On my other thread talking about GW new beta approach I see a lot of people saying that the current devs are bad at their jobs and anybody would have made a better game. However, I've only very rarely ever seen someone actually laying out a tested and will thought out design document on how they would "fix" 40k. So I call a challenge! How would you fix all the current community problems with 40k?
Rules:
1. It can't just be you writing gibberish! You need to post a well constructed argument laying out the current flaws and how your changes "fix" them.
2. You may steal rules from other games.
3. You may outright scrap 40k rules and build your own from the ground up.
4. You can't attempt to fix one flaw. You have to list all the flaws you feel the games has and how they can be "fixed".
5. Your game doesn't have to be balanced just fun for everyone to play without anyone being stomped turn 1.
6. You can't delte factions or currently existing units.
7. If you have no ideas yourself then you are allowed to respond and reply to people's suggestions.
lolman1c wrote: On my other thread talking about GW new beta approach I see a lot of people saying that the current devs are bad at their jobs and anybody would have made a better game. However, I've only very rarely ever seen someone actually laying out a tested and will thought out design document on how they would "fix" 40k. So I call a challenge! How would you fix all the current community problems with 40k?
Rules: 1. It can't just be you writing gibberish! You need to post a well constructed argument laying out the current flaws and how your changes "fix" them. 2. You may steal rules from other games. 3. You may outright scrap 40k rules and build your own from the ground up. 4. You can't attempt to fix one flaw. You have to list all the flaws you feel the games has and how they can be "fixed". 5. Your game doesn't have to be balanced just fun for everyone to play without anyone being stomped turn 1. 6. You can't delte factions or currently existing units. 7. If you have no ideas yourself then you are allowed to respond and reply to people's suggestions.
(More rules to be added if needed)
With the ability to touch anyone on t1 the game will always be very one turn tableeee.
best way to combat that is to do alternating activation as it mitigates a lot of trouble that causes.
alternatively night fighting in all the games.
thats the primary core problem. everything else is fixable with playtesting and adjusting.
Turn one used to be about positioning, and now it's about alpha strike.
Even if it if it were just a unique mission, I wouldn't mind a Fog of War type rule turn 1, similar to the old Night Fighting. No units targeted outside 24 inches or so.
Okay, I’ll bite - since I’ve been working on a rewrite anyways for some time now.
A. Decide on the scope of the game - is this going to zoom in on a small, heroic group of warriors, a few squads up to an entire planetary force. Personally, I would be shooting for a small squad game - about 3-5 squads, with maybe 1-2 vehicles per side.
B. Scrap or peel back the stats on all units. Start with one faction’s base troop as the baseline for a model in the game. For my version, a basic Space Marine is the starting point - with his base gear, he’ll cost 15 points.
C. Develop the base rules with an eye to accomodate the gamut of units that can be thrown into the game. This means the rules for movement, terrain, shooting, melee, morale and psychic abilities. Tune to a D10 or D12 system.
D. Combine, delete or rejigger units for the game (sorry, but there are simply some things that aren’t going to survive a rewrite - I don’t care if you already have models. That’s part of why the game is broken as it is).
E. Minimalize special rules. A given unit should break/bend 2 base rules at most. Units with special rules should be far more difficult to field and generally unique or exceding few in number. No unit should ignore the base rules of the game (such as morale), and exceptional units that give you an advantage vs. a base rule (such as fearless, allowing morale rerolls) should be rare - no more than 1 non-spammable unit per army.
F. The game should reward doing more than advancing up the field and killing the enemy. Sniping, immobilizing, outmanuevering, pinning, ambushing and other activities should be rewarded with in-game advantages. I should be possible to defeat an enemy army without having to blow every model off the board.
G. Create rules for solo, team and co-op play (vs. an AI enemy).
More to come (esp. if I get asked about specific things).
IMHO the biggest flaw is that 40k tries to cater to every possible size, with a set of rules that doesn't know what it wants to be. So IMHO the very first thing is to split the core rules into two segments: One is company-level/squad-based, with heavy restrictions (e.g. no flyers or superheavies, maybe a limit of 0-1 tank and/or transport). The second is larger scale, uses team bases (i.e. movement trays) instead of being squad-based (so for example, 5 space marines on one bases counts as one "unit") and is much more abstract in the rules. For example, in the squad-based game you care what special or heavy weapon a squad has. In the larger scale game, this becomes less relevant; you may not necessarily care if a squad has a missile launcher or a lascannon in it. The larger scale game is also where superheavies and flyers are allowed.
There would also, hypothetically be an even more detailed skirmish game where you have maybe 10-12 models or so per side on a smaller table, where you can get into even more detail than the squad level.
Right off the bat, this would let you pick a way to play that best fits what you want, or combine all three of them for the narrative (imagine fighting a large scale battle, then zooming down to a particular engagement, and then zooming further to some special ops mission), with rules that best cater to those sizes. Ideally there would be a same core set of rules to govern all three sizes, and it's just the level of detail that varies, going from more detailed to more abstracted as you get larger in size.
Next, i would codify a lot of the special rules that models/units have, and consolidate them. For example, let's imagine a hypothetical "Fleet" rule that lets a unit move faster (for sake of example here let's say it lets you advance and charge in the same turn). This is a core rule of the game, defined thusly:
FLEET: A unit with Fleet can Charge in the same turn it makes an Advance
Now, anything in the game that has this advance + charge ability doesn't need a special ability of its own to define it, it simply has Fleet reprinted on its datasheet. This could even extend to things like re-rolls, where you define it something like:
Re-roll Hits [<KEYWORD>]: Friendly <KEYWORD> units within 6" of this model can re-roll hits of 1.
Again, the key here is a common set of rules that are applied where necessary. There's no need to give one model "Rites of Battle" and another model "Lord of Chaos" and another model something else, all of which are the same "re-roll hits of 1" with a different keyword applied. The rule itself is global, only the keyword changes (e.g. on the model's sheet it simply needs to say Re-Roll Hits [<CHAPTER>] without needing to have its own variation of the same rule). As part of this, I would also do away with the wonky "fluff rules", for example in 8th edition parlance, all abilities that give back Command Points would trigger on the same condition (perhaps with a variable condition as above, e.g. "Master Strategist [X] where X is the roll needed" to account for variances), there would not be something like the Tallyman doing it on any result of a 7 on 2d6, but the Autarch getting it on a single die roll of a 6, but this relic giving it on a 5+, etc. It would be one set or a variable set that applies to everybody.
Just some initial thoughts, but the key point here is to split the game up so each size can do what it needs to do without the baggage of the others, and make common sets of special rules that are applied globally where necessary instead of making up similar-but-not-quite rules everywhere.
I would list a large number of changes which would make the game more balanced/playable, but all of my ideas contradict the "sell more models" approach GW has firmly entrenched itself in, so it would be rather pointless.
Eh, I wouldn't have a clue about game design. My only real gripe at the moment is the removal of blast templates. That really hit low BS armies hard. So the only thing I would do is bring those back.
ditch 100% of 8th ed, get a dark vengeance core rulebook, do not add formations, do not add the mountains of addtional junk, balance the codex from there. 30k is a great game, its well balanced, so the rules are fine its the codex and additional junk that made 7th such a mess. clean sweep.
Switch to alternate activation of units. There's a variety of forms this could take, but it would fix most of what I don't like about 40k.
Something like either bolt action or dropzone commander would be great.
It would mostly eliminate alpha strike (a huge problem for 40k gameplay) and all the problems associated with it. But it would also encourage more even engagement from both players, rather than you sitting around while I shoot 100 guns at you for half an hour.
Make managing the battlefield matter again (terrain)
Make maneuver matter again (alpha striking your entire army would be a no go, and would be reserved or restricted)
Add elements of risk into the game instead of the banquet's feast we've had for years where there is only low risk high reward "choices" presented to us.
How would I fix 40k? For now I just think that everyone should have a codex. When all the factions have it, we'll really see the state of 40k.
Competitive game cannot really be fixed IMHO, there are too many variables and it's impossible to make all the factions perfectly balanced internally and among each other.
But I'd like friendly semi competitive games to be balanced, that's the goal. Even in 7th edition I could have decent odds of winning against the top tiers (but a couple of unbeatable tournament lists) using my mid tier or bottom tier armies. Now the distance between the strongest and the weakest armies is way wider.
I agree about limiting deep strike which is a mechanic that irritates me, I'd keep it for max a single unit in the game. But I wouldn't mind to make it completely disappear, with the entire armies on the table during deployment.
As others have already said, you've asked for more detail than I can put in a single post. Instead, here's a summary of areas that I would look at first, with an outline of how I'd fix it.
1. Get rid of the '6 limit' on things like warlord traits and psychic powers. Some armies should just have more. Or less.
2. Reduce the number of rules which use mortal wounds, introduce a lesser version of mortal wounds (probably just auto-wound, but saves allowed)
3. Codify the vast majority of special unit/weapon rules into a clearly defined set of 'atomic' rules. e.g. Feel No Pain-esk rules all become SpecialWoundSave 5+
4. Restore blast markers, with more than just two diameters. 3", 4", 5" 6" 7". Place the marker where you want, count models beneath it, roll to hit for each model.
5. Restore templates, either with varying sizes, or with one size and varying range of 'torrent'. e.g. standard flamer would be 1" range, you must place the tip within 1", then point where you like. Some would then auto-hit, others you'd roll like with blasts above.
6. Imperial plasma weapons to all lose 1 point of strength in each mode.
7. Conduct thorough review of all multi-wound weapons. Make many of them fixed values instead of Dx. Those that remain change from D6 to 2D3, or D3+3 etc
8. Allow some method of deep striking closer than 9", but with a risk. Say, for each inch closer … e.g. roll a d6 for each model deep striking. If at 8", a roll of 1 inflicts a mortal wound. If at 6", a roll of 1-3 inflicts a mortal wound.
9. Restore fire arcs, but keep them more relaxed. Turrets still 360". Hull mounted/sponson all 180".
I'm tempted to restore differing armour values on vehicles (rear arc etc) too, but I haven't missed it as much as I expected to.
I would use the "Beyond the gates of 40K" which you can find in this section further down.
It really has every rule that i think is needed to make a really good wargame. Random activation a la Bolt action, really good terrain rules and rules for shooting that takes facing, your own unit placement etc and make them important, pin markers a la Epic:armageddons blast markers.
It's a really cool mashup and i think it would make 40K an awesome game (maybe a tad to difficult for the kids).
But random activations and having to choose between moving-shooting, advancing or charging would go along way.
Also not allowing units to shoot thru terrain (meaning that neither the firing unit or the unit being fired upon would be in cover but me on opposite sides of the cover) would be great because positioning would be a tactic choice again.
1. Take turns activating units; the current "I go, you go" mechanism has always been a big problem for the game, especially when using bigger armies where you just take turns losing models.
2. Take simplification further; roll weapon skill, Strength and attacks into an Attack characteristic, and Toughness and saves into a Defence characteristic. Make it use opposed rolls, i.e- you're rolling for 10 models, so you roll 10 attack dice, your opponent rolls 10 defence dice, and the difference in successes is the damage (if any).
3. Balance the god-damn codexes; this is the big issue that GW has always had. By reducing the number of stats it should be possible to come up with a formula for quickly costing things in a balanced way, requiring only minor tweaks for wargear options and special rules. This would probably require significantly thinning special rules again, as GW seems to have a hard-on for adding more and more special rules every edition to the point that balance becomes impossible.
4. Increase specialisation rather than reducing cost; marines keep creeping down in points cost because GW doesn't seem to want to make them tougher, but I don't want cheap marines (in points terms, gimme cheap models any day), I want them to be the elite, low model count army they're supposed to be. Same with the elite units in other armies; I want better units, not cheaper ones. Step 2 (simplification) might partially address this as standard, as if you assume lasguns had Attack of 5+, and marines a 4+ Defence, then they would be significantly tougher than they are now.
These are more broad ambitions, but would form my overall strategy for starting to fix the game.
Just because I'm bored - the changes I would make (for betterment of the game, not betterment of sales - though one could propel the other)
Remove IGOUGO - but I imagine that's about top of everybody's list. Use tokens/chips/cards ala Bolt Action, etc.
Establish a creative authority within the company, and a subset of professional technical editors beneath him or her.
Create a genuine style-book as authors and writers use which establishes how to phrase/write actual rules in the rulebook. The editorial team should be responsible for this, and overseeing its implementation.
Establish and use a mathematical basis for creating units, effects, and costs (wargear, etc.)
Establish a rules-destroying secondary team which has X amount of time with each planned release - their entire goal is to break it. If a dozen podcasts and forums can find a chink in a codex within 24 hours of it being released, GW should be catching this earlier.
Reduce the lethality of almost everything in the game (also allowing for slightly smaller games). No infantry units outside of a select two or three, should ever be rolling 4-5 attacks each...resulting in dice buckets of 50-60-70 dice. That stuff needs to go.
Rely more on the stat lines of actual models.
Introduce more strict army organization decisions. Remove the current ability to just effectively run "whatever you want" as a legal army, particularly for tournament settings.
Reduce codices to fewer number - combine small armies which really don't need entire books.
Make codices $19.95 and softback - particularly in light of the constant FAQ/errata/Chapter Approved. If the rules are this fluid, the codex should be viewed more as a disposable notebook of sorts. Make them cheap and encourage people to write in them.
Launch a line of narrative/"historical" aimed products to garner more attention from the non-tournament GW fans. Include "historical" scenarios (much as you'd find in a proper historical wargame), new scenarios, new characters/rules intended for use in narrative based games.
Reduce the number of new kits being launched - and concentrate 100% effort on bringing the entire current range to current plastic or metals.
Relaunch character options in metal, vs. plastic. This opens up a much easier path to special edition miniatures, special releases to accommodate special campaigns, and reduces investment time/cost.
Overhaul the way named characters are used - place restrictions on them to prevent constant spamming.
Remove allied armies from tournament settings.
Work more on community involvement pushing the story and design direction (give players a vague sense of partaking in the creation of the future story) - not sure how outside of massive campaigns.
Remove the "no model, no rules" decision - this is the biggest mistake I've seen GW make - gutting a lot of the enthusiasm of players with old models and those looking to kit-bash cool and unique models.
lolman1c wrote: On my other thread talking about GW new beta approach I see a lot of people saying that the current devs are bad at their jobs and anybody would have made a better game. However, I've only very rarely ever seen someone actually laying out a tested and will thought out design document on how they would "fix" 40k. So I call a challenge! How would you fix all the current community problems with 40k?
Rules:
1. It can't just be you writing gibberish! You need to post a well constructed argument laying out the current flaws and how your changes "fix" them.
2. You may steal rules from other games.
3. You may outright scrap 40k rules and build your own from the ground up.
4. You can't attempt to fix one flaw. You have to list all the flaws you feel the games has and how they can be "fixed".
5. Your game doesn't have to be balanced just fun for everyone to play without anyone being stomped turn 1.
6. You can't delte factions or currently existing units.
7. If you have no ideas yourself then you are allowed to respond and reply to people's suggestions.
(More rules to be added if needed)
I went straight to #3 and build my own game system from scratch, due to several issues primarily relating to its turn structure:
-IGOUGO should really read "IGOUWait:" As the game scales up, the amount of downtime a player has before being able to actually play the game increases in turn. Until the Fight Subphase comes about, the only decisions one player gets to make are the use of any bespoke Stratagems, or whether to deny a power or two. The only problem is Stratagems are once-per-phase, and Deny is a "pass-fail" system where it can be near-impossible to actually deny a power that went off. Were you to let your opponent make your armor save rolls for you, you could watch an episode of your favorite show and go "remind me when it's my turn again? Thanks."
-IGOUGO favors alphastrikes: 8th edition has "alternating deployment", "auto-succeed" no-scatter Deepstrike Reserves, Reserves are only restricted to units explicitly capable of it and a weak cover system. The result is that the first-turn advantage is stronger in 8th edition than ever before. In 7th edition, the fact that Reserve Rolls were mandatory starting from turn two (yet were still randomized) meant that going second tended to be advantageous for players wanting to "beta-strike" their opponent. This edition has the Guard artilery/DS Plasma tag-team combo, yet last edition had Warp Spider spam and the Grav Skyhammer; in either case, your only option is "bring bubblewrap" (though in 7th you could use Interceptor now and then).
-40k's Phase Structure is Clunky: 40k has "Move everything, then psychic, then shoot, then charge". You must do everything you want with all units for a phase before moving to the next phase. While simple enough by itself for 3rd through 5th edition (you could move units left-to-right, shoot units right-to-left, then charge left-to-right, 'typewriter-style') with the odd exception here and there (Eldar Crystal Targeting Matrixes in 3rd, Coteaz's "I've Been Expecting You" in 5th, etc), 7th introduced a lot more "out-of-phase" actions. Soulburst is the one most people will happily point to, though numerous Formations also had their own combination of "out-of-phase" actions: The Riptide Wing could forfeit movement once per game to shoot in the Movement Phase, the Terminator Annihilation Force got an immediate free round of shooting versus their preferred target when arriving from Deep Strike Reserve, etc. 8th in turn has added the revised Act of Faith mechanic, the Fix Bayonets Order, and assorted Stratagems, leading to entertaining civilized discussion on YMDC whether an ability that is resolved "as if in a Phase" can be combined with a Stratagem specific to the Phase that said ability is resolved "as if" it is in.
Additionally, I consider assorted mechanics just bad design in general.
-I consider Rule of One Mechanics (Strategic Discipline, Psychic Focus, etc) to be "Fake Balance," an artificial cap that covers up what is ultimately a fundamentally flawed system. I proposed making Psyker Powers a "degree of success" system in another thread, and would probably eliminate "armywide" stratagems altogether and implement them in a separate manner.
-"Infinite Free Overwatch" is a bad mechanic because it just means one player rolls a lot of dice without an actual decision-making process involved (contrast with WHFB where you could "stand and shoot" once, or flee as a charge reaction). (This is fixed in the core rewrite)
-Eliminating USRs in general for "bespoke" special rules. I am pro-USR, just against them being used badly. For example, in 7th, there was a good period of time where one of the USRs (Missile Lock) wasn't used at all. Then the Dark Angel Codex came out and gave Missile Lock to the Nephilim's Blacksword Missiles. Thus, you had a USR for one weapon for one unit in the entire game, all while there were at least three other weapons that had their own non-USR special rules for representing missiles that lock onto their targets. For this flaw, I suggest going back to USRs with several caveats (I'll include this later).
-Keywords are amusing for their potential yet GW has been haphazard in their use, leading to idiosyncracies like Coven Raiders benefitting from Haemonculi, a FAQ to clarify that a Wolf Guard in Terminator Armor in a unit of Grey Hunters is treated "as if it has the TERMINATOR Keyword", a FAQ to clarify that adding a Terminator to a Deathwatch Killteam does not make the rest of the unit count as having said Keyword, and the fact that an Inquisitor in Terminator Armor can't actually ride a Custodes Land Raider (And that's before dealing with the "moneygrab" issues like Primaris Marines only being allowed to ride in their expensive new Primaris-exclusive transport). For this, I propose "loosening" Keyword restrictions, while integrating Keywords with USRs (see above).
-More amusingly, GW doesn't use Keywords for weapons. Case in point, Chapter Approved has a Stratagem that lets INFANTRY units double the range of any flamer weapons they have. A flamer is defined as "a Burna, a Skorcha, or any weapon that has 'flame' in its name." Nevermind the fact that Orks do not have any Infantry that actually have Skorchas (they have Kombi-Skorchas, and rule-lawyers could argue that the rule refers to a pure non-Kombi Skorcha), but this means that a weapon like an Incinerator would not benefit, but a Pink Horror of Tzeentch would be able to double the range of its "Flickering Flames." Promethium can literally fuel the raw stuff of change itself...unless it's Pink or Blue Fire, because Fire is obviously not Flame right? I await the joy of Tyranid Players upon the return of the Plasma Syphon as they tell their opponents "Sorry, your Syphon does nothing against my Exocrine. It doesn't shoot plasma, it shoots plasmic!" To fix this, I recommend being able to 'scope' Keywords to weapons. Weapons would inherit the Keywords of the model wielding said weapons, though not the opposite way around. Thus, the aforementioned Stratagem would allow INFANTRY FLAMER weapons to double their range.
I knew I wanted an "alternating activation" game (Alternating Phase games can lead to "hide & kite" situations), but I felt that most games wouldn't work for 40k due to the fact that there's a massive variance in scale and power between assorted units. Since "All activations are equal" in most AA games, a game with ultracheap units could lead to a scenario where one player takes several Baneblades or other doomsday devices, and a bunch of solo Acolytes/Astropaths simply to buffer the Activation Count, either for numerous "skip phase" actions (in simple "I activate one, you activate one" systems) or to enable a larger alphastrike (in "die-draw" systems ala Bolt Action, or "the player with more units activates more units" systems ala Battletech). I also dislike "random" activations (whether "Retain the Initiative" rolls in Epic or diebag draws in Bolt Action) for their general swinginess/ability to have a large impact on the game; this should be something the players control! And then of course, I also dislike games where "Interrupt" mechanics are either bespoke to unit special abilities, or are "free" (Ex: Infinity AROs), and I dislike when a game has a lot of "actions" that are permutations of the same atomic options.
So I decided to make my own game from scratch, independent of 40k itself but "compatible with any 28mm models (wink wink)." Because I do admittedly still like the modularity and kitbashability of a lot of Citadel kits, yet their rules still leave me unsatisfied. I am still fleshing it out but the core mechanics are in place, I've gotten several tests in, and I feel pretty positive about it. The tl;dr of it is:
-Each player gets a certain amount of Strategy Points (SP) per turn (renamed from Tactical Points since TP is short for something else ). Unlike 40k, Strategy Points are not spent on bespoke Stratagems like a pseudo-manabomb, but they're used to manipulate the turn order as well as to bring in units from Reserves; quite literally, they represent how coordinated your army is as a whole.
-A unit may do 2 actions per turn, period. To track this, I recommend two-color counters, "yellow" representing units that have taken 1 action, "red" representing actions that have taken 2 actions.
-Actions are either "Move & Rapid Action", or "Full Action." Think D&D "Move & Attack" or "Full Attack". Rapid Actions would include melee, weapons traditionally deemed "Pistol/Assault" weapons, etc. Full Actions would be firing Bolters, Techpriest repairs, etc.
-The game is I-Activate, U-Activate. The player taking actions with Activated units is said to have The Initiative.
-When you Activate a unit, you may take 1 or 2 actions with that unit (to the maximum of 2 actions per turn).
-The player with less unactivated units (meaning no actions taken) can "skip" their activation ( "Fine, you move an Acolyte. Quit messing around and take a *real* turn!"). Currently, I am not imagining that units in Reserve would be factored into this, but that's another thing altogether.
-The player with The Initiative may spend SP to Retain the Initiative, assuming that their opponent has not skipped due to having fewer units (I am looking for a proper term for "skip activation"). It costs 1 SP to activate two units in a row, 3 SP to activate three in a row, 6 SP to activate four in a row, 10 to activate five in a row, etc.
-The real unique item however is the fact that the game uses an Interrupt Stack, ala "Magic: The Gathering." This stack is triggered on "intent to attack". If Player A declares an attack against one of Player B's units, Player B may pre-empt this attack by having any one unit (it does not necessarily have to be the one being targeted) take a single Action. If that Action is an attack against Player A, Player A may Interrupt Player B in turn; adding a unit to the stack costs a SP for every two units (round down) already on the Stack. Once a player chooses not to Interrupt, or to Interrupt with an action that is not an attack, the attacks are resolved down the stack in "Last-in, first-out" order.
-I have added several rules and edgecases for dealing with things that have occurred in playtesting: For example, "What happens if a unit cannot attack its original target" (Ex: "Player A shoots Player B's Tactical Squad, Player B interrupts by driving a Rhino in front to block Line of Sight", "What happens if an attack would affect multiple enemy units belonging to one player", "What happens if an attack would affect multiple units belonging to multiple players", etc. I've also experimented with rules for abilities that let you manipulate the stack, including having units 'swap out' with a unit that's not in the stack (fun for flanking an opponent from multiple directions), with such abilities costing SP in turn. Again, SP are NOT for bespoke stat-buffs like "+1 to damage" or so.
-As a balancing mechanism between Interrupts versus Activations, it costs an additional SP to Interrupt with or Activate a unit that has already taken a single Action. Remember that while you can do 1 or 2 Actions with an Activation, you can only do 1 with an Interrupt. Thus, attempting to turtle and play a pure Interrupt game will either eat into your available Actions or SP.
-And finally, bringing in units from Reserves will also cost SP in addition to their other costs.
-I am currently experimenting with certain Characters having a replenishing pool of Hero Points, which can be spent as substitute Strategy Points (for the Hero's unit/taskforce in question), or for Heroic Feats (which are more like 8e Stratagems/WMH Power Attacks/etc).
-For Superheavies, I imagine I will go down the route of making them "composites." So rather than a Baneblade getting two actions period, you would activate its engine crew separately from its tank crew separate from its sponsons or so, and they could all be targeted separately. The actual implemention is something I am still intending to work on, but the intent is that a unit that large means taking less units overall, so you can afford to put a little more detail into such a unit and subdivide its parts. Plus, you can now enact that tank scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Harrison Ford put a rock in the tank sponson.
-To replace "Equipment" stratagems, I might just add a rule that states that each army gets about 10-20% of its points value on "Special Mission Gear" which can be spent pre-game on stuff like grapplehooks, lascutters, dozer blades, etc. It would be an "equipment sideboard" of a sort. You might not be able to swap out your whole army in one go, but you may be able to jury-rig some pre-battle modifications.
Naturally, this "two-action" system combined with an Interrupt Stack means the elimination of assorted rules like Advance ("Move and Move"), Overwatch ("Interrupt: Attack"), or Heroic Intervention ("Interrupt: Move"). Weapons and psychic would need to be rebalanced to deal with the potential for 'Shoot Twice' scenarios. At this rate, this is why I'm going for a full rewrite because I really am enjoying the system so far.
I tested it out last week with 8e Heralds of Ruin on Tabletop Simulator. The game didn't take that much longer than it normally would IMO (aside from the "learning the rules" bit), but the end result was that neither of us felt like we had to wait long before we could actually make meaningful in-game choices. The fact that Interrupts only trigger-by-attack meant that there's less emphasis on 2nd-ed/SWA-style Overwatch-camping, and more emphasis on ducking from cover-to-cover, setting up flanking maneuvers, ambushes and counterploys, and the careful management of Strategy Points. My opponent did mention that the game did potentially feel less "cinematic" than 40k because of the scale involved, but it felt far more cerebral with the complexity being less "this unit has this special rule which interacts with this special rule" and more about play-vs-counterplay.
I'm looking to test this system at 1000 points next, and to hopefully test it with WHFB/Kings of War or any other "Rank-and-File" system as well.
PS: And of course, vehicle firing arcs are more cinematic. Indiana Jones would be dead (atomic fridge notwithstanding) if the Nazis could trace line of fire from any part of their hull.
Maybe some people should turn these ideas into pdfs that look loke a real rule book and just do some play testing in the community. I bet (like with other games I play) if the community made a better system then a lot of people will just play that (and then the company adjusts to get their sales back).
Oh, and as a visual example (forgive the crappy backdrop), this image shows how the stack would resolve. The dice could be substituted with other numeric markers of course.
Player A has two Cultists, and Player B has two Horrors.
-Player A wants to attack the Horror on the top-left with the Cultist on the bottom-left. So Player A places a "Target" on the unit, and a "1" next to the Cultist that wishes to attack.
-Player B does not want to sit back and take it, and so decides to Interrupt. Player B places a "2" next to the Horror on the top-right.
-Player A wants to ensure his Cultist is able to attack, and so decides to Interrupt in turn. Since there are 2 units already on the stack, A would have to spend a Strategy Point in order to place a "3" next to the Cultist on the bottom-right.
-Finally, Player B decides to counter-interrupt by having the initial target Interrupt. ("Target Zero" is technically not on the stack and is eligible to Interrupt). Since there are 3 units (rounded down to 2) units on the stack, Player B would spend a SP to put a "4" next to the horror.
Note that once the units resolve attacks, you choose how the attack is actually implemented. So you could choose whether to charge (Melee is a Rapid Action, and usually gives 3 additional inches of "lunge" movement, thus consolidating "charge bonus", "5-foot-step", "pile-in", etc. into a single move), shoot, etc. The caveat being if you wish to declare an attack that would affect multiple enemy units, you must do so beforehand. So you couldn't declare "I charge this unit", then go "I switch to flamers to tag this unit that did not interrupt". That being said, the order of operations would be:
-Horror #4 must resolve an attack against Cultist #3. After resolving the attack, remove the "4" marker and replace it with an action counter.
-Should Cultist #3 survive, it must resolve an attack against Horror #2. After resolving the attack, remove the "3" marker and replace it with an action counter.
-Should Horror #2 survive, it must resolve an attack against Cultist #1. After resolving the attack, remove the "2" marker and replace it with an action counter.
-Should Cultist #1 survive, it must resolve an attack against Horror 0 (Target Zero). After resolving the attack, remove the "1" marker and replace it with an action counter.
Note that since each unit would thus be in the position of having taken a "single" Action, this means that Activating or Interrupting with the Horrors or the Cultist on the right would cost an additional SP in the future. Since the Cultist on the left is still Active, it can still make a second action.
Adding to my earlier list:
10. When a Character is within 2” of a non-character unit of the same model type (such as a Cavalry character near a squad of Cavalry), the character may not be selected as a target by enemy shooting.
11. Cover to be calculated by remaining models, so the owning player can elect to remove models outside of cover first in order to protect those within cover.
12. Wounds to stop applying if no further visible targets available. Again allowing the owning player to choose - he can preserve those in the open with better weapons, or lose them to take fewer casualties over-all.
13. Intervening terrain to provide cover up to a certain distance away, much like how statues work now. Distance yet to be determined.
lolman1c wrote: Maybe some people should turn these ideas into pdfs that look loke a real rule book and just do some play testing in the community. I bet (like with other games I play) if the community made a better system then a lot of people will just play that (and then the company adjusts to get their sales back).
Nope though you are free to spend your time and do it
This is the “core rules”, I’ll post the Space/Stellar marines and any other faction folks are curious about in a moment, once I’ve got it converted to PDF (still working on unit points at this time, the only thing that is fixed is that a bog-standard Tac marine is 15 points).
Just wanted to chime in to say that I strongly that if one were "fixing" 40k, one would first have to start by selecting and understanding a single scale in which the action takes place.
The most fun I have had playing 40k has been in smaller games where there was, quite honestly, less going on. Thus my preference would be for something like platoon scale (with the IG and Tau pushing that up towards company sized elements - heck let's call it "re-enforced platoon scale").
My first few games of 8th were played out of the index and entirely without stratagems or command points, and the game was honestly much more enjoyable for being without them. I enjoyed the way in which the index armies had clearly been designed at the same time, and with something like a single - simple - vision.
I understand that people love all the bells and whistles - so do I - I just think that quite a lot of the problems that have emerged with the various metas that we have been through since the release of 8th can be tracked down to the fact that there are five million ways to buff nearly every unit.
So, in short, I would not change much, just focus on a small scale and return the game to its index blandness!
I think that the current 40K works “decently” at about 1250-1500 points, and without anything that is super-heavy or more powerful (that means exculding the likes of Roboute and Magnus). It’s not that I have anything against bigger games, but I think the likes of Epic better handles games that are more about tanks and monsters, whereas 40K better handles infantry with a sprinkle of armor/transports/big battlesuits.
Likewise, 40K has become about blowing things off the board - rather than units surviving until the end of the game but being reduce in strength or somewhat nuetered by game effects (and the real victory conditions being about gathering objective points instead of kill points).
Likewise, 40K has become about blowing things off the board - rather than units surviving until the end of the game but being reduce in strength or somewhat nuetered by game effects (and the real victory conditions being about gathering objective points instead of kill points).
Could not agree more. One of the big problems that my group and I were experiencing near the end of 7th was that units simply could not stay on the board - anything that lacked massive defensive buffing rarely lasted more than a single turn under the massive firepower that most competently put together armies could bring to bear.
The index armies, and the opening salvo of 8th - for all its touted deadliness - changed all that. Flattening the curves on wounding, as well as adding more wounds to vehicles made everything more survivable. However, alpha strike has crept back in through the codexes and the worrying rules-bloat that they bring with them (where re-rolls were relatively scarce outside of HQ choices in the indexes, now almost any unit can be made to re-roll various hits and wounds).
Which is not to say that the game is terrabad awful nonsense - it remains fun, if a bit lethal.
All of this is to stray a bit from the idea of "fixing" the game however.
I don't, personally, think that what the game needs is extra systems on top of what already exists. A different turn structure could shake things up a bit - but it won't fix the fundamental sticking point that lies at the heart of this beloved toy soldiers game of ours; the fact that the most valuable and important thing for almost any unit to do at any given time is to beat face really hard (or stand in the way of something that beats face really hard).
without a greater variation in the roles that units can perform - and more reasons for them to perform roles other than simply shooting or hitting things - there will always be a set of apex choices which dominate the PL/point to kill ratio. In order to make space for a bit more tactical play, lethality needs to be reduced at the top of the range (plasma equivs). Luckily this is possible without a nerf, just reduce the number of "re-roll 1s" buffs available.
What "other roles" do I think that units could perform? Well, we have different force org slots don't we - why not give those some mechanical representation - troops already have a distinct purpose in the various "objective secured" rules they have attached to them. These could be extended so that, for instance, fast attack units could provide recon for allies (perhaps allowing some artillery style weapons to fire with the fast attack choice's line of sight?). To my mind that veers a little too far back to the idea that all units must support each other by making each other more killy - and it might be a better idea to have the enemy be unable to advance, WHF style, within a certain range of Fast Attack units.
In the same vein Heavy support choices might gain the ability to suppress the enemy - in the manner of the tremor cannon - as a way to reduce the opponent's effectiveness without necessarily killing more dudes (in this case I would remove all of the "grinding advance" style special rules).
Elite units on the other hand would be more resistant to suppression and disruption than their "troops" brethren - losing less movement from heavy support attacks and able to advance within the disruption range of fast attack choices - better able to close distance to the enemy but unable to hold the ground they claim.
HQ units are a bit of mystery, but I would change the auras a bit to have them do less "kill" focused things - like double the value of nearby troops for the purposes of holding ground, or setting nearby troop's advance value to 6" (no need to roll).
I do hope these ideas are not too vague for this thread.
@Voidwatchman.
I agree that there need so be more tactical roles for units in 40k.(If you want 40k to be more'' war game'' than ''Yahtzee with minatures''. ).
As most war games I play manage to get these tactical roles simply by using more appropriate core rules that allow this sort of tactical play in an intuitive and straightforward way.
Would you be interested in exploring some options , in a 40k rules re write?
Obviously the game scale and scope needs to be specified first, so I can suggest the most appropriate options.
Sure, that sounds like fun (and indeed closer to the original intent of the topic than my previous post!).
OK, so if were were going to overhaul the rules from the bedrock then I think we should pick a scale which matches up to the cost and size of the miniatures that we use.
28mm "heroic" is a perfect fit for the platoon scale; limited objectives within a circumscribed local area.
One of the things that I have always loved about 40k is that it is a mash up of a bunch of different themes from military history. There are armies which are like in composition to knightly orders, tribal warbands, greek phalanx, german panzer grenadiers and modern battlegroups.
Each one of the factions fights (ideally, I think) in the manner of some or another of these forces, and thus I think one of the most interesting things to do would be to somehow craft a ruleset which could draw out these differences and really allow for a different feel for every army.
@Voidswatchman.
If you want a skirmish scale platoon game, then I will just suggest the mechanics that may be appropriate. I prefer to cover the game play with the core rules, as it reduces the need to add on loads of extra 'special' rules.
We can use any interactive game turn with the new rules.(Based on alternating actions or alternating phases.)
However, how we define the models/units is important. As 40k has failed to define how hard the model/unit is to hit at range .(Size or Stealth Stat.)
This has led to shooting being over powered since 3rd ed.(And the following rules bloat of ''all or nothing'' special rules to try to put the variation/balance back.)
So my starting line up of stats would be somthing like....
Mobility. how and now far a model/unit can move up to in a single movement action.
Melee value.How likely the model /units hits the enemy in assault.
Dodge value.How likely the model/unit is to avoid being hit in assault.
(Melee is compared to Dodge of opponent to determine the chance of hitting in assault.)
Ranged value, How likely the model unit is to hit a target ate range.
Stealth value. How hard the model /unit is to hit at range.
(Ranged value is compared to Size/Stealth value to determine the chance to hit at range.)
Note.
Cover can simply add to the units Stealth value.
Armour value,How much physical protection the unit has .(Armour scales power fields etc.)
Resilience , how hard the model unit is to damage after the armour has been breached.
Hit points, how many penetrating unsaved hits the model unit can take before being removes as a casualty of war.
All weapons are given a sum value based on the weapon and the combatant carrying it.
As explained above the chance to hit is attackers stat vs the opponents stat.
in a similar way the Armour Pen of the attackers weapon is compared to the Armour value of the target to give the chance to penetrate.
And the Damage value of the attackers weapon is compared to the targets Resilience to see if actual physical damage is done after the armour is penetrated.
Penetrating hits that do not do physical damage, can suppress the model.
If over half the models in a unit are suppressed, the unit counts as suppressed.(Until rallied.)
This means all combat interaction is a simple opposed value on ONE chart.(Using a D6)
Unit Morale Grade can be a value you have to roll over to pass a morale check.
Leadership can be a modifier to ONE dice roll per turn.
What I am aiming for is a set of stats that cover how models/units are similar, to arrive at a concise set of rules.Unlike GW who want to express every slight differences to promote sales...
@Stormonu.
I have has a quick read through your rules.All the core concerns seem to be addressed. However I think you are writing in a GW type way.(The 'special rules and names to make the models sound cool'.)
I am sure GW fans would be happy with your rules.
I would prefer to 'rationalize' some of the rules to streamline them a bit.(I am probably in a minority of one though. )
Have you ever read Aetherverse? The basic set of statistics you describe here is very reminiscent of that ruleset (if you have not, look it up - great idea, impossible to get players together to actually see how it played out in practice!).
While I would not wish to criticize a well thought out post such as yours, I fear that what you are describing has already fallen down into something of a mental trap that I find hard to escape when thinking about rules; most of the statistics you describe relate to the way in which weapons interact with units, not the ways in which units interact with the battlefield or each other.
Might I suggest an alternative set of statistics? (I will assume that every unit gets to take 2 actions per turn):
1. Mobility - the distance any given model in a unit may move when taking a "move" action (just copying you here really ).
As an addendum to this however we add :
Mobility Type - defined as Flying, Hovering, Light, Medium, Heavy and Super Heavy.
Flying units only measure move distance on a 2D plane - treating the board as a flat surface.
Hovering units may move to anywhere their base can fit, but must measure on the 3D plane.
Light units are earthbound, but may otherwise move without penalty (so long as it fits, they may "sits"). If they need to go "up" or "down", first they are moved to the edge of the obstacle
they are trying to climb or descend, and may then move vertically with the remainder of their movement allowance (measured from their base to the vertical position they wish to occupy.
Medium units are as light units, with the proviso that they pay twice as much for clearing obstacles.
Heavy units do as the medium units do, but pay 4 times as much for clearance.
Super Heavy units may only move across clear ground, and must end their turn at least 1" away from the base of any terrain features.
For the sake of ease we shall say that our fantastical BRB will define the average clearances inherent to different terrain features in the game.
2. Security - "Security" defines the unit's ability to hold the ground that it has taken, how well trained the troops are in making sure that objectives are, in fact, under control (orks are
less likely to make sure that vital data has been retrieved from an ancient cyber-brain than the Adeptus Mechanicus might be, for instance). Security is measured on a value from 1-6. In a
scenario where objectives are contested, it will be the value which determines how much the unit "counts" towards holding the objective. On a "search" type scenario, it determines the add to
a d6 "search" roll (yes, this is inspired by dropzone commander).
3. Presence - "Presence" determines the unit's ability to project it's influence on its immediate surroundings. Presence is a value given in inches, determining how far from an objective
any given unit need be in order to count as "holding" that objective and the range at which the unit may attempt to rally friendly units.
4. Grit - "Grit" determines how difficult it is to pin the unit down under fire - how likely they are to keep on walking into (or indeed out of) gunfire. If a unit suffers a number of wounds
equal to its grit value (or casualties equal to half of that), it reduces its movement value by half (and then half again if this happens again) until another unit successfully rallies it. This is
represented by placing a "suppression" marker on the unit.
5. Morale - "Morale" is, of course, the statistic which determines how resistant the unit is to simply breaking and running away. Every unit with a "suppression" marker must take a
morale test at the end of the game turn. This is determined in the same way that leadership tests are currently, but with the additional ruffle that every suppression marker past the first gives
a -2 to that test NO UNITS ARE IMMUNE FROM THIS TEST, EVER, NO NOT EVEN IF THERE IS A COMMISSAR WHISPERING SWEET LEAD NOTHINGS INTO THEIR MATE'S EARS 3
FEET AWAY (I am tempted to etch this in blood upon the front cover of our imaginary rulebook, but I fear that would rather ruin the friendly and collegiate mood).
6. Leadership - Unlike in the current setup, leadership determines how well units can inspire their fellow soldiers to fight on. It is an X+ value, which determines the dice roll required to
remove a suppression marker from a friendly unit within their "presence" range and L.O.S. The difficulty with using your line units to do this is that it requires an action.
7. BS, WS, T, S, A and Sv, as we have now. (However, I would steal your idea of a single table that combined BS and weapon S to give a "single roll" value for whether or not damage is done by
shooting and a "wound" scored. Ditto for WSofc)
This is a long post, and now I am tired - any of that tickle thy fancy?
edit: I fail at re-reading my own stuff sometimes.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, and as to the point that a freaking Knight is as hard to hit, in general terms, as a grot -
With a single roll most of those problems are gone, although there are still... eccentricities.
The whole "did I hit them and did I then make them die?" thing is quite a sticky problem in wargames - one wants to have endless values which determine all the possible variables, but players can only really handle a few variables at a time (I include myself in this - too much much adding and subtracting over the course of a few hours starts to melt my brain when I am also trying to work out how I should position my forces, avoid the enemy beatstick etc).
I fear that what you are describing has already fallen down into something of a mental trap that I find hard to escape when thinking about rules; most of the statistics you describe relate to the way in which weapons interact with units, not the ways in which units interact with the battlefield or each other.
Well I can address your fears with a few bits I forgot to post.
1)Mobility I agree mobility is important.How far a model/unit can move is in all war games I can think of.(Apart from Arty Conliffes Crossfire where no measuring is used.)
I was thinking of a mobility modifier table for terrain, covering the basic mobility types.
Eg
Legs, wheels , tracks, hover/flight. And generic terrain types, hard standing /roads, rubble/ broken ground,dense foliage/light wood, jungle/dense woods, water feature.Buidings.
So wheeled vehicles get a higher mobility movement for roads, and a harsher penalty for rubble than tracked vehicles for example.
I think we have to introduce flying units into the basic game with far more care than GW did.I would prefer to get the ground troops working right first so we have a solid base game to build on.
If you want s skirmish game with detailed model interaction.Why are you asking for unit summary stats as well?
2)Security.
How well a unit holds on to objectives are based on:-
Units confidence, (The amount of models and their level of protection.)
Command and control of the unit leader(s).(Basic morale grade and Command modifiers/range of influence.)
You did remind me I should have given leaders a ''command range'' in addition to a dice modifier.Ooops.
3)Presence. This is naturally the 'threat range' the unit imposes, based on its mobility and effective range of its weapons.I really do not see the need for a special rule to over ride this basic function.
4)Grit Again this is a summary of the''unit confidence'' and ''command and control'' function.
5)Morale Yes I agree that morale should apply to every one. And that negative situations should modify the roll.
Eg
Less than 75% of starting hit points-1.
Less than 50% of starting hit points -2.
Suppressed-1
Outnumbered -1
So the Fearless units that has Morale Grade 1.(Needs to roll a 1 to pass)
That has suffered over 50% casualties, and has been suppressed and outnumbered .Now only passes a morale test on a 5 or 6.
Command value.
(Leadership.) as posted above the range of effect is an important factor I missed off my original post.
Having a modifier to apply to a dice roll, gives the player more tactical choices.
EG,
Do I use it to make sure we hit?Or to Damage? or do we keep it back for our saves or morale test?
If you have changed you mind, and want to write rules for a massed battle game with ''unit summaries,'' then please let me know so I can post up some ideas.
If you play GW games for a while you get in the mind set of wanting to ''narrate'' the rules.And give every thing a special name.(To promote special rules for special models to drive sales. )
This is not really the job of the rules.The rules are supposed to present the player with clear and concise instructions on how the game is played.
The best way to do this is map the game play onto the closest real world counterpart.So the rules are intuitive.
I messed around with creating / adapting systems to do this a few times in the past (including even recently) but honestly that's just p*ssing into the wind.
It's the D6 or D3 damage, number of shots, etc... that should be fixed with flat values. I'd just keep the D3 and D6 for those weapons that used to rely on templates and blasts to determine the number of shots and hits.
When you say escape ''the D6 system,'' do you mean
A)Still use dice in a simple deterministic way .But use larger dice sizes to add a bit more variation?
B) Use a system of opposed values or rolls to give more proportional results without having to use lots of modifiers or larger dice sizes?
In this instance, A. Something like a d10 or d12, as it provides more die-space to make units better differentiated. Currently, a Veteran Guardsman shoots as well as a decades-at-war Space Marine, which feels weird to me.
I have nothing against d6 per se, it's just that it feels crowded. One of my alternate rule iterations in the past used the FAD system, every squad rolls 2d6 and weapons (quantities of smallarms, individual MGs, etc) just added to that roll, but I think that system was beyond most 40k player's desire to learn.
@Infantryman.
So you are not bothered about the lack of proportionality in the interaction then?And you are Ok with ''Hoard armies'' rolling bucket fulls of D12/D10?
I like how GW have simplified the game by a big amount, although I feel in some cases they've simplified it too much, and it does take away from the realism a fair bit and introduce one or two odd situations.
Example: I played a game a few weeks back where one of the guys had a Vindicator parked sideways in a ruin *just* big enough to accept it, if you imagine a single wall covering the front, left side and rear of the vehicle. Because he could see an enemy unit out of his back tread he can fire his Demolisher Cannon practically out of his arse.
Situations like this seem that in some areas they've simplified it too much.
Here's what I'd like to see them change. The changes probably aren't perfect, no game is, and I'm sure I'll be bombarded with replies saying how wrong they are.
1: Better covering of rules and some more common sense applied rather than copying and pasting units.
Example: A Leman Russ Executioner sports a huge turret-mounted Plasma Cannon, something inherently unstable. If it overheats, the tank has a rule preventing it from being slain.
Chaos Land Raiders can take a Combi-Plasma as a pintle-weapon. If the gunner burns his fingers, the whole Land Raider is destroyed, as it's obvious they've copied and pasted the standard Combi-Plasma without thinking "Wait, this is a Land Raider, it shouldn't be slain instantly by a pintle-weapon".
2: Make Morale slightly less damaging.
I didn't mind the old Morale mechanic, and even this one I've grown used to. Where I think it goes bad is when you take so many casualties you just remove the whole squad because you know Morale will remove the rest. Yes some armies can mitigate this, but some are seriously vulnerable. My main force is Skitarii at the moment, we have Canticles (which are randomised and thus not always available) and Data-Tethers (which cost points and remove other wargear options) to help with Morale, and they're pretty much useless.
Perhaps if they implemented something like "A roll of 1 on a Morale check is always a pass", even something that small would be beneficial. If I run a squad of 10 tin-boys, you kill 4, you've got a good chance of most of the others fleeing.
3: Less of the "Use a dozen of the same unit" mindset.
Last night at the FLGS a friend showed me a couple of nasty Tau lists he had seen online. They consisted of around 8 Commanders with quad-fusions, and a good number of Gun Drone squads. That's it. Same with Elysians and Scion list, where until recently when CA upped the points, it's Scions with quad-plasma across the board. Yet stories, fluff and artwork common depict a huge variety of units acting in sync with each other.
4: Character targeting
I didn't mind the changes they made to Characters in 8th; as GW said it's the end of the age of the [insert]Star. I feel they've missed the point on the new targeting rules.
Example: Last night we played Apocalypse. My Reaver, a 50-foot tall war machine with weapons able of levelling cities, was unable to target my opponent's Gulliman, as there was a squad of Scouts my opponent had infiltrated to prevent exactly that. In conjunction with the previous point, lists where they've taken a ton of Culexus Assassins, ensuring you can only ever target the first one.
I hoped Chapter Approved would improve this as rumoured, yet they've made it worse by adding the "even if closer enemy units aren't visible[ mechanic. You could have a Gulliman on his own right ahead, but if a single Marine is slightly closer behind you, apparently that's enough confusion amongst your guys to prevent Gulliman being hit.
These are the ones I can think of, based on my own experiences.
I like 8e overall. I'd keep the system and address the following.
-Small melee characters (IE chaplains, chaos lords, etc.) have an issue getting into melee alongside the squad(s) they're "leading." They have longer charge ranges because they don't want to be up front getting assassinated, and friendly models can also be in their way. When their friendly squad *does* charge, and the character doesn't, they find themselves left waaaay behind and unable to catch up should the squad continue to press on, especially if they just rolled over something easy. They should be able to pick a friendly squad they're in coherency with and "tag along" on a charge as if they are temporarily part of the unit.
-90% of the current mortal wounds need to be debuffed to auto-wounds at an AP value, most of them being AP 2 or 3. Having a bunch of "ignore defenses" attacks makes the guys who pay for defense either suck, or get repriced so low to be ok against them that when you don't have MW's to throw at them, they are overpowered as hell. Some things like titan explosions can absolutely use old mortal wounds.
-First turn needs a little fixing. First thing I'd do is make player 1's heavy weapons count as if they moved for the first shooting phase and see how that slight adjustment works out.
-Fall back needs to get shot with the nerf gun a little. I like the option of getting your dudes out of melee, but it's a bit too good as it stands. My favorite solution is letting the unit they're fleeing from immediately attack but without pile in adjustments. (So if you were just barely tagged in combat by a guy at the end of a unit, only him and maybe the dude next to him would get to throw punches when you run.)
A lot of the other problems are related to fall back, like the fact that most melee units are overcosted for what they do, the pistol rule is rarely relevant, blobs of dudes are too good because they can take a licking, fall back 1", and keep standing in your way another round etc etc. Just fall back getting fixed to where people ACTUALLY consider whether it's a good idea instead of immediately doing it all the time would fix a lot.
-Morale is wonky and between it and how you get CP, almost forces people to run MSU. I'd switch it to "any models lost, regardless of number, cause a 2d6 morale test in morale phase, on a fail, 1 model flees." And then give a few of the super cheap units some shaky morale rule where they lose d3 or d6 or something instead. That would affect an MSU and full squad of the same unit the same way, and stop making it just a bad idea to run bigger squads in many situations.
-Horde models are good because the weapons that should kill them don't do their job well. Weapons that are historically meant to blow away hordes like the whirlwind castellan launcher, flamers, and other such things need to get an extra push against cheap bodies. I'd go to each problematic horde-style unit's data sheet and add something like a vulnerability to blasts and area effects, to where they get hit more by random-number-of-attacks guns and also may take damage from being close to another unit being hit by such a gun.
Really in the grand scope of the game, I don't have that many problems with it. Just a few core mechanics that need a bit of tightening up.
IMO 8th edition has already jumped the shark, which is fine by me since I can avoid spending any more money on books and play other things until 9th. With that in mind, I will only comment on a full reset.
The quality standard for the 9th edition rule book needs to be at Bolt Action 2nd edition level. If they cannot start there then the gak-show will continue.
Lanrak wrote: @Infantryman.
So you are not bothered about the lack of proportionality in the interaction then?And you are Ok with ''Hoard armies'' rolling bucket fulls of D12/D10?
Why wouldn't I be? It's not different from bucket fulls of d6.
@Infantryman.
It is quite different actually.
D6 are used in games where fast roll and fast read are important.(Eg where you are rolling more than a half a dozen dice at a time.)
Most game that use D10 and D20 etc only roll a few dice at a time.(Eg skirmish games or rolling for the effect of the entire unit.)
@Tokhuah.
Welcome to the ''ex GW fan club'', who are still waiting for GW plc to treat rules writing as it is treated in actual games companies.
(EG its actually supposed to focus on game play not short term sales.)
@Marxist artist.
GW are good at simple rules that are not up to the job.!
I would rather ask ..
''Keep the rules clear and concise and cover the intended game play.''
''.. And make the BETA rules and army lists a free down load.And ONLY after extensive play testing , by the customers , and extensive feed back, and adjustments.
Then sell the finished rule book with complete faction books...''
(Eg how game companies develop rules for publication. )
@niv-mizzet .
I have said i like a game system overall.
With just a couple of wonky rules interactions sorted out I am fine with the game system.
You have pointed out the core game mechanics do not work in 40k , which means the rules are broken beyond minor tweeks.
(Remember the few minor tweeks that took a team of professional game developers 19 years to totaly mess up 40k game play last time?)
@Valkyrie.
I think you mean..
I dislike the way GW make the game play over simple, and counter intuitive , and the rules over complicated?
GW fail to explain basic rules well enough, so thay make them simpler, so they can explain them better.
And end up with rules that lead to counter intuitive game play , along with loads of poorly explained ''all or nothing special rules' .Which just adds complication at the expense of game play.
I agree with the list of examples where the rules do not deliver expected game play.
As other war games can cover much more complex interactions with far fewer rules.It is possible to write clear concise rules for 40k.
Lanrak wrote: @Infantryman.
It is quite different actually.
D6 are used in games where fast roll and fast read are important.(Eg where you are rolling more than a half a dozen dice at a time.)
Um.
Could you clarify how a d6 rolls and reads faster than a d10 or d12?
Lanrak wrote: @Infantryman.
It is quite different actually.
D6 are used in games where fast roll and fast read are important.(Eg where you are rolling more than a half a dozen dice at a time.)
Um.
Could you clarify how a d6 rolls and reads faster than a d10 or d12?
While not all that hard to read they are numbered so any that are not facing you will take a smidgen of time reading unless you are proficient at reading backwards, 6s and 9 confusion at times, rolling on the table directly where terrain or texture means more cocked dice.
lolman1c wrote: On my other thread talking about GW new beta approach I see a lot of people saying that the current devs are bad at their jobs and anybody would have made a better game. However, I've only very rarely ever seen someone actually laying out a tested and will thought out design document on how they would "fix" 40k. So I call a challenge! How would you fix all the current community problems with 40k?
Rules:
1. It can't just be you writing gibberish! You need to post a well constructed argument laying out the current flaws and how your changes "fix" them.
2. You may steal rules from other games.
3. You may outright scrap 40k rules and build your own from the ground up.
4. You can't attempt to fix one flaw. You have to list all the flaws you feel the games has and how they can be "fixed".
5. Your game doesn't have to be balanced just fun for everyone to play without anyone being stomped turn 1.
6. You can't delte factions or currently existing units.
7. If you have no ideas yourself then you are allowed to respond and reply to people's suggestions.
(More rules to be added if needed)
First problem:
Turn one matters too much.
Solution:
Some kind of penalty for going first, this should apply to both shooting and moving. My proposal is simple - no deep strikes on the first player's turn one. The player's units also counts as having spent half their movement already, which also means many of his weapons will fire at -1 BS.
The result would be, I hope, that some players would actually elect to go second in some cases.
Second problem:
I'm not too keen on templates having been replaced by D(x) shots. This makes former blast/flamer template weapons, that used to be good VS hordes but maybe mediocre VS tough single models, very good VS supposedly tough single models.
Solution:
Simply bring back templates. We don't need to bring back the scatter dice, a simple BS roll to either hit or miss works fine.
Third problem:
Make vehicles feel like vehicles again!
Solution:
Bring back armor values and different armor facings. If the armor is penetrated, then inflict damage. Keep the wounds - I agree that the damage tables were too random. To make things simpler in regards to deciding if you're rolling against side or front armor on non-rectangular vehicles, add an X to the blast templates, and center one over the vehicle you're shooting at.
I know many people didn't like that penetrating vehicles worked differently from wounding creatures, but that divide made it possible to make certain weapons great VS infantry and useless VS tanks, and other great VS tanks and inefficient VS infantry. And if we can deal with things like orders, strategems, tactical objectives etc., I'm sure this won't be too complex to fathom.
Ideally, an armor system should take AP values into account though. Let's say a Leman Russ will have a front AV of 16, and is targeted by a Lascannon. The Lascannon has S9 and AP-3, subtract the AP from the AV; 16-3=13. Then roll a D6, add it to the Lascannon's S and see if you roll equal or higher, like we used to do in the good old days. If you roll equal, it's a glancing hit and you inflict 1 wound, regardless of damage. If you roll higher, it's a penetrating hit and you inflict damage according to the weapon's profile.
Some weapons would roll 2D6 for penetration, and either pick the highest or add them together, or even pick the lowest if you will.
Fourth problem:
Cover. Adding to the armor save makes cover really good for models with already good armor saves, and almost useless for models with bad saves, as they'll still have their armor negated. The old system of a separate saving roll did the opposite, which was also a problem IMHO.
Solution:
-1 to hit models in cover.
Fifth problem:
Kill points negatively affecting armies with many cheap units.
Solution:
When you wipe a unit off the table, you earn kill points equaling that unit's points cost. Honestly I have no idea why we went away from this, it worked perfectly fine.
Obviously points from objectives should be adjusted accordingly.
That doesn't mean I hate the game as it is now, or that I want a return to 2nd ed. crazyness, but these are the fives things I most strongly want to change.
I've been trying to hack together a skirmish-scale 40k game based on my experiences with and observation of a bunch of games over the years; the rules aren't done yet, but some of my ramblings on the subject and some of the conclusions I've come to (2d6+stat v. target number for most rolls, alternating single-step activations, a 'hero resource') are linked to in my signature.
On Iolman's list of questions the aforementioned blog posts aren't gibberish but they haven't been edited and may be dense/difficult to comprehend (they make sense in my head, that frequently isn't sufficient), the system is a bizarre fusion of elements from Warmachine, Godslayer, Bolt Action, and a number of GW games, and I have enough brainstorming notes that I'm confident I can work everything in 40k (and some things that are in the lore and don't have models) that's appropriate in scale into my project eventually.
One thing I think 40k absolutely must do is abandon IGYG. In my opinion it's just a totally outdated way of doing things. And it creates inherent problems via alpha striking. Having a system of unit by unit activation would be so much better.
I'd have something like, 3 phases:
Tactical Phase: Player who's turn it is picks one unit to perform an action, then the other player picks one unit to perform an action and so on and so forth until everyone has performed an action.
Combat Phase: Player who's turn it is picks one unit within 3" of an enemy unit to pile in and attack, then the other player...you get the idea.
Morale Phase: Player who's turn it is takes a battle shock test for one unit, then the other player etc. etc.
Actions in the tactical phase would be things like:
1: Stand and fire (just shoot, usually with a bonus)
2: Move and fire (move then shoot, can end within 3" of enemy unit)
3: Advance (move with an extra D6", no shooting, can end within 3" of enemy unit)
4: Fire (just shoot)
5: Move (just move)
6: Retreat (move with an extra D6", no shooting, cannot end within 3" of enemy unit)
If there's an enemy unit within 3" of your unit when it's chosen to act, it can only perform actions 4, 5 and 6. Pinning type abilities like sniper rifles can limit the target to actions 4, 5 and 6 too.
Weapons would also fit three basic types: ranged (tactical phase only), melee (combat phase only) and assault (both!). The heavy ability would just be, under the weapons notes, "this weapon can only be used when performing a stand and fire action".
Wonder on a few simple things, like some basic fire arcs combine back to make facing of vehicles matter (especially fliers), perhaps a reduction in toughness for the rear 180 degree arc (or a reduction in save) by one pip
Maybe targets with ten or more wounds could be classified as large targets. They can singled out if they're characters, can't claim cover (?) and can only shoot in one direction each turn, which must be declared before doing so. This is a clumsy outline.
I agree with the scrapping of IGOUGO, but I also have some ideas about vehicles and heavy weapons.
First, graduated vehicle armor needs to come back. Best on the front, mediocre on the sides and crap on the back. Perhaps a way to expand the possible range of armor saves would be to include 1+/0+ saves, where you would need to have at least a -1/-2 AP to force the vehicle to take an armor save at all.
As means of compensation for this, some weapons will have a "Critical damage" rule. Their base damage would be D6, but on a 4-5, you add half the weapon's STR to the roll and on a 6 you add its entire STR to the roll. This way, it might be harder to punch through the front armor on some vehicles, but if you can get around the side, you might be able to kill certain vehicles in one shot. It brings back some of the cinematic drama that I think is missing from the game.
Finally, I think true line of sight for vehicle weapons needs to return. no more "Magic bullet" shots from a weapon that is facing away from the target.
Alternating Activations. For simplicity unit by unit. We goofed with this in WMH and it actually served to help curb the multi-solo problem since you had to weigh between moving a more solid multi-model unit or moving a critical support piece. It reduces player boredom and increases interaction. The tactical outlook of your opponent getting a move before you can get your 'bubble' in place is a great hold against some of those brick armies. Its a surprisingly easy rule to implement as well, with only a few model-specific rules needing tweaking.
Freestrikes: This will probably require some stat rebalancing, but allows units to exert a zone of control over a part of the map that can be contested and not just rushed past. With the risk of a free attack against someone leaving melee it actually can make a melee player sweat as the possible of a dice spike if they rush past those marines while the tau player finds they don't want to just fall back wily nilly.
Abstracted Line of Sight: Base Size will become a stat that predefines a set height. Terrain would be rounded to its closet 2 inches for large objects and barriers would be a predefined 1". This would really reduce some of the twiddly arguments that occur over LOS while speeding up play.
Formation Refactor: The 1" to the next model rule is clearly being abused as hell. I'd replace the morale stat with another defining how far apart the models can be from the unit leader. Cuts down on the rubber banding and makes figuring out if you are in formation much easier.
Max Strategem limit: Not in how many you can use but how many you can bring to a game. This way you can bring a couple for your list, a few for certain corner cases and have to really pick and choose if you are bringing multiple factions.
CP Bonus to more specific army faction keywords: So there's a whole lot of whining about soup lists from the more veteran players. Rather than punish the soup players for being fluffy, I'd have the more specific keywords tied to a positive CP bonus. If all of my formations are Chapter<BloodAngels> than I get a +2cp bonus. If the best I can do is <Imperium>, no bonus - but no punishment either.
Remove the Reinforcement Point System: It's a dumb rule that makes most related strategems and abilities not worth the points. Better to just reduce the power of those abilities and keep them balanced without the akwardness.
Remove the Morale system: I haven't seen a morale system that didn't make its user's terribly frustrated. Eitehr its a retreat mechanic that gets abused (it's 1 degree further away from enemy models soo..) or some really convoluted casualty mechanic that either punishes small units too much or large ones even worse. Instead, those units that are supposed to be morale-punishing would get a matching ability and weak 'conscript' style units would get a passive weakness that would activate after X number of casualties. It adds more to the datasheet, but solves a whole lot of headache for a mechanic only important for a handful of units.
Now for the big three:
Multi-mode for 'Named' Characters:
It's always weird to have a fluff character that has to be shoehorned into your list to get a specific ability. Instead I would make certain each 'named' character would have 2 datasheets - 1 for the actual named character (sly marbo) and another for a generic version (Catachan Commando) with a lower point cost, slightly diminished ability, but more options. So I could buy Sly Marbo, swap his ripper pistol for an inferno pistol (at the appropriate cost in points) and have my own customized model that I can name whatever the heck I want.
The Return of the Arc:
Large models and Vehicles need arcs. The classic Right,Left,Front,Back arc with weapons marked for which arcs they can shoot into. Anything with arcs would have a lower toughness for the rear arc (ie: 8/6). It encourages maneuver, especially of your bubblewrap since getting hit from the back becomes a lot scarier.
D10:
The more rules you add (natural as a game ages), the more problems you have with the limited range of bonuses from a d6. Every bonus adds or removes the chance of something happening by 16%. With a d8 you get more room, but given the sheer number of special rules in W40k we'd want to jump to D10. It would cause a riot for people with custom dice, but the change is needed to avoid the problem we see with the -1 bonus problem. This one requires a complete restatting, but would very much be worth it.
There would be some stat rebalancing, but I think it would strike a nice balance between fluff and clean gameplay.
GWS best system is the LOTR system. Real simple. You move, your opponent moves, you shoot, your opponent shoots, then you both fight. This simulates moving at the same time.
Or alternating unit. I move, shoot and charge 1 unit, then the opponent does.
SweetLou wrote: GWS best system is the LOTR system. Real simple. You move, your opponent moves, you shoot, your opponent shoots, then you both fight. This simulates moving at the same time.
Or alternating unit. I move, shoot and charge 1 unit, then the opponent does.
They also made heroes really interesting by allowing them to futz with order of activations somewhat (loosely: a hero can declare a "heroic action" that lets them and a small group of nearby units act out of sequence (if you've lost priority and you're shooting second you can call a "heroic shot" to interrupt that), and in the case of the fight phase lets them fight multiple combats a turn).
SweetLou wrote: GWS best system is the LOTR system. Real simple. You move, your opponent moves, you shoot, your opponent shoots, then you both fight. This simulates moving at the same time.
Or alternating unit. I move, shoot and charge 1 unit, then the opponent does.
Yeah except thats happening in a game where shooting isn't done by the vast majority of the units in the game and not at ranges that can span the entire table.
In 40k when your khorne bezerkers move forward or your whatevers deepstrike in, i just take my tau and step back to 12" away. Giving you the worst possible chance to succeed on a charge while letting me shoot the gak out of your melee units.
Alternating phases doesn't work in a game based around shooting that also has melee. longer ranged armies dominate shorter range and melee drastically.
SweetLou wrote: GWS best system is the LOTR system. Real simple. You move, your opponent moves, you shoot, your opponent shoots, then you both fight. This simulates moving at the same time.
Or alternating unit. I move, shoot and charge 1 unit, then the opponent does.
Yeah except thats happening in a game where shooting isn't done by the vast majority of the units in the game and not at ranges that can span the entire table.
In 40k when your khorne bezerkers move forward or your whatevers deepstrike in, i just take my tau and step back to 12" away. Giving you the worst possible chance to succeed on a charge while letting me shoot the gak out of your melee units.
Alternating phases doesn't work in a game based around shooting that also has melee. longer ranged armies dominate shorter range and melee drastically.
...Or you could...futz the distances...stop treating Deep Striking directly into combat like a core mechanic...change the balance between guns and melee so a walking melee unit isn't a suicidal joke...
Any large-scale rewrite of the turn order is going to be s*** if you dump it into the game without changing anything else. We know that. You'd have to rewrite a lot of other stuff to support it. No proposal on this page is a complete, balanced, and ready-to-implement change, and many would require a lot of other changes to support them if they were to be usable. The answer to "yeah, but this change is unplayable if you don't change anything else" is "I guess I need to change other things", not "oh, then I won't make it".
Minimal impact changes aren't better. They're easier to write and implement, yes, but 7th edition was the product of a bunch of people taking a system that kind of worked and spending fifteen years on minimal impact changes until they decided that they'd f***ed the game up so much there was nothing to lose by throwing out the incrementals and trying to actually solve the problem.
SweetLou wrote: GWS best system is the LOTR system. Real simple. You move, your opponent moves, you shoot, your opponent shoots, then you both fight. This simulates moving at the same time.
Or alternating unit. I move, shoot and charge 1 unit, then the opponent does.
Yeah except thats happening in a game where shooting isn't done by the vast majority of the units in the game and not at ranges that can span the entire table.
In 40k when your khorne bezerkers move forward or your whatevers deepstrike in, i just take my tau and step back to 12" away. Giving you the worst possible chance to succeed on a charge while letting me shoot the gak out of your melee units.
Alternating phases doesn't work in a game based around shooting that also has melee. longer ranged armies dominate shorter range and melee drastically.
...Or you could...futz the distances...stop treating Deep Striking directly into combat like a core mechanic...change the balance between guns and melee so a walking melee unit isn't a suicidal joke...
Any large-scale rewrite of the turn order is going to be s*** if you dump it into the game without changing anything else. We know that. You'd have to rewrite a lot of other stuff to support it. No proposal on this page is a complete, balanced, and ready-to-implement change, and many would require a lot of other changes to support them if they were to be usable. The answer to "yeah, but this change is unplayable if you don't change anything else" is "I guess I need to change other things", not "oh, then I won't make it".
Minimal impact changes aren't better. They're easier to write and implement, yes, but 7th edition was the product of a bunch of people taking a system that kind of worked and spending fifteen years on minimal impact changes until they decided that they'd f***ed the game up so much there was nothing to lose by throwing out the incrementals and trying to actually solve the problem.
Yeah. I get that. But what i am saying is that the amount of changes needed to make the game function on a alternating phases level would require changes to movement, weapons, melee, everything. You would be scraping and rebuilding so much that the game would be entirely unrecognizable. You might as well build a new game from scratch.
Meanwhile its not true that you need vast swathes of changes to redo the turn structure. Alternating unit activation MOSTLY just works with 8th ed 40k. There are a couple small adjustments that smooth out the wrinkles in the peripherals. But the game can stay mostly unchanged.
I'd like to see a little more guidance and rules tweaks based on game size. Like talking about the sort of things you might field at lower points games and how if you field some things, the game becomes about those things. So some scenarios about what to do when someone takes heavy armour in a 500 point (25PL) game. Maybe about how to transition to larger and larger games.
And things like how objective secure type rules might not belong in smaller games. Scenarios can get really skewed when you don't have enough points to consistently 3+ troops like battalion formations have. Or feel that the game is limited because if you took a different formation you can't really go after objectives except if you're the only player with models near them.
Chamberlain wrote: I'd like to see a little more guidance and rules tweaks based on game size. Like talking about the sort of things you might field at lower points games and how if you field some things, the game becomes about those things. So some scenarios about what to do when someone takes heavy armour in a 500 point (25PL) game. Maybe about how to transition to larger and larger games.
And things like how objective secure type rules might not belong in smaller games. Scenarios can get really skewed when you don't have enough points to consistently 3+ troops like battalion formations have. Or feel that the game is limited because if you took a different formation you can't really go after objectives except if you're the only player with models near them.
Right now, Battalion are way too strong in terms of CP's granted (and Brigade detachments being less so), especially since only very few armies can actually take them without necessarily paying troops tax - that is to say, only very few armies have troops that are worth taking/synergizes with rest of the army.
Either tone down the CP's granted or elevate the CP's granted from 1 to 2 in detachments such as Vanguard, Spearhead, or Outrider. Supreme Command & Air wing should stay at 1 CP, while decreasing Super-Heavy to 2 CP from 3 CP.
I agree about the batallion detachment. It's just such a good amount of command points for the relatively small number of units you need to take. And with "objective secured" type rules and not all armies having the same distribution of battlefield roles among their datasheets, it can create some strange results when it comes to list building.
There was a larger Narrative event a short while ago. Even there the space marine players just couldn't resist adding a battalion detachment of Imperial Guard. Not even a tournament and that mind set bled deeply into army construction.
Lance845 wrote: In 40k when your khorne bezerkers move forward or your whatevers deepstrike in, i just take my tau and step back to 12" away. Giving you the worst possible chance to succeed on a charge while letting me shoot the gak out of your melee units.
You're assuming a deep strike arrives to only threaten a single unit, which doesn't need to be the case; if a unit arrives in charge range of two or more potential targets, then you could run with one but they'll just charge another instead. Plus, if you add alternating activations, the obvious addition to support it is a stratagem to enable jumping the turn order at the cost of a command point; doing so can either force your opponent to spend command points as well, or let you charge right away.
While there are certainly some issues, it wouldn't require a full rewrite, most issues can be resolved at the core rules level, with only tweaks to some specific abilities that don't quite work with interleaved turns. I had a go at a very minimal interleaved turns setup linked in my signature; could do with more refinements, but is very simple overall.
Besides, any issues tend to pale in comparison to the fundamental flaws of the I-go-you-go system we have now in the first place.
Lance845 wrote: In 40k when your khorne bezerkers move forward or your whatevers deepstrike in, i just take my tau and step back to 12" away. Giving you the worst possible chance to succeed on a charge while letting me shoot the gak out of your melee units.
You're assuming a deep strike arrives to only threaten a single unit, which doesn't need to be the case; if a unit arrives in charge range of two or more potential targets, then you could run with one but they'll just charge another instead. Plus, if you add alternating activations, the obvious addition to support it is a stratagem to enable jumping the turn order at the cost of a command point; doing so can either force your opponent to spend command points as well, or let you charge right away.
Its alternating phases. I dont need to back up with one unit only. I can back up with ALL units. Also, i get an entire shooting phase before you charge. You have to reveal your hand to me without actually doing anything. I can turn my entire army toward shooting your melee units who are obviously trying to charge me so they either no longer exist or are so damaged that it doesnt matter.
While there are certainly some issues, it wouldn't require a full rewrite, most issues can be resolved at the core rules level, with only tweaks to some specific abilities that don't quite work with interleaved turns. I had a go at a very minimal interleaved turns setup linked in my signature; could do with more refinements, but is very simple overall.
Besides, any issues tend to pale in comparison to the fundamental flaws of the I-go-you-go system we have now in the first place.
Disagree. Alternating phases has all the same problems as igougo coupled with vastly favoring shooting and range. Alternating phases is actually worse than igougo.
Its alternating phases. I dont need to back up with one unit only. I can back up with ALL units. Also, i get an entire shooting phase before you charge. You have to reveal your hand to me without actually doing anything. I can turn my entire army toward shooting your melee units who are obviously trying to charge me so they either no longer exist or are so damaged that it doesnt matter.
You can already do that with IGOUGO. In fact that is the problem.
Its alternating phases. I dont need to back up with one unit only. I can back up with ALL units. Also, i get an entire shooting phase before you charge. You have to reveal your hand to me without actually doing anything. I can turn my entire army toward shooting your melee units who are obviously trying to charge me so they either no longer exist or are so damaged that it doesnt matter.
You can already do that with IGOUGO. In fact that is the problem.
At least in igougo (which i hate btw) those deepstrikers and melee units will not have moved into position yet revealing their intentions. In igougo they get to act without interuption. Moving and then assaulting. In alternating phases the enemy can see your entire plan. Did you get close to assault? Guess what, you also just got closer to every gun he has. How is that better than igougo?
Lance845 wrote: Its alternating phases. I dont need to back up with one unit only. I can back up with ALL units. Also, i get an entire shooting phase before you charge. You have to reveal your hand to me without actually doing anything. I can turn my entire army toward shooting your melee units who are obviously trying to charge me so they either no longer exist or are so damaged that it doesnt matter.
You seem to be discussing only alternating phases, but the post you were replying to also covers alternating unit activations which is what I'm referring to, sorry for the confusion there.
Disagree. Alternating phases has all the same problems as igougo coupled with vastly favoring shooting and range. Alternating phases is actually worse than igougo.
I disagree with your disagreement; all the problems you suggest that alternating phases would have already exist in igougo, but even worse because you suffer everything during your opponent's turn with no means of mitigating any of it at all.
Personally I favour alternating unit actions, e.g- each unit can take two actions per turn from Move (with optional Advance), Shoot, Fight, or Charge + Fight, and can't do the same action twice (except fight), but players can only take one action at a time. This solves most problems, and has much more tactical flexibility without being hard to bolt onto 8th. In this case falling back with a shooting unit means you're not doing something else, so every decision is crucial.
Given my preference for smaller games, I think the best alternating activation approach would be to take the rules from the recent Necromunda: Underhive game with it's basic, simple and double actions and make the group activation rules the norm rather than something you do as something extra or special.
Alternating phases doesn't work in a game based around ''unrestricted'' shooting that also has melee. longer ranged armies dominate shorter range and melee drastically.
There fixed that for you!
If 'to hit' in shooting is not modified for things like distance to target, size of target, cover etc.And shooting is directly competing with assault for the single role of just physical damage.It causes issues with the game play no matter what game turn mechanic you use.
Main issues with 40k.
1 .Lack of player interaction in the game turn.
2.Lack of balance between shooting and assault , tactically and mechanically.
3.Complete miss management of morale effects.
The ''intended game play'' could be arrived at with much more straight forward rules that deliver a far more tactically diverse game.IF you define and focus on the ''intended game play'' that is...
40K has a lot of problems: Game length, lack of tactical elements, poor balance, unfocused game scale, poor player engagement, imprecise rule wording, this list could go on and on, which is really shocking as 40K is over 30 years old and on its 8th iteration.
Alternating Activations need to be introduced, as IGOUGO is atrocious and alternating phases doesn't solve the issue that one side gets to make all of its attacks before the opponent can respond. Shooting needs to be completely overhauled, with to-hit modifiers such as range, target speed, visibility, and size, but most importantly a proper suppression system need to be implemented. Morale needs to become a greater part of the game, as I would much rather see a "morale phase" than the current psychic phase. Army building needs to be more structured and limited, as the current rules do not encourage a thematic army and do not discourage min-maxing, while unit cards would be much easier reference material. On a minor note, I would like to see psychic powers ranked, with higher tier psychic powers being available only after the psyker has taken a sufficient number of powers from the same discipline. However, these are points that have been brought up before.
What I want to propose is a dramatic change to how we define a unit. Units are no longer made up of individual models, but instead are made up of "fireteams" of 3-6 models on a single movement tray. These "fireteams" will be treated like monstrous creatures under the current rules, with a wound pool and reduced performance once they take enough wounds.
Lets go point-by-point to see how this would improve the game:
Lack of Tactical Elements: Every fireteam will have front, side, and rear edges, allowing for the fireteam to be treated as having a facing. This means that fireteams, and thus their units, can be flanked intuitively, without a rule abstraction, such as granting a bonus to units who attack the fireteam's sides or rears. Giving all units a facing also allows for stealth units to be more thoroughly fleshed out, with effects like getting a more powerful flanking bonus, call it surprise attack, for attacking the rear of a fireteam. They could even reduce the effective firing arcs of units hoping to target them.
Unfocused Game Scale: The fact that the rules differentiate power swords from power axes and power spears is ridiculous in a game where titan formations are in play. Its time we stop pretending every individual model on the table is special and important. Attacks and damage are resolved at the fireteam level, not the model, and adding special weapons to the unit do not reduce the base attacks of the unit. Individual models do not have to be completely abolished, especially characters and particularly powerful infantry, but they should not be the norm.
Poor Balance: As attacks are not limited to integers on a model basis, the power of any given unit can be more easily controlled. Under the current rules, a 10 guardsmen squad could have 10 attacks, or 20 attacks, or 30 attacks, etc. With that 10 Guardsman squad being made of 2 fireteams, they could have 8 attacks, or 14 attacks, or 26 attacks. While this does not directly solve balance issues, it is an additional tool for balancing units.
Game Length: I've typically found a great deal of time in my games was spent just moving models around. While this has certainly gotten better with the removal of weapon templates, as people don't need to precisely measure the distance from each and every model to make sure they will take the least damage possible from a blast, a great deal of time is spent moving models, particularly if you play horde armies. With fireteams, I would only have to move 5 elements of 6 Gaunts instead of 30 individual models. Additionally, fireteams give us the option to give a units less attacks/wounds than 1 per model, meaning there would be fewer dice rolls to resolve, speeding up the game.
There are a number of issues with this idea I have yet to resolve, notably how Fireteams interact with multi-level buildings where the upper levels are typically only 1 model wide. Having players keep track of a fireteams wounds will increase book-keeping, but a single dice next to an element should suffice, and they will take large numbers of wounds frequently, meaning youre often removing elements wholesale rather than keeping track of them indivudally all game.
I would ditch the detachment system, and instead make a system like whfb with a max point percentage restriction on hqs, elites, heavy support etc, and a minimum point percentage requirement for troops. That would be more restrictive, forcing people into making more balanced lists while also being more fluffy.
Maybe a new detachment system could be created overlaying this, simply for the purpose of command points, which i like.
Northern85Star wrote: I would ditch the detachment system, and instead make a system like whfb with a max point percentage restriction on hqs, elites, heavy support etc, and a minimum point percentage requirement for troops. That would be more restrictive, forcing people into making more balanced lists while also being more fluffy.
Maybe a new detachment system could be created overlaying this, simply for the purpose of command points, which i like.
More fluffy? So Deathwing and Ravenwing can go feth off?
Infantryman wrote: "Squad basing" should only be a thing when you get below 15mm, if that. 40k is the absolute worst place for it.
This.
Facing is fine for smaller scale big battles or really pedantic skrim games
40k is some where in between that. ultimately the first step to "fix" 40k is to figure out what you want out of it.
giant battle, patrol, skirmish, platoon, battalion. what scale does it need to be?
100% the thing that would help on any of these scales would be alt activation. beyond that the little stuff like facing and types of dice depend on the scale you want to represent.
Desubot wrote: ultimately the first step to "fix" 40k is to figure out what you want out of it.
what scale does it need to be?
100% the thing that would help on any of these scales would be alt activation.
Indeed. Having a goal, an objective, makes it a lot easier to understand what "fixed" means.
Or better, how long should it take to play a game? I say 60-90 minutes from unpacking to packing. That right there suggests we're looking at roughly a half-dozen "units", be the Knights, Characters, Vehicles or Squads.
40k is an Igo-Ugo game; alt activation makes it not 40k.
Character targeting has always irked me a bit, even more so when they changed it in CA, preventing you from targeting one if there's a hidden enemy unit behind. With this in mind I thought of the basis of a new targeting rule that may be an improvement.
A Character may not be targeted in the Shooting Phase unless one of the following criteria are met:
- The Character has a wounds characteristic of more than 10.
- The Character is the closest enemy unit.
- There are no enemy units within 6" of the Character..
This I feel would avoid situations whereby there's a Character in front of you, but an enemy squad slightly closer but behind you prevents you targeting the lone dude.
Also, I had a thought about how to fix cps and detachments. A simple hybrid of the current set up and the AoS system. You play at either platoon, company or battalion level, which grants both sides either 6, 9 or 12 command points. Or 3, 6 or 9. Something along those lines any way.
This would require a rethink of the foc. Using real life terminology as a basis, I’d have it as something like this:
Headquarters
Infantry
Armoured
Artillery
Air
Support
The first is your leaders, obviously. Proper HQ choices. The second is all fighting squads of infantry, taken from both troops and elites. The third is heavy support vehicles and monsters. The forth is, well, artillery. The fifth is fliers. And the last is a mixture of secondary characters and specialised units. Let’s use the imperial guard as an example:
Officers, Tank Commanders and Commisars would be Headquarter units.
Infantry squads, scion squads, veteran squads, and ogyrn squads (both kinds) would be infantry.
Leman Russ tanks (and possibly hellhounds) would be armoured.
Heavy weapon squads, basilisks, wyerns, hydras, manticores and the death strike are all artillery.
Valkyries are air, of course.
Support would be pyskers, tech priests, navy officers, sentinels, artillery officers, railings, ground based transports, priests...all those sorts of units.
A platoon level game would be a minimum of 3 infantry units (no maximum), up to 1 armoured unit, up to 1 artillery unit, up to 1 air unit, any number of support units and at least 1 headquarters unit to lead it all. That’s just an example though.
Allies would be changed to 40% of your points total, and they must fit into your foc. So in a 1000pt game, an imperial army could be a space marine faction of 600pts, backed up by 400pts of IG. And with an inquisitor as general.
Desubot wrote: ultimately the first step to "fix" 40k is to figure out what you want out of it.
what scale does it need to be?
100% the thing that would help on any of these scales would be alt activation.
Indeed. Having a goal, an objective, makes it a lot easier to understand what "fixed" means.
Or better, how long should it take to play a game? I say 60-90 minutes from unpacking to packing. That right there suggests we're looking at roughly a half-dozen "units", be the Knights, Characters, Vehicles or Squads.
40k is an Igo-Ugo game; alt activation makes it not 40k.
IGOUGO and 40k do not necessarily have to be mutually inclusive. After all, Epic was Alternating Activation, and there have been bits and pieces of Alt Activation throughout. Assault is currently Alternating Activation, while the Psychic Phase in 2nd edition was also Alternating Activation.
What matters more besides whether the game is AA or not is the fact there is very minimal "interaction" between players as a whole. When it's not your turn, unless you have access to the odd Stratagem or bespoke ability that lets you act out-of-sequence, you get to sit and put your thumb up your posterior while your opponent takes forever to do everything.
WHFB was IGOUGO and yet even the simple act of having Charge Reactions (Flee versus Stand and Shoot) or choices of how to counter Magic (Dispel Dice versus Scrolls) helped kill downtime for one player. Arguably the fact the game used movement trays instead of having to fiddle around with perfect squad coherency helped the game go faster (and the fact that AOS eliminated templates despite WHFB not being a "coherency" game is something I view as support for my hypothesis that templates were axed, not because they slowed the game down, but because they weren't something GW could sell effectively).
Desubot wrote: 100% the thing that would help on any of these scales would be alt activation.
40k is an Igo-Ugo game; alt activation makes it not 40k.
IGOUGO and 40k do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. After all, Epic was Alternating Activation,.
Epic 40k is not "40k" - it is "Epic".
28mm 40k is both necessarily and definitionally an Igo-Ugo game. For a game to be "Warhammer 40k", it must be both Igo-Ugo turns (move, shoot, fight) *and* mass roll d6 resolution. To change either of those fundamental, core characteristics makes the game something other than "Warhammer 40k".
If you want alternating activation as the core mechanic, or d10/d20 resolution, you've lost the plot and are no longer playing "Warhammer 40k". It's the same with the cock-eyed "chess" variants that play on a hexagon or somesuch - they're no longer "Chess". Now those variants can potentially be better, but they are different games.
Also, within the 40k context, rolling saves and Ld *is* interactive.
I don't think essentialism will really work here. "For a game to be 40k it must have" can apply to any mechanic until it doesn't. All it takes is an edition change and suddenly the essential is not essential. People would have claimed comparing WS in close combat was essential to 40k up until 8th edition dropped.
Whether or not its quintessentially not 40k to have alt activation i will say i have been greatly enjoying necromunda and its ability to chain activate as well.
whether it would work for 40k i dunno but the idea of independent characters being more important than just for auras would be cool.
JohnHwangDD wrote: 40k has been a Igo-Ugo mass d6 for how many editions now? Sorry, no.
If thats your argument then the best way to fix 40k is to kill it and make a new game that doesn't have it's problems.
No, if you don't like Igo-Ugo mass roll games, play something else.
I don't have a problem with rolling a bunch of dice. I have a problem with massive down time, little to no counter play, alpha, beta strikes, a lack of tactics in a war game.
All of those issues are a direct result of 40ksIgougo turn structure. It's not needed. It doesn't add anything. It takes a lot away.
JohnHwangDD wrote:40k has been a Igo-Ugo mass d6 for how many editions now? Sorry, no.
40k has had WS comparison for close combat hit rolls for how many editions now? Sorry, no.
40k has had combat order be based on initiative for how many editions now? Sorry, no.
40k has had AP be all or nothing for how many editions now? Sorry, no.
No, if you don't like Igo-Ugo mass roll games, play something else.
No, if you don't like WS comparison for close combat hit rolls, play something else.
No, if you don't like initiative based combat order, play something else.
No, if you don't like all or nothing AP, play something else.
This essentialist argument is just so artificial. An edition can come along that turns decades of doing it one way on its head. Just because something happens to span multiple editions doesn't mean it's some sacred part of what makes 40k actually be 40k. Any of them can be reversed with the next edition change.
It's just an appeal to tradition fallacy.
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Desubot wrote: Whether or not its quintessentially not 40k to have alt activation i will say i have been greatly enjoying necromunda and its ability to chain activate as well.
whether it would work for 40k i dunno but the idea of independent characters being more important than just for auras would be cool.
It works really well in Necromunda, doesn't it? And the game also still totally evokes the 40k universe. I think the new Necromunda would be a great starting point if one wanted to make a more interactive 40k. It's very similar to the rules that 40k grew out of in the first place, so that's no surprise really.
Look, if you want to make a totally different game, that's fine. Just don't pretend it's "Warhammer 40k".
And for the record, Igo-Ugo is the absolute best way to allow combination attacks and fast turn processing with the least amount of overhead.
The real problem with 40k is the players, and the bloat that the players have added, 1000 pts of 40k 3E is fast and smooth, and the downtime is minimal because the armies are *tiny* compared to what people play today.
But make no mistake, changing to AA at current game sizes will only slow the game even further. It would be an even worse experience.
Easy: bring back 3rd Edition and balance the codices. Done and done. Give better illustrations of how consolidation works, so people stop claiming they can consolidate 2D6" Add the newer units in, and create an Apocalypse variant to cover super heavies and fliers.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Look, if you want to make a totally different game, that's fine. Just don't pretend it's "Warhammer 40k".
And for the record, Igo-Ugo is the absolute best way to allow combination attacks and fast turn processing with the least amount of overhead.
The real problem with 40k is the players, and the bloat that the players have added, 1000 pts of 40k 3E is fast and smooth, and the downtime is minimal because the armies are *tiny* compared to what people play today.
But make no mistake, changing to AA at current game sizes will only slow the game even further. It would be an even worse experience.
Calling Bull gak. Not only does it not take any more time, even if it DID it would be a much more enjoyable experience. BECAUSE it's interactive and the individual downtime is reduced drastically. The idea that the game would somehow become worse because you had more to do with more agency over how a turn played out is just a crazy thought process to me.
This whole "if it's no longer IGOUGO then it's no longer *real* 40k" is also smelling a lot like the Real Scotsman fallacy. AA is one option, making Overwatch an active decision is another option, and just cutting down on the weight of dice yet another one.
I sort of get where JohnHwangDD is coming from.However I dont think any particular resolution method or game mechanic defines 40k.
As there are lots of straight forward options that stick to the ''taking turns and rolling lots of D6 '' more closely than just using a new rule set as a base for 40k , like Bolt Action or Epic etc.
But few are willing to discuss the real issues with the current 40k game play in depth, to actually fix the core problems.
Many just take the path of least resistance and port in ideas from other game that work fine within the context of their original game.(As many have specific game play in mind during the game development , unlike 40k.)
I have used 40k minis with other rule set when I want a ''40k war game '' so I know how easy to is to do, compared to developing the rules for 40k to cover the ]''intended/.expected game play'' from the ground up.
Does everyone agree that 40ks core game play issues are;-
1)Lack of player interaction,
2)Imballance between shooting and assault,
3)Poorly implemented moral system(s).
Are there any other core problems with game mechanics and resolution methods I have missed off?
4) A general lack of "position" and combat feeling floaty. From the changes to AOEs making it so that shooting a unit spread-apart is functionally the same as if they're lock-and-step, to infantry being able to stop tanks in their tracks, to the defender choosing all casualties removed regardless of attack direction, to routing being replaced with "withdraw from melee in a direction of your choice" to cover becoming hilariously irrelevant, the game itself makes it feel like flanking/outmaneuvering in its own right is pointless, and the game is more about making a ballet-tap into your own range-band while minimizing the enemy's band in turn.
5) Rule-writing that makes the "intent" of the game fairly unclear, due to usage of plain English, mixing fluff and crunch into the same sentence, etc. Whether it's the creation of "unique" special rules, or creating "universal rules" with cool-sounding names that don't actually describe what they do. (Ex: "Furious Charge versus Rage" when you could have Charge Bonus[+1 Strength] or Charge Bonus[+1 Attack]). Furthermore, improper usage of logical operands (The rules for Blood Lance use the words "for-each" twice despite it being only one loop, Vostroyans can fire "any" weapon into close combat, with "any" ambiguously definable as "all") combined with FAQs that directly contradict themselves mean that winning 40k can sometimes be less about outplaying your opponent and being able to out-interpret the rules like a grimderp Perry Mason or Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
6) Many armies are incoherent, historically a collection of a few units which may be awesome in isolation but do not come together as a well-rounded whole. A classic example of this was 4th ed Codex: Daemons, where the majority of units were all a subtle shade of "kill infantry in melee," and 5th became defined by mass light mech. Furthermore, late 6th and early 7th edition started a trend of releasing mini-armies that are "not meant to be standalone," with the low point being Codex: Legion of the Damned, an army that was literally unplayable by itself in 2nd edition, since it required everything to start off-table, and a player with no units on the table automatically conceded. Oops.
7) A lot of options (especially from the newer kits) are a case of "Not Your Dudes." Stuff like a Deathwatch Captain having access to a Relic Blade unless wearing Terminator Armor, due to it being "exactly what's on the sprue." Stuff like a Tau Fireblade having no loadout options whatsoever, a Morkanaut only having access to a Kustom Mega-Kannon or a Battlewagon only having access to a Lobba/Kannon/Zzap, due to those being "exactly what the models have." Ironically, this also creates its own share of bloat, as you have to keep track of all these little exceptions and minutiae like "Oh, only a Scourge Solarite can take a Power Lance. Which model was allowed to take a Venom Blade again?" And this in itself isn't even a matter of "balance" (since many of said options were inferior to just taking a Haywire renade) so much as GW not wanting people to kitbashers or use 3rd-party products.
MagicJuggler wrote: This whole "if it's no longer IGOUGO then it's no longer *real* 40k" is also smelling a lot like the Real Scotsman fallacy. AA is one option, making Overwatch an active decision is another option, and just cutting down on the weight of dice yet another one.
There is a vast difference between changing the fundamental dynamic of the game and changing pieces around the edges. Replacing the overall Igo-Ugo turn structure with AA is a fundamental change, whereas restoring overwatch / reactions is not. Reducing the the weight of dice (i.e. hit-wound-save) is a similar fundamental change, where removing fething random terrain, random charge distances, and/or effectively unused Leadership/Morale mechanics are not.
IRL, it's the difference between getting a haircut, and amputating a leg. I find it surprising that distinction is not obvious to most people, particularly those who want to play Infinity or somesuch with 40k models, and call it "fixing" 40k.
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Lanrak wrote: I sort of get where JohnHwangDD is coming from.However I dont think any particular resolution method or game mechanic defines 40k.
Does everyone agree that 40ks core game play issues are;-
1)Lack of player interaction,
2)Imballance between shooting and assault,
3)Poorly implemented moral system(s).
Are there any other core problems with game mechanics and resolution methods I have missed off?
0) Armies 3x to 5x too large!
That right there is the core problem with 40k today, and that directly drives issue 1). Army size was fine at the start of 3E (1500 3E pts), but has since bloated up to 2,000 pts exacerbated by reduced model points costs. The more stuff each player moves, the longer their individual turn takes. The more guns you bring to the tabletop, the more you can combine them on single targets, whereas it's much harder to have the same ratio of assault forces focus on a single target. And the higher combined lethality exacerbates the morale issues.
Dial 40k back to 500-1,000 pts with a FOC, and most of these issues go away. Armies have space to maneuver on the tabletop, and mobility matters. Cheesy combos are harder to get, due to points and core requirements, and they're more fragile, due to lack of redundancy.
Address the elephant in the room, and the "core game issues" aren't issues at all.
1) Use digital tools to make army lists that function as references for play. The game would play substantially faster if double checking a stat didn't require finding it in a book.
2) I'd probably break up the turn structure slightly by combining a turn into two phases. One in which a model that activates does its movement, advancing, shooting, and psychic powers, and a second in which a model assaults and then makes its attacks. I suppose a third would be needed to resolve melee combats after the assaults, but that's fine. The amount of time between a model moving and any penalties associated with that movement are pretty extreme.
Take a lead out of the lord of the rings game. Things happen differently. One player moves and charges, then the other. Then one player shoots, then the other. Then all combat is resolved.
That right there is the core problem with 40k today, and that directly drives issue 1). Army size was fine at the start of 3E (1500 3E pts), but has since bloated up to 2,000 pts exacerbated by reduced model points costs.
This for sure. Even at the top tables of the LVO there were games where a person didn't finish deploying and doing their first turn before a full hour went by.
The more stuff each player moves, the longer their individual turn takes. The more guns you bring to the tabletop, the more you can combine them on single targets, whereas it's much harder to have the same ratio of assault forces focus on a single target. And the higher combined lethality exacerbates the morale issues.
This also drives up the amount of terrain needed for a typical game to balance out the shooting issues.
Dial 40k back to 500-1,000 pts with a FOC, and most of these issues go away. Armies have space to maneuver on the tabletop, and mobility matters. Cheesy combos are harder to get, due to points and core requirements, and they're more fragile, due to lack of redundancy.
Address the elephant in the room, and the "core game issues" aren't issues at all.
This is what I've been doing with 8th. It seems to work well as long as you talk about what you are taking in your army. A super heavy or a knight at 750 can really skew the game. Just like how people generally don't recommend taking Behemoths in Age of Sigmar in 1000 point games as it can really mess things up. We even have players disclose anything they are planning on taking that is T7 or W7 or higher. It hasn't really changed much to the game prep except for a quick "any big stuff?" "yeah, a predator" and the other person goes, "okay, I'll play my list with the Onager" and that's that.
Smaller games also really fix the wait times. With less models moved you get to the overwatch part of charges and the fight phase sooner and then the other player (assuming their stuff survives) can make some attacks.
@JohnHwangDD.
I totally agree that 5th to 7th edition 40k was just about upping the model count , to sell more stuff with little consideration for actual game play.
But the core issues I highlighted were just magnified by the overpopulation on the 40k game table.
And they do not go away with smaller game sizes, without players compensating for them with lots of LOS blocking terrain and/or lots of additional special rules.(The rules bloat from 4th to 7th was an indicator of this.)
Lots of 40k players agree with you that 'rolling lots of D6' and 'taking turns with armies' , is sort of what they expect in 40k.
So I would prefer to look at tweeking the core mechanics to reflect the expected game play.
Rather than perpetuate a WHFB clone that was kept to help player transition from WHFB to 40k...
The alternating game turn only works well if the players have to maneuver into effective weapons range.
With the large amount of 'unrestricted ranged weapons' in 40k.(EG can hit anything in weapons range with the same chance of success!)
It sort of scupper this , and leads to 'Alpha Strike' issues.
So why not look at straight forward ways to make shooting tactically useful, while not competing directly with close combat for the same limited role.
If we included a simple suppression mechanic, it could add an intuitive level for morale to function in ,and a new tactical option for range attacks.
If we kept the phases , move shoot , assault.But allowed both players to act, and removed casualties at the end of the phase.
This could model simultaneous activation in a simple way.
Maybe include this as an option players could adopt for more tactical depth if they want?
I want to look at ways to tweek the core mechanic and resolution methods to fix 40k.
Rather than port over a different rule set, or add layers of special rules to try to reverse engineer core faults.
1 - Stop trying to 'fix' something based of the assumption that things are broken in the first place. There have been multiple opinions all around, not just here, that things that core elements of the game are broken and therefore need to be fixed. The IGOUGO has been mentioned, Maelstrom missions are still a topic of discussion. I'm not necessarily stating that anyone here is wrong, but if we treated something as broken and it hasn't changed, then why aren't we treating our view of the mechanic as broken instead.
2 - Remove the ITC (and others like it). Based off of point #1, they've been making adjustments in an attempt to make the game fair, balanced ,and redefining what 'competitive' really means. Well there have been at least 3 (and a half) edition changes where these 'balancing' mechanics still have not made it into the game. Is the game really still broken? Or is this haven for those who still feel like it's Broken, and it's somehow their job to fix it on behalf of the greater community... broken? I can't play the ITC anymore and enjoy the game. They're two different things now. It seems to survive off of players feeling that persistent mechanics are still 'broken' in 40k, and that its a non GW entities responsibility to address them. SURE, the tournament community is able to provide feedback sooner and faster than the community as a whole, but how valid is it when the results are based off of mechanics that still don't exist?
That said, I'm in the same boat, that there are some mechanics that need to be addressed. Things that have not changed, don't really need to be addressed as we shouldn't try to fix something that isn't broken. IGOUGO for example, hasn't changed and probably isn't going to. In the age of Kickstarter, there are PLENTY of other options if you prefer this kind of mechanic but none of those are as popular as 40k. Is it because of IGOUGO? Doubtful, but it's something that hasn't really changed. Most of my 'fixes' aren't really fixes, but things that I dislike, which is really what the core of this thread is about isn't it? Oddly enough, they're limited to things that have changed and I don't believe it's fully fair to fix something that even GW has limited experience with. Luckily, GW has re-introduced the 'Chapter Approved' strategy, and have a system in place where we don't have to wait for Codex/Edition changes to address these issues. We've got an active FAQ schedule in addition to that, which might not be enough for the more impatient of us, is still more than has been done since they took their own forums down in the 2000's.
1 - Vehicles. This is a tough one as there is clearly a disparity between vehicles, their firepower, and lifespan. We've got a 300 point Marine Transport that can be destroyed by a 150 point AM Tank is one example. I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting it to be balanced, as it's the first time GW has really dealt with the removal of the AV mechanic. With their resources being devoted to more important projects there probably isn't much time to address this. Especially since we haven't even updated all of the vehicles fully into 8th yet. In a Mathhammer world, Im sure someone has figured out some sort of Formula for how the points breakdown for return on investment. It'll be interesting to see how it moves forward when certain stats have their value re-assigned mid codex. This isn't limited to vehicles I might add. We have more multiwound models, and other unit types that aren't balanced, like Bike units vs. their Jetbike counterparts.
2 - Deep Strike / First Turn Assaults. I actually like the current Deep Strike mechanics, and I'm actually glad they've stopped the situation where 2 armies can move to 1" apart, but won't go toe to toe simply because it's turn 1. I feel they were in a tough spot with determining WHEN to allow certain units to do it. I dislike the first turn, alpha strike, concept. Traditionally this has been restricted to starting on Turn 2, but there were armies that could roll on turn 1. So instead of showing favorites by allowing certain armies to do it when others can't, they just made it a blanket rule. That said, anti-Alpha options are available to most armies and hope that those still pending will get options as well. I think this is the 40k version of the 'Assassination' mechanic in Warmahordes, and if you don't plan for it, then it's on you and not the game designers. Personally, I hope that they re-visit this purely from a 'fun' perspective, as it's entirely frustrating, especially to new players, to buy models only to remove 1/2 of them before they get to use them.
3 - Command Points. Another new mechanic that I think is great, but has it's imbalances. I feel they've done an amazing job balancing them with each Codex release to be honest. The Custodes have so many options that it allows the player to choose between getting more CP, or taking their favorite units and building around 3-4 CP to reward the Custodes player without forcing him to take units he doesn't want to. Certain armies definitely have advantages with their ability to restore lost CP, and of course there are those who are waiting to get updated. Like vehicles, this is the first time they've done something like this, and it's too soon to address any fixes to it.
** This is one I've actually thought about as I've played, and I feel a CP per turn, in a use it or lose it style, based off of how you've built your list could be effective. I'm only saying this because I've seen games where the losing player is down to 1-2 units and is out of CP, while his opponent still has several lying around to use to stupidly destroy the remaining models. Giving players 1 CP per turn for Battle-forged, then +2/+3 for each Battalion / Brigade would put a ceiling on how many could be used per turn. Late game, they'd still have options to give those remaining units some tactical, as well as heroic last stand story driven options as well. If this was implemented, then we could have a broader CP cost instead of the 1-3, where we could have some powerful 4-5 CP stratagems that will require the non-specialized detachments to even use. It's just a thought, but I like the idea.
4 - Mortal Wounds. Playing AoS, I really do like this mechanic, as we're back to having a way to getting around Invulnerable saves, instead of D Weapons. If this were around in 6th and 7th, then I don't think Deathstars would've lasted as long as they did. Like D Weapons, I DO think that they've gone a bit overboard with who has access to them, and they might be scrambling to provide armies with a way to deal with them, like Death Guard. Still, nothing appears to be out of line with the evolution of a mechanic and just adds to the whole 'Codex Creep' mentality.
5 - Variable Damage Weapons. This is another huge change that both players and GW are struggling to balance with. On the infantry side, it's good to see that they've learned from AoS and not making flat damage pools where 1 Lascannon will fry D6 guys. On the flipside, you've got overpriced vehicles that will die to 2-3 of these weapons, and under-priced vehicles that will take several of these hits to blow off the board. It's extremely frustrating when the discussions based on 'taking X sucks because there is Y units that you probably won't see in most games', actually has merit. I can't even begin to think of how they will address this outside of altering the points to reflect this. Largely because you have the D3/D6 damage weapons.
6 - Variable Damage Performance. (ie. Changing Stats based on Damage Received) Another mechanic that they've introduced from AoS which is good, but isn't exactly balanced. I do miss the games where I could blow off the specific weapons, or flat out Immobilize vehicles. Some of them have feel like they've simply said 'Well this would be cool if we allowed them to function fully until they're almost dead'. I'm happy that they changed it to what it is, so that the whole MC vs. Vehicles debate is now gone and everything is Kill it to Stop it. As these are hard printed into a unit's profile, this one will be more difficult to address as the game develops moving forward.
Lanrak wrote: @JohnHwangDD.
I totally agree that 5th to 7th edition 40k was just about upping the model count , to sell more stuff with little consideration for actual game play.
But the core issues I highlighted were just magnified by the overpopulation on the 40k game table.
And they do not go away with smaller game sizes,
When was the last time you played 500 pts of 7E / 8E? Or 750 pts of 3E / 4E? I played a lot at that size, and I think the games were great.
2 - Remove the ITC (and others like it). Based off of point #1, they've been making adjustments in an attempt to make the game fair, balanced ,and redefining what 'competitive' really means. Well there have been at least 3 (and a half) edition changes where these 'balancing' mechanics still have not made it into the game. Is the game really still broken? Or is this haven for those who still feel like it's Broken, and it's somehow their job to fix it on behalf of the greater community... broken? I can't play the ITC anymore and enjoy the game. They're two different things now. It seems to survive off of players feeling that persistent mechanics are still 'broken' in 40k, and that its a non GW entities responsibility to address them. SURE, the tournament community is able to provide feedback sooner and faster than the community as a whole, but how valid is it when the results are based off of mechanics that still don't exist?
@JohnHwangDD.
When was the last time you played 40k at smaller sizes without any L.O.S blocking terrain or ''GW special rules'' , and found the game 'great?'
Adding on extra rules to plug the gaps the core rules do not cover, should be done sparingly.Good rules sets use special rules to cover limited and extreme exceptions .For example ''chemical weapons ignore the targets cover bonus''.
(Unlike 40k where special rules seem to be handed out to practically every unit! )
When looking at fixing 40k, a was primarily looking at covering large skirmish to small battle games.(Squad to company level size.)As having the small games for new players just as fun and exciting as larger games for those who prefer them , would be quite a good idea.IMO.
Are you playing smaller games of 40k out preference, or do larger games of 40k simply not function efficiently in your opinion?
40k does great without an excess of special rules, as the 40k 3E rulebook lists amply demonstrated until the Codices came out to ruin the game.
I rarely play, but when I do, I like a smaller game that finishes all 6 turns. I dislike huge games that barely get the first turn completed before it's time to pack up.
I agree with reducing game size from 2k but 500-1000 is too much. I think 1500 is a really good point level right now. At 500-1000 points you would really need to comp the game to make it even playable, the balance level borders on terrible unless you agree not to bring certain types of units. I feel like people who enjoy the game at this level do a lot of self comp to keep it fun, if you don't you end up with One guy running a shadowsword and the other guy with 4 tactical squads and a captain. That game is not fun at any level.
SO you end up saying, well no Lords of War. Ok well I'll just take 3-4 mantacores or basilisks. Oh well that isn't fun either.
Ok everyone needs to take 1 HQ and 2 troops. IG still takes 3 heavy tanks and those things, because their troops are super cheap,
Every event I've ever played that goes down to 400-500 points puts a ton of comp on what you are allowed to take.
Game size is an issue, but not to that level.
As for IGO UGO defining 40k. I'm not so sure it does. IT certainly doesn't for me, not any more than having large armies on the table. IF I want to go down to 500 points and play a skirmish game, I'd rather play better designed skirmish games that don't need comp just to function.
I really gave 40k a shot because of Kill Team, but it was more because there was a crowd for it. Give me the option of Kill Team or Infinity and I pick Infinity every time.
I'm not sure there's any scale I would say 40k is my preferred choice, but 1500 definitely is in harsher competition with Warmachine. I think to some degree 40k really only stands out at 2k. The trick is rewarding varied army composition at that level though; because the game suffers again if it becomes 700 points x3.
Breng77 wrote: I agree with reducing game size from 2k but 500-1000 is too much.
Try a couple games of 1000 pts, and you'll see. Half the stuff on the board makes a big difference.
I have, 1k is too small to work without restrictions on what you are allowed to bring 1500 to me is the sweet spot for the game right now. You can bring a decent sized force, while still having to make choices about what goes into your list. It also allows for there to be enough space on the table. The big models in the game ruin it at 1000 points..
Breng77 wrote: I agree with reducing game size from 2k but 500-1000 is too much.
Try a couple games of 1000 pts, and you'll see. Half the stuff on the board makes a big difference.
I have, 1k is too small to work without restrictions on what you are allowed to bring 1500 to me is the sweet spot for the game right now. You can bring a decent sized force, while still having to make choices about what goes into your list. It also allows for there to be enough space on the table. The big models in the game ruin it at 1000 points..
40k does great without an excess of special rules, as the 40k 3E rulebook lists amply demonstrated until the Codices came out to ruin the game.
Just had a quick look at the 3rd ed rule book.
Completely different damage resolution for vehicles, 20 USRs, and several special rules for vehicles and weapons.
Most of which could be rendered redundant with a more intuitive and efficient use of the basic game mechanics and resolution methods.And more importantly give proportional results so there is more variation between units, resulting in avoiding the rules bloat due to add on special rules.
However, I do agree that customers complaining about 3rd ed limitation of being ''Bland Hammer'' let to the flood gates opening for special rules for everything.
Basically because the Napoleonic based rule set for massed ranks of troops mainly armed with close combat weapons.(WHFB.)
Is not really suited to the skirmishing units armed mainly with ranged weapons that 40k has.
And so falls over quite quickly when pushed into larger game sizes like 40k was...
I totally agree that a more ''sensible'' game size and F.O.C charts would be a big improvement. (Eg the F.O.C are developed to produced more balanced pick up games, that can be completely ignored for larger narrative games.)
But this still does not address the core issues with the 40k game mechanics and resolution methods.
With the ability to touch anyone on t1 the game will always be very one turn tableeee.
Horus Heresy isn't. Generally crucial turns are more like 3 or 4. Some armies can make it turn 2.
Still has long ranges, indirect weapons etc though.
Isnt hh based on 7th still. meaning most weapons were all or nothing, tanks had some pretty powerful shielding abilities but otherwise melt and go away very fast, saves were all or nothing, cover saves worked differently, and MC and flyers are op.
Breng77 wrote: I agree with reducing game size from 2k but 500-1000 is too much.
Try a couple games of 1000 pts, and you'll see. Half the stuff on the board makes a big difference.
I have, 1k is too small to work without restrictions on what you are allowed to bring 1500 to me is the sweet spot for the game right now. You can bring a decent sized force, while still having to make choices about what goes into your list. It also allows for there to be enough space on the table. The big models in the game ruin it at 1000 points..
Breng77 wrote: I agree with reducing game size from 2k but 500-1000 is too much.
Try a couple games of 1000 pts, and you'll see. Half the stuff on the board makes a big difference.
I have, 1k is too small to work without restrictions on what you are allowed to bring 1500 to me is the sweet spot for the game right now. You can bring a decent sized force, while still having to make choices about what goes into your list. It also allows for there to be enough space on the table. The big models in the game ruin it at 1000 points..
Then don't play Apocalypse.
Yeah I mean who would want to play with big models?
Cool toys with neato rules suck, man. Real people play with boring, uninteresting units, man. Get that cool, awesome, big model off my tables!
Breng77 wrote: I agree with reducing game size from 2k but 500-1000 is too much.
Try a couple games of 1000 pts, and you'll see. Half the stuff on the board makes a big difference.
I have, 1k is too small to work without restrictions on what you are allowed to bring 1500 to me is the sweet spot for the game right now. You can bring a decent sized force, while still having to make choices about what goes into your list. It also allows for there to be enough space on the table. The big models in the game ruin it at 1000 points..
Then don't play Apocalypse.
LOW are regular units, not apoc only units. So as I said now you are placing restrictions on what you can take beyond just points to get the game to work. But you don't even need LOW 3 Fire Raptors fits at 1k, breaks the game.
Breng77 wrote: I agree with reducing game size from 2k but 500-1000 is too much.
Try a couple games of 1000 pts, and you'll see. Half the stuff on the board makes a big difference.
I have, 1k is too small to work without restrictions on what you are allowed to bring 1500 to me is the sweet spot for the game right now. You can bring a decent sized force, while still having to make choices about what goes into your list. It also allows for there to be enough space on the table. The big models in the game ruin it at 1000 points..
Then don't play Apocalypse.
LOW are regular units, not apoc only units. So as I said now you are placing restrictions on what you can take beyond just points to get the game to work. But you don't even need LOW 3 Fire Raptors fits at 1k, breaks the game.
Dude, if you want to play Apocalypse games, then you can't complain about balance.
That said, GW has included those models in the regular flow of the game. Apoc is a seperate thing. What JohnHwangDD is essentially saying is if you want balance you cannot play with all the models provided by GW for playing the game. So like I said 1000 points doesn't work without restrictions. Also what is your definition of an Apoc unit. A land Raider is as expensive as some lords of war and can be unbalancing at 1k points. What about Gorkanauts I can take 2 at 1k points and the game is unbalanced it is a heavy support choice. Flyers aren't lords of war and never have been. Heck I can take 150 ork boyz at 1k points also unbalanced. The lack of balance has nothing to do with points levels.
Sorry but your attitude reads "If you want to have fun at 1k points you need to impose a bunch of restrictions on people to do so." I could do the same thing at any point level so 1k points is meaningless it just requires more restrictions.
Breng77 wrote: I agree with reducing game size from 2k but 500-1000 is too much.
Try a couple games of 1000 pts, and you'll see. Half the stuff on the board makes a big difference.
I have, 1k is too small to work without restrictions on what you are allowed to bring 1500 to me is the sweet spot for the game right now. You can bring a decent sized force, while still having to make choices about what goes into your list. It also allows for there to be enough space on the table. The big models in the game ruin it at 1000 points..
Then don't play Apocalypse.
LOW are regular units, not apoc only units. So as I said now you are placing restrictions on what you can take beyond just points to get the game to work. But you don't even need LOW 3 Fire Raptors fits at 1k, breaks the game.
Dude, if you want to play Apocalypse games, then you can't complain about balance.
I mean literally you are agreeing with what I said here you realize that right. I say "1k doesn't work without restrictions, because x." Your response "well you can't take x and expect balance." That is what I said, you need to restrict x for the game to function. You cannot say 1k points works great, and when I say, not without restrictions, you laugh off the concern by saying don't play those legal models.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I mean where is your line on "don't play apoc?" What about storm ravens? (never an apoc only unit) or Storm talons? Or is any flyer instantly apoc, at which point to get 1k to work we are banning flyers and lords of war. What about larger heavy tanks like land raiders or Leman russes? Can I spam those?
At some point the issue ceases to be the points and is imbalance in units often created by GWs approach to unrestricted list building. The game is no better at 1k points than it is at 1500 or 2k, it is just shorter.
Wondering if the IGOYGO structure could be shaken up a bit by interlacing the turns.
1. Movement
1a. Player 1 moves
1b. Player 2 moves
2. Psi
2a. Player one casting
2b. Player two casting
etc.
then dice for "first player" each round, with a +1 to whoever killed the most units or something scenario specific (e.g. advanced the furthest) the preceding turn.
Removes some of the Alpha Strike by allowing reaction movement prior to enemy shooting, shooting prior to enemy charging (removing the need for "overwatch" totally)
Also doesn't require huge changes to the games core structures in the way alternating activations would, avoids issues around gaming activations with cheap units or having to 'group' activations etc.
Use the turn sequence that AoS uses, but with alternating shooting thrown in as well. With that you could consider removing overwatch as well. So while your opponent gets to do something, and attempt to stop an alpha strike, assaulting won’t be too punished as you won’t be able to move units out of the way.
Whilst it's somewhat clear from my post history I'm not all that keen on 40k I'll concede that the player base seems to be having fun despite many of them being more than aware of its manifold 'faults'
There are a staggering amount of other games about and if you just can't be bothered with 40k there will be another ruleset to float your boat, admittedly that's a bit unhelpful if you're a fluff bunny but not so much if you just want a 'better' set of rules
To some extent that really depends on the availability of players for those other games. In my area at least other than maybe warmachine 40k players out number other games probably 10 or more to 1.
Breng77 wrote: To some extent that really depends on the availability of players for those other games. In my area at least other than maybe warmachine 40k players out number other games probably 10 or more to 1.
Yep that can be a tricky issue, varying wildly from locale to locale, in my corner of the Shire its the opposite you'd be hard pressed to get a game of 40k, although some AOS unexpectedly broke out at the games club the other week
Unit1126PLL wrote:Yeah I mean who would want to play with big models?
Cool toys with neato rules suck, man. Real people play with boring, uninteresting units, man. Get that cool, awesome, big model off my tables!
plus one
Breng77 wrote:That said, GW has included those models in the regular flow of the game. Apoc is a seperate thing. What JohnHwangDD is essentially saying is if you want balance you cannot play with all the models provided by GW for playing the game. So like I said 1000 points doesn't work without restrictions. Also what is your definition of an Apoc unit. A land Raider is as expensive as some lords of war and can be unbalancing at 1k points. What about Gorkanauts I can take 2 at 1k points and the game is unbalanced it is a heavy support choice. Flyers aren't lords of war and never have been. Heck I can take 150 ork boyz at 1k points also unbalanced. The lack of balance has nothing to do with points levels.
Sorry but your attitude reads "If you want to have fun at 1k points you need to impose a bunch of restrictions on people to do so." I could do the same thing at any point level so 1k points is meaningless it just requires more restrictions.
Your response "well you can't take x and expect balance." That is what I said, you need to restrict x for the game to function. You cannot say 1k points works great, and when I say, not without restrictions, you laugh off the concern by saying don't play those legal models.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I mean where is your line on "don't play apoc?" What about storm ravens? (never an apoc only unit) or Storm talons? Or is any flyer instantly apoc, at which point to get 1k to work we are banning flyers and lords of war. What about larger heavy tanks like land raiders or Leman russes? Can I spam those?
At some point the issue ceases to be the points and is imbalance in units often created by GWs approach to unrestricted list building. The game is no better at 1k points than it is at 1500 or 2k, it is just shorter.
Yes,the rules for different units are the problem, smaller games are more imbalanced. A Land Raide, or max shoota boyz are unfair in 750 game, because you probably can't afford weapons to deal with every possibility, but they are fine in 2000 point games.
Future War Cultist wrote:I have a suggestion:
Use the turn sequence that AoS uses, but with alternating shooting thrown in as well. With that you could consider removing overwatch as well. So while your opponent gets to do something, and attempt to stop an alpha strike, assaulting won’t be too punished as you won’t be able to move units out of the way.
Yes, but I think only infantry should shoot in alternate turns, so that they have a specific trait that lets them compete with models that are faster, tougher, or have bigger guns. Tanks, knights, monsters, and flyers can shoot only on a player-turn basis.
Turnip Jedi wrote: Yep that can be a tricky issue, varying wildly from locale to locale, in my corner of the Shire its the opposite you'd be hard pressed to get a game of 40k, although some AOS unexpectedly broke out at the games club the other week
I think to fix the system would mean a total re-write.
The game would first need to tackle the scale issue first and foremost, as it is we have a system that has in-depth profiles for pistols and titan weapons all while being based upon a D6 system. It is asking too much.
One way to solve this would be to combine elements from epic with 8th edition, starting with the skimmed down profiles we saw in Epic.
Example Space Marine Tactical Squad.
Type: Infantry
Speed: 6
Armour: 3+
Close Combat: 3+
Notes: It takes double the number of Blast markers to pin a unit.
Name: Missile Launcher
Range: 36"
Firepower: AI3+/AV4+
Notes: Against Infantry roll 5 dice.
Movement phase, as it is now but with alternating activations and units being pinned if they have blast markers equal to the number of models in the unit. Pinned units skip their movement phase and remove the blast markers.
Psychic Phase as it is now but with alternating activations.
Shooting phase, alternating activation. Weapons will now be either Anti-Infantry or Anti-Vehicle, and will say the dice result needed. Each time a unit shoots a blast marker is placed on the enemy unit, for each hit caused place a blast marker. Armour saves are taken as normal, Models in cover are at -1 to hit.
Assault Phase same as now but with alternating activation. Weapons will now be either Anti-Infantry or Anti-Vehicle, and will say the dice result needed. Each time a unit attacks a blast marker is placed on the enemy unit, for each hit caused place a blast marker. Armour saves are taken as normal.
Morale Phase. Units can remove D6 blast markers.
An extremely rough draft, but trying to mush Epic and 8th together.
And here we see a real issue IMO.
No clearly defined game scale or scope.
40k skirmish game (up to 2nd ed 40k.) Easy to write rules for, as there are loads of great skirmish game rule sets.
Large battle game (Old Epic size game and units.)Easy to write rules for because there are loads of great large battle game rule sets.
40k company level small battle game rule set....(40k 3rd to 5th ed.)
Completely new sort of game that needed rules written specifically for it.
Unfortunately, the scale of the minatures means players want detailed skirmish rules.And the scale of the game means that this would bog game play down too much.
The scale of the game works great with simple unit stats like in Epic, but the scale of the minatures with all the minute variation.Means players want more detail in the interaction.
Detailed model interaction is too fussy for 40k. And simple unit interaction is not diverse enough.
GW opted for simple model interaction, (with loads of layers of special rules heaped on top.)
I propose detailed unit interaction.Where every model in the unit counts, but is not obsessed over.And the overall effectiveness of the unit is the driver of the game play.
After all 40k is all about unit interaction,is it not?
Future War Cultist wrote: I like your ideas stonehorse! So this would have to hit and to wound rolls rolled into one roll yes? Because I think that’s the future.
Cheers! I can't really take credit for it as it is using Epic rules slightly adjusted. I think all the Epic rules are still available online for free.
That is correct, roll to hit with either the Anti Infantry or Anti Vehicle stat, every success means a save needed for the opponent. Each fail adds a blast marker.
I am working on a more thought out set of rules. Once I have those I will post them up.
Future War Cultist wrote: I like your ideas stonehorse! So this would have to hit and to wound rolls rolled into one roll yes? Because I think that’s the future.
Cheers! I can't really take credit for it as it is using Epic rules slightly adjusted. I think all the Epic rules are still available online for free.
That is correct, roll to hit with either the Anti Infantry or Anti Vehicle stat, every success means a save needed for the opponent. Each fail adds a blast marker.
I am working on a more thought out set of rules. Once I have those I will post them up.
I’d be happy to help out with this. Here’s an idea I’ve been pondering: keeping a simplified stat v stat system that still combines to hit and to wound together into one roll. It would look like this:
The attacker has a strength stat that is the sum of its skill, strength and AP divided by 2 rounded up. So a Primarus Intercessor with a Bolt Rifle would be skill 4 plus strength 4 plus ap -1 which equals 9. Divide that by 2 and round it up, that’s strength 5.
The target has a toughness stat that is the sum of its current toughness plus its save as a division of six. So that Primarus Marine would be toughness 4 plus 4 (because 6, 5, 4 and 3 are passes) which equals 8.
The system would then use the current to wound system; 6+ to wound if targets toughness is double or more than attackers strength, 5+ if it’s just greater, 4+ if it’s equal, and so on.
Models would have a shooting stat and a melee stat. Take a Primarus Captain in Gravis Armour for example:
The captain would also have a toughness of 12, because it’s toughness 5 plus a 3+ save (4) plus it’s 4+ invulnerable save (3).
So if a Primarus Marine with a strength of 5 was shooting at a toughness 8 chaos Marine, it would need 5s to hit and wound the target. 10 shots would inflict 3.33 wounds on them. They could then take their saves as before.
I’m sorry if that was all gibberish, but I just think it could be a good compromise between going fully epic style and the more detailed skirmish type systems. With work of course.
Chamberlain wrote: I decided to go the other way and am expanding Necromunda 2017 into a 40k skirmish game starting with Inquismunda content.
Epic seems like a good starting point for a fast game that has things like knights and shadowswords and riptides.
As someone who has played in your first playtesting of new Necromunda based Inq28, I think the psychic powers need a rework. The 40k system is alright, but we certainly need an alternative to mortal wounds.
-Units engaged in combat only prevents targeting of characters, if the character is directly begind them. (Such a stupid rule that occasionally prevents targeting of a character even if he’s the only target, and even if he’s 3” from the shooter, out in the open... only because on the other side, two other units are engaged 2” away).
-only visible units prevents targeting of characters, if the character is not the closest target.
-If multicharging, the charge is only succesful if you end up in combat with all the target units. (No more multicharging in different directions, then picking whatever you rolled enough for AFTER the charge roll. “I’d prefer making that 11” charge, but to make sure i atleast get something, im also going to charge you chaff unit, 5” in the direct opposite direction. Let’s see which one i get!”)
@.Future War Cultist.
Your example of how you could convert Epic rules to 40k highlights the issues with taking this route.
(I do not mean to pick on you as an individual.but just to point out if rules are not written specifically for 40k they can get complicated quickly. )
Epic works fine with smaller scale minatures, like all large battle game rules.(15mm down to 2mm on a unit base.)
However 40k minature scale means lots of players want more detailed interaction.
Although it is easier to add detail to a solid rule set like Epic.Just mashing rules together from completely different game types can get messy quite quickly.
If you want a fast play low detail battle game for 40k, then Epic rules are a great start.
If you want a more detailed level of interaction in 40k, without the swathe of special rules.
I believe the best thing to do is look at the concepts used in the game play of Epic and other large battle games that work well.And find the 'best' way to scale up the detail to represent these concepts in 40k.
Concepts in Epic missing from 40k.
1)A more interactive game turn.
2)Common rules of interaction for all units.(The same simple stat line that delivers proportional results for all units in the game.)
3)Weapon stats net effect used for each unit to reduce calculations.
4)A simple suppression system, that models morale appropriate to game scale.
As several have pointed out, lots of 40k players want something that looks familiar to them.
So I would start with;-
Alternating phases that model simultaneous interaction.(Really straight forward and removes all 'time warp' and 'alpha strike' type issues.)
A set of stats common to ALL units from 1 to 10 that cover all elements of interaction .(Using one table of opposed values to generate proportional results, removing the need for so many special rules.)
Net effect of unit weapons under unit stats.(So you know what Range AP and St and Attacks the power fist on your sergeant has without having to look up any other stats or rules to work it out..)
A sImple suppression system based on failed saves in the unit.
That said, GW has included those models in the regular flow of the game. Apoc is a seperate thing. What JohnHwangDD is essentially saying is if you want balance you cannot play with all the models provided by GW for playing the game. So like I said 1000 points doesn't work without restrictions. Also what is your definition of an Apoc unit. A land Raider is as expensive as some lords of war and can be unbalancing at 1k points. What about Gorkanauts I can take 2 at 1k points and the game is unbalanced it is a heavy support choice. Flyers aren't lords of war and never have been. Heck I can take 150 ork boyz at 1k points also unbalanced. The lack of balance has nothing to do with points levels.
Sorry but your attitude reads "If you want to have fun at 1k points you need to impose a bunch of restrictions on people to do so." I could do the same thing at any point level so 1k points is meaningless it just requires more restrictions.
Breng77 wrote: I agree with reducing game size from 2k but 500-1000 is too much.
Try a couple games of 1000 pts, and you'll see. Half the stuff on the board makes a big difference.
I have, 1k is too small to work without restrictions on what you are allowed to bring 1500 to me is the sweet spot for the game right now. You can bring a decent sized force, while still having to make choices about what goes into your list. It also allows for there to be enough space on the table. The big models in the game ruin it at 1000 points..
Then don't play Apocalypse.
LOW are regular units, not apoc only units. So as I said now you are placing restrictions on what you can take beyond just points to get the game to work. But you don't even need LOW 3 Fire Raptors fits at 1k, breaks the game.
Dude, if you want to play Apocalypse games, then you can't complain about balance.
I mean literally you are agreeing with what I said here you realize that right. I say "1k doesn't work without restrictions, because x." Your response "well you can't take x and expect balance." That is what I said, you need to restrict x for the game to function. You cannot say 1k points works great, and when I say, not without restrictions, you laugh off the concern by saying don't play those legal models.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I mean where is your line on "don't play apoc?" What about storm ravens? (never an apoc only unit) or Storm talons? Or is any flyer instantly apoc, at which point to get 1k to work we are banning flyers and lords of war. What about larger heavy tanks like land raiders or Leman russes? Can I spam those?
At some point the issue ceases to be the points and is imbalance in units often created by GWs approach to unrestricted list building. The game is no better at 1k points than it is at 1500 or 2k, it is just shorter.
It is clear what John was intending.
And, I think that he is right.
I disagree that the game is no better, just shorter.
The extra table makes a big difference - more space, more time for maneuvering, and limits on units help with balance and put more of the game on the tabletop rather than in the Battlescribe phase.
Finally, no, you may not spam anything, ever.
Try instead to keep your game on the table.
More meat, less meta.
If you want to exploit rules to win reliably due to spam,
then complaining about balance is basically just wishing that you would have bought a different army before the new edition came out.
Anyways, playing against 2 morakanauts at a thousand points might be fun.
Devastators, maybe a pred or land raider, a landspeeder or two, maybe a dreadnought or a small unit of termies, a few scouts and a couple squads of tac marines...
Chamberlain wrote: I decided to go the other way and am expanding Necromunda 2017 into a 40k skirmish game starting with Inquismunda content.
Epic seems like a good starting point for a fast game that has things like knights and shadowswords and riptides.
As someone who has played in your first playtesting of new Necromunda based Inq28, I think the psychic powers need a rework. The 40k system is alright, but we certainly need an alternative to mortal wounds.
Where be this? I always love seeing skirmish 40k rules sets
Here's a few suggestions I've been thinking about, I'm happy with most of the changes to 8th, in some areas however I feel they've simplified it too far.
1: Character targeting has always irked me a bit, even more so when they changed it in CA, preventing you from targeting one if there's a hidden enemy unit behind. With this in mind I thought of the basis of a new targeting rule that may be an improvement.
A Character may not be targeted in the Shooting Phase unless one of the following criteria are met:
- The Character has a wounds characteristic of more than 10.
- The Character is the closest enemy unit.
- There are no enemy units within 6" of the Character..
This I feel would avoid situations whereby there's a Character in front of you, but an enemy squad slightly closer but behind you prevents you targeting the lone dude.
2: Morale I feel is hugely detrimental to certain armies, while being a minor inconvenience to others. My Skitarii for example have very few ways to prevent Battleshock besides spending 2CP.
I'd like to see a method where you can still pass Morale despite the losses you've taken, perhaps along the lines of "A roll of 1 is always a pass regardless of the numbers of models lost". This actually gives some units a chance to survive Morale whereas it's common to take a few casualties and just remove the squad as there's no way you can prevent them running.
3: Vehicles: While I don't mind the changes from AV values to Strength and Toughness, I think Vehicles could be refined further. I would give a blanket rule allowing all Vehicles to move and fire Heavy weapons without penalty. I would additionally give them some sort of CC boost. Most vehicles have WS6+ and no Ap or Damage values at all, despite the fact that it's a 40-ton tank crushing anything in it's path. You can surround a tank with Gaunts, Ork Boyz etc and as it can't move out of combat if there's no room, you're stuck, trying in vain to clear some room, unlikely as you only have 3 attacks hitting on 6+ and no Ap. Additionally, putting weapon facings back in the game would be good, makes the use of vehicles more tactical, especially Flyers.
4: Targeting in general. Simply put I would reintroduce the rule of "Banners, weapons and other paraphernalia that aren't part of the target's body cannot be targeted." I can get my Guardsmen in cover, but if you can see the Vox aerial poking out, not only does that allow you to target him, but the whole squad.
Valkyrie wrote: Here's a few suggestions I've been thinking about, I'm happy with most of the changes to 8th, in some areas however I feel they've simplified it too far.
1: Character targeting has always irked me a bit, even more so when they changed it in CA, preventing you from targeting one if there's a hidden enemy unit behind. With this in mind I thought of the basis of a new targeting rule that may be an improvement.
A Character may not be targeted in the Shooting Phase unless one of the following criteria are met:
- The Character has a wounds characteristic of more than 10.
- The Character is the closest visible enemy unit.
- There are no enemy units within 6" of the Character..
This I feel would avoid situations whereby there's a Character in front of you, but an enemy squad slightly closer but behind you prevents you targeting the lone dude.
3: Vehicles: While I don't mind the changes from AV values to Strength and Toughness, I think Vehicles could be refined further. I would give a blanket rule allowing all Vehicles to move and fire Heavy weapons without penalty. I would additionally give them some sort of CC boost. Most vehicles have WS6+ and no Ap or Damage values at all, despite the fact that it's a 40-ton tank crushing anything in it's path. You can surround a tank with Gaunts, Ork Boyz etc and as it can't move out of combat if there's no room, you're stuck, trying in vain to clear some room, unlikely as you only have 3 attacks hitting on 6+ and no Ap. Additionally, putting weapon facings back in the game would be good, makes the use of vehicles more tactical, especially Flyers.
The penalty for moving really makes no sense. Sentinels hit on 5s if they move despite being scout vehicles designed to navigate debris. I think though, that vehicles/monsters should just ignore being engaged in close combat as far as restrictions go. i.e. they can shoot while locked in combat or fall back and shoot. It gives them more weight and differentiates them from infantry.
3: Vehicles: While I don't mind the changes from AV values to Strength and Toughness, I think Vehicles could be refined further. I would give a blanket rule allowing all Vehicles to move and fire Heavy weapons without penalty. I would additionally give them some sort of CC boost. Most vehicles have WS6+ and no Ap or Damage values at all, despite the fact that it's a 40-ton tank crushing anything in it's path. You can surround a tank with Gaunts, Ork Boyz etc and as it can't move out of combat if there's no room, you're stuck, trying in vain to clear some room, unlikely as you only have 3 attacks hitting on 6+ and no Ap. Additionally, putting weapon facings back in the game would be good, makes the use of vehicles more tactical, especially Flyers.
The penalty for moving really makes no sense. Sentinels hit on 5s if they move despite being scout vehicles designed to navigate debris. I think though, that vehicles/monsters should just ignore being engaged in close combat as far as restrictions go. i.e. they can shoot while locked in combat or fall back and shoot. It gives them more weight and differentiates them from infantry.
3: Vehicles: While I don't mind the changes from AV values to Strength and Toughness, I think Vehicles could be refined further. I would give a blanket rule allowing all Vehicles to move and fire Heavy weapons without penalty. I would additionally give them some sort of CC boost. Most vehicles have WS6+ and no Ap or Damage values at all, despite the fact that it's a 40-ton tank crushing anything in it's path. You can surround a tank with Gaunts, Ork Boyz etc and as it can't move out of combat if there's no room, you're stuck, trying in vain to clear some room, unlikely as you only have 3 attacks hitting on 6+ and no Ap. Additionally, putting weapon facings back in the game would be good, makes the use of vehicles more tactical, especially Flyers.
The penalty for moving really makes no sense. Sentinels hit on 5s if they move despite being scout vehicles designed to navigate debris. I think though, that vehicles/monsters should just ignore being engaged in close combat as far as restrictions go. i.e. they can shoot while locked in combat or fall back and shoot. It gives them more weight and differentiates them from infantry.
Do you really want hive tyrants doing that?
There are a number of vehicles that have better BS than they should (e.g. Crimson Hunter) to counter the move-and-fire penalty. If you gave out a blanket exception for vehicles/monsters you'd have to debuff the BS on a few models. Not a huge problem.
Addendum: Another possibility would be to take the "this weapon is Assault when mounted on a vehicle" rule off the Dark Lance, make it a keyword/USR, and start handing it out to more weapons, so things like a Basilisk that shouldn't really be firing on the move still get the penalty.
For me one big change is make it maximum of 50% of your armies power level or points cost can be in reserve. This would prevent Acolyte imperial soup deep strike spam as well as, ripper swarm / biovore spam for tyranids and nurgling spam for Daemons to cheese the army in reserves. Getting tired of fighting an army where out of 124 power level, 24 of it is on the table and all the rest can arrive within 9" without danger
icefire78 wrote: For me one big change is make it maximum of 50% of your armies power level or points cost can be in reserve. This would prevent Acolyte imperial soup deep strike spam as well as, ripper swarm / biovore spam for tyranids and nurgling spam for Daemons to cheese the army in reserves. Getting tired of fighting an army where out of 124 power level, 24 of it is on the table and all the rest can arrive within 9" without danger
Excepting those stratagems that let you shoot them when they show up.
Plus, 24 PL is about 8 Nurglings, which leaves us with an average PL of 12.5 for the rest of the units. That's about 16 CP (though some would be cheap enough to cost only 1 CP-so let's call it 10-12 CP) to Deep Strike them all. How are they getting so many CP?
icefire78 wrote: For me one big change is make it maximum of 50% of your armies power level or points cost can be in reserve. This would prevent Acolyte imperial soup deep strike spam as well as, ripper swarm / biovore spam for tyranids and nurgling spam for Daemons to cheese the army in reserves. Getting tired of fighting an army where out of 124 power level, 24 of it is on the table and all the rest can arrive within 9" without danger
Excepting those stratagems that let you shoot them when they show up.
Plus, 24 PL is about 8 Nurglings, which leaves us with an average PL of 12.5 for the rest of the units. That's about 16 CP (though some would be cheap enough to cost only 1 CP-so let's call it 10-12 CP) to Deep Strike them all. How are they getting so many CP?
Not as familiar with the Daemon one, I've experienced this mainly with imperial soup and Tyranids, Imperial soup one is super easy due to acolytes (8 points) units and just spamming stuff that arrives from reserves. Tyranids I made a list between using Terror from Below (Jarmungadr or however you spell it) and pheromone trails, can easily Deep strike in 3 units of ravaners, 1 neurothrope, 3x 20 man genestealers, 1x 19 man genestealers, 1x Lictors, and 2x units of Hive guard w/ shock cannons, all of this for 7 command points, just start 2x neurothropes, 5x rippers swarms, 5x Biovores on the table. Also have seen this with Tau (commander spam w/ drone support). I think thousand sons can do this with a horde of tzangors and some form of infiltrate and the gem to get 3 units up turn one?
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