Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So after thinking about how absurd it is for your army to stand by and watch calmly as drop pods full of marines land safely, jump out, and start shooting at you before they do anything about it, I remembered that there used to be something that would remedy this: overwatch.

I thought about how it would help against Tau and Eldar pop out attacks, and demon bombs, and deep striking terminators, etc.  But then I thought about how, if worded wrong, it would totally screw any footslogging army. 

So, here's my proposed rule for overwatch:

A unit may enter overwatch if it has not moved or fired this turn, including using psychic powers, fleet of foot, or any other non-movement or non-shooting action that takes up a unit's movement or shooting phase, and if it does not have line of sight to an enemy unit.  A unit currently in overwatch may fire during an opponent's turn at the first enemy unit that moves into that unit's line of sight.  The shot is taken at -1 BS.  Once a unit has fired in this manner it leaves overwatch.  The unit also leaves overwatch if, for any reason, it moves, fires, or has to make a leadership check.  Vehicles may not enter overwatch.  If multiple units in overwatch gain light of sight to a single target, the controller may make units after the first hold their fire and remain in overwatch, but at least one unit in overwatch must shoot at the enemy unit. 

So is 4th ed ready for overwatch?  I think it might be a bit unbalancing in some situations.  I also think it will make people think a bit more about cover and LOS when setting up a board.

As usual for 40k, this is a good idea that falls apart when Marines and the broken AP system are factored into the equation.

To elaborate, -1 BS is indeed somewhat major; my beloved Guardsmen now only hit 1/3 the time. Marines, however, still hit 50% of the time. Furthermore, those hits are AP5 weapons, which ignore the armor for assaulting Guardsmen (we do assault from time to time!), Orks, 'Nids, Eldar, and Kroot. Assuming a T3 opponant, that still gives us a 33% chance of a casulty per shot. Now, since this very well could be within double-tap range, well, that could very well be almost 6 creatures gone. Plus, your proposed rules make no exception for heavy weapons or special weapons; the flamer, in a situation like this, is nauseatingly strong, and in addition, most heavy and special weapons have AP5 or better, which means more saves are ignored.

These problems aside, Overwatch would still be hard to balance, given the many ways in which 40k manages to drop the ball on even simple matters.

So, if you want this, you'd have to do a lot of work. By that, i mean a near-total re-write of the system.

OVERWATCH?

ABSOLUTELY.

Its in almost every other wargame of substance. There are myriad ridiculous scenarios in 40K where this would be the ideal solution. This however is old ground for many here, I bet they will pop in...

All the restrictions you listed wok, really arent necesary, Overwatch would work in the normal context of the rules almost exactly as it did before, with a lot less fidgety qualifiers, make it this:

A unit that did not move can ellect to go into overwatch by forgoing it's opportunity to act at all in it's turn (and passing a LD check too, if enemy units are in LOS; like the shooting at more distant targets check rule).  Any unit that does so may ellect to fire at any point in the opponents following movement phase at any NEW TARGET THAT PRESENTS ITSELF.

That's it, all that is necesary is that overwatch units can not fire at units they could already see, and they can not overwatch in response to enemy units firing at them, only to movement, and only at units that were not previously visible.  Overwatch is suppose to compensate for the arbitrary articificial abstract division in time that a turn sequence causes. Not to provide a mechanism that ensures first fire, and not to overly complicate the game, for ease of play I suggest any template weapon simply do D3 hits if flamer size or smaller and D6 for ordinance.

(Prepare for players with love for turn 1 charges, drop pods, demon bombs and 24 inch plus charge units to whine. To them I say, go play WHFB where it's not a shooting game.)

Ogiwan: I understand that it's not optimal. My Carnifexes have the same problem your IG do. You're talking about problems inherent to the game itself that arent going to be solved with a new little rule.

Augutus: I wanted to make it as clear as possible. Mainly what I wanted to do was prevent an army from sitting there, everyone going on overwatch, and firing during their opponents turn as they moved into range, and then firing again during their turn. Your version is fine, I was being overly verbose to make sure I covered as much as I could. I don't expect everyone here to remember the old 2nd ed overwatch rule. I barely remember it myself.

I am all for this rule.  I have always thought rules like overwatch and running should be brought back to the game.  You should be able to make more decisions on your turn than which direction do I move and which units am I going at.  You should have to be worried about what your opponent is doing aswell and think about the game as a whole and not just one turn at a time.  Rules that give a player more control over his army would make the game more tactical and thus more fun.

It would be nice to incorporate a mechanic for supressive fire.  But then you're getting into either loosening the rigid move-shoot-assault turn structure or adding more book-keeping (since you would have to keep track of which units were shot at the previous turn to determine who could go into overwatch).

I don't know if overwatch was removed because of the "bookkeeping" like Abadabadoobadon said or if it was because flaws that it caused with game mechanics but I personally think that keeping track of which units are in or not in overwatch was not that hard before and would not be that hard now.  It was easy enough to put a small token out to make such units or even remember them in your head.  A lot of the rules changes that I have seen in the past few years have been for the better.  Some of them make the game run smoothing and thus make the games shorter but in doing this we have lost some of the "control" over our armies.

I know plenty of us see times when putting one of our units in a "status" like overwatch would be the best decision; and seeing our opponent do something like overwatch might change the way we play our next turn.  Of course this would have huge effects on assault oriented armies but it would definitely make more sense and give the army being assaulted an appropriate defense.  We all know that there are plenty of armies out there that simply do not want to see close combat and from a "realism" stand point those armies would avoid being put in that situation at all cost.  Thus they may forgo a round of useless shooting at vehicles they can not damage to wait on the things they can hurt to pop out. 

This would also change the tactics of the assaulting armies.  I know that one of the toughest things with my assault army is actually getting across the board.  Now if your opponent is being cautious and overwatching all the time then you are not going to weather as much fire passing the neutral ground.  But I digress: we are not going to see any major changes like this put back in the game for some time to see if ever.  Even though they would make the game much more fun.

Sorry, but under the current AP system I think overwatch would be too powerful.
I do wish charge reactions, combat resolution bonuses and the like were more common in 40K, but this will not work without revising the AP system.
How could an assault player utilise cover effectively if the opponent can just shoot them on emerging.
Assault armies don't happen in real life for just that reason, but in 40K Tyranids and Orks are bound into that role and game balance means that we have to forget that they should never be able to win battles while charging at enemies with automatic weapons without about a 100 to 1 numbers advantage.

Fair enough Da Boss. I agree that it is already impossible to cross the open field with an Orc army and overwatch has the appearance of taking away even the rare surprise of a truck boy charge from beyond LOS... read on.

Permit me to add a detail, if overwatch returned, it would also need to be accompanied by fire arc, probably at 90 degrees, when set.

The way to take out a prepared position is to flank it, a prepared position should be costly to dislodge by direct assault, but if flanked, should be in trouble.  This would also require players to pay a lot more attention to what arc they set their overwatch at.  As with any units already visible, units entirely outside the 90 degree overwatch Arc could not be opportunity fired on.

In a game context this would also add fairness to deepstriking elements and make faster armies, like Eldar even better, because they could use their speed, to escape overwatch fire arcs, also, 1 unit on overwatch, can not effectively cover the whole table from deepstrike either, overlapping fields of fire would become important, tactics like channeling an attack and covering an aproach would return, and enfilade would be important. In fact, mobile assault units would be vital, to flank, take objectives, and threaten emplacements. What would happen of the deadlock if 2 units went into overwatch in adjacent fire lanes, neither could move into the others at the risk of destruction, deadlock, while mobile assault units can still threaten them both, they'd have to.  Composing a force of one kind of unit just wouldnt work at all, armies like demon bomb, and the complete infantry IG gunline or all shooty lasplas marines just wouldnt work as well anymore.

It would be a significant change, but I think it would do a lot for the game.

Also, there is already an in place mechanic for assault armies, rate of fire is limited, the best weapon in the game has what? 5 shots? Regular anti infantry weapons have 3, given the wound/hit/save mechanic that usually means they kill a model each in average conditions? Certainly not enough to entirely stop assaulting units of 10 or more...

I'd like to see it implemented too, for the reasons you've said, but the gimped AP system means that it would be very hard to balance.
The AP system is at the root of the problems with 40K and yet they stick with it...

Deleted

Posted By Nurglitch on 01/31/2007 1:26 PM
You don't need an explicit Overwatch rule to have overwatch situations in a game. One way of doing this is using a different turn sequence while leaving the rest of the rules the same.

I'd suggest going to a WEGO system of some sort, where there is a movement phase, a shooting phase, then an assault phase.  Resolve all shooting and assaults simultaneously so that models are only removed at the end of each phase.  The order that units take part inside of that phase would be determined through an initiative roll of some sort.

Deleted

Posted By Nurglitch on 01/31/2007 9:30 PM
No, shooting and assaults need to be resolved in their traditional in-phase order. Alternate the shooting of entire sides while keeping assault up to relative Initiative ratings.

Why, exactly do shooting and assaults need to keep their in-phase order?  There's no actual gameplay advantage, nor is there any possible argument from "gameplay realism" that would suggest that it's a good thing for one side to be able to fire all of its weapons before the other side gets a chance to fire its weapons.  We already have the example of dozens of better tabletop systems (Battletech etc.) that use simultaneous or nearly simultaneous shooting to avoid the silliness that comes with one side not even getting to fire their weapons before being killed.  In the realm of computer games, the WEGO system is nearly universally regarded as superior to IGOUGO for this very reason.

The only thing overwatch would really be good for is cutting Crisis suits down to size, IMHO. I see it as a great mechanic for a truer skirmish game - i.e. 40k back in second edition - and lots of other games use overwatch/reactive fire. I think it would be an appropriate house rule for, say, a 40k in 40 minutes league; but in larger battles it is probably best to allow it to go the way of grenades that hurt people.

Deleted

I hated overwatch in 2nd Ed, I still hate it now. No other rule in the game brought games to a more grinding halt than Overwatch.

Player One: Ok, my army's on overwatch. Your turn.
Player Two: Oh, ok. So is mine. Your turn.
Player One: Still on overwatch. Your turn.
Player Two: Ditto. Your turn.

Hell I even hate it in Necromunda, where it's a small scale thing. We made Overwatch in Necro into a shooting kill, rather than a general rule. If you want to make overwatch a Vet Skill for 40K, fine, but as a general rule? No way...

BYE

I agree with HBMC. The game then turns into static match or a contest of who has the biggest gun. 40K is a game simple as that and hand to hand is part of the game and if you dont like getting chopped up in hand to hand, Flames of War is a good alternative.

I disagree with both of you guys, Overwatch would add a lot to the game, it would require fire arcs as I stipulated before though.  heres a different scenario (standard armies, Marines, Tau IG, whatever) :

P1T1 OK my whole army is on overwatch

P2T1 Me too

P1T2 Deep Strike comes in and lands out of Arc of Overwatch guys and kills them

P2T2 Army Targets deep stirker

P1T3 Army moves out and fires no more overwatch target

or maybe for an assault army and has to go second

P1T1 OK my whole army is in overwatch

P2T1 Vehicle/MC move 1st, infantry move behind it out of LOS

P1T2 Overwatch

P2T2 Vehicle/MC moves up, Infantry move behind out of los

P1T3 Overwatch

P2T3 Tank shock and assault, infantry never exposed

??? How about that.  The example of 2 exclusively ranged armies being in perpetual overwatch represents a failing of the players and their army selection, and is an extreme case 5% chance.   Its a bad example.

Or how about this:

P1T1 Overwatch!

P2T1 Indirect fire destroys static units (want to stay on overwatch all game again)?

There are lots of other scenarios...

How can both armies go to overwatch when most of the missions require you to move?

And how was overwatch so unbalanced in Necromunda that you had to make it a skill? Did you not play with enough terrain? I always found that the -1BS made it an unpredictable prospect, even with experienced gangers.

After talking it over with some of the gamers at my LGS, I've come to the conclusion that it would screw any footslogging units even harder then they already are, and so shouldnt be implemented. At least until the core system is changed.

Posted By hotflungwok on 02/02/2007 11:05 AM
And how was overwatch so unbalanced in Necromunda that you had to make it a skill? Did you not play with enough terrain? I always found that the -1BS made it an unpredictable prospect, even with experienced gangers.

It wasn't that it was unbalanced, it was that it slowed things down. As I said, it brought games to a grinding halt.

BYE

You simply make a short list of exactly what units could do once they enter Overwatch...like Augustus said.

1. Units can not move or shoot in their own phase if they want to enter overwatch.

2. Units can only fire in a 90 degree arch to the front from overwatch.

3. No heavy weapons can be fired from overwatch.

I think #3 here is what will make or break "im always on overwatch" armies.  Okay if your going to enter overwatch you are going to give up firing your Heavy for the whole turn....do you want to waste points on a min/maxed squad and not be able to shoot that las/ML or what not?  I think it would change the game drastically.  You would see more 10+ squads on the board and a whole lot more strategy.  This would hurt assault armies in a way but it would help them in others.

I've never used over watch before, a little before my time, hehe

I've taken a few odds an ends from what poeple have said to come up with an idea.
How bout this

After all Deep Striking units have been deployed that turn, the other player can elect to do an initiative test to see if he can do HIS shooting before the deepstriking player is allowed to do his. (same initiative test done in assualt phase to decide if unit gets away)

If test is taken and passed by non deepstriking player then they shoot first but forego their shooting phase during their turn.
If test is taken and failed by non deepstriking player then they don't shoot until their own normal shooting phase and also counts as having moved for it as well.

Would give the defending player a choice wether to risk shooting first and if failed not being able to fire its heavy weapon(s) ... or ... wether to wait until the proper shooting phase of their own turn and be garenteed to be able to shoot the heavy weapon(s) if still alive.

I agree with hotflungwok that vehicles should not be able to overwatch. including walkers MC etc. Just infantry choices and HQ.

Also add to my above comment that if test is taken then you cannot move in your own movement phase regardless of wether test was passed or failed. You can imagine that the distraction holds them up long enough so that they don't have time go anywhere. Assualts phase done as normal with no changes.

Okay. My suggestion would be to set it up a bit differently from what everyone here has said so far.

1: When entering Overwatch, a unit may not move, enter an assalt, etc.

2: There are two forms of Overwatch: Active and Passive. Also, unit sets 90 degree arc.

3: Active Overwatch means the unit is laying down a blanket of suppression fire. The unit may make a full attack on anyone who enters their fire arc, but any indirect fire units may reroll Scatter Dice to hit them (They're awfully loud), and the unit must specify a 6" range at which they are firing. (Example: Tau set 24-30" range: Assault Marines go around then come straight up beginning at 14". Tau are dead.)

4: Passive Overwatch: Heavy Weapons may not fire. Roll d6 for each unit, 2+ it may fire at -1 BS. You do not need to set range.

I think part of the issue here is adding overwatch back to the game without breaking it or getting overly complicated.  I think bringing back OW would be awesome but it should be done along the same lines as the rest of the game "KISS" theory.  Now I personally would love to see something like Warhammer 40K advanced where there are detailed rules down to the inth degree for something like OW but that is not where the current state of the game is.  Thus if it were possible for OW to come back anytime soon it would have to be done in the simplest way possible.

I think the exception of heavy wepaon firing would balance overwatch and wouldn't let games drag on. A heavy weapon takes time to load and aim, so it isn't really suited to overwqatch anyway. Not too sure about the fire arc idea, it might have implementation problems.

I like those rules, heavy weapons should only be used when you know exactly where you're shooting at.

Active overwatch could also represent watching a specific area, which wouldn't be loud but would have a more reduced area of fire

Its still a very bad idea and thats why its best left back in 2nd edition.

Deleted