Ratius wrote: As per title, this can range from an utter overhaul of the current rules to a singular change or anything in between.
Personally I'd like:
Better / more indepth terrain rules
No more random charge distances
More (better?) attacks for hand to hand / combat units
Remove CPs altogether
I'd love for a few things:
Consolidated Universal rules.
Alternating activations (like killteam)
When you charge, you move the distance you rolled even if you didnt make the charge (like killteam)
Impossible for me to say in detail but i think mixing 7th and 8th would be better.
GW tried to copy AoS rules into 40k in order make the game fast , easy to play and easy to learn, but 40k cannot be done that to unless it is given the Fantasy treatment. (complete removal to be replaced by something brand new)
Ditch the current Psychic phase for something actually engaging and interesting. Make Morale rules apply to many, many more units. Make close combat useful for killing things rather than just holding things up/preventing shooting. Rebalance Wounds and Toughness against Strength and Damage for vehicles and monsters to reduce the need for Invulnerable saves. Change how character protection works...
Actually, I think they'd be as well treating 8th as a decent start to a new ruleset but overhauling a lot of the work they did in 8th with profiles of weapons and units. The core rules are mostly fine but I think the details of how the game is built around them is still in need of a lot of work.
Not much difference really fro 9th from 8th which I find a massive improvement on the dark times of 6th/7th
Better terrain rules.
Better spread of Toughness
Go back to +1 attack for pistol weapons in CC.
otherwise I am good
Things def DONT want
Another complicated pyschic phase edition - especially terrible if you don't have them - they are fine as they are.
No Vehicle facings - at most have a extra -1AP from rear / top but certianly no more.
Better terrain rules so that battlefield management is a thing like it should be in war.
Removal of CP farming. I like the AOS way of CP better. Its a limited resource and should be used sparingly, not farmed.
Actual narrative support that goes beyond min/max every game for the winz. Storyline army building / structure. Rarely do you get to cherry pick your forces in a narrative.
Stronger incentive to take actual core troops like tactical marines. That ties back into min/max every game for the winz. But if you had a reason to take tactical marines, that would also bleed back into powergame play.
I'd personally like to never see 9th ed, but rather just 8.5. the Core rules are fine as-is with just a few tweaks, mostly just points adjustments, but we get those in CA.
The main change I'd like to see is a change in the way CPs are generates. I like CPs and the idea of Stratagems. It's resource management that adds tactical depth.
But the biggest issue is the disparity between detachments.
It's fine to want to encourage Battalions since they require more Troops, but since Troops are already the best scoring units, it's not so needed.
I want to see the following:
CP return to "factory settings", so Battalions at 3CPs, Brigades at 9CPs. Any detachment that shares 2 or more faction Keywords (so at least 1 non-Imperial, Chaos, Aeldari, etc keyword) with your army's Warlord gains +2CPs.
So adding a Guard Battalion to an army with a Knight WL will only add 3CPs, not 5.
But those armies that don't have cheap allies can generate a healthier amount of CPs. Even Outriders, Vanguards and Spearheads will grant 3CPs each if they are the same "specific" faction as your WL.
I would also make Battle Forged grant 3CPs EACH TURN so long as you WL is alive and on the table.
An end of IGOUGO, so alternating activations in some form. Not sure how, exactly - clearly activating a knight cannot be the same as activating a base of nurglings, for example. Perhaps a new stat for units, activation cost, and a set amount of activation points you could spend each turn based on points for the game, and a penalty for activating the same unit in back to back turns? Perhaps even combine this with command points, so you need to pick between stratagems and activations. Just about anything could be better than IGOUGO, though.
Less invulnerable saves would also be good for the game, IMHO. Give things more wounds, tons of wounds all around would be fine. Not a fan of the current state of things, where invulnerable saves are very common and usually stacked with FNP saves.
Less rerolls. Not a huge fan of how frequently dice are rerolled. A reroll effect should be both powerful and rare, in my opinion. I stopped playing around 3rd before coming back to 8th and the prevalence of rerolls, in addition to almost every model having an invuln, really stands out to me.
A greater penalty for falling back out of combat. Just like units get overwatch when they are charged, I'd like to see the reverse. Units should either get a free swing or close combat attack at units as they fall back, or maybe the falling back unit should be forced to make some sort of morale test.
Point values for relics, warlord traits, etc. They are not equal and never will be, given how varied the effects are.
Less soup. Taking some amount of allies can be flavorful and should continue, but not in the current state. I happen to like the AoS rules for allies, they are far more limiting than 40ks. Either a bonus for mono codex or restriction placed on allies would go a long way towards evening the playing field.
Higher point values for everything. Point values have been squeezed considerably over the editions, to the point where its become extremely tight to balance certain things. A slight bump across the board would give the rules team a lot of breathing room in making things balanced. However, this is unlikely to ever happen because lower points means they can sell more models. Maybe guardsmen will be 1 ppm someday.
More customization of non unique characters. I don't like special characters much, personally, as I feel its annoying for them to constantly show up in every small skirmish across the galaxy. Guilliman should be rare, not a personal escort for every Ultramarines squad that leaves Macragge. As an Eldar player I remember how cool and customizable Exarchs used to be. I'd like more stuff like that... give us plastic kits for our characters that are highly customizable and rules with lots of options for them. This could add such flavor and really make an army feel like your own unique force, more than including some predefined special character.
I would like to see manoeuvring play a key role in the game, as opposed to sheer firepower.
I would like to see flamers and blast weapons have some link to the size of the unit they're shooting at, and a separation of the anti-tank and anti-infantry aspects of ex-ordnance weapons being separated to make them less of an all-destroying weapon.
I want to see falling back become a test of some sort, where you can fail to get yourself out of combat, as opposed to the current system where you just walk away.
I want to see plasma weaponry get hot on a natural 1!
I'd like to see boarding planks allow you to disembark from a trukk if it moves 6", then move and charge, making trukks worth it! or, the old boarding plank rules.
I'd like to see line of sight make a comeback, and vehicle weapon arcs.
1. Move from a D6 system to a D8, D10 or some other system so as to allow for a greater stat-line distribution. Add in alternating activations, al a Killteam. Move even if you fail the charge.
Ratius wrote: As per title, this can range from an utter overhaul of the current rules to a singular change or anything in between.
Personally I'd like:
Better / more indepth terrain rules
No more random charge distances
More (better?) attacks for hand to hand / combat units
Remove CPs altogether
Remove CP in its current form, all battle forge get 3 cp, generate 1 a turn, relics and artifacts give a chance to generate an additional on a 6+, all strats cost 1 cp
Reduce AP in the game to much ap -2 weapons which is why the 3+ is basically worthless now
Bring back a bonus for units meleeing vehicles, to represent hitting the back of the vehicle
Make cover worth taking, the rules put into cities of death was a really good example.of how terrain should work.
Re-point the games on essentially a factor of 10 to allow for more granular balancing. Also shrink the game size down leading to a faster pace of play.
Wow, glad no one here is a game designer. 8th just needs refinement like a consolidation of the FAQs to the core rules, not a return to previous failed edition mechanics.
I'd like to see a better defined scale to the game.
Why on earth are we differentiating between a power axe and power sword on a random squad sergeant in a game where they may be facing a tank company, knight lance, or Titan maniple? Why do we have air superiority fighters and strategic missile launchers in a game where handguns are relevant wargear?
I get that GW wants one scale of models to represent the entire game universe, but I really think 40k needs two or three different rulesets, with different levels of abstraction and model count, to portray different scales.
I think solving that will make a whole lot of other balance issues easier to grapple with.
buddha wrote: Wow, glad no one here is a game designer. 8th just needs refinement like a consolidation of the FAQs to the core rules, not a return to previous failed edition mechanics.
Not liking a mechanic does not mean it's a failed mechanic. Armor facing was a important mechanic that helped balance vehicles.
Removing super heavies from standard games is a good thing. Super heavies in 2k games was introduced in 7th, it's still a very new thing.
buddha wrote: Wow, glad no one here is a game designer. 8th just needs refinement like a consolidation of the FAQs to the core rules, not a return to previous failed edition mechanics.
Don't worry they'll just ditch 8th with a new set of failed mechanics.
The cessation of constant rules updates...even to the extent of an faq for an faq. At this rate I would prefer to revert to the unholy mess that was 7th.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate issues are being addressed but if you want to make that consumer friendly you need a platform which is digital and auto updates.
GW, please cease your fixation with hard copy crack and embrace this century - yeah, you will lose money but you will probably have a happier player base.
Adding type keywords (such as BOLT, FLAME, PLASMA, etc) to weapons, to allow rules to be designed which hang off them - it would make the wording for Bolter Discipline a lot cleaner, for example.
Dysartes wrote: Adding type keywords (such as BOLT, FLAME, PLASMA, etc) to weapons, to allow rules to be designed which hang off them - it would make the wording for Bolter Discipline a lot cleaner, for example.
such a simple but good idea, I fully expected it to eventually turn up in 8th
Most major units come with their own victory conditions or objectives. It is then impossible to have kill’em all or straight table quarters games. Playing as of against titans should be different than playing as or against bikes or as or against ork hordes or as or against tyranid hordes or as or against armored cavalry, and you don’t have to hear about agreeing which “game mode” to play as.
Range penalties and extended ranges for shooting, and bonuses for cross-fire give cc units more fodder and shooty armies a strong reason to get close.
Infantry always have true overwatch turned on to balance them against big models.
Most models and rules are obtained by recasting and 3D printing and GW makes money by running events and selling T-shirts.
Titans and flyers in any old game even kill-team sized but with forced narrative objectives that make the games winnable for either player.
I actually enjoy random charge rolls. Gives you a change to make a long charge, is a bit more thematic.
That being said, maybe have there be minimum charge rolls. Like maybe your movement (caps at flat 6) + a D6 roll. I mean, I played against someone who failed like 3x 4" charges turn 1, and it was kind of game breaking for him. And it feels dumb.
I also enjoy CPs and stratagems, but CP batteries definitely need fixing.
Other stuff:
1) I find the falling back mechanic stupid and broken. It makes no sense for most units to simply disengage from an enemy and have them stare and do nothing. Especially when said units can just waltz out of combat and fire to full effect - take for example, the entirety of the imperial guard infantry. I just hate that guardsmen walk away from a howling mob of boyz, and then just fire to full effect right in their faces.
There should be a test that, ideally, tests on initiative, or barring that, move speed. Units with a high move speed should have a high chance (but not 100%) to disengage from enemy units, and units with a relatively slower move speed should have a lower chance (but not 0%) to disengage, and vice versa. So, things like jump packs and bikes would be able to tie up slow infantry more effectively, and give them, you know, a purpose. And the same with, say, terminators. Big slow walking tanks should be relatively easy to disengage from.
Maybe include an option for units to fire at enemy units tied in melee with friendly ones, but include a negative modifier to hit, and maybe 1s hit your own unit. IDK. But the way falling back works now means that melee units are nearly useless, as what always happens is they get into combat, they flail around a bit, their opponent runs away and the melee unit is obliterated.
2) Also, I kind of hate the way characters work now. I'd prefer bringing back independent characters or look out sir. This may be a somewhat uniquely ork problem because of our lack of invluns, but its disappointing for an ork warboss (with a measly 4+ armor save and nothing else) to be instagibbed when entering combat with anything more threatening than a fire warrior.
3) I feel as if what formerly were blast templates, which were generally considered great against hordes but less effective against single targets have flipped in some cases, which is odd. For example, a battle cannon. Against infantry it's........ok. Like, lets say the battle cannon gets 8 shots and 4 hits. That's maybe 4 dead infantry. Meh. Against a vehicle or MC, 4 battle cannon hits is a much bigger deal.
Like, if they reduced the shots of blast weapons, or maybe just large blast weapons, but let their wounds spill over, that might make more sense. So those 4 hits v. infantry with D3 damage each could kill up to 12 infantry. The idea being blasts wouldn't be as devastating v. single targets, but have increased utility v. hordes.
Kap'n Krump wrote: I actually enjoy random charge rolls. Gives you a change to make a long charge, is a bit more thematic.
That being said, maybe have there be minimum charge rolls. Like maybe your movement (caps at flat 6) + a D6 roll. I mean, I played against someone who failed like 3x 4" charges turn 1, and it was kind of game breaking for him. And it feels dumb.
Love this idea.
Like, if they reduced the shots of blast weapons, or maybe just large blast weapons, but let their wounds spill over, that might make more sense. So those 4 hits v. infantry with D3 damage each could kill up to 12 infantry. The idea being blasts wouldn't be as devastating v. single targets, but have increased utility v. hordes.
I'm slowly fading from 40K (as expected). It's not the core rules which bug me at all, it's the ridiculous number of dice and re-rolls and auras and hordes that's more or less killed my interest in going further with the game.
That's something that won't be fixed or changed, because it's how GW sells models/minis. Units (particularly cheap ones which should be crap units) shooting or fighting 150+ times a phase or turn is just...well it's boring as feth. Many units reach the amount of dice rolls where there's no point to even roll them. Just remove the unit or the target. That's pretty poor game design, though I know mathhammerers love it (read: the people who insist anything that isn't hiting five times per model at 2+ while re-rolling '1's is a garbage unit, etc.).
The entire "Well, this squad shoots 90 times...and I can re-roll, and then I can shoot again with a stratagem" has all but killed my enthusiasm for the game. That's not a game anymore, it's becoming a farce. Couple that with GW's model decisions as of late and I'll probably retire to the grognard home and play 8th occasionally with buddies and go back to dabbling with smaller more intricate games of 2nd edition etc.
Finally a game were the factions rules are made for the core rules and not something that is carried over from the very beginning with minor upgrades that was never going to work in the first place
Never thought I would say that but at the moment AoS is the better game
Vaktathi wrote: I'd like to see a better defined scale to the game.
Why on earth are we differentiating between a power axe and power sword on a random squad sergeant in a game where they may be facing a tank company, knight lance, or Titan maniple? Why do we have air superiority fighters and strategic missile launchers in a game where handguns are relevant wargear?
I get that GW wants one scale of models to represent the entire game universe, but I really think 40k needs two or three different rulesets, with different levels of abstraction and model count, to portray different scales.
I think solving that will make a whole lot of other balance issues easier to grapple with.
I can see how that would make sense narratively but don't see how it would really change balance one way or another.
The models are all just models. The only difference between them is numbers and in some cases, special rules. A knight is functionally the same as a space marine except it has bigger numbers and can retreat and shoot. A stormraven is functionally the same as a Land Raider except it's numbers are different and certain units can't charge it.
ERJAK wrote: I would want no idea posted on dakka to be included in the game.
Probably turn out better than Cruddance's ideas.
As bad as cruddace's stuff is...probably still no. Dakka still has people who think Knights are some kind of crazy mythical eldritch entity instead of just a really tall dreadnaught.
A complete re-write, focusing on strategic depth, player agency, and balance.
Alternating Activation by unit.
A morale system focusing on suppressing the enemy that even space marines are subject to.
Units no longer become locked in combat.
Somewhat more abstracted LOS-eg. no LOSthrough area terrain.
Far fewer abilities that trigger on to-hit/to-wound rolls.
No allies, for the sake of balance and faction identity/uniqueness/playstyle.
Return of USRS- but done properly.
Implement MEDGe's Overrun and Hit-And-Run rules.
Removal of "everything can hurt everything."
Removal of armor saves, because there is zero agency involved in that action.
Random shots and damage removed for all weapons and psychic powers save those few where it actually makes sense.
Return of blasts and templates.
Templates become template X where the narrow end must be within X inches of the firing model or weapon.
Weapon keywords- flamer, plasma etc.
Superheavies and flyers as Apocalypse-only units.
A return/update of the FOC- make infantry the focus of gameplay. Require the number of Troops to be equal or greater than the number of Elites, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support in a list.
Shooting, wounding etc. based on comparing an attacker value to a defender value to determine the minimum roll for success.
Firing arcs for everything to make movement/positioning more important.
Run and charge at double the units' movement value.
Re-work of psychic tests to something more meaningful, or scrap the mechanic entirely and allow psykers to simply use their power(s) in lieu of shooting for that activation.
Asymmetrical objectives.
Vehicle sponsons, turrets, pintle mounts and so forth can shoot different units.
Pistols can be fired in close-combat in place of the model's melee weapon.
Elbows wrote: I'm slowly fading from 40K (as expected). It's not the core rules which bug me at all, it's the ridiculous number of dice and re-rolls and auras and hordes that's more or less killed my interest in going further with the game.
That's something that won't be fixed or changed, because it's how GW sells models/minis. Units (particularly cheap ones which should be crap units) shooting or fighting 150+ times a phase or turn is just...well it's boring as feth. Many units reach the amount of dice rolls where there's no point to even roll them. Just remove the unit or the target. That's pretty poor game design, though I know mathhammerers love it (read: the people who insist anything that isn't hiting five times per model at 2+ while re-rolling '1's is a garbage unit, etc.).
The entire "Well, this squad shoots 90 times...and I can re-roll, and then I can shoot again with a stratagem" has all but killed my enthusiasm for the game. That's not a game anymore, it's becoming a farce. Couple that with GW's model decisions as of late and I'll probably retire to the grognard home and play 8th occasionally with buddies and go back to dabbling with smaller more intricate games of 2nd edition etc.
100% agree on this I feel like re-roll spam has been on the upswing since 6th. 5th had very few re-rolls, just really twin linked items and fateweaver/fortune saves (I'm sure I'm missing a few but they were not super common), 6th added divination to a ton of armies, re-roll saves, re-roll charges etc, this largely carried over to 7th, and 8th introduced auras all over the place throwing re-rolls. I'd rather see more use of modifiers and less re-rolls, it just saves time.
Vaktathi wrote: I'd like to see a better defined scale to the game.
Why on earth are we differentiating between a power axe and power sword on a random squad sergeant in a game where they may be facing a tank company, knight lance, or Titan maniple? Why do we have air superiority fighters and strategic missile launchers in a game where handguns are relevant wargear?
I get that GW wants one scale of models to represent the entire game universe, but I really think 40k needs two or three different rulesets, with different levels of abstraction and model count, to portray different scales.
I think solving that will make a whole lot of other balance issues easier to grapple with.
I can see how that would make sense narratively but don't see how it would really change balance one way or another.
The models are all just models. The only difference between them is numbers and in some cases, special rules. A knight is functionally the same as a space marine except it has bigger numbers and can retreat and shoot. A stormraven is functionally the same as a Land Raider except it's numbers are different and certain units can't charge it.
ERJAK wrote: I would want no idea posted on dakka to be included in the game.
Probably turn out better than Cruddance's ideas.
As bad as cruddace's stuff is...probably still no. Dakka still has people who think Knights are some kind of crazy mythical eldritch entity instead of just a really tall dreadnaught.
The issue is that unless points are balanced properly, superheavy stuff largely invalidates weaker vehicles and MCs. If weapons exist to wipe out super heavies they dust mid range vehicles. FOr flyers the not being able to charge it is a big deal for some armies, and they have -1 to hit base.
All of this could be resolved in theory with points, but pointing flyers and superheavies properly probably removes many from the game in the current points landscape.
Blastaar wrote: A complete re-write, focusing on strategic depth, player agency, and balance.
Alternating Activation by unit.
A morale system focusing on suppressing the enemy that even space marines are subject to.
Units no longer become locked in combat.
Somewhat more abstracted LOS-eg. no LOSthrough area terrain.
Far fewer abilities that trigger on to-hit/to-wound rolls.
No allies, for the sake of balance and faction identity/uniqueness/playstyle.
Return of USRS- but done properly.
Implement MEDGe's Overrun and Hit-And-Run rules.
Removal of "everything can hurt everything."
Removal of armor saves, because there is zero agency involved in that action.
Random shots and damage removed for all weapons and psychic powers save those few where it actually makes sense.
Return of blasts and templates.
Templates become template X where the narrow end must be within X inches of the firing model or weapon.
Weapon keywords- flamer, plasma etc.
Superheavies and flyers as Apocalypse-only units.
A return/update of the FOC- make infantry the focus of gameplay. Require the number of Troops to be equal or greater than the number of Elites, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support in a list.
Shooting, wounding etc. based on comparing an attacker value to a defender value to determine the minimum roll for success.
Firing arcs for everything to make movement/positioning more important.
Run and charge at double the units' movement value.
Re-work of psychic tests to something more meaningful, or scrap the mechanic entirely and allow psykers to simply use their power(s) in lieu of shooting for that activation.
Asymmetrical objectives.
Vehicle sponsons, turrets, pintle mounts and so forth can shoot different units.
Pistols can be fired in close-combat in place of the model's melee weapon.
Blastaar wrote: A complete re-write, focusing on strategic depth, player agency, and balance.
Alternating Activation by unit.
A morale system focusing on suppressing the enemy that even space marines are subject to.
Units no longer become locked in combat.
Somewhat more abstracted LOS-eg. no LOSthrough area terrain.
Far fewer abilities that trigger on to-hit/to-wound rolls.
No allies, for the sake of balance and faction identity/uniqueness/playstyle.
Return of USRS- but done properly.
Implement MEDGe's Overrun and Hit-And-Run rules.
Removal of "everything can hurt everything."
Removal of armor saves, because there is zero agency involved in that action.
Random shots and damage removed for all weapons and psychic powers save those few where it actually makes sense.
Return of blasts and templates.
Templates become template X where the narrow end must be within X inches of the firing model or weapon.
Weapon keywords- flamer, plasma etc.
Superheavies and flyers as Apocalypse-only units.
A return/update of the FOC- make infantry the focus of gameplay. Require the number of Troops to be equal or greater than the number of Elites, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support in a list.
Shooting, wounding etc. based on comparing an attacker value to a defender value to determine the minimum roll for success.
Firing arcs for everything to make movement/positioning more important.
Run and charge at double the units' movement value.
Re-work of psychic tests to something more meaningful, or scrap the mechanic entirely and allow psykers to simply use their power(s) in lieu of shooting for that activation.
Asymmetrical objectives.
Vehicle sponsons, turrets, pintle mounts and so forth can shoot different units.
Pistols can be fired in close-combat in place of the model's melee weapon.
Some of these are good, but some are god awful
Alternating activation by unit? Terrible in a game with different levels of unit count to the extent 40k has, unless you implement a lot of other rules to balance out the advantage this gives to extreme MSU.
NO locked in combat means dead combat units for the most part.
Removal of saves makes the game even harder to differentiate between unit unless they are expanding the unit stats.
FOC emphasising Troops that much requires a full game re-write, some armies have cheap effective troops, others do not, so if I can take cheap min troops to fill requirements, then spend points on better units I have a huge advantage against an army with more expensive troops.
Run and Charge rules - do these replace your regular move or are they in addition, can some units still run and charge? I mean do you want units with a 12" move that can run and charge to really be able to move 12", run 24", and Charge 24" so a 60" threat range? I mean even the 36" threat range is huge for that unit if they cannot run and then charge, or is it you can during movement, either move base distance, run x2 or charge x2, that would be ok but would work very differently than current systems as far as units that can shoot and do close combat.
We have special army rules, warlord traits, command points, special army command points, special army sub faction rules and I haven't even gotten to unit rules.
STOP just STOP.
Cut the number of cute little rules down to one area and leave it be. This is my fun game, not my disartation.
We have special army rules, warlord traits, command points, special army command points, special army sub faction rules and I haven't even gotten to unit rules.
STOP just STOP.
Cut the number of cute little rules down to one area and leave it be. This is my fun game, not my disartation.
I could go with that, make sub faction choices largely aesthetic or thematic rather than a choice made for game advantage.
Flanking, pinning, alternate activation, aircraft that can't be hit by flames and don't suffer penalties for moving. Infantry having a role outside of dying in droves. A more internally and externally balanced series of codexes. Not having to look through a codex, 20 different FAQs and buying a yearly book just to know your army rules.
Personally, I'd like to see 5th ed, with casualty allocation rules fixed, vehicles with their current profiles (but a more intuitive damage system) 2nd edition-style overwatch with a Ld test trigger, and functional Warlord rules.
Keep it largely the same but clean it up. I want a tight, simple, well balanced ruleset that won't need to be changed in 6 months and then changed again and again.
Maintain the idea that complexity comes from army books, but simplify it. Right now there's too much chaff. Too many special snowflake rules, too much sub faction bloat
Fix terrain rules. Doesn't need to be any more complex, just better.
Have a list of universal keywords (like BEASTS or TITANIC) in the rule book, explaining exactly what they mean and how they affect the game.
All the good things from 3rd ed. E.g wound chart negating low str weapons being able to hurt big things..
Severly limit re-rolls available. Beefy character should be a unot that brings the pain, not a glorified re-roll army multiplier lynchpin...
Difficult terrain should be a thing. Heck, terrain should be a thing for los. You shouldint realy be able to fire sponson guns through your own chassis just because a bit of your mud guard from the opposite end can see a heel of an enemy infantryman...
Fallback reverse overwatch.
Some charging movement distance allowed even if failed charge
Vaktathi wrote: I'd like to see a better defined scale to the game.
Why on earth are we differentiating between a power axe and power sword on a random squad sergeant in a game where they may be facing a tank company, knight lance, or Titan maniple? Why do we have air superiority fighters and strategic missile launchers in a game where handguns are relevant wargear?
I get that GW wants one scale of models to represent the entire game universe, but I really think 40k needs two or three different rulesets, with different levels of abstraction and model count, to portray different scales.
I think solving that will make a whole lot of other balance issues easier to grapple with.
I can see how that would make sense narratively but don't see how it would really change balance one way or another.
The models are all just models. The only difference between them is numbers and in some cases, special rules. A knight is functionally the same as a space marine except it has bigger numbers and can retreat and shoot. A stormraven is functionally the same as a Land Raider except it's numbers are different and certain units can't charge it.
There are a number of issues. Abstraction is done basically in the reverse way it should be. A basic infantry squad has more to deal with and keep track of in every way than a giant superheavy. Leadership, wound and attack allocation, casualty removal, who has what weapons, etc, all stuff that makes sense in a skirmish scale but thay leaves the big monsters and vehicles dramatically oversimplified and basically dont have to bother with many game mechanics. This makes the big units relatively boring and a lot of mechanical game detail bogged down on relatively trivial details. If you've got a tac squad engaged in CC with a Knight for example, having to fiddle with separate rolls for a sergeants power sword versus basic squad memeber attacks, for ultimately likely very little real outcome difference, is just a level of granularity that doesn't add much to the game at that scale.
Games built around the scale of units like knights or titans or tank companies usually work in the reverse, with basic infantry highly abstracted and the big gribblies being more complex.
Ogre for instance, a very simple game with just a couple pages of rules, infantry platoons are treated as entire abstracted units while thr Titan sized Ogre cybertanks have individal weapons and motive systems that can be attacked. The most basic mission is literally a single Ogre against a mixed force of a dozen or two armor units and abstracted infantry, but can be expanded and played with more super units or none at all, and the game runs much cleaner than 40k does.
40k also has a lot more weird battlefield moments, like flamerthrowers or hand grenades being used against supersonic air superiority interceptors
Likewise, there are issues of meta skew. A platoon or company level of infantry fighting another is much easier to balance, but when you may be facing anything from a couple hundred weeny infantry to a few dozen armored infantry and half a dozen APC's to two dozen demigods to tank companies or a Knight Lance, it basically makes generalist or take all comers army lists very difficult to construct and balance, and you dramatically spike the number of games that turn out to be one sided predetermined slaughters.
The current paradigm...functions, but is monstrously clunky.
Games Workshop easily produces the most sloppily written game rules of any company of its size and financial success. While I know the key here is model sales and not rules, it's just causing them more effort and time in the long run with constant errata/FAQ.
A quality technical editor or two could do wonders, and could create a Style Manual alongside the game development. A Style Manual is similar to what major newspapers and publishers use - it's a formatted "bible" that dictates how information is presented. I'm a huge proponent of RAI - as it is 99% of the time very obvious what the rule means --- however the amount of internet TFG-ing and bickering, arguing and trying to get "gotcha" moments at tournaments due simply to poorly typed rules could all be eliminated.
An example would be:
Ignoring Wound Rules: When a model has a rule allowing it to ignore sustained wounds, the rule should be worded as such...
This allows units to maintain non USR's, but they should be written consistently in every book, and White Dwarf article. This would be an incredibly huge boon. The level of editing/typos and confusingly written rules is laughable at this level of production/company. I see heaps of little silly issues that my buddies have critiqued me on when I write rules, and that's inexcusable at this level. GW: Invest in some fething technical editors, please.
PS: One more issue. Stop re-using fething artwork. Particularly on edition-relevant products. GW has enough art sitting around they don't need to even add much, but it's inexcusable for a codex to have the same cover (or strategy cards, etc.) for multiple editions. That's just lazy as feth. Pick a new image for your codex/rules/boxes, etc. That's a silly but massive personal pet peeve of mine.
PS: One more issue. Stop re-using fething artwork. Particularly on edition-relevant products. GW has enough art sitting around they don't need to even add much, but it's inexcusable for a codex to have the same cover (or strategy cards, etc.) for multiple editions. That's just lazy as feth. Pick a new image for your codex/rules/boxes, etc. That's a silly but massive personal pet peeve of mine.
And for love of Moses label which edition a book is for. Tired of trying to remember which scowling bald dude goes with which edition...
That only works if codexes are redone every edition... There's no point labeling a book for 'X' edition when it's going to be around for 'Y' and 'Z' as well.
Version numbers wouldn't hurt, though, as it would at least make it easier to list which books are current. And there's certainly no reason to not include an edition number on the core rules.
Whatever the reason (for instance, I believe GW still does not openly refer to any Warhammer 40K versions as "editions" even though they absolutely are). But...if a book changes, change the god damn art. That's...not a lot to ask.
Breng77 wrote: Some of these are good, but some are god awful
Thank you for this insight.
Alternating activation by unit? Terrible in a game with different levels of unit count to the extent 40k has, unless you implement a lot of other rules to balance out the advantage this gives to extreme MSU.
Not necessarily. Extreme MSU will have more activations, but larger or more expensive units will be more effective at their respective tasks. Morale is also an equalizing force. Players should need to rely on using the synergy between their units effectively.
NO locked in combat means dead combat units for the most part.
It means no mindless rolling turn after turn as your combat units are stuck in one place all game, making gameplay more dynamic and giving people with melee armies more to do. Melee units and armies would have the tools to succeed, particularly ways to suppress the enemy. Units would be unable to fire their non-pistol/assault weapons at units they are within a defined close-combat distance of. AA- the CC unit's controller would soon be able to activate other units.
Removal of saves makes the game even harder to differentiate between unit unless they are expanding the unit stats.
If saves are such a defining feature of units, that is a major problem that needs to be addressed. Yes, I would like to see expanded unit stats, as well as useful special rules that give units tactical capabilities, rather than merely adjusting some numbers to make them better at killing or not being killed.
FOC emphasising Troops that much requires a full game re-write, some armies have cheap effective troops, others do not, so if I can take cheap min troops to fill requirements, then spend points on better units I have a huge advantage against an army with more expensive troops.
Yes, I said I would like a full re-write in my first sentence. You didn't really read my post before you rushed to write your response, did you? Old FOC of 3 Elites, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support. None of those selections may outnumber your troop choices. Also potentially restrict the total number of units per detachment. List building should require choices. Cheap troops would need to be implemented in such a way that more expensive troops had the advantage in a 1:1 comparison. Morale.
Run and Charge rules - do these replace your regular move or are they in addition, can some units still run and charge? I mean do you want units with a 12" move that can run and charge to really be able to move 12", run 24", and Charge 24" so a 60" threat range? I mean even the 36" threat range is huge for that unit if they cannot run and then charge, or is it you can during movement, either move base distance, run x2 or charge x2, that would be ok but would work very differently than current systems as far as units that can shoot and do close combat.
The basic idea is that a player chooses a unit, makes its leadership check, then moves and shoots, moves and uses a psychic power, double moves, or charges.
My intention for morale is that units take a leadership check at the beginning of their activation. If passed, all is well and proceeds normally. If it fails, depending on the level of suppression, the unit is pinned in place, only hits on 6's, breaks and moves towards the opening player's table edge, and so forth. Horde armies would be somewhat more susceptible than elite armies, and immunity extremely rare.
ERJAK wrote: I would want no idea posted on dakka to be included in the game.
I can get that with some of the more extreme ideas, but I'm curious - what would be the negative of adding type keywords to weapons? It feels like an oversight in this edition, when every unit seems to have two rows of them, and would make writing certain special rules much clearer.
Blastaar wrote: A complete re-write, focusing on strategic depth, player agency, and balance.
Alternating Activation by unit.
A morale system focusing on suppressing the enemy that even space marines are subject to.
Units no longer become locked in combat.
Somewhat more abstracted LOS-eg. no LOSthrough area terrain.
Far fewer abilities that trigger on to-hit/to-wound rolls.
No allies, for the sake of balance and faction identity/uniqueness/playstyle.
Return of USRS- but done properly.
Implement MEDGe's Overrun and Hit-And-Run rules.
Removal of "everything can hurt everything."
Removal of armor saves, because there is zero agency involved in that action.
Random shots and damage removed for all weapons and psychic powers save those few where it actually makes sense.
Return of blasts and templates.
Templates become template X where the narrow end must be within X inches of the firing model or weapon.
Weapon keywords- flamer, plasma etc.
Superheavies and flyers as Apocalypse-only units.
A return/update of the FOC- make infantry the focus of gameplay. Require the number of Troops to be equal or greater than the number of Elites, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support in a list.
Shooting, wounding etc. based on comparing an attacker value to a defender value to determine the minimum roll for success.
Firing arcs for everything to make movement/positioning more important.
Run and charge at double the units' movement value.
Re-work of psychic tests to something more meaningful, or scrap the mechanic entirely and allow psykers to simply use their power(s) in lieu of shooting for that activation.
Asymmetrical objectives.
Vehicle sponsons, turrets, pintle mounts and so forth can shoot different units.
Pistols can be fired in close-combat in place of the model's melee weapon.
Jesus NO. If even 25% of these made it into 9th, I'd sell everything and move on to some other game.
Some sort of attempt at balance and a cohesive rules team writing all the codecies together.
Seriously, why do eldar get to apply their craftworld traits to every single model in the entire army, but CSM only applies to infantry which forms the minority of their units?
Eldar -1 to hit across the board
CSM +1 moral to infantry
Anyone who thought these were balanced needs to get a brain scan.
Honestly. Id like to see the whole system scraped and returned to 5th edition based rules because there is very little I like in the current ruleset. Moral and template weapons especially.
It isn't even possible for me to describe how much i agree with this. This is hands down the single best change they could make. It would not only massively improve the ability to balance because currently it's impossible to balance a game where one entire side get's to shoot everything before the other side get's to react.
It also would make for a much deeper more tactical game where players are actually interacting and countering each others actions instead of everything coming down to alpha-strikes and the ability to survive alpha strikes.
It isn't even possible for me to describe how much i agree with this. This is hands down the single best change they could make. It would not only massively improve the ability to balance because currently it's impossible to balance a game where one entire side get's to shoot everything before the other side get's to react.
It also would make for a much deeper more tactical game where players are actually interacting and countering each others actions instead of everything coming down to alpha-strikes and the ability to survive alpha strikes.
It's only one way to do that, though, and in a game where the armies can be as varied in size as they can be in 40K it leads to other problems.
The imbalance from one side getting to shoot before the other gets to react could also be dealt with by giving the other side a way to react when shot at, or simply by making shooting less effective at wiping out entire units in a single turn.
Please for the love of all that is good, make morale a relevant phase. No army should have access to ignore morale effects without significant draw backs. Make morale shocking blobs and heavy units a viable strategy; i.e. you mob up on a monster or devastate the morale of infantry blob that unit could be stunned or so damaged you force them to fall back in a direction of your choosing.
So tired of seeing all the "pay x points for situational -1 morale that can be countered by character aura".
It isn't even possible for me to describe how much i agree with this. This is hands down the single best change they could make. It would not only massively improve the ability to balance because currently it's impossible to balance a game where one entire side get's to shoot everything before the other side get's to react.
It also would make for a much deeper more tactical game where players are actually interacting and countering each others actions instead of everything coming down to alpha-strikes and the ability to survive alpha strikes.
I always felt that Dust Warfare did a fine job of having a IGOUGO system with a couple of systems in place (Orders phase to activate a few units early and a reaction phase to allow some actions out of turn). It never felt unbalanced when I played. Of course the game had very, very few weapons with range of 36" and often required getting very close (you used almost all weapons that were in range) to actually remove some targets. It also sort of had a catch up/elite force mechanic the way initiative was based on the number of units allowing the player with the fewer units to have a better chance to go first too. I still think Andy Chambers did an excellent job with the system. It continues to be my favorite (probably nostalgically so) miniatures war game system.
I am not saying that 40k wouldn't be a better game moving away from IGOUGO. It probably would. I don't know if would make in all that much more tactical though. I have played a good deal more alternating/random activation games than anything else, and I, slowly, learned there are definitely ways to game the system (usually unit stacking but activation juggling can do it too) that feel more cheap than tactical. I also think 40k would definitely have to place unit limits (like they do in Kill Team) to accomplish it. Unlike a game like Bolt Action where unit stacking can only get you so far, 40k has lots of factions that could easily have some 30 units even in a 1000 points list without affecting the heavy hitters of the list. And a 30+ unit army is basically an IGOUGO army with the additional option of alternating activation to juggle their opponent when they get in range.
Like I said, 40k would probably be better for moving away from a pure IGOUGO, but it definitely needs to be careful how it is done given the crazy range of unit types/costs.
pet peeve of mine- change the over watch rules so that you can shoot incoming units regardless of how far away they started from the target unit. I mean it makes no sense. This is especially true with RL area effect weapons like flamers.
New Lt to his troops "Fire as they come into range men."
Veteran Sgt, "We can't Sir! They started their charge outside the max range of our guns so we can't get a proper bead on them."
Lt, "???"
Breng77 wrote: Some of these are good, but some are god awful
Thank you for this insight.
Alternating activation by unit? Terrible in a game with different levels of unit count to the extent 40k has, unless you implement a lot of other rules to balance out the advantage this gives to extreme MSU.
Not necessarily. Extreme MSU will have more activations, but larger or more expensive units will be more effective at their respective tasks. Morale is also an equalizing force. Players should need to rely on using the synergy between their units effectively.
NO locked in combat means dead combat units for the most part.
It means no mindless rolling turn after turn as your combat units are stuck in one place all game, making gameplay more dynamic and giving people with melee armies more to do. Melee units and armies would have the tools to succeed, particularly ways to suppress the enemy. Units would be unable to fire their non-pistol/assault weapons at units they are within a defined close-combat distance of. AA- the CC unit's controller would soon be able to activate other units.
Removal of saves makes the game even harder to differentiate between unit unless they are expanding the unit stats.
If saves are such a defining feature of units, that is a major problem that needs to be addressed. Yes, I would like to see expanded unit stats, as well as useful special rules that give units tactical capabilities, rather than merely adjusting some numbers to make them better at killing or not being killed.
FOC emphasising Troops that much requires a full game re-write, some armies have cheap effective troops, others do not, so if I can take cheap min troops to fill requirements, then spend points on better units I have a huge advantage against an army with more expensive troops.
Yes, I said I would like a full re-write in my first sentence. You didn't really read my post before you rushed to write your response, did you? Old FOC of 3 Elites, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support. None of those selections may outnumber your troop choices. Also potentially restrict the total number of units per detachment. List building should require choices. Cheap troops would need to be implemented in such a way that more expensive troops had the advantage in a 1:1 comparison. Morale.
Run and Charge rules - do these replace your regular move or are they in addition, can some units still run and charge? I mean do you want units with a 12" move that can run and charge to really be able to move 12", run 24", and Charge 24" so a 60" threat range? I mean even the 36" threat range is huge for that unit if they cannot run and then charge, or is it you can during movement, either move base distance, run x2 or charge x2, that would be ok but would work very differently than current systems as far as units that can shoot and do close combat.
The basic idea is that a player chooses a unit, makes its leadership check, then moves and shoots, moves and uses a psychic power, double moves, or charges.
My intention for morale is that units take a leadership check at the beginning of their activation. If passed, all is well and proceeds normally. If it fails, depending on the level of suppression, the unit is pinned in place, only hits on 6's, breaks and moves towards the opening player's table edge, and so forth. Horde armies would be somewhat more susceptible than elite armies, and immunity extremely rare.
Unless morale really screws MSU builds they still have a huge advantage, especially any army that can have cheap MSU troops and then a few great units. In games with they type of alternating actions you are describing, MSU armies always have the advantage unless they are penalized in some way, either allowing the opponent to pass activations, or setting it up so that their activations fail (which is a random and not so fun mechanic, though it still makes them good at what you want them for). Essentially you use your cheap troops to activate and pass back to your elite opponent who exhausts their activations and can then be attacked without fear of reprisal. The issue 1 to 1 advantage in troops doesn’t help when you largely cannot do anything of note. Envision the following an AM army with a 10 infantry squads backed by 4 leman Russ tanks square off against a grey knight army with 3 terminator squads and 2 dread knights (imagining these to be similar in cost based on current prices).
The AM player screens out deepstrikers, then deploys the leman fusses where they are out of LOS. The GK player gets to activate first and moves and shoots with a terminator squad killing 1 infantry squad, guard activates an infantry squad and moves away and hides. No other terminator squads have range, so the players go back and forth, until the GK player has activated everything and the guard player still has 4 Leman Russ squads and 5 guard squads to activate against the opponent who can no longer retaliate this turn. The tanks move out and blow away a unit or 2 of termies. Those same powerful units then activate early the next turn doing more damage, largely in answered.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: pet peeve of mine- change the over watch rules so that you can shoot incoming units regardless of how far away they started from the target unit. I mean it makes no sense. This is especially true with RL area effect weapons like flamers.
New Lt to his troops "Fire as they come into range men."
Veteran Sgt, "We can't Sir! They started their charge outside the max range of our guns so we can't get a proper bead on them."
Lt, "???"
Only if you can point out how in RL a modern military (WWII and beyond) would actually repel an assault with a flamethrower. As someone that has a better than average knowledge of WWII infantry warfare, a pet peeve of mine is thinking a flamethrower is an effective defense to assault. It would be just about the last thing I would want be armed with if the enemy wanting to attach bayonets and get stuck in. It simply wasn't the purpose of the weapon and has a lot reasons why.
You can't think of shooting only occurring during the shooting phase/over watch. I think it is important to consider the assault roll the combination of a bunch different things instead of the ability to cover the distance to the target or giving up and heading back to maybe cover you had. A successful charge could be performing an effective fire and maneuver tactic not giving them a good bead on the assaulters. It could also be baiting the flamer into using a good chunk of fuel before committing. It is also entirely possible that a successful charge doesn't even have the two units actually engaged in hand-to-hand fighting. It might just be point blank gun/grenade range between a squad of tacticals and guardsmen neither of which are actually armed with melee weapons. Point is, I think it is important to treat the Charge roll as an abstraction to a bunch of various elements, situations, conditions, etc. that either prevent a unit from engaging with the enemy as such a range that it takes of the entirety of their attention.
Part of my thought process is/was that 8" is about 80yds (for round numbers). As far as I can tell modern flamethrowers have an effective range of around 15yds. As you would no doubt agree the effective range difference is considerable. The extra time/range should enable the person using the flame thrower to shoot and either fall back or grab a weapon to be used in HtH combat.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Part of my thought process is/was that 8" is about 80yds (for round numbers). As far as I can tell modern flamethrowers have an effective range of around 15yds. As you would no doubt agree the effective range difference is considerable. The extra time/range should enable the person using the flame thrower to shoot and either fall back or grab a weapon to be used in HtH combat.
By that rational, a .50 cal (say a Heavy Stubber) point target is 150". It just gets worse with vehicle weapons/artillery. I don't attribute any distances (or time) on the tabletop actual distances typically because it simply isn't feasible and things make any kind of sense. At best, I go with a sort of telescoping effect where distances are much further the the units are away from each other but never 1:1. Even units within 1" on the tabletop are somewhere between engaged in melee all the way out to 30-50m or whatever distance seems most appropriate for neither to ignore the other and too intertwined for ally units to discern friend from foe. My mind's eye theater usually has a typical game taking place over an area of at least a couple 100 square miles over the course of several hours which seems pretty good given 40k is a company level game. Not as much of meat grinder 1000s dead in seconds as I am sure it is intended, but I like the idea of the game being much greater than a postage stamp part of a bigger battle with a parking lot of armor and line infantry.
As to the flamer operator reacting, depends on their situational awareness. Maybe they thought the flamer thrower would catch the assualters but they proved to wily with a quick distraction wasting fuel and came in before the flamer operator could adjust. Maybe assault managed to throw some grenades in just the right spot to force the operator to keep their head down just long enough. Maybe the flamer operator did fall back but a strap took a little longer or the tanks tripped them up a bit and the assaulters closed the distance a little faster than they thought they would. Again, in the world of tabletop rpg describing the outcome a dice roll there are over 1,001 ways to describe why an action went they way it did based on the roll. As long as they aren't too far fetched for the setting, they don't bother me.
In 40k, flamers make effective counter charge weapons, but only up to a point. For the average assaulting squad it is basically a coin toss whether they can engage scott-free or become smothered in flames. Sounds close enough for me in the setting. I like close combat in the setting (and in general with miniatures war games), and I am glad it is at least as viable as it is.
More tanks, less infantry
Smaller size standard games.
~1500 points would probably be preferable to 2000. Generally I hear that the problem with Fantasy was that long time players had all the models they needed and weren't incentivized to buy a whole lot more since new-and-flashy was rather lacking, and potential new players couldn't get in because of prohibitively high model counts in games. [I generally also agree with this sentiment, since my friends tried to get me to play Fantasy many times and there's no way I was going to do another 150-200+ generic infantry models. That said, I was also just not into the models or the setting.] Infantry are not flashy, exciting, or fun for the most part. They're also generally more expensive than armor in the long run. Therefore, I think we need games that are A: smaller, and B: feature fewer hordes of infantry in favor of models that are exciting to work with, like heavy infantry and tanks.
Also:
Significantly reduced morale invulnerability. This phase might as well not exist, since every army has so many ways of ignoring morale. I have a warlord trait, a relic, 2 stratagems, a unit, an Act of Faith, and an Order Doctrine to deny morale effects in an army that's already entirely MSU and Ld 8. Seriously. And while SoB are an extreme case, only Necrons are really any vulnerable to morale in any meaningful way. If all this stuff exists because it's un-fun for your guys to run away, just get rid of it. Otherwise, remove the morale denial abilities, or change it to a suppression effect or something.
A general re balance of vehicle weapons, toughness, and the way they interact with each other and with infantry. Vehicle weapons are not appreciably more powerful than infantry-carried bazookas, which is a problem in the way the game feels. In addition, powerful tank guns are almost always worse than multishot weapons that aren't supposed to be AT guns because GW is apparently afraid that one shot for 2d6 damage on a 200 point tank will step on the toes of a 424 point Titanic that gets 3d3 for 2d6 at S16. It also is my opinion that tanks should have been T8 for medium tanks and T9 for heavy tanks, instead of T7 for medium tanks and T8 for heavy tanks, giving some appeciably definition in the range of AT weapons between S8, S9, and S10. Also, Melta needs to have a better chance at wounding, rather than a slightly improved damage roll, otherwise it has no role next to Plasma.
jobalisk wrote: Honestly. Id like to see the whole system scraped and returned to 5th edition based rules because there is very little I like in the current ruleset. Moral and template weapons especially.
Basically this, but with 3rd Edition instead. Rewrite the few broken Codices and you have a done deal.
Vaktathi wrote:I'd like to see a better defined scale to the game.
Why on earth are we differentiating between a power axe and power sword on a random squad sergeant in a game where they may be facing a tank company, knight lance, or Titan maniple? Why do we have air superiority fighters and strategic missile launchers in a game where handguns are relevant wargear?
I get that GW wants one scale of models to represent the entire game universe, but I really think 40k needs two or three different rulesets, with different levels of abstraction and model count, to portray different scales.
I think solving that will make a whole lot of other balance issues easier to grapple with.
That's actually one of the things I really like about 40K, and especially 8th edition with unified statlines.
BaconCatBug wrote:TITANIC models banned in matched play below 3k points.
That seems a little over-kill. Even limiting to 1 TITANIC unit per 1000 points would require a rethink of the IK and RK rules.
So pay a subscription for specific rulebooks? In a way that's a really good idea, apart from the fact that a lot of players like having physical books at their games.
What could work is making a year's subscription less than the cost of a physical book, and give a year's subscription to each book free with the physical copy. All rules changes could then go into the digital edition to get rid of all the scrappy FAQs/errata.
Breng77 wrote: Some of these are good, but some are god awful
Thank you for this insight.
Alternating activation by unit? Terrible in a game with different levels of unit count to the extent 40k has, unless you implement a lot of other rules to balance out the advantage this gives to extreme MSU.
Not necessarily. Extreme MSU will have more activations, but larger or more expensive units will be more effective at their respective tasks. Morale is also an equalizing force. Players should need to rely on using the synergy between their units effectively.
NO locked in combat means dead combat units for the most part.
It means no mindless rolling turn after turn as your combat units are stuck in one place all game, making gameplay more dynamic and giving people with melee armies more to do. Melee units and armies would have the tools to succeed, particularly ways to suppress the enemy. Units would be unable to fire their non-pistol/assault weapons at units they are within a defined close-combat distance of. AA- the CC unit's controller would soon be able to activate other units.
Removal of saves makes the game even harder to differentiate between unit unless they are expanding the unit stats.
If saves are such a defining feature of units, that is a major problem that needs to be addressed. Yes, I would like to see expanded unit stats, as well as useful special rules that give units tactical capabilities, rather than merely adjusting some numbers to make them better at killing or not being killed.
FOC emphasising Troops that much requires a full game re-write, some armies have cheap effective troops, others do not, so if I can take cheap min troops to fill requirements, then spend points on better units I have a huge advantage against an army with more expensive troops.
Yes, I said I would like a full re-write in my first sentence. You didn't really read my post before you rushed to write your response, did you? Old FOC of 3 Elites, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support. None of those selections may outnumber your troop choices. Also potentially restrict the total number of units per detachment. List building should require choices. Cheap troops would need to be implemented in such a way that more expensive troops had the advantage in a 1:1 comparison. Morale.
Run and Charge rules - do these replace your regular move or are they in addition, can some units still run and charge? I mean do you want units with a 12" move that can run and charge to really be able to move 12", run 24", and Charge 24" so a 60" threat range? I mean even the 36" threat range is huge for that unit if they cannot run and then charge, or is it you can during movement, either move base distance, run x2 or charge x2, that would be ok but would work very differently than current systems as far as units that can shoot and do close combat.
The basic idea is that a player chooses a unit, makes its leadership check, then moves and shoots, moves and uses a psychic power, double moves, or charges.
My intention for morale is that units take a leadership check at the beginning of their activation. If passed, all is well and proceeds normally. If it fails, depending on the level of suppression, the unit is pinned in place, only hits on 6's, breaks and moves towards the opening player's table edge, and so forth. Horde armies would be somewhat more susceptible than elite armies, and immunity extremely rare.
Unless morale really screws MSU builds they still have a huge advantage, especially any army that can have cheap MSU troops and then a few great units. In games with they type of alternating actions you are describing, MSU armies always have the advantage unless they are penalized in some way, either allowing the opponent to pass activations, or setting it up so that their activations fail (which is a random and not so fun mechanic, though it still makes them good at what you want them for). Essentially you use your cheap troops to activate and pass back to your elite opponent who exhausts their activations and can then be attacked without fear of reprisal. The issue 1 to 1 advantage in troops doesn’t help when you largely cannot do anything of note. Envision the following an AM army with a 10 infantry squads backed by 4 leman Russ tanks square off against a grey knight army with 3 terminator squads and 2 dread knights (imagining these to be similar in cost based on current prices).
The AM player screens out deepstrikers, then deploys the leman fusses where they are out of LOS. The GK player gets to activate first and moves and shoots with a terminator squad killing 1 infantry squad, guard activates an infantry squad and moves away and hides. No other terminator squads have range, so the players go back and forth, until the GK player has activated everything and the guard player still has 4 Leman Russ squads and 5 guard squads to activate against the opponent who can no longer retaliate this turn. The tanks move out and blow away a unit or 2 of termies. Those same powerful units then activate early the next turn doing more damage, largely in answered.
Those GKs would be dead- unless they could activate multiple times, utilize movement shenanigans, or disrupt large parts of the AM army.
GW could reduce lethality across the board. Full-strength units being destroyed in a single turn or activation should be a rare occurrence. (There is also such a thing as cover, which is in dire need of improvement) Limiting detachments to a set amount of units is another option. A universal restriction would be ideal, but there could be some wiggle room for horde armies. Scoring VP per round by completing objectives, some of which do not involve simply killing a unit, is another tool. Units that have been heavily suppressed failing their activation check, and suffering a compulsory action or other penalty, is also something I mentioned in my last post. Whether that kind of gameplay is "fun" is up to the individual.
Herbington wrote: Fully Digital Rules and Codexes updated with regular errata/faqs - containing everything but points. Move points into a quarterly Chapter Approved.
I'd like the digital stuff to be free, but wouldn't mind paying for CA or some sort of subscription for both.
Quarterly CA means they would be deciding next CA's point values before even first one is even out
Remove CP in its current form, all battle forge get 3 cp, generate 1 a turn, relics and artifacts give a chance to generate an additional on a 6+, all strats cost 1 cp
So pre-game stratagems screwed. And 1 CP for all means huge amount of stratagems needs to be just dropped.
Remove super heavies from standard games.
Might just as well ask for moon from the sky. Too much ££££ for GW to do so.
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buddha wrote: Wow, glad no one here is a game designer. 8th just needs refinement like a consolidation of the FAQs to the core rules, not a return to previous failed edition mechanics.
Previous edition had issue with codex. Rules were vastly superior in terms of balance, fun and logic. Codex were issue. 8th ed is mess. Illogical and broken and lot slower.
Previous edition had issue with codex. Rules were vastly superior in terms of balance, fun and logic. Codex were issue. 8th ed is mess. Illogical and broken and lot slower.
7th was a total mess, the terrible general balance, pyschic phase of boredom, the stupid weapons firing rules, broken codexes and formations,
We find 8th alot quicker and at least we are having fun with it - something that did not happen with 6th/7th.
There is no strict concept for the game and future factions
(I mean with the big changes in the core rules regarding it would have been necessary to change all unit profiles to adopt to them instead of keeping most of them the same for legacy reasons)
So the core is written with existing faction rules in mind and to solve problems of the previous edition
New stuff is added with the rule of cool without sticking to the original concept and the more is released the more it gets a mess
8th edition worked well at the beginning and with lower points
For 9th I hope GW will finally write core rules with 2000 points /2 hours in mind and have a concept for all factions
(if the standard space marine is the thing everything is balanced around, giving him a profile that is in the middle of the range and a high enough point cost that bigger adjustments are possible would be a good start)
Breng77 wrote: Some of these are good, but some are god awful
Thank you for this insight.
Alternating activation by unit? Terrible in a game with different levels of unit count to the extent 40k has, unless you implement a lot of other rules to balance out the advantage this gives to extreme MSU.
Not necessarily. Extreme MSU will have more activations, but larger or more expensive units will be more effective at their respective tasks. Morale is also an equalizing force. Players should need to rely on using the synergy between their units effectively.
NO locked in combat means dead combat units for the most part.
It means no mindless rolling turn after turn as your combat units are stuck in one place all game, making gameplay more dynamic and giving people with melee armies more to do. Melee units and armies would have the tools to succeed, particularly ways to suppress the enemy. Units would be unable to fire their non-pistol/assault weapons at units they are within a defined close-combat distance of. AA- the CC unit's controller would soon be able to activate other units.
Removal of saves makes the game even harder to differentiate between unit unless they are expanding the unit stats.
If saves are such a defining feature of units, that is a major problem that needs to be addressed. Yes, I would like to see expanded unit stats, as well as useful special rules that give units tactical capabilities, rather than merely adjusting some numbers to make them better at killing or not being killed.
FOC emphasising Troops that much requires a full game re-write, some armies have cheap effective troops, others do not, so if I can take cheap min troops to fill requirements, then spend points on better units I have a huge advantage against an army with more expensive troops.
Yes, I said I would like a full re-write in my first sentence. You didn't really read my post before you rushed to write your response, did you? Old FOC of 3 Elites, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support. None of those selections may outnumber your troop choices. Also potentially restrict the total number of units per detachment. List building should require choices. Cheap troops would need to be implemented in such a way that more expensive troops had the advantage in a 1:1 comparison. Morale.
Run and Charge rules - do these replace your regular move or are they in addition, can some units still run and charge? I mean do you want units with a 12" move that can run and charge to really be able to move 12", run 24", and Charge 24" so a 60" threat range? I mean even the 36" threat range is huge for that unit if they cannot run and then charge, or is it you can during movement, either move base distance, run x2 or charge x2, that would be ok but would work very differently than current systems as far as units that can shoot and do close combat.
The basic idea is that a player chooses a unit, makes its leadership check, then moves and shoots, moves and uses a psychic power, double moves, or charges.
My intention for morale is that units take a leadership check at the beginning of their activation. If passed, all is well and proceeds normally. If it fails, depending on the level of suppression, the unit is pinned in place, only hits on 6's, breaks and moves towards the opening player's table edge, and so forth. Horde armies would be somewhat more susceptible than elite armies, and immunity extremely rare.
Unless morale really screws MSU builds they still have a huge advantage, especially any army that can have cheap MSU troops and then a few great units. In games with they type of alternating actions you are describing, MSU armies always have the advantage unless they are penalized in some way, either allowing the opponent to pass activations, or setting it up so that their activations fail (which is a random and not so fun mechanic, though it still makes them good at what you want them for). Essentially you use your cheap troops to activate and pass back to your elite opponent who exhausts their activations and can then be attacked without fear of reprisal. The issue 1 to 1 advantage in troops doesn’t help when you largely cannot do anything of note. Envision the following an AM army with a 10 infantry squads backed by 4 leman Russ tanks square off against a grey knight army with 3 terminator squads and 2 dread knights (imagining these to be similar in cost based on current prices).
The AM player screens out deepstrikers, then deploys the leman fusses where they are out of LOS. The GK player gets to activate first and moves and shoots with a terminator squad killing 1 infantry squad, guard activates an infantry squad and moves away and hides. No other terminator squads have range, so the players go back and forth, until the GK player has activated everything and the guard player still has 4 Leman Russ squads and 5 guard squads to activate against the opponent who can no longer retaliate this turn. The tanks move out and blow away a unit or 2 of termies. Those same powerful units then activate early the next turn doing more damage, largely in answered.
Those GKs would be dead- unless they could activate multiple times, utilize movement shenanigans, or disrupt large parts of the AM army.
GW could reduce lethality across the board. Full-strength units being destroyed in a single turn or activation should be a rare occurrence. (There is also such a thing as cover, which is in dire need of improvement) Limiting detachments to a set amount of units is another option. A universal restriction would be ideal, but there could be some wiggle room for horde armies. Scoring VP per round by completing objectives, some of which do not involve simply killing a unit, is another tool. Units that have been heavily suppressed failing their activation check, and suffering a compulsory action or other penalty, is also something I mentioned in my last post. Whether that kind of gameplay is "fun" is up to the individual.
I don’t think letting more expensive units acting multiple times is likely the best idea as that flips the advantage hard in the other direction. Wasted activations among cheap stuff don’t hurt much in the game as often that is the whole point. As to decreasing lethality you can only do that so much, for instance it likely shouldn’t be possible for a 200 point unit to survive 1500 points of enemy offense for the most part. So unless you are adding things like target priority checks to prevent focus fire to some extent.
I’ve always felt the best idea for alternating activation is not by unit, but instead by groups of units. For instance take the total points in the game divide that number by say 5 and make as close as possible groups of units in your army that fit into each of those chunks. So for a 2000 point game each player has as close as possible 5 groups of 400 points, and then they alternate activating those groups. So if we were to look at our prior example. The GK army might have 5 groups of one unit, and guard might have 5 groups of 3 units, but points would not allow putting all the Russes into a single group, or even most of them.
Sometimes it might work that one side has one less group due to how the points work out, but that is not the huge disadvantage of being out activated.
I feel like there is too much of a discrepancy in possible unit counts in 40k to really work with a unit by unit model.
I feel like there is too much of a discrepancy in possible unit counts in 40k to really work with a unit by unit model.
there are other games with a unit by unit model with a similar or even bigger difference in numbers of units and they work well.
depending on the rules there are multiple ways to balance those problems, as there are multiple ways to balance alpha strike (in a turn by turn based system), the problem is just that I don't think GW is able to do it as they are not able to balance any system no matter what it is.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: pet peeve of mine- change the over watch rules so that you can shoot incoming units regardless of how far away they started from the target unit. I mean it makes no sense. This is especially true with RL area effect weapons like flamers.
New Lt to his troops "Fire as they come into range men."
Veteran Sgt, "We can't Sir! They started their charge outside the max range of our guns so we can't get a proper bead on them."
Lt, "???"
Only if you can point out how in RL a modern military (WWII and beyond) would actually repel an assault with a flamethrower. As someone that has a better than average knowledge of WWII infantry warfare, a pet peeve of mine is thinking a flamethrower is an effective defense to assault. It would be just about the last thing I would want be armed with if the enemy wanting to attach bayonets and get stuck in. It simply wasn't the purpose of the weapon and has a lot reasons why.
You can't think of shooting only occurring during the shooting phase/over watch. I think it is important to consider the assault roll the combination of a bunch different things instead of the ability to cover the distance to the target or giving up and heading back to maybe cover you had. A successful charge could be performing an effective fire and maneuver tactic not giving them a good bead on the assaulters. It could also be baiting the flamer into using a good chunk of fuel before committing. It is also entirely possible that a successful charge doesn't even have the two units actually engaged in hand-to-hand fighting. It might just be point blank gun/grenade range between a squad of tacticals and guardsmen neither of which are actually armed with melee weapons. Point is, I think it is important to treat the Charge roll as an abstraction to a bunch of various elements, situations, conditions, etc. that either prevent a unit from engaging with the enemy as such a range that it takes of the entirety of their attention.
Pet peeve of mine is people insisting that a game set in a fantasy future with all manor of impossible things happening already (cavalry charge against robots bristling with guns?!?!) must have some element of ultra realism to the gameplay. I'm in favour of mechanics that improve the gameplay, either by giving more tactical options, or reducing those of your opponent. It does not have to have a real life counterpart to make it viable. I hope you don't complain about deny the witch roles as they have no real life counterpart?
Anyway, even with some added element of realism, you may not like the idea of a flamer as a defensive weapon, but if it was being used as one, and you had to charge that position would you charge straight into the flame if it was been fired in your direction? You may go round it, but that's more time taken to reach your target.
No.... So whilst it may not be an effective defensive weapon, it can still be used as one.
I have an idea to make flamers more relevant for OW without increasing the killyness (necessarily) and adjusting the range.
When an enemy unit makes a charge against a unit with a flamer weapon, the enemy units charge distance is automatically reduced by 2". The enemy can choose to ignore this penalty but it will automatically take maximum flamer hits from a flamer weapon of the defending players choice as a consequence to this (D6 = 6 hits, D3 = 3 hits etc)
Please note that this ability would not stack with other multiple flamers. Other flamer weapons in a unit would continue to act as they usually do with the range they currently have.
And before people moan about this reducing the viability of CC even more, I would change how random charge rolls work anyway. I'd change them from 2D6 to 1D6 plus movement. Charge rolls are fun and add drama to the game, but at the same time, they make CC too unreliable, I think this would be a good compromise between the two.
It isn't even possible for me to describe how much i agree with this. This is hands down the single best change they could make. It would not only massively improve the ability to balance because currently it's impossible to balance a game where one entire side get's to shoot everything before the other side get's to react.
It also would make for a much deeper more tactical game where players are actually interacting and countering each others actions instead of everything coming down to alpha-strikes and the ability to survive alpha strikes.
It's only one way to do that, though, and in a game where the armies can be as varied in size as they can be in 40K it leads to other problems.
The imbalance from one side getting to shoot before the other gets to react could also be dealt with by giving the other side a way to react when shot at, or simply by making shooting less effective at wiping out entire units in a single turn.
It isn't even possible for me to describe how much i agree with this. This is hands down the single best change they could make. It would not only massively improve the ability to balance because currently it's impossible to balance a game where one entire side get's to shoot everything before the other side get's to react.
It also would make for a much deeper more tactical game where players are actually interacting and countering each others actions instead of everything coming down to alpha-strikes and the ability to survive alpha strikes.
It's only one way to do that, though, and in a game where the armies can be as varied in size as they can be in 40K it leads to other problems.
The imbalance from one side getting to shoot before the other gets to react could also be dealt with by giving the other side a way to react when shot at, or simply by making shooting less effective at wiping out entire units in a single turn.
We do get to react. We get to roll saves.
It also doesn’t need to be IGUGO per unit. It could be per phase. All move one player, the second player moves going like that.
You can mitigate the first person getting a shooting advantage by moving out of line of sight, or into cover etc, maybe that required an advance roll. I think it would naturally balance the phases providing there is appropriate terrain. I.d also bring back firing arcs personally as well.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: You can mitigate the first person getting a shooting advantage by moving out of line of sight, or into cover etc,
meh. Seizing is a thing. Not terribly often, but still. If you deploy aggressively and your opponent seizes, that's on you. What I would like is a chance for the second player to activate their cover bonuses and auras before the game begins.
I feel like there is too much of a discrepancy in possible unit counts in 40k to really work with a unit by unit model.
there are other games with a unit by unit model with a similar or even bigger difference in numbers of units and they work well.
depending on the rules there are multiple ways to balance those problems, as there are multiple ways to balance alpha strike (in a turn by turn based system), the problem is just that I don't think GW is able to do it as they are not able to balance any system no matter what it is.
There are some ways you could do it, but I cannot think of any game that has the same possible unit discrepancy that works well. I mean you can allow a player with fewer units to pass activations, you can randomly decide activation, you can give each player a number of activations based on game size. There are things you can do, but none are straight alternating activations. I think the passing activations thing is probably the best solution if you want to go as close as possible to straight alternating activation. You give both players a number of “activations” equal to which ever player has more units, but only allow each unit to activate once.
Man some of these are simply “make this rule so my army that I love and the way I build it is viable.” That’s not what the rules are about I say just slightly improve the rules. Leave the meta where it lies. Marines being pretty much is awesome
Pet peeve of mine is people insisting that a game set in a fantasy future with all manor of impossible things happening already (cavalry charge against robots bristling with guns?!?!) must have some element of ultra realism to the gameplay.
Its called having a high interest in immersion.
You may not care about immersion. A lot of people don't. Other people do.
The hand waive "its a fantasy game with demons and dragons and death stars so things don't need to make sense" doesn't appease someone that requires immersion.
A good game should have a bit of both gamer gamer mechanics and immersion. In my opinion.
40k and AOS went more towards collectible card game mechanic style play which has rubbed the immersion folk the wrong way intensely because few bones have been thrown back their way since.
I know 9th edition is coming at some point, but I’m strongly determined to not migrate to it.
I think GW has had more than ample opportunity to get their ruleset “right”, and I just don’t think it will ever become what I really want. I’ll happily hang on to my (houseruled) 8E books, but I don’t expect to follow GW to 9E.
However, What would it take to get me to buy into 9th? Moving to alternating activations, cutting down on the bucket o’ dice rolls and better terrain rules should do it. There’s still other concerns (morale that matters, game size, less randomness and “out of bounds” effects and updating Eldar aspects to plastic) but the three above are the big ones.
I feel like there is too much of a discrepancy in possible unit counts in 40k to really work with a unit by unit model.
there are other games with a unit by unit model with a similar or even bigger difference in numbers of units and they work well.
depending on the rules there are multiple ways to balance those problems, as there are multiple ways to balance alpha strike (in a turn by turn based system), the problem is just that I don't think GW is able to do it as they are not able to balance any system no matter what it is.
There are some ways you could do it, but I cannot think of any game that has the same possible unit discrepancy that works well.
Mantics Warpath, Starship Troopers, Stargrunt II are an example for SciFi, but there are more and also some historical rules use it (won't say Bolt Actions as this would be equal 780-1000 points 40k but mass battle games). Some Starship Troopers lists would be comparable of 100 Tyranid Warriors fighting 3 Imperial Knights and it worked as there would have been no clear winner until the end.
passing activation is one option, giving both players a limited amount of activation with each unit being allowed to activate 2 or 3 times another, or adding reactions to the game that are triggered by enemy activation in a specific range (or a mix of those)
some games also use different victory conditions for different sized armies (like the mass army will get a "kill all" against the elite force while the elite army will get a "hold the line" or "breakthrough" against the mass army)
The common things in all those rules is close combat is devastating while ranged combat is more about pinning/suppression than killing and that nothing interrupts the activation of another unit (so no Overwatch before the attacking unit has done the damage).
Than the other thing is, if GW would add a proper reaction system to their game (and not that "I once read about reaction game mechanic so add something a like to our game" stuff that we have now) and make shooting more about pinning and close combat more about killing, the exiting turn based rules would also work out well
BrianDavion wrote: I want some sort of "blast" designation for weapons. a battle canon shoul;dn't be able to make 1d6 attacks against a single target
I was actually pretty ok with this change. Big heavy blast weapons were dramatically underwhelming against single targets in previous editions, a Battlecannon basically being a slightly better single krak missile was not terribly functional at fighting other big things as the main weapon of a big scary MBT. I think it better represents a target taking the full brunt of a blast (particulary now that only one unit can be affected by a blast weapon) and/or the opportunity for multiple shrapnel/debris wounds.
In general focus on converging towards rules that work well enough that they don't need to be thrown away and redone every few years, just incrementally tweaked. To that effect, increase the ability to quickly correct mistakes by making all rules freely available in digital form. Physical books can be for lore, art, tactical suggestions, painting ideas, etc. I'd still buy 'em.
Then, take advantage of that easy iteration to make some some big changes quickly:
- Remove CPs and strategems
- Introduce formal amount-of-terrain requirements for matched play games so that there's always enough line of sight blocking terrain to not totally cripple low-save CC armies with other changes that improve shooting
- No Titanic models allowed under 2k points in Matched Play
Next, bring back good features of past editions that were lost in 8th:
- Bring back old wound table so that different strength weapons are actually well-optimized for attacking different kinds of targets, rather than just massing up on S5 and S6 weapons because they're good enough at everything. No more "everything can hurt everything else"
- Bring back old AP system (or a tweaked variant of it) so that high armor saves are actually useful and more weapons can have low to moderate amounts of AP without crippling high-save armies
- Make area terrain block line of sight through it, impact unit movement speed, and have a stronger protective effect
- Only visible models in a unit can be killed when some are completely out of line of sight
- Allow an embarked unit to to disembark and shoot after the transport has moved (additionally able to charge if the transport is open-topped)
- Bring back some sort of bonus for infantry attacking vehicles in close combat
Next, tweak the current rules:
- Generally reduce re-rolls as a game mechanic as much as possible
- Make charge distance based at least partially on the unit's movement speed and eliminate or reduce randomness; like maybe movement + D6"
- Better differentiate area effect type weapons (e.g. flamer and blast weapons) from other multi-shot weapons and give them niches and make them worth taking again
- Make far fewer units able to advance and charge, and for units that are supposed to be slow, remove the ability to advance altogether or make it D3"
- More interesting morale rules; e.g. maybe require a morale test to be able to fall back out of combat
Leo_the_Rat wrote: pet peeve of mine- change the over watch rules so that you can shoot incoming units regardless of how far away they started from the target unit. I mean it makes no sense. This is especially true with RL area effect weapons like flamers.
New Lt to his troops "Fire as they come into range men."
Veteran Sgt, "We can't Sir! They started their charge outside the max range of our guns so we can't get a proper bead on them."
Lt, "???"
Only if you can point out how in RL a modern military (WWII and beyond) would actually repel an assault with a flamethrower. As someone that has a better than average knowledge of WWII infantry warfare, a pet peeve of mine is thinking a flamethrower is an effective defense to assault. It would be just about the last thing I would want be armed with if the enemy wanting to attach bayonets and get stuck in. It simply wasn't the purpose of the weapon and has a lot reasons why.
You can't think of shooting only occurring during the shooting phase/over watch. I think it is important to consider the assault roll the combination of a bunch different things instead of the ability to cover the distance to the target or giving up and heading back to maybe cover you had. A successful charge could be performing an effective fire and maneuver tactic not giving them a good bead on the assaulters. It could also be baiting the flamer into using a good chunk of fuel before committing. It is also entirely possible that a successful charge doesn't even have the two units actually engaged in hand-to-hand fighting. It might just be point blank gun/grenade range between a squad of tacticals and guardsmen neither of which are actually armed with melee weapons. Point is, I think it is important to treat the Charge roll as an abstraction to a bunch of various elements, situations, conditions, etc. that either prevent a unit from engaging with the enemy as such a range that it takes of the entirety of their attention.
Pet peeve of mine is people insisting that a game set in a fantasy future with all manor of impossible things happening already (cavalry charge against robots bristling with guns?!?!) must have some element of ultra realism to the gameplay. I'm in favour of mechanics that improve the gameplay, either by giving more tactical options, or reducing those of your opponent. It does not have to have a real life counterpart to make it viable. I hope you don't complain about deny the witch roles as they have no real life counterpart?
Anyway, even with some added element of realism, you may not like the idea of a flamer as a defensive weapon, but if it was being used as one, and you had to charge that position would you charge straight into the flame if it was been fired in your direction? You may go round it, but that's more time taken to reach your target.
No.... So whilst it may not be an effective defensive weapon, it can still be used as one.
I have an idea to make flamers more relevant for OW without increasing the killyness (necessarily) and adjusting the range.
When an enemy unit makes a charge against a unit with a flamer weapon, the enemy units charge distance is automatically reduced by 2". The enemy can choose to ignore this penalty but it will automatically take maximum flamer hits from a flamer weapon of the defending players choice as a consequence to this (D6 = 6 hits, D3 = 3 hits etc)
Please note that this ability would not stack with other multiple flamers. Other flamer weapons in a unit would continue to act as they usually do with the range they currently have.
And before people moan about this reducing the viability of CC even more, I would change how random charge rolls work anyway. I'd change them from 2D6 to 1D6 plus movement. Charge rolls are fun and add drama to the game, but at the same time, they make CC too unreliable, I think this would be a good compromise between the two.
Not entirely sure if this comment is directed at me or Leo_the_Rat. But I completely accept the flamer works the way if does in 40k because the game says it does. I have no interest in making it weaker or stronger. I already think that flamer does a pretty good job of defending against charges by forcing them to be more than 8" away making basically a coin flip (and actually worst than 50/50 for a unit with no special charge ability). Again, I abstract out a lot of thing making in attempt to make the rules fit a narrative as I didn't spend hundreds of dollars and hours buy/painting miniatures to play a subpar, abstract war game. Auticus says it quite well. I don't equate the tabletop distance to anything definite. Overwatch makes a good example of this in that a unit has its full access of every sort of weapon if the assaulters make the charge a 2". Which from Leo's narrative could read: Lt to his troops: "Fire...[hit with by chainsword]" But Overwatch is only made better by the Charge taking place closer. But I don't see many players complaining that the charged unit shouldn't get Overwatch since they wouldn't have enough time. All of that stuff is abstracted into a single Assault roll, and I am okay with that since 40k games should be at a scope where players to micromanage exactly how the assault occurred only that it did or didn't and the assaulter did or didn't take capitulates on the way in.
What I was saying about flamers being defensive weapons is I personally find it nearly as weird to use them defensively as to use them against aircraft. If my Lt gave me the choice trying to take a hill with 3 machine gun nests or a hill with 30 entrenched flamethrower operators, I would choose flamethrower hill every single time. Machineguns make great defensive (and pretty good offensive) weapons. Flame throwers not so much. Again, I don't think the rules for flamers need changing as their presence already effectively affect Charges by giving them a much high chance of failure.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: pet peeve of mine- change the over watch rules so that you can shoot incoming units regardless of how far away they started from the target unit. I mean it makes no sense. This is especially true with RL area effect weapons like flamers.
New Lt to his troops "Fire as they come into range men."
Veteran Sgt, "We can't Sir! They started their charge outside the max range of our guns so we can't get a proper bead on them."
Lt, "???"
Only if you can point out how in RL a modern military (WWII and beyond) would actually repel an assault with a flamethrower. As someone that has a better than average knowledge of WWII infantry warfare, a pet peeve of mine is thinking a flamethrower is an effective defense to assault. It would be just about the last thing I would want be armed with if the enemy wanting to attach bayonets and get stuck in. It simply wasn't the purpose of the weapon and has a lot reasons why.
You can't think of shooting only occurring during the shooting phase/over watch. I think it is important to consider the assault roll the combination of a bunch different things instead of the ability to cover the distance to the target or giving up and heading back to maybe cover you had. A successful charge could be performing an effective fire and maneuver tactic not giving them a good bead on the assaulters. It could also be baiting the flamer into using a good chunk of fuel before committing. It is also entirely possible that a successful charge doesn't even have the two units actually engaged in hand-to-hand fighting. It might just be point blank gun/grenade range between a squad of tacticals and guardsmen neither of which are actually armed with melee weapons. Point is, I think it is important to treat the Charge roll as an abstraction to a bunch of various elements, situations, conditions, etc. that either prevent a unit from engaging with the enemy as such a range that it takes of the entirety of their attention.
Pet peeve of mine is people insisting that a game set in a fantasy future with all manor of impossible things happening already (cavalry charge against robots bristling with guns?!?!) must have some element of ultra realism to the gameplay. I'm in favour of mechanics that improve the gameplay, either by giving more tactical options, or reducing those of your opponent. It does not have to have a real life counterpart to make it viable. I hope you don't complain about deny the witch roles as they have no real life counterpart?
Anyway, even with some added element of realism, you may not like the idea of a flamer as a defensive weapon, but if it was being used as one, and you had to charge that position would you charge straight into the flame if it was been fired in your direction? You may go round it, but that's more time taken to reach your target.
No.... So whilst it may not be an effective defensive weapon, it can still be used as one.
I have an idea to make flamers more relevant for OW without increasing the killyness (necessarily) and adjusting the range.
When an enemy unit makes a charge against a unit with a flamer weapon, the enemy units charge distance is automatically reduced by 2". The enemy can choose to ignore this penalty but it will automatically take maximum flamer hits from a flamer weapon of the defending players choice as a consequence to this (D6 = 6 hits, D3 = 3 hits etc)
Please note that this ability would not stack with other multiple flamers. Other flamer weapons in a unit would continue to act as they usually do with the range they currently have.
And before people moan about this reducing the viability of CC even more, I would change how random charge rolls work anyway. I'd change them from 2D6 to 1D6 plus movement. Charge rolls are fun and add drama to the game, but at the same time, they make CC too unreliable, I think this would be a good compromise between the two.
Not entirely sure if this comment is directed at me or Leo_the_Rat. But I completely accept the flamer works the way if does in 40k because the game says it does. I have no interest in making it weaker or stronger. I already think that flamer does a pretty good job of defending against charges by forcing them to be more than 8" away making basically a coin flip (and actually worst than 50/50 for a unit with no special charge ability). Again, I abstract out a lot of thing making in attempt to make the rules fit a narrative as I didn't spend hundreds of dollars and hours buy/painting miniatures to play a subpar, abstract war game. Auticus says it quite well.
I don't equate the tabletop distance to anything definite. Overwatch makes a good example of this in that a unit has its full access of every sort of weapon if the assaulters make the charge a 2". Which from Leo's narrative could read: Lt to his troops: "Fire...[hit with by chainsword]" But Overwatch is only made better by the Charge taking place closer. But I don't see many players complaining that the charged unit shouldn't get Overwatch since they wouldn't have enough time. All of that stuff is abstracted into a single Assault roll, and I am okay with that since 40k games should be at a scope where players to micromanage exactly how the assault occurred only that it did or didn't and the assaulter did or didn't take capitulates on the way in.
What I was saying about flamers being defensive weapons is I personally find it nearly as weird to use them defensively as to use them against aircraft. If my Lt gave me the choice trying to take a hill with 3 machine gun nests or a hill with 30 entrenched flamethrower operators, I would choose flamethrower hill every single time. Machineguns make great defensive (and pretty good offensive) weapons. Flame throwers not so much. Again, I don't think the rules for flamers need changing as their presence already effectively affect Charges by giving them a much high chance of failure.
I know that people keep talking about limiting Titanic units to 2K+ battles but I would expand that and say the same rule should apply to all Lords of War units. Just because something is physically (and relatively) small does not mean it should be found on a skirmish level battlefield. (I'm thinking specifically about models like Rowboat).
Leo_the_Rat wrote: I know that people keep talking about limiting Titanic units to 2K+ battles but I would expand that and say the same rule should apply to all Lords of War units. Just because something is physically (and relatively) small does not mean it should be found on a skirmish level battlefield. (I'm thinking specifically about models like Rowboat).
Agreed. Primarchs and such also contribute to making normal troops less relevant.
It isn't even possible for me to describe how much i agree with this. This is hands down the single best change they could make. It would not only massively improve the ability to balance because currently it's impossible to balance a game where one entire side get's to shoot everything before the other side get's to react.
It also would make for a much deeper more tactical game where players are actually interacting and countering each others actions instead of everything coming down to alpha-strikes and the ability to survive alpha strikes.
It's only one way to do that, though, and in a game where the armies can be as varied in size as they can be in 40K it leads to other problems.
The imbalance from one side getting to shoot before the other gets to react could also be dealt with by giving the other side a way to react when shot at, or simply by making shooting less effective at wiping out entire units in a single turn.
We do get to react. We get to roll saves.
It also doesn’t need to be IGUGO per unit. It could be per phase. All move one player, the second player moves going like that.
You can mitigate the first person getting a shooting advantage by moving out of line of sight, or into cover etc, maybe that required an advance roll. I think it would naturally balance the phases providing there is appropriate terrain. I.d also bring back firing arcs personally as well.
Think about how many more neat and stategic interactions units could have if there were alternating activation.
Look at current 40k, so many things are meaningless and don't play out how i think the designers feel like they should because in the end almost all that matters is who shoots first and how many wounds you have. This is why most armies have 1-3 viable units and a bunch of stuff that never get's taken.This also is why the game plays out how it does where just having giant hordes of totally garbage units is the hands down most effective play (outside of a few edge cases.) this is a symptom of the problem with the fundamental structure of the turns in 40k.
If you had alternative activation there could be much more player interaction with abilities like "when activated this unit gives one enemy unit within X inches -1 to hit this phase" so that you had to make the tough decision on if you want to activate that unit first to make sure to nerf something dangerous, or risk using one of your shooting units first and doing that unit on your next activation.
Or you have units that say "when this unit activates, activate 1 other unit of X type"
and a plethora of other different little abilities that interplay with each other within phases.
you could counter move each other, and have to change the order you activate things based on what your opponent did. There would be so much more interaction and tactic/counter-tactic between players.
Imagine playing a game of MtG if interrupt spells didn't exist, that's what 40k feels like sometimes. Completely one sided with very little interplay between the opponents.
Return of unit types, USRs, terrain mechanics, real cover saves, and some form of blast weapons returning. The core of 8th is far too bare bones which makes the game come down to shooting first with as much dakka as possible to deal the most wounds as possible. The only "depth" is in the comboing of auras and the MtG inspired stratagems to make very predictable wombo combos to do tons of damage. Model placement is far less important and the battlefield layout plays far less of a factor than it did in past editions which effectively makes more games play out like it's on planet bowling ball.
Basically bring back the depth of mechanics from 7th, remove the stupidity from 8th, but actually attempt to balance 7th while trimming (not chainsawing) the bloat.
Actual (though still simplified) fire arcs for vehicle mounted weapons
(and don't try & give me any of this gak that it's "too complex". If you can figure out all the tricks to maximize your current CP system strats, etc? Then you can handle the simple concept that the left hand sponson cannot fire out the right side of your tank. Or that say a vindicators forward facing gun can only fire at things in front of the tank. Or that turrets turn for a reason..... )
a complete abandonment of the whole CP/strat system....
Continued rules support for models GW no longer produces. I don't care if this is index form, a FW book, or legacy list style ala the old WHFB lists for AoS. Because I for one am still not done using my Las/Plas razorbacks etc I bought all those years ago.
An end to the constant tinkering/errata/faqs
(40k) Stats for Leman Russ himself.
Codex: Squats
Nerf melee combat overall. Oh, it should still be a viable option for some models/units. For everyone else though it really shouldn't be that great an option....
Actual (though still simplified) fire arcs for vehicle mounted weapons
(and don't try & give me any of this gak that it's "too complex". If you can figure out all the tricks to maximize your current CP system strats, etc? Then you can handle the simple concept that the left hand sponson cannot fire out the right side of your tank. Or that say a vindicators forward facing gun can only fire at things in front of the tank. Or that turrets turn for a reason..... )
a complete abandonment of the whole CP/strat system....
Continued rules support for models GW no longer produces. I don't care if this is index form, a FW book, or legacy list style ala the old WHFB lists for AoS. Because I for one am still not done using my Las/Plas razorbacks etc I bought all those years ago.
An end to the constant tinkering/errata/faqs
(40k) Stats for Leman Russ himself.
Codex: Squats
Spoiler:
Nerf melee combat overall. Oh, it should still be a viable option for some models/units. For everyone else though it really shouldn't be that great an option....
Make cities of death terrain rules std.
SQUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! More than Sororitas just cuz Kharadron exist and Sisters are getting plastic forthwith. But I still am starting Sisters when they're released.
Alternating activations. That's the only important one. Everything else is minor as 8th Edition overall is a fine ruleset.
Some Tank rules would be nice, but I don't mean the crap we had in 6the/7th which made a Tank squishier than a Space Marine. Just something like falling back and shooting, or shooting in CC, or secondary weapons having better overwatch, little stuff like that.
Doesn't alternate activiation just buff armies with hordes of units, or spamable good units. Armies that are build around 1-2 strong units would get punished a lot.
Not if done right
(I bet that if GW is adding unit activation everyone wants them to get turn based rules back. No chance that this will be a practical improvement but just letting everyone stay away from any activation based system in the future)
There are different ways to do it. Whether it's really unit by unit activation or alterning phases like in Lotr which is still GWs best ruleset one has to find out. Maybe the upcoming Apokalypse shows already new ways.
Actual (though still simplified) fire arcs for vehicle mounted weapons
(and don't try & give me any of this gak that it's "too complex". If you can figure out all the tricks to maximize your current CP system strats, etc? Then you can handle the simple concept that the left hand sponson cannot fire out the right side of your tank. Or that say a vindicators forward facing gun can only fire at things in front of the tank. Or that turrets turn for a reason..... )
*Looks at autocannons and hot-shot volley guns on Taurox Primes* No, please! Anything but that!
kodos wrote: Not if done right
(I bet that if GW is adding unit activation everyone wants them to get turn based rules back. No chance that this will be a practical improvement but just letting everyone stay away from any activation based system in the future)
Ok then, got me kind of a worried for next edition.
Fewer dice, and almost no rerolls. At this point, 40k can just switch to old Avalon hill style look-up tables (X marines shooting Y orks = Z wounds) and save a lot of time and pointless dice rolls.
USRs return. Everything special snowflake is pointless and simply adds confusion.
Removal of flyers and the stupid big stuff. Wrong scale, terrible for game balance.
Rybrook wrote: Blast templates, sustained fire and scatter dice
Definitely not. Fiddly and imprecise mechanics don't make the game better, they just waste time and cause arguments.
Actual (though still simplified) fire arcs for vehicle mounted weapons
(and don't try & give me any of this gak that it's "too complex". If you can figure out all the tricks to maximize your current CP system strats, etc? Then you can handle the simple concept that the left hand sponson cannot fire out the right side of your tank. Or that say a vindicators forward facing gun can only fire at things in front of the tank. Or that turrets turn for a reason..... )
*Looks at autocannons and hot-shot volley guns on Taurox Primes* No, please! Anything but that!
Yeah, too many vehicle models just don't quite work with strict arc rules, and it's odd to only have arc rules for vehicles but not other unit types just because they're not quite as rectangle shaped. I get that it's a bit counterintuitive visually sometimes, but if we can live with the abstraction of a Riptide, Guard heavy weapons team, Eldar support weapon battery, etc not needing arcs, we can live with it for tanks.
Please don't ask for Universal Special Rules back. If you think they were good, you're looking through Rose Colored Glasses.
The ONLY way a Universal Special Rule is good is if it's something that just about every single army gets, and the rule changes a lot about how the unit interacts with the game. FLY is a good example. There is no universal special rule, just a lot of rules that reference how they work differently if a unit has FLY. I would agree that another rule like "RESERVES" would probably be a good special rule to bake right into the core rules, because every army gets these types of units, and they really change a lot about how the game works.
When you put in too many USRs, it really easily makes things confusing. Here's everything I think probably could benefit from being actually referenced by the core rules, which isn't already:
#1 - Setup locations other than the battlefield. Let's just call them RESERVES. Rules-wise, how they arrive isn't important unless it impacts the game in some way that sets them apart from other similar abilities.
#2 - AIRCRAFT. They've seemingly caught this now, but units that are aircraft are so vastly different from the regular rules, and appear so frequently in codexes, that knowing about their ins and outs is probably better dealt with in the rulebook, not in unit entries.
#3 - FORTIFICATION. Again, these units cause lots of rules problems, because they can be both a unit and a terrain piece. Let's address them in the main rules rather than in the datasheet.
#4 - OBJECTIVE SECURED. We don't need every single codex to spell this out. Put it right into the main book.
Other than that, anything else would be a real stretch.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: pet peeve of mine- change the over watch rules so that you can shoot incoming units regardless of how far away they started from the target unit. I mean it makes no sense. This is especially true with RL area effect weapons like flamers.
New Lt to his troops "Fire as they come into range men."
Veteran Sgt, "We can't Sir! They started their charge outside the max range of our guns so we can't get a proper bead on them."
Lt, "???"
Only if you can point out how in RL a modern military (WWII and beyond) would actually repel an assault with a flamethrower. As someone that has a better than average knowledge of WWII infantry warfare, a pet peeve of mine is thinking a flamethrower is an effective defense to assault. It would be just about the last thing I would want be armed with if the enemy wanting to attach bayonets and get stuck in. It simply wasn't the purpose of the weapon and has a lot reasons why.
You can't think of shooting only occurring during the shooting phase/over watch. I think it is important to consider the assault roll the combination of a bunch different things instead of the ability to cover the distance to the target or giving up and heading back to maybe cover you had. A successful charge could be performing an effective fire and maneuver tactic not giving them a good bead on the assaulters. It could also be baiting the flamer into using a good chunk of fuel before committing. It is also entirely possible that a successful charge doesn't even have the two units actually engaged in hand-to-hand fighting. It might just be point blank gun/grenade range between a squad of tacticals and guardsmen neither of which are actually armed with melee weapons. Point is, I think it is important to treat the Charge roll as an abstraction to a bunch of various elements, situations, conditions, etc. that either prevent a unit from engaging with the enemy as such a range that it takes of the entirety of their attention.
Trying to base rues off of RL modern military is stupid while HtH combat is something that does happen still it is much rarer than it is in 40k. By your logic we should remove all dedicated melee units from the game and more elite units should be the only ones to get any kind of melee weapon, with the only option being a knife.
Mechanics that make the game play better are way more important than realism, there are plenty of more realistic miniatures games if you want realism and historical accuracy.
Actual (though still simplified) fire arcs for vehicle mounted weapons
(and don't try & give me any of this gak that it's "too complex". If you can figure out all the tricks to maximize your current CP system strats, etc? Then you can handle the simple concept that the left hand sponson cannot fire out the right side of your tank. Or that say a vindicators forward facing gun can only fire at things in front of the tank. Or that turrets turn for a reason..... )
*Looks at autocannons and hot-shot volley guns on Taurox Primes* No, please! Anything but that!
So you're telling me that you can't figure out that those side mounted guns can only fire at things in front of them? And that they most certainly don't have any arc to the opposite side of the vehicle? Even though I'm sure you're playing the strat/CP system....
And like I said, I'll accept simplified (vs currently non-existant) arc rules.
See that side mounted autocannons muzzle tip? The arc starts there. It's a simple right angle - straight down the hull going forward & straight out L/R depending on wich side.
But just so we're clear; this is too complex for you?
Strip down the the rules to be even simpler for toddlers to play. Sell the wh40k product line to Hasbro. Put a label on the box, "for children 5 and up."
So now wh40k can be played by cry babies and drunk men a like.
That would slow game play way down. Imagine waiting for the movement phase of a horde playing worried about his models facing. I dont want to wait while 200 orks get their facing just right.
And if its just facing for vehicles, you're asking for 45° vs 46°, etc arguments. Get the feeling of nostalgia, blast templates, fire arcs were fun, but the game is better off for not having then
The game needs to be sped up, not slowed down. Thats the direction gw is going with killteam and apoc, looking at speeding up the game.
And its been brought up before, titanic units are probably not going anywhere. I am all for them being nerfed into a tough choice for 9th, but banning them from 2k games is going to be a stretch
Only thing ill add that i dont think has been mentioned: Push for 1750 pt standard games over 2k
UMGuy wrote: That would slow game play way down. Imagine waiting for the movement phase of a horde playing worried about his models facing. I dont want to wait while 200 orks get their facing just right.
And if its just facing for vehicles, you're asking for 45° vs 46°, etc arguments. Get the feeling of nostalgia, blast templates, fire arcs were fun, but the game is better off for not having then
The game needs to be sped up, not slowed down. Thats the direction gw is going with killteam and apoc, looking at speeding up the game.
And its been brought up before, titanic units are probably not going anywhere. I am all for them being nerfed into a tough choice for 9th, but banning them from 2k games is going to be a stretch
Only thing ill add that i dont think has been mentioned: Push for 1750 pt standard games over 2k
I'd go further an push for 1.5k.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
CadianGateTroll wrote: Strip down the the rules to be even simpler for toddlers to play. Sell the wh40k product line to Hasbro. Put a label on the box, "for children 5 and up."
So now wh40k can be played by cry babies and drunk men a like.
While your hyperbole is a little extreme, the game does need to be accessible to kids, probably around middle and high school, if we want the hobby to survive, much less grow.
Yarium wrote:Please don't ask for Universal Special Rules back. If you think they were good, you're looking through Rose Colored Glasses.
The ONLY way a Universal Special Rule is good is if it's something that just about every single army gets, and the rule changes a lot about how the unit interacts with the game. FLY is a good example. There is no universal special rule, just a lot of rules that reference how they work differently if a unit has FLY. I would agree that another rule like "RESERVES" would probably be a good special rule to bake right into the core rules, because every army gets these types of units, and they really change a lot about how the game works.
When you put in too many USRs, it really easily makes things confusing. Here's everything I think probably could benefit from being actually referenced by the core rules, which isn't already:
#1 - Setup locations other than the battlefield. Let's just call them RESERVES. Rules-wise, how they arrive isn't important unless it impacts the game in some way that sets them apart from other similar abilities.
#2 - AIRCRAFT. They've seemingly caught this now, but units that are aircraft are so vastly different from the regular rules, and appear so frequently in codexes, that knowing about their ins and outs is probably better dealt with in the rulebook, not in unit entries.
#3 - FORTIFICATION. Again, these units cause lots of rules problems, because they can be both a unit and a terrain piece. Let's address them in the main rules rather than in the datasheet.
#4 - OBJECTIVE SECURED. We don't need every single codex to spell this out. Put it right into the main book.
Other than that, anything else would be a real stretch.
How are universal special rules more confusing than multitudes of "bespoke" rules that are actually slightly different versions of the same thing under different names?
UMGuy wrote:That would slow game play way down. Imagine waiting for the movement phase of a horde playing worried about his models facing. I dont want to wait while 200 orks get their facing just right.
AA and taking the units' facing off of the squad leader mitigate that.
And if its just facing for vehicles, you're asking for 45° vs 46°, etc arguments. Get the feeling of nostalgia, blast templates, fire arcs were fun, but the game is better off for not having then
Srrongly disagree. The game is much poorer for its lack of tactical depth, relevance of positioning, and immersive elements.
The game needs to be sped up, not slowed down. Thats the direction gw is going with killteam and apoc, looking at speeding up the game.
That is a personal preference. I don't especially like the current state of things where models die in droves- I'd rather the game slow down and become more strategic and mental. I'm not in a hurry to get a game, which I enjoy, over with so that I can be not enjoying it anymore.
And its been brought up before, titanic units are probably not going anywhere. I am all for them being nerfed into a tough choice for 9th, but banning them from 2k games is going to be a stretch
They probably aren't, but the game would be much healthier if it had a focus. Right now it's obvious GW isn't sure what kind of game 40k is supposed to be, seeing as it doesn't do anything particularly well.
Return of vehicle specific rules and facings. Vehicles are very bleh now that they have been normalized with regular units. Bringing facings back will actually make maneuvers important and encourage flank attacks
Actual morale rules. The oversimplified "kill more" current rule is just boring, tactically uninteresting, and just nonsensical. Give us fall backs, pinning, and suppression effects. Make certain weapons types do more morale damage, expanding tactical choices rather than simply having every weapon solely defined by its kill potential.
Real terrain rules. This is another area where rules streamlining is a mistake and makes the game much less tactically interesting.
USR. These were a mess, but I think it was a mistake to throw them out entirely rather than fixing them up.
Normalize CP between armies. This was a good idea in theory to encourage players to take troops, but it's so easily exploitable and has become necessary to do so.
Bring down the lethality in general. It's really starting to be a bore when most games are decided by turn 2 based on whoever got their wombo combo to connect first. Having large chunks of your army deleted before they can even move is not fun. The ideal game should last till the last round and be decide by tactics and out playing your opponent. Tabling should be the exception not the expectation.
Blastaar wrote: How are universal special rules more confusing than multitudes of "bespoke" rules that are actually slightly different versions of the same thing under different names?
USRs work until the rules writers want to have a variation of the USR and so we get bespoke rules anyway but now everyone who thought USRs were meant to be a thing are confused.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: pet peeve of mine- change the over watch rules so that you can shoot incoming units regardless of how far away they started from the target unit. I mean it makes no sense. This is especially true with RL area effect weapons like flamers.
New Lt to his troops "Fire as they come into range men."
Veteran Sgt, "We can't Sir! They started their charge outside the max range of our guns so we can't get a proper bead on them."
Lt, "???"
Only if you can point out how in RL a modern military (WWII and beyond) would actually repel an assault with a flamethrower. As someone that has a better than average knowledge of WWII infantry warfare, a pet peeve of mine is thinking a flamethrower is an effective defense to assault. It would be just about the last thing I would want be armed with if the enemy wanting to attach bayonets and get stuck in. It simply wasn't the purpose of the weapon and has a lot reasons why.
You can't think of shooting only occurring during the shooting phase/over watch. I think it is important to consider the assault roll the combination of a bunch different things instead of the ability to cover the distance to the target or giving up and heading back to maybe cover you had. A successful charge could be performing an effective fire and maneuver tactic not giving them a good bead on the assaulters. It could also be baiting the flamer into using a good chunk of fuel before committing. It is also entirely possible that a successful charge doesn't even have the two units actually engaged in hand-to-hand fighting. It might just be point blank gun/grenade range between a squad of tacticals and guardsmen neither of which are actually armed with melee weapons. Point is, I think it is important to treat the Charge roll as an abstraction to a bunch of various elements, situations, conditions, etc. that either prevent a unit from engaging with the enemy as such a range that it takes of the entirety of their attention.
Trying to base rues off of RL modern military is stupid while HtH combat is something that does happen still it is much rarer than it is in 40k. By your logic we should remove all dedicated melee units from the game and more elite units should be the only ones to get any kind of melee weapon, with the only option being a knife.
Mechanics that make the game play better are way more important than realism, there are plenty of more realistic miniatures games if you want realism and historical accuracy.
I agree.
Edit: I think the issue here is I see players look at the flamer as an almost amazing anti-CQC weapon because of the mechanics rather than think flamethrowers make amazing CQC weapons. So they want to finish the job and make it an amazing anti-CQC weapon which only moves further away from any sort semblance of reality (IMO) even in the crazy setting of 40k. I just think that is the backwards way to go about things. Maybe I am in the minority here and most people think flamethrower would make crazy good counter-assault weapons, but I have seen that in movies, television and video games.
I would rather the rules make the flamer better at what they did/do in history and media than double down on what they didn't. I would much rather flamers, spit-balling here, forced a Leadership check on the unit hit with a failed result forcing a fall back though the unit can remain to stay in place and keeps the ability to Overwatch if they didn't move. I see flamers being decent forcing units out of their entrenched position with a side benefit of making a potential Charge more predictable. I see flamers more as weapons of fear than actual damage. That example is probably makes flamers too powerful, but I think it moves the weapon in the right direction and makes Morale/Leadership a thing to be concerned about which I think should either be included more or dropped almost entirely.
I have a heavy flamer in my assault Chaos Marines squad (useless I already know). It is waste most of the time since I teleport them in. What I mostly consider it for is its anti-CQC from chaff units looking to tarpit me. Most chaff aren't going to want to take the hit but also have difficulties making those long charges too. Which is why I think the flamer is fine where it is as a anti-CQC weapon. It is obvious how to circumvent it, but makes doing so much riskier to even get the charge. Which is why I an okay with where the rules are where they are. I am fine with flamers being a good, not great, anti-CQC weapon, but clever squads (I see the charge roll more about the assualters ability to use tactics to make the attack more than just covering the distance) can still get stuck in.
Fire arcs, for every model. Its dead simple to do - stick them on the data sheet for the unit.
Infantry side arms get 360, easily shown, for the sake of sanity and to make infantry able to respond rapidly. heavy weapons maybe 180 degrees for infantry. (i.e. for the bulk of infantry the fire arcs don't matter to speed movement)
vehicles can be given whatever weird and wonderful arcs are desired, and given them individually with the silhouette showing how to work them out.
"models turn to face what they are firing at" - either more individual model or the appropriate turret etc, everything gains a "front" (also on the data card), its now possible to draw a vehicle into facing a different direction if it wants to shoot you.
alternative toughness/saves by arcs, again case by case, on the data card, dead easy to say have -1T or a slightly different save to the rear. Or stuff like the Gorgon used to have, a re-roll to its save from the front.
allow saves to automatically pass as well as automatically fail, give armoured vehicles, well heavy ones, a 1+ save so only stuff with SP can harm them - and largely remove invulnerable saves and re-rolls except for forcefield effects and have the re-roll as a CP burning stratagem to represent "luck" (maybe able to use multiple times per phase if you want to burn the CP)
stick keywords on weapons, has already been mentioned, its painfully obvious and really should be in there.
copy AoS and give melee weapons a range, most will be 1" but some could be more (e.g. on knights, dreadnoughts etc), and allow some units to strike in melee into the upper floors of building/ruins - suggest units get a "strike height" rule if they can do this, e.g. "This unit is tall, it can strike at models up to 9" vertically above the table surface", likely better worded.
could also give a minimum, so say a Titan power fist can punch, buildings, titans, knights etc, but simply cannot hit infantry with a "swipe" but maybe a punch into the ground allows it (different profile?)
JNAProductions wrote: If you need AP to hurt things, you need to make AP more available.
I play Nurgle Daemons. I have almost no AP.
This would for sure require all factions to gain the ability to punch through said heavier armour with some tasty anti-armour weapons.
Aware that while you can plink a LR or knight with las guns no one actually does, this is more about a decent tank being able to shrug off stuff like S5/6 AP-1 type weapons much better, and removing invulnerable saves and re-rolls as a 'general' thing saved for stuff with void/power shields and hero types to speed the game generally.
specifically *not* thinking stuff like infantry, even heavy infantry, going to a 1+, thinking stuff like Land Raiders, maybe Leman Russ tanks from the front, maybe knights from the front (or a 2+) and larger titans, i.e. stuff that should be able to take essentially unlimited small arms fire and not really care at this scale (40k is no longer at the "shoot out the vision scopes!" type scale, save that sort of tricks for kill team or a stratagem card for special shots).
my though is really to bring back something Space Marine V1 had whereby armoured and unarmoured targets really behaved differently.
a heavy bolter etc should be dangerous to troops, bikes, light vehicles and similar, but a full on battle tank shouldn't care, ditto a laser cannon should (ideally) have a chance to punch right through a land speeder in a single shot but struggle perhaps v infantry (though that would mean 'to hit' modifiers too)
JNAProductions wrote: If you need AP to hurt things, you need to make AP more available.
I play Nurgle Daemons. I have almost no AP.
This would for sure require all factions to gain the ability to punch through said heavier armour with some tasty anti-armour weapons.
Aware that while you can plink a LR or knight with las guns no one actually does, this is more about a decent tank being able to shrug off stuff like S5/6 AP-1 type weapons much better, and removing invulnerable saves and re-rolls as a 'general' thing saved for stuff with void/power shields and hero types to speed the game generally.
specifically *not* thinking stuff like infantry, even heavy infantry, going to a 1+, thinking stuff like Land Raiders, maybe Leman Russ tanks from the front, maybe knights from the front (or a 2+) and larger titans, i.e. stuff that should be able to take essentially unlimited small arms fire and not really care at this scale (40k is no longer at the "shoot out the vision scopes!" type scale, save that sort of tricks for kill team or a stratagem card for special shots).
my though is really to bring back something Space Marine V1 had whereby armoured and unarmoured targets really behaved differently.
a heavy bolter etc should be dangerous to troops, bikes, light vehicles and similar, but a full on battle tank shouldn't care, ditto a laser cannon should (ideally) have a chance to punch right through a land speeder in a single shot but struggle perhaps v infantry (though that would mean 'to hit' modifiers too)
That's fair. It's just something to keep in mind-I've seen suggestions that would work for some factions, but horribly cripple others, and the people posting them had no idea (or, worse, didn't care).
oh yes you need to think it all through to the faction level, nothing should be invulnerable to any faction unless its specifically by design (e.g. a fantasy/low tech type faction who simply cannot hurt armour on purpose with weapons, but maybe have other ways)
another one I would like but can't see happening is to add a "size" stat, 0 for infantry, but then say +1 for something dreadnaught size, +2 for Rhino, +3 for actual tanks, more for larger.
you can then give some heavy weapons a built in "-3" to hit, they now seriously struggle v infantry (maybe keep the "6 always hits!"), but are perfectly find v larger targets, the armour changes means that yes you can pepper a tank with las gun rounds, and do so really easily, but it still won't care.
you can then give "stealth" stuff a -1 on this, ditto stuff like grots maybe as they are smaller or effectively harder to hit for some other reason.
this is a way to make big guns, that are heavy and slower to turn to track a target prefer heavier and larger targets, while stuff thats more agile can easily track smaller stuff, while struggling to hurt larger.
GW remembering there are toughnesses above 8 would also help
NOT A THING. My god they crank them out before I figure out the last set of rules. Then I have to buy all those glossy fat books again. I run 5 ARMIES and I've been in since 2nd ed. I may have personally sent some GW weenie's kids to school.
Monopoly's rules haven't changed in 50 years, stop changing stuff just for the sake of making us buy new merchandise
Brotherjulian wrote: NOT A THING. My god they crank them out before I figure out the last set of rules. Then I have to buy all those glossy fat books again. I run 5 ARMIES and I've been in since 2nd ed. I may have personally sent some GW weenie's kids to school.
Monopoly's rules haven't changed in 50 years, stop changing stuff just for the sake of making us buy new merchandise
Better example would be chess. It's not a total crap game.
Martel732 wrote: Chess also has sufficiently finite moves that old computers can brute force humans out of the game.
That's true of CHECKERS. Not CHESS. Chess is not a solved game-and the computers that challenge grandmasters aren't brute-forcing every possibility, they're actually designed to narrow down good tactics.
A Hybridization of the WH40K Rules with the Kill Team rules, designed to take into account the differences of table size and unit size. So it would look largely like the Kill Team rules with modifications like:
Initiative Phase
One Roll at the start of the game, then alternate who has priority each battle round.
Movement Phase
Extending of Charge Range, as 2d6 Charge instead of move works in the claustrophobic Kill Team battlefield, but won’t on a 4x4 or larger battlefield. I’d probably start with a Charge is an Advance move and see if that works.
Move Overwatch out of the Movement Phase and into the Shooting Phase.
Remove Readied as an option to avoid incentivizing static play.
Add options besides Falling Back or Standing Still for the player without Priority when enemy units Fall Back from them.
Psychic Phase
Pretty much 40K rules with Kill Team alternation of castings. Just need to allow units to both cast and deny during the one Psychic Phase.
Shooting Phase
Add Overwatch to Shooting Phase, making it a modifier and limitation to shooting options for units that are charged. Something like -2 to Hit and you may only target a unit that is both within 1” of you and charged you in the proceeding Movement Phase. This will make-up a bit for the integrated movement phase.
Keep Kill Team Obsurced for Light Cover and add Armor Bonus for Heavy Cover, but use 40K rule for the rest of shooting resolution.
Fight Phase
Follow Kill Team selection rules with 40K resolution rules
Morale Phase
Follow 40K Rules, but alternate rolling player by player.
Martel732 wrote: Chess also has sufficiently finite moves that old computers can brute force humans out of the game.
That's true of CHECKERS. Not CHESS. Chess is not a solved game-and the computers that challenge grandmasters aren't brute-forcing every possibility, they're actually designed to narrow down good tactics.
They don't challenge grand masters. They destroy grand masters. Chess engines have been beating GMs since the 90s. They stopped doing meaningful chess matches between grandmasters and machines in 2006 when the world champ at the time went 0-2-4 against a chess engine. Something like Alpha-zero, GMs are obscenely lucky to force a draw.
Chess isn't fully solved yet, but humans are certainly out of it.
Also they determine those good tactics by brute force calculating what moves will either win the fastest or lose the slowest. Also stuff like endgame tablebases, which is like the definition of brute forcing.
I'd like for Space Marine bikers to be Core again under certain conditions, such as the warlord being on a bike. I'd also like biker Librarians to be allowed again, as they are no longer legal per Codex rules.
I've got a White Scars army gathering dust since the start of 8th Ed.
alextroy wrote: A Hybridization of the WH40K Rules with the Kill Team rules, designed to take into account the differences of table size and unit size. So it would look largely like the Kill Team rules with modifications like:
Initiative Phase
One Roll at the start of the game, then alternate who has priority each battle round.
Movement Phase
Extending of Charge Range, as 2d6 Charge instead of move works in the claustrophobic Kill Team battlefield, but won’t on a 4x4 or larger battlefield. I’d probably start with a Charge is an Advance move and see if that works.
Move Overwatch out of the Movement Phase and into the Shooting Phase.
Remove Readied as an option to avoid incentivizing static play.
Add options besides Falling Back or Standing Still for the player without Priority when enemy units Fall Back from them.
Psychic Phase
Pretty much 40K rules with Kill Team alternation of castings. Just need to allow units to both cast and deny during the one Psychic Phase.
Shooting Phase
Add Overwatch to Shooting Phase, making it a modifier and limitation to shooting options for units that are charged. Something like -2 to Hit and you may only target a unit that is both within 1” of you and charged you in the proceeding Movement Phase. This will make-up a bit for the integrated movement phase.
Keep Kill Team Obsurced for Light Cover and add Armor Bonus for Heavy Cover, but use 40K rule for the rest of shooting resolution.
Fight Phase
Follow Kill Team selection rules with 40K resolution rules
Morale Phase
Follow 40K Rules, but alternate rolling player by player.
I don't play kill team so I can't comment on most of these outside of 'pass', but the one that really stands out is the morale phase.
If the morale phase just uses 40k rules, why the feth does it matter if you alternate or not? It's not like my morale roles affect his morale rolls.
Actual (though still simplified) fire arcs for vehicle mounted weapons
(and don't try & give me any of this gak that it's "too complex". If you can figure out all the tricks to maximize your current CP system strats, etc? Then you can handle the simple concept that the left hand sponson cannot fire out the right side of your tank. Or that say a vindicators forward facing gun can only fire at things in front of the tank. Or that turrets turn for a reason..... )
*Looks at autocannons and hot-shot volley guns on Taurox Primes* No, please! Anything but that!
Also, no one in the history of humanity has ever objected to fire arcs due to complexity.
People object to fire arcs because A. They make vehicles with non-turret mounted weapons a lot weaker for no reason and B. Vehicles in 40k have odd shapes that make determining arcs difficult. Remember the old knight arcs? The ones where a knight couldn't shoot anything directly in front of it?
alextroy wrote: A Hybridization of the WH40K Rules with the Kill Team rules, designed to take into account the differences of table size and unit size. So it would look largely like the Kill Team rules with modifications like:
Initiative Phase
One Roll at the start of the game, then alternate who has priority each battle round.
Movement Phase
Extending of Charge Range, as 2d6 Charge instead of move works in the claustrophobic Kill Team battlefield, but won’t on a 4x4 or larger battlefield. I’d probably start with a Charge is an Advance move and see if that works.
Move Overwatch out of the Movement Phase and into the Shooting Phase.
Remove Readied as an option to avoid incentivizing static play.
Add options besides Falling Back or Standing Still for the player without Priority when enemy units Fall Back from them.
Psychic Phase
Pretty much 40K rules with Kill Team alternation of castings. Just need to allow units to both cast and deny during the one Psychic Phase.
Shooting Phase
Add Overwatch to Shooting Phase, making it a modifier and limitation to shooting options for units that are charged. Something like -2 to Hit and you may only target a unit that is both within 1” of you and charged you in the proceeding Movement Phase. This will make-up a bit for the integrated movement phase.
Keep Kill Team Obsurced for Light Cover and add Armor Bonus for Heavy Cover, but use 40K rule for the rest of shooting resolution.
Fight Phase
Follow Kill Team selection rules with 40K resolution rules
Morale Phase
Follow 40K Rules, but alternate rolling player by player.
I don't play kill team so I can't comment on most of these outside of 'pass', but the one that really stands out is the morale phase.
If the morale phase just uses 40k rules, why the feth does it matter if you alternate or not? It's not like my morale roles affect his morale rolls.
Because knowing the results of any specific Morale roll may impact your willingness to use special rules on your own Morale checks. It could be simplified to the player with Priority rolls first, but I like the idea of going back an forth.
Togusa wrote: 1. Move from a D6 system to a D8, D10 or some other system so as to allow for a greater stat-line distribution. Add in alternating activations, al a Killteam. Move even if you fail the charge.
I would absolutely love a D10 integration.The're fun to roll and would provide great flexibility.
-Guardsman- wrote: I'd also like biker Librarians to be allowed again, as they are no longer legal per Codex rules.
If they're in the Index, they're currently still a legal unit even if they're not in the Codex.
How long this will be the case is unknown - and when the question came up in the UKGE seminar, the response indicated they weren't going away in the short-term - but if there is an entry in the Index, use 'em.
-Guardsman- wrote: I'd also like biker Librarians to be allowed again, as they are no longer legal per Codex rules.
If they're in the Index, they're currently still a legal unit even if they're not in the Codex.
How long this will be the case is unknown - and when the question came up in the UKGE seminar, the response indicated they weren't going away in the short-term - but if there is an entry in the Index, use 'em.
It's pretty bad that you have to buy an old and technically outdated book just to use a model that should be in the codex.
Why did GW start their whole thing of murdering choices for hqs anyway?
-Guardsman- wrote: I'd also like biker Librarians to be allowed again, as they are no longer legal per Codex rules.
If they're in the Index, they're currently still a legal unit even if they're not in the Codex.
How long this will be the case is unknown - and when the question came up in the UKGE seminar, the response indicated they weren't going away in the short-term - but if there is an entry in the Index, use 'em.
It's pretty bad that you have to buy an old and technically outdated book just to use a model that should be in the codex.
Why did GW start their whole thing of murdering choices for hqs anyway?
When the Chapter House lawsuits wrapped up. That's why we have No Model, No Rules. We're lucky we have Index options at all.
After the Chapterhouse Studios fiasco, someone in GW made the loosely enforced "no model, no rules" policy that has made unit after unit disappear from the game. The Indexes created rules for many such a model, but the 8th Edition Codexes are back to "no model, no rules".
Blastaar wrote: How are universal special rules more confusing than multitudes of "bespoke" rules that are actually slightly different versions of the same thing under different names?
USRs work until the rules writers want to have a variation of the USR and so we get bespoke rules anyway but now everyone who thought USRs were meant to be a thing are confused.
a D6 offers 7 results (1-6 + nothing), including automatic success and automatic fail (7) while modifier added to the roll needed can extend this
if the rolls needed would be directly in the profile, using all values would give us profiles from 6-0 and +/- 1-2 as additional modifieres.
eg a Space Marine gets 3+ to hit for ranged a Guardsmen 5+, a Grot 6+, a SM Hero 2+
a Marine can have 5+ defence to roll against for to wound while a tank could have 7+ and the (anti-tank) weapon can add +1/2/3 to the to wound roll, adding armour saves from 1-6 again with modifiers from the weapon
as soon as nearly everything is 3+/4+ with re-rolls and +/-1 modifiers with no auto fail/sucess you don't use the possibilities of the D6 and using a D10 would only mean that a "10 always hits/wounds" would reduce the problem that low strength+high ROF is the better anti-tank weapon but not solve it
for 40k:
pofile values are 1-10 and therefore the whole scale should be used (no 90% of units on the table are between 2 and 5)
than all to hit/to wound rolls should use a comparision chart (best to add a another defence value, like agility for ranged and melee hit rolls to roll against next to S/T) to make the most out of such profile values
I guess we have them because GW learned from AoS and going straight to the 8th edition reboot without prober rules for all legecy models the chance to fail was there
Down with "No model no rules", more like. It kills creativity and narrows the game down to fewer options. Them applying such a policy to orks was the last straw.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Down with "No model no rules", more like. It kills creativity and narrows the game down to fewer options. Them applying such a policy to orks was the last straw.
They are legally obligated to do so, or they will lose their IP rights.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Down with "No model no rules", more like. It kills creativity and narrows the game down to fewer options. Them applying such a policy to orks was the last straw.
They are legally obligated to do so, or they will lose their IP rights.
Didn't stop them for the past 30 years or so. And besides, there has to be a more elegant solution than what they are currently doing.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Down with "No model no rules", more like. It kills creativity and narrows the game down to fewer options. Them applying such a policy to orks was the last straw.
They are legally obligated to do so, or they will lose their IP rights.
That’s hilarious, since their IP was ripped from other sources in the first place. 40K started out as a homage to a wide variety of existing sci-fi, if not a blatant attempt to cash in on certain properties popular at the time.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Down with "No model no rules", more like. It kills creativity and narrows the game down to fewer options. Them applying such a policy to orks was the last straw.
They are legally obligated to do so, or they will lose their IP rights.
Didn't stop them for the past 30 years or so. And besides, there has to be a more elegant solution than what they are currently doing.
You.. you do realise the reason they did so for those 30 years is because it was never challenged in court, and now it has been they can no longer do it? If you're angry with anyone blame Chapter House for ruining a good thing by not playing by the rules.
Tl;dr Chapter House were making models for units GW had no models for, but also making 3rd party bits and using GW trademarks in the names. GW got pissy and sued them. Court ruled that unless GW makes models for the units they have rules for they can't stop people making models using the GW names and IP for them, but GW can stop third parties from using their Trademarks to describe their third party bitz.
e.g. You can make "Mongolian heads, compatible with most 28mm brands", not "White Scar Adeptus Astartes Space Marine heads". You can make Mycetic Spores because GW don't make models called that, but you can't make Female "Farseers" because GW make Farseer models.
BaconCatBug wrote: If you're angry with anyone blame Chapter House for ruining a good thing by not playing by the rules.
Or we can blame GW for their incompetence in handling the situation. GW should have had no concern for CH, they had much greater resources available in every area and the "official" label on their products. So what if CH produces something that competes with their products? Just make a superior product, dominate the market, and let CH fight with all the other third-party companies for the scraps. But instead GW made the mistake of listening to their legal department too much, showing major weakness and a lack of confidence in their own products, and lost a ton of goodwill with the community. It was a complete debacle from beginning to end, and it's unbelievable incompetence that GW hasn't reversed their policies since then.
BaconCatBug wrote: If you're angry with anyone blame Chapter House for ruining a good thing by not playing by the rules.
Or we can blame GW for their incompetence in handling the situation. GW should have had no concern for CH, they had much greater resources available in every area and the "official" label on their products. So what if CH produces something that competes with their products? Just make a superior product, dominate the market, and let CH fight with all the other third-party companies for the scraps. But instead GW made the mistake of listening to their legal department too much, showing major weakness and a lack of confidence in their own products, and lost a ton of goodwill with the community. It was a complete debacle from beginning to end, and it's unbelievable incompetence that GW hasn't reversed their policies since then.
Because that's not how IP law works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark "Competition" doesn't let you infringe on trademarks. You can't just make your own Dyson vacuum cleaners and claim you're competing.
GW are incompetent, but given the choice between "No Model, No Rules" and "Spend millions of pounds on moulds for models that won't make their money back to protect their trademarks", then obviously the former is going to win because shareholders.
And the courts found that most of CH's products were not infringing, and most of the rest could have been sold just fine by relabeling them. "Female Farseer™" might be infringing, but "female space elf wizard suitable for use as 40k Farseer™" would not. GW spent a bunch of time and money in a raging dumpster fire of a poorly conducted attempt to bully the competition out of the market.
GW are incompetent, but given the choice between "No Model, No Rules" and "Spend millions of pounds on moulds for models that won't make their money back to protect their trademarks", then obviously the former is going to win because shareholders.
Nice false dilemma there. GW had another option: spend millions of pounds on molds that will make their money back because GW's product is superior and the handful of people buying the CH alternative probably weren't going to buy GW stuff anyway.
So much complaining about GW on this page from people who spend so much of there time and money on there products????
What I would like to see is a separate rule set matched play, don’t really care what it is like as I don’t play that way but I think it needs to simple and stream lined similar to epic 40000 so that everyone who does play match play can stop complaining and get on with the hobby while those of us who don’t can carry on enjoying this edition which is pretty good really.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Down with "No model no rules", more like. It kills creativity and narrows the game down to fewer options. Them applying such a policy to orks was the last straw.
They are legally obligated to do so, or they will lose their IP rights.
That’s hilarious, since their IP was ripped from other sources in the first place. 40K started out as a homage to a wide variety of existing sci-fi, if not a blatant attempt to cash in on certain properties popular at the time.
so has literally every other sci-fi/fantasy anything since LoTR(at least).
BaconCatBug wrote: If you're angry with anyone blame Chapter House for ruining a good thing by not playing by the rules.
Or we can blame GW for their incompetence in handling the situation. GW should have had no concern for CH, they had much greater resources available in every area and the "official" label on their products. So what if CH produces something that competes with their products? Just make a superior product, dominate the market, and let CH fight with all the other third-party companies for the scraps. But instead GW made the mistake of listening to their legal department too much, showing major weakness and a lack of confidence in their own products, and lost a ton of goodwill with the community. It was a complete debacle from beginning to end, and it's unbelievable incompetence that GW hasn't reversed their policies since then.
Because that's not how IP law works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark "Competition" doesn't let you infringe on trademarks. You can't just make your own Dyson vacuum cleaners and claim you're competing.
GW are incompetent, but given the choice between "No Model, No Rules" and "Spend millions of pounds on moulds for models that won't make their money back to protect their trademarks", then obviously the former is going to win because shareholders.
That wiki really really needs fixing, it's flat wrong in certain areas .... But I get your point.
Just Tony wrote: No, basically entitled white knighters who rationalize IP theft simply to save a few bucks vs. rational people.
What CH was doing was not IP theft. The court ruled that most of their products were perfectly legal as-is, and most of the rest were only a violation because they were described as "Farseer™" instead of "28mm space elf wizard compatible with 40k Eldar armies". The whole thing was a blatant attempt by GW to crush a competing company that couldn't afford to pay to defend themselves in court, as demonstrated by how laughably unprepared GW was when CH got lawyers and said "bring it on".
Karol wrote: Wait, GW owns the word Farseer? Is that like a female shaman or an oracle in english, that would be like owning the word eldar or space marine.
Seer is, but not Farseer.
Farseer isn't a common word.
Karol wrote: that would be like owning the word eldar or space marine.
They tried, that is why we have Aeldari now
ingtaer wrote:Can we get back to "What would you like to see in 9th ed?" please.
In addition to my previous post, what would be nice for 9th if GW really goes thru the profiles and adept them to the new core rules
There is the problem that the core rule changes made specific value better / added new caps of what is good and what is bad
Strength and Toughness should be adopted to the new rules and Wounds should be the main factor to balance how tanky a model in general is.
For example, Terminators and Dreadnoughts should have a similar profile with the difference that Terminators should be slower and have less Wounds but identical Toughness and Strength (with Fists/Hammers).
To balance anti-tank, fixed or more reliable damage should be added (all D6 Damage turns into 2D3, D3 become 2)
If you want to get rid of small arms killing tanks you have to increase wounds on tanks and damage of dedicated anti tank weapons. Like a Rhino having 14 or 16 Wounds and a LAscannon doing a flat 5 or 6 damage.
Also cut almost all damage2 values from weapon profiles. Make them inflict either 1 to fight chaff or 3+ to fight big stuff. Then you can add in 2 wound models as a useful third class of a rock-paper-scissors meta. Especially if you allow to spread damage within a unit.
Unify old marines and primaris models. Primaris do look substanially better scaled than the old squished dudes.
I would hope this gets into a potential 9th edition.
combatcotton wrote: If you want to get rid of small arms killing tanks you have to increase wounds on tanks and damage of dedicated anti tank weapons. Like a Rhino having 14 or 16 Wounds and a LAscannon doing a flat 5 or 6 damage.
Also cut almost all damage2 values from weapon profiles. Make them inflict either 1 to fight chaff or 3+ to fight big stuff. Then you can add in 2 wound models as a useful third class of a rock-paper-scissors meta. Especially if you allow to spread damage within a unit.
Unify old marines and primaris models. Primaris do look substanially better scaled than the old squished dudes.
I would hope this gets into a potential 9th edition.
Or just increase their tougness value so that S4 wounds on a 6, thereby making it extremely unlikely to successfully wound a vehicle after saves. There does need to be less variable damage though. Dedicated anti-tank weapons should deal some amount of minimal damage. A lascannon should really be more like 3+D6, for example. That way AT weapons would be the go to solution to dealing with heavy targets due to how incredibly efficient they are, whilst still being inefficient against infantry (do you really need to deal 9 damage against a lone guardsman? I mean, if he were Marbo, sure, but give the poor rookie a break)
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Why not add a keyword to vehicles "Vehicle Armor". That requires all weapons to have a associated keyword (Anti Tank) or wounds on a 6?
Or just increase their tougness value so that S4 wounds on a 6, thereby making it extremely unlikely to successfully wound a vehicle after saves.
Which won't solve anything as long as the amount of Wounds does not increase. Taking 50% of a model by rolling 6 is still worth it
Additional all anti-infantry weapons are still good or better anti-tank weapons as high ROF with 1 damage and wound on a 6 is more reliable as a single D6 damage shot and the potential damage that can be done on a lucky roll is even higher
To solve the problem, Anti-Tank need more reliable damage, either a fixed value or multiple D3 so that the minimum damage is >1
Damage 2 weapons either become Damage 3 (Anti-Tank) or damage 1 (anti-infantry)
Sgt. Cortez wrote: Alternating activations. That's the only important one. Everything else is minor as 8th Edition overall is a fine ruleset.
Some Tank rules would be nice, but I don't mean the crap we had in 6the/7th which made a Tank squishier than a Space Marine. Just something like falling back and shooting, or shooting in CC, or secondary weapons having better overwatch, little stuff like that.
I think tanks should be immune to CC locks for shooting. Oh no! You've surrounded my giant tracked death wagon. The guns don't work...wait a minute...
I also think that Tanks should either go to a 2+ Save, or should outright Ignore AP-1. I'm also of the opinion that tanks should be allowed to purchase invulnerable saves at the 5++ or higher level depending on point balance. Furthermore, tanks should be able to "roll over" units in CC causing wounds as they just drive right over the infantry huddled around them, squashing them to death.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: Alternating activations. That's the only important one. Everything else is minor as 8th Edition overall is a fine ruleset.
Some Tank rules would be nice, but I don't mean the crap we had in 6the/7th which made a Tank squishier than a Space Marine. Just something like falling back and shooting, or shooting in CC, or secondary weapons having better overwatch, little stuff like that.
I think tanks should be immune to CC locks for shooting. Oh no! You've surrounded my giant tracked death wagon. The guns don't work...wait a minute...
I also think that Tanks should either go to a 2+ Save, or should outright Ignore AP-1. I'm also of the opinion that tanks should be allowed to purchase invulnerable saves at the 5++ or higher level depending on point balance. Furthermore, tanks should be able to "roll over" units in CC causing wounds as they just drive right over the infantry huddled around them, squashing them to death.
But what if you're in CC with Terminators, who have giant power fists ready to tear you to shreds? Why can you just roll over them? I get that you can still shoot, that's fine. Maybe at a -1 penalty, representing the movement needed to try to avoid getting wrecked.
What I'd really like to see is people stop suggesting alternating activations or a move to d10s/d12s as a blanket magic-bullet solution to all possible problems.
AnomanderRake wrote: What I'd really like to see is people stop suggesting alternating activations or a move to d10s/d12s as a blanket magic-bullet solution to all possible problems.
AnomanderRake wrote: What I'd really like to see is people stop suggesting alternating activations or a move to d10s/d12s as a blanket magic-bullet solution to all possible problems.
Literally all possible problems? No. But those two changes sure would fix the majority of them.
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JNAProductions wrote: But what if you're in CC with Terminators, who have giant power fists ready to tear you to shreds?
Because terminators are still small and squishy compared to a tank, and not suicidal enough to use those power fists by making one swipe as they are crushed to death under the tank's tracks.
combatcotton wrote: If you want to get rid of small arms killing tanks you have to increase wounds on tanks and damage of dedicated anti tank weapons. Like a Rhino having 14 or 16 Wounds and a LAscannon doing a flat 5 or 6 damage.
Also cut almost all damage2 values from weapon profiles. Make them inflict either 1 to fight chaff or 3+ to fight big stuff. Then you can add in 2 wound models as a useful third class of a rock-paper-scissors meta. Especially if you allow to spread damage within a unit.
Unify old marines and primaris models. Primaris do look substanially better scaled than the old squished dudes.
I would hope this gets into a potential 9th edition.
Or just increase their tougness value so that S4 wounds on a 6, thereby making it extremely unlikely to successfully wound a vehicle after saves.
There does need to be less variable damage though. Dedicated anti-tank weapons should deal some amount of minimal damage. A lascannon should really be more like 3+D6, for example.
That way AT weapons would be the go to solution to dealing with heavy targets due to how incredibly efficient they are, whilst still being inefficient against infantry (do you really need to deal 9 damage against a lone guardsman? I mean, if he were Marbo, sure, but give the poor rookie a break)
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:Why not add a keyword to vehicles "Vehicle Armor". That requires all weapons to have a associated keyword (Anti Tank) or wounds on a 6?
Adding a keyword would be a really good way of modifying the rules for vehicles. maybe have light armour and heavy armour.
Light could be T6-7(Rhino, Landspeeder etc)& Heavy T8+(knights, LR, Stompa, etc)
Light would make anything not specifically having the anti-tank keyword wound on 6's.
Heavy would be normal for anti-tank weapons.
Flat damage would be 6 or less +D3/D6 I think would work out.
Could respectable members of the w40k community just test it for GW, maybe even include the people who already did game testing for GW, as thet would know what format of report GW likes and wants. GW would get testing done for free, but it wouldn't be done by some randoms. Other people would feel as if they were fixing the game. IMO it would be a good thing to do.
JNAProductions wrote: But what if you're in CC with Terminators, who have giant power fists ready to tear you to shreds?
Because terminators are still small and squishy compared to a tank, and not suicidal enough to use those power fists by making one swipe as they are crushed to death under the tank's tracks.
Their armor gives them a 4+ against being stepped on by an Imperial Knight. They can take a tank.
AnomanderRake wrote: What I'd really like to see is people stop suggesting alternating activations or a move to d10s/d12s as a blanket magic-bullet solution to all possible problems.
Literally all possible problems? No. But those two changes sure would fix the majority of them.
Not by default
Just adding those to the core rules and keeping everything else the same won't solve anything
Going that way, it would be easier to just take core rules that are already using it and write 40k army lists instead if trying to change the core rules again and again while the army lists stay more or less the same every time.
kodos wrote: Just adding those to the core rules and keeping everything else the same won't solve anything.
Well yes, we're assuming that GW changes the rules to be in line with alternating activation and a D10/D12 system. Obviously GW is not just going to replace every instance of "D6" with "D10" and call it good, literally having BS 3+ space marines keeping the same stat line and hitting on a 3+ on a D10. Units will be re-balanced and get new stat lines, core rules will change to make sense in the new game, etc.
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JNAProductions wrote: IK should ignore saves as well. If a knight (or any large vehicle) steps on you/drives over you/etc you are dead, period.
Like Stomps, from 7th edition?
Weren't those fun? /s
No, because they were another stupid D6 table to roll on, complete with GW's traditional "on a 6 you win" option. That's not the same as a weapon that is AP -5, hardly any different from an IK's primary melee weapon that also ignores armor saves.
I'm failing to seen an immense difference between having a 6+ armor save and having no armor save at all. If the game would be ruined and no longer fun with no armor save at all then how exactly is a 6+ save changing that in any meaningful way?
I'm failing to seen an immense difference between having a 6+ armor save and having no armor save at all. If the game would be ruined and no longer fun with no armor save at all then how exactly is a 6+ save changing that in any meaningful way?
You fail to see the difference between a 5+ and nothing?
Or a 4+ and nothing, which is what stomps currently give against 2+ armor?
Or a 4+ and nothing, which is what stomps currently give against 2+ armor?
Please don't move the goalposts. The existing AP -4 weapon gives terminators a 6+ armor save, ignoring armor entirely gives no save. This is a difference if you really care about math optimization, but I fail to see how not getting your 6+ armor save is something that you care that strongly about.
Or a 4+ and nothing, which is what stomps currently give against 2+ armor?
Please don't move the goalposts. The existing AP -4 weapon gives terminators a 6+ armor save, ignoring armor entirely gives no save. This is a difference if you really care about math optimization, but I fail to see how not getting your 6+ armor save is something that you care that strongly about.
The existing weapon that is most commonly used gives a 4+. The next- most-used against Terminators gives a 5+, since it's the Chainsword which inflicts no hit penalty. The LEAST USED gives a 6+.
Edit: Not to mention, you don't want saves against Stomps. Which, again, are only AP-2.
JNAProductions wrote: The existing weapon that is most commonly used gives a 4+.
The next- most-used against Terminators gives a 5+, since it's the Chainsword which inflicts no hit penalty.
The LEAST USED gives a 6+.
Whether or not it is the most commonly used is irrelevant. You are claiming that ignoring armor saves would ruin the game for you and be a terrible idea, and yet you are fine with an existing weapon that effectively ignores armor saves. This emphasis on what is most commonly used rather strongly suggests to me that your concern is not that having no save is not fun, it's that you don't like that the math optimization might not favor your pet unit.
JNAProductions wrote: The existing weapon that is most commonly used gives a 4+.
The next- most-used against Terminators gives a 5+, since it's the Chainsword which inflicts no hit penalty.
The LEAST USED gives a 6+.
Whether or not it is the most commonly used is irrelevant. You are claiming that ignoring armor saves would ruin the game for you and be a terrible idea, and yet you are fine with an existing weapon that effectively ignores armor saves. This emphasis on what is most commonly used rather strongly suggests to me that your concern is not that having no save is not fun, it's that you don't like that the math optimization might not favor your pet unit.
When did I say nothing should ignore armor saves ever? I'm pointing out that Knights, as it currently stands, give a 4+ save with Stomps against a 2+ armor model.
You want to make them significantly more powerful, by making their Stomps completely ignore armor.
The Culexus? I'm fine with. He ignores armor.
Railguns? Yeah, that's fine. They ignore armor, with their AP-5.
Volcano Cannons? Those are AP-5 too, I don't mind.
JNAProductions wrote: You want to make them significantly more powerful, by making their Stomps completely ignore armor.
I see, so you're just assuming for no apparent reason that "getting run over/stepped on/etc by a tank gives you no save" means that every current unit will retain its exact stat line instead of considering the obvious alternative that all of these units would see an appropriate adjustment to their number of attacks.
JNAProductions wrote: You want to make them significantly more powerful, by making their Stomps completely ignore armor.
I see, so you're just assuming for no apparent reason that "getting run over/stepped on/etc by a tank gives you no save" means that every current unit will retain its exact stat line instead of considering the obvious alternative that all of these units would see an appropriate adjustment to their number of attacks.
Just like you assume that I like Terminators or hate all armor-ignoring things.
So what SHOULD give armor saves, then? Should a missile exploding in your face?
And how do we draw the line on what gets Stomped without a save? Sure, Guardsmen, yes. Marines, okay. Terminators, maybe. Rhinos? Leman Russes? Land Raiders?
JNAProductions wrote: So what SHOULD give armor saves, then? Should a missile exploding in your face?
Yes, because that missile is less powerful than a many-ton vehicle crushing you with its full weight. They probably should, however, have AP -3 like lascannons.
And how do we draw the line on what gets Stomped without a save? Sure, Guardsmen, yes. Marines, okay. Terminators, maybe. Rhinos? Leman Russes? Land Raiders?
Infantry models only. You know, the models that can actually be stepped on/run over/etc. Vehicles or any other models that are too large to be squished can't be attacked this way and you'd have to roll normal melee attacks.
kodos wrote: Just adding those to the core rules and keeping everything else the same won't solve anything.
Well yes, we're assuming that GW changes the rules to be in line with alternating activation and a D10/D12 system. Obviously GW is not just going to replace every instance of "D6" with "D10" and call it good, literally having BS 3+ space marines keeping the same stat line and hitting on a 3+ on a D10. Units will be re-balanced and get new stat lines, core rules will change to make sense in the new game, etc.
You assume a lot while GW has changed the core rules several times now and keeping the rest
So yes, if people alskGW for using D10 instead of D6, this is exactly what will happen and nothing more
Otherwise 8th would be a lot better than it is now as units should have been re-balanced and get new stat lines and core rule changes to make sense in the new system
Worked out well
Tl;dr Chapter House were making models for units GW had no models for, but also making 3rd party bits and using GW trademarks in the names. GW got pissy and sued them. Court ruled that unless GW makes models for the units they have rules for they can't stop people making models using the GW names and IP for them, but GW can stop third parties from using their Trademarks to describe their third party bitz.
e.g. You can make "Mongolian heads, compatible with most 28mm brands", not "White Scar Adeptus Astartes Space Marine heads". You can make Mycetic Spores because GW don't make models called that, but you can't make Female "Farseers" because GW make Farseer models.
It comes back to trademark law. You can claim a name is a trademark (ie Ultramarine, Farseer, Rhino APC) as long as it is not generic (can't trademark 'Manticore" for a toy manticore, can trademark Manticore Missile Launcher). BUT you have to make a product. GW does not make a product called a Cargo 8, even though GW books describe them as Imperial Guard trucks. So if someone makes a grimdark truck and calls it a Cargo 8, not only can they do it, but in doing so they can claim the name and GW would have call their trucks something else.
So now GW will not include anything a codex until there is a model ready to go, lest someone else make the model first.
JNAProductions wrote: So what SHOULD give armor saves, then? Should a missile exploding in your face?
Yes, because that missile is less powerful than a many-ton vehicle crushing you with its full weight. They probably should, however, have AP -3 like lascannons.
And how do we draw the line on what gets Stomped without a save? Sure, Guardsmen, yes. Marines, okay. Terminators, maybe. Rhinos? Leman Russes? Land Raiders?
Infantry models only. You know, the models that can actually be stepped on/run over/etc. Vehicles or any other models that are too large to be squished can't be attacked this way and you'd have to roll normal melee attacks.
Got it. A Scout Sentinel, a flimsy walker with an open cockpit, can take Stomp from an Imperial Knight.
But an Allarus Custodian, armored in the finest and most well-protected armor in the entire imperium, stronger in physical frame than even an Astartes, literally as strong and as tough as the Scout Sentinel (only better armored) gets squished immediately.
JNAProductions wrote: Got it. A Scout Sentinel, a flimsy walker with an open cockpit, can take Stomp from an Imperial Knight.
But an Allarus Custodian, armored in the finest and most well-protected armor in the entire imperium, stronger in physical frame than even an Astartes, literally as strong and as tough as the Scout Sentinel (only better armored) gets squished immediately.
The infantry model is small enough to fit under the knight's foot. The sentinel is too tall to fit under a knight's foot and can't be crushed. The sentinel can, however, be annihilated by the knight's sword.
JNAProductions wrote: Got it. A Scout Sentinel, a flimsy walker with an open cockpit, can take Stomp from an Imperial Knight.
But an Allarus Custodian, armored in the finest and most well-protected armor in the entire imperium, stronger in physical frame than even an Astartes, literally as strong and as tough as the Scout Sentinel (only better armored) gets squished immediately.
The infantry model is small enough to fit under the knight's foot. The sentinel is too tall to fit under a knight's foot and can't be crushed. The sentinel can, however, be annihilated by the knight's sword.
Really? Your explanation is that "The Sentinel is too tall"? Because an Allarus Custodian is pretty close to as tall, has the same strength, same toughness, better armor...
What stops the Knight from just kicking forward? And how would you model stomps against VEHICLES, MONSTERS, and BIKES? Because not all Knights have other melee weapons.
Peregrine wrote: Because terminators are still small and squishy compared to a tank, and not suicidal enough to use those power fists by making one swipe as they are crushed to death under the tank's tracks.
Not suicidal enough to take a swing at a vehicle that might not even be able to move faster than said terminators can walk, but apparently suicidal enough to stand in the open and let said tank (and it's allies) shoot them in the face at point blank range?
Also why is that same logic not applied to some putz with a meltagun being allowed to make a snap shot at the giant, walking death blender about to crash in them?
Also, Stomp being BS was not because of the random chart, but because it was a out of sequence attack with blast plates in a situation where the other player is forced to move as close together as their models allow, and could potentially hit units outside of the unit they were in assault with. The random chart was just the gak cherry on the gak sundae.
JNAProductions wrote: Really? Your explanation is that "The Sentinel is too tall"? Because an Allarus Custodian is pretty close to as tall, has the same strength, same toughness, better armor...
And is also physically small enough to fit under the knight's foot (and under the tracks of a tank, etc). A sentinel is not and must be attacked by other means. This is like asking why the gold space marine can't use his melee weapon to slaughter a guardsman standing on top of a ruin. Yes, the gold space marine has better strength and armor and weapons, but none of that changes the fact that the guardsman is standing on an elevated platform and is too far away to reach with a melee weapon.
What stops the Knight from just kicking forward?
Nothing. A kick, however, is less powerful than crushing something under its feet with its entire many-ton weight and so that attack would be resolved with a weaker profile.
(Or with a proper melee weapon, since there's no reason to kick the sentinel when you have a giant chainsaw sword that is perfect for destroying vehicles.)
And how would you model stomps against VEHICLES, MONSTERS, and BIKES?
Bikes are just infantry and get squished. Vehicles and monsters are too big to squish and get kicked with a weaker profile or attacked with one of the model's other weapons.
Because not all Knights have other melee weapons.
And, shockingly, those knights will not be as effective in melee. Why do you consider this to be a problem?
Luke_Prowler wrote: Not suicidal enough to take a swing at a vehicle that might not even be able to move faster than said terminators can walk, but apparently suicidal enough to stand in the open and let said tank (and it's allies) shoot them in the face at point blank range?
Good question. Why aren't you putting your models in cover or behind LOS blocking terrain? But if you feel like melee attacks against tanks aren't suicidally dangerous feel free to go try to hit a moving tank with a melee weapon. If you are fortunate enough to survive maybe I'll consider your opinion.
Also why is that same logic not applied to some putz with a meltagun being allowed to make a snap shot at the giant, walking death blender about to crash in them?
Because a melta gun, while a short-ranged attack, is not a melee attack and can be delivered from a safer distance.
Also, Stomp being BS was not because of the random chart, but because it was a out of sequence attack with blast plates in a situation where the other player is forced to move as close together as their models allow, and could potentially hit units outside of the unit they were in assault with. The random chart was just the gak cherry on the gak sundae.
Sure. I will agree that the rule was flawed in multiple ways. Fortunately that is not the rule anyone is proposing here.
"Stomps that hit an INFANTRY or BIKER model automatically slay the model. Against other types of models, use [some profile TBD]."
Correct, with an appropriate adjustment to the number of attacks made. For example, a vehicle moving across an infantry unit might only kill D3 models instead of rolling normal attacks.
(Ideally the unit would, as in previous editions, have the option to fall back instead. But apparently GW has decided that morale is no longer relevant and you're either fighting at full effectiveness or dead.)
Good question. Why aren't you putting your models in cover or behind LOS blocking terrain? But if you feel like melee attacks against tanks aren't suicidally dangerous feel free to go try to hit a moving tank with a melee weapon. If you are fortunate enough to survive maybe I'll consider your opinion.
Because at least since fifth, the game did not (and arguable never has) been given the kind of nuance or mechanics where having an assault equipped unit sitting in cover was anything but a colossal waste of time and points. There is none of the dread that an urban or other close quarters should provide in game as it does in real life (there's a reason armored lances require infantry support), and since objective are generally army neutral there's rarely a situation where an army with gun vehicles needs to move them out of their deployment zone. This is worse in 8th edition, where they've made LOS/Cover so simplistic as to make it almost pointless for some armies. If you can see any part of the unit? You can shoot at it and damage all the models in it. You only get cover if your whole unit is touching the cover, meaning if you can't move your entire unit into another piece of terrain then you're effectively standing out in the open regardless if that's actually the case. And even if it is, it's a +1 to your armor save roll. Which is also effected by AP weapons. And as you've been pushing, there's no differences between a 6+ save and no save.
If the game had a proper stealth/fog of war system to allow units that need to move closer to actually do so, if armies like guard and tau had to be pushed forward from the first turn rather than just at the end of the game to grab objectives, and/or if assault armies had the tools to be able to shut down shooting rather than the only viable tactic being "Get stuck in as fast as humanily possible and hope you kill it", then I'd be fine with that. But because it's not, abstraction is necessary to make assault feel as GW wants it to.
Also, I'm a poor specimen to use as an example, since I'm flabby, out of shape, and generally abhor violence. That said, would you consider a Molotov cocktail a "melee weapon"?
Because a melta gun, while a short-ranged attack, is not a melee attack and can be delivered from a safer distance.
You were presenting it as a point of nerve, not range. A terminator seems more able to rationally think how to handle a situation where a vehicle is trying to flatten him and be able to attack back with his power fist than a random guardsman. Which is kind of the point: People want to be able to smartly use assault units, and that's not allowed if some units get "get out of trouble free" cards.
I'd like to see a bespoke rule for some vehicles in 9th Ed. where they are 2+ WS on the turn they charge, and then the following turns back to the usual 6+.
I'd like to see actual vehicle rules. This keyword thing is only useful if there's a lot of things that use it. There's hardly anything that uses the vehicle keyword.
8th Edition clearly failed - let’s pick an edition somewhere between 3rd and 7th (I prefer either of those 2) and revert back to those rules - just advance the lore. 8th is essentially a rehash of 2nd and 3rd was a complete overhaul of the 2nd edition.
So if:
8E = 2E v1.1
7E = 3E-6E enhanced and revised v1.1
3E > 2E (was developed to replace it)
Therefore
7E > 8E
Why would you go back to a previously flawed concept which was completely invalidated upon the introduction of 3E?
CthuluIsSpy wrote: I'd like to see actual vehicle rules. This keyword thing is only useful if there's a lot of things that use it. There's hardly anything that uses the vehicle keyword.
By returning to 3E-7E, measures could be put in place for an expanded chart. For instance: Battlesuit damage table, Monstrous Creature damage table - losing an arm or weapon is still possible. Take a look at how the Grey Knights broke Angron’s Black Sword on Armageddon, and had an easier time afterwards.
Why would you go back to a previously flawed concept which was completely invalidated upon the introduction of 3E?
To make money? For example in my country it is the norm that big pharma makes the state buy their medicin at high price, specially for stuff like cancer or specific hard to treat illnesses. When the patent for those ends, and people could now be getting their medicin cheaper, they do everything to make the old medicin seem bad, and the new high price one much better. By reseting and nerfing some of the rules, preferably for the armies that are bought the most, GW would asure that their sells would be going up, as people would be constantly trying to update their armies, while never really getting something they would be happy with. Bit like mobile games, where to keep up with the meta you have to drop 400$ per month or more.
7E was convoluted crap though. The reason why 8E is so minimal was to get rid of the rules bloat.
I'd rather it go back to a system that's more like refined version of 4E.
8E = 2E v1.1
7E = 3E-6E enhanced and revised v1.1
3E > 2E (was developed to replace it)
More like:
2E = Warhammer in Space
3E = 15mm WW2 game converted to SciFi
4E = bugfixed 3E (should have been a complete replacement but that was cancled)
5E = 3E-4E enhanced and revised
6E = 3E-5E with added Warhammer Fantasy rules for better immersion
7E = 6E without the rules that made 6E suck
8E = AoS-light in Space
I don't mind eighth edition too much, I think there could perhaps be an 8.5 edition with a few rule tweaks including more interactive terrain rules, blast weapons doing more average hits (d6 plus 1 for every three models for example) and perhaps a couple of restrictions on which units can be used based on the mission type.
If there had to be a ninth edition they may as well change it entirely, base it on a d10 system and also bring in unit by unit based activation that incorporates initiative once again. Maybe using the Bolt Action system with dice drawn from a bag, faster armies getting more of their dice in the bag.
Different movement, far simplified shooting phase, completely different psychic phase, no psychology rules, barely any terrain rules, completely different close combat rules, completely different vehicle rules.
8th Edition clearly failed - let’s pick an edition somewhere between 3rd and 7th (I prefer either of those 2) and revert back to those rules - just advance the lore. 8th is essentially a rehash of 2nd and 3rd was a complete overhaul of the 2nd edition.
So if:
8E = 2E v1.1
7E = 3E-6E enhanced and revised v1.1
3E > 2E (was developed to replace it)
Therefore
7E > 8E
Why would you go back to a previously flawed concept which was completely invalidated upon the introduction of 3E?
CthuluIsSpy wrote: I'd like to see actual vehicle rules. This keyword thing is only useful if there's a lot of things that use it. There's hardly anything that uses the vehicle keyword.
By returning to 3E-7E, measures could be put in place for an expanded chart. For instance: Battlesuit damage table, Monstrous Creature damage table - losing an arm or weapon is still possible. Take a look at how the Grey Knights broke Angron’s Black Sword on Armageddon, and had an easier time afterwards.
8th is a rehash of 2nd? Dude, have you ever played 2nd? LMAO!
8th Edition clearly failed - let’s pick an edition somewhere between 3rd and 7th (I prefer either of those 2) and revert back to those rules - just advance the lore. 8th is essentially a rehash of 2nd and 3rd was a complete overhaul of the 2nd edition.
So if:
8E = 2E v1.1
7E = 3E-6E enhanced and revised v1.1
3E > 2E (was developed to replace it)
Therefore
7E > 8E
Why would you go back to a previously flawed concept which was completely invalidated upon the introduction of 3E?
CthuluIsSpy wrote: I'd like to see actual vehicle rules. This keyword thing is only useful if there's a lot of things that use it. There's hardly anything that uses the vehicle keyword.
By returning to 3E-7E, measures could be put in place for an expanded chart. For instance: Battlesuit damage table, Monstrous Creature damage table - losing an arm or weapon is still possible. Take a look at how the Grey Knights broke Angron’s Black Sword on Armageddon, and had an easier time afterwards.
Wat?
Let's consider...
Record breaking sales. Check.
More releases in two years than the previous decade. Check.
LVO and other high profile US/UK events selling out tickets in record times. Check.
More Company to Community interaction. Check.
Timed FAQ's and rules updates. Check.
Yeah, have to agree, not seeing where 8E failed. There are lots of legitimate gripes about 8E, but the 6E/7E era was absolutely awful and definitively the worst era not only in terms of balance and playability, but sales as well. 40k got bumped off as the best selling tabletop mini game, by XWing, for the first and only time in its lifespan after a quarter century of dominance.
Record breaking sales. Check.
More releases in two years than the previous decade. Check.
LVO and other high profile US/UK events selling out tickets in record times. Check.
More Company to Community interaction. Check.
Timed FAQ's and rules updates. Check.
"Clearly failed"
...Okay.
We already have BoldItalicsUnderlined but we still don't have a [Sarcasm] format - it would make posting on the internet so much easier...
Less than 20 models. Now you can understand GW´s hatred of this edition. You didn´t need a ton of models to have a great game.
You saw Tactical Squads on the table back then? What I saw was the most elite of elite Squads run to meet the Squad requirement, cap off vehicle and character limits, spam allied characters. Done.
That is for a separate game. I mean for them to do it to 40k Regular. Imagine a racial loot box. Contains 3 models, a HQ, a troop, and an elite.
You mean current Killteam boxing, but with 40K branding on it?
I guess? I have never gotten into Killteam.
Well, the current Kill Team boxes are either 1 Troops, 1 Troops & 1 HQ, or 1 Elites (all with some terrain) - and you know what they are when you buy the box.
So, not really what you were talking about at all, especially if you mean the usual random "loot box" approach.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Ok, I am just pointing out that GW is moving towards EA/Activision/Konami levels of monetary BS.
BULL GAK.
EA/Activision/Konami WISHES they were as good at monetary BS as GW. A squad of marines takes as much money to produce as like a pack and a half of yugioh cards, let alone a full videogame, and they still charge 60$ for it.
EA execs fondle themselves every day thinking about having GW's monetization model.
EA/Activision/Konami WISHES they were as good at monetary BS as GW. A squad of marines takes as much money to produce as like a pack and a half of yugioh cards, let alone a full videogame, and they still charge 60$ for it.
Citation needed. I would think plastic costs more and molding is a more difficult process than printing on thin pieces of cardboard. Still probably not $60, but it can't be that cheap.
First time they have ever marketed, that easily explains this.
More releases in two years than the previous decade. Check.
Bad management for decades explains this.
LVO and other high profile US/UK events selling out tickets in record times. Check.
bad management explains this too and they willingly pulled out of the tourney scene and have now willingly come back to it.
More Company to Community interaction. Check.
This has not changed at all, it an illusion of interaction, they make a statement and we react, any questions asked that they find too awkward they ignore or you are barred from asking any questions at all, just looking at the FW price debacle proves this.
Timed FAQ's and rules updates. Check.
Again bad management caused this, they screwed the pooch on this one for a long long time and now they are doing the bare minimum to resolve issues a good playtesting team would pick up, you do not get credit for stuff your supposed to do as chris rock says.
"Clearly failed"
Money is not the only marker for success, I consider 8th a failure in concept and implementation but a success financially, the best I hear from people is "its better than 7th" which is not a high bar to pass, that being said though its getting better and as I predicted when this Ed dropped, it will be a bad system for a couple of years and then it will turn into a solid one, I think I am on track to being right about that, I also think 9th is coming next year to be honest.
They follow currently the Nintendo method of slow-drip content, to prolong the interest in a given generation. Remember how they released Pokemon for the WiiU right before the Switch was released? And right now, Nintendo is sitting on all their IP giving us one or two gakky old retro games a month for 20 a year?
Same with GW. I bet you they release Sisters within the same year they release 9th.
First time they have ever marketed, that easily explains this.
More releases in two years than the previous decade. Check.
Bad management for decades explains this.
LVO and other high profile US/UK events selling out tickets in record times. Check.
bad management explains this too and they willingly pulled out of the tourney scene and have now willingly come back to it.
More Company to Community interaction. Check.
This has not changed at all, it an illusion of interaction, they make a statement and we react, any questions asked that they find too awkward they ignore or you are barred from asking any questions at all, just looking at the FW price debacle proves this.
Timed FAQ's and rules updates. Check.
Again bad management caused this, they screwed the pooch on this one for a long long time and now they are doing the bare minimum to resolve issues a good playtesting team would pick up, you do not get credit for stuff your supposed to do as chris rock says.
"Clearly failed"
Money is not the only marker for success, I consider 8th a failure in concept and implementation but a success financially, the best I hear from people is "its better than 7th" which is not a high bar to pass, that being said though its getting better and as I predicted when this Ed dropped, it will be a bad system for a couple of years and then it will turn into a solid one, I think I am on track to being right about that, I also think 9th is coming next year to be honest.
It's not a bad system though. 7th was a bad system. 8th is okay. That's why that 8th>7th thing matters.
Is it the be all end all of tabletop strategy? No, but it's fine and functional and not significantly dumber than any of the other systems out there. (Inb4 'but mah game 5 people in the world have ever even heard of tho!').
EA/Activision/Konami WISHES they were as good at monetary BS as GW. A squad of marines takes as much money to produce as like a pack and a half of yugioh cards, let alone a full videogame, and they still charge 60$ for it.
Citation needed. I would think plastic costs more and molding is a more difficult process than printing on thin pieces of cardboard.
Still probably not $60, but it can't be that cheap.
It's not a bad system though. 7th was a bad system. 8th is okay. That's why that 8th>7th thing matters.
Its not a bad system NOW, it was bloody awful in my opinion when it first came out, so much so I played about 30 games to get the hang of it and totally abandoned it for over a year. Its gotten better though, still has some of the core issues and they are issues a new Ed can only solve.
Is it the be all end all of tabletop strategy? No, but it's fine and functional and not significantly dumber than any of the other systems out there. (Inb4 'but mah game 5 people in the world have ever even heard of tho!').
Agreed dude, I am not expecting it to be the best of the best, but I do expect GW to at least do a good job, a stupid expectation after 20+ years of GWlol
40k (and Warhammer) always had their cycle of becoming worse over time.
They start fresh while players of previous edition are mostly turned down as they don't like the new game, become better over time, and than after a peak get worse again as new stuff is added that start killing the game with the excuse that this is already written for the next edition.
Nothing changed, except that 6th 40k, which already started bad so that GW released 7th as a hotfix.
And they knew how bad 6th edition was as they started working on the fix before it was released
Citation needed. I would think plastic costs more and molding is a more difficult process than printing on thin pieces of cardboard.
Still probably not $60, but it can't be that cheap.
The printed cardboard box Space Marines are sold with costs more than the plastic models inside
while the investment for molding and design is expensive and a huge investment, GW produces enough that the costs per model is still low
List of USR in the BRB at least 10-15 of them (DS, Fly, Teleport, etc.. just the ones that more than 50% the armies share), special rules can still be on datasheets.
Add to that, Add keywords to weapon types, Blast, Heavy, Assault, Pistol, grenade, Flamer, Melta, etc...
Change in vehicles and MC: Can fallback, shoot, and charge if they fallback vs anything other than vehicles and MC's.
If you fail a charge you move that distance
Change the way some weapons work, example: Blast weapons always hit, roll your BS, if your dice roll is a "hit" its D3 hits, if it hits more than 5 model units it score D6 hits.
Something i also REALLY WANT
Add a unit size chart, small, med, large, giant (titan/knights, etc..)
Small: May only fallback from other small units, and can be placed onto any level floor, can only attack other units at the same level Med: May only fallback from Small and Med units, and can be placed onto any floor, can only attack other units at the same level Large: May fallback from Small, Med, and Large units, and can be placed onto the bottom floor, may attack first or second level Giant: May fallback from all units, and can be placed onto the bottom floor, may attack first, second or third floor. When attack on other levels, you mus still be in melee range and able to complete the charge, Large and Giant models are treat as being in combat if they are within 3" of the unit from its Hull, body or base. When making a charge move you are consider in melee if you end you charge within 3" instead of the normal 1"
Yes this might make things a bit more confusing at first, but you can add a large amount of extra fun tot he game and better balance, and tactics.
CP: Everyone gets X amount of CP per point level. 1-500pts = 3CP 501-1,000 = 5CP 1,001-1,500 = 7CP 1,501-2,000 = 10CP
That would be stupid in some cases. Grey Knight stratagems are rules that were removed from their army, that other armies just get for free. 2CP to get better ammo once per game, or buff your inv once per game, would be a huge nerf to an army that doesn't really need more nerfs.
Honestly the first and foremost thing I want to see dead and fething gone once and for all is buckets of dice. They add nothing to the value of the game and simply drag out the time spent counting the tiny percent of dice that actually succeeded in a wound/hit roll and bloat the time spent playing. Nobody should have multi shot weapons, and templates absolutely need a return (albeit with minimized scatter). Re-roll auras should also be tossed and have leaders return to simply buffing leadership saves.
Other things that need changed is frankly, 8e especially is a gak wargame. I would barely even say it qualifies as a wargame. Any hypothetical 9e desperately needs an increase in tactical complexity via harsher morale, pinning/shaken tests, suppression, smoke/flashbangs, schizophrenic activation phases (bolt action style, not just alternating), and most importantly ditching these idiotic vehicle/monster rules. Both Monsters and Vehicles should adopt a ruleset similar to the old one. Infantry needs to return to being relevant where a couple well-placed lascannon shots or rockets are able to cripple an Imperial Knight instead of it taking a bucket of dice to drag one down. It's much more efficient to simply roll one die to see if a penetrating hit causes critical damage than having to spend 5 minutes sorting out the shooting phase of one unit against a Knight before moving on to the next.
Also Lion Rampant has some great melee rules that could be easily implemented in 40k. In a charge, after the attackers and defenders clash, the side with the most casualties automatically flees the field and typically breaks and routs from the board entirely for some rather brutal, fast action charges. A unit shouldn't be able to just lazily retreat from combat, once they sustain 10% casualties their morale should be seriously shaken and the unit in danger of just high tailing it off the battlefield in sheer terror.
JNAProductions wrote: Their armor gives them a 4+ against being stepped on by an Imperial Knight. They can take a tank.
IK should ignore saves as well. If a knight (or any large vehicle) steps on you/drives over you/etc you are dead, period.
Terminators are literally able to survive being able survive being stepped on by titans, were one of the few infantry units (or tanks for that matter) in Epic able to stand up to titan weapons, and are organized in formations for the specific purpose of hunting Titans and murdering them due to being excessive threats in close range. An Imperial Knight trying to step on a Terminator should not only fail to inflict much damage, but soon find itself missing said leg considering it put it within power-fist range. Kharn himself was able to defeat an Imperial Knight in a duel courtesy of Gorechild being able to cleave clean through its armor as a souped up chaos-enhanced power weapon.
is awesome
