it was a walker, robot or gargantuan creature.
Because there is no reason why you can knock out a dreadnought or sentinel weapon but not those of a Riptide or Wraith Knight.
kodos wrote: I am looking at multiple games at the moment but I am also considering of continuing my work with the fan-made 40k (we called it M41 to avoid copyright problems).
If the game gets the AoS treatment, the alternative rules should be already finished (so now would be a good time to start again.)
I guess it boils down to: do you want the thing to have decreasing capability as it gets damaged or still be 100% good when down to it's last hit-point/wound?
Yes
we made a generic table for all big things no matter if it was a walker, robot or gargantuan creature.
Because there is no reason why you can knock out a dreadnought or sentinel weapon but not those of a Riptide or Wraith Knight.
I agree. 40k should (but probably never will) go the way of D&D 5e - that is, become more simplistic, and by extension more fun. While yes, in the past I have memorized the tables and rules, I don't have the time or energy to do so anymore. It needs to become more simplistic.
As for house rules -
- choose warlord traits
- choose psychic powers
- charge is 6+D6 inches
- maybe even choose when reserves come on.
YES! This is by far my biggest issue with 40k. The game is meant to be one of strategy and tactics and yet all too often things come down to chance. I believe these house rules alone would drastically change 40k for the better, allowing for much more strategic planning and less wasting time rolling dice pre-game.
6+D6 charge would be so much better than what we have now. it would make assaulting more tactical, rather than blindly chucking dice and praying for sixes.
Ah! We had touched on the problem of whomever goes first "wins". More of a core mechanic issue though: unit activation vs army activation would smooth out that all or nothing first turn.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Selym wrote: 6+D6 charge would be so much better than what we have now. it would make assaulting more tactical, rather than blindly chucking dice and praying for sixes.
Agreed, some minimum distance you can count on would make this much better. You could still gamble and hope for more for those so inclined: win-win.
Posted these in the big thread of houserules, gonna add them here too.
Houserules and Errata
General
• A roll of 6 on the Destroyer table does d3+3 hull points or wounds instead of d6+6. Saves may not be taken.
o Destroyer weapons do not roll on the vehicle damage chart in addition to the Destroyer table against non superheavy vehicles.
• Beasts may embark on the transports normally, but may not move more than 6” when disembarking.
• Any model that is a character in a unit receives 1 additional wound as well as any other benefits, to a max of 3W. Codex Eldar, Skitarii, and Harlequins do not gain this benefit.
• Custom units created with the V.D.R. may be used, but the stats should be run by your opponent and Tony beforehand for approval.
• Custom H.Q. character rules will no longer be used. With the advent of Relics, the need for rules to make special characters is obsolete.
• Storm bolters may be fired as a heavy 3 weapon instead of assault 2. The heavy 3 option may not be used for snapshots.
• Monstrous Creatures only get cover if 25% obscured or more.
• All missile launchers gain their flakk equivalent upgrade for free if available.
• Stealth: Models that target units with the stealth usr with ranged attacks take a -1 penalty to their Ballistic skill. This replaces the normal benefit.
• Shrouded: Models that target units with the shrouded usr with ranged attacks take a -2 penalty to their Ballistics skill. This replaces the normal benefit.
• Smoke launchers may be used when the unit equipped with it is targeted. This replaces the normal benefit
• Ignores Cover: Units with this special rule don’t take the B.S. penalty for firing at units with the stealth or shrouded special rules. This is in addition to the normal benefit.
• Models with the relentless and slow and purposeful rules as well as all vehicles do not ignore the range penalty for moving and firing weapons with the salvo special rule
• Any unit attacking a unit under the benefit of the “invisibility” psychic power are treated as having failed a blind test, even if they would normally be immune. This is instead of the normal benefit.
• Psyckers in a unit are treated as independent models for the purposes of casting powers and generating warp charges
• Flying monstrous creatures that arrive via deepstrike may choose to be swooping or gliding when they arrive.
• Vehicles with the “heavy” type ignore the penalties for firing ordinance weapons
• Walkers may add 2 to the maximum unit size listed in their entries unless they are unique units. All walkers may add 1 to their attack profile. Codexes released from the necron codex and after do not gain this benefit.
• Poison and sniper weapons take no penalty to wounding gargantuan creatures
• Weapons with the “primary” special rule ignore a weapon destroyed result inflicted against them on a 4+
• Super heavy walkers and gargantuan monstrous creatures that use the “smash” ability to trade their attacks for a single attack treat that single attack as strength D instead of the normal benefits
• Superheavy vehicles take damage from the vehicle damage table with the following changes
o Ignore the crew shaken and crew stunned result
o Immobilized results lower their speed by half. Multiple immobilized results do not lower this further, but do add the extra hullpoint loss as normal
Chaos Space Marines
• Aspiring champions and Aspiring Sorcerers can take terminator armor for 15 points.
• When a character from the army accepts a challenge, toll on the Chaos Boon Table immediately (instead of afterward) if the character is fighting in a challenge with a unique character, add +1 to the tens dice for determining the Boon (max of 6).
• If your Warlord is an HQ or Lord of War and has purchased a mark from the Chaos Gods, then a single troop unit from this Codex gains the same mark for free. This troop may not have more than one mark, and if the warlord has multiple marks the player chooses which is given before deployment.
• Kombibolters also count as a close combat weapon.
• Rhinos may take assault ramps as an upgrade for 10 points. This makes them assault vehicles
• Helldrakes have a 90 degree firing arc.
• Abbadon is a Lord of War.
• Rhinos may be selected as a fast attack choice.
• If a character becomes a Daemon Prince via the Dark Apotheosis it retains any wargear options that the Demon Prince could have chosen.
• If a model with daemonic possession would consume a vehicle it is transporting, that vehicle suffers a glancing hit instead.
• Ahriman may take powers from the divination school
• Use the basic stat line for rhino based tanks you already have access to from the codex spacemarine book. Your optional upgrades remain the same.
• Hellbrutes may be fielded in units of up to 3
• All units that begin the game in terminator armor have their points reduced by 5 each
Chaos Daemons
• If your entire army is composed of daemons with the same Daemonic alignment you may treat a roll of 7 on the warpstorm as the attack power associated with your god.
• Fateweaver is a Lord of War.
Eldar
• Eldar jetbikes only give a 4+ armor save
• Scatterlasers cost 5 points more than shuriken cannons wherever they may be chosen as an upgrade.
• The Wraithnight is 395 points
• Warp Spiders may only use their flicker jump special rules once per player turn and may not use it against overwatch.
• The warlock conclave does not generate warp charges based on its mastery level.
• The guardian battlehost and guardian stormhost formations are both able to use storm guardians and guardian defenders for their requisite guardian slots.
Dark Eldar
• Hellions can use their jump packs in the movement and assault phase.
• Wyches get their agile invulnerable save during the assault phase, not just the combat sub phase.
• Units equipped with combat drugs count the turn as being one higher on the power from pain table
• Named characters from the 5th edition codex may be used for the point totals listed with the following changes.
o Asdrubael Vect: has the labyrinthine cunning warlord trait and an additional roll on any warlord trait table in the BRB o Lady Malys: roll twice on the warlord trait table in the dark elder codex
o Duke Ssliscus: has the towering arrogance warlord trait. He also grants a reroll for scatter for any venom, raider, or ravager that enters play from deepstrike reserves
o Baron Sarthonix: has the soul thirst warlord trait and doesn’t change the position of hellions in the force organization chart
Tyranids
• Tyranid prime has an additional wound and may take wings (changing its type to jump infantry) for 10 points.
• Models that have the instinctive behavior rule that are within Range of a synapse creature gain a +1 to feel no pain (6+ feel no pain if they did not already have the rule)
• The Swarmlord is a Lord of War and grants the swarmleader benefit to all models within 18”
• Gene stealers have stealth.
• Shadows in the warp cause all enemy psykers to manifest psychic powers at a -1 penalty (normally 5+) in addition to the penalty to Leadership.
• Monstrous biocannons have their point costs changed to the following: twinlinked devourer with brainleach worms 25 points. Twin linked deathspitter, same. Stranglethorn cannon, 10 points. Heavy venom cannon, 15 points
• Hive tyrants poiunt total raises to 185 points
• Old one eye is now 140 points
• Tervigon becomes 155 points
• Haruspex becomes 120 points
• Harpy becomes150 points
• Hive crone stays the same
• Carnifex becomes 86 points
• Trygon becomes 170
• Trygon prime becomes205 points
• Mawlock becomes 140 points
• Exocrine becomes 105 points
• Tyrannofex becomes 105 points and the upgrade to rupture cannon only costs 5 points
• Pyrovores breath weapon gains the torrent special rule
Adepta Sorroritas
• Saint Celestine is a Lord of War.
• Canoness is 5 points cheaper.
• Sisters Repentia gain Crusader.
• The Rhino and Immolator may be selected as fast attack options.
• The penitent engine has hatred.
• The exorcist fires snapshots at BS2 and may be fielded in units of 1-3
Astra Militarum
• Commisar Yarick is a Lord of War.
• Basilisk: 85 points
• Leman russ eradicator: 145 points
• Leman russ vanquisher: 145 points
• Hellhound: 90 points
• Devildog: 85 points
• Banewolf: 95 points
• Chimera, Taurox and Taurox Primes may be selected as fast attack choices.
• When a conscript unit is removed as a casualty, an identical unit goes into ongoing reserve on a 4+.
• The taurox prime has the command vehicle trait
• Rough riders have an additional wound each
• Vox casters give the following benefit: if a command squad and the target of an order it is issuing are both equipped with vox casters, add 12 inches to the maximum command range and the units do not require line of sight
• Tempestas scion units have one higher leadership
Militarum Tempestas
• Any unit embarked in a flyer chosen from this detachment, and any units placed in deep strike reserves may begin arriving from reserves starting in turn one. They must be rolled for normally.
• Gain all the relevant bonuses listed above
Orks
• Cybork body gives a +1 to feel no pain rolls (or a 6+ feel no pain, if the model doesn’t already have feel no pain).
• The Gorkanaught and Morkanaught become superheavy walkers with 6 hull points.
• Kustom Megadreds from Forgeworld have 4 hull points instead of 3.
• Lootas may take a looted wagon as a dedicated transport.
• Boss nobz are Ld8 instead of 7
• Battlewagons are 90 points, looted wagons and trukks are 25 points.
• All non superheavy walkers that don’t have the “cowardly grots” rule gain “ ‘ere we go!” rule
• Stompa becomes 745 points
Spacewolves, blood angels, and grey knights
• Use the basic stat line for rhino based tanks you already have access to from the codex spacemarine book. Your optional upgrades remain the same. Baal predators gain the same squadron size and benefit as predators and may be fielded in units of up to 3.
• Spacewolf dreadnaughts gain counter attack. Blood angel dreadnaughts gain furious charge.
• All units that begin the game in terminator armor have their points reduced by 5 each
• Blood angel scouts use the stat line and point values from codex spacemarine
• Wolfscouts gain stealth
Necrons
• The canoptic harvest formation gives feel no pain instead of reanimation protocols
• Necron wraiths are toughness 4
Escalation (adjustments for balance)
• Baneblade: 485 points
• Banehammer: 348 points
• Banesword: 420 points
• Doomhammer: 395 points
• Hellhammer:530 points
• Shadowsword: 365
• Stormlord: 470
• Stormsword: 475
• Thunderhawk gunship: 588
• Khorne Lord of Skulls: add gaze of pain (24’ S10 ap1 heavy 2) init 4, and 3 hullpoints
• Gargantuan squigoth: 390 points
• Phantom titan: 1050 points and may add phantom pulsars (424 each) phantom D-cannon (330 each), or the phantom ccw (170)
• Revenant titan: 950 points
• Barbed hierodule: 477 points
• Harridan: 644 points
• Hierophant biotitan: the titanfield becomes a 3+ invul save
• Transcendent Ctan: use statline from apocalypse, ignore powers printed in apocalypse; use the greater power of the C’tan list from codex Necrons. Price for unit is 475 points
Simple one, from a previous edition, when rolling to scatter the result is capped at half the distance fired for weapons - so if you fire at a target 12" away the maximum scatter is 6".
Stops shells landing behind the firing unit.
Also if a shot scatters to where you couldn't have actually placed it, say behind a building, the shot hits whatever was in the way.
Would also use the FoW rules, slightly adapted, for hit allocation - and specifically allocate hits not wounds
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote: Posted these in the big thread of houserules, gonna add them here too.
Houserules and Errata
<snip>
What do you guys think?
Awesome?!
Will sit back and read more carefully shortly...
Thanks!
All allies count as "allies of convenience", and special abilities do not apply to models from other detachments under any circumstances.
Superheavy vehicles and gargantuan creatures are limited to one model per army, and can be no more than 33% of the total points for the game.
Each army must take one CAD (or faction-specific CAD equivalent) with no LoW slot, and may take 0-1 LoW OR allied detachment OR formation which may cost up to 33% of the total points for the game.
When playing maelstrom missions, if you generate an objective that you could not have completed at the start of the game (for example, kill a vehicle when your opponent does not bring any vehicles; or control every objective when you only brought 3 units) you may immediately discard the objective and draw a new one.
Happyjew wrote: When playing maelstrom missions, if you generate an objective that you could not have completed at the start of the game (for example, kill a vehicle when your opponent does not bring any vehicles; or control every objective when you only brought 3 units) you may immediately discard the objective and draw a new one.
This is the right idea, but it should be checked when you draw the card, not at the beginning of the game. Let's say my opponent brought one vehicle, I killed it on the first turn, and on the third turn I draw "destroy a vehicle". Under your rule I'm punished for killing it too soon instead of letting it live just in case I need it for an objective.
That would be the tactical part of it. Is it worth it to kill the vehicle now, or can it wait till later? Also, that is only a 1/36 chance to happen anyway so you're really playing the odds on that one.
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote: That would be the tactical part of it. Is it worth it to kill the vehicle now, or can it wait till later? Also, that is only a 1/36 chance to happen anyway so you're really playing the odds on that one.
No, that would be the stupid part of it. 40k is supposed to be a simulation of a real battle, not an abstract game where you exploit loopholes in bad rules. And in a real battle if your commander says "destroy that tank" and you reply "we killed it already" then you're going to be congratulated on succeeding better than expected, you aren't going to be lectured on how much you suck for killing the enemy too soon. There should never be a point where you have to leave an enemy unit alive because you're worried that you might draw a "kill this unit" objective in the future and be unable to complete it because the unit is already dead.
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote: That would be the tactical part of it. Is it worth it to kill the vehicle now, or can it wait till later? Also, that is only a 1/36 chance to happen anyway so you're really playing the odds on that one.
No, that would be the stupid part of it. 40k is supposed to be a simulation of a real battle, not an abstract game where you exploit loopholes in bad rules. And in a real battle if your commander says "destroy that tank" and you reply "we killed it already" then you're going to be congratulated on succeeding better than expected, you aren't going to be lectured on how much you suck for killing the enemy too soon. There should never be a point where you have to leave an enemy unit alive because you're worried that you might draw a "kill this unit" objective in the future and be unable to complete it because the unit is already dead.
But you are forgetting that the game itself is supposed to be a part of a larger battle. You aren't the only part of the army that is fighting. High command has decided that the enemy's tanks are giving them too much of an advantage, everyone try to weed them out. You've already destroyed the only tanks in the vicinity, so the command means nothing to you personally. You are just hoping your allies elsewhere are doing their job. Same with being told to take a certain objective, the war effort requires you to push to an area, either to distract the enemy and allow your allies space to move, as part of a larger push designed to force the enemy to bear the brunt of the assault head on, or hold your position to provide a breakpoint because the enemy is already pushing your support back around you, and the buck has to stop here.
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote: That would be the tactical part of it. Is it worth it to kill the vehicle now, or can it wait till later? Also, that is only a 1/36 chance to happen anyway so you're really playing the odds on that one.
No, that would be the stupid part of it. 40k is supposed to be a simulation of a real battle, not an abstract game where you exploit loopholes in bad rules. And in a real battle if your commander says "destroy that tank" and you reply "we killed it already" then you're going to be congratulated on succeeding better than expected, you aren't going to be lectured on how much you suck for killing the enemy too soon. There should never be a point where you have to leave an enemy unit alive because you're worried that you might draw a "kill this unit" objective in the future and be unable to complete it because the unit is already dead.
But you are forgetting that the game itself is supposed to be a part of a larger battle. You aren't the only part of the army that is fighting. High command has decided that the enemy's tanks are giving them too much of an advantage, everyone try to weed them out. You've already destroyed the only tanks in the vicinity, so the command means nothing to you personally. You are just hoping your allies elsewhere are doing their job. Same with being told to take a certain objective, the war effort requires you to push to an area, either to distract the enemy and allow your allies space to move, as part of a larger push designed to force the enemy to bear the brunt of the assault head on, or hold your position to provide a breakpoint because the enemy is already pushing your support back around you, and the buck has to stop here.
Forge the narrative perigrin
If the narrative makes no sense (as your provided example) then there's no point in "forging" it anyway.
Saying that the game is part of a "larger battle" is just a personal assumption, and will only apply if you actually pretend that's the case. The fact that you have an enemy tank right before your face and your hands are wielding a meltagun specifically designed and crafted to turn tanks like that one into a melted and useless chunk of metal, means you should be trying to fry that tank, and the game should reward you for it. Only exception would be if said tank were aiming its gun at an objective you'd be interested to see die, and the tank were in a position where it simply couldn't reach you afterwards.
When "tactical objectives" are generated randomly and may contradict each other as a result (now grab this objective marker here and inmediately go punch the enemy commander, who's sitting at the opposite edge of the table) there's little tactical though involved. They should be called Random Objectives, as it's what they are.
I guess it wouldn't be so bad if points from achieving tactical objectives were just a third of the total points towards deciding the outcome of a battle. Something like points from Random Objectives + Kill Points + real Tactical Objectives (slay the warlord, holding markers at the end, etc).
Mine would be to change the objectives into one similar to the missions used in Risk.
At the beginning of the game, numbered (or otherwise marked) objectives are placed on the board by both players, with limitations to prevent them all being clumped together and to prevent one player from gaining any possibble advantage (12" from each other, only one in each deployment zone etc.)
They then each draw a card from an objective deck. This card will list what objectives they must secure in order to complete their mission. The players will not know what their opponents mission is.
At the end of the game, each objective you were required to capture gives you a number of points and the player with most points wins. If you control all of your mission objectives at the end of the game then you win, unless your opponent also controls all of theirs. In cases of a tie it goes to tie-breakers (first blood, controlling extra objectives etc.)
This would allow for actual feints and tactics to be used in play. Are you attacking the unit on that objective because you need it for your mission? Or is it just a diversion to pull forces away from another objective so it can be more easily captured? Does the player controlling that objective fall back as it is not a required mission objective in order to keep their unit alive, or do they try to keep hold of it in case their opponent holds as many mission objectives as them?
These are ones that I'd like to see, but don't really affect me.
* Psykers should be required to use the dice they generate, then use the random D6 Pool to add to it if needed. Not a fan of 'Battery' Psykers.
* Hit and Run - Placed in 'Ongoing Reserves' if hit the board edge
* 'Invisibility' - Change it to a Malediction, and just have all current effects apply to that unit hit.
Others I'd wish players would actually accept.
* Start playing all 'Maelstrom', all the time.
RANT!!!
Spoiler:
Take some responsibility in your lists!!! Most (not all), of the complaints I see are literally about how players don't want to change their lists to meet the format. They will then blame their loss on getting a solid string of bad cards. It's never a problem with the list, or that your opponent was actually better than you. It's always the Objectives that they complain on a loss, or that their opponent got a better draw.
Upset that you can't kill a vehicle when your opponent has none? Well, that's a decision that your opponent made on his list, and you want to take that away from him too? I play Necrons as my main force, and I see the complaint because we still have the 'Cast a Psychic Power' Tactical card in our deck. If I wanted to insure that I am able to get that VP, then it's my responsibility to take an allied psyker unit to do so. If I were one of those Necron players who did, then I would be rewarded with the ability to do so when it comes up. Playing Grey Knights? Well then you need to accept that your opponent can kill multiple psykers in one turn, or how easy it is for your opponent to get that VP when he draws the card, because you chose that army, and not because that Card might be singling you out. Run an MSU army? Then you need to accept that your opponent can get D3 VP's from killing them, instead of removing that as a possibility that you might lose.
I got a group of guys to play straight Maelstrom missions for 3 mos, and we've had some awesome games. It's one of the best things to happen to this game and after the initial frustrations, we all noticed our lists change to accommodate the format, instead of trying to make the format work for the army. My current list for Maelstrom games has No Vehicles, No Psykers, No Fortifactions, No MC's/Gargs/Super Heavies, No Flyers, with1 Character and decent sized units to make it as difficult as possible for my opponent to score VP's. NOT playing Maelstrom penalizes me for playing that way, when ALL players can choose to do the same. I even recall a game where my opponent drew the D3 VP's for the Warlord being dead on T1, then my T1, my Shokk Attack Gun killed himself, giving up 5 VP's with my first attack. We had a laugh, and I didn't get pissed off. As Players, we need to look at the Objectives, decide which VP's you can and can not accept, then build a list to fit THAT.
I'm not saying that it's perfect. It's NOT. The only two offsets we have for it right now are the Discard 1 per turn, and the Warlord Table. It's never going to improve until we start playing it. That's never going to happen as long we ignore it!
* Start using Mysterious Objectives. It's been around for a few editions now, why are we still ignoring it?
* Stop using Area Terrain as the default for everything. I was surprised to find how many players are still doing this, and how normal it is. I get some odd looks when I clarify terrain as being 'Difficult' but not 'Area'
* Not everyone likes or has the money for FW, or even likes to play against it (regardless of whether you think it's balanced or not). Some are still new to the game and have never heard of it. Stop pushing it on everyone you see as being 'legal'. We get it, you spent the money, and you think everyone should be okay with it. Please, after a few games, have some lists ready where we don't have to hear 'Well I'd use the one in the Codex, but the FW one is so much better...'
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote: That would be the tactical part of it. Is it worth it to kill the vehicle now, or can it wait till later? Also, that is only a 1/36 chance to happen anyway so you're really playing the odds on that one.
No, that would be the stupid part of it. 40k is supposed to be a simulation of a real battle, not an abstract game where you exploit loopholes in bad rules. And in a real battle if your commander says "destroy that tank" and you reply "we killed it already" then you're going to be congratulated on succeeding better than expected, you aren't going to be lectured on how much you suck for killing the enemy too soon. There should never be a point where you have to leave an enemy unit alive because you're worried that you might draw a "kill this unit" objective in the future and be unable to complete it because the unit is already dead.
But you are forgetting that the game itself is supposed to be a part of a larger battle. You aren't the only part of the army that is fighting. High command has decided that the enemy's tanks are giving them too much of an advantage, everyone try to weed them out. You've already destroyed the only tanks in the vicinity, so the command means nothing to you personally. You are just hoping your allies elsewhere are doing their job. Same with being told to take a certain objective, the war effort requires you to push to an area, either to distract the enemy and allow your allies space to move, as part of a larger push designed to force the enemy to bear the brunt of the assault head on, or hold your position to provide a breakpoint because the enemy is already pushing your support back around you, and the buck has to stop here.
Forge the narrative perigrin
If the narrative makes no sense (as your provided example) then there's no point in "forging" it anyway.
Saying that the game is part of a "larger battle" is just a personal assumption, and will only apply if you actually pretend that's the case. The fact that you have an enemy tank right before your face and your hands are wielding a meltagun specifically designed and crafted to turn tanks like that one into a melted and useless chunk of metal, means you should be trying to fry that tank, and the game should reward you for it. Only exception would be if said tank were aiming its gun at an objective you'd be interested to see die, and the tank were in a position where it simply couldn't reach you afterwards.
When "tactical objectives" are generated randomly and may contradict each other as a result (now grab this objective marker here and inmediately go punch the enemy commander, who's sitting at the opposite edge of the table) there's little tactical though involved. They should be called Random Objectives, as it's what they are.
I guess it wouldn't be so bad if points from achieving tactical objectives were just a third of the total points towards deciding the outcome of a battle. Something like points from Random Objectives + Kill Points + real Tactical Objectives (slay the warlord, holding markers at the end, etc).
Wouldn't the tactical thought involved be "how can I do these two disparate things without crippling my army?" Also, objective cards don't disappear at the end of the turn, just choose one. As to my personal assumption, I could have sworn that every core rulebook for this game I had ever seen described the game as a part of a larger war effort at some point. Doesn't seem to personal to me.
And again, if you had to kill that tank, then the tactical benefit gained should have been worth the effort to get the right weapon to the right place at the right time without the need for a victory point. If you didn't think going over there was worth the effort without the added bonus of a victory point for doing so then that tank wasn't doing much against you anyway.
Standard Jink to 5+ with a maximum of 4+, units cannot charge from a jinking vehicle and fire snap shots.
MC damage table only in effect for weapons with AP2 or AP1. Effects are cumulative. Roll a 5 and get 1-4 results. Stats can only go to 1.
MC damage table:
1-3 roll Losses an X point of WS and BS this turn where X equals the roll amount, 4 lose an INT for this turn, 5 MC is stunned and halves charge range this turn.
6 Lose one attack for the rest of the game.
Vehicles:
AV 13+ vehicles get to ignore damage on that facing on a roll Afterwards roll for any addition save (invul or cover)
AV 13 = 6+
AV 14 = 5+
Gets hot on Vehicles no long remove a hull point just prevent firing.
On charge you may move the distance your roll in dice if you fail. This lets you get back into cover if you moved out to charge.
Reroll for any 2+ or 3+ invul save is reduced to 4+
1. 4E/5E wound allocation. Closest first is stupid. Owner chooses is way better.
2. Maelstrom goes, because it's just stupid running around with no plans. Trying to do impossible things - at least auto-score impossible as completed.
leopard wrote: Simple one, from a previous edition, when rolling to scatter the result is capped at half the distance fired for weapons - so if you fire at a target 12" away the maximum scatter is 6".
Stops shells landing behind the firing unit.
Also if a shot scatters to where you couldn't have actually placed it, say behind a building, the shot hits whatever was in the way.
This would br incredible. Sick of blasts scattering further than the distance between me and the target.
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote: Wouldn't the tactical thought involved be "how can I do these two disparate things without crippling my army?" Also, objective cards don't disappear at the end of the turn, just choose one. As to my personal assumption, I could have sworn that every core rulebook for this game I had ever seen described the game as a part of a larger war effort at some point. Doesn't seem to personal to me.
And again, if you had to kill that tank, then the tactical benefit gained should have been worth the effort to get the right weapon to the right place at the right time without the need for a victory point. If you didn't think going over there was worth the effort without the added bonus of a victory point for doing so then that tank wasn't doing much against you anyway.
The problem comes when you've already destroyed the tank, then get the "destroy vehicle" card inmediately afterwards.
Next time you have an enemy tank at meltagun range you will probably think whether to blow it up right away... or wait until you have a "destroy vehicle" card objective that gives you an added bonus for doing it when the game randomly decides so.
Maelstrom would work if you and your opponent drawn 10 at the start of the game, and you can choose to activate as many of them as you like at the start of your game turn. You don't complete it in that turn, it get's discarded, you complete it, you get the points.
Makes it more tactical then as you have to choose when you decide to play the card and position yourself to do so.
In the same way, I'd nominate game turns at the start of the battle to when your reserves will turn up, but cap it in some way so you can't have everything in turn two. Up to 50% of units in turn two, then whatever you choose for each game turn after then.
everything will turn up in turn 3, except for those units that mus come in turn 1.
You can decide at the start of the game if you want your reserves to come together in turn 3 or not.
If not you can part your units in Reserve into Formation.
Roll for each formation at the start of the turn if the turn in.
(6+ at turn 2, 5+ at turn 3, 4+ at turn 4, etc)
A unit attempting overwatch mus pass a leadership test, even if it's fearless/immune to leadership. If it's failed, no overwatch. If overwatching a unit that has the fear USR, apply a -1 modifier to their leadership. Units which are immune to the Fear USR ignore this second part of the rule.
Fleet allows run and charge.
Jump pack units have HOW, even if they used their jump pack in the movement phase.
Bulky confers HOW. Terminators/Oblits/Mutilatords/etc get HOW.
Remove cover saves, implement the equivalent via bs modifiers a la WHFB.
To wound rolls made by weapons with the poisoned usr made against GCs reroll successful rolls.
SH tanks not immune to immob/weapon destroyed.
All units get a movement characteristic.
ID changed to D3 wounds. EW changed to roll 2 dice to determine these wounds, picking the lowest.
JohnHwangDD wrote: 1. 4E/5E wound allocation. Closest first is stupid. Owner chooses is way better.
2. Maelstrom goes, because it's just stupid running around with no plans. Trying to do impossible things - at least auto-score impossible as completed.
Otherwise it's at least playable in a casual way.
1) Closest first is better than defender picking. Doing Defenders choice makes some weapons/gear/characters almost invulnerable. There needs to be a way to allow for the special model to be targeted/destroyed. But there needs to be a way for the melee unit to not lose ground when charging, maybe closest model for the shooting phase, and any model of the defenders choice during the assault phase. Thus you don't suddenly find yourself out of charge range, and that special model can survive to do it's thing in melee, while I have a chance to gank him at range do to positioning.
Weapons and gear and basic sergeants *should* be invulnerable. In a military unit, everybody knows how to use the BAR, the SAW, etc. Physical weapons almost never get destroyed, so there is always a user. There is a clear COC and fallback in case the SL dies, so that's not an issue. And quite frankly, keeping those models accelerates the game by maintaining a higher average level of lethality. It also looks better when Sergeants can lead from the front.
As for losing ground or not, that's the shooter's risk. If you want to swing that mighty sword, don't shoot as much on the way in.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Weapons and gear and basic sergeants *should* be invulnerable. In a military unit, everybody knows how to use the BAR, the SAW, etc. Physical weapons almost never get destroyed, so there is always a user. There is a clear COC and fallback in case the SL dies, so that's not an issue. And quite frankly, keeping those models accelerates the game by maintaining a higher average level of lethality. It also looks better when Sergeants can lead from the front.
As for losing ground or not, that's the shooter's risk. If you want to swing that mighty sword, don't shoot as much on the way in.
The Sergeant is also likely he primary target as their loss can lead to confusion is lesser trained units.
As to gear, stopping to pick up that weapon, assorted power packs/weapon clips that are not compatible with what you are carrying is not always a good idea. Especially when you are looking at having to undo backpacks just to wear/use the weapon. Mounted gear is almost impossible to switch out during combat, and also likely damaged from the guy mounting it getting fragged, the weapon itself may be unharmed, but that back pack mounted power generator/ammo feed bin may have been. Grabbing a single use weapon from a fallen comrade is easy enough, just run and grab, but crew served/pack mounted type stuff ...not so much. even for a Space Marine who now has to unbolt everything.
Long story short...I disagree with the special models "should" be invulnerable bit. I think they should be more difficult to kill, but not always the last guy there.
Wasn't there an edition where wounds were divided by model? Every model had to take a save, but the defender chose which of a particular set of models died when multiple models of the same type were present. Example; A 5 man squad with 2 special models took 7 wounds, each special would have to make 1 save each, and the 3 regular guys would have to take the remaining 5 saves. If there was 10 wounds every model would have to make 2 saves each. Maybe it was a different game, but this is what I would consider a good method of wound distribution. Maybe it was axed for taking to long? Closest model really is the simplest way to do it, though not the best way.
Sorry, but making stuff up that defies reality doesn't work for me. The rule should be minimize saves, maximize casualties, but let the owner choose the survivors.
If someone was targeted in the real world by a tank round, I would put my money on the weapon being useless. This game on s predicated on the idea that highly effective weapons of the modern age are almost garbage compared to the weapons available in this timeline. Considering the fact that boltguns will rip right through a Kevlar and steel flakk jacket with every round, and that the marine will be firing on full auto most of the time, the idea that the gun you are holding in front of your center of mass won't be completely obliterated is a bit comical.
Your point is then made irrelevant by the game/fluff also executing the in game fact that an effective counter to such mad powerful turn you to squish weaponry is charging at it, with a sword....
megatrons2nd wrote: Wasn't there an edition where wounds were divided by model? Every model had to take a save, but the defender chose which of a particular set of models died when multiple models of the same type were present. Example; A 5 man squad with 2 special models took 7 wounds, each special would have to make 1 save each, and the 3 regular guys would have to take the remaining 5 saves. If there was 10 wounds every model would have to make 2 saves each. Maybe it was a different game, but this is what I would consider a good method of wound distribution. Maybe it was axed for taking to long? Closest model really is the simplest way to do it, though not the best way.
Yes, not sure if it was 3rd or 4th? But definitely happened, and I think it was a reasonable way of distributing hits. Had it's problems though (took a while, and I think there might have been issues about wounds not overflowing so the shooting player killed less sometimes than they should).
JohnHwangDD wrote: Sorry, but making stuff up that defies reality doesn't work for me. The rule should be minimize saves, maximize casualties, but let the owner choose the survivors.
Making stuff up that defies reality?
Have you ever seen the results of a High power AP round through Kevlar, and the results on the pack said soldier was wearing on his back?
Have you ever tried to use an M-16 7.62mm round in an M-60?
How about using a 50 caliber round in an M-16?
Shotgun shells don't work particularly well in an M-16 either.
Now try to undo the web gear of a fallen comrade, while under fire, and live....Not a very likely situation.
Try mounting a MK-19 while being shot at, bet it's pretty hard.
Now imagine that the weapons pack is bolted to said comrades armor, see the difficulty? I understand the smaller gear, a melta gun, and any hand carried weapons, but the large stuff like the Heavy Bolter, Power fist, Lascannon and such, not so much.
Not every Sergeants second will be capable of taking his role upon the Sergeants demise. I was taught to target leadership as early as possible.
Yes, not every weapon will be destroyed/rendered inoperative when a squad mate becomes a casualty, but that falls into a far greater range of circumstances than most, if any, games could account for.
Do you even look at the models? All of the Specials are self-contained. All of the Heavies have one person with the weapon, the other with the ammo. If dead Flamer guy, it's easy enough to pick it up and use it. Dead Mortar / ML guy? Not a big deal, someone else grabs the tube. Dead loader, someone else grabs the ammo bag.
And in the real world, you can use a NATO 81mm round in any 82mm Soviet mortar tube.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Do you even look at the models? All of the Specials are self-contained. All of the Heavies have one person with the weapon, the other with the ammo. If dead Flamer guy, it's easy enough to pick it up and use it. Dead Mortar / ML guy? Not a big deal, someone else grabs the tube. Dead loader, someone else grabs the ammo bag.
And in the real world, you can use a NATO 81mm round in any 82mm Soviet mortar tube.
I see our disconnect. I am looking at the Marine Models, a guy with a huge power pack mounted to his armor, and you are looking at an Imperial Guardsman model. Big difference in model types there.
My point, though, is that it is impossible to truly reconcile every possible interaction of combat and weapons damage per casualty rate.
In the real world, there are hundreds of weapons, and ammunition types available. Some will be....somewhat compatible, but the overall effect is that most are not. An AK-47 can fire an M-16 round, but the M-16 could not fire the AK-47 rounds. At least not when I was in. However, you had to completely unload the one clip, and reload another to do it, as the clips did not work on both weapons. Jus because it is possible, does not mean it is suggested either. The AK-47 lost a lot of it's accuracy in doing this, though to be fair it was somewhat inferior in accuracy to begin with, but it also had a different design philosophy as well.
IRL, there was a clear Soviet design philosophy - be able to use NATO ammo, but don't let them use ours... Pretty smart to be able to scavenge that way. Sure, it's not as accurate, but better to be a little inaccurate than SOL with nothing to fire.
Yeah, funny how rules dip into the "realism" discussions.
For wargames playing a historical setting you get the strategists as well as the historians so the rules need to cater to an almost simulator means of play.
Some nod of the head to realism or you can lose a large potential audience.
For a fantasy or Sci-Fi setting I think it needs to be a literature enabler.
If you read that a marine can do this cool thing, it is a failure in the game if he cannot do the same.
Some concessions to be made on how detailed (skirmish vs company based) the game tries to be.
Worse still, when you watch a movie or video game and you want to re-create the same scenario it can be a challenge.
I find I place certain models on the table to get a certain job done.
Being able to pick-out the special weapon or heavy weapon out of a group and essentially "neuter" that unit is a bit of a letdown.
I find people get most upset in a game when they are prevented from doing things they wanted in a game.
I think it should be possible to hit what you want with the right enemy fire (sniper or spray so with all the hits you have high odds of hitting the one you want) just not in all conditions.
I did like that wound allocation where say I have a squad of 10 guys, 20 shots hit, 2 wounds per guy allocated (not all on "closest" till he fails), I usually switched to coloured dice to represent the special characters.
Things like Maelstrom is good to a point for changing of battlefield objectives but I think the list needs to be more tailored to the type of game being played and made to suit.
Say it is a raid mission and the defender could have objectives like "hold the line!" or "take it to them!" with appropriate victory points the more challenging the objective.
I am trying to remember some game had objectives where only you know what they are, not your opponent OR you could reveal it to them at the beginning and double their worth since it should be harder.
I really love games where you pick out the losing dice and keep rolling the winners: Roll to hit, clear the bad, Roll to wound, clear the bad, Roll to save, count your dead.
It makes for an exciting and fast game.
Killing the closest model starts getting into rolling one die at a time.
1) Closest first is better than defender picking. Doing Defenders choice makes some weapons/gear/characters almost invulnerable. There needs to be a way to allow for the special model to be targeted/destroyed.
There was. It was called "Precise Shots" and certain characters and weapons with the "Sniper" ability had it in 6th Edition. There were also additional rules or psychic abilities that could target individual models. I think that ability, combined with 5th Edition wound allocation (defender chooses who dies) is perfectly viable.
I'll give you a great example of how "closest dies" hurts the game. Flamers. In order to even USE flame weapons, your guys with flamers have to be in the front. However, by being in the front, your flamer guys die before they can use their weapons. So this results in pretty much nobody using flamers in squads anymore because your two choices are both terrible. You're better off simply not bothering to upgrade anyone to use a flamer.
Then lets add in the "Fun" factor. Let me tell you about my Orks and their Power Klaws. I NEED my Power Klaws. Love it or hate it, it's how GW designed Orks to WORK. So it's not really fun for me as an Ork player to be constantly worried about my Nob getting killed, because if he's killed my whole Boys squad might be useless against what I want them to charge and hurt. In 6th Edition it was so bad I'd simply stopped putting Power Klaws on my models. I never got to use them. How is that fun? If a rule ruins part of the game, it's probably a crappy rule.
Lets add to the mix by talking about barrage and blast weapons. You can fire a missile launcher into the middle of a squad and get 3-5 wounds because you hit a lot of models, but the soldiers in FRONT die. But if you fire a BARRAGE weapon suddenly magically the wounds are allocated to where the blast hits. So Barrage Weapons are the best character sniper in the game. Land the large blast on a Sergeant's head, cause 5 wounds, and the Sergeant has to take all 5. Hit that same Sergeant with a normal blast, and for some reason all the guys in the front die, even if they're much more spaced out.
Defender should remove casualties.
Barrage should go back to the way it was, and simply cause Pinning, not allow intervening terrain (area terrain only), hit vehicles on side armor, and be able to be fired out of LoS.
While we're at it, let's fix the idiocy that Blast weapons can't be fired as Snap Shots. It makes ZERO sense that I can load and fire a Krak Missile as a snap-shot but not a Frag missile, and if you're talking about firing missiles at fliers, it makes even LESS sense that you can't hit a flying unit AT ALL with a large blast of shrapnel, but you CAN hit it with one precise shot. Just make it such that Barrage weapons can't shoot at Fliers, and call it done. Allow Blast weapons to be fired as Snap Shots, except that they cannot "Hit" and scatter as if BS1.
^ thank you. That was the long version of why "closest first" sucks.
Speaking of Snap Shots, it's kinda ridiculous that a highly-trained BS10 super marksman snap shots just as poorly as a BS2 Ork. The correct rule would be to re-roll successful hits, rather than hit on 6s...
JohnHwangDD wrote: ^ thank you. That was the long version of why "closest first" sucks.
Speaking of Snap Shots, it's kinda ridiculous that a highly-trained BS10 super marksman snap shots just as poorly as a BS2 Ork. The correct rule would be to re-roll successful hits, rather than hit on 6s...
JohnHwangDD wrote: ^ thank you. That was the long version of why "closest first" sucks.
Speaking of Snap Shots, it's kinda ridiculous that a highly-trained BS10 super marksman snap shots just as poorly as a BS2 Ork. The correct rule would be to re-roll successful hits, rather than hit on 6s...
That is an excellent suggestion.
It is, but honestly, I'd rather simply remove Overwatch from the game as a whole. The game is shooty enough as it is, isn't it?
I feel like when the designers built 6th Edition of 40k, they started with the PREMISE of making Assault a random 2D6 dice number. I feel like they did this because a) it brought it a little more in line with Warhammer Fantasy, and b) because they were adding pre-measuring to the game. Before you could pre-measure, there would be those "iffy" moments where you could declare an assault, only to find that you're outside of 6" and you fail. I feel like they wanted to KEEP that in the game somehow. So they added the 2D6 assault move.
"BUT!" The designers say, that means we're making Assault overall easier to perform than before! On average, people will roll 7" instead of 6", and could possibly roll as high as 12"! This will imbalance the game in favor of Assault.
"NO," says the other designer. We'll allow the unit who is getting assaulted a free shot during the Assault phase! Since we are removing models from the front, if successful this means the person assaulting will lose a couple of inches on his assault move, since each dead model at the front probably increases your successful assault distance by an inch or so.
"GREAT IDEA!" They all agree, and we got 6th Edition rules.
However, I would say that their thinking here was flawed. Assault in 40k is bad. It was horrible in 6th, and slightly better in 7th, but Shooting is where the game happens. Assault is BAD, even with the 2D6 Assault range. So do we really need Overwatch to keep 2D6 Assaults from being too powerful?
I say no. Take Overwatch out of the game entirely. ANY improvements to Overwatch, such as allowing firing at a penalty to BS instead of BS1 would just exacerbate the problem even worse. No-one would assault anyone.
Overwatch is a 2E concept that got sidelined because the pure killing scoring of 2E caused games to devolve into something approximating a deer hunt from concealed blinds than a game of armies moving against each other.
Pre-measuring is a good idea, and randomizing assualt isn't terrible. It's just that shooting is will pretty much always be better until you've created a game that strongly incentivizes assault.
kodos wrote: this +1
choose when reserves should come at the beginning of the game
remove most random dice roles (traits, powers, movement)
Me and some guys from Germany worked a year ago on small tweaks for 40k, but skipped it because no one was interested in (seems like 40k is perfect as it is....).
Some ideas were to streamline the rules (remove not necessary differences between walkers, tanks, monstrous creatures), remove random roles and take the wound allocation from starship troopers (very complicated written down but much faster in game).
Than there was the idea to remove additional saves and rerolls and rework the armour system (tanks should be wounded like everything else to avoid not necessary differences of "to wound")
PS:
The other question is, is there a 40k community out there which want to be ready and has a working LRB, if 40k makes the "AoS"?
We play a house rule where if you have three units in reserve, you roll three dice then if, lets say, you only pass on two, you get to apply those two dice to whichever units in reserve you choose. Still random a bit, but gives you more control. Also we let psykers pick their own spells, instead of rolling for them. With the new rules of psyker phase, they're random enough as it is.
It always makes me laugh how troops partly lobotomized to be fearless, and aggressive. Would care about their own safety. Surely Khorne berserkers would consider any vehicle an assault vehicle.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Overwatch is a 2E concept that got sidelined because the pure killing scoring of 2E caused games to devolve into something approximating a deer hunt from concealed blinds than a game of armies moving against each other.
Pre-measuring is a good idea, and randomizing assualt isn't terrible. It's just that shooting is will pretty much always be better until you've created a game that strongly incentivizes assault.
Previously the game was so assault oriented that taking a shooty army was suicide. I do agree that they have gone to far in altering the balance between the two. Shooting should be a bit more powerful than assault, but not as much as it is currently.
Assault has comparable(weapons have an edge on the range, but lose an attack at the longer range) ranges to the most common weapon ranges, has penalties to morale checks based on casualties caused, has more attacks than the average ranged weapon(ranged gets an average of 2, while melee gets an average of 4) and Melee can wipe out a full sized unit on a single dice roll.
I would have rather had overwatch cause a penalty to the charge distance than causing casualties. (someone else's suggestion, just can't remember whose)
I've occasionally wondered if ordinance weapons and tau rail weaponry should take two wounds off of monstrous creatures. It would bring those weapons back into the meta with a definitive role, I believe.
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote: I've occasionally wondered if ordinance weapons and tau rail weaponry should take two wounds off of monstrous creatures. It would bring those weapons back into the meta with a definitive role, I believe.
It's only a matter of time. Games Workshop neutered vehicles and made Monstrous Creatures obscenely powerful by comparison, and they keep upping the ante with every release. First your typical Monstrous Creature had 4 wounds, that was considered "big". Then 6 wounds became the norm. Now 6 wounds isn't enough anymore and you're starting to see more Gargantuan Creatures with more than 6.
There's already some Mechanicum weapons that can take multiple wounds off creatures, in addition to D weapons. It's only a matter of time before Games Workshop decides to make multi-wound weapons a normal feature in most codexes.
I am OK with that so long as the prerequisite is that the extra wounds only come off of monstrous creatures. Most of them are balanced out points wise with vehicles, the issue is that there are a lot more weapons that kill vehicles more effectively and aren't bad at killing monstrous creatures either.
With ordinance and the rail weapons the single shot big bores and the artillery blasts wouldn't be totally wasted if you fired it at a carnifex.
I personally love the inclusion of super units, they allow me to get a 2000 point game in in under 3 hours. I will say that my local meta is completely devoid of waac players or cheaters. We have some competitive types, but they are good dudes too.
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote: I've occasionally wondered if ordinance weapons and tau rail weaponry should take two wounds off of monstrous creatures. It would bring those weapons back into the meta with a definitive role, I believe.
It's only a matter of time. Games Workshop neutered vehicles and made Monstrous Creatures obscenely powerful by comparison, and they keep upping the ante with every release. First your typical Monstrous Creature had 4 wounds, that was considered "big". Then 6 wounds became the norm. Now 6 wounds isn't enough anymore and you're starting to see more Gargantuan Creatures with more than 6.
That's because everyone already had a bunch of vehicles. Then they pushed MCs. Now they're pushing vehicles again with the super-heavies. And a few MCs with Gargantuans.
Charge d6+6??? Really??? Why not just make charge range 52 inches? Coz people don't get increased running speed just from wanting to clang swords. If anything , the average assault range would be 7 inches , because that's the average of 2d6. so perhaps making it less random without greatly increase their assault range would be better , d6+3? and i play green tide lol
Psychic spells go off on 3+. Weak , why not let psykers auto win? 4+ , with 10 dice cant fail. I'm assuming you guys are trying to cast 40 spells a turn and wonder why they wont cast. Because I have no problem at all.
Picking your own warlord traits would lead to interesting builds , i think this can work. But picking your own psychic spells is gak. Some units can pick thier own spells. This is what distinguishes them. If all psykers can pick what spells they want , you would see a lot more invisible and a lot less primaris.
Wound allocation is great in this edition , are you all smoking pot? I remember when people used to split their wounds , and make it that each 2 wound model had 1 wound because they were dressed differently. THAT'S INSANE! Closest model takes the wound , whats wrong with this?
I'll give you a great example of how "closest dies" hurts the game. Flamers. In order to even USE flame weapons, your guys with flamers have to be in the front. However, by being in the front, your flamer guys die before they can use their weapons. So this results in pretty much nobody using flamers in squads anymore because your two choices are both terrible. You're better off simply not bothering to upgrade anyone to use a flamer.
If you don't mind them dying , leave them in the front. If you want them to live so that they can use thier flamers , put them in the front only when they are about to shoot. It is not hard to do. And the realism of it is that people in the front of armies die first. You don't shoot into a crowd and expect the people in the back to drop. Are you mad?
Then lets add in the "Fun" factor. Let me tell you about my Orks and their Power Klaws. I NEED my Power Klaws. Love it or hate it, it's how GW designed Orks to WORK. So it's not really fun for me as an Ork player to be constantly worried about my Nob getting killed, because if he's killed my whole Boys squad might be useless against what I want them to charge and hurt. In 6th Edition it was so bad I'd simply stopped putting Power Klaws on my models. I never got to use them. How is that fun? If a rule ruins part of the game, it's probably a crappy rule.
Until just recently , Ive run just orks for years. I know this problem well. And you know what , it makes sense. Don't leave your nob in front to get shot at. And if your enemy sneaks up on you and kills your back nob , good for him , he played it smart and strategic. It doesn't make sense for him to sneak behind you to get your nob if you can just allocate wounds in a nonsensical manner.
Nothing wrong with devestator weapons. Those weapons are supposed to be the deadliest thing conceivable. I assume a starship would get one shotted by a sun being shot at it. I dont care what you say.
Allies? Yes allies are a good idea. What good is a game with out a fluffy story to it. Tyranids don't team up with space marines. Get over it.
Who ever goes first wins? Smells like more pot. Is there any reasoning to this at all? Meh...It reminds me of those chess noobs that say white has a significant advantage by going first. obviously this has been proven wrong. Whats gained in tempo is lost by countering.
Its a tank , made of Tonnes of material you have never heard of , It SHOULD NOT , MUST NOT be treated like a guy wearing a bulletproof vest. The game mechanics of wounding vehicles is fine.
There are some good ideas;
-Like managing the objective cards that cant be used.
-Maybe choosing reserves.
You have to remember , when you are changing things that seem slight , your changing the particular strengths and weaknesses of armies , making the game unbalanced all over again. For example , making psyker spells easier to cast means you get more bang for the point cost. If you change assault range to a less random variable , assault type armies get a huge boost in effectiveness , due to rarely failing an assault , which gives assault armies a buff , which means the whole game and point system would have to be reworked to not let the assault type armies be overpowered.
The House rules we use do not change the balance of units.
-losing player gets to knit pick rules only. If you are winning , don't argue if you're tank is 25% obscured.
-We sometimes like to make all objectives mysterious. For more flavour , tang and randomness. Yes , some people do like randomness. This might not be for everyone.
-Mysterious objectives change every player turn. The fluff behind this is that the warp is never still. Well actually , it can be still one moment , and not the next.
Randomness is good. It may make the better army lose a game to a weaker army , but not consistently. This is a lot of fun. It adds that david versus goliath aspect. "I just beat my buddies unbeatable army for the first time ever"
What I don't like is the random effects that make 1 die break half your army. Most common i think is my 10 pack of termis and libbrarian deepstriking off the table , mishap , 500 points gone, slay the warlord , firstblood lost. It is not possible to come back from this bad die. "GOOD GAME , wanna play again?"
jonman_t wrote: Charge d6+6??? Really??? Why not just make charge range 52 inches? Coz people don't get increased running speed just from wanting to clang swords. If anything , the average assault range would be 7 inches , because that's the average of 2d6. so perhaps making it less random without greatly increase their assault range would be better , d6+3? and i play green tide lol Calm down m8. Bit of an overreaction. It's not like assault is powerful these days.
Picking your own warlord traits would lead to interesting builds , i think this can work. But picking your own psychic spells is gak. Some units can pick thier own spells. This is what distinguishes them. If all psykers can pick what spells they want , you would see a lot more invisible and a lot less primaris. Yes, I'm sure the likes of Tigurius, Be'lakor and Eldrad all go into battle thnking, "I wonder what psychic gak will happen today. Am I a going to know offensive or defensive powers? Am I going to be of any use this battle?"
Wound allocation is great in this edition , are you all smoking pot? I remember when people used to split their wounds , and make it that each 2 wound model had 1 wound because they were dressed differently. THAT'S INSANE! Closest model takes the wound , whats wrong with this? Wound allocation this edition involves an unholy amount of micromanaging, and is not even fun. 5E was far better at it, despite the Nob Bikerz fethery.
I'll give you a great example of how "closest dies" hurts the game. Flamers. In order to even USE flame weapons, your guys with flamers have to be in the front. However, by being in the front, your flamer guys die before they can use their weapons. So this results in pretty much nobody using flamers in squads anymore because your two choices are both terrible. You're better off simply not bothering to upgrade anyone to use a flamer.
If you don't mind them dying , leave them in the front. If you want them to live so that they can use thier flamers , put them in the front only when they are about to shoot. It is not hard to do. And the realism of it is that people in the front of armies die first. You don't shoot into a crowd and expect the people in the back to drop. Are you mad? Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that Barry was unable to pick up Gerald's sniper to continue shooting stuff.
Allies? Yes allies are a good idea. What good is a game with out a fluffy story to it. Tyranids don't team up with space marines. Get over it. The allies system is one of the most unbalanced things in the game. If we wanted a particular multi-ary scenario, we'll do what we did in 4E/5E, and houserule it in. I take it you've never played against proper allies abuse?
Who ever goes first wins? Smells like more pot. Is there any reasoning to this at all? Meh...It reminds me of those chess noobs that say white has a significant advantage by going first. obviously this has been proven wrong. Whats gained in tempo is lost by countering. Eldar T1 is liable to wipe out half an army. If both sides take properly good SH units, whomever goes first will take a measurably significant advantage by removing a large proportion of the enemy army, invalidating their ability to strike back. Thus auto-winning. Chess mitigates it by having perfectly matched sides and alternating unit activation. IGOUGO in 40k has serious balance issues.
Its a tank , made of Tonnes of material you have never heard of , It SHOULD NOT , MUST NOT be treated like a guy wearing a bulletproof vest. The game mechanics of wounding vehicles is fine. I'm gonna go ahead and assume you have no idea how tanks work irl or in this game.
You have to remember , when you are changing things that seem slight , your changing the particular strengths and weaknesses of armies , making the game unbalanced all over again. For example , making psyker spells easier to cast means you get more bang for the point cost. That was the point. If you change assault range to a less random variable , assault type armies get a huge boost in effectiveness , due to rarely failing an assault , which gives assault armies a buff which they needed, which means the whole game and point system would have to be reworked to not let the assault type armies be overpowered It really doesn't..
The House rules we use do not change the balance of units. Why the heck not? Adding 100 points to the WK's cost means it gets less bang for its buck. Is that a bad thing?
Randomness is good. It may make the better army lose a game to a weaker army , but not consistently. This is a lot of fun. It adds that david versus goliath aspect. "I just beat my buddies unbeatable army for the first time ever" Randomness is untactical and nonsensical. Random =/= balance or fun or comedy.
I'd rather beat my buddy's unbeatable army using tactics and strategy after losing 1000 times than beat it thanks to sheer luck after losing 100 times.
Don't bring a list with an other power lv then your opponents.
Done
Automatically Appended Next Post: We all know what you should bring to win, the fun is playing with an army that is not guaranteed to table / overpower your opponent.
Selym wrote: Unwritten houserule used by me and my friends:
Da Rool of Kool is King. (DRKK)
>Only bring cool stuff. If it ain't cool, it ain't fun. (Shotgun Scouts? Judge Dredd Scousers!)
>Be cool. Dick moves aren't cool.
>Fun is cool. Have lots of it. Play for laughs.
Jup these kind of house rules you need. House rules trying to balance 40k will horrible fail, not only because 40k isn't that balanced at all but also because players always tend to balance other armies in context to their own army / play style.
Ban rocks paper is fine kinds of house rules are way to common sadly (even on tournaments).
Calm down m8. Bit of an overreaction. It's not like assault is powerful these days.
I agree. It seems that it's harder then ever to get an assault off nowadays. You cannot assault out of deepstrike , you cannot assault out of vehicles unless they are assault type. You can't seem to assault in any sneaky manner. That being said , it's not the randomness of the assault that is making assault weak. It's these rules that are at fault. If you could deepstrike and assault , for example , people would be really scared. And it would add another element of tactical play. And help give the power back to assault type armies.
Yes, I'm sure the likes of Tigurius, Be'lakor and Eldrad all go into battle thnking, "I wonder what psychic gak will happen today. Am I a going to know offensive or defensive powers? Am I going to be of any use this battle?"
Not really sure what you mean here. But the warp isn't intended to be like clockwork. It's not a science , and the game rules support this.
Wound allocation this edition involves an unholy amount of micromanaging, and is not even fun. 5E was far better at it, despite the Nob Bikerz fethery.
To be honest , I find it simple. And its not just me , been watching a lot of battles on youtube. Maybe YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that Barry was unable to pick up Gerald's sniper to continue shooting stuff.
Not really sure how this pertains to what you were replying to. Care to elaborate?
The allies system is one of the most unbalanced things in the game. If we wanted a particular multi-ary scenario, we'll do what we did in 4E/5E, and houserule it in. I take it you've never played against proper allies abuse?
You're right , haven't had a problem yet. But you might be misunderstanding me. I am not saying certain combos can be overpowered. I am more of looking at this from a fluffy perspective. Some armies simply cannot ally with each other , they may lack that sort of decision making process in their biology , like the tyranids. While some armies , should mesh together no problem , like any imperial force. I am not saying this could use some balancing. My reply was intended to thwart people from allying armies that should never be allied , hence the comment , no space marines allied with nids...
Eldar T1 is liable to wipe out half an army. If both sides take properly good SH units, whomever goes first will take a measurably significant advantage by removing a large proportion of the enemy army, invalidating their ability to strike back. Thus auto-winning. Chess mitigates it by having perfectly matched sides and alternating unit activation. IGOUGO in 40k has serious balance issues.
Eldar is my main opponent right now. And through experimentation and learning , trun 1 usually results in less than 2 wounds on either side regardless of who goes first. Maybe consider not deploying your army in the open.
I'm gonna go ahead and assume you have no idea how tanks work irl or in this game.
Don't assume , it makes you sound stupid. I know a lot about tanks. Did you know some tanks can survive a nuclear bombing? These are modern day tanks. Not even 41st millenium tanks. If you think that comment was a bit salty , i apologize. I felt you set that tone.
You have to remember , when you are changing things that seem slight , your changing the particular strengths and weaknesses of armies , making the game unbalanced all over again. For example , making psyker spells easier to cast means you get more bang for the point cost. That was the point. If you change assault range to a less random variable , assault type armies get a huge boost in effectiveness , due to rarely failing an assault , which gives assault armies a buff which they needed, which means the whole game and point system would have to be reworked to not let the assault type armies be overpowered It really doesn't..
To your first comment , If I had an opponent that demanded some units in his army have more bang for the same point cost , i would tell him to smarten up. The costs of units are relative to thier ability. I understand that some units are underpowered and require rebalancing , but this isn't for my opponent to choose which ones and how. That would be a little stacked. So it's a good thing that their is a governing authority on this subject. The CODEX. Besides , psykers are the last units that need balancing. A spell on 1 dice has a 50% chance to cast. You guys are acting like you see 1 spell out of your psykers all game. I get d6+7 warp charges a turn. Usually ends up being 4 successfully cast spells , even after deny the witch.
2nd comment. I agree , but this is not your decision or mine , or my opponents.
3rd comment ; It really does. I just explained the whole mechanic of my thought. Why would you even comment without explaining? Instead , you just say no. LOL
Randomness is untactical and nonsensical. Random =/= balance or fun or comedy.
It really isn't. Any computer game you buy has RNG. Any card game you play , you shuffle that deck , any board game has dice rolls. And realism is there too. Rifles jam periodically. Grenades can bounce funny. Unless you want 40k to become tic tac toe. Your argument is unsound , and your just arguing to be right.
Yes, I'm sure the likes of Tigurius, Be'lakor and Eldrad all go into battle thnking, "I wonder what psychic gak will happen today. Am I a going to know offensive or defensive powers? Am I going to be of any use this battle?"
Not really sure what you mean here. But the warp isn't intended to be like clockwork. It's not a science , and the game rules support this.
Untrained psykers have issues with making the warp do what they want, but the more experienced ones are able to channel it consistently. When someone as experienced as those three says "right, I'm gonna levitate that n00b over there" they, in fluff, are usually able to do it. Put too much effort into it however, and then you get the daemons (perils). You don't just suddenly lose all grasp of your witchcraft every other battle.
Wound allocation this edition involves an unholy amount of micromanaging, and is not even fun. 5E was far better at it, despite the Nob Bikerz fethery.
To be honest , I find it simple. And its not just me , been watching a lot of battles on youtube. Maybe YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
You need a separate wound pool for every single type of hit. And you need to separate /those/ based on direction of fire. And then you have to roll each one individually. And then on top of that:
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that Barry was unable to pick up Gerald's sniper to continue shooting stuff.
Not really sure how this pertains to what you were replying to. Care to elaborate?
Tactical Marine 1 has a heavy bolter. Tactical Marine 2 has a boltgun. TM 1 get shot in the face, dying instantly. TM 2 looks at the heavy bolter and goes, "pass". That's what the current wound allocation rules look like. Some houserules do exist to allow the reclamation of wargear, but they are usually way more convoluted than just "owner chooses who dies".
The allies system is one of the most unbalanced things in the game. If we wanted a particular multi-ary scenario, we'll do what we did in 4E/5E, and houserule it in. I take it you've never played against proper allies abuse?
You're right , haven't had a problem yet. But you might be misunderstanding me. I am not saying certain combos can be overpowered. I am more of looking at this from a fluffy perspective. Some armies simply cannot ally with each other , they may lack that sort of decision making process in their biology , like the tyranids. While some armies , should mesh together no problem , like any imperial force. I am not saying this could use some balancing. My reply was intended to thwart people from allying armies that should never be allied , hence the comment , no space marines allied with nids...
Except that the CtA rules allow for this sort of BS. It would make more sense to remove the allies rules and leave it to player preference. Especially as some things that make perfect sense are disallowed by the allies rules - CSM/Daemons can't be bros with IG. Why?
Eldar T1 is liable to wipe out half an army. If both sides take properly good SH units, whomever goes first will take a measurably significant advantage by removing a large proportion of the enemy army, invalidating their ability to strike back. Thus auto-winning. Chess mitigates it by having perfectly matched sides and alternating unit activation. IGOUGO in 40k has serious balance issues.
Eldar is my main opponent right now. And through experimentation and learning , trun 1 usually results in less than 2 wounds on either side regardless of who goes first. Maybe consider not deploying your army in the open.
Maybe consider what alpha strike lists are, and that not everyone can cover the board in LoS block. Most games I've seen always allow sight from any board edge to any other. In addition to this, not all 40k battlefields are densely packed urban or jungle arenas.
Randomness is untactical and nonsensical. Random =/= balance or fun or comedy.
It really isn't. There are no games out there that don't have randomness. Any computer game you buy has RNG. Unless you want 40k to become tic tac toe. And realism is there too. Rifles jam periodically. Grenades can bounce funny. Your argument is unsound , and your just arguing to be right.
Random is a required element, but some things should not be fully random, and more random does not equal more fun. Take the CD codex. We don't even know what army we'll have when we set it on the table. Take the CSM codex. There's too much random to even have fun. The game is taken right out of the player's hands.
jonman_t wrote: Wound allocation is great in this edition , are you all smoking pot?
I remember when people used to split their wounds , and make it that each 2 wound model had 1 wound because they were dressed differently. THAT'S INSANE!
Closest model takes the wound , whats wrong with this?
No, although I do find that alcohol makes for a far superior gaming experience...
Closest first is stupid because 40k is not a rank-and-fire game. Models are dispersed, and shots can and do hit any model in a unit. Bullets ricochet, and people die from that, too. Closest first also ruins movement because there's all kinds of micropositioning. It makes 40k a per-model game, not a per-unit game. It's pure crap.
That's trivially resolved by changing the rule very slightly to mandate removal of the maximum number of models:
1. resolve Instant Death first, always removing unwounded models before wounded models.
2. resolve no save wounds next, always removing the maximum number of models.
3. mixed saves always use the worst save in the unit, always removing the maximum number of models.
The owner chooses who lives and dies, but has no control over how many die.
This gives the best experience, as all of the fodder drop off rapidly, and all of the awesome killy stuff remains.
jonman_t wrote: Wound allocation is great in this edition , are you all smoking pot?
I remember when people used to split their wounds , and make it that each 2 wound model had 1 wound because they were dressed differently. THAT'S INSANE!
Closest model takes the wound , whats wrong with this?
No, although I do find that alcohol makes for a far superior gaming experience...
Closest first is stupid because 40k is not a rank-and-fire game. Models are dispersed, and shots can and do hit any model in a unit. Bullets ricochet, and people die from that, too. Closest first also ruins movement because there's all kinds of micropositioning. It makes 40k a per-model game, not a per-unit game. It's pure crap.
That's trivially resolved by changing the rule very slightly to mandate removal of the maximum number of models:
1. resolve Instant Death first, always removing unwounded models before wounded models.
2. resolve no save wounds next, always removing the maximum number of models.
3. mixed saves always use the worst save in the unit, always removing the maximum number of models.
The owner chooses who lives and dies, but has no control over how many die.
This gives the best experience, as all of the fodder drop off rapidly, and all of the awesome killy stuff remains.
It also means that your awesomesauce hero that you spent 17 hours painting and 5 hours writing fluff for will be likely to make it into combat.
"Tactical Marine 1 has a heavy bolter. Tactical Marine 2 has a boltgun. TM 1 get shot in the face, dying instantly. TM 2 looks at the heavy bolter and goes, "pass". That's what the current wound allocation rules look like. Some houserules do exist to allow the reclamation of wargear, but they are usually way more convoluted than just "owner chooses who dies". "
Yes, but then it should look like:
TM 1 w/ heavy bolter dies to a shot in the face, TM 2 looks at heavy bolter, walks over strips off his power pack, unbolts Heavy bolter from dead Battle Brother, and then dies from the other incoming rounds because he was moronic enough to stop in a fire fight to try to strip down a mounted weapon.
Sure he can carry it, but doing this while under fire is.....stupid in the extreme. I will say grabbing that melta gun, plasma pistol, and power sword that is laying next to a guy that is pretty much self contained should be simple enough, but LasCannons, Heavy Bolters, Power Fists, and Plasma Cannons....not so much.
megatrons2nd wrote: "Tactical Marine 1 has a heavy bolter. Tactical Marine 2 has a boltgun. TM 1 get shot in the face, dying instantly. TM 2 looks at the heavy bolter and goes, "pass". That's what the current wound allocation rules look like. Some houserules do exist to allow the reclamation of wargear, but they are usually way more convoluted than just "owner chooses who dies". "
Yes, but then it should look like:
TM 1 w/ heavy bolter dies to a shot in the face, TM 2 looks at heavy bolter, walks over strips off his power pack, unbolts Heavy bolter from dead Battle Brother, and then dies from the other incoming rounds because he was moronic enough to stop in a fire fight to try to strip down a mounted weapon.
Sure he can carry it, but doing this while under fire is.....stupid in the extreme. I will say grabbing that melta gun, plasma pistol, and power sword that is laying next to a guy that is pretty much self contained should be simple enough, but LasCannons, Heavy Bolters, Power Fists, and Plasma Cannons....not so much.
Same scenario with scouts (or CSM heavy weapons for that matter):
Or how about Shotguns/Meltaguns/Plasmaguns/Swords?
@ selym. The dataslate for belakor shows he knows all the telepathy powers , so he does pick and choose. Not sure of the others you mentioned. And what youre saying is my point. If all psykers got to choose , then this would unbalance the psykers that can choose. That's what made them good to begin with and now everyone can do it? Why pay so many points for this model now? This is what happens when you balance units in house rules. You mess up other units and their balancing.
You need a separate wound pool for every single type of hit. And you need to separate /those/ based on direction of fire. And then you have to roll each one individually. And then on top of that:
I can maybe agree with some of that. I can see how it can be awkward in rare circumstances. But the last part , you don't have to roll each dice separately.
I understand what you are saying with guy picking up the heavy bolter. That does make sense. But at the same time , this would only work for some weapons , in the midst of battle , I am not gonna start strapping on flamer tanks and lighting that pilot light back up. Perhaps when you get a codex entry that says "1 in 5 marines can have a special weapon" maybe that suggest hes the only 1 trained with it? I know what your thinking , this is getting quite technical. Thats why you just generalize and say , guy with flamer takes wound , flamer is gone. But i do feel you. Kinda just playing devils advocate in order to get the game moving. (EDIT) Pretty much what megatron is saying , but he said it better.
Yes , maybe in a circle that has abuse of allies , you can agree to not use them. If i am not mistaken , this is common enough in the tourny scene? IDK. I think this is a dead point as I was talking about something similar but different.
Maybe consider what alpha strike lists are, and that not everyone can cover the board in LoS block. Most games I've seen always allow sight from any board edge to any other. In addition to this, not all 40k battlefields are densely packed urban or jungle arenas.
Although this is sometimes true , and some players agree to use weak terrain , this shouldn't be common. Rulebook suggest the more terrain the better. I thought it said 25% but that might be out of an older book.
Random is a required element, but some things should not be fully random, and more random does not equal more fun. Take the CD codex. We don't even know what army we'll have when we set it on the table. Take the CSM codex. There's too much random to even have fun. The game is taken right out of the player's hands.
Yip never said everything should be randomized. And it is required like we said. So we both agree that a moderate amount of randomness is essential for both fun and tactics. good.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JohnHwangDD wrote: 40k is sold pretty much entirely on its visuals. To the extent that the rules don't support cinematic play, the rules are wrong.
Perhaps , but its intent is also to keep a parallel to realism. Real battles are fought with fodder. Real fodder usually dies before generals die. I think they have done a fair job. After a couple turns , that's when the cinematics shine. When the squad is all dead except for your hero and he locked in combat with a monster. It's picture worthy. By the way , love your pic.
JohnHwangDD wrote: 40k is sold pretty much entirely on its visuals. To the extent that the rules don't support cinematic play, the rules are wrong.
Perhaps , but its intent is also to keep a parallel to realism. Real battles are fought with fodder. Real fodder usually dies before generals die. I think they have done a fair job. After a couple turns , that's when the cinematics shine. When the squad is all dead except for your hero and he locked in combat with a monster. It's picture worthy.
Okay, I can see where you're coming from on most of you arguments, but 40k has nothing to do with realism.
Keep yo realism outta my grimdark sci-fi 80's rehash super-parody!
Nah. D is like Rending. It deals with tougher things on a To Wound roll of 6. Rending deals with armored vehicles or terminators. D weapons deal with death stars and super heavies and ludicrously synergized invincible models. The ability to ignore invulnerability saves or to one-shot a Super Heavy (which remember... can't explode) or a Gargantuan Monstrous Creature (which remember... can't be Instant Deathed) is similar to what Explode or Instant Death already do. The rules for D are just a simplified way of saying: S10, AP1, Instant Death, Armourbane, Fleshbane, Tesla, on a 6 ignores all Saving Throws; ish... in a world where void shields, T10, and 9 hull points are a reality.
Nah. D is like Rending. It deals with tougher things on a To Wound roll of 6. Rending deals with armored vehicles or terminators. D weapons deal with death stars and super heavies and ludicrously synergized invincible models. The ability to ignore invulnerability saves or to one-shot a Super Heavy (which remember... can't explode) or a Gargantuan Monstrous Creature (which remember... can't be Instant Deathed) is similar to what Explode or Instant Death already do. The rules for D are just a simplified way of saying: S10, AP1, Instant Death, Armourbane, Fleshbane, Tesla, on a 6 ignores all Saving Throws; ish... in a world where void shields, T10, and 9 hull points are a reality.
Cool, now the Shadowsword is inarguably weaker than the hellhammer :/
D should be rarer, but still exist for fluff reasons.
Destroyer and titan-killer weapons should be more powerful, but a rarity, especially in a list under 3k points, like so:
Destroyer Destroyer weapons are immensely powerful weapons, capable of laying entire armies low. If a weapon has a D instead of a strength value in its profile, it is a Destroyer weapon. A Destroyer weapon has a strength of 10 for determining armor penetration and has the Fleshbane, Instant Death, Lance, and Armourbane special rules. To resolve a Destroyer weapon attack, roll to hit and to wound or for armor penetration normally. Then, roll a D3 and consult the Destroyer Damage table below. 1 - Serious Blow - The model suffers an additional 2 wounds or penetrating hits with only invulnerable saves allowed. 2 - Crippling Blow - The model suffers an additional 3 wounds or penetrating hits with no saves allowed. 3 - Devastating Blow - The model suffers an additional 4 wounds or penetrating hits with no saves allowed.
Excess wounds or hull points lost do not carry over to other models in the unit, if there are any.
Titan-Killer Titan-Killer weapons are designed for one purpose - to destroy the largest, most powerful, and most well-armored targets with ease.
A weapon with the Titan-Killer rule has the Fleshbane, Instant Death, Lance, and Armourbane special rules. If a weapon with this special rule is also a Destroyer weapon, the amount of wounds or penetrating hits the target model suffers is doubled.
I found two more that SHOULD to be 'house ruled', but don't necessarily need to make 40k work. No, it's not necessarily fair, but it makes things more enjoyable.
1) If we're not going to get rid of Area Terrain, then we need to apply the Vehicle Obscured thing to MC's. Yes, this is all Nids have, but at the same time it's being abused, more than making games enjoyable.
2) While Allies are fine, it should not be more points than your Primary Detachment. (Seriously Draigo and Paladins as allies on a 1k game? Fluffy, yes. Enjoyable to play against? ..... )
But wouldn't people just switch their detachments?
So now Draigo and chums is the primary and the other people are the allied but the overall army is exactly the same. So it doesn't really fix anything.
But wouldn't people just switch their detachments?
So now Draigo and chums is the primary and the other people are the allied but the overall army is exactly the same. So it doesn't really fix anything.
It means that they now have to do the whole troop tax thing if they want to remain bound.
They would before. The grey knight specific detachment only requires 1 troop and 1 hq. Draigo is a low, so any time you see this unit in a list if they're battleforged there are going to be the troop and hq anyway. (Probably a ml3 librarian in terminator ator armor and one of the grey knight non termi troops, name escapes me atm)
Pretty much the only houserule we use is "splitting hairs is no" - meaning if we are unsure if something reaches, it doesnt. Speeds the game up dramatically.
I get why "remove wounds from front" is hated, but how about this:
wounds from the front stays (it makes sense, the front of the unit is going to take the most damage) however, on a 4+ or Ld check (oh noes, randomness) a squad member has the time/composure to loot his dead buddy for the plasma gun and related ammo.
Pick your own warlord traits
Pick your own spells (with reworkings to the most broken and weakest spells to actually make it a choice, and not invis. spam)
Either 6+d6 or 2d6+3 for charge range
mitigate some randomness from maelstrom, it's a nice addition to counter static armies and general cheese, though I do get the complaints about some of the missions, maybe draw 6 at the start of the game, the ability to mulligan, etc.?
I dont mind the random warlord traits thing but i hate how they are so diversified you can easily ... ok VERY easily ... get a trait that is utterly useless for your warlord. I dont know how many times ive gotten "Reroll to hits of 1 in shooting phase" with my sluggaboyz/biker ork army.....talk about pointless when bikes reroll as it is and sluggas are running every turn.
I wish there were more categories to pick from, only they were D3 instead of D6 so its less random and more specific to the role you want.
Oh you mean the one you never get on a melee warlord for a free VP after a won challenge?
The imagination was lost. Warlord traits should give you table-wide perks, unit-wide stronger perks, or make the warlord himself a beast. I hate those ones that dont seem to do those, which is why i never roll on my Tau ones because they almost never help. Ork ones are "fine" but i find the Command Traits to be way way better.
Picking the Warlord traits would be amazing.
The times that I have gotten "Reroll fail to hits in combat" and "The Warlord and his/her unit have outflank" for my poor Tank Commander is beyond a joke.
That is what I think I was getting at is that I like my tactics with a little fluff:
A 40k novel simulator.
If the Khorn champions are leading from the rear, something is terribly wrong.
Or Creed is such a genius even he does not know what he is good at until the battle begins.
The Allies rule needs to vanish.
Invisibility reduces all units shooting/meleeing it to BS1
Invisibility may NOT be cast on vehicle squadrons (Vindicator Linebreaker in particular)
Allies does need to stay. But I wouldn't mind it being somewhat weakened. There are some broken combinations, but I like to use Militarum Tempestus with my Sororitas. However "allies of convenience" replacing battle brothers all around wouldn't bug me at all.
DevonMrtnz wrote: Allies does need to stay. But I wouldn't mind it being somewhat weakened. There are some broken combinations, but I like to use Militarum Tempestus with my Sororitas. However "allies of convenience" replacing battle brothers all around wouldn't bug me at all.
I disagree with this there needs to be a few battle brothers like in the case of Skitarii/Cult Mechanicus/Imperial Knights. Especially Skitarii/Cult Mechanicus. Maybe even Iron Hands and the Ad Mech. Should there be as many battle brothers? Probably not, but there should be a few where it really makes sense. Some space marine factions should be battle brothers with some other space marine factions and not others. That's not even counting space marines not apart of the space marines conglomerate.
And I wouldn't mind every faction being come the apocalypse with the Ultramarines. I despise them above all others.
DevonMrtnz wrote: Allies does need to stay. But I wouldn't mind it being somewhat weakened. There are some broken combinations, but I like to use Militarum Tempestus with my Sororitas. However "allies of convenience" replacing battle brothers all around wouldn't bug me at all.
I disagree with this there needs to be a few battle brothers like in the case of Skitarii/Cult Mechanicus/Imperial Knights. Especially Skitarii/Cult Mechanicus. Maybe even Iron Hands and the Ad Mech. Should there be as many battle brothers? Probably not, but there should be a few where it really makes sense. Some space marine factions should be battle brothers with some other space marine factions and not others. That's not even counting space marines not apart of the space marines conglomerate.
And I wouldn't mind every faction being come the apocalypse with the Ultramarines. I despise them above all others.
DevonMrtnz wrote: Allies does need to stay. But I wouldn't mind it being somewhat weakened. There are some broken combinations, but I like to use Militarum Tempestus with my Sororitas. However "allies of convenience" replacing battle brothers all around wouldn't bug me at all.
I disagree with this there needs to be a few battle brothers like in the case of Skitarii/Cult Mechanicus/Imperial Knights. Especially Skitarii/Cult Mechanicus. Maybe even Iron Hands and the Ad Mech. Should there be as many battle brothers? Probably not, but there should be a few where it really makes sense. Some space marine factions should be battle brothers with some other space marine factions and not others. That's not even counting space marines not apart of the space marines conglomerate.
And I wouldn't mind every faction being come the apocalypse with the Ultramarines. I despise them above all others.
Martel732 wrote: The entire system needs a rewrite. Go to D10s to make for easier statistics and greater granularity.
That is a wee bit more than a rule "tweak" for house rules but I agree with the logic of it, 10% increments rather than 16.7% and true percentile rolling can be done with different colored D10's.
Arkaine wrote: No Allies
No Lords of War
No Super Heavies
No Gargantuan Creatures
No Fortifications other than Aegis Defense Line
No ForgeWorld rules
No Apocalypse formations
No more than two CAD/detachments/formations/auxiliary
Or more simply known as the "No bs" rule.
"NOOOOO I MUST HAVE 4th edition!" Fair enough, if that's how you feel, then take away all those things, but in the right place, those can be fun. Case in point, and Ork stompa is A LOW, and expensive points wise, not overpowered and easy to kill. What about Marneus? Ghazzy? Dante? All of these are LOW.
Truthfully, the best way to have fun, that nobody wants to say is: play in a way that you and your opponent can have fun. So if you are going to a tournament, expect utter insane, bizarre nonsense. If you are playing at your FLGS, take a silly list with fortifications, or a baneblade, and take a backup list which is a bit more toned down. If you have the chance to talk to your opponent in advance, see if he wants to "forge the narrative" and play something with a combination of things.
There is literally no way to balance the game, and throwing out the new toys that people have (FW, Wraithknights, superheavies, formations) is nothing more than saying you want to play with your collection, and that people should build their collection like you. I play in many tournaments every year, and literally every tournament I get my face broken by some crazy rock/paper/scissor build. Most of the games are awesome fun. As a community we need to just accept that the game has grown beyond the collections we built for fourth and fifth, treat our opponents with respect, and enjoy the game for what it is.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Edit: not that I disagree that many things about this game suck, but if it's bugging you that much, go and pick up a copy of Beyond The Gates of Antares and try something different, I know that's what I'm going to do.
At the end of the day we are squabbling over our war dollies.
goblinzz wrote: "NOOOOO I MUST HAVE 4th edition!" Fair enough, if that's how you feel, then take away all those things, but in the right place, those can be fun. Case in point, and Ork stompa is A LOW, and expensive points wise, not overpowered and easy to kill. What about Marneus? Ghazzy? Dante? All of these are LOW.
It does not feel right to throw out the various cool characters and the odd big bad mini-titan / big tank.
Truthfully, the best way to have fun, that nobody wants to say is: play in a way that you and your opponent can have fun.
No disagreement with the intent.
So if you are going to a tournament, expect utter insane, bizarre nonsense.
I personally expect the most insane min-maxed lists imaginable and bending rules into a pretzel in this kind of venue.
If you are playing at your FLGS, take a silly list with fortifications, or a baneblade, and take a backup list which is a bit more toned down. If you have the chance to talk to your opponent in advance, see if he wants to "forge the narrative" and play something with a combination of things.
This is where it becomes hard: someone who likes their fluff may just LOVE their fortifications and Baneblade and stomping Imperial Knights everywhere.
A more "competitive" player will be looking for the most utility for the least points which may lead to the same thing.
A list that is a "bit more toned down", the details of this is what I am fishing for.
More toned down is a larger proportion of troops?
Less allies?
Less Vehicles or Monstrous Creatures?
There is literally no way to balance the game,
But we are all tempted to make a passing attempt at it until GW cares to try.
and throwing out the new toys that people have (FW, Wraithknights, superheavies, formations) is nothing more than saying you want to play with your collection, and that people should build their collection like you.
It really comes down to getting both player's collection to match sufficiently to be a "good scrap" and not cave face.
I play in many tournaments every year, and literally every tournament I get my face broken by some crazy rock/paper/scissor build.
That is the nature of the high randomization game we play today, more choice than dice rolling appears to be appreciated.
Most of the games are awesome fun.
When it is a good match-up I agree it is great fun, some of my best gaming memories involved 40k.
As a community we need to just accept that the game has grown beyond the collections we built for fourth and fifth,
Apocalypse was introduced a while back, so the present day 40k is not too terribly different from that.
Our collections would have grown to fit big games (or the incentive was there).
treat our opponents with respect,
Hey, anyone willing to share their free time with me to get a game in usually gets it, those who show up for lording over others however...
and enjoy the game for what it is.
What the game IS now is Apocalypse with even less rules and less balance.
40k started off as a skirmish game but now the game is dipping into the "Epic 40k" realm.
Just a few tournament rules or favored house rules to mellow it out a bit is the intent.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Edit: not that I disagree that many things about this game suck, but if it's bugging you that much, go and pick up a copy of Beyond The Gates of Antares and try something different, I know that's what I'm going to do.
I think I am into the realm of having over $10,000 worth of GW40k so being able to arrange fun games of 40k is mandatory for me.
I do have other games of interest, it is just such a shame the present rule-set is so unwieldy for what GW and us the players are trying to do.
At the end of the day we are squabbling over our war dollies.
It is actually more than that.
It is where we choose to spend our free time.
Away from school, work, chores, family obligations, renovations and other hobbies like video games or sports.
It needs to be pretty compelling stuff for us to fight our way to getting a game in.
The fun MUST be there or we drift away from it to something more shiny.
Now that they resuscitated specialist games I may actually get sucked into Epic... "again"... I will just play it all with my 40k figures.
Is flat out wrong. There is Literally no way to perfectly balance the game, but it can be balanced a lot better than it is. Just use a little effort, and most importantly use the same system for each faction. Randomly assigning numbers to stuff because it "feels right" is the only way the game can literally not be balanced.
Yes the first numbers will be arbitrary, but once that base number is determined, then everything else can be figured from that point. You can create algorithms, use simple additive bonuses, multiplicative modifiers, anything, but the GW way of "it felt right" will never balance a thing.
I've said it before, and I think it still rings true: this game is more fun (in my opinion) when you take it out of the context of tournaments, and that feeling we all have of wanting/needing to win. Yeah, wraith knights are stupid, but one of the most fun games I've played was legion marines vs. eldar+dark eldar, and by turn 4 we both had 1/4 of our starting armies, and I still had to contend against the WK. Honestly, when was the last time most of us played a game with unbalanced points and/or a different objective then the missions in the books? what about 2k points of HQ vs. 2k points of a regular army? I agree, certain rules need to be reworked, but once you take it out of the context of needing to win, donkey-cave TFG players, min-maxers, and certain tournaments, I feel like a lot of these issues are mitigated quite a bit. I may be wrong, but that's just what I've noticed with my more recent games.
Is flat out wrong. There is Literally no way to perfectly balance the game, but it can be balanced a lot better than it is. Just use a little effort, and most importantly use the same system for each faction. Randomly assigning numbers to stuff because it "feels right" is the only way the game can literally not be balanced.
Yes the first numbers will be arbitrary, but once that base number is determined, then everything else can be figured from that point. You can create algorithms, use simple additive bonuses, multiplicative modifiers, anything, but the GW way of "it felt right" will never balance a thing.
There are soooooo many different broken, unpredicted combinations of things that if you balance one way, then suddenly something else becomes 'meta', and everyone starts bitching about the thing that was previously underpowered being overpowered. Nerf D? Suddenly I can't deal with Knights anymore. Nerf Knights? Suddenly I can't deal with deathstars. Nerf Invisibility? Suddenly Eldar are too fragile. Nerf Formations, well you Ork players, you don't get to use the few builds that help you remain competitive.
The game is a shambles, and always has been. It's a fun shambles, if not taken too seriously, but still a shambles. If you want balanced go play Horus Heresy, which holds zero interest for me, as it's basically Spy Vs. Spy, but people love it because it is inherently balanced being bland marines on bland marines.
In a game which consists of so many rock/paper/scissors combinations, trying to achieve balance by tweaking individual things is pissing into the wind.
You want to know the single biggest thing that would balance the game? Abolish IGOUGO. The abolition of that, and the introduction of the bolt action unit activation mechanics is the single biggest draw for me in Beyond the Gates of Antares.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Not that I'm saying there aren't huge sections of the rules that irritate me and are poorly written, but i have neither the time nor inclination to house rule everything.
I travel A LOT, and play regularly, so I CAN'T use house rules as they will change everywhere I play, so as far as possible I play out of the book, and occasionally get screwed by a bad matchup or opponent.
Yes, I have declined to play somebody because thye had three riptides.
What I do now, is if there's any aspect of the rules that is controversial, then I go over them with my opponent and see how he wants to handle that during the game. As an example, I always go over how I play Vengeance Weapons Batteries as there are differing interpretations on those rules, and I want to make sure we are comfortable with how they will play.
A list that is a "bit more toned down", the details of this is what I am fishing for.
More toned down is a larger proportion of troops?
Less allies?
Less Vehicles or Monstrous Creatures?
A good yard stick is: do you and your opponents have fun playing with/against that list. For example, my friend has a horrific tournament Necron list. Outside of tournaments it is ONLY brought out if the opponent requests it, or is specifically practicing for a tough tournament. It's got no super heavies, no fortifications, but is a decurion style list. It's awful to play against casually, so he leaves it on the shelf and doesn't make people feel terrible by surprising them with it.
Is flat out wrong. There is Literally no way to perfectly balance the game, but it can be balanced a lot better than it is. Just use a little effort, and most importantly use the same system for each faction. Randomly assigning numbers to stuff because it "feels right" is the only way the game can literally not be balanced.
Yes the first numbers will be arbitrary, but once that base number is determined, then everything else can be figured from that point. You can create algorithms, use simple additive bonuses, multiplicative modifiers, anything, but the GW way of "it felt right" will never balance a thing.
There are soooooo many different broken, unpredicted combinations of things that if you balance one way, then suddenly something else becomes 'meta', and everyone starts bitching about the thing that was previously underpowered being overpowered. Nerf D? Suddenly I can't deal with Knights anymore. Nerf Knights? Suddenly I can't deal with deathstars. Nerf Invisibility? Suddenly Eldar are too fragile. Nerf Formations, well you Ork players, you don't get to use the few builds that help you remain competitive.
The game is a shambles, and always has been. It's a fun shambles, if not taken too seriously, but still a shambles. If you want balanced go play Horus Heresy, which holds zero interest for me, as it's basically Spy Vs. Spy, but people love it because it is inherently balanced being bland marines on bland marines.
In a game which consists of so many rock/paper/scissors combinations, trying to achieve balance by tweaking individual things is pissing into the wind.
You want to know the single biggest thing that would balance the game? Abolish IGOUGO. The abolition of that, and the introduction of the bolt action unit activation mechanics is the single biggest draw for me in Beyond the Gates of Antares.
I will agree that IGOUGO is a poor choice.
The actual rules are not so bad on balance of power between melee/range. The very poor unit costs are really what drives he discrepancies between them. Play a few games with assault marines that don't have jump packs, and standard bolter marines. Keep them at equal numbers, bet the casualty rates come out pretty close overall. Now add a power fist to the assault marines, and a lascannon to the bolter marines. Again keeping them at the same numbers, bet the casualty rates skew in favor of the lascannon. The power fist should be cheaper than the lascannon, but it costs more currently.
Many special rules also need to have their wording cleaned up to more clearly convey what it is they are supposed to do.
Creating a system to balance units based on their capabilities, while not perfect, will net a better game. Special rules bloat also need toned down, as it stands, I think that every unit in the game has a special rule so nothing uses the basic rules anymore.
Creating a system to balance units based on their capabilities, while not perfect, will net a better game. Special rules bloat also need toned down, as it stands, I think that every unit in the game has a special rule so nothing uses the basic rules anymore.
YES! I'm struggling to understand the need. However, the list of core changes I'd like to see is enormous...
Look, I realize that I probably am coming across as a bit of an ass. Play the game you want, if you feel you need to alter parts of it to have fun, then do it! It's YOUR GAME! You payed the money, and should feel free to play it as you want, there are no GW police hiding behind your curtains waiting to jump out on you. (At least I don't THINK there are, but I play unmodified rules, so maybe they are just leaving me alone...) Just don't be under the illusion that your tweaks are the answer, that in such a bloated sprawling game that your 'fix' won't affect the game in a way that you didn't expect.
(as an example, I was horrified to see someone above suggest that overwatch should be 5+, because we NEED to punish people more for playing orks...)
But remember that if you play outside of a small circle of people, then your house rules will complicate your life...
And on that note, I will bow out, because I realise that I am arguing against the core of the question being asked in the first place, which is a legitimate question.
Creating a system to balance units based on their capabilities, while not perfect, will net a better game. Special rules bloat also need toned down, as it stands, I think that every unit in the game has a special rule so nothing uses the basic rules anymore.
YES! I'm struggling to understand the need. However, the list of core changes I'd like to see is enormous...
Look, I realize that I probably am coming across as a bit of an ass. Play the game you want, if you feel you need to alter parts of it to have fun, then do it! It's YOUR GAME! You payed the money, and should feel free to play it as you want, there are no GW police hiding behind your curtains waiting to jump out on you. (At least I don't THINK there are, but I play unmodified rules, so maybe they are just leaving me alone...) Just don't be under the illusion that your tweaks are the answer, that in such a bloated sprawling game that your 'fix' won't affect the game in a way that you didn't expect.
(as an example, I was horrified to see someone above suggest that overwatch should be 5+, because we NEED to punish people more for playing orks...)
But remember that if you play outside of a small circle of people, then your house rules will complicate your life...
And on that note, I will bow out, because I realise that I am arguing against the core of the question being asked in the first place, which is a legitimate question.
'Night all...
Sorry, I didn't want to make you feel like an ass. Because you are not. I also play the rules as printed. Just wanted to point out my view that the rules themselves are fine, it is the points costs associated with things that mess it up, which I guess goes against the idea of this thread as well.
Brennonjw wrote: I've said it before, and I think it still rings true: this game is more fun (in my opinion) when you take it out of the context of tournaments, and that feeling we all have of wanting/needing to win. Yeah, wraith knights are stupid, but one of the most fun games I've played was legion marines vs. eldar+dark eldar, and by turn 4 we both had 1/4 of our starting armies, and I still had to contend against the WK. Honestly, when was the last time most of us played a game with unbalanced points and/or a different objective then the missions in the books? what about 2k points of HQ vs. 2k points of a regular army? I agree, certain rules need to be reworked, but once you take it out of the context of needing to win, donkey-cave TFG players, min-maxers, and certain tournaments, I feel like a lot of these issues are mitigated quite a bit. I may be wrong, but that's just what I've noticed with my more recent games.
I agree wholeheartedly. The game isn't too bad unless people start gaming the system. It's this way with all competitive games. Starcraft 2 can even be fair until you start spamming the one master unit to win. It has a counter and the opponent can build it, but that's a real time game. You can't build a counter to your opponent in 40k, you already selected your list. There's only a handful of factions that can truly build an All Comers list because they have units that can take on literally anything, Wraithknight and Wraithguard among them.
Personally, if you're bringing a Lord of War to a 1000 pt game, you're doing it wrong. It's okay for the competitive cutthroat tourney scene but when that context is removed as you said the game becomes more fair. A single Wraith Knight isn't so bad when the enemy is fielding 3000 points of troops, elites, fasts, and heavies in a balanced list, just as a single Imperial Knight isn't so awful either. But bringing a 5 Imperial Knight formation to a 2000 pt game? That's something that belongs in Apocalypse style matches with higher point values, and since 7th edition is apparently Apocalypse 40k they allow it for regular matches. A lot of the shenanigans that occur with Death Stars and other stuff just stem from people exploiting the crap out of the FOC or formations or only taking what units are mathematically superior rather than what would actually make sense to bring. Troop Tax is a term from that line of thinking, that troops are expendable nonsense you should take as little of as possible and only spam the big and heavy stuff that runs rampant across the field.
The game really isn't made for competitiveness anyway, hence all the unbalanced gak. Take fluffy lists and it's almost anyone's game.
There are soooooo many different broken, unpredicted combinations of things that if you balance one way, then suddenly something else becomes 'meta', and everyone starts bitching about the thing that was previously underpowered being overpowered. Nerf D? Suddenly I can't deal with Knights anymore. Nerf Knights? Suddenly I can't deal with deathstars. Nerf Invisibility? Suddenly Eldar are too fragile. Nerf Formations, well you Ork players, you don't get to use the few builds that help you remain competitive.
That's the reason why you have to write the rules from scratch
just adding a new rule or change/remove an existing one will always affect more stuff than expected and triggers a "cataclysm" (that's also the problem with the new rules added by GW in the new books)
But remember that if you play outside of a small circle of people, then your house rules will complicate your life...
That's why I prefer to play 40k on tournaments only because everyone has to accept the house rules and everyone knows what army lists he has to expect (I still play from time to time against a "PUG" but that one game is most of the time enough to get myself away from 40k again).
The game really isn't made for competitiveness anyway, hence all the unbalanced gak. Take fluffy lists and it's almost anyone's game.
Good idea, fluffy Snakebite Orks against a fluffy Ravenwing or O'Shava list is pure fun (at least for the not ork player).
The problem is that "fluffy = not strong" was never the case in 40k. There was always only "don't play against broken fractions no matter if the guy plays them fluffy or not" if you want to have fun.
you Ork players, you don't get to use the few builds that help you remain competitive.
