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Nurglitch wrote:Rounding down means that there is a difference between weapons with Sn and Sn+1.

But would make no difference between weapons that were, for example Str: 4 and Str: 5 (both would cause Str 2 blasts). Which particular weapons did you want to keep different?

Frag Grenades from Grenade Launchers are Str: 3.

Huh, I could've sworn launched frag grenades were S4. How about that?

Basically I wanted to keep all blast weapons different, although really, if you desperately want to get rid of the fun parts, I suppose my proposal could be amended to be something more like:

The attacking player should roll to wound any models touching the blast template.

Once per turn a unit may attempt a heroic action. If the unit passes a leadership test then the player can nominate one model in the unit within range and line of sight of the attack to take an automatic wound (still subject to armour saves at the weapon's ap) instead of the blast template being placed and rolling to wound for every model beneath it.

You appear to have removed all the good bits from your idea. I didn't like any of that Ld test and heroic action stuff.

How about giving Blast weapons a split Str e.g. Battle Cannon Str: 8(6). The number in parenthesis being the blast damage strength, keep the bit about not rolling for partials and you're away.

Well, the essence of the proposal was to get rid of partial hits. Since doing so made blast weapons rather nasty, and I thought the idea of a squad-mate throwing himself heroically onto an explosive in a bid to save his mates, I stuck that in to ameliorate the impact of the extra inch in radius I was essentially proposing. The other stuff, such as negating skimmers moving fast, and affecting fearless and monstrous creatures adversely were basically sops to the first few suggestions and some bug-bears that seem to irritate people in 40k these days, namely the advantages of monstrous creatures over vehicles, the hardening of skimmers thanks to the skimmers moving fast rule, and the impact of fearless troops on the pinning rules.

Fixing partial hits is a good thing as the current game mechanics are very poor.

In regard to fast moving skimmers I think you're trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. Ask anyone who plays (or plays against) Dark Eldar if skimmers need nerfing.

The monstrous creature verses vehicles imbalance would be better solved by making weapons that currently cut through armour like a hot knife through butter (Meltaguns, Ordinance etc.) cause more than a single wound on monstrous creatures (perhaps roll to wound twice for weapons that roll two penetration dice e.g. Melta and Ordinance weapons).

Oh, I know that fast moving skimmers don't need weakening, but I figured it's better to work with people's prejudices rather than against them. Get my foot in the door, so to speak.

Causing extra wounds on Tyranid Monstrous Creatures is already pretty easy. The problem is what happens when you cause fewer than are needed to kill the model. Then you don't have a situation where the extra wounds do anything but make the model easier to kill next turn. This is the imbalance between vehicles and monstrous creatures.

Being able to pin monstrous creatures would balance them against vehicles, although retaining separate sets of rules for both types of model is moreso a jerry-rig. These problems would be simple to solve depending on the deviation from the current rules, the trick is getting something that will plug into the current rules and points values.

Nurglitch wrote:...I figured it's better to work with people's prejudices rather than against them...

Are you sure you're the real Nurglitch? Has old age finally caught up with you?

Pinning monstrous creatures, again 40k's mechanics here are sorely lacking, but I don't think that this should be blast weapons job. A long time ago 40k had lots of 'disrupt' weapons (photon flare, gas etc.) these weapons should be reintegrated into modern 40k rather than giving blast weapons rules they don't really need.

Good point, allow me to correct myself: I figure it's easier to work against people's prejudices subtlely rather than explicitly.

I rather like the idea of blasts leaving monstrous creatures open to pinning. They wouldn't actually pin monstrous creatures unless they were part of a barrage or they were ordnance. And it just makes sense to me that a hit from a battlecannon may not kill a Carnifex, but it might slow it down.

Nurglitch wrote:And it just makes sense to me that a hit from a battlecannon may not kill a Carnifex, but it might slow it down.

I agree, it should however be the high strength or the ordinance element (or a combination of the two) of these weapons that causes the effect rather than the blast, making weapons like the Vanquisher Cannon, Multi-Melta, Railgun and Vibro Cannon Carnifex stoppers if not Carnifex killlers.

Well that's just the thing: the pinning is caused by weapons that ordinarily cause pinning. Blasts would only make monstrous creatures vulnerable to pinning.

I'm a little confused by your proposal regarding monstrous creatures now (your last post appears to be contrary to your post on the previous page). I also wonder what would make the casual player (non Nidzilla) of monstrous creatures accept your thinking, say an Eldar or Dark Eldar player.

Considering that my first 40k army was Dark Eldar, I'd say that increasing the effectiveness of blast weapons would simply make a sharp knife sharper. The Dark Eldar have the terrorfex, horrorfex, shredder, disintegrator, and a host of high strength and low ap weapons that tend to mince small hard armies as easily as they chew up large soft armies. Stuff like the shredder and the disintegrator won't make monstrous creatures any more vulnerable than the blast effect of the terrorfex and horrorfex will. In particular since the Dark Eldar rely on a mobile strategy of biting chunks out of an opposing army while holding the rest at bay, my proposal would result in a net benefit for the Dark Eldar.

I was referring to Eldar/Dark Eldar monstrous creatures gaining another vulnerability for very little comeback. The slight (vs. Leadership 10) chance of pinning the odd monstrous creature seems little payback to me, especially when monstrous creatures represent little threat to Dark Eldar so they don't need the boost verses monstrous creatures.

I’m still a little lost as to what it is about blast weapons, especially the lower strength ones that should cause pinning in monstrous creatures.

Since monstrous creatures use the same basic damage mechanics as infantry models perhaps the discrepancy between vehicles and monstrous creatures is a fault with the vehicle rules, not those of monstrous creatures.

Well there you go, the Dark Eldar trade a small advantage for a small vulnerability. Seems fair.

What it is about blast weapons, even the lower strength ones, that should cause pinning in the Fearless? The fact that blasts not only cause damage, but large amounts of force. When something explodes the shockwave can hurl things into the air, knock them flat, or throw things into each other. It's brute physical force that allows the Fearless to be pinned (and occasionally also pins them).

I think you're right that the discrepancy between vehicles and monstrous creatures is a problem with the vehicles having a much greater deviation from the ordinary rules. But as mentioned this proposal is intended to be compatible with existing 40k rules and army books.

Nurglitch wrote:Well there you go, the Dark Eldar trade a small advantage for a small vulnerability. Seems fair.

A disadvantage that only they have if their opponent doesn't have any monstrous creatures e.g. Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Orks, Tau etc.

Nurglitch wrote:What it is about blast weapons, even the lower strength ones, that should cause pinning in the Fearless? The fact that blasts not only cause damage, but large amounts of force. When something explodes the shockwave can hurl things into the air, knock them flat, or throw things into each other. It's brute physical force that allows the Fearless to be pinned (and occasionally also pins them).

Agreed, but this is also a property of the weapons strength attribute (a Railgun shot is just as likely to send a Carnifex flying) I'm all for high strength blast weapons having this ability. I just don't see a Carnifex being thrown flat by a frag grenade or Nightbringer being hurled into the air by an Ork lobber shell. I would recommend that a blast weapon have for example a strength equal to or greater than the monstrous creatures toughness to have even a chance of pinning it or at least have two levels of disrupt (as vehicles have), perhaps one for low strength weapons and one for higher strength weapons.

BTW: I just noticed that the Talos (which I assumed was Ld 10) doesn't actually have a Ld stat.

Spiggott: Even if their opponent has no monstrous creatures they still gain the other proposed benefits for using blast weapons.

I can certainly see a Carnifex slipping on an exploding frag grenade (so long as it's hit by a pinning weapon while its balance is momentarily lost) or the Nightbringer's necrodermis being buffeted by a lobba shell as it seeks to equalize internal pressure and external over-pressure. A Carnifex being hit by a railgun would simply have a hole in it and some liquified organs squirting out the exit wound. The pressure is localized, rather than spread around its whole body (or vulnerable locations like the hooves).

i think you are suffering from a problem a lot of people have.

they see one thing in an army or maybe 2 that seems too good, so everyone needs to get nerfed.

having fearless MC's be able to be pinned is absurd. nothing, i mean nothing, short of you killing it outright (which can happen to all MC's but tyranids in synapse!) is going to stop my wraithlord from advancing and shooting you. most MC's dont even have the capacity to feel pain, let alone stop to protect themselves from incoming fire.

almost all MC's are represented in a way that they are immense, unstoppable, rampaging monsters that are hell-bent on wreaking havoc on anything it can get its hands on.

causing d3 wounds, or extra wounds could be an option, but then MC's would need to get a little bit cheaper i think because as of right now, my wraithlords survive a while, but almost no one i play with has that hard of a time taking them out. and they are one of the highest toughness MC's in the game!

What, the problem of 40k blasts being kinda boring?!

Being knocked off its feet and onto on its pointy rear end certainly seems like it's going to slow a Wraithlord down, and will certainly affect its own. My blast proposal isn't about blasts causing pinning, but making fearless models vulnerable to pinning via sheer physical force. Or at least the fluff justification for it is.

From a playing standpoint my proposal is about making blast weapons less of a hassle and more interesting to play with.

If nobody has trouble disposing of Wraithlords (some people might, but I agree it just ain't that hard) then causing extra wounds is beside the point. If people find it to be a hassle rolling dice for partial hits and wondering why monstrous creatures remain boringly unaffected by more interesting game effects than mere damage, then causing pinning to fearless units and fixing that so that monstrous creatures can't get out via a loophole seems the ticket.

Having monstrous creatures pinned (or at least suppressed in some way) seems quite reasonable to me, just not in the way Nurglitch proposes.

A Carnifex slipping and Nightbringer being buffeted don't really fit with my idea of what pinning represents. This isn't things being "hurled into the air" or "knocked flat" this is akin to units taking pinning tests because one of them remembered he'd left the gas on.

The core of this (removing partial checks) is still a good idea. In regard to pining monstrous creatures if you scale it down to ordinance hits cause pinning on monstrous creatures this'd be fine.

As we're really talking about a hypothetical rule that will never be played in a game I play I suspect we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

I doubt that any of the proposed rules posted on this forum will ever be used by people simply reading the forum (as opposed to proposing the rule). I mean we already agreed to disagree when we started talking about it. If you're not interested in continuing the discussion, well, c'est la vie.

Something I really should add though, which people seem to be missing: by my proposal blasts make all fearless units vulnerable to pinning if the fearless unit takes heroic action. Where those blasts also cause pinning, they can pin fearless units that took heroic action. A grenade isn't going to pin a Carnifex. A grenade and a sniper rifle might, but pretty unlikely. A demolisher cannon is more likely to pin.

Nurglitch wrote:I mean we already agreed to disagree when we started talking about it. If you're not interested in continuing the discussion, well, c'est la vie.

This is typical of proposed rule discussion on all forums.

Yes, I know that. Being typical doesn't mean it's productive or interesting though.

I like the idea of halving the strength of hits on troops partially under the template. It’s a nice mechanic to replace the 4+/full strength mechanic we’ve currently got… one less dice roll basically.

I really, really dislike the suggested change to allow small blast weapons to snipe specific enemy troops, it grants an advantage that is entirely unrelated to the nature of the weapon. Basically you would see people taking blast weapons to pick off heavy weapons troops and vet sergeants, ignoring the secondary kills from the actual blast effects of the weapon.

The strength of blast weapons should come from their ability to kill lots of troops that are closely packed together. This doesn’t happen right now because the small blast template is too small. This can be fixed by making the template a half inch bigger. Simple.

MCs being immune to the effects of damage until they take their last wound is goofy, to say the least. It could be solved with a damage charts for MCs, or special critical hit rules for vehicles. Adding a special rule to one sort of weapon seems a pretty haphazard rules fix, albeit a pretty imaginative one.

sebster:

Actually I didn't propose that models partially hit by the template get hit with half-strength, but I like it too.

My proposal for heroic actions negated the possibility of sniping specific troops beyond what is already allowed by range, line of sight, and torrent of fire.

I'll take the comment about the extension of my proposal, the one where blasts make monstrous creatures vulnerable to pinning, as a compliment.

I figured most blast weapons are low strength, high armour piercing, and use the small template. This means that they affect fewer models than weapon options with equivalent strength and armour piercing, and they aren't as effective as weapon options with higher strength and armour piercing. Basically they seem to be excluded from the range of live options available to squads. The various points of my proposal were intended to include blast weapons by filling up various gaps in the effects of regular weapons.

The blast weapons with high strength and armour piercing are typically suicidal to use (plasma cannons, for example, or mega-blasts) so it seems to even out at first glance.