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Again and again I hear people go on about how there is an over abundance of cover saves in 5th. Usually it's mentioned with a negative connotation: "it's so easy to gain a cover save now" or "everything has cover now so there's no point to shooting" or some other such comment. It's also talked about a lot in strategy articles and posts. I'm not sure if I can make my thoughts clear enough but I'll give it a try.

IT'S EASIER TO SHOOT AT STUFF IN 5TH, NOT MORE DIFFICULT!

True, there are more cover saves granted than there used to be. However, this is due to the fact that units may now be targetted when they are behind area terrain. This is of critical importance. Back in 3rd/4th edition you could position a unit behind a ruined building or an area of tree's and that unit was completely safe from enemy fire. That's right, LOS was considered blocked to these units and they couldn't be shot at (through the terrain obviously). Now with 5th edition, these units may be selected as targets and shot at. This is when they gain their cover save.

So now you have situations in games where your units can trace LOS to most if not all of the enemy units. These units will probably get a cover save. Back in 4th it was not uncommon for you to only be able to trace LOS to a few (sometimes none) of the enemy units.

What's better a 4+ cover save or being completely out of LOS and immune to most shooting attacks. It's simple, blocked LOS trumps a cover save. Area terrain went from being opaque to translucent. Units that previously were immune to shooting now GET a cover save. They didn't GAIN a cover save. It didn't become EASIER for them to get a cover save. It's not a bonus type situation. They have been DOWN-GRADED from "can't be shot at" to "gets a cover save".

Face it, it was easier to hide and protect units behind terrain back in 4th than it is now. So stop complaining that the enemy is getting too much cover too easily and be thankful that you are actually allowed to even shoot at him now.

Huh, interseting perspective. Your area terrain case seems decent.

In counterpoint:

...what about cover saves for tanks?
...what about enemy units creating saves for each other?
...what about the chessboard mutual save?

oxoxo
xoxox
oxoxo

(2x8 man units in a grid blocking eachother)
...also what about improved saves? woods becoming a 4+
...what about friendly units creating saves for enemy units

There are a lot more issues to cover saves being more prevalent than just area terrain, it's a larger issue than that.

In practice, every unit gets a cover save now, unless the owning player didn't set up right.

The way I see it, it's a 50/50 proposition:

I can shoot at units that I previously could not due to LOS restrictions of terrain;

I now give a cover save to units by shooting through my own units and their other units, where previously they got none for the same shooting.

So I get something, and I give something. In this sense there are more cover saves where there were none before, but there are also more shooting opportunities.

What I see this doing is changing the shooting bias away from hard armor saves a bit and giving "soft" units a bit more survivability. Now instead of simply targeting a unit with little armor directly, you either peel back screening layers or live with the cover saves.

More shooting opportunities and more cover saves actually level the shooting playing field IMHO and help armies like Orks and Nids.

I'm still of the opinion the Troops Cover save thing is a deliberate Meta-Game shift for GW to encourage better across the range sales.

After all, Horde armies benefit enormously from this, making them a helluva lot better than before, especially as traditionally, 30 Orks or Gaunts found getting into cover tricky in the extreme.

Come 6th Edition, I confidentally predict the cover save will remain, but reduced to 5+. By this time, the Metagame shift caused by 5th Edition will have resulted in people with a greater variety of weapons in their collection, arguably larger forces, and of course, the sales spread out some.

When it was all MEQ, it was easy to load up on AP3 to flatten them. But now it's less MEQcentric (or so I am told. Forgive any inaccuracies!) you need a broader selection of tools at your disposal.

holden88 wrote:Again and again I hear people go on about how there is an over abundance of cover saves in 5th. Usually it's mentioned with a negative connotation: "it's so easy to gain a cover save now" or "everything has cover now so there's no point to shooting" or some other such comment. It's also talked about a lot in strategy articles and posts. I'm not sure if I can make my thoughts clear enough but I'll give it a try.

IT'S EASIER TO SHOOT AT STUFF IN 5TH, NOT MORE DIFFICULT!

True, there are more cover saves granted than there used to be. However, this is due to the fact that units may now be targetted when they are behind area terrain. This is of critical importance. Back in 3rd/4th edition you could position a unit behind a ruined building or an area of tree's and that unit was completely safe from enemy fire. That's right, LOS was considered blocked to these units and they couldn't be shot at (through the terrain obviously). Now with 5th edition, these units may be selected as targets and shot at. This is when they gain their cover save.

So now you have situations in games where your units can trace LOS to most if not all of the enemy units. These units will probably get a cover save. Back in 4th it was not uncommon for you to only be able to trace LOS to a few (sometimes none) of the enemy units.

What's better a 4+ cover save or being completely out of LOS and immune to most shooting attacks. It's simple, blocked LOS trumps a cover save. Area terrain went from being opaque to translucent. Units that previously were immune to shooting now GET a cover save. They didn't GAIN a cover save. It didn't become EASIER for them to get a cover save. It's not a bonus type situation. They have been DOWN-GRADED from "can't be shot at" to "gets a cover save".

Face it, it was easier to hide and protect units behind terrain back in 4th than it is now. So stop complaining that the enemy is getting too much cover too easily and be thankful that you are actually allowed to even shoot at him now.

While you're right this kind of situation did two things:

Hard to protect more fragile/fast moving units:

Assault Marines
Trukks/Raiders
Tau Battlesuits w/ JSJ

Since they can't hide behind something, be safe from shooting, pop out and assault. Now these low model count/fast units are more vulnerable.

Conversely, the ability to screen units and get a 4+ cover save greatly enhanced large hordes of troops, most notably Orks. Now, units that would hardly get cover saves before (Orks) as they had too many to get behind cover, can claim very strong resilience from shooting with no increase in points cost.

So um, yeah. It is very easy to get a cover save. It makes shooting specific kinds of targets a near worthless endeavor, where as others - not.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:When it was all MEQ, it was easy to load up on AP3 to flatten them. But now it's less MEQcentric ...

In the sense that the armor save is not an "all or nothing" proposition like it used to be in the shooting game. Example: Marine Squad squares off against a Boyz mob with an intervening squad.

Marines vs Orks shooting 4th Edition; Orks get no save. Marines get 3+ save.
Marines vs Orks shooting 5th Edition; Orks get 4+ save. Marines get 3+ save.

Less bias towards the Armor save.

Yeah, cover saves really benefit softer troops who are denied AS from most weapons. If these soft troops come in large numbers, even better. Running also helps if these troops also desire to get closer, say for CC. Which also got more devastating to units involved. The changes to consolidating into new combats also favors cheaper CC troops as expensive killy ones stand a better chance of getting obliterated in the subsequent turn.

So several factors in rules changes have shifted to favor horde CC armies. Which, coincidentally(?), require large numbers of models to be purchased.

Which has very much changed the Metagame by making those armies 'viable' in the eyes of the more Tournament Minded.

This of course means an army geared to take down Power Armour, typically involving High Strength, Low (High? not sure on the semantics there) AP, which generally means slow firing struggles against Hordes. Now, to deal with the Hordes, Heavy Bolter type weapons are a lot more desirable than they were, as are weapons which ignore Cover Saves completely.

Add in that Objectives now play a far bigger role, and the shift is complete.

And with every shift of course, means more models sold as people keep up to date against the latest threats. If the save for friendly units and most terrain was 5+, the shift might not have been enough to really makes itself felt. Hence why I wouldn't be surprised, shift made and metagame suitably changed, the base cover save drops in the next edition.

What difference does it make now? There has been such a preponderance of weapons that ignore cover saves in recent codexes, that the only good cover is cover that actually blocks LOS now. Even with my IG, I rarely rely on cover to help me...unless I can actually hide behind it or if it's a building...actually get in it.

Capt K

Most weapons which ignore cover saves are mercifully short ranged, or relatively inaccurate.

I have the more recent Codecies (4th Ed Marines onwards) and the only weapons which don't fit the above description are Whirlwinds with Castellan Missiles (though that just a shot option now, IIRC) and the Tau Airbursting Thingy.

This might well be wrong, as I do confess I've not played 40k since Cities of Death came out (got too caught up in Fantasy!).

Oh, and any Barrage weapon, depending on how the shot lands, and where the troops and cover are in relation. And Dragonbolts from Sternguard of course.

I believe it's the fact that now all cover saves are 4+, no longer stepped for softer forms of cover such as woods or tall grass. Under the new cover save rules, Armour made out of wood or leaves is better than a flack jacket of carapace armour.
In the real world, there is cover; that which stops bullets, projectiles, and shrapnel. And there is concealment; that which hides you from vision. One does not necessarily equal the other.
GW is trying to turn these two very different things into one to streamline gameplay. In order to fix this "problem" the game mechanics would become more complicated for shooting, much like 2nd edition. Maybe 6th edition will fix this. Maybe.

Bringing back anti-plant missiles would solve alot of cover save problems.

This is a bit nit-picky, but "tall grass" actually is in the 6+ cover section. Although the vast majority of cover types off 4+ there are some differences. The problem is that generally when players make terrain, they only make the terrain that supplies the best cover saves, so I think the writers of the rulebook just decided to go ahead and give most terrain 4+ cover to encourage a wider variety of terrain.

It is a bit problematic in my opinion. A lot of games I've played in or observed, folks just declare who they are shooting at and the opponent gets ready to roll for cover saves. It appears to me that LOS is too loose now as nothing seems to block LOS. They may have a lot to do with gamers/game shops not updating terrain from 4th edition.

While I wasn't a huge fan of how area terrain got utelized, I believe it held an importance in 4th edition as going 1st could be very advantageous.

From my experience, I do see an abundance of 4+ cover saves. I'd like to vary it up a bit in games and tourneys. 5+ saves or 6+ saves and even construct terrain that actually blocks LOS. Variety, IMO, will help create more interesting games.

Sarigar wrote:It is a bit problematic in my opinion. A lot of games I've played in or observed, folks just declare who they are shooting at and the opponent gets ready to roll for cover saves. It appears to me that LOS is too loose now as nothing seems to block LOS. They may have a lot to do with gamers/game shops not updating terrain from 4th edition.

While I wasn't a huge fan of how area terrain got utelized, I believe it held an importance in 4th edition as going 1st could be very advantageous.

From my experience, I do see an abundance of 4+ cover saves. I'd like to vary it up a bit in games and tourneys. 5+ saves or 6+ saves and even construct terrain that actually blocks LOS. Variety, IMO, will help create more interesting games.

At my local shop, we have a good variety of terrain including intact buildings, and some ruins that have intact walls. It's nice because while there is area terrain, there is also LoS blocking terrain, or the area terrain incorporates LoS blocking elements.

One thing that I'd like to point out though, is that often whichever unit is closest to the firer is less likely to get cover saves... so maybe rather than bitching that the unit you want to shoot at has a cover save, maybe think that it could be a tactical advantage to simply shoot at the more obvious target sometimes.

Perturabo's Chosen wrote:I
In the real world, there is cover; that which stops bullets, projectiles, and shrapnel. And there is concealment; that which hides you from vision. One does not necessarily equal the other.

In the real world we don't have genetic freak supersoldiers squaring off against alien bugs, happy communist fish people, metal skeletons, S&M elves, and musclebound green soccer hooligans.
In the real world, people don't adorn everything with skulls and spikes.
In the real world, armies have to worry as much about logistics and supply as fighting.
In the real world, warfare is horrific, depressing, and gross.
/rant

On cover v. concealment, cover can be cover to somethings and merely concealment to others. It can also turn into a liability. For example, a regular brick wall will do a pretty decent job of slowing down medium caliber rifle rounds and will stop small rounds (IE pistol) cold. Turn a .50 cal on it and not only will it punch through, it will through dangerous shards of splintered brick, too. GW's simplification is inline with their fairly abstract game and designed to make play quick and easy, which it succeeds in. A more accurate way would be to class concealment as a -1 hit modifier and cover provides an AV (that can be AP'ed by an appropriate weapon- a lascannon would probably burn through just about any cover). But, the current system works well enough.