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And the only way that fixes anything is if the meta shifts so that everyone always brings reserves (and preferably the maximum amount of them).

So, do you think the game should be defined by deep striking and reserves?

 Lance845 wrote:
And the only way that fixes anything is if the meta shifts so that everyone always brings reserves (and preferably the maximum amount of them).

So, do you think the game should be defined by deep striking and reserves?

Absolutely not, but in my experience, most players put SOMETHING in Reserves. Tons of units have the option and if you could bring them in on Turn 1 (because you went 2nd) than you would see more use out of them.
The point would be that the player who goes 2nd isn't forced to sit through 2 whole opponent turns before being able to react to them.

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 Galef wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
And the only way that fixes anything is if the meta shifts so that everyone always brings reserves (and preferably the maximum amount of them).

So, do you think the game should be defined by deep striking and reserves?

Absolutely not, but in my experience, most players put SOMETHING in Reserves. Tons of units have the option and if you could bring them in on Turn 1 (because you went 2nd) than you would see more use out of them.
The point would be that the player who goes 2nd isn't forced to sit through 2 whole opponent turns before being able to react to them.

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The point would be that the player who goes 2nd isn't forced to sit through 2 whole opponent turns before being able to react to them, IF they commit to reserves AND they still can't really react to them. It's still 2 players taking turns swinging clubs at each others. Just player 2 and player 1 get to protect a portion of their club in reserves and player 2 gets to get a jump on deploying them IF they commit to that strategy.

Again, this doesn't actually fix the underlying issue. In the worst/best case scenario it makes it so player 1 is now the person being alpha struck upon.

I play nids, and mostly Jormungandr. I would LOVE to go second. Deploy like... 7-10 units from deepstrike. Cover the table in places so your deepstrikes cannot even fit besides inside your own deployment area and then blast your on the table force to pieces in a massive volly of deathspitters and venom canons. Without sarcasm that sounds miserable. The alpha strike didn't go away. It just became mine.

The big things that really help make other games like k47 feel more fair to both players was reaction abilitys and the semi alternating activations. imho those would be pretty good to have in some shape or another. also the pinning mechanic.

some one started shooting at you? reaction if you are close is to start a fire fight, if you are far away run for cover. fast vehicles usually have Recce, allow you to react in different ways from other vehicles.

doing this stuff pulls their activation in general so you at least get to use them. but allows for "tactical" choices

Pinning makes leadership matter as every shot that at least hits isnt wasted doing nothing.

the random activation does feel kinda meh at times but straight alternating activation could help significantly imho.

How do?

So I’ve been having a good old ponder about damage in Apocalypse, and damage in 40k.

I’m a prospective fan of how Apocalypse applies damage as a separate phase, at the end of the Game Round. I’m sure you can see the appeal, both as someone who hates to see expensive (cash and points wise) models removed too early, as a tabletop strategist.

At first, I thought this could translate neatly into 40k. But someone (sorry, can’t remember your name!) mentioned that due to higher rates of fire in 40k, we’d need loads of wound markers/book keeping (damage is greatly simplified in Apocalypse).

So how else, what else might we be able to do to shake things up? After a good, hard ponder (chin scratching included!) it occurred to me....You Declare All Targets Before Resolving Any Attacks.

See, this somewhat balances out sheer jammy rolling, and rewards a more strategic level of effort beyond ‘shoot it until it’s gone, then move on’. It introduces the risk of one targeted unit being wiped out whilst still having further shots assigned, and the flip side of the risk of not assigning enough to get the job done. It’s also arguably more realistic.

Heck, one could even include having to declare Stratagems as you go, further adding risk balancing to our strategic thinking, and again helping to reduce the impact of incredibly lucky rolling.

Good luck remembering every single unit you declared This would be a massive pain too if you just didn’t even get to shoot a unit because the target died already.

That’s.....kinda the point.

The risk between Making It Ded, and wasting firepower.

As for remembering what’s declared? Simple tokens would suffice, or just a die next to each that’s declared. Not difficult at all.

I agree the Apoc style Damage phase could be brought to 40K. It's not really all that different to how Necron players play their units; keeping track of how many models "died" per unit until their turn to roll RPs.

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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That’s.....kinda the point.

The risk between Making It Ded, and wasting firepower.

As for remembering what’s declared? Simple tokens would suffice, or just a die next to each that’s declared. Not difficult at all.

Those tokens could add up pretty quickly though. My drukhari often field a bunch of basic troops inside of transports. It's not uncommon for me to shoot most of the squad at one target, the special weapon at another, and maybe the sergeant at a third target (if I gave them a weird weapon). It wouldn't be difficult for me to end up with a couple of dozen target markers for a given shooting phase. And then I either need to have markers unique enough to remember which type of shooting they each represent or else I have to double the number of markers involved by putting a matching marker next to each shooter.


Here's a weird, ham-fisted, probably bad idea: what if you just put a cap on how much damage a unit could take on the first turn? Say, for the sake of discussion, that a given unit couldn't lose more than half of its starting number of models and that single-model units with more than 5 wounds can't lose their last wound or can't be reduced below 3/4ths of their starting wounds or whatever.

The idea there would be that you could still reduce your opponent's overall offense by diminishing squad sizes and knocking vehicles/MC's down a health bracket, but both players would still get to use all of their units at least once. A diminished form of alpha striking would still be possible, but the player who got alpha struck would theoretically retain more of their offense than normal. Plus, wounding but not finishing enemy units off on turn 1 would mean that the alpha struck player's lower priority (read: less killy) units would just have to finish some weakened vehicles off on turn 2 onward rather than dealing with a bunch of fresh enemy units.

Justify it as the cinematic logic driving the battle requiring the action ramp up rather than being a one-sided anticlimax. Maybe add a universal stratagem that lets you finish a single enemy unit off on the first turn. Thoughts?

If you can engage the enemy army with so much firepower in turn 1 that is ends the game then you’ve both failed at deploying behind cover and using terrain. People don’t put enough terrain down. It’s really weird people just line up armies across an empty table and exchange volleys. We can also give bonuses to vehicles for taking frontal damage. +1 to save. And reward flanking with -1 to save. Infantry get great cover saves because of their class. All that would help lower the damage of turn 1. My new rules are gonna cover a bunch of simple things like that to make the game better for those wanting some actual strategy

Unit classes. I’m trying to create a new system where each class of unit has specific battlefield purposes. The battlefield itself is n integral part of the game And how it is played. Every class of unit has qualities that allow it to function effectively in certain battlefield environments. Infantry are cheap and survivable if they make it to cover. Heavy infantry is more expensive but is highly effective at clearing light infantry units out. Walkers and heavy assault infantry are excellent at killing other heavy infantry. Ordnance weapons can negate the cover offered by ruins and buildings and kills infantry of all kinds. But ordnance is easily destroyed by tanks. Terrain becomes important. Unit choice and balance becomes important. Positioning and strategy becomes much more important. It isn’t a matter of just rolling a hundred dice and having good luck.

HQ units provide leadership and special bonuses to units.

Light Infantry - guardians, guardsman. T3 units (saves on D6)

Light infantry is mobile ground troops that is intended to hold territory. Their protection is from being able to take cover inside buildings or the environment. They are very effective and slowing down armored units by hiding in buildings and utilizing anti tank rockets, melta guns, or mortars.
-2 to hit while in cover ( cover saves do not stack)
-1 to hit from Medium weapons
-2 to hit from heavy weapons
+1 to hit vehicles

Heavy infantry - T4 and T5 (space marine power armor) save on D6. Terminator and equivalent on D8
Heavy infantry are shock troops that can survive the extreme dangers of close quarters fighting with other infantry units. Their armor easily protects against most man portable type weapons and their firepower makes quick work of light infantry
+1 save against light infantry weapons
-1 to hit while in cover
-1 to hit from heavy weapons
+1 to hit vehicles

Light vehicles / Open topped T6
+1 to hit from light infantry
+1 to save from anti personnel weapons
-1 to hit from Heavy weapons

Artillery/Ordnance- these weapons are designed to pummel buildings and destroy troop formations. They ignore cover saves for infantry. (Whirl winds, night spinner, earth shaker artillery)

Air defenses - Air defense units may choose to not shoot during their turn and go into overwatch. Any enemy air craft entering their firing range during the opponents movement phase may then be fired upon on that opponents turn

Walkers - a class of walking machines designed to operate in difficult terrain such as hills and debris filled ruins.
Ignores movement penalties for difficult terrain that wheeled or tracked vehicles suffer. Excellent for supporting infantry in rough terrain.

Weapon classes
Anti personnel- Lasguns, Bolters. Shuriken. S3/4

Special weapons - These weapons are intended to give infantry the capability to deal with special threats or situations.

flame thrower - flaming napalm spray for quickly clearing building and bunkers or enemy troops or hosing down hordes of infantry in the open. Ineffective against enclosed targets like terminators or tanks
Ignores cover saves. Wounds light infantry on 2+

Meltagun - high energy weapon intended to melt through the heaviest armor. This gives infantry the ability to destroy heavily armored targets like walkers and tanks at close city fighting ranges (keeps same profile)

Plasma rifle - an intermediate range energy weapon that gives infantry some standoff distance to deal with heavy infantry and light armor threats. (Same profile)

Anti light vehicle / Heavy infantry - scatter lasers. Heavy bolters S5/6

Heavy (anti tank) - lascannon. Missile launcher. Multi Melta. S7/8/9

Flyers.

Primaris Space marine example profile
Heavy Infantry
M8 BS3+ WS3+ S4 T4 W2 A2 SV 3+
+1 save against light infantry weapons
-1 to hit while in cover
-1 to hit from heavy weapons
+1 to hit vehicles

Armed with Bolter
Range 24” Type Heavy Rifle S4 AP-1 D3 Damage
Rapid Fire (all infantry rifles have rapid fire except special or heavy weapons)
Options. Take armor piercing ammo for 3 points per model. -2AP version.
Special rule -mass reactive warhead- any target suffering an unsaved wound suffers D3 damage

Combat knife
Type edged weapon S4
Wounds on 2+ against light infantry

Space Marine Terminator
Heavy Infantry
M8 BS2+ WS2+ S5 T5 W3 A2 SV2+ (D8)
+1 to hit tanks

Weapons
Storm Bolter

Range 24” Type Heavy Rifle S4 AP-1 D3 Damage
Rapid Fire (all infantry rifles have rapid fire except special or heavy weapons)
Options. Take armor piercing ammo for 3 points per model. -2AP version.
Special rule -mass reactive warhead- any target suffering an unsaved wound takes D3 damage

Power fist - a energized combat gauntlet worn by terminator units to smash through bulkheads and tanks.
S10 -4AP 3+D3 damage
Special rule - Make a hole. Terminators May move though buildings as if they were not there, smashing through walls with ease and then using storm bolters and power fists to kill everyone inside

Assault cannon
Firing a torrent of small light armor piercing ammunition, the assault cannon is intended to clear large numbers of lightly armored troops.

Range 24 Assault 6 S4 AP-1 D1
Rapid fire

Imperial guardsman
His best offense is sheer numbers. His best defense is excellent use of cover and being the smallest and toughest thing to hit on the battlefield.
Type Light Infantry
M8 WS 4+ BS4+ S3 T3 A1 SV5+
+2 cover save when in ruins, buildings, rocks
-1 to hit from Medium weapons
-2 to hit from heavy weapons
+1 to hit vehicles

Lasgun
Range 24. S3 AP0
Rapid fire
Upgrade options.
Hot-shot power cell and barrel upgrade
-1 AP for 2points per model. The Hot-Shot weapons package allows the standard lasgun to have the punch needed to pierce heavy infantry armor with some luck and volume of fire.

Command points. Every army starts with 5 command points. From that point the army gains command points each turn by holding objectives and killing enemy units. Each objective held generates 1 command point per turn and wiping out an enemy unit completely also generates command points. 1 point per 100 points destroyed. Rounded up. So 55 point unit killed will generate 1 command point. A 340 point shining spear unit killed will generate 3 command points.

Moving - movement range is indicated by the movement value of each unit. Units moving faster than 12 or more inches per turn have a -1 to hit. Assault troops with jump packs. Flyers. Bikers. These units all move so rapidly it is difficult to score hits.

battlefield terrain can affect the ability of units to move. Deep water, sheer cliffs, are all impossible to cross unless the unit flys. Rocky terrain, steep inclines, bombed out buildings with rubble are all treacherous terrain for infantry and vehicles to attempt to pass. Movement is cut in half to reflect the difficulty of navigating through this terrain. Roll a d6 for tracked or wheeled vehicles moving through such terrain. On a 6 the unit is stuck until the next turn. Walkers, anti grav and flyers all ignore difficult terrain.

Shooting - declare the target. Take into account all to hit modifiers. Roll to hit.

Charging- failed charged because you rolled double 1’s? That’s absolute nonsense. All charges are 6+d6 inches.

Assault troops ignore overwatch. Howling banshees. Genestealers. Assault marines. By using technology like banshee masks, lightning fast bounding leaps, or high angles of attack, or flash bang grenades, assault troops negate overwatch. They also have +1 strength on the charge.

Cover and saves.

Terrain and it’s importance. The battlefield determines the strategy, tactics, and units to be used. An open battlefield is heaven for tank heavy armies while an urban battlefield is perfect for infantry equipped with short range firepower to bust tanks open in the alleys.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
These are just some ideas. And notes

Thanks for all who posted to this thread. I would love to play 40k but hate the rules. If only I could get the 40k guys in my club to give some of this a shot, they love Bolt Action so there is some hope.