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Sorry, It's always has pissed me off about how 40K uses saves with Armor, INVU, and Cover. I feel it should be that whatever you have for a save you should use them all, starting from your most strongest and down. What I am basically saying is that you should be able to use them all.

Example: A SpaceMarine Chapter master is held down in a trench with his men. A Railgun fires at him. It kills his Armor save obviously because It's a railgun, but seeing that his armor is better than the Trench save, the Trench suddenly...DISSAPERES. SUDDENLY THE SPACE MARINE CHAPTER MASTERS TRENCH VANISHES IN MID AIR AND NOW HE IS AT THE MERCY OF THE TAU ARMY! BOOM THE RAIL GUN HITS...he dies...if only the terrain didn't suddenly dissapere.

I'm sure you get my idea. Space Marines...Imperial Guard...and whoever else do not build all these trenches and cover to just to rely on their armor and let it dissapere.

I hope I am making sense...and I hope that you all agree that saves should be done more realistically.

I mean...We didn't build trenches in WW1 because we thought they looked cool...

Realism+40k=HERPDERPDERP. It does not work.

No, you're not making sense, since in the example you're giving, wtf is happening with the dissapearing trench? If a space marine in shot with a rail gun, then obviously the trench is not going to HURFA DURFA DISAPPEAR! Because a cover save is what he's going to want to take vs a railgun. I think you'd better reread the rules on saves, since you seem to have a very poor understanding of how they work.

Better Example....It's Pulse rifles...or Bolters firing at him. Better?

They build trenches to hide in. In modern warfare, cover would take priority over armour. A solid stone wall is much better protection than ballistic armour.

Yes. You made it sound like if you had 2+ armor while standing in 4+ cover, if you were hit by an AP 2 weapon you wouldn't get to take your cover save because your armor had been better.

I'm going to question how much thought you've put into this, since you obviously have not realized how much it'd make the game suck. So you shoot your pulse rifle at the termi armor captain. He fails his 2+ armor save. Bummer. But wait! He still has a 4+ cover save! Huzzah! And if he fails that, a 5+ inv!

Better yet, Thunder Hammer/ Storm Shield termies, with a unit of tac marines ahead of them giving cover to the advance. 2+/3+/4+. It would MASSIVELY unbalance the game towards MEQ armies. Armies like orks, with a majority 6+ save, would still rarely get anything but a cover save, while marines, who so frequently get their 3+ now suddenly get a 4+ save as well.

That's why you just use your BEST save.

Well I see where you are coming from, but perhaps put a point cost for certain trenches and buildings in the favor of the army using thme?

Hmm, that would be a whole lot of work for no-tangible benefit. Or else, if my oppenent buys a trench, does that mean I can't use it? So his models jump in a fortified trench, they get a 3+ cover save too, but if mine are in the same thing, they get nothing? That makes even less sense.

The point you're missing here is, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.' There's nothing at all wrong with taking only the best save available. It certainly does nothing to detract from the realism of the game, and it's a whole lot better than some of the situations arose the last times saves stacked, when a character might take an armor save + an invulnerable save + a dodge save + + a displacement field save + a cover save (or however the worst case scenario went).

Final point. What about small arms fire? Perhaps it should be redone that heavy weapons should be able to penetrate all saves ((Except when it comes to armor seeing that there is still AP)). I mean, small arms fire such as rapid fire weapons, or assaulting weapons should not be able to go through a stone wall or a mound of dirt. Where on the other hand such as a Rail-gun, Basilisk gun, or the Baneblade main cannon would easily go through that. I suppose what I am saying here is, I could see a stone wall stopping fire from rifles, but not heavy weapons from vehicles, or large missles.

The thing is, in real firefights, people would glance around cover during a lapse in the shooting. They could always get nailed by an accurate shot, even if they're only exposed for a second or two. GW probably had this in mind when they wrote the rules.

But to say that is the same as saying that tanks shouldn't get an obscured target save when they are half covered by something. When someone moves to fire, they don't jump out of a trench, they probably expose 1/3 of their body, making it harder for them to be hit. Just as a tank or a vehicle gets their AV and an obscured target save, infantry should get their Armor save and cover save/

Thing is though that would still imbalance the game, because all the stationary imperial armies would own the combat armies like Nids, Orks, Daemons who have to run in the open somtimes giving them only their existing save while the other armies get two saves which statistically reduces their death rate by 50% most of the time cause most things are 4+ cover, with marines who only lose 33% of wounds anyways that is a massive reduction in losses making it so they will lose only 3 men for every 20 wounds rather than their current 6 for every 20 wounds. it would give an uncharacteristic advantage to shooty armies because they can bunker down.

Avrik_Shasla wrote: Just as a tank or a vehicle gets their AV and an obscured target save, infantry should get their Armor save and cover save/

You're example doesn't work. Tanks don't have an armor save to negate, in fact they usually have no save of any type at all.

If it ain't broken, don't fix it. You have yet to explain how the current one save system is in any way broken and requires fixing.

If it helps you sleep any better, look at it this way: if you failed a 2+ armor save, that also would've blown a 4+ cover save. The dude really had his head in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I guess I understand where you're coming from. I do think it's kind of ridiculous when my marines receive no benefit from cover against small arms fire. But I understand that it's all for balance, so I don't really mind it too much.

There are enough things that ignore cover saves without all heavy weapons cutting through cover (which is ridiculous if you think about it. Part of the protection from cover is that they can't see you to target you).

1 Any blast that lands in the right place
2 Flamer weapons
3 Sternguard special ammo
4 Incendiary rounds from Whirlwind

Those are just off the top of my head that deny cover saves. No need for heavy bolters and the like to do so.

Almost makes you wonder why you pick anything that doesn't just go boom.

Its mostly for game balance. Armies who depend on cover should get more use out of it than armies that view it as a luxury. Besides, a spess muhreen can't be heroic if he's hiding behind something.

SPESS MUHREENS!

But yes I completely understand it's for game balance, but I think GW studios should do a bit more thinking on the part of how cover works. If lighter weapons are firing at infantry inside trenches and what not they should get the save, but something like Rail-guns, and Lascannons should obviously just negate cover due to their amazing power.

Uh, I think in your rage your forgetting the actual rules. When a model has multiple different saves (Cover, Armor, Invulnerable etc) you dont just default to the best save, you get to CHOOSE which save the model takes against the hit you take.

Also cover saves are not modified by the AP of a weapon

So in your scenario the Marine commander takes a hit from a Rail Gun. The hit would obviously ignore his armor, so you simply choose to take your save using the cover instead and survive on the 4+ save you've assigned the trench. You roll a 4, the emplacement eats the enemy round and your Commander lives to fight another day.

Or of course if your feeling particularly Manly you can pretend he's standing on top of the trench, waving a flag while sheltering a cute orphan and choose to roll against his Inulvnerable save. Because he's just that badass. You Roll the same 4 and and our hero is turned to mush and the orphan grows up to be an Ork.

If I read correctly I think the only exception is blast template weapons (In certain circumstances) or Flamer templates which can negate the cover your model is hiding behind.

Mad Rabbit beat me to it

The problem with cover saves stems from what cover saves are supposed to represent and how they work in the game.

Cover saves arent ment to be a bit of wall getting in the way of a bullet. Lots of heavy weapons would just go through them, as has been pointed out already. Even with modern small arms it isnt too hard to shoot through walls. Instead cover saves represent the change of your enemy firing at a place where he thinks you are and missing. If some guard are hiding in a building and i want to shoot them with my boltgun (which could easily shoot through a bit of concrete), I may shoot where i think they will be, but i dont know where they are exactly.

In the game this is represented by a cover save and this is where problems start to occur. There is no greater benefit to a marine hiding in cover than jumping up and down waving his arms against most weapons. Instead of a save, cover should give a reduction to BS, like in WHFB, -1 for light cover and -2 for heavy cover. This effects blast weapons also because lower BS increases the distance you will scatter. Template weapons, which ignore cover, are placed and so are not subject to this This may reduce some BS to 0, but then you can also use the table for WHFB for BS lower than 1. This makes it equally good for everyone to be hiding in cover, as it should be.

Except that a penalty to BS would give the shaft to armies like Orks and even IG.

Remember, accuracy by volume is how a good few of the armies in 40k work.

Regwon wrote:The problem with cover saves stems from what cover saves are supposed to represent and how they work in the game.

Cover saves arent ment to be a bit of wall getting in the way of a bullet. Lots of heavy weapons would just go through them, as has been pointed out already. Even with modern small arms it isnt too hard to shoot through walls. Instead cover saves represent the change of your enemy firing at a place where he thinks you are and missing. If some guard are hiding in a building and i want to shoot them with my boltgun (which could easily shoot through a bit of concrete), I may shoot where i think they will be, but i dont know where they are exactly.

In the game this is represented by a cover save and this is where problems start to occur. There is no greater benefit to a marine hiding in cover than jumping up and down waving his arms against most weapons. Instead of a save, cover should give a reduction to BS, like in WHFB, -1 for light cover and -2 for heavy cover. This effects blast weapons also because lower BS increases the distance you will scatter. Template weapons, which ignore cover, are placed and so are not subject to this This may reduce some BS to 0, but then you can also use the table for WHFB for BS lower than 1. This makes it equally good for everyone to be hiding in cover, as it should be.

If we want to play pretend then I have to disagree and say that cover can be anything. By your example your saying that the only cover available is basicly just conceilment that could be shot through. However cover saves not only include conceilment but also bunkers, fences, steel walls, tanks, other units, trenches etc That normal or heavy rounds cant penetrate or would have difficulty hitting the desired target through.

You can pretend that as opposed to just making you miss, the person in cover is dodging between obstacles or maybe the round is slowed down by going through the wall and tumbles ineffectively into the target who walks away with a nasty bruise to show off to his friends.

Heck pretend that the Bolter round enters the warp, gains conciousness, makes friends with Doomrider where they do cocaine, eventually fall in love and raise a family just before (by unfortunate circumstance) a Pink gorrilla named Ted (who hates his job but does it anyways because of the great benefits) kidnaps the bolter round and sends it back out of the warp where it lands behind the guy who fired it in the first place. The universe is a strange place.

It just seems to me that the people who have the biggest beef with cover saves are Space marines. I would figure that having a 3+ save and T4 would be enough. Cover works for Marines too. Sure it may only be a 5+ in most cases but if your getting hit by AP3 weapons I'd bet a dollar that you would hunker down right next to the Guardsman and the Eldar.

I dont know if I agree with porting the ballistic skill reduction from WHFB either. I'm sure it would be great for you to have enemy BS reduced considering almost every other army is BS 3 or worse anyways. Having to roll 6's to hit on top of everything else would be dandy for a Power armored chappy with the bolter that can fire through buildings.

i can actually see what Avrik_Shasla is saying in regerds to certain invulnerable saves, from a fluff point of view. eg in the rosarius description it says that the chaplain is surrounded by a force field, which grants him an invulnerable save, yet and AP- weapon can get through it whilst an AP2 one can't

Regwon wrote:In the game this is represented by a cover save and this is where problems start to occur. There is no greater benefit to a marine hiding in cover than jumping up and down waving his arms against most weapons. Instead of a save, cover should give a reduction to BS, like in WHFB, -1 for light cover and -2 for heavy cover. This effects blast weapons also because lower BS increases the distance you will scatter. Template weapons, which ignore cover, are placed and so are not subject to this This may reduce some BS to 0, but then you can also use the table for WHFB for BS lower than 1. This makes it equally good for everyone to be hiding in cover, as it should be.

Speed should have the same effect. A vehicle moving very fast, especially skimmers, should incur negative penalties on To Hit rolls.

Wait. I know this one. I think it was called 2nd edition.

40k is not a realistic representation. It's an abstraction.

Personally, I like Flames of War method, where your To Hit is determined by their skill level. The rational being that veteran troopers make better use of cover and are harder to hit.

If you werev to take ALL your saves available that would make everyone unkillable monsters!

Weapons are freaking lethal!
In reality a single lasgun shot could easily be a guardsman blasting away at full auto, or carefully sniping.

That is why I dislike fantasy a lot. 1) you get NEGATIVE saves 2)You take more than one 3)Characters are almost freaking impossoble to Kill!

So TC you're saying they should get a cover save first, representing the cover they are in. Then if they fail that it hits them and then they take their Armour save.
Is that what you were saying?