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I think that having my men almost right next to somone and still missing is kind of stupid so i think ther sould be a rule about point blank range were the role to hit was incresed by one and strenght increased by one when within 4 inches.

All shooting, movement, and close combat in the game of 40k is not supposed to exactly be happening "in the moment" where you see your soldiers.

It is instead representing the soldiers fighting over a portion of time.

For example, a squad in open ground it shooting at a squad in a trench. That is possibly representing the squad in open ground moving forward, taking cover, and attempting to return fire.

The best way to summarize this, is that it's an illusion of actual fighting.



Of course you could take a completely opposite view and just say that this a game and it doesn't matter that much, they're just a bunch of values made to be tested in situations, and the values couldn't be changed except in certain circumstances...

i just don't see why. Being shot at is a thoughroughly unpleasant experince which anyone who has been will tell you. Odds have it you wouldn"t want to get right next to that huge ass demon to cap it in the face, but rather would be taking advantage of your weapons range. A BS increase wouldn't make sense with all units either, sniper rifles for example. Lastly a Str bonus makes no sense to me, if a bullet can't dent a tank at 20 yards, why can it now that i'm closer...

Because you can see the driver better now

and look for weak spots in armour.

Fluff-wise SM bolter rounds SHOULD hit harder at distance. Their self propelled and keep accelerating after leaving the barrel.
Tell ya what, you can hit harder close up if my Grey Knights can hit harder far away.

Hivemind1234 wrote:and look for weak spots in armour.

And magically be able to use your (now enchanced due to proximity) aim to accuratly put a shot DIRECTLY into that weak spot, thus allowing lasguns to glance rhinos on a lucky AP roll (well, side and back at least). Not to mention that the game is technically fluid "in-universe" and your soldiers are not just standing their twiddling their thumbs until you tell them to do something, they are moving, ducking, running, whatever. AND as Joetaco mentioned (poor capitalization/spelling/grammer aside ) would your IG really shoot more accuratly with a greater Demon in front of them? Personally I think they would piss themselves.

In conclusion, this rule makes little to no sense.

there is a weapon that hits better at close range, its a flamer, auto hits because its so close and the fire licks around the corners of rubble so it ignores cover. Hooray you got your wish.

CrazyThang has summarized it up nicely.

Ok i think i can faily say iv lost this battle

drukawski wrote:Fluff-wise SM bolter rounds SHOULD hit harder at distance. Their self propelled and keep accelerating after leaving the barrel.
Tell ya what, you can hit harder close up if my Grey Knights can hit harder far away.

That mean they hit faster, not harder. In fact, all it does is increase distance, decrease bullet stability (accuracy) and decrease bullet weight (strength). Not to mention that it also makes the bullet more hollow (makes it softer and reduces armour penetration). Then again, strength characteristic on a human is completely reversed from what strength characteristic on a vehicle would be. So I find myself arguing real life mechanics in a game-model of something far from real life.

Let's just say that fluff-wise the bullets simply reaches further. And that the range and hit rules are there to make the game a game and not a competition on who can measure best and look up the most relevant rules (ye gods, we have that already).

Well you cant really argue the physics of it without knowing the propellant mass to bullet mass ratio. I don't recall the fluff ever giving specifics as to how much volume and mass the propellant takes up (if it takes up any at all). However, the fluff does state in multiple places that bolter round specifically hits harder once it leaves the barrel and have time to speed up. Thats what I was referring to. I'm sure the reason this isn't reflected in game is determining impact force based on distance would slow the game down and its one more chart that would be different for every race's gun technology.

drukawski wrote:Well you cant really argue the physics of it without knowing the propellant mass to bullet mass ratio. I don't recall the fluff ever giving specifics as to how much volume and mass the propellant takes up (if it takes up any at all). However, the fluff does state in multiple places that bolter round specifically hits harder once it leaves the barrel and have time to speed up. Thats what I was referring to. I'm sure the reason this isn't reflected in game is determining impact force based on distance would slow the game down and its one more chart that would be different for every race's gun technology.

Considering the technology level described, those bullets must cost an absolute fortune to make...

Games like Necromunda take distance into account when rolling to hit. In cover, far away and partially hidden? Enjoy your -3 to the roll. Up close in the open? +1 to hit good sir.

Makes sense fluff-wise, along with terror tests from WFB for situations that CrazyThang are bringing up, but it does slow the game down.

drukawski wrote:However, the fluff does state in multiple places that bolter round specifically hits harder once it leaves the barrel and have time to speed up.

The damage done by a bolter round only has a small correllation to the speed. After the round leaves the barrell of the weapon, it is inert until x amount of time has passed (a very small amount however). After x amount of time has passed, the round is armed, and will explode on contact with it's target (similar to the way a modern day grenade fired from a grenade launcher will not explode immediately, it stops the user from vaporising themselves).

Speed only factors in over distance. You want the round to reach the target in the optimal time, so that the round will be fired, armed and detonated in the space of almost an instant.

Before a bolter round is armed, it's impact would be very similar to any other large caliber bullet. After it's armed, it's a grenade launcher, relying on heat, shrapnel and the concussive wave to do damage. Obviosly, the faster the round reaches the target, the further it will penetrate, increasing the damage caused.

I'm not completely disproving your argument, I'm just saying that distance and penetration are also a large factor.

S_P

I always thought there should be rules to cover point blank fire, but that like many rules its a trade off or limited in opportunity.

Point-blank Shooting: An additional round of shooting maybe taken by a unit aginst an enemy unit when that opponent's unit attempts to assault but fails to close the necessary distance to engage in close combat. Additionally a Point-blank shooting attack may be made by moving as if to assault, but placing your unit 1" away from base contact; this can only be done if the unit could have made base to base contact; any unit attacked in this way automatically performs a Point-blank shooting attack, based on their previous movement.

Ya know, I suppose it could work like this:

Within 6": +1 to hit bonus
Larger than 15 soldiers/base/hull more than 6" across: +1 to hit
Both:+2 to hit

Soup and a roll wrote:Games like Necromunda take distance into account when rolling to hit. In cover, far away and partially hidden? Enjoy your -3 to the roll. Up close in the open? +1 to hit good sir.

Makes sense fluff-wise, along with terror tests from WFB for situations that CrazyThang are bringing up, but it does slow the game down.

felixthecat345 wrote:Ya know, I suppose it could work like this:

Within 6": +1 to hit bonus
Larger than 15 soldiers/base/hull more than 6" across: +1 to hit
Both:+2 to hit

Then you want to play 40K 2nd Ed. where there was shooting rules like this.
Necro shooting is pretty much lifted from 2nd ed.

You also want to add at least 20mins to a normal sized game. Cause the next thing is to bring back all modifiers.

Did the Target move -1
Did the firing units move -1
Point blank +1
Long range -1
Are they in cover -2
Is it the second Tuesday of a month that has 31 days +2

jbunny wrote:You also want to add at least 20mins to a normal sized game. Cause the next thing is to bring back all modifiers.

Did the Target move -1
Did the firing units move -1
Point blank +1
Long range -1
Are they in cover -2
Is it the second Tuesday of a month that has 31 days +2

You forgot to add - Is it raining outside +1

S_P

Space_Potato wrote:

jbunny wrote:You also want to add at least 20mins to a normal sized game. Cause the next thing is to bring back all modifiers.

Did the Target move -1
Did the firing units move -1
Point blank +1
Long range -1
Are they in cover -2
Is it the second Tuesday of a month that has 31 days +2

You forgot to add - Is it raining outside +1

S_P

It is here

This is why I think what I proposed is better. GW represents the easy of hitting something in two ways. One is what has to be rolled, the other is the number of possible hits. The latter is used to to represent volume of fire as is the case with twin linked weapons. If you modify the the to hit roll, you will get bogged down in modifiers, which is just no good.

That only leaves modifying the volume of potential hits. Above I proposed it be done by conditionally allowing a special type of range attack in the assault phase, thus a unit would effectively get double the amount of shooting in a turn. The other way I propose is this:

Point Blank Range: If a shooting attack is made within 6" of the enemy unit being shot, all attacks that roll a miss maybe re-rolled.

Its plain and simple.

aka_mythos wrote:
Point Blank Range: If a shooting attack is made within 6" of the enemy unit being shot, all attacks that roll a miss maybe re-rolled.

Its plain and simple.

Dear Science! Look at this this!

15 shots at BS3 -> 5 hit, 3 hit on reroll.
30 shots at BS3 -> 10 hit

The second sounds better, yes? It's what is used by Rapid Fire weapons currently in GW's rules. It's more effective than what you have proposed...and before Assault and Heavy are brought up...Heavy are usually defined by their ROF, and Assault have the bonus of allowing you to assault if with 6".

All of the above sounds good enough to me.

Well doubled number of shots is clearly better. If you look at the rules I proposed to go with the "double shots" concept, it involved moving towards the assault, thus eliminating heavy weapons, for the most part, from the equation. But it also made it more of a gambel because if you attempt to move in to make the point blank shot and fall short, your opponent gets to shoot point blank at you. Greater risk greater reward.

The second idea of simply getting re-rolls was intended as a riskless option. The idea of allowing rerolls would merely help balance the desparaging disadvantage ranged units have to close combat ones. The way I wrote this concept makes it more defensive than the other.

My point is both deal with the concept from two different angles. The second one treats it as a niche bonus for a specific situation. The first one as a special type of attack as an alternative to assaulting.