I want to know what you think are the broken parts of the 40k core rulebook, why you think they are broken, and how you would fix them. I put an example below.

Vehicles get glanced to death too easily. Possibly increasing the hull points of vehicles by 50% (round up). This would allow vehicles to last longer and possibly make anti vehicle weapons more useful again.

If you think a rule needs to be added, put that in there as well and why you think it needs to be added.

This is not a thread for trying to fix a codex that may or may not be overpowered, nor is it a thread to spew hatred over certain units that may or may not be balanced. Please leave those kind of posts at home please.

Assault is restricted too much. Being a passenger gets you killed if you step out through the doors. Overwatch is fine, but a couple more special exceptions how flamers get more shots would be nice. Hatch-mounted guns getting overwatch would be good, maybe.

 Skinnereal wrote:
Assault is restricted too much. Being a passenger gets you killed if you step out through the doors. Overwatch is fine, but a couple more special exceptions how flamers get more shots would be nice. Hatch-mounted guns getting overwatch would be good, maybe.

I had an idea for that one actually.

Remove Assault Vehicle rule from the game. All transports may move 6", unload their passengers, and the the passengers may choose to shoot or assault 1d6". Transports could still move 12" like normal but not be able to unload any dudes.

 Xerics wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
Assault is restricted too much. Being a passenger gets you killed if you step out through the doors. Overwatch is fine, but a couple more special exceptions how flamers get more shots would be nice. Hatch-mounted guns getting overwatch would be good, maybe.

I had an idea for that one actually.

Remove Assault Vehicle rule from the game. All transports may move 6", unload their passengers, and the the passengers may choose to shoot or assault 1d6". Transports could still move 12" like normal but not be able to unload any dudes.

I think an easier way is to just make any charges made from a non-assault vehicle to count as disordered. That way Land Raiders and Battlewagons have some measure of reason for their premium price tag by giving the full benefits of assault to their units while less dedicated transports allow you to make that charge but prevent you from steamrolling the unit.

Another broken part is not being able to assault out of reserve like outflanking or other things like infiltrating for units like genestealers that need that charge to actually do something. I would say do the same thing ala transports and make them count as disordered charges if they do so on the turn they arrive.

Regarding hull points, I'm a fan of saying that glancing hits do not remove hull points but instead force you to roll on the damage table with a -3 modifier on the table. This way you actually have to penetrate to do any meaningful damage rather than scatter laser your way through vehicles. Vehicles in general should have a 3+ save IMO, with Skimmers having a 4+ armour save. This is again, to mitigate the low AP but high S spam method of plinking down vehicles, while allowing lascannons and other single shot weapons greater utility.

I'm also not a fan of the dip-your-toe-in cover system for MC, make it so they need 25% coverage like vehicles. Walkers should have the ability to move up to 12" and only be able to snapfire their weapons or go 6" and fire everything at full BS. Give them MTC cover base and Smash and they're on even footing for most MC. MC themselves should have a similar damage table to Walkers, for every wound you have to roll and see what happens.

I think it would be quicker to talk about the balanced parts of 40k.

 Frozocrone wrote:
I think it would be quicker to talk about the balanced parts of 40k.

There is a lack of contribution to the thread here.

 Frozocrone wrote:
I think it would be quicker to talk about the balanced parts of 40k.

It really would be:
[Silence]

Anyway, back on topic:

The Hull Points mechanic needs to go. Just get rid of it. Make a '6' on the damage table result in a KO'd vehicle and add in a -3 penalty on the roll for Glancing hits.

Eldar need a massive nerf and points increase.

Tau need the same

Marines need to stop getting all the toys

Invisibility needs to reduce you to WS and BS 1 when attacking the invisible unit, or preferably be removed all together

Denying psychic powers needs to be easier

Psykers need to revert back to 3rd/4th/5th mechanics. No more 'roll many dice' castings.

Vehicles need to be able to overwatch and do so at BS 2/3.

'Pinning' actually needs to affect more than 10% of all units

Losing 50% of a squad needs to inflict a -2 penalty on its LD, 75% a -4. And you should need a LD check each 25% lost.

Combat needs speeding up

Challenges need to be removed OR make it so that extra wounds do not spill over. Right now my regular opponent uses Challenges as a way of ensuring he gets many kills whilst at the same time ensuring that his character is essentially immune to reprisal. (he runs super close combat characters with their melee abilities turned up to '11' through gear. I regularly lose half a section+Sarge to one single character)

Put a lot more limitations on Deep Striking and make it exceptionally dangerous (IE: You scatter into terrain/a unit [friend or foe] and every model that contacts it is dead and the rest have to roll for mishap)

Have outflanking require a LD check from the unit to come in, with a -1 penalty (works very well in BA)

Make grav a blast weapon and reword the rules so that it can only ever cause immobilised results on vehicles and extra immobilised results from grav never cause HP loss/extra damage.

Have jetbikes reduced to taking only one heavy weapon in every five bikes

If a unit cannot hurt its opponent in close combat then allow it to disengage voluntarily (Well, my guys will happily spend several turns being smooshed by your dread ehilst they are unable to fight back because they lack even Krak grenades)

Remove maelstrom and bring back the old 4th edition missions.

There sure is a lot of stuff here but only about half have fixes and a lot also came from the codexes (like the Eldar, Tau and Space Marine stuff). Try and stick to the core rules only please.

Terrain rules are a mess imo.
GMC toe in cover=save.
Vehicle in same cover=no save.
Model 99% out of LoS but can see a single eyeball=save.
Area cover VS buildings VS player made=unbalanced/unclear.
Moving through over solid walls/terrain features=confused and unbalanced.
Terrain type classifications=unclear.
Battlefield terrain (craters, forests, gun emplacements) with their own rules=confusing and cheesy in places.
TLoS VS abstract ideals=not working at all.

I could go on but.

The allies matrix is one of the most broken parts due to IoM shenanigans

Here is an overview of the actual core rules that are not optimal for the current game play of 40k. IMO.

The alternating game turn mechanic ,(IGO/UGO) does not allow enough player interaction.

Alternating phases, keeps the phases players know and understand but interleaved them to improve player interaction.

The stat line does not cover enough of the units abilities, or allow units to interact with enough detail.
Despite this limited and restrictive level of interaction, the core rules use 5 different resolution methods for combat!(Excluding direct representation.)

7-BS to hit at range.
WS vs WS to hit in assault.
S vs T stat to wound.
2D6 under LD for morale.
AP lower than armour save value to ignore armour save value completely.

Resulting in very complicated rules that deliver very restricted game play.

Before GW add on several layers of complication with additional rules for vehicles, and over EIGHTY special rules that are poorly worded and implemented....

IF we can agree that the current game play of 40k should promote an equal focus on mobility firepower and assault.So all units are useful.

Then using a stat line that generates detailed and tactical interaction , using direct representation and ONE other resolution method.(Opposed values on a universal resolution chart for all combat resolution.)

Would allow much more diversity in units without the need for special rules.And reduce complication and rules bloat, while adding much needed tactical depth.

However. I am of the opinion that the 'big toys' from 6th and 7th ed would be better in an expansion like Apoc used to be .

Because random pick up games for new players,that are balanced enough to be fun.
Are much easier to arrive at without all the excesses 6th and 7th ed forced into the game.

I am a fan of the background and the game play the background seems to imply.

I however, an not impressed with GWs determination to use a WHFB based rule set , after 40k has evolved well beyond its 'WHFB in Space' origins.

-Assault is too hindered by multiple things:
Overwatch needs a downside like being unable to fire next round, random charge range needs to be less random like having minimum of your initiative. (I could see orks tripping over one another in random humorous fashion, but not eldar or marines.) Furious charge could stand to be unnerfed, and too many things outright deny assault when they could just reduce charge range or cause a disordered charge. Weapon skill chart needs to be reworked so the most skilled fighters in the galaxy can hit tau fire warriors more than 2/3 of the time and not get hit back a lot. Melee weapons are hilariously overcosted given their inability to do anything until several turns into the game, and only if they survive to that point.

-Inversely, shooting is too easy:
Cover needs to affect BS so high-str-bad-AP spam shots are actually affected. If assault is going to be denied from showing up on the table, shooting shouldn't be able to wipe a unit upon showing up either. Ignores cover needs a nerf. You should be able to shoot into combat on a passed leadership, the penalty for which is that your unit in the combat disperses and flees the battle immediately after, but not before providing cover for the enemy.

-Shooty monstrous creatures benefit from the MC rules suite on the melee side too much:
Lower strength and/or remove smash from things like riptides that are -supposed- to be weak in melee. Riptides should not be beating fully healthy death company dreadnoughts or melee special characters that cost as much as the tide does in melee combat.

-Monstrous creatures are way out of line compared to similarly costed vehicles:
This has a multi-choice fix, a couple of them being to hit the MC's with a random damage table, or buff vehicles by nerfing or removing their table. (And fixing hull points)

-No one should be able to get a non-ignorable save (invuln) of better than 3+, and no one should be able to get a re-roll on saves period:
As stated.

-Formations provide too much at no cost, including the ability to bypass mediocre tax units in some cases:
Make them cost something or ditch them altogether.

-Multiple movements take too long:
Add run to movement phase at the very least. Make assault jet moves fixed 6" to at least reduce rolling and measuring time.

-random pregame stuff is dumb, takes too long, and the unpredictability sometimes ruins entire games:
Balance warlord traits and psychic powers, and allow them to be picked during list creation.

-Psychic blessings (aka the best powers) are too hard to stop for non-psyker armies, adamant will doesn't do enough, and the psychic phase in general is too randomy random and time-wasting:
Return psychic powers to older versions where they were simply used in the relevant phase. To deny, a unit with a psyker, Ada will, or one farther away with a hood needs to be close by to the target or the caster. Multiple units may pool their denial attempts, (omg BT relevant?) but only one denial per unit per turn. As above, powers need to be reworked so that auto-take fortune/invis tier powers don't exist.

-game has rules that literally break:
Errata and post online.

-game is out of balance in general on the codex level:
Errata and post online. Casual players can ignore it and stick to books if they want. Organized play uses the latest errata, just like every other game ever.

-superheavies in normal games:
1/3 the cost of your army or less in superheavies. If you want all Knights, play some apocalypse.

That's pretty much it.

 Xerics wrote:
There sure is a lot of stuff here but only about half have fixes and a lot also came from the codexes (like the Eldar, Tau and Space Marine stuff). Try and stick to the core rules only please.

Stick to the core rules? You asked for broken and you got it. There is almost nothing that is not broken right now, down the individual codexes. Compare Bullgryns and Thunderwolf Cavalry. Both have the same base number of wounds and toughness. However the Thunderwolf brigade have better armour, better weapons, more attacks and a shed load of special rules which all come together to form one of the deadliest CC units out there.
The difference in pricing's? Nothing. Both models cost the exact same.
I cannot stick to the core rules because I am starting to wonder where exactly they are. The rule book itself is a mass of special abilities and special rules that confer another load of special rules and things that counter this but dont counter that and....
Hell. What happened to 40K?

The core rules get broken by undercosted and overcosted units. We can't just discuss core rules.

Martel732 wrote:
We can't just discuss core rules.

Yes we can. That's why they're called core rules. Changes to core rules have knock-on effects on every unit in the game, whereas the under or over powered units being tweaked does not have nearly the same knock-on effect.

Niv-mizzet covered my thoughts pretty well.

In addition, I'd add there's too much random in general that only serves to slow down the game and remove player decision making. Things like running, random wound allocation, warlord traits, psychic powers, and all the weird tables (the pskyer perils table is ridiculous for the amount of rolling).

The entire psyker mechanics are poorly worded and clunky. Not sure what problems the older system had in 5th/6th and why they went to the slow process we have now.

Then entire save mechanic is poorly done between armour saves and cover saves. All or nothing armour saves coupled with an either/or cover save doesn't make a lot of sense and is rather difficult to balance effectively compared to reasonable modifiers. Fixing this would do wonders to armies like marines who depend on good armour saves and would encourage effective use of cover.

But as Frozocrone mentioned, it would be easier to talk about the good/balanced/not broken parts of the rules.

Yeah forgot about the randomness.
Thats actually my biggest bugbear now I think of it.

Martel732 wrote:The core rules get broken by undercosted and overcosted units. We can't just discuss core rules.

Martel has pretty much hit the nail on the head here. It is not just the vore rules but the Codexes themselves that are stupidly broken.

Blacksails wrote:
But as Frozocrone mentioned, it would be easier to talk about the good/balanced/not broken parts of the rules.

Then the discussion would pretty much be over by now :(

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:The core rules get broken by undercosted and overcosted units. We can't just discuss core rules.

Martel has pretty much hit the nail on the head here. It is not just the vore rules but the Codexes themselves that are stupidly broken.

Not arguing the codices aren't a mess too, but it is quite possible to discuss all the issues of the core rules entirely independent of the codices and attempt to fix the glaring issues.

Blacksails wrote:
But as Frozocrone mentioned, it would be easier to talk about the good/balanced/not broken parts of the rules.

Then the discussion would pretty much be over by now :(

 Xerics wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
Assault is restricted too much. Being a passenger gets you killed if you step out through the doors. Overwatch is fine, but a couple more special exceptions how flamers get more shots would be nice. Hatch-mounted guns getting overwatch would be good, maybe.

I had an idea for that one actually.

Remove Assault Vehicle rule from the game. All transports may move 6", unload their passengers, and the the passengers may choose to shoot or assault 1d6". Transports could still move 12" like normal but not be able to unload any dudes.

"assaulting is weak, especially if you're in a vehicle. So how's about we implement a rules change which simultaneously gives shooty oriented armies which couldn't assault out of their transports the option and absolutely curbstomps the already weak assault-reliant armies who can assault out of vehicles!"

Genius.

I'll break it down by section.

1) Certain stats need to be worth more

WS: change the ws/ws roll in cc to gain a shift every point of differential. differential of 0, same as current (4s and 4s). Differential of 1, same as current (higher hits on 3s, lower on 4s). Differential of 2, now higher hits on 3s, lower on 5s. Differential of 3, now higher hits on 2s, lower on 5s. Differential of 4, you go to 2s and 6s, and cap out there.

I: Rework charge difference. Instead of being random, your charge difference is ALWAYS 4"+I. I would also make all run moves be +I instead of +D6. (in all cases of mixed stats, you would use the lowest I in the unit).

LD: needs a more complete overhaul than can be briefly described. You either need to make morale a central mechanic of the game that applies to VERY NEARLY everyone, or remove it entirely. I would be far happier with the former.

2) AP and Ignores Cover

Rework AP. AP5 and 6 is gone. AP4, 3, 2, 1 as they currently are become -1, -2, -3, and -4 to your armor save. -2, -3, and -4 weapons are classified as "anti tank weaponry", more on that later.

Rework ignores cover into cover debuffs. It needs to be easier to debuff cover, but not as easy to remove it entirely.

3) Vehicles and MCs

Rework vehicle damage table. "explodes" result changed to "+D3 wounds". Now any wound caused to a tank or an MC with an anti-tank weapon (defined above) causes a roll on the VDT, with the same bonuses as current AP system.

MCs now roll on VDT if wounded by anti tank weapons.

Tanks need a basic save. Any vehicle with the "tank" type gains a 5+ armor plating save, any vehicle with the "Heavy" type adds +1 to their plating save. Anti tank weaponry ignores plating saves.

4) Assault

Remove random charge distance as described above

Models can assault out of any transport that remained stationary

Models can make disorganized charges out of deep strike or outflank if they forgo shooting.

Running the risk of being pedantic, it depends on what elements you feel are broken of the game like competitive gameplay vs sandbox style play.

"Broken" for me is simply game balance.
The assumption that points value reflects the relative worth of the models or formation in general.
Augmenting abilities also can be applied across a multitude of models or other formations also skewing balance.

We seem to be committed to formations so I say we double-down on them more.
Not a means of "freebie" stuff but a self contained list (no powers leaking out to affect other formations!) where two formations of a similar points value and type (Assault group, Heavy support, Armor... something around that line) would guarantee a fairly close fight army to army, formation to formation.

Plus the answer to Monstrous Creatures and Armor: take a page from Bolt Action and just extend the "to wound" to higher values.
The stronger weapons have a higher strength so are more capable of damage.

I think Bolt Action rules applied to 40k would be awesome, including their method of unit activation rather than I-go you-go.

Lets keep overwatch as it is, but kill off this random charge range! And not kill off the closest model in the unit. That should balance out (at least compared to what we have) the shooting vs assault. I play a mostly assault based Daemon army (although I fly a lot). And I'm not too terribly worried about overwatch. But random charges is sucky, and removing closest model is what made me sell all my Marines. Daemons lets me work around as I run units with no champions or big single-model jerks. Killing the closest model means I lose a horror or I lose a Bloodthirster; which would be the same thing if I took from the back of the unit. I found a way to work around what I hate of 6th and 7th edition. But I'd still like the assault change, but I do feel overwatch should be kept; and I have NO models that overwatch.

 Skinnereal wrote:
Assault is restricted too much. Being a passenger gets you killed if you step out through the doors. Overwatch is fine, but a couple more special exceptions how flamers get more shots would be nice. Hatch-mounted guns getting overwatch would be good, maybe.

Assault army just won adepticon...

last 3 times an assault army won too.....

both players are very consistently placing with exclusively assaulty armies....

See, that's why I like playing an assault-based army! Most people expect to shoot me off the board...then I roll a 2++/rerollable save for my Screamers, and just roll through everything they hit. Yes, I know it's dirty to run that. Yes, I know a possible 2++ with a reroll is something the game shouldn't have. Hell, the final turn of my last game they TECHNICALLY had a 1++ (cursed earth, roll of 10 on daemon chart, grimoire). I lost a single Screamer in the entire game. I know they're foul.

I think I had a point somewhere. Assault is still good. And it seems to be a semi-well kept secret.

As a game; there is too much to keep track of. Each unit has 3 or 4 different lists of special rules that go with rules for the unit (e.g unit type, weapons, army wide rules) all spread over several parts of multiple books. I don't think I've seen many TURNS where something was not forgotten.

40k needs to be simplified, as in 40k 8th should be to 40k 7th what KoW is to WFB 8th.

If players keep forgetting a rule it shouldn't be there.

Psychic powers, formations and allies. Those rules are the source of a lot of the abuse in 40k. Not all of it, granted, but the rest would require a lot of rebalancing.

Random warlord traits. I should get to fething pick my warlord traits.

Same with psychic powers.

In terms of core rules, not faction specific mechanics, here is what I would like to see.

Army building...

Almost everything is broken. I'd go back to the old FOC, just ine detachment that everone is built around. If there must be additonal variety, some variants unique to each army but that largely stick to the core of thr FOC (like the GK one) are ok too.

Dump allies, dump formations, dump multiple detachments. Dump it all.


Vehicles.
Go back to the 5E vehicles rules with the 7E snapshot rules and 7E effects on passengers. Allow assaults from stationary closed top transports. HP's just need to be dumped. Allow Overwatch from weapons in arc of fire.

Wound Allocation
Go back to 4E with this, its way too gimmicky as it is now for very little non-abuse oriented tactical benefit.

Maelstrom...
Dump it. Dump it all.

SH/GC units
Mandate they are only allowed in games of 2500pts or more, or for specifically tailored scenarios.

Jink. Its simply has way too few downsides for too many units and is useable in situations that really are silly.

FMC's cannot Jink unless actively flying, cannot Jink if they were running around in foot or as a Jump unit.
Cannot Jink in response to Overwatch, and if a unit Jinks the in its subsequent turn it subtracts 2" from its charge distancr and counts as a disordered charge.
Jink effects passengers who may only fire snapshots and assaults from open topped Jinking transports are at -2" distance and count as disordered.

Reserves:
Units may assault from reserves if not outflanking or deep striking. Deep striking Mishap becomes more dangerous and returns to 3E consequences.

Snapshots
Blasts may fire as snapshots but do not benefit from BS reduction. Template weapons may be used in Snapshots but reroll all successful wounds.

Ordnance
Dump the rules that forces all other weapons to snapshot, its a silly holdover from 3E that no longer serves a purpose.

Saves, therea wayyyy too much survivability with some things.
2+ saves of any kind may not be rerolled, Invul and cover saves may not be rerolled if better than 4+.

Feel No Pain
May not ever be better than 4+.

D-Weapons
Restricted only to SH/GC units.

Dangerous Terrain has become basically ignorable and needs teeth again, do not allow armor or cover saves against it.

Psychic Powers need some addressing. Mostly this is specific powers like Invisibility, summoning and Endurance and the like.

Cover acts very strange, MC's should have to be 25% obscured like tanks.

Fearless needs some downside in assaults, try going back to 4E's no retreat wounds based on outnumbering (not 5E's method, that was silly).

I want to say rework Grav, but I think the big thing really is RoF, it just need to be toned down on specific units.

Haywire has become far more widespread than it used to be and could use some toning down, have it only effect vehicles on a 3+ rather than 2+, couoled with a 5E damage chart and no HPs this makes them effective but not autokill weapons.

Return terrain classifications to 5E rules.

Go back to 3E/4E rules for Victory Points of the actual points value of units killed, se we stop valuing a Land Raider and a Drop Pod equally in terms of victory tabulation.


Theres more Im sure but its all I can think of for now

 kronk wrote:
Random warlord traits. I should get to fething pick my warlord traits.

Same with psychic powers.

Agreed. Warlord traits and psychic powers should basically be upgrades that have a determinate points cost that you have to pay to purchase them for a given model.

Naturally, named characters should have warlord traits (e.g., Pedro gets iron resolve) and psychic powers which they automatically get (if Darth Vader were in the game, he should get force choke automatically).

Also. Enough is enough! No more rerollable saves.

You need rerollable saves to survive scatterlasers. Maybe GW noticed this, but only "fixed" it for marines. Idiots. I've had the Eldar force 70 armor saves in a single turn before!

Vaktathi wrote:Cover acts very strange, MC's should have to be 25% obscured like tanks.

I vehemently disagree with this.

Monstrous creatures get, IIRC, the move though cover special rule. Why? because they are so massive that they basically just knock trees and cover down while they walk.

No cover for MCs unless almost entirely obscured.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
You need rerollable saves to survive scatterlasers. Maybe GW noticed this, but only "fixed" it for marines. Idiots. I've had the Eldar force 70 armor saves in a single turn before!

And it screws everyone else over royally.

Nerf high ROF weapons. Abolish rerollable saves from the game.

1) Remove hull points(some above posted ideas sound nice). Make Vehicles great again!
2) For walkers, Make them all MC's with a special ability like"Armored hull, Immune to Poison weapons" or another being "Eternal warrior" to prevent a force weapon from instant killing. If Eldar Avatar of Kaine gets immunity to flamers,ect. this rule is already in play for him, so they can make a rule for walkers similar, and not be completely out of place.
3) Remove pre measuring.
4) remove random charge distance. make it a fixed range of 6 like old editions. Give certain units(jetpack, bikes, furious charge) a plus 3 charge range or something

conker249 wrote:3) Remove pre measuring.

Why?

Imho, that just removes in-game immersion. Why wouldn't one of my space marines know whether or not he is in range to fire?

Perhaps "pre-measure" could be a special rule. BS 3 or lower? No pre-measuring.

BS4 or better? Pre-measure for days!

4) remove random charge distance. make it a fixed range of 6 like old editions. Give certain units(jetpack, bikes, furious charge) a plus 3 charge range or something

Yes. I vehemently agree with this!

Enough with randomness! No more random runs, charges, etc. Give us some fixed numers, GW!

No in game measuring? Because we totally can't measure things with lasers in real life, right?

We could accurately shoot shells from one moving battleship to a moving enemy target in WWII with ANALOG machines. This is why retro-future grim dark just gets stupid quickly. Newsflash: the people who didn't go retro would be in charge, not the Emprah's fanatics.

Martel732 wrote:
No in game measuring? Because we totally can't measure things with lasers in real life, right?

We could accurately shoot shells from one moving battleship to a moving enemy target in WWII with ANALOG machines. This is why retro-future grim dark just gets stupid quickly. Newsflash: the people who didn't go retro would be in charge, not the Emprah's fanatics.

That count be accounted for by equipment upgrades. Ok, Tau, you want to premeasure? Use one of your marker lights.

I kinda liked the no pre measuring rule of previous editions. made you really think whether to move a unit closer to fire, or keep them farther back. would love to see buying a upgrade like an auspex, targeting array, something. maybe if the unit has a character(or the upgrade) the unit can pre measure?

Or just keep pre measuring because rules that repel new players are bad things.

Traditio wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
No in game measuring? Because we totally can't measure things with lasers in real life, right?

We could accurately shoot shells from one moving battleship to a moving enemy target in WWII with ANALOG machines. This is why retro-future grim dark just gets stupid quickly. Newsflash: the people who didn't go retro would be in charge, not the Emprah's fanatics.

That count be accounted for by equipment upgrades. Ok, Tau, you want to premeasure? Use one of your marker lights.

No. No paying for things we could do in Gdamn WWII.

I agree on keeping pre-measuring. Not allowing it was a real barrier to entry for new players, and nearly meaningless to people who have been playing for a while.

Yeah, once you were playing for a while, measure was easy to gauge, pre measuring is fine really and makes sense for the game universe

Riflemen are useless and there does not seem to be any vision on how they should coordinate with other units. Riflemen should be able to flank an enemy unit that is being suppressed and then wipe out the squad after having exposed them to fire.

The point system is completely broken.

If we look back at the roots of the point system as we know it (2nd edition), 10 Tactical Marines without upgrades would cost 300 points while a Land Raider would cost 220 points.

If we keep the current conversion rate, a Land Raider should cost about 105 points. Not saying 2nd edition was balanced, but in the current meta, Land Raiders costing 105 points would actually feel like a useful choice to make.

___

I think that as of yet, the entire rule system is busted due to incremental changes rather than a proper design from the ground up. Making stuff make sense, then individually pricing the units should be the top priority of GW.

The MC vs Vehicles when it comes to cover is a key example. It doesn't make sense, at all. I can't see a Carnifex hiding in the bushes if a Rhino can't do it.

 Grimskul wrote:

I think an easier way is to just make any charges made from a non-assault vehicle to count as disordered. That way Land Raiders and Battlewagons have some measure of reason for their premium price tag by giving the full benefits of assault to their units while less dedicated transports allow you to make that charge but prevent you from steamrolling the unit.

Another broken part is not being able to assault out of reserve like outflanking or other things like infiltrating for units like genestealers that need that charge to actually do something. I would say do the same thing ala transports and make them count as disordered charges if they do so on the turn they arrive.

Regarding hull points, I'm a fan of saying that glancing hits do not remove hull points but instead force you to roll on the damage table with a -3 modifier on the table. This way you actually have to penetrate to do any meaningful damage rather than scatter laser your way through vehicles. Vehicles in general should have a 3+ save IMO, with Skimmers having a 4+ armour save. This is again, to mitigate the low AP but high S spam method of plinking down vehicles, while allowing lascannons and other single shot weapons greater utility.

I'm also not a fan of the dip-your-toe-in cover system for MC, make it so they need 25% coverage like vehicles. Walkers should have the ability to move up to 12" and only be able to snapfire their weapons or go 6" and fire everything at full BS. Give them MTC cover base and Smash and they're on even footing for most MC. MC themselves should have a similar damage table to Walkers, for every wound you have to roll and see what happens.

Just listen to this guy, this is reasonable. Everything else I hear in this thread is wish listing and salty salt.

Core Rule Issues:

Cover saves. The entire mechanic is broken in the sense that, well, it makes no sense. For example, a marine hiding behind in a forest is just as easy to hit/see/wound as one standing in the open.

How I would fix it: remove cover saves entirely. Replace with a to hit modifier. 50% of the model covered or in Trees = -1 BS. Intervening models = -2 BS. Defense Lines = -3 BS. And all these should stack. So attacking a unit that is standing in the trees, behind a defense line and there are intervening models should have a -6 BS.

Tank Shocks The rules here aren't very well explained and honestly don't make the best sense. Further even when you successfully pull off a tank shock the result is ... underwhelming.

How I would fix it: When tank shocking an infantry unit, the infantry units takes an initiative test. If failed, all the models take a hit and have to roll an armor or invul save. If passed, the unit scatters D6" (use the scatter die + 1D6). If the scatter takes any model off the table or into dangerous terrain then those model(s) are removed from play. If the models can't move in that direction (ie: building in the way), they die.

Death or Glory gets changed to a successful initiative test followed by (2 * Strength) + D6 hit. If the model fails the initiative, it takes a hit that ignores armor saves. If the model fails the attack, it takes 2 hits that ignore armor. If successful, the vehicle is immobilized plus loses a hull point.

Skimmers Why don't these have Skyfire?

How I would fix it: give skimmers Skyfire.

Psychic Phase I somewhat understand the reasoning behind rolling all the psychic powers up in a single phase, but I really don't think this is the right path. Further, I really don't understand why one psyker gets to use the power level (psychic dice) from another psyker to cast a power.... Sure, maybe for the Thousand Sons that would be a cool mechanic but for everyone?

How I would fix it: I think most of the powers should be rethought to be something that fits within the other well defined phases. Whether it's deployment, beginning/ending of game turn, shooting, assault, or movement phases. I don't think there ought to be a pool of dice to choose from. Instead you get to select 1 power per psyker. The ML levels determine how easy the psyker can cast. ie: the roll needed to cast is (6 - ML). So a ML 1 psyker casts on a 5+, a ML 2 casts on a 4+, etc. Also, remove the counter dice completely.

Speaking of the Thousand Sons, under this model give the entire army the special rule that psykers can help each other cast powers.


Warlord Traits I think warlord traits are great in the sense that they can provide additional flavor to an army. However the random nature for generic HQs is horrible.

How I would fix it: Reevaluate the warlord trait charts. Make sure that the various traits give enough options to build entirely different armies around them. Then remove the randomness by allowing the player to pick the trait.

clively wrote:

Skimmers Why don't these have Skyfire?

How I would fix it: give skimmers Skyfire.

Why would they inherently have Skyfire? I mean, there's problems with the Skyfire mechanic, but Skimmers aren't necessarily flight capable units with weapons intended to engage aerial targets. Some have been described as being capable of limited flight (e.g. Falcon) but they aren't designed to actually engage anything when doing so, and many others make absolutely no sense as Skyfire capable units (e.g. Hammerheads or Ghost Arks).

Oh, which reminds, even just the scale of 40k is broken. Should flyers even be a part of the core rules? I think not at this scale.

 Vaktathi wrote:

clively wrote:

Skimmers Why don't these have Skyfire?

How I would fix it: give skimmers Skyfire.

Why would they inherently have Skyfire? I mean, there's problems with the Skyfire mechanic, but Skimmers aren't necessarily flight capable units with weapons intended to engage aerial targets. Some have been described as being capable of limited flight (e.g. Falcon) but they aren't designed to actually engage anything when doing so, and many others make absolutely no sense as Skyfire capable units (e.g. Hammerheads or Ghost Arks).

To bring their use more in line with the fiction. DE Raiders and Venoms are commonly described as flying high up in the skies, swooping down to drop off troops or swoop over enemy units.

So Far there has been some very interesting turnout. I will be sure to continually read through this thread as I modify the ruleset for a hopefully more balanced game through the core rulebook. This is a ruleset I will be using to play at home with friends and I will post them on Dakka as well for anyone who wants to try them. Thank you for bringing up things that I had never even thought of.

system is too granular for no real good reason.

Why is there a to-hit and a to-wound roll? Just combine them together. If you want smaller increments of probability, just increase the rolls to 2D6, if you don't want a curve, then 1D10.

Too many tables to refer to, really slows down gameplay. In the end, its all a probability mechanic, and can be simplified again, by either using 2D6 (curve) or 1D10 (linear). For example, to pass a to-hit-and-wound roll, you need to roll a 7+ (on 2D6), modify your roll upwards by your attack strength, and downwards by your opponent's toughness. Viola, no tables.

Too much clunkiness in vehicle rules. Vehicles are weaker than non-vehicles, when the reverse should be true. No idea how to fix this without scrapping everything. I would make some weapons anti-vehicular, and some anti-infantry. Can't fire one at the other.

MCs should be actual MC to be brought down by anti-infantry firepower.

Basically, a lot of redundancies, needless tables and clunky rules. The granularity doesn't even serve any good purpose other than to complicate gameplay.

kburn wrote:

Why is there a to-hit and a to-wound roll? Just combine them together. If you want smaller increments of probability, just increase the rolls to 2D6, if you don't want a curve, then 1D10.

Combining to hit and to wound would see either hordes or big beefy creatures becoming horrifyingly OP.

IGOUGO is not good for a shooting based game at the scale of 40k. If it were a skirmish game where turns were a lot quicker sure, but at its current size 40k needs alternating activations.

Speaking of scale, it needs to ing pick one. Either remove the skirmish rules like look out sir, challenges and removing models from the front, or bite the bullet and reduce game sizes down to 1250 points and make anything larger than a land raider apoc only.

Cover needs a total rework, a space marine in 4+ cover should have increased survivability ovee one in the open even against lasguns. It should be a negative to hit modifier.

Armour saves and AP should get a rework like how it used to be in Fantasy, a lasgun lets you have your full armour save, a bolter lowers your save by 2, so a marine is rolling a 5+, a meltagun removes your save entirely even you're a terminator, but a terminator still gets a 6+ against plasma.

Unbound and the like should be removed, the 5th ed books had some ways to make some great fluffy armies within the FoC, lets go back to that. Hell, give each codex their own FoC, but then enforce them. Unbound is far from the best way to allow fluffy armies.

Psyker phase should not be a thing, scale it back to a shooting phase attack/ability since some armies don't even have psykers.

Prune stat lines. Realistically unless you're a monstrous creature your stats will be between 3 and 6, the 1 ro 10 scale is unnecessary. And do we really need 3 stats about well you hit things in melee in a sifi shooting based game? How often does psychology come up, enough to justify a Ld stat?

I'd remove hp and give a -3 on glancies for vehicle damage. I'd also revert smash back to half a mc's attacks, instead of just 1. This would give glancing the use of stunning tanks, and would stop hp stripping from killing tanks. It would also allow mcs to actually harm vehicles/walkers in cc.

This would fix s6 spam, and would let my poor nids actually stand a chance versus mech lists/walkers. A gigantic monster/robot/whathaveyou should be able to crack open a metal box imo!

Also maybe change fearless to stubborn, I think actually using morale could offer a lot more tactical depth.

The game needs to get more streamlined.
I recognized that a maelstrom game at the 2000 pt level usually takes (much) more than 2.5 hours.

Broken parts of 40k in the very core of the rules:

- random effects to overcome bad design
(eg Warlord Traits and Psionic Powers are chosen random because there were not able to find enough useful and balanced ones)

- unit types instead of movement values in the models profile
(the basic ide was nice, but over time it messed things up and increased the amount of special rules needed instead of makes things easier)

- rules are not meant to the end (is this the right wording?)
(some rules need 2 or more edition until they get to their logic end which ends up with a lot of similar rules with different wording that should have the same result)

- and missing streamlining
(instead of every model in the game having Health Points, we have Wounds and Hull Points which gives a lot of troubles because of the wording of the rules while both are basically the same)

The flyer rules in general seem totally broken to me. They seem to be one-man armies of destruction that almost no-one can touch. For example, many people complain CSM are not competitive, but add a Helldrake and you've got a unit that can toast entire elite squads on its own, turn after turn.

I think vehicles should get wounds and saves. It is more realistic that a Predator tank degrades more due to battle damage than a Carnifex, given that tanks don't regenerate, but it also means you can one-shot an expensive tank and not a monstrous creature.

The amount of cover saves seems a bit daft as well, and there are too many people taking the same fortifications. Why would daemons or tau man imperial guns and carry imperial aegis lines around with them? Can't they build their own stuff? And if the imperium owns a million worlds, that might only be 1% of the total inhabitable planets, so why is all the terrain imperial? Does nobody fight on non-imperial worlds?

 wuestenfux wrote:
The game needs to get more streamlined.
I recognized that a maelstrom game at the 2000 pt level usually takes (much) more than 2.5 hours.

Honestly I think GW and us are just on very different pages when it comes to how long a game should take. They seem to think an evenings worth of gaming is good, I'm of the opinion that no game should go longer than 2 hours. That way you can actually stop by your FLGS for a game and not have to make a whole day of it, but if you want a whole evening of gaming you can just play a couple of games.

I love them game, having just recently started back up the past year, and play a game or 2 a week, that said, some things really need to change to balance it out in the core rules.

1. Vehicles and walkers need more staying power somehow, I love my hellbrutes and Landraiders but when they get glanced to death by basic troops it sucks hard.

2. AP and High Str weapons need to be toned down, back when I used to play, the lascannon was king on the field, and you could only have so many. Lascannons now are pretty worthless when compared to what's out there.

3. Cover needs to be a BS modifier and not what it currently is, this change along with toning down the amount of low ap high Str weapons would be awesome.

4. Consolidate a lot of the special rules. When I first started playing again, just trying to remember anything was a huge hassle. Even with 30+ games under my belt after coming back and playing 1 or 2 a week, I still forget things because there is just too damn much to remember.

5. Alternate activation. My god do we need this, not only for balance, but my buddy plays necrons, and his shooting phase alone can take an hour, while I'm sitting there doing nothing. Maybe have it where each player takes turns activating units one at a time. Keeps both players in the game at all times and opens up a huge amount of tactics.

6. Rules that ignore other rules. I'm so sick of playing against armies that don't worry about morale, while other armies have to constantly fight the morale mechanic. Disregard the fluff to make the game better and more balanced. I mean, space marines and most necrons never worry about morale, pinning, etc. While Orks are heavily punished by morale, which is just plain not fun for the ork player. I understand that marines should be harder to make fall back, but don't make it impossible.

7. Not part of the core rules, but points need to be balanced a hell of a lot better. When I can make a squad of warp talons cost the same amount as a wraith knight, with not even close to the same toughness or kill power, something is wrong.

I see two common theme here. One is the "rules where broken from the outset". The other is "rules that changed are broken". Lot's of people have proposed the old veichle rules (roll on a damadge chart with a -2 modifier) but the current veichle rules actually evolved because people where fed up with those rules. Usually a glance was enough to severly decrease a veichles performance. In fourth a tank with the 5p extra armour upgrade woul suffer "crew shaken" on a 1-4 roll, weapon destroyed on 5 and imobilised on 6. which means a single glancing was enough to turn off a veichles waepons. People where so upset that their 200p-ish tanks wheren't allowed to shot for such a big part of the game that it got fundamentally changed. Same with charge being to short (6 inches) and yet to strong, psychic powers being all but non-exsistent and so on. However through all of this 40k is still spinning.

No, I tend to lean to the former catagory, that "rules where broken from the outset". Take the most basic rule, first I do my turn, then you do your turn. In a 2000p game that will easily give you solid 20minutes of not doing anything except leadership rolls, save rolls and possible close combat rolls. Now that close combat has got so weak it's even rare to see that interaction on both turns. It's so obvious that we usually don't consider it but it really isn't a good design, nor is it "realistic" or makes much sence. I think the core of the game was developed for a diffrent time, a time when board gaming was new and every idea had to break new ground, only relying on board games and DnD rules for research. Now however things are very diffrent. Over the years many diffrent table top game systems has been developed and put on the market. Now is the time for new thinking. As Talizvar put it:

 Talizvar wrote:
Running the risk of being pedantic, it depends on what elements you feel are broken of the game like competitive gameplay vs sandbox style play.

"Broken" for me is simply game balance.
The assumption that points value reflects the relative worth of the models or formation in general.
Augmenting abilities also can be applied across a multitude of models or other formations also skewing balance.

We seem to be committed to formations so I say we double-down on them more.
Not a means of "freebie" stuff but a self contained list (no powers leaking out to affect other formations!) where two formations of a similar points value and type (Assault group, Heavy support, Armor... something around that line) would guarantee a fairly close fight army to army, formation to formation.

Plus the answer to Monstrous Creatures and Armor: take a page from Bolt Action and just extend the "to wound" to higher values.
The stronger weapons have a higher strength so are more capable of damage.

I think Bolt Action rules applied to 40k would be awesome, including their method of unit activation rather than I-go you-go.

Here we have two ideas that would work absoloutely excelent in 40k and have been tried and tested in a diffrent table-top game. The idea of activating units to make a turn flow more naturally and be more engaging for both players and the idea that a high strength weapons could wound more models in a squad depending on it's strength. In axis and allies we have a similiar example where many people praised the idea that the units shooting score was not as important as the opponents squads ability to not get shot.

Power creep is in the very nature of 40k rules and fluff. The game is all about how cool and strong your dudes is, that awesome leader you've spent hours and hours on making awesome has got to live up to his expectations on the board, and thus it it's natural that they should grow stronger and stronger. Put this into context with super heavies MC and boom, you get where we are today. I think we need a clear, big core rule that naturally works against power creep.

So what really is the broken game problem today? Well for me it's that GW has been playing it safe for the last 10 or so years. The rules has been about the same, introducing newer and stronger units while doing little to change the overall smothness, feel and enjoyment of the game. So how to fix it? I propose rigorous play testing of elements already put in use by many other games into 40k. See what works and see what don't. A cutback with big rule overhaul and then the special rules and such will set themselves in without much work. I'd also suggest more restrictions, possibly diffrent levels of game modes. Let's say there's three levels, alpha, beta and omega. In an alpha game (regardless of point values) no special characters, no Super heavies and only a single FOC would be used for instance. Then in a beta game you could losen it a little and allow more FOC and special characters. Finally in Omega it could be no restrictions with infinite FOCs, super heavies and fliers, much like the standard is today. This would make it much easier for begginners to get into the game, tournaments to make a clear comp outline as well as for experienced players to have a clear outline on how much to bring to the table.

Finally I must say that I love 40k but there's so many games that take it's basic mechanics and does much better things with it. I'd love to see gw not necessarily steal those ideas but at least get inspired by them and incorporate them in their system. I truly wish gw would focus on playtesting and listening to the fans. The models are amazing, I'd love it to death it the game was as well.

 Aijec wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
Assault is restricted too much. Being a passenger gets you killed if you step out through the doors. Overwatch is fine, but a couple more special exceptions how flamers get more shots would be nice. Hatch-mounted guns getting overwatch would be good, maybe.

Assault army just won adepticon...

last 3 times an assault army won too.....

both players are very consistently placing with exclusively assaulty armies....

Technically these are assault armies but their real strength is being indestructable via abuse of allies system/LOS sir system/ and multiple psychic powers. Or in the case of necron - abuse of reanimation. Basically - indestructibility wins games...who would have thought?

The relationship between transports and units they carry needs to change.
All current transports gain the assault vehical rule. Whilst current assault vehicles add +3 to your charge distance and allow you to disembark after a flat out move.

but the current veichle rules actually evolved because people where fed up with those rules. Usually a glance was enough to severly decrease a veichles performance. In fourth a tank with the 5p extra armour upgrade woul suffer "crew shaken" on a 1-4 roll, weapon destroyed on 5 and imobilised on 6. which means a single glancing was enough to turn off a veichles waepons.

But with the new rules glancing to death got worse which is the opposite of what the player wanted.

This shows pertfect the whole problem, instead of solving an issue GW makes it much worse with a new Edition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The relationship between transports and units they carry needs to change.
All current transports gain the assault vehical rule. Whilst current assault vehicles add +3 to your charge distance and allow you to disembark after a flat out move.

just no, because this is what GW do all the time and it dores not work well.

just adding a new rule to tweak one model type without re-writing anything else broughtbus to the current situation.

There are so many core rules that just need a nudge one way or the other to make them good/useful/fair. Most of them seem to be involving specific types of units, which is why trying to fix bits here and there don't really address the problem as a whole, because making vehicles better helps some armies but hurts others, making MCs weaker helps some armies, hurts others, nerfing psykic powers helps some armies, hurts others, etc etc etc. For every broken or ineffective rule that gets modified, something else gets negatively impacted in some way.

At this point, its about time to AoS 40K. Obviously, the true AoS rules can't be completely retained, but I love the way unit stats are done for that game and think that could really translate over, providing points/unit size limits are implemented. I also like the streamlined combat rules in AoS.

I would like a change to the alternating phases turn system. 40K Epic played that way if I recall, so its not a strange concept for GW.

Of course, this will piss everybody off because it means, once again, a new version, new rules, etc. But if they did it like they did AoS, all the existing units would have free rules, and the main rules would be free as well. Maybe try to retain as much of the supplemental items like mission cards, psychic power cards, that sort of thing to take the sting off. The turn system would be different enough so that it wouldn't feel like a direct port of AoS, and wouldn't step on that game's toes.

I don't care for fliers, GMC, and super heavy tanks in regular 40k.

 Xerics wrote:
Vehicles get glanced to death too easily.

Yeah, damn those vehicle vs. infantry staring contests!

As some may have indicated, the 40k rules are such a mess because of forced backward compatibility, all the way back to 3rd ed WHFB/RT.

The WHFB rule set could just about cope with the demands of a 40k skirmish game, with lots of additional rules for units not found in WHFB.(Vehicles.)
And an umpteen special rules and modifiers to extend the rules for low tech weapons and armour to cover the wider range of tech found in 40k.

But as the game play focus moved to a battle game, the amount of additional layers of complication to try to make a ancient rule set work with the modern 40k battle game just lead to a holistic complicated mess of a rule set that can not be 'fixed'.
(*If you want the reasonable level of clarity , brevity and elegance found in other war game rule sets, published by games companies.)

No disrespect to posters in this thread, but can any one actually quote the core rules of 40k?

Not the additional layers of rules put on top of the core rules like the additional unit rules/vehicle rules/USRs/special rules/codex specific special rules.etc. But the actual core rules of the game of 40k.

The FIRST rule to define the following , before ANY exceptions ,or additions. Are usually the core rules of a war game....

How does a unit move.
How does a unit shoot,
How does a unit fight in close combat.
How is weapon and armour interaction resolved
How is damaged resolved.
How is moral/leadership resolved.

Just to point out in every other war game I play there are core rules , and special rules.ONLY 40k has to have multiple layers of additional rules.

Looking at the actual core rules in 40k, 40ks core rules ONLY cover standard infantry (if any unit is left without some special rules now?), in the open.
Everything else in 40k needs additional rules of some sort.

Therefore the current 40k core rules are inadequate for purpose, and need to be completely re-written from the ground up.

@Lanrak : Glad we share that analysis

To add to your first rule list, I would also add prior to that :

1) What is the goal of the game (from a player perspective, not a ruleset perspective) ?
2) How long is each game supposed to be ?

I completely agree with your idea of standardizing as much as possible, then adding special rules. It makes it easier to manage.

For example, why do vehicles require a separate damage system than infantry with the AV and no save ? Monstruous Creatures do this very well and they make sense within the current ruleset.
Toughness can be the robustness of the overall construction, while Armour Save can mean how thick the armour is.

Why would a Rhino die to something that the Marine's armour save absorbs ? Imagine Rhinos being T7, 3W with a 3+ and now we have some reasonable survivability. Vehicles can have different profiles for different saves.
In terms of pure statistics it matters due to the increased Armour Save, but right now Rhinos are something like T7.5 with no Armour Save.
(As a side note, in such a system, we could make the Graviton wound on the armour saves without being AP2, it would make it correct against everything while not being particularily good at anything).
This would make dedicated anti-tank weapons as effective as they currently are, while removing the extra layer of complexity and preventing anti infantry weapons with low AP to do very much damage against tanks and finish with the "glanced to death" system.

GreyCrow wrote:

For example, why do vehicles require a separate damage system than infantry with the AV and no save ?

Because most players want to have it this way, but for another reason.

For historical gaming, there is a big difference between a soldier and a tank while for SciFi games it is different. And still most gamers and designers prefer vehicles to have a different mechanic although a giant monster with chitin plates acts more like a tank and should be treated as such.

But for good game design it is not problem at all to have a mechanic which is basically the same for tanks and infantry but let the players have a different feeling about how the models act in game.

To break it down, tanks (and big monsters) should be killed by heavy single shot weapons that just to a lot of damage to a single model, while infantry should be killed by high ROF weapons that cannot wound a tank.
eg a lasercannon should inflict 3+ wounds and wound a tank or monster on 3+ while weapons with high ROF should not be able to wound a tank at all.

At the end it does not matter if a Rhino has AV11 or T7 and 3+ Save. It is not killed by anit-tank weapons but by anti-infantry weapons which shows that the AV System from GW does not work as it should be


There would be several ways to solve this, but just turning AV into T+AS would not work. it needs a complete re-write of the rules how weapons and toughness works (most important that high strength single shot weapons remove more than one wound but not like D-weapons are doing it now)

 kodos wrote:

GreyCrow wrote:

For example, why do vehicles require a separate damage system than infantry with the AV and no save ?

Because most players want to have it this way, but for another reason.

For historical gaming, there is a big difference between a soldier and a tank while for SciFi games it is different. And still most gamers and designers prefer vehicles to have a different mechanic although a giant monster with chitin plates acts more like a tank and should be treated as such.

But for good game design it is not problem at all to have a mechanic which is basically the same for tanks and infantry but let the players have a different feeling about how the models act in game.

To break it down, tanks (and big monsters) should be killed by heavy single shot weapons that just to a lot of damage to a single model, while infantry should be killed by high ROF weapons that cannot wound a tank.
eg a lasercannon should inflict 3+ wounds and wound a tank or monster on 3+ while weapons with high ROF should not be able to wound a tank at all.

At the end it does not matter if a Rhino has AV11 or T7 and 3+ Save. It is not killed by anit-tank weapons but by anti-infantry weapons which shows that the AV System from GW does not work as it should be


There would be several ways to solve this, but just turning AV into T+AS would not work. it needs a complete re-write of the rules how weapons and toughness works (most important that high strength single shot weapons remove more than one wound but not like D-weapons are doing it now)

Agree, having anti-tank weaponry dealing multiple wounds should be the way to go. I do think it should still be more random, as to not fully guarantee a 1-shot, 1-kill hit. Say a Krak missile does D3, a Lascannon does D3+1, Melta does D3+2, etc. However, this should ONLY be on true anti-tank weaponry. Plasma, grav, and the like shouldn't gain that multi-wound ability.

Of course in 7th "random" Edition everything need to be random.

If you want the game working, a fixed value would be the best way to go.

It was the way of 2nd edition, which made sense at the time but they overcomplicated the armour penetration.

Completely understand the difference between the rules for believability purposes. But at this point they might just stop with the points level and just let players bring whatever they want for a battle. In strategy, you don't meet on the open field and agree on a team of 11 players to see who's best. You bring unfair advantage to the table. Here, the points mainly bring glaring differences between players and factions.

T7 and 3+ save was just an example. Remember thought that boltguns throw rocket propelled armour piercing shells to an extent. Make it T8, T9, whatever, we're not limited to stats being arbitrarily limited to 10.

I don't see why high ROF shouldn't be able to kill tanks. Rate of Fire doesn't determine the energy (kinetic or not) of a round. Many 0.50 armour piercing caliber guns can punch through many APC's armour, even though they don't have the strength of a 135mm round.

I do agree though that the bigger the strength, the more likely the ability to do more damage, rather than securing a single damage.

Typically, the Warmahorde way of dealing damage.

@GreyCrow.
I agree that it should be decided what 40k game play is supposed to be before anyone can re-write the rules!

If it is a company level battle game, with focus on detailed tactical unit interaction, played over a 2 hour period.

The the rules are going to look completely different to a large skirmish game with detailed model interaction, played over a 4 hour period.

I agree it is possible to write rules to cover ALL the units in 40k in a similar way.(Without resorting to special rules for practically every unit. )

Special rules should be kept to cover actual special abilities, like chemical weapons ignoring the effects of cover.

Not mainly used to cover the inadequate WHFB rules ability to deal with more high tec weapons and armour found in 40k.(Like tanks and power fields.).


In 40k the massive spread of technology, in terms of weapons and armour means the simple X+ save resolution just can not cope.

@Kodos.
I agree that the effects of the resolution should make infantry act and react differently to weapons than vehicles /MCs .As you stated so clearly in your post.

And so the current system(s) used by 40k are inadequate and because of this, they need to be changed.

If we gave all weapons an armour peircing value,(AP)and all armour an armour value.(AV)

We could employ one of two simple scalable methods to give varied and proportional weapon and armour resolution without modifiers.

Option 1.
Add the Armour value to armour save roll, and try to beat the AP value of the attacking weapon.

EG a SM AV 4 is hit by a Bolter AP 6,
The SM needs to roll 3 + to beat the Bolter AP and pass the armour save roll.

If the SM was hit by a lasgun AP 5, the SM would only need to roll 2+ to pass his armour save.

If the SM was hit by a Plasma gun AP 8, he has to roll 5+ to pass an armour save roll.

Option 2.
Just use an extended opposed stat table to give the roll you need to save...
A=models Armour value/P =weapons Armour Penetration value

A/P 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1....,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,7.n,n
2....3.4.4.5.5.6.6.7.7.n.
3....3.3.4.4.5.5.6.6.7.7.
4....2.3.3.4.4.5.5.6.6.7.
5....2.2.3.3.4.4.5.5.6.6.
6....1.2.2.3.3.4.4.5.5.6.
7....1.1.2.2.3.3.4.4.5.5.
8....1.1.1.2.2.3.3.4.4.5
9....1.1.1.1.2.2.3.3.4.4
10..1.1.1.1.1.2.2.3.3.4.

7=roll 6+ and halve successes.
N= no save possible

The values are just for illustration purposes.

Some things should not get a save, Multimelta vs flack armour!
And some armour is invunerable to some weapons.Las pistol vs Land raider.

Note this level of scalable variation replaces ALL the current systems used in 40k.
One resolution method for all units .

GreyCrow wrote:

T7 and 3+ save was just an example. Remember thought that boltguns throw rocket propelled armour piercing shells to an extent. Make it T8, T9, whatever, we're not limited to stats being arbitrarily limited to 10.

And if it would be T20 it would not make a difference as long as you can wound everything on 6+.
Instead of hoping that a single shot hits, wounds and the enemy does not get the save, just throwing enough shots on it that wound on a 6 and that there are enough dice rolled to get 3 failed saves is the better way to kill the tank

GreyCrow wrote:

I don't see why high ROF shouldn't be able to kill tanks. Rate of Fire doesn't determine the energy (kinetic or not) of a round.

Simple game mechanic.
If there is one weapon that can kill high toughness single-model units as good as large hordes, there is no reason to take any other weapon. No matter how much point it cost, it will always be the best option and you can cut any other weapons from the list.

The other way around, there is no reason to take expensive high toughness models if they die as easy as cheap mass infantry

Now you may see why there is an imbalance in 40k that cannot be alone solved by changing single rules or adjusting the point costs.

The armor scaling table you have looks pretty good actually. It would make infantry much more survivable without having to use terrain all the time because it would have to be a very high AP weapon to not allow for any saves at all. The only problem is that all the units would have to be rewritten and all the weapons would have to be rewritten to reflect the new wat Armor and armor penetration works. It is a good idea though and would be amazing if GW wrote the game this way. They would also have to do a mass release of everyones codex all at once to ensure the new system permeates all factions at the same time which I, unfortunately, don't see them doing...

Indeed, one single value, either armour or toughness can work rather than a multiple.

Like you said, technology are millenia (and a different setting :p ) apart from WHFB. I don't really how relevant the basic value of toughness is when the standard infantry weapon (lasgun) can pierce a hole through flesh and sear a man through and through.
Same goes when an explosive shell punches through the armour.

It might make sense that your body could handle a sword blow, but not a high powered explosive shell :p
Strength could be then paired with either Toughness or Wounds (dropping one of them) to determine the amount of damage dealt.

EDIT :

@Xerics : GW won't do it. Players could though, nothing prevents them from writing their own ruleset.

@Kodos : Your limitation is arbitrary for game balance, but it's not the only one. If you scale up the points of a weapon by multiplying its shots, S and AP value based on its ability to deal damage, you may then reach high enough points value that players would think twice about spamming.
If a Scatter Laser was 30 points for example, each Jetbike costing 47 points would make it quite a large deterrent. People would still take it, yes, but wouldn't spam it as they do (because each Scatter Laser is the cost of 2 Jetbikes). If we only limited weapons to : low ROF high damage for AT and high ROF low damage for AI, most factions would not have flavour because of similar technology.
It still only kill a maximum of 4 models per turn, which is decent, but by no means game breaking for 47 points (235 points for 5 of them is quite an expensive proposition compared to how fragile they are).

GreyCrow wrote:

Like you said, technology are millenia (and a different setting :p ) apart from WHFB. I don't really how relevant the basic value of toughness is when the standard infantry weapon (lasgun) can pierce a hole through flesh and sear a man through and through.
Same goes when an explosive shell punches through the armour.
.

No, never use a fluff argument. This will not work because you can counter every rule and design with background at this scale (the same way as I can use it to proof the rule)

@Kodos : Unless you want the rule system to be a flavorless wall of stats, then yes you need to base on fluff for it to make sense But the fluff needs to be set in stone and the physics of the world and its elements actually detailed.

Most people don't get interested by Space Marines because they can save a wound on 3+. They get interested by Space Marines because they are Knights in Spehss with guns that fire micro rockets.

So I will use fluff arguments however I please when designing a rule system to represent the general mechanics of a world :p Actually, the fact that most units don't represent the fluff on the table is one of the key underlying problems with balance. Not only it's not statistically balanced, but it's also not representative of the marketing done for each unit.

EDIT : I may have come accross as harsh or aggressive, which was definitely not my intention. Sorry, English isn't my mother language, please don't let this offend you in any way

Lanrak wrote:

Option 1.
Add the Armour value to armour save roll, and try to beat the AP value of the attacking weapon.

EG a SM AV 4 is hit by a Bolter AP 6,
The SM needs to roll 3 + to beat the Bolter AP and pass the armour save roll.

If the SM was hit by a lasgun AP 5, the SM would only need to roll 2+ to pass his armour save.

If the SM was hit by a Plasma gun AP 8, he has to roll 5+ to pass an armour save roll.

Option 2.
Just use an extended opposed stat table to give the roll you need to save...
A=models Armour value/P =weapons Armour Penetration value

We talked about this one and while I like it, for 40k I would prefer to stay with the current mechanic but just bring it to an end were it is working.


Strength VS Toughness, +/-3 is auto wound or not possible (eg S3 cannot wound T6 while S6 auto wound T3)

While against vehicles Anti Tank weapons add 7-AP to their strength and wound normally (Melter has S14 and wounds a Land Raider on 4+)

Yeah but in order for me to write my own rule set this way I would need access to every codex which I don't have. I do have battlescribe so I guess I could technically do it but it would take a long time to make sure everything was right and even thenI only play Eldar with my Wife starting up KDK and one of my friends who plays Necrons and Imperial Knights, so I wouldn't even be able to effectively test the rest of the units. It would take testing on a massive scale with people of all different armies which I do not have the influence to do, and although this thread has been very insightful on some of the down to core rules that just don't work or are archaic, any rule set that is written is going to receive harsh criticism and will most likely be shunned unless GW Age of Sigmars 40k, which the community at large does not believe will happen.

@Xerics : It's a multiple person long haul job. Tough but can be done given enough time, proper project strategy and unshakable purpose :p

GreyCrow wrote:
@Kodos : Unless you want the rule system to be a flavorless wall of stats, then yes you need to base on fluff for it to make sense But the fluff needs to be set in stone and the physics of the world and its elements actually detailed.

Don't get me wrong, but this is not a 5 model skirmish game, so the rules cannot get every detail.

A Lasergun can punch wholes through flesh so it should kill everything that gets hit. But, just hitting something and burn a small whole does not necessarily kill it.
So the simple solution is that a lasergun can still fail to kill a human and takes a wound only at a roll of 4+

If you want a fluffy solution, every hit if 6 should wound on 2+ and every wound of 6 should ignore armour but this complicates the system and I can still argue that for the fluff a lasergun can only really kill a human if it hits him directly into the heart or a vital part of the brain.
So a double six should be needed to kill.

There need to be a cut were we are only talking about game mechanics and not if this represent realistic SciFi weapons properly

EDIT : I may have come accross as harsh or aggressive, which was definitely not my intention. Sorry, English isn't my mother language, please don't let this offend you in any way

I would never intend something like that into a post


Automatically Appended Next Post:

GreyCrow wrote:
@Xerics : It's a multiple person long haul job. Tough but can be done given enough time, proper project strategy and unshakable purpose :p

Right, I do it alone most of the time, thats why it took me 3 years for the core rules alone
And I still find things that can be done better while I work on the army lists

Sometimes some help would be nice but without a high chance that this would ever be a game played by 40k players most people don't have stay long with the project

That's why we have probabilities

I actually like your idea of : After penetrating the armour, a lasgun has the chance to inflict a wound on a 4+. Meaning that half of the time, a lasgun will do enough damage to incapacitate the target, half of the time it hits non essential systems.

Conversely, a boltgun would wound on a 3+ for example, due to the explosive nature of the shell. If by any chance the bolt went through the armour, the explosive impact has got quite a good chance of critically damaging the target.

So rather than having S and AP, we could have AP and wound capability. Much, much easier to manage in terms of points because we have 1 absolute damage capability (the wounding on X+) and 1 relative damage capability (AP opposed to AV).
Much easier to price compared to the double relative system we currently have.

Eldar weapons for example could have high AP (the monofilament fluff) but low wound chance (due to them being micro molecular shurikens that aren't likely to damage major organs).

GreyCrow wrote:
@Xerics : It's a multiple person long haul job. Tough but can be done given enough time, proper project strategy and unshakable purpose :p

At the same time those multiple people would need to agree on the stats and changes. Without that there would be too much infighting. I just don't see the community able to pull that together at a time where GW still exists. But believe me I am taking notes from this thread as there are some VERY good ideas coming out from the woods.

GreyCrow wrote:

So rather than having S and AP, we could have AP and wound capability. Much, much easier to manage in terms of points because we have 1 absolute damage capability (the wounding on X+) and 1 relative damage capability (AP opposed to AV).
Much easier to price compared to the double relative system we currently have.

There are many ways to around the usual problems.
At the moment my rules use an armour modifier instead of an AP value and S VS T and adding the cover bonus directly to the armour save because it solves other problems but stays close to 40k (at least for those who remember the 2nd edi)

 Xerics wrote:

At the same time those multiple people would need to agree on the stats and changes. Without that there would be too much infighting. I just don't see the community able to pull that together at a time where GW still exists.

And still it can be done in a small group were only 3 or 4 are working on the rules, except each others ideas, also except that other ideas work better etc

I think the random roll tables (such as Warlord Traits or Psychic Powers) were designed with a mindset of "They will balance out over several games." For example, on an individual game basis, you might get stuck with the one mediocre trait, but over the course of several games, you'll eventually get all the warlord traits, good, and bad. Your opponent will also sometimes get good traits, and sometimes get bad traits.

I think the problem this creates is that your opponent might roll his really good trait, and you roll your really bad trait, and then you're at a disadvantage. There might not be a "next game", if, for example, you're at a tournament where you need to be the best in 100% of your games.

Assigning point values would allow some measure of balance to Warlord Traits and Psychic Powers. The good traits always cost more than the less-than-good traits, and you can factor that into your army's cost.

I don't have enough free time to see the benefit of playing several 4-5 hour games on a regular basis. I only have time for maybe 1 game a month, so I would like it to be as much in my control as possible, with the least amount of extra randomness piled on.

For tanks, instead of overhauling everything, how about give weapons a tank killer rule, if a weapon does not have this rule then it cannot punch through tank armor. Nice and simple, without making toughness and saves for vehicles. Of course I just went full GW and added yet another special rule.... I feel dirty.

What a lot of you guys are asking for here is to throw away the decades of evolution and fine tuning that got us to this point in 7th edition. In your head or on paper it sounds so easy to just start over and make some new better system, but I assure you it is not as easy as you think it is, making balanced rules with so many variables.

If you try and simplify the rules so they can be balanced easier we will end up with cookie cutter units and builds for all the armies. Complexity and variety in a way is what makes this game so great, you don't want to ruin this game in the process of trying to fix it. These improvements should be made in incremental steps, not a start from scratch approach.

Video games have been heading in this direction of simplified, on rails, instant gratification, hold your hand type games for a long time now. Complexity, choice, and control in games is becoming a thing of the past, it's a big reason why I don't play video games anymore.

I usually stay away from these type of threads or these forums in general because of the widespread negativity here. I actually really enjoy this game and the hobby but constantly reading all this hate and negativity is demoralizing. It bothers me because people who like the game aren't as vocal and don't have as much of a presence here as the critics, and this what all the new players are exposed to is all this negativity.

TLDR: done ranting, please continue.

"Evolution" isn't always a good thing. Neither is what 40k has become over the years.

Tetsu0 wrote:
What a lot of you guys are asking for here is to throw away the decades of evolution and fine tuning that got us to this point in 7th edition.

Exactly. The evolution that has brought us to this point has been going in a bad direction. Scrap it and start over.

Nor would I call what GW has been doing "fine-tuning". There is no sign of any kind of coherent end goal for 40k that each iteration of the rules is converging on, all we see is change for the sake of change. 8th edition won't be any closer to finished than 7th edition was, it will just change a bunch of stuff semi-randomly to justify making everyone buy a whole new set of rulebooks.

In your head or on paper it sounds so easy to just start over and make some new better system, but I assure you it is not as easy as you think it is, making balanced rules with so many variables.

The 40k rules are so terrible in so many ways that a new system, created by competent game designers instead of the people GW currently employs, would almost have to be better. It would be almost impossible to make things worse, after all.

If you try and simplify the rules so they can be balanced easier we will end up with cookie cutter units and builds for all the armies. Complexity and variety in a way is what makes this game so great, you don't want to ruin this game in the process of trying to fix it. These improvements should be made in incremental steps, not a start from scratch approach.

40k has complexity, but very little depth. You have tons of options to pick from but 95% of them are terrible. This creates the illusion of depth at first glance, but once you start building lists you pretty quickly figure out that it isn't real. Simplifying the rules to remove the useless clutter that nobody takes would be a good thing.

throw away the decades of evolution and fine tuning that got us to this point in 7th edition.

Made a good laugh during breakfast.

GW has no evolution norvis their finetuning. They just release a new game. Now we have 7 different games for 40k and non of them is finished and still missing something.

Complexity and variety in a way is what makes this game so great

The only variety we have is the illusion during list writing. For gameplay, everything plays the same, just the OP codex is doing things better than the rest.

And the rules are complex, but only on paper. You can cut of 50% and it would still be the same rules just without the unneeded wording.

Video games have been heading in this direction of simplified, on rails, instant gratification, hold your hand type games for a long time now. Complexity, choice, and control in games is becoming a thing of the past, it's a big reason why I don't play video games anymore.

There is a big difference between simple rules and complex gameplay and 40k has complex rules but very simple gameplay.

Re-writing from scratch would be to option to change back to simple rules and more complex and tactical gameplay while just adding minor tweaks and step by step implementing would keep the complex rules without adding more complex gameplay.

My biggest gripe is that the maximum possible hit chance in close combat is a 3. Why is a bloodthirster just as likely to hit a grot as a space marine is a stormtrooper? I know close combat has bigger issues, but that one has been a pet peeve of mine ever since it was introduced.

Deathstars, spamming and bias against melee are the problems. Pretty easily solved.

Perhaps the reason no one can agree on what the broken bits in 40k are.
(Apart from the rules are too complicated for the straight forward game play.And the pointless over complication in the rules has lead to levels of imbalance in the game play no one can correct. )

Is because GW plc have mutated the game play and rule set that much to try appeal to every one, the actual intended game play has been lost in the mix.

There are clear indicators of detailed model interaction inspired by skirmish rules ,(challenges), and also clear indicators of streamlined unit interaction found in large battle games with simplified unit interaction.(Morale rules.)And a whole heap of stuff in between.

Straight forward rules that deliver tactically complex game play are very popular with gamers.

So depending on what sort of game play YOU THINK 40k should have,will let you form YOUR opinion on what is broken.

But as a rule set (instruction set to play a game.) The 40k rules are an abomination, on every level.

Lanrak wrote:
Is because GW plc have mutated the game play and rule set that much to try appeal to every one, the actual intended game play has been lost in the mix.

I'd argue that GW are actually aiming to please a very narrow band of people, and just think of these people as their target demographic and think that all of us who play fit this group.

The people inside GW's design studio are the kind of gamers who want to put their whole collection on the table, roll a bunch of dice, not even declare a winner, and have fun with their friends. They buy models not to play games with them, but because they want to collect them and paint them, the gaming is just an excuse to meet up with their friends and roll dice. This is who they are aiming their games at, and this is who they think every one of us that buys their models are, so this is what they make rules for. No one there cares about balance, because the people playing the game at GW HQ don't think it is a problem.

@jonolikespie.
I agree that the current studio staff probably behave how you outline.
BUT the GW sales department have a heavy hand on the direction the 40k rules take.And they will simply enforce ideas into the game to appeal to a theoretical customer type.

People who collect characters want to have detailed fights to match the detail on the models, so we need detailed character rules to inspire sales.
People who collect our larger kits, want to be able to use multiple super heavies in game, so we better have stream line rules to inspire sales.

It is this sales driven influence that has mutated the game rules and game play into a horrid undefined mess.

PS.
When I refer to 'GW plc' , I am reffering to GW Corporate Management /Sales Department.I am aware how little influence the studio has on rules development currently.

Tetsu0 wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

I think an easier way is to just make any charges made from a non-assault vehicle to count as disordered. That way Land Raiders and Battlewagons have some measure of reason for their premium price tag by giving the full benefits of assault to their units while less dedicated transports allow you to make that charge but prevent you from steamrolling the unit.

Another broken part is not being able to assault out of reserve like outflanking or other things like infiltrating for units like genestealers that need that charge to actually do something. I would say do the same thing ala transports and make them count as disordered charges if they do so on the turn they arrive.

Regarding hull points, I'm a fan of saying that glancing hits do not remove hull points but instead force you to roll on the damage table with a -3 modifier on the table. This way you actually have to penetrate to do any meaningful damage rather than scatter laser your way through vehicles. Vehicles in general should have a 3+ save IMO, with Skimmers having a 4+ armour save. This is again, to mitigate the low AP but high S spam method of plinking down vehicles, while allowing lascannons and other single shot weapons greater utility.

I'm also not a fan of the dip-your-toe-in cover system for MC, make it so they need 25% coverage like vehicles. Walkers should have the ability to move up to 12" and only be able to snapfire their weapons or go 6" and fire everything at full BS. Give them MTC cover base and Smash and they're on even footing for most MC. MC themselves should have a similar damage table to Walkers, for every wound you have to roll and see what happens.

Just listen to this guy, this is reasonable. Everything else I hear in this thread is wish listing and salty salt.

Excluding the last part everything there is reasonable. Compared to monstrous creatures walkers are as broken as any of the worst deathstars. They can not be killed by anything instand death, are shielded from massed light shooting, can shoot all of their weapons, are not useless against walkers in melee and their only weakness is one that MCs have also, high S and good AP hits. MCs get cover saves easier which means nothing since everything worth anything is either a deathstar or ignores cover anyway, MCs get to hit walkers once if they aim to do damage, can shoot 2 weapons but usually can only get one, MCs are usually as quick or slower than walkers and have worse stats than walkers.

It's not what rules a unit has, it's what it can do with those rules. MCs generally lack the means to be of any use as MCs and if they are viable they are viable because of ther reasons. Couple of examples of these are flying daemon princes with psychic powers vs. Bloodthirsters, first is good because it can avoid damage and do damage reasonably well compared to it's cost and the later dies to first 2 grav bike etc. units targeting it or gets beaten by that dreadnought. Comparable walker costs 100 ish points so that you can get 2 and their upgrades that in turn just beat almost any monsters they happen face either by shooting or just beating them in melee.

Do you folks realize the reason that the rules for 40k are so bloated and unbalanced, is down to the core rules not doing the job they are supposed to?

Is 40k still WHFB in space?Or has the game moved on to different ethos 18 years later?

If the game has moved on, WHY are we still making the rules backward compatible to WHFB 3rd ed/Rogue Trader?

Especially as GW has just killed off WHFB.

shiwan8 wrote:

Tetsu0 wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

I think an easier way is to just make any charges made from a non-assault vehicle to count as disordered. That way Land Raiders and Battlewagons have some measure of reason for their premium price tag by giving the full benefits of assault to their units while less dedicated transports allow you to make that charge but prevent you from steamrolling the unit.

Another broken part is not being able to assault out of reserve like outflanking or other things like infiltrating for units like genestealers that need that charge to actually do something. I would say do the same thing ala transports and make them count as disordered charges if they do so on the turn they arrive.

Regarding hull points, I'm a fan of saying that glancing hits do not remove hull points but instead force you to roll on the damage table with a -3 modifier on the table. This way you actually have to penetrate to do any meaningful damage rather than scatter laser your way through vehicles. Vehicles in general should have a 3+ save IMO, with Skimmers having a 4+ armour save. This is again, to mitigate the low AP but high S spam method of plinking down vehicles, while allowing lascannons and other single shot weapons greater utility.

I'm also not a fan of the dip-your-toe-in cover system for MC, make it so they need 25% coverage like vehicles. Walkers should have the ability to move up to 12" and only be able to snapfire their weapons or go 6" and fire everything at full BS. Give them MTC cover base and Smash and they're on even footing for most MC. MC themselves should have a similar damage table to Walkers, for every wound you have to roll and see what happens.

Just listen to this guy, this is reasonable. Everything else I hear in this thread is wish listing and salty salt.

Excluding the last part everything there is reasonable. Compared to monstrous creatures walkers are as broken as any of the worst deathstars. They can not be killed by anything instand death

Any AP1/2 weapon can inflict ID on a walker. Walkers can be crippled in other ways that MC's cannot (immobilized, weapon destroyed, etc)

are shielded from massed light shooting

Only if they have high AV, a War Walker or Sentinel certainly is vulnerable to small arms fire. Lets also be honest, how often is small arms fire doing anything to MC's? Very rarely for anything but the smallest MC's. Get something like a FNP'd Riptide and while it's theoretically *possible* to hurt it with Lasguns, practically you'd need 540 Lasgun shots to kill it, 108 shots per wound.

can shoot all of their weapons,

Which in most instances isn't any more than what MC's can, very few have more than two weapons, especially two weapons that really can be effectively used together.

are not useless against walkers in melee

Most are pretty useless in melee. It's only recently after they *doubled* Dreadnought MC attacks for Vanilla SM's that they pose much of a threat, while walkers like Forgefiends, Sentinels, War Walkers, etc are absolutely pathetic in CC, while most walkers that have *some* CC capability are generally universally regarded as being bad, like Ork Dreads, Defilers, etc.

and their only weakness is one that MCs have also, high S and good AP hits.

The fact that Walkers effectively have "wounds" but no Saves doesn't count?

MCs get cover saves easier which means nothing since everything worth anything is either a deathstar or ignores cover anyway, MCs get to hit walkers once if they aim to do damage, can shoot 2 weapons but usually can only get one, MCs are usually as quick or slower than walkers and have worse stats than walkers.

MC's are typically faster than most walkers, there's only a single Walker that I'm aware of that can move 12" a turn, otherwise they're all just infantry, unlike MC's which can be Jump/Jet/Flying units. Likewise when it comes to stats, most Walkers have very poor stats. Most have stats of just 2-4's for WS/BS/Init and Attacks (usually 1-2, dreads now get 4), with only a couple of Dreads that have WS5/6, while there's lots of MC's with WS 5+, up to 10 in at least two instances, and Initiative values of 5+ and an Attacks stat of 3-6 rather than normally 1-2 for most walkers.

Broken bits of 40k

Codex's are not given any temp update with new rules editions which makes for huge disparity
Formations are available to some codexes and not others which makes the above even more of a problem, especialyl with free stuff being handed out to soem armies and not others.
The relative strength of units within codexes is massively out of wack
Strength of codexes against other codexes - the 7.5 codexes are a prime example of this
Over complicated and unneeded pyschic phase
Monstereous / Garg Creature versus vehicles - in particular that the former can not have degraded by loss of wounds whereas vehicles can be by damage table. They have less restrictions of moving ind firing - they are effected by posion but haywire is worse for vehicles.....and of course they get saves.......
Increasing "pay to win" format - eg buy a Anniversary marine and get a free upgrade to your "Marine only" army..buy a web only deal and get a special formation
no FAQs which means the rules are subject to abuse and lack of clarity.

Part of the new powers released with the codex supplement, today.

I see some way of getting a little more balance by streamlining with WHFB.
Psykic phase: you get 2d6 Warp charges. Opponent gets a number equal to the highest d6. No more 20+ dice for Eldar and Daemons. You can be able to cast on a 3+ o 2+, but your opponent can still deny any warp charge on a 4+.
Shooting: for weapons with a range longer than 24" if you shoot a target that is more than half the distance away you get -1BS. Exception - sniper weapons.
AP: removed. Strength modifies armour save. Str above 4 gives apenalty to armour.5:-1, 6:-2, 7:-3, 8:-4, 9:-5, 10: ignores armour completely. Power weapons modify by one better.
All fast vehicles can jink. Why can a Wave serpent jink, but a trukk can't?

Lanrak wrote:

Is 40k still WHFB in space?Or has the game moved on to different ethos 18 years later?

Actually 3rd ed was a 15mm WWII mass battle game that one of the writers (I wanna say Rick Priestly) had laying around and had to quickly hammer into something workable at the last minute when the accountants told the studio they had to make 3rd sell more models.

40 K has too many trap choices. It's not finely tuned at all. I could write something more fair in a week.

Rules Bloat

How can you expect to create a balanced game with such a massive rule set? Not to mention the fact that they change it every few years.

@jonolikespie,
It was Ricks , WWII battle game that was used as a template , to simplify 2nd ed WHFB based rules to allow more minatures on the table.

Unfortunately , the dev team were never allowed to address the errors that the '11th hour rush job' 3rd ed put into the core rules,

If the only combat is with humans and 1940s technology,the rules required are much less complex than those needed for the wide variety of creatures and technology found in 40k.

If the battle game uses smaller scale minatures eg 6 to 15mm then there is enough room on the table for tactical maneuver into weapons range.
This allows alternating game turns,(IGO/UGO,) to work well, as tactical maneuver is the main tactical element in this type of game turn.

Using alternating game turn in a 28mm battle game ,where most units are in shooting range in turn 1.Is poor game design and massively unbalancing.(Alpha strike.)
Adding lots of line of sight blocking terrain to a crowded playing area, limits the amount of maneuver , compounding the problem.

The lack of any tactical use for attacks beyond 'killing stuff'.Makes the game play of 40k very limited and too shallow to support the wide range of units GW want to sell. Lists with a combination of the most effective killer units, auto win against the units that are poor killer units.
Leading to the fracturing of what is left the player base.

Having a simple suppression mechanic, and the ability to fire smoke /blind LOS blocking rounds would give shooting much more tactical depth.
Leaving assault as the preferred method to clear enemy off an objective.

in short the core rules do not support the intended game play of the current 40k game,let alone allow enough granularity to support the wide range of creatures and tec found in the rich 40k background.

After 18 years of GW devs trying to fix the mistakes 3rd ed put in the core rules ,ONLY with a few add on rules and tweeks every edition.it is clear that the only way to address the flaws at the core of the rules is with a complete re-write.

@Lanrak : Indeed, 28mm is not a great format for anything other than skirmish games.
Especially at the point level that we're talking about, individual weapons in units matter a lot less than in a 20 to 30 model army (eg : Tac squad specials/heavy) rather than unit wide kit. So, a smaller scale would be interesting around a unit centric rather than model centric gameplay.

Most units being in range T1 is also an issue.

The fun bit though is that like you said it's an issue of scale. Most of the units in 40k have a use at a strategic level rather than a tactical level. Rhinos and transports for example are interesting to have units reposition between cities, while Drop Pods are good for breaching planterary defenses for a pitched battle location.

But that's macro strategy, rather than micro tactical engagements like we have in 40k.

There is a scale between Mass Battle and Skirmish and it is a up or down scaled version of one of the other 2.

It is possible to get this working but it is also limited and does not work if it gets to large or to small.

I still believe that a 40k size game can work if it is more limited on the upper size.
So having 2 Wraithknights is not the problem as long as there is nothing else in the army (looking at the tank list from Bolt Action)

Well, it really depends what number of models we consider "skirmish". I tend to define skirmish as an engagement at a tactical level rather than at a strategic level, so 100 models isn't out of the equation

The focus is more how much the individual model is considered and can affect the outcome. At a strategic level, the unit is the smallest level of thinking, but in a skirmish the model becomes the smallest level of strategizing.

The two big, overarching problems (that are pretty interconnected) are (imo):
-Games taking way too long.
-Bloated, innefficient rules.

More and more, I think GW should develop 2-3 different rulesets for their models. At a minimum, a skirmish-level platoon-scale game and a company battle game. On top of that, a squad-level game (think Inquisitor) and a large-scale battle game (Epic) wouldn't hurt.

The current 40k rules could likely serve as the starting point for the skimish and battle games if you just cut out the stuff that's not relevant to each game's scale (i.e. no challenges in the battle game, no vehicle/monstrous creature rules in the skirmish game).

I agree a lot of the problems with 40k rules are there is no actual focus on a specific end game play.
The GW sales department just push the rules in the direction they think will sell the latest product releases.

Compared to every other rule set I have played over the last 30 odd years, 40k is quite unique in not having CLEARLY DEFINED the size and scope of the game play.

I am sure a battle game 4th to 5th ed size could work quite well.IF the rules were written specifically for it.(Rather than a WHFB based rule set.)

I agree with Kodos , if the larger units from 6th and 7th were implemented better to fit with the game play of 40k, rather than the sales requirement of GW.
They could be used sparingly in normal sized games of 40k.
But a separate expansion for truley massive battle games like Apoc, would be a better option to field all the big toys at once.

And if 40k was played at 3 or 4 clearly defined scales with rules appropriate to each level, it would do a lot to address the clarity, and balance issues in the rules.

EG
Skirmish rules with detailed model interaction .(Inquisimundia up to 2nd ed size games.)

Battle game rules with detailed unit interaction .(4th ed size up to 7th ed size.)

I am not sure exactly where the rules move to the next size up in these basic groupings.As a lot depends on how the rules are re-written.

But a clear distinction between detailed model rules for skirmish games, and detailed unit rules for battle games, is required.
As the current kludge of micro and macro managing in the rules is awful, and leads to disjointed game play.(WTF moments,)

Deschenus Maximus wrote:
The two big, overarching problems (that are pretty interconnected) are (imo):
-Games taking way too long.
-Bloated, innefficient rules.

More and more, I think GW should develop 2-3 different rulesets for their models. At a minimum, a skirmish-level platoon-scale game and a company battle game. On top of that, a squad-level game (think Inquisitor) and a large-scale battle game (Epic) wouldn't hurt.

The current 40k rules could likely serve as the starting point for the skimish and battle games if you just cut out the stuff that's not relevant to each game's scale (i.e. no challenges in the battle game, no vehicle/monstrous creature rules in the skirmish game).

The fundamental game rules have not changed all that much since I started in 3rd edition, but the nature of the game has changed immensely. A typical game involves far more models and much larger models than when I started. Flyers, super-heavies, gargantuan creatures have all been jerry-rigged on. And we have more character and unit customization than ever, but also more units on the table than ever before. Which inevitably leads to plenty of rules disputes and lots of forgetful players who can't possibly remember what every unit has. Add to that the fact that there are so many core rules and so many randomized elements that slow down the game and punish players for trying to be creative.

The bizarre thing is that they've flipped the logical script, where larger Apoc games bring in more rules not less. The larger the battle, the more simplified and reliable the game system should be. Rolling overwatch, difficult terrain, etc. in large scale games can become an absolute chore.

For the core ruleset, I think there are a few really broken issues:
- Generic mission set that overwhelmingly favors specific army styles. Eternal War favoring shooty-shoot gunlines and Maelstrom favoring Eldar jetbikes in the extreme.
- Excess rules and randomness, change difficult terrain and running to a set move modifier, change overwatch to only apply to assault weapons and pistols. Somehow reduce the scatter on blast weapons.
- Too many exceptions to core rules, maintaining morale should be an important gameplay mechanic, but currently there are too many units that are exempt from morale. And the units that are susceptible suffer immensely from it. They lose 2d6" and then lose their next turn. I would make it so that units get pinned from taking 25% casualties from shooting, not force a morale check, and I would reduce the amount of fearless units by about 50%.
- Too much unit customization where it doesn't add to the game. I would cut out a lot of the customization in troops units and use something akin to the IG veteran's doctrine system. I.e. your troops can go vanilla or pick from 2-3 loadouts, rather than handing out specific gear items and special weapons and armor and grenades.

GreyCrow wrote:
Well, it really depends what number of models we consider "skirmish".

This is not tied to the model number but to the game mechanic
Every game which has specific per model mechanic's is a Skirmish. Warmachine will always be a Skirmish not matter if played with 5 or 100 models, while Flames of War will always be a Mass Battle game, even if there are only 6 Models on the table (MidWar Tiger list)

The focus is more how much the individual model is considered and can affect the outcome. At a strategic level, the unit is the smallest level of thinking, but in a skirmish the model becomes the smallest level of strategizing.

Exactly, but you can design a Skirmish and add some rules to make a game with 100 models be faster, while you can also take a mass battle game and add some more "per model" rules to get the same result.
The only difference is that the first one will be better for smaller games while the other one is better for bigger games.

40k is a skirmish but the rules added to make it work with units are not well doing and it does not work well in bigger games.
But it does not need to be changed to a mass battle game to be working but just adjust the skirmish part of the game to make it faster.

and of course it would be better to just make 2 different games for skirmish and mass battle.

Too many special rules. We have a bank of special rules, several of which are already too similar, and then every army has an additional 4-20 special rules. I get wanting to make each army feel different in how they play but we really should have like 30 special rules that everyone draws from and then each army has 3 special rules that apply to the entire army in the way a lot of formations do now. Skitarii maniple gives scout and crusader. Make that and dunstrider the 3 faction special rules and your done. Individual units can have special rules but only from the generic list so you end up getting a lot of similar playing units (i.e. Jump assault infantry would all generally have the same 3 generic special rules and would be different by their load out, stats, and faction special rules)

No rolling dice for assault range, that's just dumb. Flanking bonuses for assaults and getting people in a crossfire. Less psychic powers, you buy your powers rather than roll. No rolling for warlord trait. Everything can overwatch at snap fire if you didn't move during your turn, weapons that cant snap fire still shoot but at a -3bs to a minimum of 1. Terminators can sweeping advance. Ap doesn't outright negate armor but worsens the roll. Ap 1 becomes a -3 armor save (min 6+) and -2 invuln save. Ap 2 becomes -2 armor -1 invuln. Ap3 is -2 armor. Ap4 -1 armor save. And that's it.

No more glancing vehicles to death. Roll on damage table, make like a roll of 6 be removing a HP. All glancing hits from shooting unit only gets you one roll on table. 6 glancing hits from unit A are only going to get you one glancing table roll but if you cause glancing hits with unit B you will get a second table roll. A tommy gun won't blow up a panzer tank no matter how many bullets you shoot, except in ww2 movies.

Limit the number of saves every unit can have. Armor, invulnerable, FNP, cover, random special rules, etc. some guys have more protection than a main character has plot protection. Imo everyone gets two saving throws. Cover becomes an armor modifier (adding armor opposed to ap lessening armor), and then special wargear (invulnerable saves) have limited number of uses (your force shield can withstand 6 shots from a tank cannon with no battery drain? Really? Is it magic or technology) and you choose either to use this or your special rules saves (like FNP).

Many people have suggested a diffrent size levelled game but honestly, thinking back GW used to have that. In 4ed they had a special setup for 400p games and 160p games. these where called combat patrols and kill teams. They put heavy restrictions on your army and actually played incredibly well. I recall kill team especially as being great fun, but it lacked the depth of 40k and might have been more of a board game in how it played. I honestly think bringing this back would benefit 40k greatly. Have a 1500p game version with heavy restrictions and after that let loose on the rules.

Also a bunch of people have pointed out how we don't have any clear definition of the scope of 40k. In epic a few people claimed that one 40k game was a skirmish between two units in epic. I don't think that quite holds up today but I like the idea. IMO 40k should be what you want it to be and therefore it needs rules that lays on various levels of restriction. It can be a mass battle game, a skirmish game, a patrol game or just a squad based game but it needs guidlines for it.

As far as the CORE ruleset goes the basic move 6, shot 24/12, ld at 25% losses and assult 2d6 isn't bad but it feels like it's ment for a smaller scale then 40k is today. I get the feeling 40k needs to scale up it's rules in harmony with how models have scaled in litteral size. the thre rolls in shooting (to hit, to wound, save throw) while engaging just takes to long and there's to little interaction between the players. Veichles work but are very fragile. Also, whilst not really part of the topic and not exactly broken, it needs to be said that in 40k the superhuman warrior monk who sleeps 4 hours a night and spends 18 hours a day practicing combat, uses a rapid fire rocket propelled grenade gun and is trained to withstand any psychological preassure is pretty much worthless. I get the feeling this should be adressed, no matter what your opinion is on fluff based rules.

@Nerak.
Going back even further, GW plc used to produce a detailed RPG skirmish, Inquisitor.
And detailed skirmish games like Necromundia.
And a large skirmish games like 2nd ed 40k.
(Where the game play was supposed to represent the last few hundred yards of a fight for an objective, the close fire fight and the assault.With a few infantry units supported by one or two vehicles.)

And all the large battles were played using Epic rules and minatures of a more appropriate scale to fit on a table top.(6mm)

However, as the GW corporate management failed to understand any thing about game design and development, and how important it is to gamers.
They thought if they just canned all the other games and made 40k for large battles , then everyone would just buy more expensive 28mm minatures.

Combat Patrol/ 40k in 40mins and Kill Team, were added to the rules by the game devs to try to appeal to people who preferred smaller game sizes.

But these were canned by the GW sales department, as they saw them as stopping people collecting masses of minatures for 40k.

All it did was lose sales from those players who preferred smaller games, as they just left 40k behind to play other games.

IMO the reason the rules for 40k are so bloated , is that fact that the core rules are not suitable for the intended game play.
And so rely on lots of layers of exceptions (additional rules, and special rules, and USRs, and codex specific special rules,) that take ages to learn and use.

However, you have raised a very important point.
The Space Marines were much closer to the background in RT and 2nd ed.They were good but very expensive in terms of PV.(250 pts for a tac squad without any special or heavy weapons!)
This was when an IG trooper was costed as 5 pts without equipment .

But because GW made the SM the poster boys of 40k, nearly everyone wanted to play them.So this caused GW to want to drop the PV to improve sales volumes on SM.

Now as SM were supposed to be jack of all trades, master of none.They were the most popular army, and so every other race had to have counters to them.Some units in other armies could out shoot them, others could out do them in close combat, others could beat them with sheer weight of numbers.

And as SM were played by about half the 40k players, the rise of anti MEQ lists increased.
So GW gave SMs all the special rules that were supposed to be faction specific, and an endless rounds of power creep ensued.

So rather than the bog standard human being the reference point for 40k costing.It became the 7ft tall super human with the best equipment in the Imperium of Man.
Thanks to the short sighted money grabbing ploys of the GW sales department.

And then we wonder why balance went out the window at GW towers....