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I just think that "You can only kill what you can see/is in range" is a far simply thing to grasp, and leads to far fewer problems, then "As long as you can see something you can kill everything that's part of that unit".

I don't think that 'LOS Sniping' was as big a problem as people make it out to be, and really is it a problem? I don't see how thinking about the positioning of your units both in an offensive and defensive manner is a bad thing.

Plus the old rules for Independent Characters (cannot be targeted if within 2" of an enemy unit, unless closest target at 6" or 12", whichever it was) worked fine.

Positioning should matter. Terrain should matter. Vehicle facings should matter*. Hiding a unit completely out of LOS and having it wiped out 'cause one guy is sticking out is daft.

*That's less an LOS issue and more a general concern over the T/W style of vehicles.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I just think that "You can only kill what you can see/is in range" is a far simply thing to grasp, and leads to far fewer problems, then "As long as you can see something you can kill everything that's part of that unit".

I don't think that 'LOS Sniping' was as big a problem as people make it out to be, and really is it a problem? I don't see how thinking about the positioning of your units both in an offensive and defensive manner is a bad thing.

Plus the old rules for Independent Characters (cannot be targeted if within 2" of an enemy unit, unless closest target at 6" or 12", whichever it was) worked fine.

Positioning should matter. Terrain should matter. Vehicle facings should matter*. Hiding a unit completely out of LOS and having it wiped out 'cause one guy is sticking out is daft.

*That's less an LOS issue and more a general concern over the T/W style of vehicles.

I agree with all of this.

EDIT: On a side note, I have emailed Forge World asking if the Plague Hulk of Nurgle (and therefore other OOP models) will be getting 8th edition rules.

You don't want to get into a situation where people can rotate models out of line of sight. Paladins become very annoying at that point if they have 3 wounds each. Oh, you hit model 1 for 1 wnd. I will put him behind building to move next wound to another model.


This obviously makes the assumption that Paladins are terminators with +1 wound.

I wonder if Deathwatch will go up to two wounds each. I sure hope so because their unless its a casual game or allied to another army they aren't great on their own right now.

A valid concern, however it is easily solved by making it so that shooting removes whole models first, and that you cannot spread wounds around.

So if a unit of 5 models that each have 2 wounds takes 5 wounding hits, you remove 2 models and the unit, and not a specific model, has one wound against it. Next turn it takes another single wounding hit, enough to cause another casualty, which the player can pull from any of the models (in range/LOS).

As you don't wound models (with the exception of singular things, like ICs attached to units) but rather units, you never have that problem.

We've had rules like this in 40K before. It's really simple to figure out, and stops the whole wound sharing nonsense.

 Rippy wrote:

I am confused, wouldn't that increase micromanagement? Because there is a lot more at stake if you make a mistake. At the moment if one dude pops his head out by accident, or is easy flanked, one dude dies, in the other way you lose a whole unit potentially.

The micromanagement comes from people fussing about with their units to make sure that their heavy hitters can shoot at stuff while not being the only valid casualties when the enemy shoots back.

Under the 'anybody in the unit can die' system, that's less of a concern... either the unit is a valid target, or it's not, and the individual placement on each model in the unit is far less important.


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 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Positioning should matter. Terrain should matter. Vehicle facings should matter*. Hiding a unit completely out of LOS and having it wiped out 'cause one guy is sticking out is daft.

In a smaller game, I completely agree.

In a game with as many models on the board as 40K has these days, I would much rather have interactions between units rather than individual models. So positioning and terrain should matter... but they should affect the unit (this unit is in/out of cover, this unit can/cannot be seen) rather than individuals in the unit.

Hmm. I just bought a bunch of dkok some time ago. Haven't painted them yet but I was going to get back into 40k with those lads. Seeing that a new edition is coming that leaves me wondering if forgeworld will release a new book for my dkok or if they are relegated to being common imperial guard.

I'd be very surprised if Forgeworld don't release new books for the new rules. May not happen straight away, but seems a no-brainer.

 insaniak wrote:
I'd be very surprised if Forgeworld don't release new books for the new rules. May not happen straight away, but seems a no-brainer.

To be fair...so did lots of other things both GW and FW somehow missed out on...

 insaniak wrote:

In a game with as many models on the board as 40K has these days, I would much rather have interactions between units rather than individual models. So positioning and terrain should matter... but they should affect the unit (this unit is in/out of cover, this unit can/cannot be seen) rather than individuals in the unit.

Agreed, I think when playing Shadow War and other skirmisher games it should be about the individual. However, I do think that the focus in 40k should be the unit.

 insaniak wrote:
I'd be very surprised if Forgeworld don't release new books for the new rules. May not happen straight away, but seems a no-brainer.

I'm still afraid Fires of Cyraxus is cancelled.

 Gamgee wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
I'd be very surprised if Forgeworld don't release new books for the new rules. May not happen straight away, but seems a no-brainer.

I'm still afraid Fires of Cyraxus is cancelled.

No, i'm positive the book will be released 8th friendly, hence the delay.
An interesting concept would fear, terror, or similar effects causing stacking levels of penalties to weapon skill or ballistic skill.
This concept causes me to not be so concerned by fixed WS rolls.
I really want to see how psychic powers are handled. Could be simple leadership test.

I'm a bit concerned that as GW don't currently sell a model for a Chaos Marine Lord on a Juggernaut, they wont have rules in 8th until they get round to updating World Eaters.

I still remember playing a 3rd ed game where the other player spent 10 minutes carefully arranging his 2 rhinos JUST SO so there was a very small, straight gap where ONLY his plasmagunner could ONLY see and hit my veteran sergeant. Indeed, I remember how excited our RTT organizer was when the Pete Haines FAQ hit in 4th ed that specifically addressed being able to remove casualties that were out of LOS or remove figures that were not directly hit by a blast template. I personally LOVED the way 4th ed handled LOS and wound allocation/casualty removal, with level 1/2/3 ruins acting like forest templates (no true-LOS bullcrap) and Torrent of Fire allowing you some measure of removing specific models. It was quick, it was effective, it let you play the important aspects of the game without having to diddle with bending down for a "model's eye view" every 5 seconds to make sure you had a shot. t was intentionally abstract for the purpose of playability and most people I knew appreciated that. 5th ed going to true-LOS was a step in the wrong direction and 6th/7th ed "closest model always always always dies first" bullcrap adds very little and yet takes forever to resolve compared to rolling saves and simply removing casualties of your choice. There's a bit of tactics involved in placement within the unit, but not nearly enough to justify how much time is wasted rolling out individual saves

If 8th ed moves to the AoS casualty removal system I will shout it's praises from the mountaintops. If it keeps the "closest model always always dies first" crapfest then I'll probably sit around the house despondently and randomly cry into a bucket of ice cream for a few months

In a game with as many models on the board as 40K has these days, I would much rather have interactions between units rather than individual models. So positioning and terrain should matter... but they should affect the unit (this unit is in/out of cover, this unit can/cannot be seen) rather than individuals in the unit.

Absolutely. True-LOS is great in Infinity with a dozen models per side and tons of dense, blocking terrain where each move is directly countered by all visible opposing models. I don't need or want that level of granularity when there's dozens of models per side

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
A valid concern, however it is easily solved by making it so that shooting removes whole models first, and that you cannot spread wounds around.

So if a unit of 5 models that each have 2 wounds takes 5 wounding hits, you remove 2 models and the unit, and not a specific model, has one wound against it. Next turn it takes another single wounding hit, enough to cause another casualty, which the player can pull from any of the models (in range/LOS).

As you don't wound models (with the exception of singular things, like ICs attached to units) but rather units, you never have that problem.

We've had rules like this in 40K before. It's really simple to figure out, and stops the whole wound sharing nonsense.

Guy in a 5 man unit (3 wounds/model) gets hit for 1 wound this turn as he's the only guy visible.
Player moves that guy behind wall and moves an unwounded guy to the previous guy's spot.
That unit takes 2 additional wounds from shooting.
A unit cannot have more than one wounded model at a time (assuming AoS's rules continue for this example).

Per AoS rules (because LOS isn't needed for the guy to take wound), the guy with one wound takes his third wound and is removed.
Per requiring LoS and wound management silliness that jerks have manipulated for several editions, the guy in the open must take the wounds as he's the only valid model in LOS.

We just divided by zero

I'm starting to wonder if the 5 books might actually be in a different format to what we expect.

e.g. It makes little sense for a space perspective to include the rules for a rhino in multiple books. Perhaps it might take more of a unit centred approach with a book for armies and rules then one for tanks etc etc

 Latro_ wrote:
I'm starting to wonder if the 5 books might actually be in a different format to what we expect.

e.g. It makes little sense for a space perspective to include the rules for a rhino in multiple books. Perhaps it might take more of a unit centred approach with a book for armies and rules then one for tanks etc etc

I'm expecting Astartes, Imperium, Chaos, Aeldari, Xenos. And the "New Faction" to be Death Guard.

I thought it was stated up thread that the Marines are in the Imperium book.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
I thought it was stated up thread that the Marines are in the Imperium book.

Couldn't find anything to support this

Panzerkanzler wrote:
Hmm. I just bought a bunch of dkok some time ago. Haven't painted them yet but I was going to get back into 40k with those lads. Seeing that a new edition is coming that leaves me wondering if forgeworld will release a new book for my dkok or if they are relegated to being common imperial guard.

They did say that FW were getting rules for their models day 1 as well


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 MajorWesJanson wrote:

 Latro_ wrote:
I'm starting to wonder if the 5 books might actually be in a different format to what we expect.

e.g. It makes little sense for a space perspective to include the rules for a rhino in multiple books. Perhaps it might take more of a unit centred approach with a book for armies and rules then one for tanks etc etc

I'm expecting Astartes, Imperium, Chaos, Aeldari, Xenos. And the "New Faction" to be Death Guard.

And Thousand Sons other new faction.

I suspect the following delineations:

Imperium (Guard including Scions, Skit-ad-mech, Sisters, Knights, Inquisition + Assassins)

Chaos (Traitor Marines of all types to include cutists, Chaos Daemons of all types, Chaos Knights, Traitor Guard as well perhaps?)

Eldar (Eldar, Dark Eldar, Harlequins, and Ynnari)

Xenos (Tau + Vespid & Kroot, Orks, Necrons, Tyranids + Genestealer Cult)

Adeptus Astartes (All loyalist space marines, Vanilla + Guilliman, BA, DA, SW, DW & GK)

That's just my opinion on that. Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

Imperium with everything including marines.

Chaos

Xenos

The 40k version of the generals handbook.

5th book no idea. Perhaps an updated setting book that sets up the basics for new players?

Any chance we can take all speculation on the 5 books to a new general discussion thread?

Eldars not being Xenos is weird but also correct. Stupid eldars ruining the xenos threat with their fancy "alliances" and "prophecys". Make Xenos threat great again.

I'm pretty sure in the stream they said there's a space marine book and an imperium book. That's what it sounded like.

Imperial Astartes would cover six factions by itself. While they do share some units and wargear they also have plenty of unique units and variants as well as being the settings poster boys. so I wouldn't be surprised to see one book concentrating on them. The rest of the Imperium has three full army factions(IG, SoB and AM) with the rest being covered by one or two units.

Could see it as Imperium/Chaos/Aeldari/Tyranids(and cults)/Xenos.

Looking at the galaxy map, the Tau are cut off from the Imperium by the Nihilakh Dynasty and Chaos. From the overview we have, it doesnt seem like the Necrons have moved in on the Tau.

Maybe it wasnt the Eldar who saved the Tau back in the day, ut the Necrons? I mean, the Necrons could have the motivation, since a low warp signature race with none if that silly psyker business would be pretty good for a body transfer...

I still expect Tau-Cron alliance to be a thing. It's the only narrative Xenos that make sense to really team up.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Fisher-Price: Baby's First Wargame wrote:...the models do not have to be within range or visible to an attacking unit...

I would hope that a game where shooting is more the focus would not have such simplistic rules.

Indeed, that is a terribly daft rule

 Red Corsair wrote:

 kestral wrote:
I lavish a lot of care on my terrain and I agree it is critical that it have a key role in the game. Terrain modifying armor save is *probably* dumb depending on how exactly they do it. Let's say it adds +1 to save. Marines go from 3+ to 2+, halving their casualties. Orks go from 6+ to 5+, reducing their casualties by, what, 16%? That is bad design and the opposite of how it used to be be. How does AOS handle terrain? I've heard it doesn't slow movement. Also how does AOS do casualty removal? If it is closest model we're going to see lots of stupid record keeping and argument. "NO, that WASN"T the Ogrynn you shot last time, and BTW that lanraider has 17wounds now not 16". Don't see that as a plus, but again good design could mitigate it.

Well, this is true but your also not considering the fact that marines have been getting fethed by the rules for 20 years now. Consider the fact that if I shoot 30 heavy bolter shots at a squad of marines in ruins or in the open they have a 3+ How the hell does that make any sense and how is that fair when I fire 30 heavy bolters at ork boys in a ruin and they get a 4+ save when in the open they get none. Hell, even when a marine dives for cover and goes to ground in ruins his save doesn't ever improve until he is shot at by a stronger weapon. Think about that for a minute, a marine that has gone to ground in a ruin has the same 3+ against anything ap 4 or greater as he has in the open. It makes sense that a marine in ruins would be half as likely to die to small arms fire. Its not lazy, its actually very eligant. Whats bad design is the current rules which suggest a marine gone to ground in a ruin is just as likely to die to las gun fire as a marine standing upright in the wide open.

In regard to AOS, you put wounds onto wounded models first until they die and casualties are removed from anywhere the owning player wants.

I think there is a major point in this. It's not so much of the "realism", but more of a balance thing. Why to pay any extra for a better armour, if most of the time you'll get the same benefit from hugging cover (especially as after 4th edition it was super easy). This again led to inclusion of increased amount of "ignore cover" weaponry, which increased another exception over an exception, increasing the rules clutter. This could be seen clearly with chaos space marines, why would you ever take the marines as most of the time the cultists do everything the marines did (i.e. took objectives and shots), but with a fraction of price.

In any case, for me, even if the updates look really good this far, the make it or break it moment is how they handle the shooting. If there isn't any reaction mechanism or advanced morale rules inducing pinning to shot units, there is also big chance I won't be playing this game much as I have got comfortable with games having this kind of elements. Without interaction, the shooting game turns too quickly in to "who rolls more dice" competition.