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I have played to WHFB, and most of the time, I am able to make my list without having to calculte them each unit at the time. Why ? Because it's really easy. Take a 1000 pts game. You have 250 pts max for an HQ, 250 pts minim for troops, and etc. The game works with multiples of 5 and 10, it's not big deal. And most of the time, I have difficulty to reach these minimums for the troop choices. So it's simple : If w40k take this model of % for armies, their will be more troops on the table, less elite, support and fast attack, and it's gonna be fair in my opinion.

Mr.Church13 wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Mr.Church13 wrote:Wow I've played and loved this game for 6 years now and in one edition they will turn it into Fantasy? I know there are fantasy lovers out there, but I'm not one of that camp.

They pull this garbage and you fellas might be looking at some great ebay deals from me. If I wanted Fantasy I'd play it.

And the prize for the most overblown and non sensical reaction goes to..... Mr.Church!

Borrowing some better army composition rules from fantasy doesn't suddenly turn 40k into an entirely different game.

But that's just it... copy the magic to psychic, bring over the composition rules, change the saves system to fantasy's, and the game becomes fantasy with no square bases and a few tanks. I'm an accountant all freaking day. I really don't want to calculate a list, recalculate it, and then redo the whole thing if I change one guy to a Nob with power klaw.

You know what 25% of 2000 is? 500. Did that power klaw put you above 500 for your fast attack? No? Then you're safe. Where was the recalculating there? Oh, right, there wasn't any. The fantasy save system is "Your save is one worse for every point of strength above four". How is that hard? How is that turning the game into fantasy? Fantasy is fantasy because you have giant blocks of dudes on little trays with limited movement arcs stabbing eachother with spears.

It's hyperbole and nothing more to whine "But I don't wan't to play fantasy" when discussing a force org change to percentages.

Lysenis wrote:

UltraPrime wrote:

ColdSadHungry wrote:How does the FOC stuff work in Fantasy that's so different from 40k? I don't know Fantasy at all.

Its percentages. 0-50% Lords, 25%+ Core, 0-50% Special and 0-25% Rare. This could translate as 0-50% HQ, 0-25% Elite, 25%+ Troop, 0-50% Fast Attack, 0-25% Heavy Support.

That would be weird. . .Thats saying in a 2,000 point game i can run upwards of 4 special characters. . . .only 500 points of elites and heavy, 1,000 points of troops / fast attack. . . .broken. here is why.

Blood angles codex 2,000 points:
Reclusiarch with Jump Pack
Reclusiarch with Jump Pack
Librarian with Jump Pack
Librarian with Jump Pack

Elites:
2x Sanguinary Guard w/ Jump Pack & Power Weapon


Troops:
10-man Assault squad w/ 2x meltagun Serg w/ Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield
10-man Assault squad w/ 2x meltagun Serg w/ Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield

Fast Attack:
Baal Pred w/ Flamestorm Cannon
Baal Pred w/ Flamestorm Cannon
Baal Pred w/ T-L Assault Cannon
Baal Pred w/ T-L Assault Cannon
Baal Pred w/ T-L Assault Cannon & Heavy Bolter Sponsons


Heavy Support:
Pred w/ Lascannon sponsons

I wanna say my math is almost exact.

After double checking my math it is 2,000 exact. Since the rumors make vehicle spam unlikely with transports lets do it with 5 outflanking scouting vehicles shall we?

This is why the switch in the FoC to be like fantasy will be brokenish and just plain wrong.

The first fallacy with this type of doomsaying is that the whole argument is based on what is broken in THIS edition, but you are actually talking about another edition entirely. It is very very possible that Baal predators will absolutely suck in the new ruleset. The same goes for any other type of broken/op army you can come up with under the current rules.

The second fallacy here is the assumption that everyone else will still be building 5th edition armies. But that will not be the case. For every crazy army of 6 Baal Predators, there will be another crazy army with 1000 pts of vanguard vets with melta bombs, or 1000 pts of Nob Bikers, or just something else that's every bit as ridiculously overpowered. I can't even think of all the possibilities, and for me, that's a big part of the fun of this game - coming up with new and crazier things to do. A new edition is the best time for that too.

I don't buy these. Randomization for psychic rules = less psychers will be fielded because people have become used to stability, so throwing instability into the mix will put a lot of people off.

Vehicle hull points? No, that slows the game down, and the recent editions have been about speeding it up.

FOC going away? I don't think so. You'll nullify all your current codexs.

I'm really starting to feel the bloat of models too. I've been playing Dark Eldar, and was playing an IG foot list. I made a bad decision in turn one which knocked out half my sailboats. I was crippled and at that point could only play for a tie because I could no longer actually hurt the IG player (spearhead deployment. Open season on me and all my long range was in my transports).

So the dragged on turn after turn of just unrelenting shooting and very short turns for me. So many dice. The turns were taking an obnoxious amount of time. The Brits have got it right. This 2000 point stuff is too much.


Although aside from complaining about army size, a % base FOC would help alleviate a LOT of issues for some armies. Some armies fill their FOC's around 1750, and are forced to take sub-optimal choices to get to 2000. Again, I've been playing DE, and if you venom spam, you're out of troop slots fast, and you desperately wish you could take more. If you look at IG though, and he gets insanely more powerful the higher the points go, because he can just squadron his tanks, etc. Everything over 1750 isn't just icing, its more meat.

If we went percentages that would also help armies who have 'cheaper' heavy support options. Like DE ravagers are only 105 points. Having 355 points of your army maxed into heavy support at 2000 points is just dumb. It would also allow some less seen units an opportunity to see the table. A lot of times you have 'decent' or 'situational' choices in your FOC slot, but you can't use it because one of those choices so insanely outshine it (or you NEED at least _____ of something to work). If you're not limited to only three of "x", now you can take your normal amount of "x" and throw some extra points towards that fun unit.

Moopy wrote: I don't buy these. Randomization for psychic rules = less psychers will be fielded because people have become used to stability, so throwing instability into the mix will put a lot of people off.

Vehicle hull points? No, that slows the game down, and the recent editions have been about speeding it up.

FOC going away? I don't think so. You'll nullify all your current codexs.

Not if you change the rules about movement. Let's say this :

Movement rules for vehicules :They are steady, durable transports that can take hits. However, they can only move 6.
However, if your guys are on foot, they can (like in WHFB) move double speed during their movement phase. However, the suffer a penalty for shooting, or cannnot even shoot, and aren't protected.

I feel this would be more realistic a bit. I mean, hell, how are those tanks supposed to be so fast ? Do you ever see a tank speeding up in a battle zone in real life combat situation? Most of the time, they can't even pick up the speed of a car without spending all their fuel. No, transports vehicules should be to protect soldiers, not to speed things up. If transports must be fast, they must be fragile and small. Armored transport vehicules should be slow or medium paced, be hard to damaged with infantry weaponry, and be outrunned by most units on foot, especially Tyranids in my opinion.
As for the FOC being cancelled, it wouldn't cancel the codex. Most codex in WHFB are still in 7th edition, having their old FoC printed in it. Yet, they still use the FoC of the 8th edition (%), and there's no problem there. I feel it would be formidable, it would make some list less useful, other more, and balance the whole game.
Example : Sanguinary priest of the BA would be something more precious around the table. Each unit could still have 3 SP, yet, they can never go over the % of point the game permit them.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Ah yes. 3+ on 2D6 with a chart of modifiers. 6-hour games!

The fantasy system of armor modification doesn't even require a chart. It requires you to be able to count above four. If that's making your games six+ hours than I don't know if I want to live on this planet any more.

I wasn't making a comparison to current WHFB rules. I was remembering the days of 2nd Ed. No need to jump down anyone's throat because you misunderstood their post.

I don't buy these. Randomization for psychic rules = less psychers will be fielded because people have become used to stability, so throwing instability into the mix will put a lot of people off.

People only take psykers now because they are absolutely a steal compared to captains. I mean really, people only take SC's because of either FoC or being broken. Captains are never taken, psyker abilities are always taken in most cases unless there's something that the others take that the psykers doesn't have. (Such as IG's orders)

Since when do you see a wolf lord getting in over a space wolf psyker? A space marine captain? (when not being taken as a biker), a chaos sorcerer? A Lord of Change that isn't Fateweaver? A farseer over a Autarch? Orks are the only ones with a specific example, and even than it's usually KFF meks over a warboss.

I'm looking forward to seeing changes like these, but it seems unrealistic to hope for a return to a more intricate game design when the codices are still spread over three different editions, and a sadly vocal majority insists on simplicity and convenience.

Khornate25 wrote:

Moopy wrote: I don't buy these. Randomization for psychic rules = less psychers will be fielded because people have become used to stability, so throwing instability into the mix will put a lot of people off.

Vehicle hull points? No, that slows the game down, and the recent editions have been about speeding it up.

FOC going away? I don't think so. You'll nullify all your current codexs.

Not if you change the rules about movement. Let's say this :

Movement rules for vehicules :They are steady, durable transports that can take hits. However, they can only move 6.
However, if your guys are on foot, they can (like in WHFB) move double speed during their movement phase. However, the suffer a penalty for shooting, or cannnot even shoot, and aren't protected.

I feel this would be more realistic a bit. I mean, hell, how are those tanks supposed to be so fast ? Do you ever see a tank speeding up in a battle zone in real life combat situation? Most of the time, they can't even pick up the speed of a car without spending all their fuel. No, transports vehicules should be to protect soldiers, not to speed things up. If transports must be fast, they must be fragile and small. Armored transport vehicules should be slow or medium paced, be hard to damaged with infantry weaponry, and be outrunned by most units on foot, especially Tyranids in my opinion.
As for the FOC being cancelled, it wouldn't cancel the codex. Most codex in WHFB are still in 7th edition, having their old FoC printed in it. Yet, they still use the FoC of the 8th edition (%), and there's no problem there. I feel it would be formidable, it would make some list less useful, other more, and balance the whole game.
Example : Sanguinary priest of the BA would be something more precious around the table. Each unit could still have 3 SP, yet, they can never go over the % of point the game permit them.

@ realism : Well but it´s not an 2012 combat simulation, it´s 40k with machine spirits.

random magic: anyway, the whole thing will be funny when thinking of all those 40k novels that do the cross over marketing strategy: the librarian was concentrating hard while being attacked by 3 genestealers .. and .. tadaaa ....he managed to randomly bring forth a repair-that-vehicle-in zero -seconds spell. that´s great. it´s like going to the supermarket to buy a sixpack and coming home with that fancy sofa mom allways wanted to have.

I'm hoping they also bring back Overwatch, and the old 2nd edition hth combat rules.

ZebioLizard2 wrote: Captains are never taken,

Then a good designer would make captains more interesting and not make good unit crappy. Complete randomization of powers = a unit not worth it's cost.

And to everyone else that keeps bring up "it would be more realistic", you really needs to stop that. This is a game where you're always going to fail 1/6 of the time, full of massive world eating space bugs, and hand grenades that don't hurt anyone.

Ever since the designers started making 40k a faster game (3rd ed+), sales took off. I find it hard to believe that they'll reverse.

Khornate25 wrote:
I feel this would be more realistic a bit. I mean, hell, how are those tanks supposed to be so fast ? Do you ever see a tank speeding up in a battle zone in real life combat situation? Most of the time, they can't even pick up the speed of a car without spending all their fuel.

Shows what you know, mate. The top speed of an M113 is 42 miles per hour. Even an Abrams can cruise along at 35mph. And don't give me that "Ooh, it's a game full of giant space bugs and magic, so why should it even attempt to be realistic?" malarkey, either. They're tanks. If realism weren't a factor, why aren't space marines floating around on flying carpets and anti-gravity belts?

The word of the day is verisimilitude. Learn it well.

Moopy wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote: Captains are never taken,

Then a good designer would make captains more interesting and not make good unit crappy. Complete randomization of powers = a unit not worth it's cost.

And to everyone else that keeps bring up "it would be more realistic", you really needs to stop that. This is a game where you're always going to fail 1/6 of the time, full of massive world eating space bugs, and hand grenades that don't hurt anyone.

Ever since the designers started making 40k a faster game (3rd ed+), sales took off. I find it hard to believe that they'll reverse.

'Good Designer' + GW = Cognitive Dissonance

Actually I can see this version becoming more complex. If they simplify it much more they will be getting down to Warpath levels (and who wants expensive Warpath? Cheap Warpath is not exactly brilliant... and that's from someone who much prefers Kings of War to WFB).

I think GW have woken up to the fact that given the parlous state of the global economy, little Johnny is having a much harder time persuading Mum and Dad to shell out for toy soldiers. They need to remarket directly at the people with any kind of disposable income and that pushes them more towards the 'vet' market. Unfortunately for GW they've spent the best part of the last decade annoying exactly that group of players. It will be interesting to see what 6th will bring...

py. Complete randomization of powers = a unit not worth it's cost.

Fantasy calls, it's worked quite well there

Maybe what we need is just an overhaul of the psyker system to go with the randomization, to make it where each spell is just as useful as another and has a use. Believe me I wouldn't mind seeing a lot of new psyker abilities.

Besides even if they are complete crap, they still bring forth a force weapon and hood, or various other things.

They would still be better than the normal HQ's at that point.

I find it interesting that none of the Ork players have spoken up yet, even though we currently have random psychic powers.

Which raises the question, when did you last see an army with a weird boy?

If you can't rely on a unit to do what you need it to on a particular turn then you can't use it tactically, which automatically relegates it to the sidelines. See also Shokk attack guns and zzap guns...

Agamemnon2 wrote:

Khornate25 wrote:
I feel this would be more realistic a bit. I mean, hell, how are those tanks supposed to be so fast ? Do you ever see a tank speeding up in a battle zone in real life combat situation? Most of the time, they can't even pick up the speed of a car without spending all their fuel.

Shows what you know, mate. The top speed of an M113 is 42 miles per hour. Even an Abrams can cruise along at 35mph. And don't give me that "Ooh, it's a game full of giant space bugs and magic, so why should it even attempt to be realistic?" malarkey, either. They're tanks. If realism weren't a factor, why aren't space marines floating around on flying carpets and anti-gravity belts?

The word of the day is verisimilitude. Learn it well.

I know they can go up to this kind of speed bro, but it ain't efficient when you look at the amount of fuel/energy you have to use to move these huge armored vehicule.

Somehow, I doubt battlefield commanders are all that interested in their fuel bills. Doubly so in a setting where the economy is entirely centralized and warfare is prioritised as the most vital and important activity in the entire Imperium of Man.

Moopy wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote: Captains are never taken,

Then a good designer would make captains more interesting and not make good unit crappy. Complete randomization of powers = a unit not worth it's cost.

Exactly. There's other ways to make Captains,Autarchs etc. worth taking.
Making a good unit bad isn't it.

And to everyone else that keeps bring up "it would be more realistic", you really needs to stop that. This is a game where you're always going to fail 1/6 of the time, full of massive world eating space bugs, and hand grenades that don't hurt anyone.

There's different extents to realism; its grey, rather than black and white. That's why some aspects can be realistic whilst keeping the fantasy/fictional element.

I think any % is going to be too forgiving (50% would be way too high for HQ and 25% isnt a high enough min on troops) for it to have much impact on most games. I do feel it potentially punishes armies with high pts values especially at smaller game sizes in ways the FOC doesn't. In the end the only real benefit IMO is it allows the core rules to scale better at larger pts values than the FOC.......

Switching to percentages would let players pick up that fourth Predator/Falcon/Hammerhead or whatever, and GW does love to sell more models, yes?

It would also allow us to use some of the cheaper units that are fine for their cost, but seen as a waste of a FOC slot. Ork Big Gunz, for example, are pretty neat, but who's going to burn a Heavy Support slot on a 60 point unit? But if you could take it in addition to your 3 Killa Kan mobz... yeah. I'm all for it.

Personally I have no issue with a change to a percentage based system. I'm assuming that such a change would also include the same kind of system they added alongside the percentage system they have in Fantasy, which limits you to three/two duplicate Special/Rare choices (which just leaves Troop spamming as the only issue which requires attention). The current FOC has been around for a long time and could definitely do with some attention. A percentage based system would open up a range of different builds but for me the most important thing is that it scales and could breath some life into interest in games at the top and bottom of the spectrum. At the moment the FOC is actually limiting for many armies at sub 1000pt levels (since an HQ and two Troops takes up most of your army) and starts to run out of room above 2000-2500pts.

I can also believe an overhaul to the psychic system, but it would have to build around the existing mechanics in the various books to avoid completely breaking the game. Any kind of randomised lore type system would have to be in addition to or sit alongside existing powers, more like how the minor psychic powers worked in the past (so you can buy your major powers from your own codex and then get a couple of other random powers as well).

lord_blackfang wrote:Switching to percentages would let players pick up that fourth Predator/Falcon/Hammerhead or whatever, and GW does love to sell more models, yes?

It would also allow us to use some of the cheaper units that are fine for their cost, but seen as a waste of a FOC slot. Ork Big Gunz, for example, are pretty neat, but who's going to burn a Heavy Support slot on a 60 point unit? But if you could take it in addition to your 3 Killa Kan mobz... yeah. I'm all for it.

That is a very very good point. There are many many people that say "I would take that, but that slot has so many better choices". If they do it right, from my understanding, it will reduce the viability of spam lists whilst letting non spam lists take more of the things they want.

On the one hand I can't see them going for random powers. The WHFB magic fluff is very diffrent to the way psycic powers are supposed to work. However, It would take allot away from the GKs. It would make allot of their powers allot less powerfull and the book allot more balanced. Just thinking about books that are "written for 6th".

Having said all of this I don't beleave any of it is true.

Too much stuff is already balance around a restricted number of units via the foc, this sort of design is obvious looking at the newest codex releases.
If a percentage restriction is introduced in 6th ed then it should be along side the current foc.

I'd like to see them toning down psychic powers, especially to bring GK down to a slightly more balanced level (not that it would help MUCH, considering how extremely overpowered they are). But most of all I'd like to see more balance overall, so you didn't end up with codices where there's only two or three viable list options, and every other variation you try will get hammered into the ground by some cheesemonger list that your opponent found on the Internet.

[rant]

[/rant]

Get that damn FOC out of here. Percentages with limits (something like: max 2 of each non-troop/max 4 of each troop?) will open the field for a much wider variety of units. Take the sentinel. One of my favorite units, but unfortunately, hideously outclassed by the vendetta. I still manage to squeeze one in at lower pts, but the larger pts, the more that slot is worth and even for all the tactical utility the humble sentinel can bring, he is pushed away by a vendetta or a hellhound variant. Same with any notion of using roughriders, armoured sentinels, valkyries etc. Hard limit on number of the same unit + percentages = win for this game.

Psy-lores, meh, fine, just don't make them as powerful as in fantasy where every army must have a level 4 and where certain spells can win the game alone.

I also want premeasuring from fantasy. Having "guessing distance" as a major skill requirement stinks of poor game design.

6th ed is looking promising if it is based on the leaked ruleset + these rumors. Please GW, don't mess it up

lord_blackfang wrote:Switching to percentages would let players pick up that fourth Predator/Falcon/Hammerhead or whatever, and GW does love to sell more models, yes?

It would also allow us to use some of the cheaper units that are fine for their cost, but seen as a waste of a FOC slot. Ork Big Gunz, for example, are pretty neat, but who's going to burn a Heavy Support slot on a 60 point unit? But if you could take it in addition to your 3 Killa Kan mobz... yeah. I'm all for it.

But it works the other way as well say HS was 0-25% a Necron player wouldn't be able to field 3 Doomscythes at 1850pts or 2k pts because it would excede the alloted % for that category at that pts value game. This puts a second backhanded cost on top of being a higher pts cost to begin with for armies with expensive units.

SgtSixkilla wrote:AFAIK the Emperor never personally rescinded the edict of Nikea, so in my book, all librarians are heretics anyway.

He didn't need to - there are just a couple of people at GW who don't know that "sorcery" =/= "psionics".

I don't want psionics to be weaker, I want anti-psionics to be stronger. For example, if I was writing the next Chaos codex a botched Psyker test would give the Chaos player a free summoning attempt, right on your position. Maybe Tzeentch would counter psykers with their own sorcerers, but a pack of Flesh Hounds popping into existence to chew your face off would be a more characterful way for Khorne to deal with them. Sisters of Battle would have anti-witch weapons and their Faith, Tyranids would have the Shadow in the Warp as a global debuff, and so on.

It always seemed to me that psykers were supposed to be a bit random. Nothing else has to take a test in order to use an ability. I'd like to see the chance of failure increased (because so many psykers have LD 10), with enemy psychic hoods acting to increase those odds.

But as a Tau player, none of this psyker stuff really matters to me...

Illumini wrote:Get that damn FOC out of here. Percentages with limits (something like: max 2 of each non-troop/max 4 of each troop?) will open the field for a much wider variety of units.

It would bring a bit of variety but it would also make it so that every vehicle squadron only consists of one tank because that's the most effective way to field them and the slots aren't a problem anymore. Assuming heavy support is 25%, for a 2000 points list, with the no more than double the same choice restriction, you could take:

Hydra
Hydra
Griffon
Medusa
Medusa

For five 'heavy support choices'. Similarly, for fast attack you could take two single Vendettas and two single Hellhounds for four 'fast attack choices'. Now if there's some mechanic like someone rumoured that you can get more heavy or elites or fast if you sacrfice one of the other, then things spin totally out of control for armies like IG who will bump it up to about ten 'heavy support choices'.

Troops choices also better have a restriction, for example no more than four of the same, or armies like GK with their el cheapo henchmen can make all sorts of pretty impossible to defeat in victory conditions lists.

I also want premeasuring from fantasy. Having "guessing distance" as a major skill requirement stinks of poor game design.

You won't find many hardcore gamers from 40K or Fantasy who agree with this. WFB is a much less tactical game this edition than what it was before and 40K shouldn't follow the same route.