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KingCracker wrote:Moving through difficult terrain/running annoys me pretty good.

Roll 2 d6 and pick the highest, when moving through rubble, blown up vehicles, barbwire fences and the like. But running on FLAT OPEN GROUND you roll 1 d6. So I guess its harder to run on open ground then running through a blowd up building

But on open ground you already get a free move and then you add 1d6. You're not running through the terrain, you're picking your way through it so your whole move is 1d6 or less.

11 grots normally won't even kill a space marine in combat. So no, I'm not comparing 11 grots to 1 space marine, please straw man less.

The rule tried to fix tar-pitting and instead created absurd butchery and made numbers meaningless.

If we kill 5 dudes and leave one left, but we lost 8 dudes...strangely, no, I wouldn't view it as my mates being "butchered around me" or that we were losing in any way. we killed 85% of them!

I agree with you that the rule is slightly better than the old tar pit happy rules. I just don't agree with the abuse it causes low leadership armies, and large sized, non-fearless units. 5 or less on a 2d6 because you lost by 3? I'm not comparing 11 grots to 1 space marine, I'm comparing 20 kroot to 6 marines, which turned into 12 kroot and 1 marine. It is especially poor because you end up in situations where one extra armor save changes a massacre one way to a likely massacre the other.

Compare the rule with the fantasy rule it poorly copies. In 40k:

Casualties are counted. Loser tests on LD -result. If it fails, I test. Swept on a tie or better.

in Fantasy:
Casualties are counted. Bonuses given for Ranks, Banner, outnumbering. Typically easy access to a higher leadership or a reroll or both. Loser tests on LD -result. If it fails, unit flees and can be pursued - if the units have similar speeds, it is an even test.

Piles of easy to achieve bonuses are given in fantasy. No bonuses of any kind are given in 40k for anything for most armies - making it even worse against the few who do have bonuses!

Obviously combat resolution has to be abstracted. But it doesn't need to be abstracted as simply as it is in 5e. You can say "it's a good rule" until you're blue in the face, but it isn't. It's a good start, and better in some ways than 4e, but it is a failure as a rule.

It isnt strawman at all, given you didnt specify the unit. I just picked something used in largeish units. You misunderstand strawman...

"Easy access" to a higher leadership? Avg Ld in fantasy is 1 point lower, you have to have a hero in the unit or the general within 12" to have anything higher. Bonuses only apply unless you get flanked by US5, in which case only the banner counts. Etc. At least 3 armies can get bonuses.

It isnt a failure as a rule, it achieves exactly what it set out to do: in a game with movement as easy as it is compared to fantasy, and with shooting as potent as it is compared to fantasy, combat is now a fair comparitor - potetnially higher gains, but at commensurately higher risk, ESPECIALLY as you can no longer clean combat zones.

Stop considering the rules in a vacuum, that is a dishonest way to consider the overall effect on balance, which is what th edebate was about.

Me: it breaks down at the margins

You: a space marine should be able to kill 11 grots!

That is a strawman, plain and simple. You weren't arguing against what I said, you made up your own example and argued against it.

You made comments that it was *exactly* as it worked in fantasy, and it isn't. You stated repeatedly that this rule "balances" shooting and assault armies, which also isn't true. Even if it were true it wouldn't matter, since this is a thread about rules you find dumb, not lets trash people who find rules dumb that you happen to like.

Anyway, pointless. The rule sounds dumb to me, the end. I also think it fails to really achieve its goal, and could be improved immensely with minor changes, but we disagree on that and that is fine. The end.

lambadomy wrote:Anyway, pointless. The rule sounds dumb to me, the end. I also think it fails to really achieve its goal, and could be improved immensely with minor changes, but we disagree on that and that is fine. The end.

This is a forum, man. Forums, traditionally, are where people come to discuss and debate things in public. If we can't engage each other in debate, what the frak are we even doing here? You can't discuss ideas if you can't say someone opposite you is wrong. Then everyone is CAT-footing around the issue trying to remain politically correct.

I think Nosferatu is correct, and Lam and Kevin are wrong, for reasons Nosferatu already went over. The -Ld is more of a boon for shooting armies than Assault ones, and speeds the game up in general. And you can still throw meat at Assault units to slow them down: getting the charge is huge for most assault units. Pretty much all the good ones rely on Furious Charge or the extra attacks from the charge to deal damage. I mean, look at what happens when a Combat Squad steals the charge from a horde of Orks.

DarkHound wrote:I think Nosferatu is correct, and Lam and Kevin are wrong, for reasons Nosferatu already went over. The -Ld is more of a boon for shooting armies than Assault ones, and speeds the game up in general. And you can still throw meat at Assault units to slow them down: getting the charge is huge for most assault units. Pretty much all the good ones rely on Furious Charge or the extra attacks from the charge to deal damage. I mean, look at what happens when a Combat Squad steals the charge from a horde of Orks.

I have mixed feelings about the rule at present. In it's favour it does speed up combat resolution dramatically. This is a fundamentally different game to fantasy, and while that game should have something of a grind in melee over multiple turns, in 40K an assault should be a decisive thing. And it's worth remembering that speedy combat resolution is not always a benefit to the cc player - he likes to have his troops nice and safe during the enemy's turn.

However, it's basically removed an entire unit type from the game, with tarpitting all but gone. The option to take a low cost unit with loads of wounds and nothign else and try to hold up elite enemy units was an interesting part of the game, and now it's all but gone. The other issue is the tendency for combats for feel 'wrong', such as the example of the unit losing 9 of 20 models, while their opponents lost 5 of 6 - under the old outnumbering rule the losers would have to take a morale check, but it'd be with no modifier and they'd probably stay in combat. In the 5th ed rules they'll suffer a modifier of -4 and be almost certain to run away, despite being almost certain to win the combat in the subsequent turn.

There's plusses to the new rule but there's also minusses. Perhaps they could modify the current rule, so that you only suffered the negative modifiers if you had less troops than the winner? So, for instance, a mob of 25 conscripts is fighting 15 CSMs, and in the first round the CSMs kill 9 conscripts, while the conscripts kill 1 in response. The conscripts would test, but rather than suffering a -8 modifier and being almost certain to flee, they would test but suffer no modifier as they have more troops in the fight. In the second round the conscripts suffer another 8 casualties, while inflicting another one themselves, now they’ve got less men in the fight and they’re losing badly, so the negative modifier would apply and they’d be almost certain to flee.


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zeshin wrote:]My "not to scale" argument does go against the grain a bit on that. But basically the method that made sense to me was to measure from the hull for everything (range and movement) and simply verify that the weapon, as it is mounted, can actually see the target. Thus if my predator is angled toward a heavy weapon on the left of the board (hoping for a fron armour hit) the left sponsons won't be able to shoot much straight down the board and certainly not to my right. It seemed a common sense thing with the LOS, but now my desire to simplify just sounds more complex...

Yeah, it isn't a bad replacement, I was just pointing out that it wouldn't be an ideal fix as you'd be measuring range and LOS from two different places. If GW took it on it'd probably get as many complaints in threads like this as the current rule does


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Grey Templar wrote:No, you measure both from the gun.

Yes, that is what you do under the current rules. The issue was what you do under the proposed rule.


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Norsehawk wrote:Why not just change it to require an armor save for every member of the squad when going over dangerous terrain, fail and take a wound. A 1 in 6 chance of having to take an armor save is just not dangerous enough to simulate dangerous terrain. The method I suggested might be too brutal though.

Not that I see a lot of dangerous terrain.

That'd be pretty harsh on anything that isn't in power armour. The 1 in 6 thing also represents the luck factor, when you jump pack into a forest you might fly into a branch but you probably won't - but under your rules it assumes every ork would hit a branch and only 1 in 6 would survive. I just think leave the rule as it is - it's fine for something that doesn't come up very often.

DarkHound wrote:This is a forum, man. Forums, traditionally, are where people come to discuss and debate things in public. If we can't engage each other in debate, what the frak are we even doing here? You can't discuss ideas if you can't say someone opposite you is wrong. Then everyone is CAT-footing around the issue trying to remain politically correct.

A Few things:

At some point, you have to just agree to disagree and move on, if you're not getting anywhere. Arguing and discussing is fine, no one is tiptoeing, and I'm not complaining about it. I'm perfectly willing to say, repeatedly, that nosferatu is wrong, and he's willing to say the same about me. But he's not going to suddenly convince me about the rule being good at this point, so...what is the point? This isn't even an objective discussion.

As nosferatu said, you can't judge rules in a vacuum. This rule affects the fearless taking extra hits rule, which some say is dumb but it's better than getting swept! This rule is related to the fact that you can't consolidate into a fresh combat, which you point out makes quick resolution sometimes a boon to the shooty army. I'm not arguing about any of that. This thread is specifically about rules you find dumb. The way this rule often works out, to me, is dumb, was lazily written, and could be much improved, in ways I and others have pointed out. You don't agree...and I'm not going to get GW to suddenly write a new rulebook to change it for me.

This thread was on a specific topic, what rules sound dumb to you. Continuing to argue about whether the rule actually is dumb feels like hijacking the thread, though admittedly it's been long hijacked.

If you have a unit of 30 models and 1 is sticking in LOS of the enemy, only that 1 model may fire. But the enemy can fire and wound the entire 30 model unit...

Hoodwink wrote:If you have a unit of 30 models and 1 is sticking in LOS of the enemy, only that 1 model may fire. But the enemy can fire and wound the entire 30 model unit...

This, if i can only fire one guy you cant hit the rest

Hoodwink wrote:If you have a unit of 30 models and 1 is sticking in LOS of the enemy, only that 1 model may fire. But the enemy can fire and wound the entire 30 model unit...

This is to prevent LOS / Range sniping, and was explicitly in the design notes for 5th ed. Range / LOS sniping was *dumb*

Also: you have control over where you move your models to. If you manage to only let one guy shoot, guess whose fault that is?

True it is better than the MM sniping speeders, oh i can only see your commander guess he's dead of 4th