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If a friendly unit breaks or is destroyed, all other friendly units within 6" must take a morale test.

What do you think? It certainly makes morale more powerful, something 40k needs IMO.

Morale is already a huge factor in 40k. Tank shocks would be absurd under this rule.

I mean, if a unit falls back in assault maybe, but shooting i dont think would really make sense. It'd also make fearless armies much more powerful.

Or maybe if a unit flees through a friendly unit.

do you hear the voices to wrote:Or maybe if a unit flees through a friendly unit.

I would suggest this.^

When falling back, if any models the unit falling back pass in-between models of another friendly unit, that unit must take a morale test. This is negated if the source of the original morale test for the unit falling back is more than 6" away.

If they just took Fearless away from several units (there are SO many units with Fearless!!!!) then Morale would have a bigger impact. Seems like more units have Fearless than units that don't

I don't know where that myth is originating from. There's a few units in Chaos Marines, all of Chaos Daemons, sure. Tau has none, Tyranids only when in synapse, Eldar only a select few that make sense, Dark Eldar have a few but mostly only from pain tokens, the various space marines chapters have a few that make sense.

You could have Shaken force a morale on vehicles, I suppose -they're all 'fearless'. You could also have Pinning affect fearless units in a similar way to No Retreat.

Don't they have something like this in the Zone Mortalis rules that forgeworld just put out?

aling morale failure more of an issue would give a major boost to Choas Daemons and, to a lesser extent, Tyranids.

Deadshot wrote:aling morale failure more of an issue would give a major boost to Choas Daemons and, to a lesser extent, Tyranids.

They both need it.

Very few armies suffer from all the effects of Morale rules. You want to punish them even further. This is stupid.

If you want morale to really be more of a factor, remove Fearless, Stubborn, and lower everyone's leadership.

DarknessEternal wrote:Very few armies suffer from all the effects of Morale rules. You want to punish them even further. This is stupid.

If you want morale to really be more of a factor, remove Fearless, Stubborn, and lower everyone's leadership.

In my mind it just makes more sense. Currently, I don't get why other units being destroyed has no effect on other unit's morale. Maybe this change would also warrant higher leaderships across the board, but it opens up more strategic options.

DarkCorsair wrote:In my mind it just makes more sense. Currently, I don't get why other units being destroyed has no effect on other unit's morale. Maybe this change would also warrant higher leaderships across the board, but it opens up more strategic options.

Wait, so you want to make leadership more important, but then up the leadership across the board, making it less important?

40k is largely an abstraction. Distances, etc are approximate and there just to make for a good game. Don't try to impose too much 'sense' onto it. The reason that morale is less important than other systems is that it works better that way. It's really that simple.

I think that morale in the shooting phase needs to be similiar in application to morale in the close combat phase. Namely, shooting phase morale is mostly a joke, but in close combat even fearless units have something to 'fear' if they lost combat.

In close combat, there are penalties that get applied depending on how badly you are getting beaten. Shooting should be the same thing. For every casualty after 25%, or every pinning wound a unit does after the first, take a -1 penalty to your next check.

For example, if your 30 man IG blob takes 10 unsaved wounds, you have exceded your 25% threshhold of 8 by 2 points. Thus you have a -2 penalty.

If you are fearless, then instead of taking penalties to a morale check you auto pass, take extra wounds which allow armor (even if the shooting weapons normally ignore it) and cover if you have it (again even if you normally ignore it). This represents the fearless troops literally walking through the fire when survival instinct says to fall back.

So in the case of a 30 man fearless ork mob taking 10 wounds, 2 more than the 25% casualties check of 8, instead of taking a morale check 2 extra orks would instead be wounded. They would get their armor save and cover (and Feel no pain) if they had one, even if the attack was from something like a demolisher who's ap of 2 normally would negate such saves--the wounds can be described as debris or lingering fires that the fearless troops wade through in lieu of ducking for cover.

@DevianID: If your 30 man IG blob takes 30 wounds, you automatically fail your morale check because there is no unit left. Did you mean 10?

I did, and fixed it in edit hehe.

My only concern is that shooting is already REALLY powerful in 40k. This would make shooting ungodly and fearless armies would be completely boned.

It would.total Gunlines.who deploy backedge.

Deadshot wrote:It would.total Gunlines.who deploy backedge.

Unless they are in vehicles...

Mech guard would be insane under that set of rules. You basically made every unit in their army capable of being a PBS and they are immune to it unless you disembark them first.

pretre wrote:

Deadshot wrote:It would.total Gunlines.who deploy backedge.

Unless they are in vehicles...

Mech guard would be insane under that set of rules. You basically made every unit in their army capable of being a PBS and they are immune to it unless you disembark them first.

How so? PBS reduces leadership. What I'm proposing is just that if a friendly unit is destroyed or breaks, all friendly units within 6" (usually only 1 or 2 units) must take a morale check, which they aren't likely to fail. Some negative aspect would have to be applied to fearless models I guess, but still...it isn't that powerful.

DarkCorsair wrote:
In my mind it just makes more sense. Currently, I don't get why other units being destroyed has no effect on other unit's morale. Maybe this change would also warrant higher leaderships across the board, but it opens up more strategic options.

Count up the number of armies Morale actually fully applies to. Look who they are. Compare how they are also amongst the weakest armies in the game. You want to make them worse.

DarknessEternal wrote:

DarkCorsair wrote:
In my mind it just makes more sense. Currently, I don't get why other units being destroyed has no effect on other unit's morale. Maybe this change would also warrant higher leaderships across the board, but it opens up more strategic options.

Count up the number of armies Morale actually fully applies to. Look who they are. Compare how they are also amongst the weakest armies in the game. You want to make them worse.

Imperial Guard
Space Wolves
Space Marines
Blood Angels
Tau
Sisters of Battle
Necrons (barely because of LD 10)

....I see Tau and Sisters of Battle that are weak armies. And my intent with this is NOT to make weaker armies even weaker, it is to make morale a stronger force in game as well as being more realistic.

Moral should be less pass fail unit = gone.

A system like that forces high leadership and fearless rules because it's so painful to loose a unit to an added role.

Moral should add a few more options with some risk vs reward. Fearless can gain these without tests.

For example (and this is just me brainstorming ideas on the spot)

You can open charge across the battle field for more movement and gain a cover save as you run into no mans land. or fail and stand still as your men go...no.

Units can hold a line to fire at an incoming charge but if they fail they take some big penalties when hit in assault.

charging monstrous creatures or 14 Armour tanks may require leadership.

passing a leadership role may give a bonus to WS,

Fearless units can intimidate on a charge to gain initiative.

this is just brainstorming so don't take the thoughts to seriously but I think the idea is solid that moral should gain more rather than be another version of a save.

DarkCorsair wrote:How so? PBS reduces leadership. What I'm proposing is just that if a friendly unit is destroyed or breaks, all friendly units within 6" (usually only 1 or 2 units) must take a morale check, which they aren't likely to fail. Some negative aspect would have to be applied to fearless models I guess, but still...it isn't that powerful.

I was referring to the proposal to make shooting leadership tests like CC ones.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarkCorsair wrote:Imperial Guard
Space Wolves
Space Marines
Blood Angels
Tau
Sisters of Battle
Necrons (barely because of LD 10)

....I see Tau and Sisters of Battle that are weak armies. And my intent with this is NOT to make weaker armies even weaker, it is to make morale a stronger force in game as well as being more realistic.

Imperial Guard - Almost Army Wide Stubborn
Space Wolves - ATSKNF
Space Marines - ATSKNF
Blood Angels - ATSKNF
Tau - Nothing
Sisters of Battle - Regroup faith check
Necrons (barely because of LD 10)

So out of your list, you have two armies that are actually fully affected by Morale. Also, Tau and SoB aren't 'weak'. SoB are pretty strong right now, actually.

DarkCorsair wrote:
Tau
Eldar
Dark Eldar
Necrons (barely because of LD 10)

Fixed that for you.

Orders, Know No Fear, Acts of Faith prevent Morale from applying to those others.

To be fair, no one uses the orders for morale, and there is never a commisar buffing every squad in every IG list. If morale was more of an issue, then buying commisars for stubborn and the banner for rerolls would be more important.

Also, the list of armies that care about morale is every single one. Every army can take units that are not fearless. Even Tyranids have morale problems the second their synapse dies. I propose that shooting morale be BALANCED to close combat morale. In close combat, if you lose by 5, your LD10 crons are scampering away on a 5.

With my system, if a 10 man Necron unit takes 8 casualties, they will scamper away (with 2 models left) on a 5, instead of on a 10 as it is currently. I mean, think about it, 80% of their unit was just evaporated at once. That should be more demoralizing than losing 3 models.

DevianID wrote:.

Also, the list of armies that care about morale is every single one. Every army can take units that are not fearless.

False. Chaos Daemons. LL Gearless as standard. And have Invuns and EW.

DevianID wrote:
Also, the list of armies that care about morale is every single one.

Aside from Daemons, Know No Fear is universal and auto-rallies you with free movement. There's a reason Combat Tactics is a benefit, not a penalty.

In the OPs suggestion, Vanilla Marines could fall back with their entire army out of assault range just because one unit took 25% casualties to shooting, then auto-rally with free movement.

9" Of movement as per FAQ.