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sourclams wrote:What you consider a boring game, I consider an integral part of gameplay leading to tactical options, resulting in an interesting game.

Enjoy playing Napoleonic Stand and Shoot.

I'm not sure how or where you got that from.

A board that contains open areas and strongly covered areas doesn't encourage napoleonic stand and shoot. It encourages mobile play, as players seek to control the covered areas, manouvre to negate cover and plan covered lines of advance for their assault troops.

sebster wrote:

sourclams wrote:What you consider a boring game, I consider an integral part of gameplay leading to tactical options, resulting in an interesting game.

Enjoy playing Napoleonic Stand and Shoot.

I'm not sure how or where you got that from.

A board that contains open areas and strongly covered areas doesn't encourage napoleonic stand and shoot. It encourages mobile play, as players seek to control the covered areas, manouvre to negate cover and plan covered lines of advance for their assault troops.

Self-generated cover saves.

Vehicles unable to move and fire faster than infantry.

Negates everything you just said.

I hope you see why.

Vehicles unable to move and fire faster than infantry.

?

what do you mean

Most vehicles can't move and fire every weapon at faster speeds than infantry.

So vehicles aren't exactly "mobile".

They are World War One tanks, unable to move faster than their accompanying infantry.

Ze boring.

Stelek wrote:Eldar is defeated by Tyranids is defeated by Chaos is defeated by Orks is defeated by Imperial Guard.

Explain.

Why don't 'Nids fall into the same boat as Orks?

BYE

Sorry, it was a metaphor.

For rock-paper-scissors.

Every army is beaten by another army, most Xenos armies currently excel at 'extreme' army types (examples below) but not so much at balanced lists like the new marines (in my opinion) will.

Orks: Hordes.
Nids: MC.
Eldar: Jetbike/Mech.
Chaos: Shooty spam.
IG: Shooty spam.

There are other examples, but most of these forces rely on overloading an enemy army in one way that the enemy (hopefully) cannot handle.

Marines are, in my opinion, being moved back to generalists able to deal with any threat. They certainly won't have an "easy" time with any of these forces, but I believe unlike now where marines get rolled like hooches they won't be nearly so easy to beat.

They are, in my view, being built specifically to rely entirely on the basic marine of their army leaders type to win games with.

I think they'll do this well enough that I'll be making my first (ever) smurf army.

Never had a reason to, not since the game was released (they've been nothing but punching bags and targets for what, 20 years?).

Now I finally do.

Stelek wrote:Self-generated cover saves.

Vehicles unable to move and fire faster than infantry.

Negates everything you just said.

I hope you see why.

No I don't, sorry. Perhaps if you typed slower.

Vehicles unable to move and fire faster than infantry is general statement in a vacuum. I.e. it sucks.

Looking at the game and having to choose between some semblance of balance and unit viability...giving tanks the best of both worlds would make them a no brainer in a game that is now attempting to encourage critical decisions at each step in the game.

I hope you can see why.

Um... raiders (I mean actual raiders, not 'raiders) move fast, landspeeders move fast, there has to be more than that.

Maybe, heavy vehicles don't move fast? But even skimmers that move at a normal speed benefit from being able to move over cover, and impassable terrain, making them faster in that sense, or at least, harder to slow down. Also, tanks have the added bonus of being able to move and fire at least one heavy weapon, which is more than infantry can say. So while it is true that vehicles are not able to move and fire mass barrages of small arms weapons, their ability to move and fire heavy weapons is where they have the added mobility. Also there's the bonus that all of them can move up to 12 inches ('xcept for walkers of course) and several can move faster.

This said, I don't really use tanks, and so my comments are based on a rather large and unwieldy theory hammer

I recently played a game using my termies as Deathwing.
I have to say I am glad for those 4+ coversaves.

Cover definitely wasn't obsolete for me that game.

sourclams wrote:I would say that it's armor that's becoming obsolete, not cover saves. When you can slap down a unit of guardsmen just about anywhere and grant them between 3+ and 4+ cover saves, shoot outs begin to favor armies that don't have high quality armor costed into their models. They throw bodies on the board and gain good defense as a situational bonus instead.

Well said.


I'm going to make the same lists that I always made, that way it forces MEQ's into if they want saves, if they don't they run the risk of getting lit up. As for the death of Las/Plas I think not... sitting 2" in cover and shooting out not bad at all. It can hurt tanks and mc's and if some one tries to assault then you double tap the bolters and plasma and then fire the las, as your attackers should be in the open that's a bad unit to charge. I'm sure people will use some uber unit to walk in and kill them, but wasteing that uber unit for a normal Las/Plas let them.

Actually I think it is the other way around, cover isnt dead for MEq, its dead for everyone else, and not because of shooting but because of assault.

In the last edition, you could defend some terrain, like a copse of woods or a sandbag wall or trench etc. and when the eventual assault came, you would at least get to strike simo. with most attackers, but now that everyone has plasma grenades (for no reason) you might as well be in the open, besides your own models provide just as good of cover saves as any of the terrain anyway...

A major gripe of mine, defending an obstacle no longer works at all, pretty dumb as it use to make a tactical difference where you defended on the board, and now it doesnt matter, with that and TLOS, the trees etc. just slow people down...

I know how to solve it!!!!

Bring back the days of 3rd edition where a model got to roll all the saves it got.

If you fail your armour save DON'T PANIC!

Your eternal friend THE COVER SAVE is here as backup.

Whats that? Failed that too? Time for the INVULNERABLE SAVE!!!

Then again gak would never die. But it never made sense to me that now you only get one save. I mean surely a marine in power armour taking a 3+ cover save against a lasgun wouldn't die if the lasgun penetrated cover . . . would he?

BeefyG wrote:Vehicles unable to move and fire faster than infantry is general statement in a vacuum. I.e. it sucks.

Looking at the game and having to choose between some semblance of balance and unit viability...giving tanks the best of both worlds would make them a no brainer in a game that is now attempting to encourage critical decisions at each step in the game.

I hope you can see why.

Thankfully, Eldar and Tau tanks still HAVE the best of both worlds, so....what's your point again?

Imperials got screwed? Why yes, they did.

Land Raiders being the exception.

Critical decision checklist time:

If I cannot move faster with my vehicle (outside of Tau and Eldar, who can) than infantry but my vehicle used to manage to keep pace with the infantry and fire (not that anyone ever did this) only now I cannot keep face with the infantry and fire (not that anyone does this now) how is that encouraging critical decisions?

Smacks loudly of change for changes sake that has no effect on how Imperial tanks are used.

Sit back, use your long range to fire at the enemy, and never move.

The only 'critical decision' and bona fide change is...if the enemy gets near your Leman Russ, are you going to move because he can CC your rear armor or are you not going to move?

Note that vehicles can still outrun all footslogging infantry without the fleet rule and you could not fire if you moved 12" in 4th and can't do it in 5th.

Hurray for critical decision making that...isn't critical and doesn't require you to make real decisions.

Sit and fire is the correct answer.

If they don't take your cannon off, pray for a hit a low scatter so all those guys in front of your tank eat the battlecannon shot and die, of course.

That's about all that's actually changed, is everyone can kill tanks in CC now where before they'd laugh at you.

Gazzdag wrote:I know how to solve it!!!!

Bring back the days of 3rd edition where a model got to roll all the saves it got.

If you fail your armour save DON'T PANIC!

Your eternal friend THE COVER SAVE is here as backup.

Whats that? Failed that too? Time for the INVULNERABLE SAVE!!!

Then again gak would never die. But it never made sense to me that now you only get one save. I mean surely a marine in power armour taking a 3+ cover save against a lasgun wouldn't die if the lasgun penetrated cover . . . would he?

That was second ed dude. They've limited troops to one save to cut down on the dice rolling, it was pretty silly rolling for one thing after another. It's worth noting that the cover save wasn't a save back then, but a modifier to the to hit roll.

They changed it because having heavily armed troops skulking about hiding from shuriken cannon was lame as hell. By only giving troops either their armour save or a cover save, it encouraged heavily armoured troops to move around, braving the open by backing their armour. It isn't as elegant as it could be, it wasn't enough by itself (two more editions and a lot of minor rules changes and we still aren't really there yet) but it's a lot better than the old style.

Gazzdag wrote:I know how to solve it!!!!
Bring back the days of 3rd edition where a model got to roll all the saves it got.
If you fail your armour save DON'T PANIC!
Your eternal friend THE COVER SAVE is here as backup.
Whats that? Failed that too? Time for the INVULNERABLE SAVE!!!

That was second edition (and there were no cover saves back then). Of course, you could go back to 1st edition where your character gets shot, roll an armor save (if you got it, and you almost never did), then roll your refractor field save, then your conversion field save, then your displacer field save, then your power field save. Oh ya baby, it was nuts.

Second edition limited it to an armor save and only one I save. Third made it so you only got one save, but you had a choice between armor, I, and cover saves.

I think it's too easy to get cover now. Prior to about 2 weeks ago I didn't realize that being out of LOS basically counted as being in cover - so the 10-man squad with the lascannon peeking out around the edge actually can be shot at [this I knew] but everyone gets a 4+ cover save, even if the ONLY guy you can see is in clear LOS plain as day.

THIS is what gives SO MUCH in terms of cover. It's really ridiculous. Because of the way wounds are allocated, it would have been easy to just say "wounds allocated against models in the open do not allow cover saves". Bam. Now if you get shot by low and high AP weapons you can still give the low AP shot to the guys in cover and roll to save while the others take armour. What? You shot me with all low-Ap shots? Well then start putting them against models in cover first!

And I love the logic against it. "But if you wound every model in the squad, half of them don't get to take cover saves at all, whereas now everyone gets one as long as half is in cover!"

Congratulations, genius. Half your unit isn't in cover, therefore half doesn't get a cover save? Bravo, bravo. In MOST situations you could still allocate the hits against the models in cover to improve your odds. Even if a battle cannon landed squarely on the 5 guys in the open you could put the 5 wounds on the guys in cover to get the saves. Sure that reduces the amount that's in cover for the next salvo, but provided it's something like plasma+bolter from some tactical squad, you could still put the one or two plasma wounds on the remainder. Let's just hope they aren't also the ones you're trying to save.

I think that would be a far better system, and not anymore complicated than right now, as you're still allocating wounds in the same fashion.

Cover for MEQs is not obsolete, how ever the new space marine codex has made cover obsolete for evey one else.

For this reason.

http://themacabre.dkpsystem.com/viewpic.php?id=53
http://themacabre.dkpsystem.com/viewpic.php?id=58

100 points for a strength 6 ap - heavy 4 blast range 60" arty piece that ignores cover.

48" range Inc. Castellen missiles that ignore cover.

Dragon fire rounds that ignore cover.

If you rely on mass cover to block your horde, you just got OWNED by the boys in blue.

The thunderfire - right, because I can't hit the techmarine with a lascannon/plasma gun and make the whole thing useless? Castellan missiles have existed for a while in DA, they're good, but I see few people who take Whirlwinds, for some reason. Dragonfire is nasty, but thankfully limited to one type of squad which will likely be quite expensive.

Point - they do have a decent amount of cover-save-ignoring weaponry. But what they have is mostly expensive, and requires a dedication of resources that some SM players won't be willing to make.