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Well in the rumors section there are rumors of Guard Platoon officers being able to issue orders to their platoon squads. Orders like

1)"I dont care if you can't see the target, just shoot at the muzzel flashes" If an IG officer passes a moral check all squads who are members of his platoon may choose to take a -1 penalty to BS, but reduce their targets cover save by 2.

2)"Be ready boys there comming" If an IG officer passes a moral check all squads who are members of his platoon may choose to go on overwatch

3)"Fire by squads, Fire For effect" If an IG officer passes a moral check enemy units do not gain a cover save when IG squads shoot through IG squads of the same platoon.


So dakkites, do you think this will help the guard? What do you think of these possible changes? How would you change them?

Greatly, it means Heavy Weapons squads can be screened effectively again instead of them all dying in the first 2 turns or so.

Also it will just give guard the edge in shooting certain units like Orks/Eldar with the first one...even if you then shoot worse than an Ork, which seems strange. should be -1 as not even a guardsmen is that bad at shooting. Well maybe the Kanak Skull Takers but thats for obvious reasons

Also.......Overwatch is back? *jumps for joy*

IMO, this is turning guard shooting from, good-great to outright broken [way over powered]

I sincerely doubt that we're going to see overwatch in 5th edition, unless it's just within rapid-fire range or something like that. It always used to get pretty fudgy at 24".

Squig_herder wrote:IMO, this is turning guard shooting from, good-great to outright broken [way over powered]

well they did that with the space marines i dink

Personally I dont think option one would ever really be used. The only situation I think that i woould opt to do this is if I had a vet squad with max plasma double tapping terminators in hard cover....

Option two would really suprise me if it showed up. Although it would be a cool idea.

Option three. Well I think option three as the most likely and the most useful. How else are we supposed to protect 6 t3 guys who cost more than 100 points.

Maybe the overwatch could be used only when there getting charged by an opponent, kinda like `stand and shoot`in WHFB?

No! No Overwatch. Overwatch bad! Overwatch bring game to standstill! Overwatch make me talk like I no speak English!

BYE

Two questions:
- What's the downside to balance if the Officer fails the command?

- Why would GW bring back Overwatch when the experience with it was generally negative? Why introduce a mechanic that encourages stagnant, static play if GW is trying to encourage more fluid / dynamic gameplay?

All I care about is letting IG squads shoot through friendly squads without giving cover saves. It sounds like this may make it into the codex via a Master Vox network...

I'm off to sacrifice baby turtles to the Emperor.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Two questions:
- What's the downside to balance if the Officer fails the command?

You don't get to use the command? I would assume that the ability to give this order would either be purchased or is assumed to be part of the cost of the officer.

I think the no cover saves would be a good thing for guard. Infact I think its a must for them to be effective.

I was thinking something more like:

Confused Targeting: If the test is failed, re-roll ALL successful to-hit rolls.

Better would be:

Friendly Fire: All weapons suffer "Gets Hot".

Otherwise, there's no reason not to pick a magic power every turn, which means, there's no tactics.

JohnHwangDD wrote
Better would be:

Friendly Fire: All weapons suffer "Gets Hot"

So we can finally manage to wipe ourselves off the board... Aha the GW masterplan has finally revealed itself
Overwatch may be slightly overeffective...

JohnHwangDD wrote:I was thinking something more like:

Confused Targeting: If the test is failed, re-roll ALL successful to-hit rolls.

Better would be:

Friendly Fire: All weapons suffer "Gets Hot".

Otherwise, there's no reason not to pick a magic power every turn, which means, there's no tactics.

What about the point cost implicit with picking an order (or that is built into the officer)? I can't imagine that having an order that doesn't work on a failed check is terrible game breaking.

What happens when you roll a one with a bolter? You miss.

What happens when an order doesn't work? You don't get to use the hotness that arises from it. Is that so awful? The officer is not dabbling in the warp... do we need to create new rules for when these fail?

I don't think so. Keep them simple but useful, not game breaking and no penalty for failure is not a problem. Limit the use to one squad that's part of the platoon, make them good but not great (like reducing cover saves by one, Str 4 but BS 2, can treat the lasguns as assault 1) or perhaps the one that capitalises on teamwork (whole platoon can shoot through itself and not give cover saves), and it's flavorful but not deserving a penalty.

***

This being said, I could see that GW bestow us with a "unit cannot shoot or declare an assault" penalty for the remainder of the turn.

The difference is that the Officer Command is making the Lasgun better than a Lasgun for "free", so it needs a penalty to balance the effect.

those would b epic! guard need some rule love

The "orders" in the codex apparently effect individual squads, so we'll have to see how far they really go.

For (2) I think the rumored order called "Overwatch" where a squad can shoot in your opponents shooting phase in exchange for that squad skipping its next shooting and assault phase, has been mentioned.

For (3) this is supposedly covered by "Platoon Drill" which is a rumored ability that is always in effect.

Also rumored is "Fix Bayonets!", "Front Row Fire! Back Row Fire!"(Lasguns get extra shots), and "Tank!" (+1 pen against tanks)

All of those would be choice. I assume that fix bayonets = init 4. Tank! would be very useful. Great for missle launcher armed squads. I can't help but image sparce Marrinze HUURRR players crying cheese if we get that one.

Before the cry of "CHEESE!" is made, I think its important to note that there are trade offs and none are intended as something you always want to use. Some do benefit certain squad types more than others but there is always a trade off. Like with "Overwatch" you get to shoot early, but you lose out on your assault phase for it, really hurting if you've gotten assaulted in your opponents assault phase and you now have to skip your squads while they get beaten down some more. We don't know the downsides to all of them, but "Fix Bayonets!" may skip your shooting phase, or "Front Row Fire! Back Row Fire!" mean no move no assault. Even still Orders are not sure things, they require you to pass a LD test and there's been implication that you may have to "give the order" in the turn previous to using it.

Blargh! Double post...

Now I feel guilty about this space going neglected, I will fill it.

While Space Marines player may feel Hurr(t) not having orders, I think there are several rationals for it.

First and foremost Space Marines are by their nature shock troops, they emphasize the mobility of their full force; as opposed to IG who only have certain elements mobile. This mobility even extends to their full fleet of vehicles which can be brought in on Thunderhawk transport serving as tactical heavy lifters, only a few IG elements can deploy in a similar way.

As shock troops their tactics revolve around rapid attacks that penetrate and break the enemies defensive line. This is why orders, as they're done for IG, wouldn't work for marines. The IG orders are slower than what marines would want to deal with in their attempt to press forward. The marine command structure gives more autonomy to individual squads as opposed to IG which are put in platoons and form a more cohesive yet slower unit. Marine Sgt. are effectively making their own orders.

Marines also being as superhuman as they are, some "Orders" wouldn't impact their abilities in a substantial enough way. While a marine could fix a bayonet, the simple fact is, he is just as good with or without because he is just that good.

Now I do believe Orders are a good mechanic and I won't be surprised if it is something from a mechanics perspective that is written into the next edition of rules to put more gaming into the shooting rounds (kinda how running was added to movement), and varies from army to army. Where the Orks "Waaaagh" becomes something of an order or whatever army varied abilities they come up with. That said marine player might deserve "orders" just not necessarily the same ones as IG and not necessarily in the same way.

EDIT:
I had some additional thoughts...
Going back to the more individualize squad oriented nature of space marines I think I came up with some additional "Order" type things that would represent them as opposed to them attempting to utilize what was created for IG. I think with the reduced performance of Space Marines, they could use a little help and these wouldn't be too extreme. Assuming some sort of LD test...
"Take the fight to them!" - Re-roll for running (no shooting)
"Bolter Drill" - Re-roll bolter hits (no assaulting)
"Cover Fire!" - If an enemy unit takes hits, any marine unit may take cover saves against fire from that enemy unit, for the next turn.(?)
"Suppressing Fire!" -Enemy units hit and wounded may only move as if though difficult terrain for their next turn.(?)
"Concentrate Your Fire!" - May re-roll a number of to wound rolls

I think those sound decent, they have less of the sound of deperation the IG ones do and still don't dissuade movement.

JohnHwangDD wrote:The difference is that the Officer Command is making the Lasgun better than a Lasgun for "free", so it needs a penalty to balance the effect.

Unless you pay points for a order. Or part of the point cost is a portion of the officer. Which in and of itself is a penalty, because you have the opportunity cost of not choosing other options.

Hey the officer is a manditory pick. A t3 5+sv model that gives up a kill point..... I think that is enough of a price to pay

If its limited to a single squad, the opportunity costs is probably enough of a balance factor in your average IG platoon...gives an interesting role for the army commander finally since presumably he can order any squad around he would let you double up on platoons with squads in key positions...

Jack

JohnHwangDD wrote:The difference is that the Officer Command is making the Lasgun better than a Lasgun for "free", so it needs a penalty to balance the effect.

This quote is how you can identify a masochistic IG player who's been playing for too many editions worth of poor codices. After years of getting so little, many of us IG players have gotten too use to getting the shaft... all I can say maybe this time when we tell GW "not so deep" they'll listen to our tear filled plea.

This is off the top of my head... but at best you are making a single squads worth of lasguns 50% more worthwhile for a single round. Mathammer wise that is a 5% to 8% jump in likeliness of killing a space marine; that makes it 1.1 to 1.7 marines a turn. This however ignores any roll you need to make to give the "Order".

I like to see players have to make trade-offs of risks for rewards.

The trade off is built into the reward rather than the failure.

With something like "Orders" the only way you could represent a "failure" would be some miscommunication... something like a roll 1d6 and perform a different order instead. So instead seeing the tank and focusing their efforts on it, they might fix bayonets... but that seems to really be a forced way doing things.

The failure of Orders is a lost opportunity to use a helpful ability. I'm in the camp that would like to pretend that these orders and their costs are built into the commanders or their troops and that a failure to perform an order is a failure to live up to what they cost and is punishment enough on the player.

No different than buying a special weapon or upgrade that never gets used.

Aside from the weapon or upgrade having a cost.

I mean, you look at Sisters Faith - that's a resource that needs to be managed.

But I suppose if it truly were baked into the costs, like BT Vows, then that'd be fine.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I like to see players have to make trade-offs of risks for rewards.

Like SM drop pods? Who would of thought that a metal box shot from low orbit would be the safest way to travel onto a battlefield.


I am very excited about these "Orders", I think they will fit perfectly with the feel of IG. I also think GW will most likely have a balancing factor to them. I highly doubt that we will be able to throw different Orders all around to all of our squads every turn (all those Ld tests).

Most likely there will be a limit to how many Orders you can issue (turn or game), who can get orders (near officer/vox), requirements for the order (give up moving, ect). So I would assume there will be critical choices being made.

Until I see the final rules for Orders, I don't know whether I'll like them.

I hope they won't be stupid like a lot of the Fandex stuff, I hope we won't have stultifying Overwatch, I hope they won't be messy like Doctrines, and I hope they won't be some kind of stupid band-aid to having to take a bunch of crappy stuff.