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We all know list building is supremely important in 40k. What would you change to make battlefield tactics, maneuvering and overall player skill matter more?

A few of my own thoughts:

- Make cover be a To Hit-modifier again. Would make cover, and thus tactical movement, matter a lot more.
- Scale back the Power creep. It's so hard to do, but I Think the game needs it. Less S6+ weapons, less AP2.
- Ignore Cover should be very rare. Again, make cover matter more.
- Make Pinning an important part of the game. Make it so you can hinder your opponent's plans in other ways than simply shooting them.

What would you do?

Have less rerolls, less spammable high strength weapons, be able to run and charge, cover should be a modifier to hit and thus is useful for every unit, ext.

Take the game a apart and rebuild it based on the Bolt Action rules. Instead of IgoUgo each unit would have an order dice. All the order dice would be placed in a cup/bag/skull/whatever and then drawn out one by one. Whomevers dice is drawn my assign that dice to a unit and activate it, then the process is repeated.
Cover would no longer provide a save but a to hit modifier instead, with stealth and shrouded providing a -1 and -2 respectively.
Hull points would go.
Vehicle damage would be akin to to the Bolt Action method with glancing hits providing a -3 on the table, AP - and 6 a -2, AP 5 and 4 -1, AP 3 and 2 no modifiers and AP 1 a +1.
Psykers would be heavily nerfed back to the supporting roles they used to fill.
Pinning and leadership modifiers for losing half and 75% of the section.
Vehicles in squadrons would be able to splitfire and ignore coherency.
Vehicles themselves could splitfire.

There needs to be a revision in the kind of game that this is, a change in the sense of pacing. The only issue is that any change in pacing, while it's good for some players, others will not like it. There's a long discussion that I could post here, but I'll keep it short. Magic: The Gathering has a pacing that allows you to play games relatively quickly. It's what makes it popular as evening tournaments (Friday Night Magic) for young adults and adults, and as something to do over a class break or when you have limited time hanging out for teens and pre-teens. You don't need to dedicate a night to playing Magic, though you can if you want. 40k is not that game (nor should it be), but the high level of highly reliable attacks, movement, and reserves makes the game go faster. Conversely, they've slowed it down by bringing more models to the field and increasing the number of small decisions you need to make (careful model positioning, true Line of Sight, challenges, multiple weapons, blast template auto-working but scattering individually, psychic power & warlord trait generation). It's turned into a game where you spend more time setting up models, and then remove those models faster than ever before.

To me, this is the opposite of what 40k should be. But that issue is that this is only how I feel, and that it is a very specific thing to my gamer-psyche. Unless GW invested some real market research into discovering what pacing their target market wants out of a game of 40k, they can't design for sure. They can only design for what they want. Apparently, what they want now is no longer the same as what they wanted before, and it shows.

So, let me tell you the pacing that I want.

I want 40k to be a game that's quicker to put together, and quicker to resolve in-game specifics, but longer to take my models off the table. I want a game where movements and actions are inherently risky; not inherently reliable. That, to me, is the Grimdark. It's a world where nothing's reliable, so everything's scary, and you better be ready to face that darkness. There's a LOT of rules that, while fluffy and important, could easily be trimmed without losing the core of the game. Here's a few:

#1 - Reserves, Deep Strike, and Mishaps: Models arrive from reserves more reliably than ever before. This is a necessity in the current game, since models tend to die so fast. If models didn't die so fast, this could be toned down and made more unreliable. Deep Strike is also more reliable than ever before. Used to be you hit enemy models, fell off the table, or got into difficult terrain? Zzap! Dead. Risky, and fast. Now, it's easy to deploy deep strikers, and only a very specific set of circumstances leaves you dead. Drop Pods are also a massive issue with this. The amount of no-scatter Deep Strike is also rapidly increasing, which further worries me. Make Deep Strike back to an old method. Choose a point, scatter, if you scatter into enemies, off the board, or impassable terrain you die. If you go into difficult terrain, you live. Just have models deploying from Deep Strike being required to fit under a large blast template and forget the rest.

#2 - Difficult Terrain, Dangerous Terrain, and Random Charge Length: My god these things eat up time. Make difficult terrain do for movement what it does to charge lengths - straight up -2" movement penalty. I'd also bring charge ranges back, with a straight-up 6", 9", or 12" charge range depending on unit type. Dangerous Terrain should also be dangerous, and not mildly inconvenient. There's a lot of time wasted here. Have models moving through Dangerous Terrain just straight up make armour saves or suffer a wound. That too harsh? Too bad. Stay out of dangerous terrain or suffer. And Random Charge Length? Scrap it. 6", 9", or 12", depending on the unit type. Move Through Cover lets you ignore Movement penalties for movement during the Movement Phase, and Fleet allows you to ignore it while Running or Charging.

#3 - Remove a whole bunch of tests: Blind? Straight up 4+ unless you're immune to it. Hit & Run? Just succeeds, always. Feel no Pain? You discount every second wound that the unit would suffer as long as the attack didn't have Instant Death (works out to suffering half-wounds, rounded up, but you always take that first wound). Just start making these things faster and more black or white.

#4 - Remove Overwatch, Keep Snap Shots: Snap shots are great, because they're already simple. Want to hit? 6+, nice and simple. Shouldn't affect template weapons though. As for Overwatch? Scrap it. It interrupts the game-play and takes a lot of time to resolve in order to achieve something that is not frequently significant enough. If you want to keep it, have the unit declare it's going into Overwatch instead of shooting, and give it a bonus against someone who charges. This wouldn't eat up time then, since you're just deferring the time spent shooting the unit to another point in time.

#5 - Remove Super-Heavies from anything less than 2000 point games: Yes, they speed up play, but do so by means of "remove large parts of armies at a time" rather than "go through actions quickly". This cuts both ways, since they're also so expensive that killing a Super-Heavy also quickly removes a large part of the army fielding it.

#6 - Make Running a straight-up 4" move. Again, this is mostly just wasted time rolling when it could be a lot simpler.

#7 - Make shooting happen all at once. Yup. Measure your range once, shoot each weapon (keeping special weapons marked separately), and let the opponent choose which models in their units take which hits. You want to hit that Hidden Powerfist? Buy a Sniper Gun for Precision Shots. Oh, and though I love throwing grenades, scrap that mechanic too. Frag for removing initiative penalty for charging through cover, Krak for Monstrous Creatures and Vehicles, and Melta for vehicles. Make grenades and attacks hit the armour they're touching only.

#8 - Free up charging to be charge-length, not closest-to-closest, and bring back multi-charges. Just let them move their charge distance. That's where they are. One model must get into base contact if possible, or have had the movement to get into base contact if otherwise not possible, for the charge to succeed. Then the charging unit moves however they want. Every model within 3" of an enemy model makes their attacks. Pile-in only happens at the end of combat, and only the active player piles in.

#9 - Across the board points increases and power reductions. Things should be geared at being less reliable. Hell, reduce everyone's Ballistic Skill by 1, reduce the number of re-rolls (or increase the number of negative rerolls - rerolling successes rather than failures, as these would cancel out the number of rerolls). And They Shall Know No Fear allows unit to choose to fail a Leadership Test and have Stubborn. Eldar Jetbikes have a 2+ save against Dangerous Terrain instead of whatever their normal armour is in place of Jump-Shoot-Jump. Etc.

#10 - Purchase Warlord Traits & Powers. Yeah, go back to this. They have what they have. Make it so you can only harness Warp Charge up to your Mastery Level. Make harnessing happen on a 2+, but each roll of a "1" gives you a Perils result. Perils causes you to lose a wound and a Mastery Level, no longer counting as a Psyker if you go to Mastery 0. Force Weapons are always "on" when wielded by a Psyker.



I wish I could say "BAM! 40k fixed!" but it wouldn't be. That's only stuff I'd probably like. I'm sure tons and tons of people wouldn't like these changes.

 Yarium wrote:


I wish I could say "BAM! 40k fixed!" but it wouldn't be. That's only stuff I'd probably like. I'm sure tons and tons of people wouldn't like these changes.

I could easily get behind every single one of the changes you mentioned. Especially the removing rerolls and reducing ballistic skill.

Shut power creep down with a vengeance. Nerf the ever loving heck out of the next ten army books. 40k is going from an infantry based combat game to duel of the Japanese mega-robots.

There's a moment at the beginning of the game where both players are proud to lay out their armies and are full of hopes and dreams for the future.

Then I find the game goes one of 2 ways - its a really close matchup and you don't know who's going to win till the last turn and its really really fun

or

You lose your pride and joy of a unit turn 1 and are frustrated for the next 2 hours as you get curb stomped - often even your opponent feels bad for every move he is making (or you to him).

WH40k would be awesome if it always went the first way, any rule changes should help steer it in that direction.

Maybe...maybe I just had an idea, what if every time a unit was destroyed it went into ongoing reserves unless it was an HQ unit? And you get something like a maelstrom point each time you kill a unit...or something...or maybe every time a unit kills a unit you get to roll on a random table for a buff of some kind as a reward. That way at the end of the game one player isnt left being frustrated that the models he painstakingly painted for weeks on end were blown of the table like they were nothing.

Re-release 5th edition.

Less random rolls.
Its extrmely hard to put together a coherent tactical plan when you rely on dodgy reserve rolls, random charge distance, DT tests and run rolls etc.
I know GW is going for the cinematic and slightly "more fun" elements but the randomness of 7th is way too over the top.
Add to this psychic power decks, who goes first (+ initiative steal), 50% of night fight, maelstrom objectives chart etc and it becomes more a game of lucky dice than sound tactical planning that you can guarantee will work.

Tactical Planning is never guaranteed to work. "No combat plan survives the first contact with the enemy intact" as the saying goes.

If such things did exist, the game would become even more net-listed than it already is, because every tactical plan has a hard counter.

 Grimtuff wrote:
Re-release 5th edition.

or 4th, i could settle for 4th. id live with the 4th ed rules

the big issues i feel is that the balance between cc and shooting isnt struck right, in fact cc might as well not even be on the map, a few scary formations sold as limited editions and inside a campaign book do not a fear of god about cc make. we need to level the playing field more and give incentives even for taking a cc centric unit again instead of avoiding them like the plague or shoe horning them into other roles if you want to bring them at all. i bought a dark angels command squad for their buff banner, and to join my natively talented cc commanders in close assault, not as drop pod suicide squads. while there might certainly be a place for such backward power gaming, it should be an alternative not a do this or waste points

the next thing we need to do is restore the balance of power, d guns need their nerf removed and anything larger then a monstrous creature/heavy tank needs to get locked up in the apocalypse toybox again. D was born in the tank for apoc, and the second they tore that wall down and patched over the D weapon and called it good the game went to hades. suddenly the unit with the most broken rules around his guns became the hot topic buy item, and anything less was ignored. D was the equalizer, apocalypse was the equalizer. all armies were equal in this arena. in 40k there was imbalance because not everyone could be top of the totem pole, not because my gun is more tricked out then yours. so yes goodbye wraithknights and stormsurge, your going to have to double down on riptides and wraithlords im sorry but we cant have your BS in our game mode.

40k is in an odd place right now IMO. I started at the beginning of 5th. I remember well the horrors of the parking lot. Killing a rhino completely wasn't all too easy. AV12+? Get a meltagun scrub. Yeah, needing a meltagun to kill a chimera, wrap your head around that. I like the addition of HP, I just think GW made it a bit Ham-fisted. Like most of their "we need to nerf this because sales" changes, such as vehicles, fliers, FMC, SH/GMC have all been applied in a rather non-sensible approach.

Let's start with the bigguns, literally. The easiest fix to GMC/SHV is to just do what 30k does. Lord of War may not be more than 25% of your total points. Give the Knights codex a caveat for this so the IK codex isn't instantly invalidated, and bam you're good (outside of induvidual unit balancing, looking at you Wraithknight/Stormsurge)

Next, well, is much tougher. I have an odd perspective on the relationship between vehicles and MC. I've never really used vehicles in game. HP are necessary to keep things balanced. However, the BIG thing I want to see is the return of glancing hits just being a -2 on the table roll. Keep the damage chart the same, but only remove a HP on a 5/6/7. AP- once again is a -1 modifier on the table. Suddenly Scatbikes can only stun/shake vehicles. Want to kill that dreadnought Mr. Eldar? Bring out them fire dragons.

Cover... while I agree that certain cover should in fact be a hit modifier, others...not so much. Smoke/bushes/night fighting? yeah absolutely. Those make it more difficult to properly acquire a target. The brick wall between you? Save modifier. Yeah, I said it. Split cover into 2 types; obfuscation and heavy cover. Obfuscation imposes a to-hit modifier (-1, -2, -3). So lets say an ork (bs2) shoots at a guardsman in a smokescreen. Smoke (Medium Obscurity) imposes a -2 penalty on the to-hit. This would *normally* make the ork just miss, however to keep fairness alive, however I'd have it be like the BS6+ mechanic currently in place. If hit modifiers bring your 'to hit' to worse than a 6+, you have to re-roll successful hits. Heavy cover, on the other hand, would improve saves. once again, split into a few different grades, (+1, +2, +3 save) So that same guarsmen shoots back at the ork. The orc is standing behind sandbags. Sandbags have a +2 save bonus. So lasgun hits, lasgun wounds. That ork gets a 4+ save from his t-shirt (6+) and the sandbags in the way of the lasgun shot. However, there is a 2nd guardsman with a meltagun. AP1 bro, no save. I shoot you through the sandbag, giving 0 craps about the silicates in burlap designed to stop small arms. Add in a select few things to purchasable heavy covers like Aegis Lines, Battlements, etc to work like current cover. Always get at least the save of the cover due to it's design/space magic material. Heavy cover would require you to be in b2b with the cover to gain the bonus.

The next, and probably least popular bit I'd like is to go back to out Apoc used to handle formations. Want to bring your Demi-company? 50 points for those bonuses. Battle company? 250. So not -free- transports, but instead discounted transports. Give ALL formations a point cost. Alternate FOC such as that knights, skitarii, BA and DE get wouldn't be effected. Another big change would be a 'scoring priority'. Not so sure about this one, but the main thing would be to give a reason to bring a standard FOC over formation of formations. ObSec is still the top dog, holding priority over everyone. Things from any force organization chart, (CAD, BSF, the DE one, the AdMech organizations) would out-priority non-obsec units from formations. So Tactical Marine with Obsec would trump Vanguard from a skitarii maniple, and those vanguard would trump Dire Avengers from the aspect warrior formation.

Assault is something I'd really need to think on. We need to catch the pendulum at the bottom, and no just throw it into the other wall. Assault needs help, absolutely. But guns should still matter.

That's all I got for now.

I like the idea of cover saves is a TO-HIT modifier.

I agree with most of what Yarium said. Here were my thoughts from a post last year aimed at dramatically reducing superfluous randomness and increasing the importance of player choice:

Pre-game:
- warlord traits, players may freely select their warlord trait if using their codex's unique warlord traits. Codices without unique traits may freely select from the BRB warlord tactical or personal traits (not command nor strategic traits!).
- psychic powers are chosen when building the army list. All current restrictions apply (i.e. ML1 can only learn one power + primaris). Warp charge 1 powers cost 0 points, Warp charge 2 powers cost 10 points each, Warp charge 3 powers cost 20 points each.

Movement:
- Running is fixed (+3") and charge moves are (+3"+d6"). If the charge fails, treat it as a run move directly towards the target unit.
- any move entering, exiting, or crossing difficult terrain subtracts 3” from the model’s base movement, including bikes, cavalry, and vehicles. This affects run and charge moves. Units with the move through cover, terrain mod, beasts, and skimmer rules ignore this modifier.
- models may charge after disembarking from a non-assault vehicle (unless the vehicle began the turn in reserves), suffering -3" to their charge range. This is cumulative with any other penalties, e.g. charging through cover.
- any rules improving or re-rolling run moves (e.g. fleet, crusader, Move Move Move command) allow the model to run +6” instead of +3” (this doesn't apply to charges).

Psychic:
- remove the perils chart, perils of the warp inflicts 1 wound with no saves of any kind allowed (including invulnerable saves and feel no pain). The psyker's unit also suffers one S4 Ap2 hit for every "6" that was rolled on the psychic test.

Shooting:
- eliminate the look out sir rule.
- simplified vehicle damage table, 1-2 Shaken, 3-4 Stunned, 5-6 Immobilized, 7+ Explodes.
- +1 BS at targets within 12", -1 BS at targets beyond 36" (minimum BS 1 when shooting)
- all cover is treated the same, shots at models in cover or with cover modifiers (camo, stealth, jink, etc.) are fired at -1 BS (no more cover saves). Shots at models with both cover and a cover modifier are at -2 BS. Modifiers cannot reduce BS below 1. “Snap shots” always miss targets in cover. "Ignore cover" confers +1 BS when shooting at targets with cover. A unit is considered in cover if at least 50% of its models are out of sight or obscured from the closest shooting model with LOS.
- combat speed now counts as stationary for the purpose of firing. Cruising speed counts as combat speed for firing.
- remove all incidents of "randomly select a model" for wounds, instead the controlling player may choose who takes wounds in these instances.

Assault:
- in overwatch, template weapons and grenades (1 grenade per unit) inflict d3 automatic hits. Tau supporting fire is unaffected, the charged unit may not fire. Nothing else may fire overwatch.
- eliminate pile in moves. Everyone in a combat within 6" of an enemy model fights (close combat, short range fire, etc). In the movement phase, models in engaged units must move into base to base contact with an enemy model or as close as possible (moving 6").
- fix the WS chart. If the opposing WS is 2+ higher than your own, you hit on a 5+.
- eliminate the initiative+d6 roll when fleeing combat. If the unit flees and the enemy chooses a sweeping advance, then the fleeing unit is completely eliminated. A unit may not consolidate after a sweeping advance. If the winning side chooses to consolidate instead, consolidation moves are always up to 3".

Morale:
- when suffering 25% casualties from shooting, units take a pinning test instead of a morale test. Weapons with the "Pinning" special rule force the pinning test at -1 ld.
- if a unit is falling back and fails its test to regroup, the unit is instantly removed as a casualty, it is assumed that they were completely routed or cut down in a hail of fire.

Weird, I must be in the minority in that when I play, battlefield tactics do matter. Must be all the tall, line of sight blocking terrain I use, or that I play to win the mission rather than to just dismantle my opponent. Might be that I'm having more fun because I'm not going out of my way to be a douche to my opponent?

Nah, it's probably a rules issue, not a community issue.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Weird, I must be in the minority in that when I play, battlefield tactics do matter. Must be all the tall, line of sight blocking terrain I use, or that I play to win the mission rather than to just dismantle my opponent. Might be that I'm having more fun because I'm not going out of my way to be a douche to my opponent?

Nah, it's probably a rules issue, not a community issue.

SJ

Your not the only one. The problem is that the game does not promote tactics though.

If I were trying to make 40k more tactical I would look to do the following.

1.) Reduce randomness in the game- anything that doesn't benefit from a random roll shouldn't be.
- moving through terrain = half movement distance
- remove the vehicle damage table
- remove instant death
-remove all random tables (warlord, psychic power, warpstorm etc.)
- make cover saves a to hit modifier.
-no more random charge length
-remove the snapfire mechanic and make scenarios when it is used just modified to hit rolls.

2.) Bring back movement distances to the model statline - this makes for a more varied units instead of things moving either 6" or 12". Then make charge = movement speed

3.) Increase vehicle Hull points. Make Penetrating hits do multiple hull points based on roll total vs armor value

4.) Remove instant death and replace with high strength weapons doing multiple wounds based on the S to T comparison.

5.) Eliminate lots of re-rolls.

6.) Eliminate psychic phase as it stands

7.) make overwatch attacks happen at initiative, but also at balistic skill.

8.) Remove TLOS- give models a height stat and do the same for terrain, then decide if it Blocks LOS or just grants cover etc.

9.) Lastly rewrite all units in the game to balance books against one another.

The biggest thing though is just reeling back the randomness of the game. Most things that people hate in this game are things that have more randomness. People hated parking lots in 5e because the damage table meant vehicles either went up in smoke or never died (often the latter). They hated random charge in 6e and random psychic powers etc.

The ability to Assault anew unit if you shoot one off the board makes no sense that after a blistering fire fight you would just stand around like a grot. To balance it out make the charge disordered. I hate when my squad kills something then stands around to get killed by the enemy squad 3in away

 ThirstySpaceMan wrote:
The ability to Assault anew unit if you shoot one off the board makes no sense that after a blistering fire fight you would just stand around like a grot. To balance it out make the charge disordered. I hate when my squad kills something then stands around to get killed by the enemy squad 3in away

As crazy at it sounds - that is one thing age of sigmar did right.

They altered the combat phase to allow pile-in moves to fights that were, I believe, 3 or 5 inches away.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Weird, I must be in the minority in that when I play, battlefield tactics do matter. Must be all the tall, line of sight blocking terrain I use, or that I play to win the mission rather than to just dismantle my opponent. Might be that I'm having more fun because I'm not going out of my way to be a douche to my opponent?

Nah, it's probably a rules issue, not a community issue.

SJ

Your not the only one. The problem is that the game does not promote tactics though.

If tactics didn't matter why is it the same players topping in major tournaments?

 CrownAxe wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Weird, I must be in the minority in that when I play, battlefield tactics do matter. Must be all the tall, line of sight blocking terrain I use, or that I play to win the mission rather than to just dismantle my opponent. Might be that I'm having more fun because I'm not going out of my way to be a douche to my opponent?

Nah, it's probably a rules issue, not a community issue.

SJ

Your not the only one. The problem is that the game does not promote tactics though.

If tactics didn't matter why is it the same players topping in major tournaments?

I think the problem is that there are so many factors for tactics, its on the same level as card counting at casinos.

Most people just play to play and have a few tricks they try to help them win (ie the average 40k player)

But some can calculate all the factors required to actually make a real difference (tourney winners i.e. the card counters)

Tactics matter but with gw's need to sell the new shiny your tactics could be invalidated by another armies release, let alone your own codex. I sold my DE army when the new codex came out because the changes to the codex nerfed my entire build.

Just a few changes rattling around my head. Explanations are contained in ( )

Vehicles
- Vehicles have a 3+ armor save by default except for skimmers and flyers which have a 4+ armor save. (Help keep vehicles from getting glanced to death by auto cannon, gauss, tesla, scatter laser, etc, auto cannons will still penetrate the armor of jinking vehicles so they will still need to jink while auto cannons wouldn't be nearly as effective at penetrating ground vehicles.)
- Explosion results instead do an additional D3 hull points to the vehicle. Passangers take D6 Str 3 AP- hits (basically prevent the instant destroyed result but the extra hull points might result in the vehicle being wrecked anyways, basically its ammo or fuel cooking off inside the vehicle and the explosions hurting the occupants.)
- Immobilized becomes Engine Damaged in all cases, movement is reduced by half rounded up to the nearest whole number for instances of vehicle movement including going flat out, running, and charging. Multiple Engine Damage results cause an additional hull point of damage. (Keep walkers and other vehicles from becoming glorified lawn ornaments.)
- Stunned is now being unable to shoot or turn and stops any current movement taking place when the result occurs.
- Damage table becomes 1-3 = Shaken, 4 = Stunned, 5 = Engine Damaged, 6 = Explosion. (Weapon destroyed is very RNG and requires too much book keeping so its dropped, Makes the dedicated vehicle killers better at dealing more damage, combine with vehicle armor to make a more gradual difference between the different APs).
- Heavy vehicles can fire Ordinance and still fire the rest of their weapons at full BS if remaining stationary.
- Walkers can make a Rush action in the movement phase to move 12" inches. Doing so makes all shooting attacks snap shots and prevents the Walker from charging.

Monstrous Creatures
- Require 25% obscured to receive a cover save from terrain. (Goodbye toe in cover)
- Failing Death or Glory with a MC only deals 1 +D3 wounds with no saves allowed.


USR Rules
- Stomp is done instead of melee attacks and reduces the number of attacks by 1/3 rounded up to the nearest whole number. Stomp attacks are at Strength: User, AP3 With the Crushing special rule. Crushing ignores all saves including FNP on a 6 to wound, rolls of a 6 for armor penetration count as a penetrating hit at AP1 with no saves allowed. (Nerf to stomp and prevents the whole "roll 6 to delete unit).
- Ignore Cover renamed True Sight which negates Stealth and Shrouded. Also causes -1 to cover saves. (Make Ignore cover a little less punishing to units that rely on cover. Counter to the cover enhancing special rules still)
- Jump Infantry can Jink for a 5+ cover save. They also always have the Hammer of Wrath and reroll charge distances. (Makes jump infantry a bit better).
- Soul Blaze is removed from the game (garbage rule is garbage)
- Fear adds +1 to hit to melee attacks made against a unit that is feared. (Make fear less punishing to those who are vulnerable to it while also making models with very high weapon skill still care about its effect)
- Sniper rule causes to wound rolls of a 6 to bypass all cover saves in addition to all armor saves. (Buff to sniper weapons)
- Hit & Run cannot be used if the unit failed its close combat moral check. If the unit that was disengaged from consolidates back into base contact with the Hit & Run unit then combat is reengaged. (Nerf to Hit and Run)
- Furious Charge is +1 Strength to a model that makes a Full Charge. (For multi assaults)
- Rage is +1 attack on the turn the model makes a Full Charge. (For multi assaults)
- Grav weapons deal 1 hull point on a 6 and rolls a D6. 1-3 is vehicle stunned, 4-6 is engine damaged. (makes grav a bit less damaging against vehicles as its harder to chain engine damaged results for extra hull points).

Psychic
- Focused Witchfires without a complete shooting profile are assumed to be assault 1. (Rule clarification)
- Invisibility causes all shooting and melee attacks to be made at WS and BS 1. (Nerf Invis, makes blast weapons and flamers useful against them)
- At the start of the psychic phase the number of deny the witch dice generated cannot exceed the number of warp charges generated. (Makes it so bring 1 psyker against an arny of psykers doesn't make it nearly impossible to cast anything.)

Assault
- Overwatch cannot exceed the BS of what a normal shooting attack would be at. (Cannot have modifiers that increase overwatch shooting increase it beyond that of normal shots, things like markerlights which benefit all shooting work as normal).
- When Charging a unit may make a Steady Advance moving a flat 5" towards the targeted unit or a Full Charge at 2D6. Steady Advances are not slowed by terrain, do not suffer an initiative drop when charging through terrain, but do not gain the extra attack on the charge. Overwatch made against a Steady Advances gain +1 to hit. Multi Charges must be made as a Full Charge. Multi Charge is still considered disorganized so it doesn't gain the +1 attack. (Steady Advance is for when you MUST make a short charge but you don't gain many benefits from the charge.)

 CrownAxe wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Weird, I must be in the minority in that when I play, battlefield tactics do matter. Must be all the tall, line of sight blocking terrain I use, or that I play to win the mission rather than to just dismantle my opponent. Might be that I'm having more fun because I'm not going out of my way to be a douche to my opponent?

Nah, it's probably a rules issue, not a community issue.

SJ

Your not the only one. The problem is that the game does not promote tactics though.

If tactics didn't matter why is it the same players topping in major tournaments?

If lists don't matter, why don't we see more variety in the larger tournaments?

In Warhammer 40K strategy often trumps tactics. When two equally powerful strategies meet (say in a tournament setting), then it comes down to tactics. Strategy primarily consists of list building and forward planning of how that list will operate on the battlefield. Tactics references split second on the ground decisions. Move and counter-move between you and your opponent. In order for tactics to be viable there has to be a relatively level playing field.

The other big factor is terrain. Some armies rely on heavy cover or slight of hand to close with their opponents (and only in the worst of circumstances would be caught dead charging across open ground at a gun-line), but in many clubs and at major events sufficient terrain is often left out by necessity (lack of funds or lack of terrain for all the tables) or neglect.

Combine how potent list building has become with a lack of terrain and you have a breeding ground of resentment and sore feelings for those whose armies don't quite fit the bill.

Edit: As for how to fix it? Games Workshop needs to balance list building and look into getting rid of some of the more powerful stuff (like toning down Eldar and dropping Invisibility). Terrain is and has always been a player issue. Not a lot anyone can really do about that.

Akiasura wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Weird, I must be in the minority in that when I play, battlefield tactics do matter. Must be all the tall, line of sight blocking terrain I use, or that I play to win the mission rather than to just dismantle my opponent. Might be that I'm having more fun because I'm not going out of my way to be a douche to my opponent?

Nah, it's probably a rules issue, not a community issue.

SJ

Your not the only one. The problem is that the game does not promote tactics though.

If tactics didn't matter why is it the same players topping in major tournaments?

If lists don't matter, why don't we see more variety in the larger tournaments?

Who said lists don't matter? I didn't.

 CrownAxe wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Weird, I must be in the minority in that when I play, battlefield tactics do matter. Must be all the tall, line of sight blocking terrain I use, or that I play to win the mission rather than to just dismantle my opponent. Might be that I'm having more fun because I'm not going out of my way to be a douche to my opponent?

Nah, it's probably a rules issue, not a community issue.

SJ

Your not the only one. The problem is that the game does not promote tactics though.

If tactics didn't matter why is it the same players topping in major tournaments?

If lists don't matter, why don't we see more variety in the larger tournaments?

Who said lists don't matter? I didn't.

Fair enough. If you think tactics matter to any real degree, you would expect to see original lists pop up. Like in WMH.
Instead we see cookie cutter builds

Akiasura wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Weird, I must be in the minority in that when I play, battlefield tactics do matter. Must be all the tall, line of sight blocking terrain I use, or that I play to win the mission rather than to just dismantle my opponent. Might be that I'm having more fun because I'm not going out of my way to be a douche to my opponent?

Nah, it's probably a rules issue, not a community issue.

SJ

Your not the only one. The problem is that the game does not promote tactics though.

If tactics didn't matter why is it the same players topping in major tournaments?

If lists don't matter, why don't we see more variety in the larger tournaments?

Who said lists don't matter? I didn't.

Fair enough. If you think tactics matter to any real degree, you would expect to see original lists pop up. Like in WMH.
Instead we see cookie cutter builds

Unique builds still show up. Remember Lictor Shame?

 CrownAxe wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Weird, I must be in the minority in that when I play, battlefield tactics do matter. Must be all the tall, line of sight blocking terrain I use, or that I play to win the mission rather than to just dismantle my opponent. Might be that I'm having more fun because I'm not going out of my way to be a douche to my opponent?

Nah, it's probably a rules issue, not a community issue.

SJ

Your not the only one. The problem is that the game does not promote tactics though.

If tactics didn't matter why is it the same players topping in major tournaments?

If lists don't matter, why don't we see more variety in the larger tournaments?

Who said lists don't matter? I didn't.

Fair enough. If you think tactics matter to any real degree, you would expect to see original lists pop up. Like in WMH.
Instead we see cookie cutter builds

Unique builds still show up. Remember Lictor Shame?

The build that involved spamming Tyranid FMC/MC along with a few cheap lictors to act as homing devices?
Not what I would call a unique build. Tyranid FMC/MC has been the standard for a while now.

Akiasura wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Weird, I must be in the minority in that when I play, battlefield tactics do matter. Must be all the tall, line of sight blocking terrain I use, or that I play to win the mission rather than to just dismantle my opponent. Might be that I'm having more fun because I'm not going out of my way to be a douche to my opponent?

Nah, it's probably a rules issue, not a community issue.

SJ

Your not the only one. The problem is that the game does not promote tactics though.

If tactics didn't matter why is it the same players topping in major tournaments?

If lists don't matter, why don't we see more variety in the larger tournaments?

Who said lists don't matter? I didn't.

Fair enough. If you think tactics matter to any real degree, you would expect to see original lists pop up. Like in WMH.
Instead we see cookie cutter builds

Unique builds still show up. Remember Lictor Shame?

The build that involved spamming Tyranid FMC/MC along with a few cheap lictors to act as homing devices?
Not what I would call a unique build. Tyranid FMC/MC has been the standard for a while now.

I don't know what you expect. This isn't MtG. Entire new sets of units for every army don't come out every 3 months to refresh the meta. Armies are stuck with the same tools for months to years at a time.