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 VladimirHerzog wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

And 1/3 speed of the bullet doesn't make the Power Armor even more effective against said firearm?

No, because the armor can already tank the full speed bullet.

That implies their armor save never fails then, correct?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

No, because the armor can already tank the full speed bullet.

Armor isn't just a homogeneous block. It has weakspots like joints and eyes, Marines aren't 100% impervious to lasguns after all, just like 99.999%. And a wooden fence may actually matter for that remaining 0.001%

Still not something work utterly messing the tabletop for.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
My question about the whole no armor buff for cover if you have 3+ SV against ap 0 is... why?

Because they probably don't want the noble shining space knights

A. Hiding in cover against small arms in a manner rather contrary to their fluff, and

B. Becoming twice as hard to kill in cover, while the factions that really actually ought to be using cover get much less benefit.

Once again, easily solved via easier access to Ignores Cover weapons or making melee units in normally ranged armies more enticing. Hell, we just had the Heavy Flamer previewed and it does that.

But no, apparently someone here thinks a fence stopping 10% of a force of a bullet is reasonable to stop someone from losing an arm.

Giving everyone more access to ignoring cover does literally nothing to address the issue of some armies getting more benefit from cover than others and being incentivized to play in ways contrary to the fluff.

If anything, it might make the illogic of it worse, when flamers start becoming disproportionately effective against Marines.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

And 1/3 speed of the bullet doesn't make the Power Armor even more effective against said firearm?

Look, its clear you just want the tabletop to reflect bolterporn but having an entire faction of semi-elite dude all save on a 2+ by hugging terrain is bad for the game and unfluffy.

I feel like there is a lot more to unpack here than just Marines hugging cover for a 2+ save. Surely, there must be other incentives to get that Space Marine shock assault feeling going than making them benefit from cover less against the dreaded lasgun volley. If you know what I mean.

How about Space Marines just auto win against Xenos or IG? You’re clearly the Hero Protagonists so we will just admire each other’s models and then catch the early bus home.

As a long time non-marine player I am sick to death of folks wanting to shrug off all of my small arms fire and then whinging that I am taking more and more MW or high AP weaponry to have some chance of dealing with MEQ.

The AP0 thing isn’t logical but it does prevent heavy infantry being frustrating to deal with.

 catbarf wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
My question about the whole no armor buff for cover if you have 3+ SV against ap 0 is... why?

Because they probably don't want the noble shining space knights

A. Hiding in cover against small arms in a manner rather contrary to their fluff, and

B. Becoming twice as hard to kill in cover, while the factions that really actually ought to be using cover get much less benefit.

Once again, easily solved via easier access to Ignores Cover weapons or making melee units in normally ranged armies more enticing. Hell, we just had the Heavy Flamer previewed and it does that.

But no, apparently someone here thinks a fence stopping 10% of a force of a bullet is reasonable to stop someone from losing an arm.

Giving everyone more access to ignoring cover does literally nothing to address the issue of some armies getting more benefit from cover than others and being incentivized to play in ways contrary to the fluff.

If anything, it might make the illogic of it worse, when flamers start becoming disproportionately effective against Marines.

Flamers don't magically become better vs Marines than Plasma in cover though assuming they did ignore cover. Thats half a wound per Flamer and almost half the time a dead model for Plasma. That's not accounting potential sources of ignoring cover either.

Does it make then MORE effective than normal? Sure. Does it make it so it's not a trap choice? Sure. Is it going to be taken all the time over Plasma if you think Marines will hug cover? No.

Well, if you want to ignore the actual point, I'll leave you to it.

I don't know what you're talking about with fences stopping bullets, but I know that Marines hiding in the treeline while nigh-immune to small arms was garbage from both a fluff perspective and as a play experience, so I'm really not bothered by this solution even if it's a clunky and not particularly simulationist one.

You can say one thing when it comes to the new Benefits of Cover, GW obviously considered many things before they decided on this rule. I personally find it fine, since all the alternatives have drawbacks that GW decided they didn't want to deal with.

But if you find it offensive, what would you rather have? The options are:

Additional Save - An additional save, like a FNP Save. A fine idea, except it is either too good (4+ Cover Save on top of you normal save?) or not worth the time of an addition roll (who wants to roll for a 6+ Cover Save? all day long?).

Replacement Save - Like an Invulnerable Save. Makes Cover only good for those with bad saves or against powerful weapons.

To Hit Modifier - Like 9th Edition Dense Cover. This is heavily punishing for armies with bad BS scores (5+ and even 4+ to an extent). It also constricts design space for special rules to provide a negative BS modifier.

Bonus to Armor Save - The rule they decided on. GW added a stipulation to prevent good armor (2+, 3+) from succeeding more often against AP 0 attacks, which prevents them from being too difficult to wound. This is an important consideration given they are reducing AP overall to improve durability. You don't want Cover to improve durability too much. There will still be plenty of opportunities for Cover to matter for those units given all the heavy weapons in play.

I just get the feeling that some people will never be happy unless an IGOUGO abstract simulation of a game represents reality to a tee. Something that will never happen. People would probably be happier playing computer games as they are able to represent reality slightly better than a boardgame.

At some point you have to accept the fact that this is a game and games have to take stuff into account to keep the game fun.

The arguments made here also seem to forget that GW could have very well tested out giving power armor cover and more, and found it unpleasant and unfun. They might also have tested -1 to hit, and found it unpleasant and unfun. I just know that 1+ save Terminators are not fun to play against if you don't have AP at all.

All this talk about cover, and who gets cover, and ignores cover, and saves while in cover just kind of makes me miss the old system. You know, a separate cover save that you can take instead of an armor save - most times it meant say Guard or Orks actually got a save vs super common attacks (ie: bolters and their ap:5), but it also meant that Marines facing an ap:3 pieplate could still get some defense going. The fact that most Ignores Cover weapons were ap4 or worse also helped. It made it so Marines and other 3+ save or better troopers were fine marching in the open under a hail of bullets, and only needed to take cover in certain circumstances (like when advancing on a Leman Russ Battle Tank). It also meant that for the most part, a Marine in cover always had a save, due to their naturally good save and most ignores cover not having big penetration.

Meanwhile something like a Guardsman gained great benefit from cover, but had to fear the occasional flamer flushing them out.

The system just had a lot more back and forth to me than a +1 armor save.

Branching off here, does anyone else remember when you could jump off high places, but it wounded the model? I'd love to see that return.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Yes it's an edge case example, but that's the point - the rules shouldn't fall apart at the edges to such a point that it becomes necessary to declare that the entire board is a hill in order to get plunging fire to work.

Or, you know, don't create edge cases when you have 100% control of terrain placement.

 Eldarsif wrote:
I just get the feeling that some people will never be happy unless an IGOUGO abstract simulation of a game represents reality to a tee. Something that will never happen. People would probably be happier playing computer games as they are able to represent reality slightly better than a boardgame.

That's a disingenuous read on it if I ever heard one.

The issue is one of intuitive action. Intuition suggests that infantry taking cover would recieve some sort of benefit. However the game declares instead that no benefit is gained (for AP0 weapons). That's not intuitive, and can feel weird. There's a lot of places that can appear in the game, where results are counterintuitive, but there's an argument to be made that if it's a basic action for the "introductory faction" the rules should be intuitive. The idea of taking cover is something everybody understands, so if it does something a bit odd, it can feel off.

I say this as a huge fan of the 3-7th paradigm too. That cover system was not intuitive, but the results were good. Bridging the gap between intuitive action and gameplay result is the ideal, obviously.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
I just get the feeling that some people will never be happy unless an IGOUGO abstract simulation of a game represents reality to a tee. Something that will never happen. People would probably be happier playing computer games as they are able to represent reality slightly better than a boardgame.

That's a disingenuous read on it if I ever heard one.

The issue is one of intuitive action. Intuition suggests that infantry taking cover would recieve some sort of benefit. However the game declares instead that no benefit is gained (for AP0 weapons). That's not intuitive, and can feel weird. There's a lot of places that can appear in the game, where results are counterintuitive, but there's an argument to be made that if it's a basic action for the "introductory faction" the rules should be intuitive. The idea of taking cover is something everybody understands, so if it does something a bit odd, it can feel off.

I say this as a huge fan of the 3-7th paradigm too. That cover system was not intuitive, but the results were good. Bridging the gap between intuitive action and gameplay result is the ideal, obviously.

If anything you'd think that a unit in cover would just be harder to hit. Or it's harder to hit the cleverly concealed guy in his camo cloak or whatever.
Rounds slam into the trees/rocks/ruined walls etc, or just plain miss & not into thier intended target.
But those that do land? Normal odds of punching any armor & wounding.
But not in the 40k universe....
No, in 40k land that rock will somehow protect you more against armor-piercing shots but not against the ap0 stuff - depending on how good your armor is.
Odd, very odd.

Sometimes rules have to work in a counter-intuitive way for the game to work. This is just one of those cases.

It's a decent abstraction if you think about it. AP0 represents weapons that are only damaging a marine if they hit a weak spot (eyes, some of the joints, etc). 4+ or worse saves tend to armor the torso so it makes sense that cover over the limbs would provide a benefit, but 3+ and better saves are heavily armored and cover likely wouldn't help with the weak spots (if your eyes aren't vulnerable you're just not looking out). When you look at guns with actual AP the cover starts helping again.

It's not completely coherent but you can justify it a bit.

 alextroy wrote:
Sometimes rules have to work in a counter-intuitive way for the game to work. This is just one of those cases.

No it's not. It never has been. It's just how GWs chosen to do it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

novembermike wrote:
It's a decent abstraction if you think about it.

I have (long before this), and I disagree with you.
While it's not as bad an abstraction as some of the other non-sense GWs written, I still think it's a stupid way of representing it.
And if you need to do some sort of mental gymnastics to justify it? That just proves my point.
In about 3 years? I'll probably be thinking the same thing about their next idea of what cover does.

 Souleater wrote:
How about Space Marines just auto win against Xenos or IG? You’re clearly the Hero Protagonists so we will just admire each other’s models and then catch the early bus home.

I think it says a lot about the current state of the lore and the game that this statement can be made unironically.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Souleater wrote:
How about Space Marines just auto win against Xenos or IG? You’re clearly the Hero Protagonists so we will just admire each other’s models and then catch the early bus home.

I think it says a lot about the current state of the lore and the game that this statement can be made unironically.

I'll have some of whatever you're taking.

Dudeface wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Souleater wrote:
How about Space Marines just auto win against Xenos or IG? You’re clearly the Hero Protagonists so we will just admire each other’s models and then catch the early bus home.

I think it says a lot about the current state of the lore and the game that this statement can be made unironically.

I'll have some of whatever you're taking.

Disillusionment? Be my guest.

 AtoMaki wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Souleater wrote:
How about Space Marines just auto win against Xenos or IG? You’re clearly the Hero Protagonists so we will just admire each other’s models and then catch the early bus home.

I think it says a lot about the current state of the lore and the game that this statement can be made unironically.

I'll have some of whatever you're taking.

Disillusionment? Be my guest.

You mean the lore where we've literally just had a major chaos win in arks of omen, Gman admitting that the Imperium is losing and lies to the population, where the game is reasonably balanced at the minute with admittedly slight uptick to marines after a year of them sucking ass overall and importantly guard are/were in the top 3 armies?

Dudeface wrote:
You mean the lore where we've literally just had a major chaos win in arks of omen, Gman admitting that the Imperium is losing and lies to the population

This is actually a major source of my disillusionment, so if you want to get involved then you are at the right spot. Tho Gulliman being angsty over how GRIM and DARK things are was more on the amusing side of things, so maybe not that one.

I'm pretty sure that guilliman thing was a tongue in cheek meme on "lol see it's grimdark" nothing more. Basically GW trying to look cool and not out of touch. The equivalent in a cartoon or sitcom of the old fuddy duddy dressing like a high school student and being all "Yo what's up fellow kids, what's cool?"

I like the new cover system, including units with a 3+ or better not benefitting from 0AP weapons.

From a gameplay perspective it means that MEQ/TEQ don't become this unmovable brick once in cover. It means that your small arms can actually contribute in even a vaguely meaningful way.

From a fluff perspective, why is a Terminator or Marine going to care about Guardsmen plinking lasguns at him? Yes, they're going to hug cover when the melta guns and plasma guns come out but until then the overwhelming majority of small arms fire is inconsequential to them.

 Afrodactyl wrote:
I like the new cover system, including units with a 3+ or better not benefitting from 0AP weapons.

From a gameplay perspective it means that MEQ/TEQ don't become this unmovable brick once in cover. It means that your small arms can actually contribute in even a vaguely meaningful way.

From a fluff perspective, why is a Terminator or Marine going to care about Guardsmen plinking lasguns at him? Yes, they're going to hug cover when the melta guns and plasma guns come out but until then the overwhelming majority of small arms fire is inconsequential to them.

Wrong. It doesn´t matter if a guardsman or marine stand behind a tree. In both cases the bullet has to penetrate the tree first. So both models will benefit from it. The mental gymnastics of some people...

ccs wrote:


If anything you'd think that a unit in cover would just be harder to hit.

-1 to hit units in cover makes more sense to me (from a tactical feel)
but I see how that could keep the heavy infantry still hugging terrain (which does go against some of the fluff)

You are free to rage against the rules if you like, but the mental gymnastics aren't even that hard.

Most armor on most models is simply not that resistant to AP0 attacks anywhere. Enough solid hits to the torso will punch through them.

2+ and 3+ armor is only vulnerable at the weak points like the head and joints. Guess what is available to be hit when you are looking and firing from a cover position? The head, neck, arms, and shoulders. Sometimes the foot and legs. Lots of joints showing with the heavily armored torso hidden.

But still, the rule is about finding a compromise between an easy cover system (+1 Armor Save) and not making the best defended units too immune to fire via that rule. Moving a 3+ Save to an effective 2+ Save is something they didn't want to do, so they simply ruled it out by exception. It is not elegant, but it is simple.

Do you think it would make more sense if cover just didn't provide a benefit against AP0 weapons, regardless of a model's armour save?

No, because that would mean minimally armored models (Sv 6+/7+) would receive minimal to no benefit from cover. Give that those are the models who should receive the most benefits from cover, it would be an absurd result.

 alextroy wrote:
But still, the rule is about finding a compromise between an easy cover system (+1 Armor Save) and not making the best defended units too immune to fire via that rule. Moving a 3+ Save to an effective 2+ Save is something they didn't want to do, so they simply ruled it out by exception. It is not elegant, but it is simple.

Wait, isn't their new motto "Simplified but not simple"?