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Depends. I dont mind marines being a bit better against units in cover than guard for example. But they then have to pay more for their shooting overall or guard being better at something else. Still needs to be more subtle than hit only on 6+ or - 1 to hit in the current system. You need more than 1 thing to change since the system is so bare bones that a single change will have drastic consequences

Maybe cover should just cut incoming hits by a set percentage before wounds and saves.

My point was that it would mean a obscured penalty as well as being in cover if actuay in cover as well a LOS blocking terrain would be more dimentional for manouvering.

You could cap the penealty at -2 for any other modifiers. So if you have heavy weapon and move its -1 if obscured its another -1. So if you have -1 for another reason like trait, psychic power you max out at -2 but get that benefit at other times.

If you were actualy in cover youd be obscured AND have a better save.

And yes reroll everything is a problem as it makes all of these chnges moot..

I get why Judmah is so against this is because he thinks orks would suffer the most. You'd have to tweak their rules somewhat and points I guess.

Or we just accept some armies will always be more accurate at shooting than other armies... Which then specialise in melee usualy so you have to fix melee next.

 Jidmah wrote:

Klickor wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Then make it a flat value.

Shooting at a target that is obscured is a 6+ to hit.

That is just the same problem but reversed. Bs 3+ lose 75% of its shooting while 5+ lose 50% and bs3+ probably costs more than 50% extra while also loosing 50% more shooting compared to bs 5+.

Exactly. A unit in cover should have the exact same percentage of protection against ork lootas as against a unit of suppressors.
Therefore -1 to hit or hitting on 6+ are inherently flawed mechanics for anything that affects multiple units at once.

Making cover re-roll 6s to hit impacts every model the same (it's a 17% reduction in hits). Problem is, there's so many re-rolls in the game and they'd have to reconcile how that interacts with them.

Just double checking...

36 shots, rerolling 6s, hitting on...

2+
24 hits+6 rerolls=29 hits, versus 30 normally.
A 3.4% reduction

4+
12 hits+6 rerolls=15 hits, versus 18 normally
A 20% reduction.

6+
6 rerolls=1 hit, versus 6 normally
A 600% reduction.

Yeah... Doesn't scale well.

I guess I should've checked my work first. I thought since re-rolling 1s was always a 17% increase, the inverse would be true... woops!

You could have obscurement and cover be at different spectrum of who it benefits more, having them counter each other out so having both doesn't benefit one army more than the other. Mechanics are not made in isolation, and if you can get the system to balance out it doesn't really matter if one part of it benefit certain people more.

More toward the original topic, I think a good way to make LoS less finicky is to add a "hide" option (borrowing from Mordhiem). the unit can't advance, shoot, or charge, but they can't be targeted by a model if the unit is even partly obscured by cover (and before anyone says it, yes, character targetting would need to be fixed before this would be implemented.

 Argive wrote:
Or we just accept some armies will always be more accurate at shooting than other armies... Which then specialise in melee usualy so you have to fix melee next.

Oh, this (sorry) dumb argument again.

1) Orks are as much a shooting and melee army as marines are. The vast majority of ork units are shooting focused and marines are just as good or better in combat than orks.
2) Low BS is not the same as bad at shooting. It's just as hard to take cover from 15 lootas literally filling the air with lead than from 5 suppressors.
3) If regular cover halves ork shooting, then all marine units should go up by 33% to compensate because they now hit four times as often instead of three times as good OR you don't use -1 to hit because it's and inherently flawed mechanic

And no, it's not ok that some armies get invalidated by core game mechanics. That's why hitting on sixes because of cover is just as bad as -1 to hit.

Cover saves at least gave low-armour army players something to do during their turn besides remove miniatures...

Perhaps have obstructions grant a steadily improving FNP roll, and successful rolls taken against whatever granted the cover.(If applicable).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Cover saves at least gave low-armour army players something to do during their turn besides remove miniatures...

Besides cackling madly when our opponents still lost on objectives?
I miss playing Guard.

 carldooley wrote:
Perhaps have obstructions grant a steadily improving FNP roll, and successful rolls taken against whatever granted the cover.(If applicable)...

Do we really need all attacks in the game to be made up of seven steps? (Hit/hit reroll/wound/wound reroll/save/damage/FNP)

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
Perhaps have obstructions grant a steadily improving FNP roll, and successful rolls taken against whatever granted the cover.(If applicable)...

Do we really need all attacks in the game to be made up of seven steps? (Hit/hit reroll/wound/wound reroll/save/damage/FNP)

Hey, you forgot the Save reroll, damage reroll, FNP reroll, + some misc roll/reroll!

ccs wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
Perhaps have obstructions grant a steadily improving FNP roll, and successful rolls taken against whatever granted the cover.(If applicable)...

Do we really need all attacks in the game to be made up of seven steps? (Hit/hit reroll/wound/wound reroll/save/damage/FNP)

Hey, you forgot the Save reroll, damage reroll, FNP reroll, + some misc roll/reroll!

And the exploding hits roll, exploding hits reroll, splitting wounds or saves into multiple steps based on some critical-hit/critical-wound condition, forgetting one of your stratagems or reroll steps and going back and starting over again...

 Jidmah wrote:

 Argive wrote:
Or we just accept some armies will always be more accurate at shooting than other armies... Which then specialise in melee usualy so you have to fix melee next.

Oh, this (sorry) dumb argument again.

1) Orks are as much a shooting and melee army as marines are. The vast majority of ork units are shooting focused and marines are just as good or better in combat than orks.
2) Low BS is not the same as bad at shooting. It's just as hard to take cover from 15 lootas literally filling the air with lead than from 5 suppressors.
3) If regular cover halves ork shooting, then all marine units should go up by 33% to compensate because they now hit four times as often instead of three times as good OR you don't use -1 to hit because it's and inherently flawed mechanic

And no, it's not ok that some armies get invalidated by core game mechanics. That's why hitting on sixes because of cover is just as bad as -1 to hit.

That was uncalled for...
How you went from what I said to "armies being invalidated" does not compute.. I see I hit a nerve but I was just stating the obvious and certainly did not mean to antagonise. Was just sort of stating the obvious.. Are we really going to say the Orks edge does not come from CC potency? I'm not saying orks don't have a couple units that shoot good...

If you didn't just latch on the last part you'd have noticed I suggested adjusting rules or pts to reflect any change in this direction. Perhaps have the ORKS have different caps on the modifiers/tweak points and some strategems.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

ccs wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
Perhaps have obstructions grant a steadily improving FNP roll, and successful rolls taken against whatever granted the cover.(If applicable)...

Do we really need all attacks in the game to be made up of seven steps? (Hit/hit reroll/wound/wound reroll/save/damage/FNP)

Hey, you forgot the Save reroll, damage reroll, FNP reroll, + some misc roll/reroll!

And the exploding hits roll, exploding hits reroll, splitting wounds or saves into multiple steps based on some critical-hit/critical-wound condition, forgetting one of your stratagems or reroll steps and going back and starting over again...

If you guys want to go back to the insanity of invisible death stars we can do that. But to balance that out... how about every shot that hits is a mortal wound?

 carldooley wrote:
...If you guys want to go back to the insanity of invisible death stars we can do that. But to balance that out... how about every shot that hits is a mortal wound?

And you can't conceive of a game that doesn't have either invisible deathstars or ten steps to resolve every attack?

No one addressed a flat percentage reduction. No rolls. In fact, fewer rolls.

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
This is not a simulation, this is a dice rolling game.

A space marine cuddling with his chapter master doesn't give a damn about -1 to hit, an ork army loses 50% of its shooting. It's inherently unfair towards low BS units and therefore should not even be considered for a game-wide mechanic.

In that case the problem is rerolling all failed hits. It's a bad mechanic and needs to be removed.

Full rerolls only matter when there are negative mods. I made this to illustrate some of the issue.

It shows the effectiveness of rerolls for various BS rolls and modifiers. Then it shows how much of an improvement of each step there is over the base of no rerolls.

You'll notice how much full rerolls improves odds for Marines w/ BS2 / BS3 on -2 to hit. BS2 does well with -1 to hit also being twice the improvement. With marines taking a lot of BS2 dreads it is no wonder people feel like they're absolutely oppressive.

(And this is why negative hit mods for cover would not really save us much.)

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
This is not a simulation, this is a dice rolling game.

A space marine cuddling with his chapter master doesn't give a damn about -1 to hit, an ork army loses 50% of its shooting. It's inherently unfair towards low BS units and therefore should not even be considered for a game-wide mechanic.

In that case the problem is rerolling all failed hits. It's a bad mechanic and needs to be removed.

Full rerolls only matter when there are negative mods. I made this to illustrate some of the issue.

It shows the effectiveness of rerolls for various BS rolls and modifiers. Then it shows how much of an improvement of each step there is over the base of no rerolls.

You'll notice how much full rerolls improves odds for Marines w/ BS2 / BS3 on -2 to hit. BS2 does well with -1 to hit also being twice the improvement. With marines taking a lot of BS2 dreads it is no wonder people feel like they're absolutely oppressive.

(And this is why negative hit mods for cover would not really save us much.)

Thank you for taking the time to put this together.
(I think we should all spam this to GW email address so maybe they will take note of math )

Interestingly, if we applied the obscure rule, with no re-rolls involved a -1 penalty penalises every faction with about 16%-17 loss in effectiveness evenly. The spread remains similar with re-roll failed. Howver once we get to the re-roll all we can see the divide.

How about making cover have a save and a modifier. It replaces your armor save but still is affected by AP. If your armor is equal, you end up with a slight boost. So for example a wood wall might provide a 6+ or a +1 up to a 5+ save. It doesn't help most, but if you are running around in your skivvies, it gives you a little protection against small arms. However the heavy bolter unloading on you doesn't care and will chew through it easily. A ruin could be 4+ or +1 to your save up to a 3+. A fortified bunker could be 2+ or a +1 to a 1+ ( 1 always fails). Basically it protects everything inside except against dedicated bunker buster weapons like a demolisher cannon. Terminators now have a reason to jump into cover but only into extremely heavy duty pieces. Otherwise they have no benefits to not walking around as small tanks. Armies that rely on invuls get bonuses assuming the cover is heavy enough, but against anti-tank weapons that would cut through cover, they still have their native defense they pay points for that a guardsmen wouldn't get.

mightymconeshot wrote:
How about making cover have a save and a modifier. It replaces your armor save but still is affected by AP. If your armor is equal, you end up with a slight boost. So for example a wood wall might provide a 6+ or a +1 up to a 5+ save. It doesn't help most, but if you are running around in your skivvies, it gives you a little protection against small arms. However the heavy bolter unloading on you doesn't care and will chew through it easily. A ruin could be 4+ or +1 to your save up to a 3+. A fortified bunker could be 2+ or a +1 to a 1+ ( 1 always fails). Basically it protects everything inside except against dedicated bunker buster weapons like a demolisher cannon. Terminators now have a reason to jump into cover but only into extremely heavy duty pieces. Otherwise they have no benefits to not walking around as small tanks. Armies that rely on invuls get bonuses assuming the cover is heavy enough, but against anti-tank weapons that would cut through cover, they still have their native defense they pay points for that a guardsmen wouldn't get.

How many steps are we adding to gameplay here?

No die rolls. Just make light cover knock out 20% of hits to a squad and heavy cover 40%. Done. Everyone gets equal benefit.

I think when we are talking about LoS and terrain we are talking about 2 things that should have 2 different effects and 2 different design goals.

The first is terrain and a units ability to occupy it and gain a bonus for doing so. "Cover" if you will. This is a unit taking up positions inside ruins. Or manning a ADL. The goal of this is to create fortifications and advantages for units to take up positions and holding them. Creating a distinct choice a player makes in choosing to hold a unit in a position vs keeping them in open ground and moving.

The second is obstruction, which is what happens when a unit shoots at a target through something else. The goal and purpose of this is to make positioning matter. Not just for protecting your units but for targeting the units you want to target. I personally think intervening units should be working more or less exactly like intervening terrain. Flanking maneuvers and deep strikes gain more value when this is in effect.

These are separate things.

When people say terrain should give a +sv bonus or whatever they are mostly talking about the first version. Holding a fortified position by occupying terrain.

When people are talking about penalties to hit they are mostly talking about the second. Shooting through something to hit something else.

There is no reason for it to be one or the others. The game should have both. I would even argue that the game NEEDS both. And each should be handled separately.

 Argive wrote:
How you went from what I said to "armies being invalidated" does not compute.. I see I hit a nerve but I was just stating the obvious and certainly did not mean to antagonise. Was just sort of stating the obvious.. Are we really going to say the Orks edge does not come from CC potency? I'm not saying orks don't have a couple units that shoot good...

See, this is the part that annoys me. It get's repeated over and over again, and it's just flat out wrong.
Out of the 90 datasheets available to orks, only boyz, nobz, MANz, kommandos, storm boyz, the bonebreaka and maybe the squiggoth are dedicated close combat units. Out of the 22 character options only 9 are dedicated combatants.
There are another six datasheets that are great at both shooting and in combat, but all other are 67 datasheets are dedicated to shooting, are fragile support characters or transports.

Considering this can be found out to some extend by just scrolling through the store on GW's homepage, I'm convinced such an uninformed and clearly wrong argument can rightfully he called 'dumb'.

As for "CC potency"... just roll the dice for charging a unit of boyz into an equal amout of points spent on intercessors (a shooting unit) and see how that goes.

If you didn't just latch on the last part you'd have noticed I suggested adjusting rules or pts to reflect any change in this direction. Perhaps have the ORKS have different caps on the modifiers/tweak points and some strategems.

We already have that, and you still are boned when facing arm-wide -1 to hit. Stratagems and specialized unit work when there are a few -X to hit units around, not when everyone has it.
It's also not just orks or tyranids who are affected, it's also tau and IG who suffer more from it than marines do - do you suggest those go into combat, too?
Basically, there is no fair way to balance -1 to hit. Either you cost units as if they were in cover all the time, making BS2+/3+ units too expensive when shooting at stuff not in cover, or you cost them as if they weren't in cover, then things thing with BS4+/5+ suffer from that.
In KT the mechanic only works because there are very few "units" and less range involved and because it's quite easy to stack to only be hit on sixes, even against marines.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

By abstrating terrain height you're making the terrain itself less important.

Alternative take: By removing the impact of the physical dimensions of terrain you open up more freedom for people to make cool terrain without having to worry about how it will actually function as terrain in the game.

This, and it is same would be true for models. Why make a cool looking character that fits your army, if it is far bather to make him kneel or crawl on the ground, exept for those rare cases when he actualy has a viable range attack?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
...If you guys want to go back to the insanity of invisible death stars we can do that. But to balance that out... how about every shot that hits is a mortal wound?

And you can't conceive of a game that doesn't have either invisible deathstars or ten steps to resolve every attack?

This entire thread is why people don't like terrain.
I can tell you why I don't like terrain:
'You don't have Line of Sight to shoot at my models.'
'Not even Flamers?'
'Correct. But it doesn't stop my army from assaulting yours.'

Knowledge fail

If you want Flyers, you use additional rules.
If you want Deepstrikers, you use additional rules.
All models have additional rules that add to the complexity of the game.
Why shouldn't terrain?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

mightymconeshot wrote:
How about making cover have a save and a modifier. It replaces your armor save but still is affected by AP. If your armor is equal, you end up with a slight boost. So for example a wood wall might provide a 6+ or a +1 up to a 5+ save. It doesn't help most, but if you are running around in your skivvies, it gives you a little protection against small arms. However the heavy bolter unloading on you doesn't care and will chew through it easily. A ruin could be 4+ or +1 to your save up to a 3+. A fortified bunker could be 2+ or a +1 to a 1+ ( 1 always fails). Basically it protects everything inside except against dedicated bunker buster weapons like a demolisher cannon. Terminators now have a reason to jump into cover but only into extremely heavy duty pieces. Otherwise they have no benefits to not walking around as small tanks. Armies that rely on invuls get bonuses assuming the cover is heavy enough, but against anti-tank weapons that would cut through cover, they still have their native defense they pay points for that a guardsmen wouldn't get.

How many steps are we adding to gameplay here?

1, what type of cover are you in? Than the answer will tell you you either get a X+ save or if you already have that save a +1 to your save. The core book should have 1 small table added of what common items should be a 6+, 5+, 4+, 3+, and 2+ types of cover saves. Anything that isn't in that list should be agreed upon between players.

How about looking at what cover is meant to do a bit differently, we have a lot fo "to hit" modifiers now, which is ok for "obscured" type cover, literally making something harder to hit because you can't really see it makes sense.

That also works for out of sight, but how about making cover where you can quite clearly see a thing, its just you can also see that its partly behind a wall or something result in a toughness bonus?

so say behind a wall is a +1T, behind something like an armoured barricade a +2T and similar.

now that marine say being hit by a laser cannon goes from T4 to say T5 so gets some benefit, Guards and similar get a benefit v anti infantry and lighter anti armour weapons, vehicles if they qualify get a bit of a boost on paper but in practice should be drawing anti tank firepower so its a smaller difference.

you now have interactions on "to hit" being possible with "to save" as now, but also on the "to wound" roll.

avoids most of the issues with "my army is -1 to hit" or "I have made this unit -1 to hit" stuff stacking as while there are a few ways to boost toughness there are not all that many of them (compared to ways to modify the to hit roll at least)

plus it has something of the right feel to it. you stand behind a barricade and your outline is no harder to hit, its just that there is a barricade in front of a good portion of you so you will be harder to hurt.

as opposed to something like a holofield which provides no physical protection if you are hit, but makes you less likely to be hit in the first place.

A balance of modifiers sounds like a good idea. Space Marines and other accurate units might not care much about concealment but if the targets get a bit harder to wound it will feel more impactful. Most Marine weapons usually fall in to just being 1 str higher than the common toughness values you want to target them with so +1t is often same as -1 to wound. And going from 3s to 4s without rerolls is more impactful than going from 2/3 to 3/4 with rerolls.

And a unit that would get -1 to hit, +1T and +1sv is gonna be hard to shift for any army and be more all around balanced than -3 to hit, or +3save that will just hose certain armies for sure.