Some friends and I were talking (read: commiserating) about 40k and the state of the ATC and we came to a couple of realizations. There are some problems with 40k 8th edition that need to be addressed and I think we can all agree on a few of them.

1. Power Armor means very little in this edition. The titular 3+ save is often reduced (even in cover) by many weapons to a 4+ or 5+ save. Since many of these same weapons deal more than 1 damage, even having additional wounds isn't keeping Power Armored (or even Terminator Armored) units on the table.

2. Cover means very little. See above, but tack on the fact that GW doesn't seem to understand the definition of 'line of sight blocking terrain' and continues to make tiny windows that can technically still be seen through. The ITC rule of 'first floor LOS-blocking' is only a half fix. Making cover a +1 to your save doesn't help against many popular weapons, and turning it into a -1 to hit is only going to shift the problem to forces that have stacking abilities like this.

3. Allies are broken. You're either part of the 'in' crowd (Imperium, Eldar, Chaos) or you're out of luck (Necron, Orks, Tau, etc). Allies allow the 'in' crowd to shore up weaknesses in their lists from an incredible amount of options, or straight up break the rules as intended, like taking 9 Daemon Princes in a single list. Meanwhile, the 'out' crowd suffers, not having access to cheap forms of CP generation (or regeneration in the case of Kurov's Aquila and similar traits/relics), and often not having enough options to shore up the native weaknesses of their Codex.

So, we came up with a few ideas to address these concerns. Let's start at the top and work our way down.

1. Make Power Armor (and thereby Space Marines) tough. Actually tough. Make them the survivable super soldiers that they're supposed to be, head and shoulders above an Imperial Guardsman. The question is, how do we do this?

My answer: Flatten the AP system.

There are weapons that have an incredibly high AP, and rightfully so! Lascannons, Melta Guns, Blasters, Dark Lances, all the way up to devastating Volcano Cannons and the like. These weapons should still feel like the tank-busters that they were made to be, but against individual troops these weapons are simply too powerful of an elite killer. Here's just my one idea of how we can help keep our poor, flimsy Astartes soldiers from getting pasted too quickly.

--Ranged Weapons that have an AP value that is greater than or equal to 2 that target a model with the 'Infantry' keyword can only reduce the armor value of that unit to a 5+. If the target is counted as being in cover, the weapon can only reduce the armor value of that unit to a 4+ instead.

The aforementioned weapons are anti-tank weapons. They're made to vaporize tank armor, and of course they should still be deadly, but let's try to encourage the use of these weapons against their intended targets: tanks. Of course, these weapons will still do plenty of damage to infantry models if they get through and will therefore be great terminator killers, but at least things like Space Marines will still get some sort of save, and cover may actually mean something! We see a bit of this flattening of AP in Age of Sigmar where VERY few weapons have an AP greater than -2 and most have 0 or -1 at best. This means that even the greatest weapons won't deny most other units a save, which means that everyone has a chance to roll dice. There's one phrase that keeps testing even the best sportsmen: "I don't get a save against that." It's not fun.

2. I can't come up with a set of rules that would cover (ba-dum-tish) all of the different types of terrain that people use. Some people use the power of their imagination to turn cans of soup and cereal boxes into sprawling hive cities, while others use GW terrain that has a plethora of problems from a game-standpoint, and yet others prefer designing their own terrain in uncountable ways. Even so, we've seen some improvement from GW, and that's in the treatment of cover in Kill Team. It's simple: If a model is obscured, it counts as being in cover. Let's bring that over to 40k. If we improve the AP system as in the above, then that alone would go a long way to making cover count for something. If we DON'T change the AP system, then something needs to change with cover.

--Models counted as being in cover treat their armor save as being 1 better (ie, a 4+ armor save is counted as 3+ armor save). In addition, if a model in cover is the target of a ranged weapon with an AP value greater than 0, treat the AP value of that weapon as 1 lower (ie, a weapon with an AP of -2 is instead treated as -1).

This does a few things. It doesn't ignore weapons that have an already outrageously high AP value. A Melta Gun, for example, will punch through the rock that the guardsman is hiding behind, and then punch through the guardsman with just as much ease. It does, however, give tanks a reason to try to hide behind some cover, to put a bit of extra wall between them and the lascannon that's targetting them. This does make tanks tougher against long-ranged shooting, but if you specify against ranged weapons, then it still gives power fists, chainfists, thunder hammers, and the like a role in tank-busting, as they should have. Anything that nerfs long-ranged I-can-see-you-through-this-tiny-window type of shooting is a good thing in my mind. It gives tanks, troops, anything a chance to move up the field to engage gunlines. This also gives models with armor a reason to stay in cover against things like plasma guns, autocannons, and things like that, meaning, you guessed it, Space Marines are a little more survivable against massed plasma and the like!

3. Finally, we come to allies. To be honest, I'd love to say 'just get rid of the whole system', but that wouldn't sell models, right? You know what else doesn't sell models? People leaving 40k to go play a different company's game. That's pretty exaggerated, I know, but I do notice a lot of people jumping from 40k to Age of Sigmar. That may be a win for GW, but probably not in the way that they would like. Why are people jumping to Age of Sigmar? Well, there aren't as many ally shenanigans as in 40k. Yes, Order is the largest faction and Stormcast Eternals can ally with just about anything, but even then you're limited to allying only 20% of your force.

There's a few things to allies that make them troublesome. The first is Command Points. The way they're generated and used is unbalanced. I've seen many games where even armies with 12+ command points eat through them by the end of turn 2. This front-loading of command points encourages a problem that I hear about a lot in 40k: alpha strikes. Especially in the shooting phase. Even if it's gunline vs. gunline, using a ton of stratagems and command points at the front of the game means you're often truly playing a 2000 vs. 1500 point game after Player 1 gets through their shooting phase.

This can be fixed by adopting the same system that is working for Age of Sigmar and is being used in Kill Team: Start the game with 1 command point and generate maybe 1-2 more at the start depending on how your army is composed (or if your leader is still alive). GW has shot themselves in the foot a little bit with this by adding stratagems that allow you to take multiple relics or warlord traits by spending 1-3 command points, along with stratagems that are used before the battle begins to affect deployment that often cost 2-3 command points as well. This means that the demand for command points is much higher in 40k, especially at the beginning of the game, than it is in other games. In the case of allies, though, this is only further problematic, since it encourages multiple game-changing relics to be bought. My solution? Start by getting rid of stratagems that give you more warlord traits or relics. Relics are... relics! When 15 different Imperial Guard regiments are all bringing Kurov's Aquila to the field of battle, it doesn't feel like a relic any more, does it? What's more, stratagems that cost 3 command points are now even more dire when you're only generating 1-2 command points per turn! That's a good thing, as it means that players will really have to consider whether that Command Re-roll is really worth it...

The other difficulty is the detachment system. Limiting allies to a point value won't even really stop a lot of the abuse that we see. You can still fit a Blood Angel Slam-captain and 180 points of CP generating Guardsmen into a 400 point limitation. So how do we get around this while still allowing people to use detachments and without limiting points?

Encourage other kinds of behavior. Let's start by tiering out the faction Keywords.

Tier 1 - Imperium, Xenos, Chaos - these are the great tiers, much like in Age of Sigmar, that, if your army is battle forged and made entirely with units that share this keyword, you get access to a few weaker relics and warlord traits. These won't generate additional CP and they won't give you any great bonuses, but if there's a combination you want that relies on having a bunch of different factions working together, then this is what you get.

Imperium Tier 2 - Astra Militarum, Adeptus Astartes, Adeptus Mechanicus, etc - If your army is battleforged and made entirely of detachments that share a keyword in this tier, you get access to your faction-specific stratagems. What? You mean if I take only Tier 1, I don't get faction-specific stratagems? Yep. You heard me right. If your army is all over the place, how do you expect a commander to efficiently issue orders? How would one commander be able to tell a Custodes Bike Captain to use their specific stratagems while simultaneously asking an Imperial Knights warlord to use a faction-specific stratagem there, too? Not only is it not fluffy, it's just bonkers, to be honest.

Imperium - Adeptus Astartes - Tier 3 - Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Ultramarines, Imperial Fists, etc - If your army is battleforged and made entirely of detachments that share a keyword in this tier, you get subfaction-specific relics and warlord traits, as well as a few bonus command points to spend on all of your spiffy stratagems.

This system encourages players to use one codex to get access to some of those fancy things. Really want to have Kurov's Aquila in your list? Well, you better make a battleforged army of units entirely from a Cadian regiment. Want to be able to Sally Forth! with your Imperial Knights? Then you better at least make an army that's all from Imperial Knights, if not from the same household. If you truly want to still bring Slamguinius and a CP farm of Imperial Guard, then you're going to miss out on a lot of stratagems, warlord traits, and relics.

THESE ARE JUST SOME IDEAS. These are not gospel. I am not so beholden to these ideas that I will defend them to Internet death. I am shooting things out there to see what sticks. Don't like these ideas? I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR OWN. Critique is fine, but let's keep things civil. If you think I'm an idiot, you can think that all you want, but please don't say it, that's just rude.

So, what do you think? How would you improve 8th edition to better balance it? How would you bring some of the lower-performing Codexes up while keeping the higher performing Codexes in check?

Alternate answers:

1. Throw out Primaris != Marines. Primaris infantry feels tough in a way that normal Marines really don't, and needing to play the puny Marines to get some equipment that the tough ones can't get sort of throws cold water on my experience of playing Space Marines. Print one T4/2W statline for "Space Marines" in general and the feel of power armour comes back some. Not all the way, but some.

2. I don't see this one as GW's problem; if you need more LOS-blocking terrain build more LOS-blocking terrain.

3. "An army may only use Stratagems from a Codex if all models in the army have the appropriate faction keywords." Allied Guard to feed CP to other armies stops working (because you also take away your ability to use the stratagems those CP could be used on), splash allies pumped up with Relics stop working (because you can't use the CP to get the extra Relics), and you need to think long and hard about whether taking those three Shield-Captains is worth losing all your Stratagems.

As I read the OP, some other solutions came to mind:
1. Give every weapon an AP value that allows it to “penetrate” every value equal or less than it. So an AP4 weapon ignores armor saves 4+ or worse, while 3+ and 2+ units get their normal saves.
2. Make cover a separate save, like invulnerable saves. Terrain can give a 5+, ruins a 4+, and some weapons like flamers will have an “ignores cover” special rule.
3. Instead of keywords, have a table in the rulebook of possible alliances with varying tiers (similar to the OP). We’ll call them “battle brothers”, “allies of convenience”, and “desperate allies”. And for the really casual types, “come the apocalypse”.

Like these? Then find a group that’s still playing 7th edition, because all of those (except for allies, which started in 6th) had been rules since 3rd edition.

I don't like 1 at all. Lascannons are just fine against marines. If someone really wants to use 15 lascannons to kill 10 marines that's just fine. The problem weapons are the ones that have multiple shots to boost their effectiveness which have, as a side effect, now become squad killers.

New weapon attribute - Anti tank: all attacks made with this weapon are resolved against one model in the target unit selected by your opponent. A volcano cannon murderizes one marine in the squad but only one while its effectiveness against monsters and vehicles is unchanged.

As for 2, the only scenery with windows is the ruins and if you didn't think to build at least one ground floor wall solid in each ruin then I don't know what to tell you. Even in previous editions being in cover in a ruin and being out of LoS in a ruin were not the same thing.

drbored wrote:
These weapons should still feel like the tank-busters that they were made to be, but against individual troops these weapons are simply too powerful of an elite killer.

Nope. If a Shadowsword's main gun hits you you're dead, period. No save, no cover, anything infantry sized is just vaporized. Why should your space marine's armor be more effective than a titan's against that kind of firepower?

There's one phrase that keeps testing even the best sportsmen: "I don't get a save against that." It's not fun.

Speak for yourself. Models die. Play IG/orks/etc until you learn this concept and stop caring about removing your models from the table. And no, rolling dice isn't fun just because you're rolling dice. This is a concept GW fails to understand, we as players shouldn't join their insanity.

Hmmmm...

I'm not sure how many lascannons your group uses to wipe infantry squads but I think the AP system works fine. I do think something has to be done about overcharged plasma, but this is mainly because there are so many ways to re-roll the dreaded ones.

The terrain rules need an overhaul in that area terrain should affect movement and I'd be in favour of bringing back 4th Edition's abstract LoS rules. However, the easiest fix to sole the current LoS nonsense is to board up the windows. Get some lollipop sticks, or matches. Wash them with Agrax Earthshade, glue them over the gaps. No more Line of Sight.

I actually want GW to rip off Mantic's design for Kings of War and removed the 'Save' step completely. Toughness and Armour save are combined into a single stat. If the attacking weapon beats that stat (which can be modified up or down depending on the weapon or unit abilities) then the model takes a wound.

GW may make radical changes with the launch of a new edition.
This was always my critical point.
They tend to change the basic game mechanics from edition to edition.
This includes among others cover and disembarking from transports.

1. In my mind the idea of survivability is better reflected in the Wound pool rather than saves. This is something I feel GW hasn't completely realized that instead of modifying saves back and forth they should be looking at giving elite units more wounds rather than always fiddling with points or saves.

2. I wouldn't mind a bit more elaborate cover system. Currently it is a bit too binary. It's not the end of the world for me though.

3. I would not want to see allies removed as I love being able to mix forces. However, something like 25%-30% of your points can be spent on allies would be interesting to explore. The 20% in AoS works only because you can pick whatever unit you want without worrying about detachment slots for the allied unit. Ie. my DoK can take a Dark Elf Sorceress on a Black Dragon in a 2000 point game and nothing else as an ally. Ie. the alliance system is much more freeform than the ally system in 40k.

The 3 "problems" you mentioned are some of the best changes 8th made.

1: The AP system is finally working fine. You want power armors to feel more sturdy? Give them a rule specific to power armored models that decreases ranged attacks strenght by 1. Fixed.

2: +1 to save is the perfect bonus for cover, as it encourages almost all models of the game to be in cover and is even a better rapresentation of it. Sorry, your guardsman behind a wooden board will not have a save against a volcano cannon. We can discuss about being a bit more lenient with the LoS blocking stuff, that is true.

3: The ally system has been in the game for the last 3 editions, deal with it it's a core element. Thanks to the keyword system that element is finally working correctly. There is a problem with the CP sharing, but i'm quite sure that we are going to see it fixed in the next round of FAQs.

The AP system really doesn't work very well. At the very least they need to reduce the points cost of high AP weapons and units that rely on good armor saves.

The sweet spot of AP is about AP2. After that you are usually paying more than you need to for AP. It's better just to have more shots.

Right now 2+ and 3+ armor is overpriced across the board.

Invul saves, particularly 4++ or better, are too cheap for the damage reduction they offer against high AP weapons, especially against high wound models.

Other than just points changes, the way to fix this IMO is to add a new special rule called something like " tough" that lets you ignore the first point of AP you run into. Pretty much all Marines would have this rule, but so could many other units of any save value, as it effectively creates a new layer of save values. Necrons an Tau can both have a 4+ but the necrons would also have the tough rule, for example.

You would also want a ability like "rend" on some weapons, which cancels out the "tough" ability. This creates light and heavy versions of each AP value. An assault cannon might have AP1, for example, but an auto cannon could have AP1 with rend.

This effectively creates 10 possible saves (2+, 2+T, 3+, 3+T, etc) and a wider spectrum of AP values (AP1, AP1R, AP2, AP2R, etc). It's basically moving the save system to a D12 system without having to use new dice.

I just want to say one thing. I have enough of people whining for alliances and soups. Damn stop already. In the old edition we had even the complete freedom to form alliances. Whanted necrons and tiranids in the same list? Whats the problem, just keep your distances during deployment and we are all good. did you whant guard and knights? You even got to cast invisibility on knights and trasform it in ustoppable forces of nature. You have to understand( I mean the people who doesn't like alliances only because they play the non alliable ones, and, believe me, I also play tau and never had problems, or the ones who simply whant to play "pure" marines for instance) that this edition is based on Factions and not single codexes. You can surely nerf something like removing or tuning things like AM grand strategist and so on, you can increase some points costs or nerf some op things, but there is nothing to say about alliances per se. Dams, fluff whise, marines and knights fight so many times alongside guard you can loose the count. The problems are given by op things, not "soups". Damn, actual drukhari play lot's of times just their codex because is so damn broken they don't care about eldar or arlequins. When I play tau, I never felt limited cause I always have a lot of stuff to play thats good with their codex alone. Orks stil need the codex. The only thing I agree with concerns necrons, but only because they lack everiting that mades this edition great: They lack versatility, they lack variety, they lack alliances and they lack(thoug this is my opinion) characterization fluff whise and rule whise. We change the game for necrons and whiners?( with all due respect, maybe I sound harsh or bad, but, believe me, I'm neither bad nor irrespectfull) No thanks, cause there are lot of people who, despite I agree on the fact that cover and some other things need to be changed or improved, are really enjoyng this edition in all it's aspects( and yes, I mean alliances too as the top of all the things). I end saying that, only in this edition, I felt so much variety and bought so many kits of diffent armies, tinkering on how to enjoy(not cheesing) merging and playing with it in different conbinations. Ofc, these are my own and personal opinions.

Good day to all

napulion wrote:
I just want to say one thing. I have enough of people whining for alliances and soups. Damn stop already. In the old edition we had even the complete freedom to form alliances. Whanted necrons and tiranids in the same list? Whats the problem, just keep your distances during deployment and we are all good. did you whant guard and knights? You even got to cast invisibility on knights and trasform it in ustoppable forces of nature. You have to understand( I mean the people who doesn't like alliances only because they play the non alliable ones, and, believe me, I also play tau and never had problems, or the ones who simply whant to play "pure" marines for instance) that this edition is based on Factions and not single codexes. You can surely nerf something like removing or tuning things like AM grand strategist and so on, you can increase some points costs or nerf some op things, but there is nothing to say about alliances per se. Dams, fluff whise, marines and knights fight so many times alongside guard you can loose the count. The problems are given by op things, not "soups". Damn, actual drukhari play lot's of times just their codex because is so damn broken they don't care about eldar or arlequins. When I play tau, I never felt limited cause I always have a lot of stuff to play thats good with their codex alone. Orks stil need the codex. The only thing I agree with concerns necrons, but only because they lack everiting that mades this edition great: They lack versatility, they lack variety, they lack alliances and they lack(thoug this is my opinion) characterization fluff whise and rule whise. We change the game for necrons and whiners?( with all due respect, maybe I sound harsh or bad, but, believe me, I'm neither bad nor irrespectfull) No thanks, cause there are lot of people who, despite I agree on the fact that cover and some other things need to be changed or improved, are really enjoyng this edition in all it's aspects( and yes, I mean alliances too as the top of all the things). I end saying that, only in this edition, I felt so much variety and bought so many kits of diffent armies, tinkering on how to enjoy(not cheesing) merging and playing with it in different conbinations. Ofc, these are my own and personal opinions.

Good day to all

Massive wall of text aside, I think it's not so much the concept of allies in general that's the problem but the implementation of them. As they are right now, allies are entirely a bonus for factions that can use them. There's no real downside to taking allied detachments. I think the decision about whether to take allies or not should be a meaningful choice with benefits and disadvantages. The main thing I hate about allies is the way it makes more disjointed armies somehow better able to co-ordinate through the access to an use of extra stratagems and CPs.

Slipspace wrote:

napulion wrote:
I just want to say one thing. I have enough of people whining for alliances and soups. Damn stop already. In the old edition we had even the complete freedom to form alliances. Whanted necrons and tiranids in the same list? Whats the problem, just keep your distances during deployment and we are all good. did you whant guard and knights? You even got to cast invisibility on knights and trasform it in ustoppable forces of nature. You have to understand( I mean the people who doesn't like alliances only because they play the non alliable ones, and, believe me, I also play tau and never had problems, or the ones who simply whant to play "pure" marines for instance) that this edition is based on Factions and not single codexes. You can surely nerf something like removing or tuning things like AM grand strategist and so on, you can increase some points costs or nerf some op things, but there is nothing to say about alliances per se. Dams, fluff whise, marines and knights fight so many times alongside guard you can loose the count. The problems are given by op things, not "soups". Damn, actual drukhari play lot's of times just their codex because is so damn broken they don't care about eldar or arlequins. When I play tau, I never felt limited cause I always have a lot of stuff to play thats good with their codex alone. Orks stil need the codex. The only thing I agree with concerns necrons, but only because they lack everiting that mades this edition great: They lack versatility, they lack variety, they lack alliances and they lack(thoug this is my opinion) characterization fluff whise and rule whise. We change the game for necrons and whiners?( with all due respect, maybe I sound harsh or bad, but, believe me, I'm neither bad nor irrespectfull) No thanks, cause there are lot of people who, despite I agree on the fact that cover and some other things need to be changed or improved, are really enjoyng this edition in all it's aspects( and yes, I mean alliances too as the top of all the things). I end saying that, only in this edition, I felt so much variety and bought so many kits of diffent armies, tinkering on how to enjoy(not cheesing) merging and playing with it in different conbinations. Ofc, these are my own and personal opinions.

Good day to all

Massive wall of text aside, I think it's not so much the concept of allies in general that's the problem but the implementation of them. As they are right now, allies are entirely a bonus for factions that can use them. There's no real downside to taking allied detachments. I think the decision about whether to take allies or not should be a meaningful choice with benefits and disadvantages. The main thing I hate about allies is the way it makes more disjointed armies somehow better able to co-ordinate through the access to an use of extra stratagems and CPs.

He's right though...40K is a game of FACTIONS more than Codices.

Slipspace wrote:
The main thing I hate about allies is the way it makes more disjointed armies somehow better able to co-ordinate through the access to an use of extra stratagems and CPs.

It's because CPs and detachments are backwards - you should start with CPs based on the size of the game and then have to buy the FoCs to fill out, with specialised FoCs (such as supreme command) costing more to buy than those with heavier requirements like battalions.

Whatever CPs you would have left after that are yours to spend on stratagems.

A.T. wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
The main thing I hate about allies is the way it makes more disjointed armies somehow better able to co-ordinate through the access to an use of extra stratagems and CPs.

It's because CPs and detachments are backwards - you should start with CPs based on the size of the game and then have to buy the FoCs to fill out, with specialised FoCs (such as supreme command) costing more to buy than those with heavier requirements like battalions.

Whatever CPs you would have left after that are yours to spend on stratagems.

I completely agree. Armies should become less strategically and tactically flexible as their organisation becomes more convoluted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

KurtAngle2 wrote:

Massive wall of text aside, I think it's not so much the concept of allies in general that's the problem but the implementation of them. As they are right now, allies are entirely a bonus for factions that can use them. There's no real downside to taking allied detachments. I think the decision about whether to take allies or not should be a meaningful choice with benefits and disadvantages. The main thing I hate about allies is the way it makes more disjointed armies somehow better able to co-ordinate through the access to an use of extra stratagems and CPs.

He's right though...40K is a game of FACTIONS more than Codices.

I know...and as I pointed out, I have no problem with that as a general approach. But since this entire thread is talking about radical changes to 40k there will be discussions related to changes to the game. One such change could be the rebalancing of faction vs Codex power level.

Slipspace wrote:

napulion wrote:
I just want to say one thing. I have enough of people whining for alliances and soups. Damn stop already. In the old edition we had even the complete freedom to form alliances. Whanted necrons and tiranids in the same list? Whats the problem, just keep your distances during deployment and we are all good. did you whant guard and knights? You even got to cast invisibility on knights and trasform it in ustoppable forces of nature. You have to understand( I mean the people who doesn't like alliances only because they play the non alliable ones, and, believe me, I also play tau and never had problems, or the ones who simply whant to play "pure" marines for instance) that this edition is based on Factions and not single codexes. You can surely nerf something like removing or tuning things like AM grand strategist and so on, you can increase some points costs or nerf some op things, but there is nothing to say about alliances per se. Dams, fluff whise, marines and knights fight so many times alongside guard you can loose the count. The problems are given by op things, not "soups". Damn, actual drukhari play lot's of times just their codex because is so damn broken they don't care about eldar or arlequins. When I play tau, I never felt limited cause I always have a lot of stuff to play thats good with their codex alone. Orks stil need the codex. The only thing I agree with concerns necrons, but only because they lack everiting that mades this edition great: They lack versatility, they lack variety, they lack alliances and they lack(thoug this is my opinion) characterization fluff whise and rule whise. We change the game for necrons and whiners?( with all due respect, maybe I sound harsh or bad, but, believe me, I'm neither bad nor irrespectfull) No thanks, cause there are lot of people who, despite I agree on the fact that cover and some other things need to be changed or improved, are really enjoyng this edition in all it's aspects( and yes, I mean alliances too as the top of all the things). I end saying that, only in this edition, I felt so much variety and bought so many kits of diffent armies, tinkering on how to enjoy(not cheesing) merging and playing with it in different conbinations. Ofc, these are my own and personal opinions.

Good day to all

Massive wall of text aside, I think it's not so much the concept of allies in general that's the problem but the implementation of them. As they are right now, allies are entirely a bonus for factions that can use them. There's no real downside to taking allied detachments. I think the decision about whether to take allies or not should be a meaningful choice with benefits and disadvantages. The main thing I hate about allies is the way it makes more disjointed armies somehow better able to co-ordinate through the access to an use of extra stratagems and CPs.

Only thing that bugs me as a non-competetive player about the factions and allies mechanics is the lopsided way they now work, where Imperium and Chaos get a ton of choices, Eldar and Tyranids get a few, and the rest get nothing, nada, zip. It just limits creativity and coolness, and while people say its more fluffy this way to, say, represent knights and marines working together, there is no way to show many of the things that are in the lore on the tabletop, like say, ork mercenaries or necrons using mindshackle scarabs to control entire worlds or dark mechanicum ect.

Well eventually gw will release 9th(and 10,11,12 etc) with some steps forward, some backwards and lots sideway changing things but not really aiming for "perfection". Just different from previous

So first off, I'd say that GW probably don't share your view that 8e is fundamentally broken. They will continue to tweak for sure, but I don't think we'll see massive changes until they do a 9e. It'll happen I'm sure, but I'm sure they'll also make change people don't like. That's just how it goes.

I'd also add that while everyone in your group might agree on certain things, that doesn't mean it's a problem for the wider player base. People with similar views naturally band together, and in smaller groups the view of the whole group is heavily influenced by the best debaters or loudest group members regardless of what their opinion actually is. It's the whole echo chamber effect. So while you may see the game in a poor state, we know for reasonably sure that sales are very healthy, and there's loads of new people in the game.

Anyway, to your actual suggestions:

1.
Yes, power armour is in trouble right now and it would be nice to fix it. I think your idea is a little fiddly and instead would suggest simply having all power armour or equivalent ignore the first 1 AP of any attack. This helps against the true enemy of marines, plasma. A Lascannon should gib a marine, the trade-off is that you are wasting a lot of damage by targeting marines in the first place.

2.
I don't think cover as a mechanic is too bad as is to be honest. I have issues with true line of sight, but if we take that as a given then current cover can be very powerful. One of my regular opponent's always sticks Havocs in cover, and they are a real pain to shift without dedicating huge firepower to it. Basically, I don't think cover needs to be stronger, I think terrain and targeting in general needs a rethink. I think 40k could take a page out of Kill Team's book in this regard, I quite like what they're doing there!

3.
Soup is strong. As you say, it's not going anywhere though not just due to sales, but because so many people have built their armies around soup being a thing and would be incredibly pissed off if the army they'd already bought was suddenly void. Sure, maybe in a new edition, but not within an edition. I still think soup needs a touch of toning down though, and what I would suggest is that you can only generate CP from one faction in your army, not counting IMPERIUM, CHAOS, ELDAR, OR TYRANIDS. This way souping is a decision with real consequences. If you soup too many detachments, it will hurt the CP of your army. This might be just enough to take the edge off soup armies.

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

napulion wrote:
I just want to say one thing. I have enough of people whining for alliances and soups. Damn stop already. In the old edition we had even the complete freedom to form alliances. Whanted necrons and tiranids in the same list? Whats the problem, just keep your distances during deployment and we are all good. did you whant guard and knights? You even got to cast invisibility on knights and trasform it in ustoppable forces of nature. You have to understand( I mean the people who doesn't like alliances only because they play the non alliable ones, and, believe me, I also play tau and never had problems, or the ones who simply whant to play "pure" marines for instance) that this edition is based on Factions and not single codexes. You can surely nerf something like removing or tuning things like AM grand strategist and so on, you can increase some points costs or nerf some op things, but there is nothing to say about alliances per se. Dams, fluff whise, marines and knights fight so many times alongside guard you can loose the count. The problems are given by op things, not "soups". Damn, actual drukhari play lot's of times just their codex because is so damn broken they don't care about eldar or arlequins. When I play tau, I never felt limited cause I always have a lot of stuff to play thats good with their codex alone. Orks stil need the codex. The only thing I agree with concerns necrons, but only because they lack everiting that mades this edition great: They lack versatility, they lack variety, they lack alliances and they lack(thoug this is my opinion) characterization fluff whise and rule whise. We change the game for necrons and whiners?( with all due respect, maybe I sound harsh or bad, but, believe me, I'm neither bad nor irrespectfull) No thanks, cause there are lot of people who, despite I agree on the fact that cover and some other things need to be changed or improved, are really enjoyng this edition in all it's aspects( and yes, I mean alliances too as the top of all the things). I end saying that, only in this edition, I felt so much variety and bought so many kits of diffent armies, tinkering on how to enjoy(not cheesing) merging and playing with it in different conbinations. Ofc, these are my own and personal opinions.

Good day to all

Massive wall of text aside, I think it's not so much the concept of allies in general that's the problem but the implementation of them. As they are right now, allies are entirely a bonus for factions that can use them. There's no real downside to taking allied detachments. I think the decision about whether to take allies or not should be a meaningful choice with benefits and disadvantages. The main thing I hate about allies is the way it makes more disjointed armies somehow better able to co-ordinate through the access to an use of extra stratagems and CPs.

Only thing that bugs me as a non-competetive player about the factions and allies mechanics is the lopsided way they now work, where Imperium and Chaos get a ton of choices, Eldar and Tyranids get a few, and the rest get nothing, nada, zip. It just limits creativity and coolness, and while people say its more fluffy this way to, say, represent knights and marines working together, there is no way to show many of the things that are in the lore on the tabletop, like say, ork mercenaries or necrons using mindshackle scarabs to control entire worlds or dark mechanicum ect.

You can say Imperium and Chaos gets more choices(thats not something new, considering GW always focused a lot on these two), but, allow me to say that nids, with the cult, the chance to ally even with the guard and the fact they still are waiting for the cult codex, put's them in a spot where they don't need more. Eldar? Few choices you say? You have base Eldar, Harlequins and drukhari( even ynnari), so, how come they have few choiches? As I said, certain codexes, like Tau, can be good even without allies( and there was a rumor about a codex kroot for istance). Orks are still waiting like I said for the codex and the only army that sits really bad are the necrons for all the aforementioned bad things they have. Certain armies, like custodes, GSC, Knights, Harlequins and so on, where created for a greater purpose then being played alone. Sure a knight army is playable alone, but it's alot about counter completely or be completely crushed. Harlequins where made for being good supports for haeldari armies. Some says lot's of cp makes some armies op cause they usually have a few. The fact is that certain armies can't use their strats cause, taken alone, they would generate such a pitifull number of cp that you can even rip off the page of strats. the complexity of the game lies in the interactions between codexes, factions and opponents with their combinations or single lists. Consider that, aside from cp's, another army gives to you only their units. You can count on your fingers the number of models that actually have Faction based abilities. For the remaining of it, all abilities and auras works only on your army. The broken thing is not having lot's of cp's( damn, gw with the big faq even buffed the amount you gain), but having lot's of things than allowes you to regenerate them. The problem is not a single relic that gives you a single 5+ to gain a cp on your's or opponent's strats, but traits like grand strategist given to armies like AM or drukhari. if you fix this without getting the rage of the people who enjoys the actual alliance sistem(balanced by keywords) and that are buying diffentent things to paint and play, everyone around would be really pleased. Nerf the units that are actually broken, nerf too easy cp gain back and then we will see if a custodian biker at 200+ points is still good or not to spam, either you play it in a soup or in a custodes only army. the problem is not the soup or alliance, but the op single units that populate it. I'm good with changing to 5 the cost for IG infantry, raising drukhari costs, custodes biker captains and so on. If you balance the units, you balance the soups and all are happy

Why would they bother ?

It's selling as it is and trying to slice 'n' dice it into a 'better' game is a hiding to nothing as 'better' games already exist

Well the question is would there be more people buying stuff, if the rules were tighter. Having sales build around something that works the same way micro transactions work for mobile games, is not very healthy. Because as long as the whales are going to be chasing the dream of a perfect army all is good, but if you do something to piss them off, and it can be anything ranging from a fluff change to change to some mechanic, the company could expiriance drastic drop in sales. Stuff like Star Wars was once seen as too big to fail too.

KurtAngle2 761088 10081766 wrote:


He's right though...40K is a game of FACTIONS more than Codices.

Only if your codex is good to begin with. If GW decides to grace you with a god aweful book. Then what ally do at best is to turn your army in to 2-3 models and 1700pts of "ally".

How good or not good something is is a subjective belief.

This means that for every person that thinks 8th is good, there is probably one that thinks 8th is bad, and visa-versa. The only measure of a game is popularity, really, because that means it does or does not conform with more people's idea of "goodness" than it did before.

1) Power Armor reduces the AP of a weapon by 1. TDA reduces the AP by 2 and Armored Vehicles with T7+ reduce AP by 3. Models with Invuln saves get to add 1 to their saving throws.

This still makes Infantry vulnerable to high AP weapons but means that you really want to save those weapons for the armored vehicles that they are meant to destroy.

2) Cover would mean that their is a substantial something between you and the shooter. Concealment means that the LoS is obscured by something not very substantial. If you have cover then you get +1 to your save. If you have concealment then the shooter is -1 to hit. If you have both then both effects apply.

This would mean that darkness would make it harder to see some one but offer no cover. A wall could offer either or both depending on how it is made and what it is made from (A typical coral fence that has been overgrown with vines would give concealment. A solid ruin wall would give both).

3) I've seen this suggested on numerous occasions but it seems like a good idea: You can only spend CPs on the units that generate them. For example if you have an IG battalion and a SM patrol you can only spend your Battle Forged CPs on the SM since they didn't generate any points on their own. For relics that generate/regenerate CPs only the units that the relic belongs to can use them.

I don't believe radical changes are necessary. Sure by and large defensive stats are overrated in points and offensive (mostly volume rather high AP) are underrated.

Allies should be all or nothing pretty much. Imperium/chaos/Xenos should be all allowed or none. Weirdly in open and narrative this is already the case. the requirement for your entire army to share a keyword is specific to matched play.

There are a few outliers that need nerfing (IG CP battery for one)but by and large I do believe 8th to be at the core a good system.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
1) Power Armor reduces the AP of a weapon by 1. TDA reduces the AP by 2 and Armored Vehicles with T7+ reduce AP by 3. Models with Invuln saves get to add 1 to their saving throws.

This still makes Infantry vulnerable to high AP weapons but means that you really want to save those weapons for the armored vehicles that they are meant to destroy.

2) Cover would mean that their is a substantial something between you and the shooter. Concealment means that the LoS is obscured by something not very substantial. If you have cover then you get +1 to your save. If you have concealment then the shooter is -1 to hit. If you have both then both effects apply.

This would mean that darkness would make it harder to see some one but offer no cover. A wall could offer either or both depending on how it is made and what it is made from (A typical coral fence that has been overgrown with vines would give concealment. A solid ruin wall would give both).

3) I've seen this suggested on numerous occasions but it seems like a good idea: You can only spend CPs on the units that generate them. For example if you have an IG battalion and a SM patrol you can only spend your Battle Forged CPs on the SM since they didn't generate any points on their own. For relics that generate/regenerate CPs only the units that the relic belongs to can use them.

i don't think those AP system changes do what you think they do. In that situation a -3AP weapon is better pointed at a marine as it reduces him to a 5+ save, while a tank would get it's full 3+ where as bolters and pulse rifles are better shoot at the tank as it gets it's 3+ but so would the marines.

I also don't think radical changes are necessary. Heck, I don't even agree with points #1 and #2, and #3 is loose at best.

#1/#2 - These are kind of both the same "problem". Right now, admittedly, tough armour doesn't mean much, but that's really only the case in tournament-style lists or if you're always playing against the pointy-eared ones or their robotic enemies. Those two factions put down so much -4AP it's crazy, and that level of AP makes a 3+ save exactly as effective as a 6+ save. This is why Horde Lists have come to dominate the meta; their models, worth so few points per model, are exactly as survivable against this kind of stuff as the beefy/tough T4 and 3+ save models. In the current system and meta, that means your horde infantry units should cost more points per model, and/or your -3 and -4AP weapons should cost more points per weapon as well (in fact, I would lean towards the latter rather than the former, but a bit of both would go a long way).

There is nothing inherently "wrong" with 3+ saves and cover. What's wrong is the gaming environment around those models. Make these changes, and 3+ will be seen on the table once again, as -4AP weapons become less abundant, and horde lists become smaller. This is something that really can only be seen now after 1 year of constant games where a pattern can emerge.


#3 - Okay, Soup isn't really the problem. The problem is CP spam, and we all know which legendary group of 32 Guardsmen are responsible for that. Outside of that, I haven't had much a problem with Soup, even of the Chaos and Eldar variety. Chaos, as a whole, share many of the same weaknesses and strengths across their factions, as do the Eldar. The worst offenders outside the legendary 32 are psychic powers cross-faction buffing, and Vect's Agents being just absolutely everywhere, but those are pretty minor compared to "all the CP, every game". The fix here, in my opinion, should be made to the way CP is generated. There's a lot of options there, and each will take time to figure out as well, so there's no quick end-all-be-all fix. Any fix here will generate new problems, but we'll have to wait and see what those problems are.

napulion wrote:

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

napulion wrote:
I just want to say one thing. I have enough of people whining for alliances and soups. Damn stop already. In the old edition we had even the complete freedom to form alliances. Whanted necrons and tiranids in the same list? Whats the problem, just keep your distances during deployment and we are all good. did you whant guard and knights? You even got to cast invisibility on knights and trasform it in ustoppable forces of nature. You have to understand( I mean the people who doesn't like alliances only because they play the non alliable ones, and, believe me, I also play tau and never had problems, or the ones who simply whant to play "pure" marines for instance) that this edition is based on Factions and not single codexes. You can surely nerf something like removing or tuning things like AM grand strategist and so on, you can increase some points costs or nerf some op things, but there is nothing to say about alliances per se. Dams, fluff whise, marines and knights fight so many times alongside guard you can loose the count. The problems are given by op things, not "soups". Damn, actual drukhari play lot's of times just their codex because is so damn broken they don't care about eldar or arlequins. When I play tau, I never felt limited cause I always have a lot of stuff to play thats good with their codex alone. Orks stil need the codex. The only thing I agree with concerns necrons, but only because they lack everiting that mades this edition great: They lack versatility, they lack variety, they lack alliances and they lack(thoug this is my opinion) characterization fluff whise and rule whise. We change the game for necrons and whiners?( with all due respect, maybe I sound harsh or bad, but, believe me, I'm neither bad nor irrespectfull) No thanks, cause there are lot of people who, despite I agree on the fact that cover and some other things need to be changed or improved, are really enjoyng this edition in all it's aspects( and yes, I mean alliances too as the top of all the things). I end saying that, only in this edition, I felt so much variety and bought so many kits of diffent armies, tinkering on how to enjoy(not cheesing) merging and playing with it in different conbinations. Ofc, these are my own and personal opinions.

Good day to all

Massive wall of text aside, I think it's not so much the concept of allies in general that's the problem but the implementation of them. As they are right now, allies are entirely a bonus for factions that can use them. There's no real downside to taking allied detachments. I think the decision about whether to take allies or not should be a meaningful choice with benefits and disadvantages. The main thing I hate about allies is the way it makes more disjointed armies somehow better able to co-ordinate through the access to an use of extra stratagems and CPs.

Only thing that bugs me as a non-competetive player about the factions and allies mechanics is the lopsided way they now work, where Imperium and Chaos get a ton of choices, Eldar and Tyranids get a few, and the rest get nothing, nada, zip. It just limits creativity and coolness, and while people say its more fluffy this way to, say, represent knights and marines working together, there is no way to show many of the things that are in the lore on the tabletop, like say, ork mercenaries or necrons using mindshackle scarabs to control entire worlds or dark mechanicum ect.

You can say Imperium and Chaos gets more choices(thats not something new, considering GW always focused a lot on these two), but, allow me to say that nids, with the cult, the chance to ally even with the guard and the fact they still are waiting for the cult codex, put's them in a spot where they don't need more. Eldar? Few choices you say? You have base Eldar, Harlequins and drukhari( even ynnari), so, how come they have few choiches? As I said, certain codexes, like Tau, can be good even without allies( and there was a rumor about a codex kroot for istance). Orks are still waiting like I said for the codex and the only army that sits really bad are the necrons for all the aforementioned bad things they have. Certain armies, like custodes, GSC, Knights, Harlequins and so on, where created for a greater purpose then being played alone. Sure a knight army is playable alone, but it's alot about counter completely or be completely crushed. Harlequins where made for being good supports for haeldari armies. Some says lot's of cp makes some armies op cause they usually have a few. The fact is that certain armies can't use their strats cause, taken alone, they would generate such a pitifull number of cp that you can even rip off the page of strats. the complexity of the game lies in the interactions between codexes, factions and opponents with their combinations or single lists. Consider that, aside from cp's, another army gives to you only their units. You can count on your fingers the number of models that actually have Faction based abilities. For the remaining of it, all abilities and auras works only on your army. The broken thing is not having lot's of cp's( damn, gw with the big faq even buffed the amount you gain), but having lot's of things than allowes you to regenerate them. The problem is not a single relic that gives you a single 5+ to gain a cp on your's or opponent's strats, but traits like grand strategist given to armies like AM or drukhari. if you fix this without getting the rage of the people who enjoys the actual alliance sistem(balanced by keywords) and that are buying diffentent things to paint and play, everyone around would be really pleased. Nerf the units that are actually broken, nerf too easy cp gain back and then we will see if a custodian biker at 200+ points is still good or not to spam, either you play it in a soup or in a custodes only army. the problem is not the soup or alliance, but the op single units that populate it. I'm good with changing to 5 the cost for IG infantry, raising drukhari costs, custodes biker captains and so on. If you balance the units, you balance the soups and all are happy

Yeah, I'm not arguing over game balance. I'm just saying that it would be cool to be able to, say, use the carnifex rules on an ork controlled carnifex, or an imperial assassin rules for a tau assassin, in matched play games, in some capacity with appropriate checks and balances.

A) Would GW make radical changes to fix 40k? Yes, but very slowly over a span of many years.

B) Power armour is fine with the primaris statline, or if tac-marines were 11 points per model. Solution: All space marines should have primaris stats, and then overcharged plasma should be Damage 1.

C) The cover rules sucks, but they sucked even more in last edition. I think that a +1 to T would be better, but I am not sure. Buildings and area cover should block LOS to anything behind it, meaning that if LOS is traced into and then exits area cover, then LOS should be blocked.

D) CPs should only be granted for detachments from the same faction. So if you have three detachments from three different codices, then only one detachment should grant CP.

The big problem for marines is that the game's power scale has shifted so fundamentally that they're just left behind.

Look at how amazing the deathwatch special ammo is. Imagine if marines had that. Well they do, in deathwatch, and it amounts to nothing.

There is a fundamental problem here, but i don't think there's a solution.

What I don't get is why the AP system worked fine in 2nd edition, but it has broken down now in 8th. Is it just because the scale has grown exponentially from 2nd? Although vehicles still had armor facings then.

Just an interesting observation. I also agree absolutely GW needs to learn what LOS-blocking terrain means. All their 40k terrain has tiny windows/cracks/etc. that basically means it ends up for decoration only. It's a little ridiculous.

It didn't work in 2nd at all. It was a disaster.

A simple fix to the stratagems (This is really simple, but kind of rough)

You can only use the (Chapter/Regiment/etc...)stratagems of your Warlord and only on units that share the right keyword

So My Company Commander can only issue Voystag Stratagems to other Voyst units. Astra Militarium Stratagems to other Astra Militarium, etc...

My space marines with him can only use the basic stratagems in the main book. However if there were Imperium Stratagems then they could use those also

Why "fix" stratagems when 75% are already useless?

The concept of the new AP system is fine. I always thought it was dumb that either your armor worked or it didnt, way too binary. The degredation of armor saves is a good idea, and I can get behind reducing the AP on some guns though so its not as impactful as right now. That way MEQs will still have decent saves more often than they do now, though that is more of across the board weapons balance/CA change than a need for a new edition.

 Yarium wrote:
I also don't think radical changes are necessary. Heck, I don't even agree with points #1 and #2, and #3 is loose at best.

#1/#2 - These are kind of both the same "problem". Right now, admittedly, tough armour doesn't mean much, but that's really only the case in tournament-style lists or if you're always playing against the pointy-eared ones or their robotic enemies. Those two factions put down so much -4AP it's crazy, and that level of AP makes a 3+ save exactly as effective as a 6+ save. This is why Horde Lists have come to dominate the meta; their models, worth so few points per model, are exactly as survivable against this kind of stuff as the beefy/tough T4 and 3+ save models. In the current system and meta, that means your horde infantry units should cost more points per model, and/or your -3 and -4AP weapons should cost more points per weapon as well (in fact, I would lean towards the latter rather than the former, but a bit of both would go a long way).

There is nothing inherently "wrong" with 3+ saves and cover. What's wrong is the gaming environment around those models. Make these changes, and 3+ will be seen on the table once again, as -4AP weapons become less abundant, and horde lists become smaller. This is something that really can only be seen now after 1 year of constant games where a pattern can emerge.


#3 - Okay, Soup isn't really the problem. The problem is CP spam, and we all know which legendary group of 32 Guardsmen are responsible for that. Outside of that, I haven't had much a problem with Soup, even of the Chaos and Eldar variety. Chaos, as a whole, share many of the same weaknesses and strengths across their factions, as do the Eldar. The worst offenders outside the legendary 32 are psychic powers cross-faction buffing, and Vect's Agents being just absolutely everywhere, but those are pretty minor compared to "all the CP, every game". The fix here, in my opinion, should be made to the way CP is generated. There's a lot of options there, and each will take time to figure out as well, so there's no quick end-all-be-all fix. Any fix here will generate new problems, but we'll have to wait and see what those problems are.

Re#1/2:

You are actually incorrect about a number if things here. The issue actually isn't high AP weapons being under-priced. They are actually overpriced. It is actually the AP1 and AP2 weapons that are underpriced, and/or 2+ and 3+ saves that are overpriced. I'll try to explain why:

The first thing you have to think about is what i think of as "wound thresholds." Everytime a model gains a wound, it becomes harder to kill with certain weapons. The first important wound threshold is 1. The strength of only having 1 wound is that you ignore any extra damage from weapons that pay to do more than 1 damage. The strength of units with single wound models is that they require a separate shot to remove each model. For example, a unit of ten guardsmen is going to require 10 failed wounds to kill the squad no matter what gun is shooting at them. This means that to effectively kill single wound models, you need to use mortal wounds or weapons with single damage values so you aren't wasting the stats the weapon pays for. When you have two wounds, you gain the advantage of requiring twice as many single damage weapons to remove the model, but still die to 2+ damage. Because there are a number of 2 damage weapons with relatively high rates of fire, and most 2 wound models are expensive and come in small numbers, this is currently not considered to be a very valuable number of wounds (see primaris marines, bikes, etc). 3 wounds is the beginning of true durability, because it doubles the number of 2D weapons needed to remove models, and begins to require 3 damage or D6 damage guns to remove a model per failed wound. Because the number of shots guns with 3 or D6 damage tend to have, units with 3 wounds tend to be able to take a reasonable amount of punishment. 4 wounds doesn't help against the 2 damage weapons, but it does help against 3 damage guns, and means you only die to D6 damage guns half the time, instead of 4/6 of the time like models with 3 wounds do. The only notable thing about 5-6 wounds is that it requires three 2 damage weapons to remove a model, and that the likelihood of being 1 shot by a D6 damage weapon is reduced. 7+ wounds is when something gets really tough, as almost nothing (except the very biggest weapons in the game) can 1 shot you, and you typically require at least two failed saves against D6 weapons to die.

It's worth noting that although it's possible to cause the enemy to waste their damage by killing a model with more damage than it has wounds, you never really waste single damage weapons. A single damage weapon will always get it's full value shooting at any target, though it might not always be the most efficient option. Low damage weapons also tend to have higher numbers of shots, which forces more saves, and is more reliable at causing damage (for example, you normally would prefer to have the enemy roll six 4+ saves causing 1 damage each than one 4+ save doing 6 damage, because although the average damage is the same, a successful save on the 6 damage gun means you do no damage 50% of the time, whereas you are still likely to do 2-3 damage even if the opponent rolling the single damage saves gets "lucky") For these reasons, weapons with 1-2 damage and lots of shots tend to be the most efficient damage dealers.

The AP / Armor and S / T relationships are linked to the wound / damage situation because in most cases, a weapon that does a lot of damage will also have a high Str and high AP, and weapons that do low damage tend to have low S and low AP. This means that generally, the multi-damage weapons are going to be good at killing things that have high T, decent armor saves, and lots of wounds, and the low damage guns are going to be good at killing things with low amounts of wounds, armor, and T.

Another thing to be aware of is that the better your armor save is, the more you are hurt by AP values. AP increases the number of failed saves by a model with a 2+ armor save by 100% per point of AP (AP1 makes you go from failing 1/6 to 2/6 saves, etc). It only decreases the number of failed saves for 3+ armor by 50%, 4+ by 33%, 5+ by 20%, and 6+ by 20%. The worse your armor save, the less AP hurts you, and some AP can even be wasted (AP3 vs a 6+ save, for example). This means that given the number of guns that have an AP value (most of them), armor is not a very valuable stat, and each progressing increase in armor is less valuable than the last. It also means that given the variety of armor saves in the game, AP becomes less valuable the more of it you have (since you can waste it, and usually -2 reductions to a model's save is enough to damage it effectively).

An additional factor to consider is invul saves. Invul saves reduce the value of AP by simply ignoring it. Ideally, you want enough AP to reduce the armor of a unit without wasting any AP on their invul save. This is another reason why more than about -2AP tends to be wasted against competitive targets. If you look at most of the competitive vehicles in the game right now, they probably have a at least a 5++ invul, and the really good ones probably have a 4++ (which knights can make a 3++). This is a problem because as i said earlier, most of the guns that are good at damaging vehicles pay for high AP values, which the invuls then ignore, making them very inefficient.

What all this boils down to is that in the current state of the game, armor saves and low rate of fire, high AP, high damage guns, and units with 2 wounds tend to be overpriced, while units with 1 wound, guns with 1-2 points of AP, and multi-wound models with invul saves tend to be underpriced. The only factors I can think of to add to add to this are negative to hit modifiers being too good against too many armies, and CP generation being messed up, and you get the current state of the meta.

Will GW make more radical changes to the game if they feel it'll save 8th? Yes. Will those be the changes listed in this thread? Probably not.

GW's concern is to try and ensure that we're playing the game they intend to be playing. If we find a way to break the game their priority is to patch the break (Smite Spam, Soups, ect) and try and ensure we're not playing outside the sandbox they designed for us.

Now if there continues to be a problem with certain things (say Marine armies with no Marines) they may try to address the issue, but they're more concerned with setting up strong boundary lines so the casual (or at least the developer's meta) and competitive sides of the game play with the same tools in similar ways.

Can we see changes that address Power Armour being so weak? Perhaps, but seeing as Terminator Armour feels even more like scrap tissue paper than Power Armour and still hasn't seen a major change to fix it, I'm going to say it's not going to be coming soon.

JmOz01 wrote:
A simple fix to the stratagems (This is really simple, but kind of rough)

You can only use the (Chapter/Regiment/etc...)stratagems of your Warlord and only on units that share the right keyword

So My Company Commander can only issue Voystag Stratagems to other Voyst units. Astra Militarium Stratagems to other Astra Militarium, etc...

My space marines with him can only use the basic stratagems in the main book. However if there were Imperium Stratagems then they could use those also

This is easier said than done. You'd need a wording that still allows strats to target enemy units as appropriate. If you just say 'can only target Voystag' that breaks some Stratagems in this way.

You may end up needing to mass errata strats, which would greatly put off GW from using the idea.

I don’t know if they would be radical changes but I’d like to see…

1. Using CA to do some point redistribution to fix some units that are clearly in a place they don’t belong. I’m Space Marine orientated, but I think that Centurions, Terminators, Land Raiders, and some of the others getting a point reduction would be good to see. And perhaps some of the stuff like aggressors getting a small increase to keep the ork players off the ledge.
2. I’d like to see some clean up in the Assault Rules. I think they are about 85%. Getting them some clean up would be useful.
3. I think everyone can nearly universally agree that some clean up in the CP/Stratagem/Point returners is needed.

Stux wrote:

JmOz01 wrote:
A simple fix to the stratagems (This is really simple, but kind of rough)

You can only use the (Chapter/Regiment/etc...)stratagems of your Warlord and only on units that share the right keyword

So My Company Commander can only issue Voystag Stratagems to other Voyst units. Astra Militarium Stratagems to other Astra Militarium, etc...

My space marines with him can only use the basic stratagems in the main book. However if there were Imperium Stratagems then they could use those also

This is easier said than done. You'd need a wording that still allows strats to target enemy units as appropriate. If you just say 'can only target Voystag' that breaks some Stratagems in this way.

You may end up needing to mass errata strats, which would greatly put off GW from using the idea.

It's pretty easy, actually: "if your warlord is a <faction> model, you unlock <faction> strategems found in this codex in addition to the ones found in the rulebook."

Then you just follow the strategems as normal.

That bits easy. I was talking about the idea that the strats could only target your Warlord's faction.

But most strategems can already only target friendly units of that faction

I think you should lose CPs for using specialised FoC. Like supreme command and spearhead. U should also lose CPs for each different keyword in your army. Like all dark angels, no loss. Dark angles and guard, -3. Pay for allies and what they bring.

Cover works ok but I’d rather go back to negative hit modifiers than 3rd-7th edition style cover saves. Lost sight rules need changing not cover. We play a more sensible version but apparently you can’t allow for common sense in the 40k community anymore.

AP is fine too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
It didn't work in 2nd at all. It was a disaster.

2nd edition had no disasters. It’s was a golden age. I loved that game and still do.

Andykp wrote:
I think you should lose CPs for using specialised FoC. Like supreme command and spearhead. U should also lose CPs for each different keyword in your army. Like all dark angels, no loss. Dark angles and guard, -3. Pay for allies and what they bring.

Cover works ok but I’d rather go back to negative hit modifiers than 3rd-7th edition style cover saves. Lost sight rules need changing not cover. We play a more sensible version but apparently you can’t allow for common sense in the 40k community anymore.

AP is fine too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
It didn't work in 2nd at all. It was a disaster.

2nd edition had no disasters. It’s was a golden age. I loved that game and still do.

You can't expect common sense anywhere. I mean Deadpool summed it up best:


That said, no matter how cover gets redefined in the future there will always be arguements about what counts as in cover or not because anytime someone suffers a penalty or a bonus from unit positioning it'll be gamed one way or another.

1. I think it would be better and make more sense to remove saves altogether. If a model gets wounded, its armor clearly didn't protect it. Done. Make the game more reliant on being in cover and general good decision making than rolling dice for survivability.

2. Make being in cover impose a negative modifier to the shooter's to-hit roll, or increase the target's evasion stat. Cover does not make you more physically resilient, it makes you more difficult to hit in the first place. LOS also needs to be reworked and somewhat abstracted (but not to warmahordes 2d terrain level) so that every little opening doesn't grant LOS.

3. Remove allies. Period. There are too many factions and units in the game for it to be balanced and allow meaningful decisions if people can mix-and-match units. It may sell more models, but it isn't good for gameplay. Unless you prefer a very bland game to compensate for 20-something different factions and their combinations.

jcd386 wrote:
What all this boils down to is that in the current state of the game, armor saves and low rate of fire, high AP, high damage guns, and units with 2 wounds tend to be overpriced, while units with 1 wound, guns with 1-2 points of AP, and multi-wound models with invul saves tend to be underpriced. The only factors I can think of to add to add to this are negative to hit modifiers being too good against too many armies, and CP generation being messed up, and you get the current state of the meta.

These were all good points, and I appreciate you taking your time to go through them. However, I think you're missing the effect of how the meta adjusts the experience of individuals. I had a monstrous post ready, but really, this one line is all I really need to say. We have a difference of opinions on what is hurting 3+ save armies.

2nd ed had more one turn tablings than all other editions combined. Oh and pulsa rokkit spam. 2nd can go die in a fire.

Blastaar wrote:
1. I think it would be better and make more sense to remove saves altogether. If a model gets wounded, its armor clearly didn't protect it. Done. Make the game more reliant on being in cover and general good decision making than rolling dice for survivability.

2. Make being in cover impose a negative modifier to the shooter's to-hit roll, or increase the target's evasion stat. Cover does not make you more physically resilient, it makes you more difficult to hit in the first place. LOS also needs to be reworked and somewhat abstracted (but not to warmahordes 2d terrain level) so that every little opening doesn't grant LOS.

3. Remove allies. Period. There are too many factions and units in the game for it to be balanced and allow meaningful decisions if people can mix-and-match units. It may sell more models, but it isn't good for gameplay. Unless you prefer a very bland game to compensate for 20-something different factions and their combinations.

1) This is silly. A child behind glass is more well protected against fists than an adult in football pads, but the adult in football pads can take more hits from a baseball bat.

2) Cover does, in fact, sometimes make you more physically resilient. You are talking about concealment, which is different from cover. Hiding in a bush is concealment, but doesn't make you more physically resilient. Hiding behind a concrete berm is cover - because it absolutely does make you resistant to bullets. Incidentally, most cover is also concealment (you can hide behind the concrete berm from observation as well as bullets) but not all concealment is cover.

3) IOW: Fluff should die that rules may live, despite the only attraction of 40k being the fluff.

I think 3+ saves are fine, and SM armies are just hurting because their generic dudes are bad at shooting and bad at assault relative to their points. Cheaper SMs (Sisters) are solid. Better armed SMs (Deathwatch) are solid. Tacticals and Assault Marines just aren’t especially dangerous for their points.

Obviously, all this is fixable just by tweaking points. A Marine at 13 might suck, but keep adjusting points downward and you will hit a value where the unit is strong again.

Thinking of cover versus concealment, I kind of wish we had terrain rules for this. Like if you can't see most of a unit/model it has a -1 to hit, but if you shoot at it with weapons that have an AP value (say of -3 or better) then it doesn't get a bonus to it's armour.

It'd make positioning and terrain more important while also making those expensive weapons with good AP values get a little more love on the table instead of seeing plasma spam on everything.

Martel732 wrote:
2nd ed had more one turn tablings than all other editions combined. Oh and pulsa rokkit spam. 2nd can go die in a fire.

Shocked and hurt! second edition was beautiful and glorious. U obviously played with bad people. If they said 9th edition was going to the same as second and they would ban tournaments I would be so happy.

meleti wrote:
I think 3+ saves are fine, and SM armies are just hurting because their generic dudes are bad at shooting and bad at assault relative to their points. Cheaper SMs (Sisters) are solid. Better armed SMs (Deathwatch) are solid. Tacticals and Assault Marines just aren’t especially dangerous for their points.

Obviously, all this is fixable just by tweaking points. A Marine at 13 might suck, but keep adjusting points downward and you will hit a value where the unit is strong again.

I don't want to tweak down though. I think the niche a marine should fill is around the 13pt mark, they just need something adjusting up to meet that point cost.

Andykp wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
2nd ed had more one turn tablings than all other editions combined. Oh and pulsa rokkit spam. 2nd can go die in a fire.

Shocked and hurt! second edition was beautiful and glorious. U obviously played with bad people. If they said 9th edition was going to the same as second and they would ban tournaments I would be so happy.

Second edition had some problems too. Like the virus bomb thing that killed models without helmets.

It was a great beer and pretzels game, but it was hardly perfect.

Andykp wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
2nd ed had more one turn tablings than all other editions combined. Oh and pulsa rokkit spam. 2nd can go die in a fire.

Shocked and hurt! second edition was beautiful and glorious. U obviously played with bad people. If they said 9th edition was going to the same as second and they would ban tournaments I would be so happy.

"Bad people"? How about bad rules that allowed them to do this?

 Yarium wrote:

jcd386 wrote:
What all this boils down to is that in the current state of the game, armor saves and low rate of fire, high AP, high damage guns, and units with 2 wounds tend to be overpriced, while units with 1 wound, guns with 1-2 points of AP, and multi-wound models with invul saves tend to be underpriced. The only factors I can think of to add to add to this are negative to hit modifiers being too good against too many armies, and CP generation being messed up, and you get the current state of the meta.

These were all good points, and I appreciate you taking your time to go through them. However, I think you're missing the effect of how the meta adjusts the experience of individuals. I had a monstrous post ready, but really, this one line is all I really need to say. We have a difference of opinions on what is hurting 3+ save armies.

Well, when I say the meta I mean the game as a whole, globally, taking into account as many factions, armies, and units into account. If you played infinite games with every possible army list combination against every other list combination, I'm confident the general balance issues I mentioned would remain consistent.

Stux wrote:

meleti wrote:
I think 3+ saves are fine, and SM armies are just hurting because their generic dudes are bad at shooting and bad at assault relative to their points. Cheaper SMs (Sisters) are solid. Better armed SMs (Deathwatch) are solid. Tacticals and Assault Marines just aren’t especially dangerous for their points.

Obviously, all this is fixable just by tweaking points. A Marine at 13 might suck, but keep adjusting points downward and you will hit a value where the unit is strong again.

I don't want to tweak down though. I think the niche a marine should fill is around the 13pt mark, they just need something adjusting up to meet that point cost.

I can agree with this. Pushing points further down doesn't solve the problem, and instead there needs to be something to make them worth their points instead. Though if we're not giving them Primaris stats then the Marines (in general) need an overhaul. Here are some I just thought of while mulling this over and while I do say "all Marines" (meaning of every flavor that it can apply to), I feel any of these changes would make Tactical Marines more viable on the table because they'll see some bonuses that could

I can think of a bunch of things GW could do with Marines, but balancing them in the game is tough, even if it matches lore:
+ give all Power Armoured Marines a bonus against AP turning AP-1 into AP0, and so on (to a minimum of AP0) making them more likely to weather heavier firepower to represent the superior nature of Marine PA versus non-Marine PA (since Marine PA fits more stuff and protective plating over other versions of it that are worn by non-Marines, though this is a rule that'd probably carry over to Custodes as well due to how good Custodes armour is supposed to be).
+ give all Marines a 6+ fnp (obviously annoys Plague Marines, but if they have a 5+ or better they're still more resilient and it'd show off the way Chaos perverts the natural gifts of the Astartes more) rule standard to represent how well they shrug off wounds (this would buff scouts as well, but it'd make Tacticals stay on the board better as well since a 3+/6+++ is better than a 4+/6+++, especially against AP modifiers or when in cover).
+ swap all bolt pistols for a basic melee weapon (chainswords or combat knives for +1 attack) with the option to swap either for a pistol. So on tacticals it'd be Bolter + Combat Knife and on Assault Marines they'd start with two chainswords but have the ability to swap either for a bolt pistol so you can change how you play them. On some armies it'd be better to go full blender while others would prefer double tapping instead.

I mean there are a lot of ways to buff Marines and I wouldn't apply every option I've mentioned at the same time but rather any one of them (my personal favorite is the melee weapon and bolter combo so the Marines get an extra attack without needing to muck with their statline and you can swap the bolter or melee for a pistol if you feel to build the unit differently). I'd steer away from anything that changes their AP on their weapons since they share almost all of their weapons with Scouts which would just buff the Scouts further.

Basically give more options or some kind of improvement to general durability as that'd make the marine armies feel like they punch at weight without just mucking with their statline. The game has a lot of room to change and grow going forward and maybe we'll see something to correct the balance of Marines after the codexes finish rolling out and they start working on the 2.0 books (assuming we don't go to campaign books that evolve army options instead going forward).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Blastaar wrote:
1. I think it would be better and make more sense to remove saves altogether. If a model gets wounded, its armor clearly didn't protect it. Done. Make the game more reliant on being in cover and general good decision making than rolling dice for survivability.

2. Make being in cover impose a negative modifier to the shooter's to-hit roll, or increase the target's evasion stat. Cover does not make you more physically resilient, it makes you more difficult to hit in the first place. LOS also needs to be reworked and somewhat abstracted (but not to warmahordes 2d terrain level) so that every little opening doesn't grant LOS.

3. Remove allies. Period. There are too many factions and units in the game for it to be balanced and allow meaningful decisions if people can mix-and-match units. It may sell more models, but it isn't good for gameplay. Unless you prefer a very bland game to compensate for 20-something different factions and their combinations.

1) This is silly. A child behind glass is more well protected against fists than an adult in football pads, but the adult in football pads can take more hits from a baseball bat.

2) Cover does, in fact, sometimes make you more physically resilient. You are talking about concealment, which is different from cover. Hiding in a bush is concealment, but doesn't make you more physically resilient. Hiding behind a concrete berm is cover - because it absolutely does make you resistant to bullets. Incidentally, most cover is also concealment (you can hide behind the concrete berm from observation as well as bullets) but not all concealment is cover.

3) IOW: Fluff should die that rules may live, despite the only attraction of 40k being the fluff.

1. And that has what to do with removing saves? SvT IS armor penetration. It's silly that there could potentially be a weapon with high strength and but poor AP, wounding models easily but somehow they make their 5+ or 6+ and walk away unscathed. A powerful blow can deal damage without piercing armor, y'know. All the save mechanic does is shrink the dice pool and reduce the number of wounds, which can be achieved in a better way that gives the player agency.

2. Depends on the cover. Hiding behind a bush makes you more difficult to see, hiding behind a wall makes you more difficult to see and provides a barrier between your body and the other guy's bullets. The point of cover is that the cover gets hit, not you. Do you really want separate rules for concealment and cover in 40k?

3. Nice overreaction. There is very little fluffy about mashing together units from 5-6 different codices to create your super-strong Justice League with no weaknesses so you can steamroll your opponent, which allies allows. If you want to do that, do it in narrative play. This is, ostensibly, a game, and the experience of playing said game should come first. If only GW could write rules on par with (most) of their fluff.....

GW sells models. Not rules.
They don't care that 8th edition is a mess.
Because they know you'll still buy stuff.
So why bother fixing a system that quite obviously received 0 playtests.

Get rid of the D6.
Fix cover saves to be worth taking cover.
Fix the AP system.
Scrap random shots.
Scrap random damage.
Bring back fire arcs.
Stop solving everything with invulnerable saves.
Fix bogging the game down with so many rolls.
Fix CP.
Fix stratagems.
Stop codex creeping with the goal of earning money off each release instead of adding to the game.
Stop adding a £20 game pass every 6 months.
Stop treating the fans like rabid fanboy idiots just because some of them are.

It simply is a matter of the open ability to list build without restrictions. The special is no longer special and is the norm/expected. Why take 1 special weapon in a squad of 5 when you can take a very similar sqd that lets you take 4. Optimization just trumps generalization. Open play leaves the average behind, and only the optimal moves forward. However, if you create a specific game/scenario with specific lists, then the ordinary (say a tactical sqd) can excel.

Honestly, what GW/organizers could do is create specific lists that people take and reward it with command points, or just make it that those lists are the only one allowed. Not as a replacement for the current edition, but as an option. They could make scenario packs that have predetermined lists etc. It would be a lot of work, but could be fun to play.

Gaming groups can certainly come together and self manage their games, but something official would be required for open play and I'm not sure anyone really wants to do it.

Blastaar wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Blastaar wrote:
1. I think it would be better and make more sense to remove saves altogether. If a model gets wounded, its armor clearly didn't protect it. Done. Make the game more reliant on being in cover and general good decision making than rolling dice for survivability.

2. Make being in cover impose a negative modifier to the shooter's to-hit roll, or increase the target's evasion stat. Cover does not make you more physically resilient, it makes you more difficult to hit in the first place. LOS also needs to be reworked and somewhat abstracted (but not to warmahordes 2d terrain level) so that every little opening doesn't grant LOS.

3. Remove allies. Period. There are too many factions and units in the game for it to be balanced and allow meaningful decisions if people can mix-and-match units. It may sell more models, but it isn't good for gameplay. Unless you prefer a very bland game to compensate for 20-something different factions and their combinations.

1) This is silly. A child behind glass is more well protected against fists than an adult in football pads, but the adult in football pads can take more hits from a baseball bat.

2) Cover does, in fact, sometimes make you more physically resilient. You are talking about concealment, which is different from cover. Hiding in a bush is concealment, but doesn't make you more physically resilient. Hiding behind a concrete berm is cover - because it absolutely does make you resistant to bullets. Incidentally, most cover is also concealment (you can hide behind the concrete berm from observation as well as bullets) but not all concealment is cover.

3) IOW: Fluff should die that rules may live, despite the only attraction of 40k being the fluff.

1. And that has what to do with removing saves? SvT IS armor penetration. It's silly that there could potentially be a weapon with high strength and but poor AP, wounding models easily but somehow they make their 5+ or 6+ and walk away unscathed. A powerful blow can deal damage without piercing armor, y'know. All the save mechanic does is shrink the dice pool and reduce the number of wounds, which can be achieved in a better way that gives the player agency.

2. Depends on the cover. Hiding behind a bush makes you more difficult to see, hiding behind a wall makes you more difficult to see and provides a barrier between your body and the other guy's bullets. The point of cover is that the cover gets hit, not you. Do you really want separate rules for concealment and cover in 40k?

3. Nice overreaction. There is very little fluffy about mashing together units from 5-6 different codices to create your super-strong Justice League with no weaknesses so you can steamroll your opponent, which allies allows. If you want to do that, do it in narrative play. This is, ostensibly, a game, and the experience of playing said game should come first. If only GW could write rules on par with (most) of their fluff.....

I mean if we want to really get it right in this whole save versus wounding thing, the opponent would roll to hit, you'd roll to save and then they'd roll to wound.

So 10 bolter Tacticals shooting at Tacticals at 12" would look like:
20 shots
13.33 hits
4.44 failed saves
2.22 wounds inflicted

Versus what we do now:
20 shots
13.33 hits
6.67 wounds
2.22 failed saves

So yeah, while technically more correct, it wouldn't change the outcomes at all to deal with saves before wounding due to how math works. Basically because it changes nothing to do it in another order it makes it speedier to have one person roll all their dice then the other instead of taking turns.

Why not just give marines/terminators all one additional wound? Seems an elegant solution to me.

Plus, make it so that you pick a lead army on a list and can only generate and use strategems from that list.

Blastaar wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Blastaar wrote:
1. I think it would be better and make more sense to remove saves altogether. If a model gets wounded, its armor clearly didn't protect it. Done. Make the game more reliant on being in cover and general good decision making than rolling dice for survivability.

2. Make being in cover impose a negative modifier to the shooter's to-hit roll, or increase the target's evasion stat. Cover does not make you more physically resilient, it makes you more difficult to hit in the first place. LOS also needs to be reworked and somewhat abstracted (but not to warmahordes 2d terrain level) so that every little opening doesn't grant LOS.

3. Remove allies. Period. There are too many factions and units in the game for it to be balanced and allow meaningful decisions if people can mix-and-match units. It may sell more models, but it isn't good for gameplay. Unless you prefer a very bland game to compensate for 20-something different factions and their combinations.

1) This is silly. A child behind glass is more well protected against fists than an adult in football pads, but the adult in football pads can take more hits from a baseball bat.

2) Cover does, in fact, sometimes make you more physically resilient. You are talking about concealment, which is different from cover. Hiding in a bush is concealment, but doesn't make you more physically resilient. Hiding behind a concrete berm is cover - because it absolutely does make you resistant to bullets. Incidentally, most cover is also concealment (you can hide behind the concrete berm from observation as well as bullets) but not all concealment is cover.

3) IOW: Fluff should die that rules may live, despite the only attraction of 40k being the fluff.

1. And that has what to do with removing saves? SvT IS armor penetration. It's silly that there could potentially be a weapon with high strength and but poor AP, wounding models easily but somehow they make their 5+ or 6+ and walk away unscathed. A powerful blow can deal damage without piercing armor, y'know. All the save mechanic does is shrink the dice pool and reduce the number of wounds, which can be achieved in a better way that gives the player agency.

2. Depends on the cover. Hiding behind a bush makes you more difficult to see, hiding behind a wall makes you more difficult to see and provides a barrier between your body and the other guy's bullets. The point of cover is that the cover gets hit, not you. Do you really want separate rules for concealment and cover in 40k?

3. Nice overreaction. There is very little fluffy about mashing together units from 5-6 different codices to create your super-strong Justice League with no weaknesses so you can steamroll your opponent, which allies allows. If you want to do that, do it in narrative play. This is, ostensibly, a game, and the experience of playing said game should come first. If only GW could write rules on par with (most) of their fluff.....

1) Consider the following: Shooting at a tank with a high-explosive shell, and shooting at a man wearing tank armour with a high explosive shell. That's the difference in Toughness - one dies because his innards are pulped, the other doesn't. That's toughness. Consider the following, now: Firing a handgun at the man wearing tank armour, versus firing a handgun at a man not wearing any armour. Same toughness, but one will live and the other will die/be injured. That's armour.

2) No, I don't want separate rules. I was merely pointing out that your assertion that cover does not make you more physically durable is outright wrong. You meant concealment.

3) You know, the highest level tournament lists actually look pretty fluffy indeed. Take the example a friend is building: 3 Custodes Jetbike Captains, Blood Angels BN, IG BN. The Blood Angels are the warlord, representing the Marines being in overall charge of the operation, while the Custodes captains have arrived from Terra to aid in this crucial fight, providing their individual and godlike prowess where it is most needed, while the Imperial Guard hold the line and do the things Blood Angels can't be assed to do themselves. That's actually something straight out of a novel, imo.

CassianSol wrote:

Why not just give marines/terminators all one additional wound? Seems an elegant solution to me.

Plus, make it so that you pick a lead army on a list and can only generate and use strategems from that list.

Because Plasma still heavily counters 2 wound models and then both Terminators and Primaris become 3 wound models which should push the Custodes up to 4 wounds to keep the difference between model types consistent. And that's not even getting into the balance of other armies and their units who should be as durable as Marines (Necron Immortals namely).

jcd386 wrote:

Stux wrote:

JmOz01 wrote:
A simple fix to the stratagems (This is really simple, but kind of rough)

You can only use the (Chapter/Regiment/etc...)stratagems of your Warlord and only on units that share the right keyword

So My Company Commander can only issue Voystag Stratagems to other Voyst units. Astra Militarium Stratagems to other Astra Militarium, etc...

My space marines with him can only use the basic stratagems in the main book. However if there were Imperium Stratagems then they could use those also

This is easier said than done. You'd need a wording that still allows strats to target enemy units as appropriate. If you just say 'can only target Voystag' that breaks some Stratagems in this way.

You may end up needing to mass errata strats, which would greatly put off GW from using the idea.

It's pretty easy, actually: "if your warlord is a <faction> model, you unlock <faction> strategems found in this codex in addition to the ones found in the rulebook."


Then you just follow the strategems as normal.

Ofc it's so simple but it won't change ANYTHING, I'd be still taking Guard for CPs and leaving their stratagems at home.
THINK before SPEAKING

KurtAngle2 wrote:
Ofc it's so simple but it won't change ANYTHING, I'd be still taking Guard for CPs and leaving their stratagems at home.
THINK before SPEAKING

Agreed. Think before posting inflammatory knee jerk posts in response to a proposed solution you don't agree with. There are definitely better ways of pointing out flaws in the way something is worded/proposed.

As for CP restrictions, I feel like tying it to the power level of the models in your warlord's detachment might be the neatest solution. 1 CP for every 10 PL for example. That encourages you to go more heavily on your warlord's army over supporting factions taken to support your army. Add in restricting relics and stratagems to being from your warlord's army and that'd force allies down to being purely support elements that fill holes in unit roles (like some anti-tank from Guard to support a more melee focused Blood Angels army) or being more flavor based.

I actually think giving marines 2 wounds and terminators 3 wounds is the least effective change. For one thing, it punishes basic AP0 damage 1 weapons like bolters and lasguns, which currently kill marines just about as well as they should (especially when you have cover). The issue with marine durability is 90% an issue with AP1 weapons like heavy bolters or assault cannons reducing their durability by 50% if they have a 3+ save or 100% if they have a 2+. I think having marines ignore the first point of incoming AP that effects their save works much better, as you start needing AP2 to start degrading their durability without making them more durable against small arms fire.

They also probably need 2 attacks base, but that's all I'd do to the tactical statline.

What they'd need after that is special rules and strategems that are actually good and flexible.

jcd386 wrote:
What they'd need after that is special rules and strategems that are actually good and flexible.

That's the biggest thing they need. Right now they suffer from having a large portion of their stratagems being based around the formation bonuses they lost in the edition change when formations were taken away and that isn't enough to make the army function in an interesting or flavorful way, much less an effective one.

Martel732 wrote:

"Bad people"? How about bad rules that allowed them to do this?

Have you missed the various people proclaiming that past editions were perfectly balanced when you didn't take all of the stuff that was OP?

That's how it works, apparently

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

"Bad people"? How about bad rules that allowed them to do this?

Have you missed the various people proclaiming that past editions were perfectly balanced when you didn't take all of the stuff that was OP?

That's how it works, apparently

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

CassianSol wrote:

Why not just give marines/terminators all one additional wound? Seems an elegant solution to me.

Plus, make it so that you pick a lead army on a list and can only generate and use strategems from that list.

Because Plasma still heavily counters 2 wound models and then both Terminators and Primaris become 3 wound models which should push the Custodes up to 4 wounds to keep the difference between model types consistent. And that's not even getting into the balance of other armies and their units who should be as durable as Marines (Necron Immortals namely).

IMO, marines should all just have the primaris statline as a base. This split down the middle is silly. Termies should get 3 wounds but Custodes should stay at 3 as well. Custodes have other stats that make them better than termies alrready, so consistency is not an issue.

As for plasma, it's supposed to counter marines, it is the ideal weapon by design for killing heavy infantry. 2W marines keeps them safer from small arms but still counterable by heavy weapons. That is good design in my eyes.

As for other units: I'm all for 2W immortals, AND orks. The new damage system allows these previously 1W models to now have 2W without being exactly twice as durable.

CassianSol wrote:

Why not just give marines/terminators all one additional wound? Seems an elegant solution to me.

Plus, make it so that you pick a lead army on a list and can only generate and use strategems from that list.

I'd actually prefer that they change the point cost to make them worth it over messing with Stat lines. Messing with data cards is so undesirable.

AP isn’t the issue, it is working as intended. The real problem is weight of fire and all the really nasty weapons getting pointed at the tin can troops. I’d be more willing to rejigger the cost of heavy weapons and larger-than-infantry models upwards in price so that they’re less prominent on the battlefield. Likewise, aggression is heavily favored in this version - if you want things to live longer, the number of attack dice being thrown around needs to be significantly cut down.

As for cover, I think GW needs better terrain rules, and having cover simply provide a bonus to Armor save is a poor way of handling things. I’d like to see them go back to Area terrain rules and a simplified method of drawing LOS through said terrain (and maybe so many inches completely blocking LOS, like the old 4” of woods in 2E). Likewise, could have it so that hard cover provides a bonus to Toughness (the bullets get stopped by brick walls and such) and concealment giving a bonus to Armor or perhaps Invulnerable saves (Zing! That should have hit but missed)

Soup exists because GW made the mistake of making a monolithic Imperium that encourages the different factions to work together, instead of being at each other’s throats. If you really want limits on allies, the factions need to be more adversarial and/or you need to put into place some arbitrary hard limits to restrict it. I’m not against a fluffy rendition of allies, but I think the <IMPERIAL> keyword needs to die.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


1) Consider the following: Shooting at a tank with a high-explosive shell, and shooting at a man wearing tank armour with a high explosive shell. That's the difference in Toughness - one dies because his innards are pulped, the other doesn't. That's toughness. Consider the following, now: Firing a handgun at the man wearing tank armour, versus firing a handgun at a man not wearing any armour. Same toughness, but one will live and the other will die/be injured. That's armour.

2) No, I don't want separate rules. I was merely pointing out that your assertion that cover does not make you more physically durable is outright wrong. You meant concealment.

You know, the highest level tournament lists actually look pretty fluffy indeed. Take the example a friend is building: 3 Custodes Jetbike Captains, Blood Angels BN, IG BN. The Blood Angels are the warlord, representing the Marines being in overall charge of the operation, while the Custodes captains have arrived from Terra to aid in this crucial fight, providing their individual and godlike prowess where it is most needed, while the Imperial Guard hold the line and do the things Blood Angels can't be assed to do themselves. That's actually something straight out of a novel, imo.

1. Toughness V. Armor, especially at the scale of present 40k, with so many models on the table, just isn't a useful distinction, and it's probably better to roll toughness
and saves into one stat- let wounds represent physical hardiness. That's kind of their job.

2. No, I meant cover. Cover protects you by preventing your person from being hit to begin with, and I think the better way to represent that is by affecting accuracy, not armor/cover saves. The idea being that that wall in front of you is taking some of the hits.

3. That's fine, let allies live in Narrative play, where people don't have the expectation or desire for competition and an emphasis on tactics. If your buddy's list is a high-end tournament list, then it is almost certainly unbalanced, knowing 40k. Restricting unit options to a single codex for matched play would, GW's rules not withstanding, be the way to go for balance and more decision-based gameplay. Taking the best units from various books works against that, fluff or no. The only way to balance a game with as many armies and unit choices as 40k is to either write a deeper core that can support that diversity, or greatly simplify the game and make it more bland.

The problem I see with a lot of the suggestions to boost basic SM up is that they often don't take into account that their are other armies that have equal stats because GW says they are the best of the best of the best, with honors (most other codexes often say the same about their elite troops as well).

SM should get extra shots with their Bolters because they're so good and primarily a shooty army. Ok, but couldn't the same be said for the SoB or any other unit that has a BS of 3+?

SM should knock 1 point off AP thanks to their power armor. What about other equally tough 3+ armor? Or is his because they are T4 as well? Should units with a higher toughness and 3+ armor knock off more AP off? Or just consider for a moment a Daemon Prince getting this bonus as a CSM, if it was just limited to SM.

An extra wound is similar. Should Orks get it too for being T4 and very damage resistant in fluff? Or isit a combo of Toughness and armor again? If so would you do something like scouts only get 1 wound because they don't have a 3+ save or would you lower the requirements to a 4+ armor save so scouts and similar units?

I don't think tacking on changes like this will do anything except boosting SM in the short term. Long term it will just lead to rules bloat and codex creep. If you want to look into making the game actually better, you need to look at the game wholisticly instead of just ways to make an army better.

Also, as a CSM player, keep your Primaris stats. If I wanted them I would buy a SM army.

ValentineGames wrote:
GW sells models. Not rules.
They don't care that 8th edition is a mess.
Because they know you'll still buy stuff.
So why bother fixing a system that quite obviously received 0 playtests.

Get rid of the D6.
Fix cover saves to be worth taking cover.
Fix the AP system.
Scrap random shots.
Scrap random damage.
Bring back fire arcs.
Stop solving everything with invulnerable saves.
Fix bogging the game down with so many rolls.
Fix CP.
Fix stratagems.
Stop codex creeping with the goal of earning money off each release instead of adding to the game.
Stop adding a £20 game pass every 6 months.
Stop treating the fans like rabid fanboy idiots just because some of them are.

Someone really has there grumpy pants on . Maybe I like 8th because I’m Avery casual/narrative gamer and the rules at the minute are a great frame work to create house rules and make the game your own. I appreciate not everyone plays in a group where you can do this or wants to. But I dint see any of the things you listed as a major problem.

Skaorn wrote:
The problem I see with a lot of the suggestions to boost basic SM up is that they often don't take into account that their are other armies that have equal stats because GW says they are the best of the best of the best, with honors (most other codexes often say the same about their elite troops as well).

SM should get extra shots with their Bolters because they're so good and primarily a shooty army. Ok, but couldn't the same be said for the SoB or any other unit that has a BS of 3+?

SM should knock 1 point off AP thanks to their power armor. What about other equally tough 3+ armor? Or is his because they are T4 as well? Should units with a higher toughness and 3+ armor knock off more AP off? Or just consider for a moment a Daemon Prince getting this bonus as a CSM, if it was just limited to SM.

An extra wound is similar. Should Orks get it too for being T4 and very damage resistant in fluff? Or isit a combo of Toughness and armor again? If so would you do something like scouts only get 1 wound because they don't have a 3+ save or would you lower the requirements to a 4+ armor save so scouts and similar units?

I don't think tacking on changes like this will do anything except boosting SM in the short term. Long term it will just lead to rules bloat and codex creep. If you want to look into making the game actually better, you need to look at the game wholisticly instead of just ways to make an army better.

Also, as a CSM player, keep your Primaris stats. If I wanted them I would buy a SM army.

Skaorn wrote:
............. If you want to look into making the game actually better, you need to look at the game wholisticly instead of just ways to make an army better......

Well said! Adjusting numbers can only go so far.

Skullphoquer wrote:

Skaorn wrote:
The problem I see with a lot of the suggestions to boost basic SM up is that they often don't take into account that their are other armies that have equal stats because GW says they are the best of the best of the best, with honors (most other codexes often say the same about their elite troops as well).

SM should get extra shots with their Bolters because they're so good and primarily a shooty army. Ok, but couldn't the same be said for the SoB or any other unit that has a BS of 3+?

SM should knock 1 point off AP thanks to their power armor. What about other equally tough 3+ armor? Or is his because they are T4 as well? Should units with a higher toughness and 3+ armor knock off more AP off? Or just consider for a moment a Daemon Prince getting this bonus as a CSM, if it was just limited to SM.

An extra wound is similar. Should Orks get it too for being T4 and very damage resistant in fluff? Or isit a combo of Toughness and armor again? If so would you do something like scouts only get 1 wound because they don't have a 3+ save or would you lower the requirements to a 4+ armor save so scouts and similar units?

I don't think tacking on changes like this will do anything except boosting SM in the short term. Long term it will just lead to rules bloat and codex creep. If you want to look into making the game actually better, you need to look at the game wholisticly instead of just ways to make an army better.

Also, as a CSM player, keep your Primaris stats. If I wanted them I would buy a SM army.

I agree with this! The problem is not that Space Marines only need to be boosted, but other sorts of 'elite' troops that get tabled by overwhelming lasgun firepower are... underwhelming.

I get that plasma and melta are made to make things like Marines (and MEQ) evaporate. The problem that we have is that it's not just those weapons that are making those MEQ models evaporate. It's the fact that you can only take so many MEQ models (because of their expense) while the enemy can throw down hundreds of guardsmen with regular old lasguns and the guardsmen, despite everything, will win.

Increasing wounds would be one thing. Bumping toughness up would help, but only so far. I still think that the AP system needs to be flattened. There's no need for AP -5 in the game. There's really not even a need for AP -4, and in my opinion, AP -3 is pushing it. I'd rather see a weapon that has AP -2 and also ignores cover if you want to show that the weapon has incredible punching power.

I also agree that invul saves are becoming a crutch in 8th edition. I went from playing Space Marines to playing Imperial Knights, and being able to roll a dice for a 5+ invul save was REFRESHING. It was a breath of fresh air. Before that, I would fight against Admech and Custodes that have all sorts of sources of invul saves and it's so incredibly frustrating when my weapons just don't do anything. I see the problem from both sides. You know what game doesn't have invul saves? Age of Sigmar. Why? They don't need them. The AP and armor system is flatter, with 'heavy' armor around a 4+ or 3+ at best. There's no 3+ invul saves. There's 4+ armor that ignores rend, but it tends to be on squishy units (like cheap ghosts).

To be honest, the more I think about it, the more I think that GW has just bloated 40k to be too big. It's showing signs of Warhammer Fantasy 8th, when you needed an inordinate number of models and big expensive units in order to fill your army. Here, though, the problem is the bloat. Fliers, Lords of War. In a game which represents a skirmish between factions, we have Baneblades and Imperial Knight superheavies running around the field. A lot of you guys are right. A volcano cannon should delete anything it shoots. But isn't that also the problem? It means that my squad of devastators with missile launchers matters diddly squat against that Shadowsword or Knight Castellan.

I dunno. It's easy to see why GW has a hard time balancing this game when there are just so many things that can go wrong. I definitely don't feel that the AP system, cover system, or allies systems are fine. The more I see how allies are abused, the less I like it. If allies couldn't be abused like they are, then I'd have no problem with people taking them, honestly. The trouble is when I keep seeing 2-3 slamguinius's in every Imperium army because it's just the thing you have to do to be competitive. That's lame.

The current ap system is too simplified they seem to have missed the mark in simplification.

Space Marines and just in general all these 'elite troops' are just all over the place. They are either far too expensive or are too low in wound counts to really matter for their cost. A 200 cost terminator squad should be as effective as 200 points of guardsmen.

The issue i've found is that they keep adding these massive walkers into the base game. What they could do is limit it so people cannot take Lords of War in matched play. It doesn't make sense for Gulliman or Celeste being used in every single combat. They wouldn't be there in the fluff.

This means expanding the trait systems and adding complexity maybe a return to a wargear system for characters. Maybe create a more deep system of customization while also making units feel more valuable and justified for their cost. While reducing the effectiveness of AP weapons. By having less of them or increasing the costs of AP weapons. If you have an Ap of 1 and have a +5 save you don't get a save. The old AP system was designed to allow for troops with power armor to have a distinct advantage. This current system just makes it abusable for high wound and multi-wound characters to take advantage of this.

Invulnerable saves are also waaaaay too common, They should be EXTREMELY rare, yeah a Terminator or a Wraith Guard can have it, but not a regular troop choice.

Making troops and weapons more worth it. While I do enjoy the simplification of weapons, vechiles and walkers (like Knight Titans) Are just far too effective for their points cost in comparision to a troop choice. While some other models are far too expensive for their worth (AKA land raiders)

 greyknight12 wrote:
As I read the OP, some other solutions came to mind:
1. Give every weapon an AP value that allows it to “penetrate” every value equal or less than it. So an AP4 weapon ignores armor saves 4+ or worse, while 3+ and 2+ units get their normal saves.
2. Make cover a separate save, like invulnerable saves. Terrain can give a 5+, ruins a 4+, and some weapons like flamers will have an “ignores cover” special rule.
3. Instead of keywords, have a table in the rulebook of possible alliances with varying tiers (similar to the OP). We’ll call them “battle brothers”, “allies of convenience”, and “desperate allies”. And for the really casual types, “come the apocalypse”.

Like these? Then find a group that’s still playing 7th edition, because all of those (except for allies, which started in 6th) had been rules since 3rd edition.

Troll much?

Hey, someone's got to like 7th more than 8th.

meleti wrote:
Hey, someone's got to like 7th more than 8th.

Huh. Someone has too?

Who'd thunk.

In all seriousness. I don't think there is one sure fire way to fix 8th edition. But thankfully they are listening.... (I HOPE THEY ARE AT LEAST)

 Asherian Command wrote:

meleti wrote:
Hey, someone's got to like 7th more than 8th.

Huh. Someone has too?

Who'd thunk.

In all seriousness. I don't think there is one sure fire way to fix 8th edition. But thankfully they are listening.... (I HOPE THEY ARE AT LEAST)

I sure don't, but there's going to be someone out there who does. My great-grandpa thought that the moon landing was faked on a sound stage. Pretty much every belief has people who will passionately defend it.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

CassianSol wrote:

Why not just give marines/terminators all one additional wound? Seems an elegant solution to me.

Plus, make it so that you pick a lead army on a list and can only generate and use strategems from that list.

Because Plasma still heavily counters 2 wound models and then both Terminators and Primaris become 3 wound models which should push the Custodes up to 4 wounds to keep the difference between model types consistent. And that's not even getting into the balance of other armies and their units who should be as durable as Marines (Necron Immortals namely).

I don't mind doing that. I don't think the changes should exist in a vacuum, I was referring simply to how to fix marines.

Plasma does still kill them easily, that's for sure. Plasma is difficult because it is too easy to counter its own downside (gets hot). I'm not sure whether the solution to that is get rid of a number of reroll 1s to hit or make it on an unmodifiable/unrerollable 1 that it gets hot? Probably the former. Or maybe you die on a roll of 1 to hit but you can reroll and (if successful) can resolve the hits and damage. You still die afterwards? I don't know... It is clear that the prevalence of reroll 1s makes overcharge too weak.

Plasma kills almost everything too easily.

Before 8th, "safe" non-overheating Plas was S6AP2. Overheating was S7AP2 Gets Hot.

With 8th, IoM got "Safe Plas". And IoM Plas (but not xeno plas) got +1S. And overheated Plas got +1D.

Did it really need the buff? Wouldn't just giving IoM Plas the "safe" plas option been enough?

personally I'd get rid of Mortal Wounds on things like Gets Hot and Exploding Vehicles, bring them back to armor savable to benefit the people paying for heavy armor. Plasma would get hot on a regular shot still. Since overcharge is a thing and will likely never go away now, I would have overcharge also cause the user a wound on an unmodified 6 as well as an unmodified 1. The 6 is still a hit but you still need to have your guy save.

Keep in mind though that I have no problem with trashing the mortal wounds system in general. In one of my very first games of 40K (this was 3rd ed) I had a Calidus Assassin (never had even seen the assassin codex at that point) move my squad of 3 broadsides so I had to move them to get LoS on anything in the 1st turn, have it show up on the 2nd turn, and kill them all with no saves, when I thought I was protected from things that ignored saves by buying shield generators. Getting wiped out by something that was probably less than half the cost of my unit with no save, when I specifically bought that unit extra protection really sucked and stayed with me, even though I quickly changed to hammerheads to avoid Calidus shenanigans. So I have no problem butchering MW despite the affects it might have elsewhere, so probably not the best mindset to go altering rules.

Take transports, stop foot slogging your marines if you don't like dying to plasma and autocannon spam.

They can't kill you in a rhino.

 sfshilo wrote:
Take transports, stop foot slogging your marines if you don't like dying to plasma and autocannon spam.

They can't kill you in a rhino.

You say that but they get 2 ish free kills when the rhino dies.

Martel732 wrote:

 sfshilo wrote:
Take transports, stop foot slogging your marines if you don't like dying to plasma and autocannon spam.

They can't kill you in a rhino.

You say that but they get 2 ish free kills when the rhino dies.

Also, instead of buing a Rhino, you can just use those points to buy five marines more. That is probably better way to increase survivability while increasing the offence at the same time.

Besides, for some reason my marines refuse to go into a Rhino, they accept nothing less than a really expensive grav tank...

1. This is adjusted with points. SM live and die like they're supposed to. They just aren't worth 13 ppm anymore compared to a 4 ppm guardsman.
2. Don't like the windows in the terrain? Fill them in. Terrain is terrain is terrain. Make better stuff yourself. The ITC terrain rule is garbage as well. All terrain should be true LoS.
3. CP generated by a detachment should only be allowed to be used with Stratagems from that detachments factions. A Knight Castellan shouldn't be able to grind through 17pts of IG CP. Allies adds models sales which helps GW which lets them make cool new stuff. Allies aren't new. Allies add variety to games. Allies aren't going anywhere.

Having just returned from a ten-year hiatus, I'm really pleased to see that 8th Ed has gotten away from the rules bloat that made 5th unpleasant for me. Reintroducing special, army-specific rules that circumvent the base mechanics, like an arbitrary -1 reduction to AP, seems like a crutch solution that just resurrects that unneeded complexity.

If the problem is that high-AP weapons are readily available, forcing the use of invulnerable saves to make units truly durable, then I'd rather see reduction in AP values.

If, say, plasma guns were AP-1, lascannons AP-2, and meltaguns AP-3, they'd all still be noticeably superior to basic weaponry against 2+ and 3+ armor save enemies, without completely eliminating the benefit of that armor. That would be functionally equivalent to treating AP as 1 lower, but it would be a global solution for all armies.

This would simultaneously make invulnerable saves less valuable/necessary, since high-armor units would rarely benefit from them.

At the same time, though, some rebalancing would need to occur on high-volume weapons, since at the moment weapons that throw a lot of shots with moderate strength and -1 AP seem generally superior to the dedicated anti-tank weapons.

That said-

From a game design perspective, the interplay between toughness, wounds, armor save, and invulnerable save is rather opaque. Why does this unit have higher toughness, while this one has higher wounds, while this one has an invulnerable save? What does that represent?

If I were redesigning the 40k ruleset from scratch, I'd rather see it boiled down into two durability attributes- 'how hard is this unit to damage' (toughness), followed by 'how much damage can this unit take' (wounds). Then for weapons, S represents armor-piercing ability, while Dam represents how much damage the weapon is capable of inflicting. Simple, but without losing much granularity compared to the current system, where in practice high-S attacks tend to have high-AP as well.

But I suspect that the ship has already sailed on any radical redesign of that nature.

 deviantduck wrote:
1. This is adjusted with points. SM live and die like they're supposed to. They just aren't worth 13 ppm anymore compared to a 4 ppm guardsman.
2. Don't like the windows in the terrain? Fill them in. Terrain is terrain is terrain. Make better stuff yourself. The ITC terrain rule is garbage as well. All terrain should be true LoS.
3. CP generated by a detachment should only be allowed to be used with Stratagems from that detachments factions. A Knight Castellan shouldn't be able to grind through 17pts of IG CP. Allies adds models sales which helps GW which lets them make cool new stuff. Allies aren't new. Allies add variety to games. Allies aren't going anywhere.

I agree with you in principle, it makes sense that two models that can see each other can shoot each other, but this doesn't make for fun games. Some level of abstraction is necessary, preferably something along the lines of not being able to draw LOS to an enemy behind area terrain. Otherwise the only terrain that matters is solid cubes, and that's boring.

I was thinking about it last night after watching a Kill Team bat rep and I think the solution to a lot of the game's problems are more shooting modifiers.

No, I don't mean army wide -1 nonsense, but rather things like if you're beyond half range on your weapon (we'll exclude pistols since they rarely reach out past 12", and many of which are even worse than that) you take a -1 for shooting. This would encourage more close range shooting and decrease turn one fire base dominance.

Kill Team's cover rules should likely be used as well. As long as a model is at least partially obscured (using TLoS) add another -1 to hit.

If we drop the army wide -1 abilities completely this would make movement and positioning important and decrease long range plasma pot shots leading to other weapons being more favorable in army lists.

Honestly the penalties to hit should be mechanic based (movement, psychic powers, ect. Basically it shouldn't be something you get 100% of the time just by existing, but rather has was to be counter played), not based on army traits.

6s should always hit in that case (they should even now imo)

 Billagio wrote:
6s should always hit in that case (they should even now imo)

I can agree with that as long as we stick with natural 6s for the rule. It'd fix Orks and reduce some of the other problems the game has, but I also feel that we should change the army rules to prevent the abuse of army rules that give a -1 to hit outside of 12" and instead give them a different rule. Perhaps +1 to their armour save if the don't move as they take cover? Or perhaps +6" on their guns as they take aim instead of moving? Or +1 shot for their weapons as they get into a better firing position instead of moving? I mean any of those could fit Alpha Legion and Raven Guard pretty well (and I'm sure the Raptors could get some use out of them since they're Raven Guard successors).

Blastaar wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:
1. This is adjusted with points. SM live and die like they're supposed to. They just aren't worth 13 ppm anymore compared to a 4 ppm guardsman.
2. Don't like the windows in the terrain? Fill them in. Terrain is terrain is terrain. Make better stuff yourself. The ITC terrain rule is garbage as well. All terrain should be true LoS.
3. CP generated by a detachment should only be allowed to be used with Stratagems from that detachments factions. A Knight Castellan shouldn't be able to grind through 17pts of IG CP. Allies adds models sales which helps GW which lets them make cool new stuff. Allies aren't new. Allies add variety to games. Allies aren't going anywhere.

I agree with you in principle, it makes sense that two models that can see each other can shoot each other, but this doesn't make for fun games. Some level of abstraction is necessary, preferably something along the lines of not being able to draw LOS to an enemy behind area terrain. Otherwise the only terrain that matters is solid cubes, and that's boring.

I don't understand. You want a wall with with windows that your guys can see through but not shoot through? If you can't target guys standing behind rubble whether it's a 1/4" tall or 6" tall, what's the difference? You might as well just use a flat piece of paper and make all terrain 2D.

I'm guessing they are talking about woods etc where by the time it's dense enough to block LOS it esentially becomes impassable as you can't place models. The current 40K rules don't really allow for the level of abstraction that is needed to make trees far enough appart to allow models to be placed.

There's already a modifier for firing over half range with standard troop weapons: you get half the shots.

Weapons designed for shooting long range typically have setup time, thus aren't penalized for shooting further, but are penalized for moving and shooting (heavy).

Weapons with short range have a hard cap on range instead of a falloff of half damage beyond (usually 12") - as in, Assault and Pistol.

I was referencing MEDGe- in MEDGe LOS can be drawn to units occupying forests, ruins, etc., but not through those kinds of features to units behind them, if that LOS passes between the two highest points of that feature. Assumption being those 3 trees represent a much denser grove than is practical to place on the table. One of many things that would make terrain more relevant for 40k.

catbarf wrote:
Having just returned from a ten-year hiatus, I'm really pleased to see that 8th Ed has gotten away from the rules bloat that made 5th unpleasant for me. Reintroducing special, army-specific rules that circumvent the base mechanics, like an arbitrary -1 reduction to AP, seems like a crutch solution that just resurrects that unneeded complexity.

If the problem is that high-AP weapons are readily available, forcing the use of invulnerable saves to make units truly durable, then I'd rather see reduction in AP values.

If, say, plasma guns were AP-1, lascannons AP-2, and meltaguns AP-3, they'd all still be noticeably superior to basic weaponry against 2+ and 3+ armor save enemies, without completely eliminating the benefit of that armor. That would be functionally equivalent to treating AP as 1 lower, but it would be a global solution for all armies.

This would simultaneously make invulnerable saves less valuable/necessary, since high-armor units would rarely benefit from them.

At the same time, though, some rebalancing would need to occur on high-volume weapons, since at the moment weapons that throw a lot of shots with moderate strength and -1 AP seem generally superior to the dedicated anti-tank weapons.

That said-

From a game design perspective, the interplay between toughness, wounds, armor save, and invulnerable save is rather opaque. Why does this unit have higher toughness, while this one has higher wounds, while this one has an invulnerable save? What does that represent?

If I were redesigning the 40k ruleset from scratch, I'd rather see it boiled down into two durability attributes- 'how hard is this unit to damage' (toughness), followed by 'how much damage can this unit take' (wounds). Then for weapons, S represents armor-piercing ability, while Dam represents how much damage the weapon is capable of inflicting. Simple, but without losing much granularity compared to the current system, where in practice high-S attacks tend to have high-AP as well.

But I suspect that the ship has already sailed on any radical redesign of that nature.

I am also a returning from long hiatus player.

This post made me think though... maybe changing the MEQ, TEQ statline is looking in the wrong place and opening a whole can of worms. Even messing with the heavy weapons stats seems like it might be too far. I wonder if the issue is just making the problematic heavy weapons cost more to take... So maybe plasma is too versatile a it's current point cost, so just increase the cost of taking a plasma gun (or whatever the issue is). Increasing the cost of these high AP or problematic weapons over the models can help in several ways:

1) It is just a point change so you don't need to add to the rules bloat.
2) It doesn't require you to lower the cost of MEQ/TEQ
3) It may have a side effect of making vehicles more balanced with infantry in an edition where a lot of vehicles sit in the "garage"

Flamephoenix182 wrote:

catbarf wrote:
Having just returned from a ten-year hiatus, I'm really pleased to see that 8th Ed has gotten away from the rules bloat that made 5th unpleasant for me. Reintroducing special, army-specific rules that circumvent the base mechanics, like an arbitrary -1 reduction to AP, seems like a crutch solution that just resurrects that unneeded complexity.

If the problem is that high-AP weapons are readily available, forcing the use of invulnerable saves to make units truly durable, then I'd rather see reduction in AP values.

If, say, plasma guns were AP-1, lascannons AP-2, and meltaguns AP-3, they'd all still be noticeably superior to basic weaponry against 2+ and 3+ armor save enemies, without completely eliminating the benefit of that armor. That would be functionally equivalent to treating AP as 1 lower, but it would be a global solution for all armies.

This would simultaneously make invulnerable saves less valuable/necessary, since high-armor units would rarely benefit from them.

At the same time, though, some rebalancing would need to occur on high-volume weapons, since at the moment weapons that throw a lot of shots with moderate strength and -1 AP seem generally superior to the dedicated anti-tank weapons.

That said-

From a game design perspective, the interplay between toughness, wounds, armor save, and invulnerable save is rather opaque. Why does this unit have higher toughness, while this one has higher wounds, while this one has an invulnerable save? What does that represent?

If I were redesigning the 40k ruleset from scratch, I'd rather see it boiled down into two durability attributes- 'how hard is this unit to damage' (toughness), followed by 'how much damage can this unit take' (wounds). Then for weapons, S represents armor-piercing ability, while Dam represents how much damage the weapon is capable of inflicting. Simple, but without losing much granularity compared to the current system, where in practice high-S attacks tend to have high-AP as well.

But I suspect that the ship has already sailed on any radical redesign of that nature.

I am also a returning from long hiatus player.

This post made me think though... maybe changing the MEQ, TEQ statline is looking in the wrong place and opening a whole can of worms. Even messing with the heavy weapons stats seems like it might be too far. I wonder if the issue is just making the problematic heavy weapons cost more to take... So maybe plasma is too versatile a it's current point cost, so just increase the cost of taking a plasma gun (or whatever the issue is). Increasing the cost of these high AP or problematic weapons over the models can help in several ways:

1) It is just a point change so you don't need to add to the rules bloat.
2) It doesn't require you to lower the cost of MEQ/TEQ
3) It may have a side effect of making vehicles more balanced with infantry in an edition where a lot of vehicles sit in the "garage"

The only ways to make MEQ more durable without also boosting GEQ durability is to up the price of GEQ, lower the price of MEQ, or give MEQ special rules to up their durability. If you simply up the cost of weapons with AP such as heavy bolters and assault cannons (which is what marines die to) then it also makes them worse at killing GEQ. This is why you don't see many people asking for the weapons themselves to change.

Aren't people also complaining that TEQ needs a buff, too?

That said, a nerf to Plas and other D:1/D:2 weapons but no change on D:6 or D:3+ weapons might actually effect a change that improves MEQ/TEQ more than vehicles and monsters.

I had a brain fart, i meant to say GEQ not TEQ.

I do think both sides of the equation need to change. Oddly, look at the KT base model prices (but not wargear) - they seem much more in line with what should be.

However, even with moderate price changes, to really make Marines feel like Marines, the firepower fix feels necessary, too.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I was thinking about it last night after watching a Kill Team bat rep and I think the solution to a lot of the game's problems are more shooting modifiers.

No, I don't mean army wide -1 nonsense, but rather things like if you're beyond half range on your weapon (we'll exclude pistols since they rarely reach out past 12", and many of which are even worse than that) you take a -1 for shooting. This would encourage more close range shooting and decrease turn one fire base dominance.

Kill Team's cover rules should likely be used as well. As long as a model is at least partially obscured (using TLoS) add another -1 to hit.

If we drop the army wide -1 abilities completely this would make movement and positioning important and decrease long range plasma pot shots leading to other weapons being more favorable in army lists.

Honestly the penalties to hit should be mechanic based (movement, psychic powers, ect. Basically it shouldn't be something you get 100% of the time just by existing, but rather has was to be counter played), not based on army traits.

I believe shooting without LOS (such as Tau SMS turrets) only hits on 6s in kill team, no modifiers. Which is another good change IMO.

As for -1 over half range, I would actually prefer if it was -1 to hit over 24" or something. That way pistols and assault weapons aren't unfairly hurt like they would otherwise be. On the other hand though, long range artillery should have penalties for firing too close, such as within 24".
And 6s should always hit.

Dandelion wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I was thinking about it last night after watching a Kill Team bat rep and I think the solution to a lot of the game's problems are more shooting modifiers.

No, I don't mean army wide -1 nonsense, but rather things like if you're beyond half range on your weapon (we'll exclude pistols since they rarely reach out past 12", and many of which are even worse than that) you take a -1 for shooting. This would encourage more close range shooting and decrease turn one fire base dominance.

Kill Team's cover rules should likely be used as well. As long as a model is at least partially obscured (using TLoS) add another -1 to hit.

If we drop the army wide -1 abilities completely this would make movement and positioning important and decrease long range plasma pot shots leading to other weapons being more favorable in army lists.

Honestly the penalties to hit should be mechanic based (movement, psychic powers, ect. Basically it shouldn't be something you get 100% of the time just by existing, but rather has was to be counter played), not based on army traits.

I believe shooting without LOS (such as Tau SMS turrets) only hits on 6s in kill team, no modifiers. Which is another good change IMO.

As for -1 over half range, I would actually prefer if it was -1 to hit over 24" or something. That way pistols and assault weapons aren't unfairly hurt like they would otherwise be. On the other hand though, long range artillery should have penalties for firing too close, such as within 24".
And 6s should always hit.

Yeah, minimum ranges should be a thing on the big guns again.

That said, basically we can sum it up a lot like this: if we're going to use WFB style AP, we should have WFB style shooting modifiers too. The game would be a lot more balanced between shooting and melee for it.

With some people talking about ideas such as combining Toughness and Armor and just having it a defense against Strength and AP, I think it would be simpler to do something else like give each unit a unit type that determines how easy it is to cause a wound using a simple table like this:

1 Always Fails
Chaff/Swarm 2+ Grots and Rippers
Light Infantry 3+ IG Troopers and Guardians
Medium Infantry 4+ Firewarriors and Ork Boyz (this one might be controversial though)
Heavy Infantry 5+ SM and Necrons
Super Heavy Infantry 6+ Terminators and Immortals

Vehicles and MCs would get a similar chart
Small Vehicles 4+ Land Speeders and Ork Buggies
Light Vehicles/MCs 5+ Most Transports
Medium Vehicles/MCs 6+ Predators and Carnifexes
Heavy Vehicles/MCs 7+ Landraider And Trigon
LoW 8+ Baneblade 8+ Baneblades and Titans

These rolls would be modified by the weapons that are attempting to wound on a Strength scale of +0 to +4.
0 would be most weapons
1 would probably be things like Heavy Bolters
2 would be ACs and Missile Launchers
3 would be Lascannons and Meltas
4 would generally be for things like Railguns and LoW scale anti-armor guns.
To be a little cheeky I might give Plasma a Str 1 but a Str 2 if overcharged.

Obviously it is just an example and would require revamping many other rules as well, but I think it would be a lot easier than trying to balance out Str+AP vs T+AS. Especially if you don't go to a d10 or 12.

The current system (separate T, save, S and AP) gives much more variety though. With so many units and weapons, many would end up being the same as each other.

Skaorn wrote:
With some people talking about ideas such as combining Toughness and Armor and just having it a defense against Strength and AP, I think it would be simpler to do something else like give each unit a unit type that determines how easy it is to cause a wound using a simple table like this:

1 Always Fails
Chaff/Swarm 2+ Grots and Rippers
Light Infantry 3+ IG Troopers and Guardians
Medium Infantry 4+ Firewarriors and Ork Boyz (this one might be controversial though)
Heavy Infantry 5+ SM and Necrons
Super Heavy Infantry 6+ Terminators and Immortals

Vehicles and MCs would get a similar chart
Small Vehicles 4+ Land Speeders and Ork Buggies
Light Vehicles/MCs 5+ Most Transports
Medium Vehicles/MCs 6+ Predators and Carnifexes
Heavy Vehicles/MCs 7+ Landraider And Trigon
LoW 8+ Baneblade 8+ Baneblades and Titans

These rolls would be modified by the weapons that are attempting to wound on a Strength scale of +0 to +4.
0 would be most weapons
1 would probably be things like Heavy Bolters
2 would be ACs and Missile Launchers
3 would be Lascannons and Meltas
4 would generally be for things like Railguns and LoW scale anti-armor guns.
To be a little cheeky I might give Plasma a Str 1 but a Str 2 if overcharged.

Obviously it is just an example and would require revamping many other rules as well, but I think it would be a lot easier than trying to balance out Str+AP vs T+AS. Especially if you don't go to a d10 or 12.

That looks less simple than SvT and dropping saves/Ap IMO. It's a somewhat more convoluted way of doing the same thing as T, with tables to consult or memorize, and without the benefit of tweaking toughness per unit.

Reading these fan attempts to fix the game really restores my faith in GW's rule writers.

Well, if you are in the crowd that wants to simplify the game by combining the Wound Roll and the Save Roll, you're already asking for a more simplified/samey game. GW removing initiative already showed that already as it took out a characteristic of different armies. I'm not necessarily a fan of taking away either of these elements from the game, really, because I don't feel the game needs that kind of simplification.

The problem is that if you go to a system of simple defense va weapon power you run into a lot of problems. If you just try to do a straight conversion using current stats probably won't go over well. A SM might have a defense of 8 (T4 + 4 for armor) while an IG Trooper might have a defense of (T3 + 2 for armor). Let's go with you need to beat the defense score and look at a Str 3 AP 0 Lasgun. It would need a 6 to wound SM and a 3+ to wound an IG. A Str 5 Pulse Rifle or Bolter Rifle (Str 4 AP 1) would need a 4+ to woundan SM and would auto wound an IG unless 1 always fails to wound. Obviously it gets worse as you get bigger numbers where you have defenses that shouldn't get beaten, and weapons that would more than double some defense scores. In order to pull a system like this off, you'd have to go with a system like WMH, which would be exhausting to convert to, and probably a bigger die.

What I listed above was the only way I could think of as a system that might work for the crowd who said they wanted combined Toughness and Armor and still keeps a d6. Personally I don't see the chart as something difficult to remember. Then again, I see it as likely to be used as going with a straight defense score for every unit. Sometimes writing something like my previous post up is about showing the problems of such systems (sameness with units, not everything can wound everything, etc).

Crimson wrote:Reading these fan attempts to fix the game really restores my faith in GW's rule writers.

How so? Because a shallow core that can't support what its own creators want to do with it is a better alternative? Because no-one but a GW rules developer could possibly have anything useful to contribute based on their experience playing a variety of games? Because the player's perspective doesn't matter?

Skaorn wrote:Well, if you are in the crowd that wants to simplify the game by combining the Wound Roll and the Save Roll, you're already asking for a more simplified/samey game. GW removing initiative already showed that already as it took out a characteristic of different armies. I'm not necessarily a fan of taking away either of these elements from the game, really, because I don't feel the game needs that kind of simplification.....

Not so! You are making the same mistake GW's rules writers do- looking at everything in a vacuum. Yes, I think saves are unnecessary- what is really added to the game by armor/invuln saves? Something to do on your opponent's turn? But as I said originally, I think there are better, more decision-based things that could be done in place of saves/ap. Make cover matter more, for one. A suppression system. Alternating Activation w/ more actions to choose from than move/shoot/charge. And so on. Not samey at all.

Blastaar wrote:

Crimson wrote:Reading these fan attempts to fix the game really restores my faith in GW's rule writers.

How so? Because a shallow core that can't support what its own creators want to do with it is a better alternative? Because no-one but a GW rules developer could possibly have anything useful to contribute based on their experience playing a variety of games? Because the player's perspective doesn't matter?

Because most of these suggestions are terrible. 40K has its flaws, certainly. But I'm pretty sure that it would be several magnitudes worse once Dakka was done 'fixing' it if these suggestions are anything to go by.

If you are going to remove armor saves, what are you going to replace it with? Armor saves are to give the unit a extra degree of resilance, so if they are out in the open they won't get instantly deleted.

That was a problem in 7th ed; everything died way too quickly because of the amount of D and AP2 weapons floating around, which is why they introduced the new armor mod system.

Plasma before would not grant any save to a 2+ armored model.
Now it reduces 2+ to 5+.

Armor also differenciates model. A Necron warrior has the same statline as an immortal, but a different save. Ditto for scouts and tac marines.

So if you remove armor saves, you have to replace it with another defensive measure that shows how well armored the model is.

You could just as easily claim that the wound roll is unnecessary; what does the wound roll add to the game? You could in theory just base everything on armor saves, and make weapons distinct from each other from RoF and armor save mods, as well as hit mods and special rules. Like, a bolter could be effective at short range, but at medium range it loses accuracy and at long range it loses accuracy and pen power.
If you think about it logically, the wound roll is more pointless than the armor stat. Why should I have to roll to wound with a lascannon? Its a lascannon. Anything not sufficiently armored gets vaporized. A grot should not have a 1/6 chance of somehow deflecting the bloody huge laser beam off of his honker of a nose.

Suppression is a nice idea. The game could use a mechanic like that. Earlier editions had pinning, which had the idea of suppression, but was never well implemented, and as such it was eventually dropped.

How would you make cover matter more? It already increases a unit's resilience, which is what cover is meant to do. I disagree with the notion that it doesn't help much against popular weapons. A marine in cover has 2+ save. Against plasma that becomes a 5+ save. Without cover it would have been a 6+ save. Chances of surviving a wound increased from 17% to 33%. That is not an insignificant increase.

Skaorn wrote:
Well, if you are in the crowd that wants to simplify the game by combining the Wound Roll and the Save Roll, you're already asking for a more simplified/samey game. GW removing initiative already showed that already as it took out a characteristic of different armies. I'm not necessarily a fan of taking away either of these elements from the game, really, because I don't feel the game needs that kind of simplification.

The problem is that if you go to a system of simple defense va weapon power you run into a lot of problems. If you just try to do a straight conversion using current stats probably won't go over well. A SM might have a defense of 8 (T4 + 4 for armor) while an IG Trooper might have a defense of (T3 + 2 for armor). Let's go with you need to beat the defense score and look at a Str 3 AP 0 Lasgun. It would need a 6 to wound SM and a 3+ to wound an IG. A Str 5 Pulse Rifle or Bolter Rifle (Str 4 AP 1) would need a 4+ to woundan SM and would auto wound an IG unless 1 always fails to wound. Obviously it gets worse as you get bigger numbers where you have defenses that shouldn't get beaten, and weapons that would more than double some defense scores. In order to pull a system like this off, you'd have to go with a system like WMH, which would be exhausting to convert to, and probably a bigger die.

What I listed above was the only way I could think of as a system that might work for the crowd who said they wanted combined Toughness and Armor and still keeps a d6. Personally I don't see the chart as something difficult to remember. Then again, I see it as likely to be used as going with a straight defense score for every unit. Sometimes writing something like my previous post up is about showing the problems of such systems (sameness with units, not everything can wound everything, etc).

Read Mantic's Kings of War rules. A fantastically strategic rules set but very smooth and intuitive. It removes the Save step completely.

@ Blastaar: You could be right. I certainly don't have the temperament. You have made me realize that I do like active defense over passive defense. I like the chance to get to do something other than just remove the number of models my opponent tells me too. If my suggestion above was serious, I probably would have kept invulnerable savesas is for special units and heroes still.

I will say that what I saw of Mantic's Suppression system, at least I think it was there's, I liked it better than 40K's moral system. You had a Nerve stat, you got shot at equal to your nerve stats and you got a penalty, if you got double your nerve then you fell back.

Blastaar wrote:

Crimson wrote:Reading these fan attempts to fix the game really restores my faith in GW's rule writers.

How so? Because a shallow core that can't support what its own creators want to do with it is a better alternative? Because no-one but a GW rules developer could possibly have anything useful to contribute based on their experience playing a variety of games? Because the player's perspective doesn't matter?

Because most of the ideas are terrible. I would have thought that would be fairly obvious from the context.

Blastaar wrote:

Crimson wrote:Reading these fan attempts to fix the game really restores my faith in GW's rule writers.

How so? Because a shallow core that can't support what its own creators want to do with it is a better alternative? Because no-one but a GW rules developer could possibly have anything useful to contribute based on their experience playing a variety of games? Because the player's perspective doesn't matter?

The first rule of Game Design is people on the internet will say horrible things about you and your work because they can. Learn to live with it.

Skaorn wrote:@ Blastaar: You could be right. I certainly don't have the temperament. You have made me realize that I do like active defense over passive defense. I like the chance to get to do something other than just remove the number of models my opponent tells me too. If my suggestion above was serious, I probably would have kept invulnerable savesas is for special units and heroes still.

I will say that what I saw of Mantic's Suppression system, at least I think it was there's, I liked it better than 40K's moral system. You had a Nerve stat, you got shot at equal to your nerve stats and you got a penalty, if you got double your nerve then you fell back.

Understood. It isn't that fun to do nothing but remove models while your opponent is moving, shooting, and hacking away at your troops. I don't think removing saves would work if IGOUGO stays. Switch to AA, though, and soon after you remove some guys it's your turn to do something.....

CthuluIsSpy wrote:If you are going to remove armor saves, what are you going to replace it with? Armor saves are to give the unit a extra degree of resilance, so if they are out in the open they won't get instantly deleted.

That was a problem in 7th ed; everything died way too quickly because of the amount of D and AP2 weapons floating around, which is why they introduced the new armor mod system.

Plasma before would not grant any save to a 2+ armored model.
Now it reduces 2+ to 5+.

Armor also differenciates model. A Necron warrior has the same statline as an immortal, but a different save. Ditto for scouts and tac marines.

So if you remove armor saves, you have to replace it with another defensive measure that shows how well armored the model is.

You could just as easily claim that the wound roll is unnecessary; what does the wound roll add to the game? You could in theory just base everything on armor saves, and make weapons distinct from each other from RoF and armor save mods, as well as hit mods and special rules. Like, a bolter could be effective at short range, but at medium range it loses accuracy and at long range it loses accuracy and pen power.
If you think about it logically, the wound roll is more pointless than the armor stat. Why should I have to roll to wound with a lascannon? Its a lascannon. Anything not sufficiently armored gets vaporized. A grot should not have a 1/6 chance of somehow deflecting the bloody huge laser beam off of his honker of a nose.

Suppression is a nice idea. The game could use a mechanic like that. Earlier editions had pinning, which had the idea of suppression, but was never well implemented, and as such it was eventually dropped.

How would you make cover matter more? It already increases a unit's resilience, which is what cover is meant to do. I disagree with the notion that it doesn't help much against popular weapons. A marine in cover has 2+ save. Against plasma that becomes a 5+ save. Without cover it would have been a 6+ save. Chances of surviving a wound increased from 17% to 33%. That is not an insignificant increase.

I think removing the to-wound roll in addition would be a step too far, reducing the number of variables that can make units interesting as well as making things die too easily. There needs to be a chance that an attack fails to damage something, however small. I would rather see durability increase myself, I am just skeptical that armor saves as standard is the best way to go about that. Wounding has also been less of a balance issue IMO than the save system which has tended to skew units' durability too much in both directions. Keeping invulns, in more limited quantities I can get behind, especially for units that have a strong thematic connection with them, like terminators. No-one wants to see those guys be unviable.

Doesn't it make sense in 40k, with all the weapons available, that being out in the open for most troops would be pretty lethal? Sure the dynamic could change, but it may be more interesting if troops are darting from one protected position to another much of the time.

My big issue with terrain is that it doesn't affect movement much, and I'd love to see some way of slowing enemy units down by leading them through "difficult terrain" as well as solving the issues with true LOS. Even a required % of the table that must be covered by terrain could help, the usual density in a game of 40k is definitely part of the problem. I find games are more fun the more you get to move your minis, and the more that movement matters.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

Blastaar wrote:

Crimson wrote:Reading these fan attempts to fix the game really restores my faith in GW's rule writers.

How so? Because a shallow core that can't support what its own creators want to do with it is a better alternative? Because no-one but a GW rules developer could possibly have anything useful to contribute based on their experience playing a variety of games? Because the player's perspective doesn't matter?

The first rule of Game Design is people on the internet will say horrible things about you and your work because they can. Learn to live with it.

Pretty sure that's the first rule of doing anytthing on the internet.

 Brother Castor wrote:
The current system (separate T, save, S and AP) gives much more variety though. With so many units and weapons, many would end up being the same as each other.

There might be variety, but a lot of it is basically just fluff. Sure, the exact numbers you need to roll at each step when shooting at an Ork Boy versus a Fire Warrior are different, and some weapons are marginally more effective against one than the other, but they both wind up more or less in the same functional category of 'infantry, tougher than a Guardsman, weaker than a Space Marine'. Generally the weapons that are optimal against one are optimal against the other as well. Variety for variety's sake is just complexity if it doesn't add anything meaningful.

I'm curious, how many of the people commenting in this thread have played Epic? That game has much simpler combat mechanics than 40K, including a lack of wound rolls, but it still preserves much of the flavor of the units it features. Its additional mechanics, like a much deeper command and control system, provide other means of differentiating armies and units from one another. In Epic, a force of Space Marines feels like an elite, disciplined unit, able to act and react at a high tempo. Conversely, a horde of Orks has brute force, but trying to coordinate them is like herding cats. I'd argue that despite the game's simpler mechanics, it has more meaningful variety than 40K does. If 40K had greater focus on C&C, suppression, alternating activation, range, LOS, and terrain, there would be lots of means of differentiating weapons and units without needing five stats governing offense and four stats governing defense. Lots of other games, both from GW and other companies, have done this, so it's not like we're in uncharted territory here.

This is all just idle chat. GW's probably not going to overhaul a system that has remained largely static since Rogue Trader.

GW has largely overhauled the game a few times (RT to 2nd, 2nd to 3rd, 7th to 8th). That said, I don't see us straying from a D6 anytime soon.

I do see AoS and possibly even Kill Team being possible places for new mechanics to be tried and then implemented into 40k (and vice versa as a needed), which could lead to CP generation every turn and even changes to how the shooting portion of the game works (something I'm all for but several people have shown a clear dislike for).

Basically it's anyone's guess how the game will change, but we can definitely guess it will, and if the game breaks the changes will ultimately be fairly radical in nature.

Wound and Save rolls (including Invulnerable saves) are separate really only because it gives the opponent a method to interact during the active player's turn, as well as a false sense of power over somehow being able to do something about losing a model. If 40K switched to an alternating activation system, having separate rolls could be combined much easier as the inactive player wouldn't have such a long down time between actions.

On the flip side, there would be a lot of sameness between unit's defense if To Wound and Save were rolled into one because there's not a lot of room to work with on a single D6 roll. There'd be more design space if it was a D8 or D10. Still, you could come up with some tricks (besides rerolls) to mitigate the small range.

The designers would need to think about it a bit to come up with some good tricks, but one I could see, for troops like say Terminators is that their To Wound/Save roll can never be modified (like an invulnerable save). Another might be to activate some ability on a natural roll of X - for example, it could be if an enemy wounds Khorne Beserkers, but don't roll a natural 6 on the wound, the Beserkers get a final attack (melee or ranged) before they are removed.

 Stormonu wrote:
Wound and Save rolls (including Invulnerable saves) are separate really only because it gives the opponent a method to interact during the active player's turn, as well as a false sense of power over somehow being able to do something about losing a model. If 40K switched to an alternating activation system, having separate rolls could be combined much easier as the inactive player wouldn't have such a long down time between actions.

On the flip side, there would be a lot of sameness between unit's defense if To Wound and Save were rolled into one because there's not a lot of room to work with on a single D6 roll. There'd be more design space if it was a D8 or D10. Still, you could come up with some tricks (besides rerolls) to mitigate the small range.

The designers would need to think about it a bit to come up with some good tricks, but one I could see, for troops like say Terminators is that their To Wound/Save roll can never be modified (like an invulnerable save). Another might be to activate some ability on a natural roll of X - for example, it could be if an enemy wounds Khorne Beserkers, but don't roll a natural 6 on the wound, the Beserkers get a final attack (melee or ranged) before they are removed.

I'm sure that there are some good ways to remove it and replace it with something else, but i've yet to find someone who tells me WHY we should remove it. That part of the game is working, so why fixing something that isn't broken?

Blastaar wrote:


My big issue with terrain is that it doesn't affect movement much, and I'd love to see some way of slowing enemy units down by leading them through "difficult terrain" as well as solving the issues with true LOS.

Oh, so like pre-8th edition then. Because in earlier editions, most terrain was difficult and reduced movement from 6" to 2d6 pick the highest. I don't know why they decided to remove it, but it probably has something to do with the reintroduction of the movement stat...which would be a stupid reason, because WHFB had no problems with that, and that system had move stats. Terrain reduced movement by half in that system, iirc.

There is nothing to fix with 40K. Every edition changes the rules for the sake of change and to allow for more models to be used in an army. Just compare the point costs of models from 2nd to 3rd. The aim to improve the game in any way was never on the table.

Choose your preferred edition and stick with it. Chasing the meta with each edition change is imo a foolish endeavour that get´s you nowhere.

 Strg Alt wrote:
There is nothing to fix with 40K. Every edition changes the rules for the sake of change and to allow for more models to be used in an army. Just compare the point costs of models from 2nd to 3rd. The aim to improve the game in any way was never on the table.

Choose your preferred edition and stick with it. Chasing the meta with each edition change is imo a foolish endeavour that get´s you nowhere.

It gets me games that I have at least a chance of winning, so I wouldn't say it's gotten me nowhere.

Bharring wrote:
I do think both sides of the equation need to change. Oddly, look at the KT base model prices (but not wargear) - they seem much more in line with what should be.

However, even with moderate price changes, to really make Marines feel like Marines, the firepower fix feels necessary, too.

Marines only felt like marines for the first half of 3rd. This seems like a futile goal.

Movie marines?

 Blndmage wrote:
Movie marines?

A reference to a joke army list in a White Dwarf long ago where your 1,500pt army was a single Tactical squad with absurd and ridiculous stats, protected by 20pt stunt doubles ("don't worry, my missile launcher didn't actually bite it there, it was a stunt double!").

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
Movie marines?

A reference to a joke army list in a White Dwarf long ago where your 1,500pt army was a single Tactical squad with absurd and ridiculous stats, protected by 20pt stunt doubles ("don't worry, my missile launcher didn't actually bite it there, it was a stunt double!").

Compared to what's out there now, I think an 8th Ed version could actually work.

Spoletta wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Wound and Save rolls (including Invulnerable saves) are separate really only because it gives the opponent a method to interact during the active player's turn, as well as a false sense of power over somehow being able to do something about losing a model. If 40K switched to an alternating activation system, having separate rolls could be combined much easier as the inactive player wouldn't have such a long down time between actions.

On the flip side, there would be a lot of sameness between unit's defense if To Wound and Save were rolled into one because there's not a lot of room to work with on a single D6 roll. There'd be more design space if it was a D8 or D10. Still, you could come up with some tricks (besides rerolls) to mitigate the small range.

The designers would need to think about it a bit to come up with some good tricks, but one I could see, for troops like say Terminators is that their To Wound/Save roll can never be modified (like an invulnerable save). Another might be to activate some ability on a natural roll of X - for example, it could be if an enemy wounds Khorne Beserkers, but don't roll a natural 6 on the wound, the Beserkers get a final attack (melee or ranged) before they are removed.

I'm sure that there are some good ways to remove it and replace it with something else, but i've yet to find someone who tells me WHY we should remove it. That part of the game is working, so why fixing something that isn't broken?

Because it's an extra step that can be removed to save time. Look at something like D&D - you roll to hit, then roll damage. The defender doesn't add a step to negate the attack. The game would work without the added step of a save, it not a case of "fixing" anything anything, just an option for streamlining.

DnDs system is absurd because it conflates hitting and armor penetration.

Honestly that depends on how you run DnD and HP. If you do it so that each time you get hit you get cut open by a claw or stabbed by a sword, then running armor as DR might seem better. If you run it like it was described in earlier additions, at least, where HP was described as your ability to get knocked around before essentially running out of steam and giving your opponent the opening to run you through. It was a more abstract take meant to simulate more cinematic fights where the your armor might protect you from a good hit from an enemy but your at least going to have a nice bruise or a small cut. At which point, it does kind of make sense that heavy armor makes you harder to hit because it's more likely to take a hit without you getting knocked around by it.

Think of it like earlier editions of 40k. You might have a wraithlord with T7, Sv 3+, and W3 and a SM captain with T4, Sv 3+, and W3. I seriously doubt that that captain got special upgrade that made him capable of having the same number of wounds as the much tougher wraithlord when he became captain. I honestly don't think a captain is that much better than a regular SM in terms of physical abilities but they do have experience. You can also throw in luck and destiny too. A wraithlord might have taken a sold hit from a plasma gun and kept going while the captain might have gotten out of the way enough so only part of his armor got melted.

Of course the way wounds have changed in 8th it seems to have moved a little closer to each hit means you just got stabbed by a sword. This always reminded me of a Dragon magazine comic I remember. In it you have a big, beefy barbarian chief being executed. He's tied to a post, got a bunch arrows sticking out of him, and a big old grin. The archers have no arrows left, look ready to pee themselves, and have a guy standing to the side yelling "he's still got 32 HP, guys!".

drbored wrote:
Some friends and I were talking (read: commiserating) about 40k and the state of the ATC and we came to a couple of realizations. There are some problems with 40k 8th edition that need to be addressed and I think we can all agree on a few of them.

1. Power Armor means very little in this edition. The titular 3+ save is often reduced (even in cover) by many weapons to a 4+ or 5+ save. Since many of these same weapons deal more than 1 damage, even having additional wounds isn't keeping Power Armored (or even Terminator Armored) units on the table.

2. Cover means very little. See above, but tack on the fact that GW doesn't seem to understand the definition of 'line of sight blocking terrain' and continues to make tiny windows that can technically still be seen through. The ITC rule of 'first floor LOS-blocking' is only a half fix. Making cover a +1 to your save doesn't help against many popular weapons, and turning it into a -1 to hit is only going to shift the problem to forces that have stacking abilities like this.

3. Allies are broken. You're either part of the 'in' crowd (Imperium, Eldar, Chaos) or you're out of luck (Necron, Orks, Tau, etc). Allies allow the 'in' crowd to shore up weaknesses in their lists from an incredible amount of options, or straight up break the rules as intended, like taking 9 Daemon Princes in a single list. Meanwhile, the 'out' crowd suffers, not having access to cheap forms of CP generation (or regeneration in the case of Kurov's Aquila and similar traits/relics), and often not having enough options to shore up the native weaknesses of their Codex.

So, we came up with a few ideas to address these concerns. Let's start at the top and work our way down.

1. Make Power Armor (and thereby Space Marines) tough. Actually tough. Make them the survivable super soldiers that they're supposed to be, head and shoulders above an Imperial Guardsman. The question is, how do we do this?

My answer: Flatten the AP system.

There are weapons that have an incredibly high AP, and rightfully so! Lascannons, Melta Guns, Blasters, Dark Lances, all the way up to devastating Volcano Cannons and the like. These weapons should still feel like the tank-busters that they were made to be, but against individual troops these weapons are simply too powerful of an elite killer. Here's just my one idea of how we can help keep our poor, flimsy Astartes soldiers from getting pasted too quickly.

--Ranged Weapons that have an AP value that is greater than or equal to 2 that target a model with the 'Infantry' keyword can only reduce the armor value of that unit to a 5+. If the target is counted as being in cover, the weapon can only reduce the armor value of that unit to a 4+ instead.

The aforementioned weapons are anti-tank weapons. They're made to vaporize tank armor, and of course they should still be deadly, but let's try to encourage the use of these weapons against their intended targets: tanks. Of course, these weapons will still do plenty of damage to infantry models if they get through and will therefore be great terminator killers, but at least things like Space Marines will still get some sort of save, and cover may actually mean something! We see a bit of this flattening of AP in Age of Sigmar where VERY few weapons have an AP greater than -2 and most have 0 or -1 at best. This means that even the greatest weapons won't deny most other units a save, which means that everyone has a chance to roll dice. There's one phrase that keeps testing even the best sportsmen: "I don't get a save against that." It's not fun.

2. I can't come up with a set of rules that would cover (ba-dum-tish) all of the different types of terrain that people use. Some people use the power of their imagination to turn cans of soup and cereal boxes into sprawling hive cities, while others use GW terrain that has a plethora of problems from a game-standpoint, and yet others prefer designing their own terrain in uncountable ways. Even so, we've seen some improvement from GW, and that's in the treatment of cover in Kill Team. It's simple: If a model is obscured, it counts as being in cover. Let's bring that over to 40k. If we improve the AP system as in the above, then that alone would go a long way to making cover count for something. If we DON'T change the AP system, then something needs to change with cover.

--Models counted as being in cover treat their armor save as being 1 better (ie, a 4+ armor save is counted as 3+ armor save). In addition, if a model in cover is the target of a ranged weapon with an AP value greater than 0, treat the AP value of that weapon as 1 lower (ie, a weapon with an AP of -2 is instead treated as -1).

This does a few things. It doesn't ignore weapons that have an already outrageously high AP value. A Melta Gun, for example, will punch through the rock that the guardsman is hiding behind, and then punch through the guardsman with just as much ease. It does, however, give tanks a reason to try to hide behind some cover, to put a bit of extra wall between them and the lascannon that's targetting them. This does make tanks tougher against long-ranged shooting, but if you specify against ranged weapons, then it still gives power fists, chainfists, thunder hammers, and the like a role in tank-busting, as they should have. Anything that nerfs long-ranged I-can-see-you-through-this-tiny-window type of shooting is a good thing in my mind. It gives tanks, troops, anything a chance to move up the field to engage gunlines. This also gives models with armor a reason to stay in cover against things like plasma guns, autocannons, and things like that, meaning, you guessed it, Space Marines are a little more survivable against massed plasma and the like!

3. Finally, we come to allies. To be honest, I'd love to say 'just get rid of the whole system', but that wouldn't sell models, right? You know what else doesn't sell models? People leaving 40k to go play a different company's game. That's pretty exaggerated, I know, but I do notice a lot of people jumping from 40k to Age of Sigmar. That may be a win for GW, but probably not in the way that they would like. Why are people jumping to Age of Sigmar? Well, there aren't as many ally shenanigans as in 40k. Yes, Order is the largest faction and Stormcast Eternals can ally with just about anything, but even then you're limited to allying only 20% of your force.

There's a few things to allies that make them troublesome. The first is Command Points. The way they're generated and used is unbalanced. I've seen many games where even armies with 12+ command points eat through them by the end of turn 2. This front-loading of command points encourages a problem that I hear about a lot in 40k: alpha strikes. Especially in the shooting phase. Even if it's gunline vs. gunline, using a ton of stratagems and command points at the front of the game means you're often truly playing a 2000 vs. 1500 point game after Player 1 gets through their shooting phase.

This can be fixed by adopting the same system that is working for Age of Sigmar and is being used in Kill Team: Start the game with 1 command point and generate maybe 1-2 more at the start depending on how your army is composed (or if your leader is still alive). GW has shot themselves in the foot a little bit with this by adding stratagems that allow you to take multiple relics or warlord traits by spending 1-3 command points, along with stratagems that are used before the battle begins to affect deployment that often cost 2-3 command points as well. This means that the demand for command points is much higher in 40k, especially at the beginning of the game, than it is in other games. In the case of allies, though, this is only further problematic, since it encourages multiple game-changing relics to be bought. My solution? Start by getting rid of stratagems that give you more warlord traits or relics. Relics are... relics! When 15 different Imperial Guard regiments are all bringing Kurov's Aquila to the field of battle, it doesn't feel like a relic any more, does it? What's more, stratagems that cost 3 command points are now even more dire when you're only generating 1-2 command points per turn! That's a good thing, as it means that players will really have to consider whether that Command Re-roll is really worth it...

The other difficulty is the detachment system. Limiting allies to a point value won't even really stop a lot of the abuse that we see. You can still fit a Blood Angel Slam-captain and 180 points of CP generating Guardsmen into a 400 point limitation. So how do we get around this while still allowing people to use detachments and without limiting points?

Encourage other kinds of behavior. Let's start by tiering out the faction Keywords.

Tier 1 - Imperium, Xenos, Chaos - these are the great tiers, much like in Age of Sigmar, that, if your army is battle forged and made entirely with units that share this keyword, you get access to a few weaker relics and warlord traits. These won't generate additional CP and they won't give you any great bonuses, but if there's a combination you want that relies on having a bunch of different factions working together, then this is what you get.

Imperium Tier 2 - Astra Militarum, Adeptus Astartes, Adeptus Mechanicus, etc - If your army is battleforged and made entirely of detachments that share a keyword in this tier, you get access to your faction-specific stratagems. What? You mean if I take only Tier 1, I don't get faction-specific stratagems? Yep. You heard me right. If your army is all over the place, how do you expect a commander to efficiently issue orders? How would one commander be able to tell a Custodes Bike Captain to use their specific stratagems while simultaneously asking an Imperial Knights warlord to use a faction-specific stratagem there, too? Not only is it not fluffy, it's just bonkers, to be honest.

Imperium - Adeptus Astartes - Tier 3 - Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Ultramarines, Imperial Fists, etc - If your army is battleforged and made entirely of detachments that share a keyword in this tier, you get subfaction-specific relics and warlord traits, as well as a few bonus command points to spend on all of your spiffy stratagems.

This system encourages players to use one codex to get access to some of those fancy things. Really want to have Kurov's Aquila in your list? Well, you better make a battleforged army of units entirely from a Cadian regiment. Want to be able to Sally Forth! with your Imperial Knights? Then you better at least make an army that's all from Imperial Knights, if not from the same household. If you truly want to still bring Slamguinius and a CP farm of Imperial Guard, then you're going to miss out on a lot of stratagems, warlord traits, and relics.

THESE ARE JUST SOME IDEAS. These are not gospel. I am not so beholden to these ideas that I will defend them to Internet death. I am shooting things out there to see what sticks. Don't like these ideas? I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR OWN. Critique is fine, but let's keep things civil. If you think I'm an idiot, you can think that all you want, but please don't say it, that's just rude.

So, what do you think? How would you improve 8th edition to better balance it? How would you bring some of the lower-performing Codexes up while keeping the higher performing Codexes in check?

Saying AP should be flattened for that reason is subjective. First of all, we pay through the nose for high AP weapons, when I use one, I want it to hit hard. Obviously it should do just as good as it does against elites, it seems you are just looking for rule changes that benefit you rather than the game. As for marines they don't need better armour, they need two wounds flat as they should anyways in my opinion but at Astartes price, 1 wound in this edition does not cut it at all. AP is not an issue, it was a serious issue in 7th.

There are some good suggestions in here, though for me the only thing I want to see changed - so perhaps off topic as it's not by any means a "radical" change - is that your warlord must be taken from the faction/detachment that takes up the largest portion of your force, as determined by points/power level. Command Points being pooled as a resource to be spent on any available stratagems is fine in my opinion, but the force's commander should be from the largest group. Yes, I'm sure you can argue any which way about how it's fluffy for x,y,z reason how a leader can be a,b,c - but we need to worry about game mechanics.

I say this as an Imperial Guard player who frequently enjoys the presence of my Blood Angels Hammer Captain in my Cadian lists, and as a Blood Angels player who enjoys making use of the CP Battalion in Golden Host/Death Company lists.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
Movie marines?

A reference to a joke army list in a White Dwarf long ago where your 1,500pt army was a single Tactical squad with absurd and ridiculous stats, protected by 20pt stunt doubles ("don't worry, my missile launcher didn't actually bite it there, it was a stunt double!").

That was a great ruleset. People should take these stats and use them for 8th. It´ll be a win/win situation for all of us.

Without allies 40k would be boring tbh, I could maybe see limiting the number of detachments and in tournament play allowing armies like Ork, Tau, or Necron to ally with whoever they want (in my opinion tournaments/rules should ignore fluff and be unbiased). If 40k removed allies I would sell off my 40k lmao

I agree cover and LOS is an issue, but I think that +1 to armor is a step in the right direction. A possible alteration could be allowing the unit to roll BOTH a cover and armor save (first roll being if the shot hits the building, second if it goes through the armor). It does thematically make sense that a lascannon shot is strong enough to shoot through both a tree and power armor, infact my gripe in 7th was that cover is spammed too much (which is why i enjoyed using things with ignores cover)(you were at a major disadvantage if you weren't in cover in 7th, making games very boring for people with high ap guns) so I very much appreciate the rule change. Maybe making house rules/ using things with nonsee through windows is an easy solution.

I disagree on nurfing lascannon shots/ making max save a 5+. This sounds more like a personal gripe from someone who takes termies and not tanks. There is already a clear advatage to shooting lascannon shots at tanks over MEQ/TEQ, the only other change i could see is not a debuff on shooting at infantry but a to hit buff for shooting at vehicles (it should be easier to hit vehicles, especially ones that are close). Maybe a BS buff of +1 or +2 depending on distance from the vehicle. What your talking about is a universal invul save which is silly. It makes perfect sense that a troop in powerarmor hit with a lascanon is vaporized. Lascannons are single shot and their damage doesn't spill over, so at most youll lose one model anyways.

TIL earlier editions which didn't have soups were boring. I guess the amount of fun I had back then compared to now was a lie.
If you can't play as a pure faction without getting penalized, then the system sucks. Why should I have to buddy up with another faction just to have a chance of winning? That's bs.
Its just a way to get you to buy another army, and if you play as xenos, which generally don't have allies, then too bad, I guess you should have played imperial then. Now buy 3 knights and marines.

Writing decent terrain rules WOULD be RADICAL!

Pancakey wrote:
Writing decent terrain rules WOULD be RADICAL!

Yeah, 4th edition Area Terrain rules were cool. Iirc, if a unit was more than 6" away from the edge of the area terrain piece it was considered to be out of LOS.
That should help with some of the complaints of there not being enough LoS blocking terrain.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Pancakey wrote:
Writing decent terrain rules WOULD be RADICAL!

Yeah, 4th edition Area Terrain rules were cool. Iirc, if a unit was more than 6" away from the edge of the area terrain piece it was considered to be out of LOS.
That should help with some of the complaints of there not being enough LoS blocking terrain.

On that note, and this may be contentious, but I really dislike TLOS as a game mechanic. Cover and terrain would be much easier to manage if they just followed simple rules using the model's base. Base is wholly within an area of cover? You get cover. Can't trace a line between your base and the enemy's? No LOS. It's strange to me that the LOS/cover rules are the only part of the game where modeling matters- for all other purposes, a model is simply considered to occupy the space covered by its base.

catbarf wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Pancakey wrote:
Writing decent terrain rules WOULD be RADICAL!

Yeah, 4th edition Area Terrain rules were cool. Iirc, if a unit was more than 6" away from the edge of the area terrain piece it was considered to be out of LOS.
That should help with some of the complaints of there not being enough LoS blocking terrain.

On that note, and this may be contentious, but I really dislike TLOS as a game mechanic. Cover and terrain would be much easier to manage if they just followed simple rules using the model's base. Base is wholly within an area of cover? You get cover. Can't trace a line between your base and the enemy's? No LOS. It's strange to me that the LOS/cover rules are the only part of the game where modeling matters- for all other purposes, a model is simply considered to occupy the space covered by its base.

The problem thought is that not all bases are the same.
Take my immortals for instance - some are on 25mm bases, some are on 40mm bases. This alone breaks a system that's reliant on bases, as now you have two different interactions with the same unit.
Rebasing isn't a solution, because there's a chance you could seriously break the model. Especially the slot-type ones, which is what the metal models used.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

catbarf wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Pancakey wrote:
Writing decent terrain rules WOULD be RADICAL!

Yeah, 4th edition Area Terrain rules were cool. Iirc, if a unit was more than 6" away from the edge of the area terrain piece it was considered to be out of LOS.
That should help with some of the complaints of there not being enough LoS blocking terrain.

On that note, and this may be contentious, but I really dislike TLOS as a game mechanic. Cover and terrain would be much easier to manage if they just followed simple rules using the model's base. Base is wholly within an area of cover? You get cover. Can't trace a line between your base and the enemy's? No LOS. It's strange to me that the LOS/cover rules are the only part of the game where modeling matters- for all other purposes, a model is simply considered to occupy the space covered by its base.

The problem thought is that not all bases are the same.
Take my immortals for instance - some are on 25mm bases, some are on 40mm bases. This alone breaks a system that's reliant on bases, as now you have two different interactions with the same unit.
Rebasing isn't a solution, because there's a chance you could seriously break the model. Especially the slot-type ones, which is what the metal models used.

I don't understand your point. Why wouldn't rebasing be an issue? And it does have precedence.. Look at all the rebasing that 4th or 5th caused.

Reemule wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

catbarf wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Pancakey wrote:
Writing decent terrain rules WOULD be RADICAL!

Yeah, 4th edition Area Terrain rules were cool. Iirc, if a unit was more than 6" away from the edge of the area terrain piece it was considered to be out of LOS.
That should help with some of the complaints of there not being enough LoS blocking terrain.

On that note, and this may be contentious, but I really dislike TLOS as a game mechanic. Cover and terrain would be much easier to manage if they just followed simple rules using the model's base. Base is wholly within an area of cover? You get cover. Can't trace a line between your base and the enemy's? No LOS. It's strange to me that the LOS/cover rules are the only part of the game where modeling matters- for all other purposes, a model is simply considered to occupy the space covered by its base.

The problem thought is that not all bases are the same.
Take my immortals for instance - some are on 25mm bases, some are on 40mm bases. This alone breaks a system that's reliant on bases, as now you have two different interactions with the same unit.
Rebasing isn't a solution, because there's a chance you could seriously break the model. Especially the slot-type ones, which is what the metal models used.

I don't understand your point. Why wouldn't rebasing be an issue? And it does have precedence.. Look at all the rebasing that 4th or 5th caused.

You may like to go through the laborious process of detaching your models from the bases and repairing breaks (especially on thin legged ones), but I don't think many would be bothered doing that. What rebasing in 4th and 5th ed? I don't remember any such rebasing in 4th and 5th ed.
Do you mean in WHFB? How long ago did that happen, and has it happened again, in such a way that affects the gameplay? Could it be that GW realized changing the bases in a game system that's base reliant is a bad idea, and as such chose not to do it again?

As bad as it is, AoS did cause a lot of rebasing and GW gave us a table of standard base sizes for each model.

Not only that, but with the endless spells, we had the first case of LoS based on bases. The palisade spells negates LoS if you cannot trace a straight line between the center of the attacking model and the center of target without touching the palisade base.

Spoletta wrote:
As bad as it is, AoS did cause a lot of rebasing and GW gave us a table of standard base sizes for each model.

Not only that, but with the endless spells, we had the first case of LoS based on bases. The palisade spells negates LoS if you cannot trace a straight line between the center of the attacking model and the center of target without touching the palisade base.

Yeah, but you can still use square bases in AoS, can't you? Which would imply that bases don't have that much of an impact on the game.
Its not like WHFB, where changing the base size had a considerable impact on the game, as units then had a much bigger footprint on the table.

Martel732 wrote:
DnDs system is absurd because it conflates hitting and armor penetration.

DnD's current system treats the attack roll as determining whether you land an effective hit, i.e. not an armored location that is beyond your strength to overcome. It's abstract, but it conflates nothing. High dexterity allows you to dodge more to avoid telling hits but is limited by armor weight. Strong attackers can land effective hits more easily by just penetrating armor, whereas dexterous attackers can go for weak spots instead.

40k's system is less abstract but requires 2 additional rolls, which allows for greater granularity with a d6 system, whereas a d20 system does not need this as much.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
As bad as it is, AoS did cause a lot of rebasing and GW gave us a table of standard base sizes for each model.

Not only that, but with the endless spells, we had the first case of LoS based on bases. The palisade spells negates LoS if you cannot trace a straight line between the center of the attacking model and the center of target without touching the palisade base.

Yeah, but you can still use square bases in AoS, can't you? Which would imply that bases don't have that much of an impact on the game.
Its not like WHFB, where changing the base size had a considerable impact on the game, as units then had a much bigger footprint on the table.

No, you can't use square bases. You can have them on your models, but by rules you have to measure distances as if they had the standard round base.

catbarf wrote:
Base is wholly within an area of cover? You get cover. Can't trace a line between your base and the enemy's? No LOS

That only works on flat boards. If a model is elevated 90% of the model might be visible but the base is not visible. You then end up with horrible cludges and exceptions like in malifaux.

It also makes all terrain LoS blocking unless you add more exceptions.

eldritchx wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
DnDs system is absurd because it conflates hitting and armor penetration.

DnD's current system treats the attack roll as determining whether you land an effective hit, i.e. not an armored location that is beyond your strength to overcome. It's abstract, but it conflates nothing. High dexterity allows you to dodge more to avoid telling hits but is limited by armor weight. Strong attackers can land effective hits more easily by just penetrating armor, whereas dexterous attackers can go for weak spots instead.

40k's system is less abstract but requires 2 additional rolls, which allows for greater granularity with a d6 system, whereas a d20 system does not need this as much.

You say abstract, i say conflate.

Spoletta wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
As bad as it is, AoS did cause a lot of rebasing and GW gave us a table of standard base sizes for each model.

Not only that, but with the endless spells, we had the first case of LoS based on bases. The palisade spells negates LoS if you cannot trace a straight line between the center of the attacking model and the center of target without touching the palisade base.

Yeah, but you can still use square bases in AoS, can't you? Which would imply that bases don't have that much of an impact on the game.
Its not like WHFB, where changing the base size had a considerable impact on the game, as units then had a much bigger footprint on the table.

No, you can't use square bases. You can have them on your models, but by rules you have to measure distances as if they had the standard round base.

That's weird, how does that even work?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
As bad as it is, AoS did cause a lot of rebasing and GW gave us a table of standard base sizes for each model.

Not only that, but with the endless spells, we had the first case of LoS based on bases. The palisade spells negates LoS if you cannot trace a straight line between the center of the attacking model and the center of target without touching the palisade base.

Yeah, but you can still use square bases in AoS, can't you? Which would imply that bases don't have that much of an impact on the game.
Its not like WHFB, where changing the base size had a considerable impact on the game, as units then had a much bigger footprint on the table.

No, you can't use square bases. You can have them on your models, but by rules you have to measure distances as if they had the standard round base.

That's weird, how does that even work?

It doesn't, but GW is doing their best to keep from telling fantasy players they have to update their models to play.

ValentineGames wrote:

Get rid of the D6.
Fix cover saves to be worth taking cover.
Fix the AP system.
Scrap random shots.
Scrap random damage.
Bring back fire arcs.
Stop solving everything with invulnerable saves.
Fix bogging the game down with so many rolls.
Fix CP.

I actually agree with all of this except firing arcs.

I'm to the point where I almost exclusively use the GW dice app. So, moving to a d10 system wouldn't really change how i play the game.

I like the idea of a defensive trait called "Tough" or "powered" or whatever, with a value.

Tough 1 = ignore 1 point of AP
Tough 2 = ignore 2 points of AP (For terminators or similar)

Also, definitely switch to d10's.

Wayniac wrote:
What I don't get is why the AP system worked fine in 2nd edition, but it has broken down now in 8th. Is it just because the scale has grown exponentially from 2nd? Although vehicles still had armor facings then.

I have a strong nostalgia for 2nd, but the AP didn't really work fine, in the sense that armour varied from poor to middling, due to abundant AP modifiers. Power armour was reduced to a 4+ against most small arms, lasguns included. Shuriken catapults reduced it to 5+! The vast majority of heavy weapons had at least -3 AP. Terminator armour was a beast to crack with 3+ on 2D6, and there were a scattering of decent 2+ saves like Khornate power armour, but that was about the height of it.

I think the current approach of modifying points values (but not statlines) to improve balance is good. as it doesn't invalidate the existing codexes.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
What I don't get is why the AP system worked fine in 2nd edition, but it has broken down now in 8th. Is it just because the scale has grown exponentially from 2nd? Although vehicles still had armor facings then.

I have a strong nostalgia for 2nd, but the AP didn't really work fine, in the sense that armour varied from poor to middling, due to abundant AP modifiers. Power armour was reduced to a 4+ against most small arms, lasguns included. Shuriken catapults reduced it to 5+! The vast majority of heavy weapons had at least -3 AP. Terminator armour was a beast to crack with 3+ on 2D6, and there were a scattering of decent 2+ saves like Khornate power armour, but that was about the height of it.

You also have to keep in mind that guardsmen couldn´t shoot multiple times with their flashlights in 2nd because of the lack of an order mechanic. And Rapid Fire could only be used by SM & CSM. Shuriken catapult were a serious threat though with their range of 24´´.
Infantry apart from Terminators had to hug cover in 2nd or else die a quick death. But you could also hide infantry at the start of the game to increase their survival rate and these lurkers had to be detected first in order to be shot at. Although once they started shooting by themselves, they stopped being hidden.