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Something I considered was to have instant death multiply the wounds to the number remaining before saves.

Thus, a three wound chaplain is wounded by a krak missile; he take three invulnerable saves instead of one, but failing any of those saves only results in him suffering that wound.

I think this would put less of a gulf between characters with immunity to instant and those without, and it would also better show the way armor and force fields reduce the damage of the attack, rather than simply negate it completely or do nothing at all.

Orkeosaurus:

That's pretty consistent with the 40k rules. Eternal Warrior could then allow a model to re-roll any failed Instant Death wounds.

Hi all.
Orkeosaurus.
Sorry I totaly mis-read your post.(Damn shift work is making me soooo tired. )

If we look at replacing the rules of 40k .....Would we need seperate values for armour AS/IS/AV and Toughness values?
If the game turn is more interactive, and targeted units get to roll against 'steath skill' to determine the effects of cover for example.

Could we have just ONE value for armour resistance for all unit types? An AR value from 1 to whatever upper limit is appropriate.

If we describe weapon effects as 'score required to supress an unarmored target/score required to damage an unarmoured target.'
Then the skill value of the firer could represent the number of D6 thrown.

And we could just add the AR value to the weapon scores.

Eg heavy machine gun 2+/4+. Firing on light infantry AR1, need to roll 3+ to supress the unit and 5+ to supress the unit and cause a casualty.
The same HMG firing on a unit with AR 3 needs 5+ to supress, but can not cause casualties.

Weapon types determine how many dice are kept to score , and if they are added together or not.
EG
'Swathe ' is the number of dice that are kept to score .These may be kept seperate to inflict more possible kills on infantry OR added together to represent concentrated fire vs ONE large target.

'AT' is the number of dice that are added together to get the most damage on a single large target.(Anti tank weapons never cause supression , just dammage on large targets like vehicles and MCs.)


Or deduct the armour value from the attacks damage (strenght of hit.)

Just some basic ideas on alternatives ...

TTFN
Lanrak.

The AP system is retared because you got a space marine with really good armor then you get a weapon thats AP 3 and it's worthless thats is not how armor works!!!

Hjoey75 wrote:The AP system is retared because you got a space marine with really good armor then you get a weapon thats AP 3 and it's worthless thats is not how armor works!!!

Well the bullet/laser/shurikan/whatever either gets thorugh or it dosen't I think AP is very realistic I.E

you are wearing power armor a 9mm round hits and is stopped by the suit causing no damage to the wearer
you are wearing a flak jacket a solid tank shell hits going right through you (and causing a big mess)

A flak jacket will do nada against a solid tank shell just as a 9mm round does nothing against power armor

rolling off is the chance that the round hits a weak spot where it can do damage

power armor wouldent work if it got hit by a krak missle same way a plastic sheild dosent work against cannonballs

The problem is that a round doesn't have to penetrate armour to disable ('wound' in Warhammer parlance') or otherwise damage the target.

Sure, some weapons will bounce right off armour, and other weapons will bypass it completely, but there is that set of weapons and armours in between these two extremes where armour provides partial protection.

In addition, you have to represent the entire set of armour including its weak-spots, like joints, as well as the strongest points.

Given the problems of representing both full protection, catastrophic failure, and both sorts of partial protection, and doing it in a way that doesn't break the Warhammer system of hit/wound/save, neither AP nor AM are going to be satisfying.

I think that a hybridized system is going to be necessary to appeal to both preferences for representation.

Cheese Elemental wrote:No.

i agree with Cheese!

Nurglitch wrote:I think that a hybridized system is going to be necessary to appeal to both preferences for representation.

while this would be realistic it would also be confusing and take constant rulebook references (is that the right word?) to use

Imo simplicity over reality anyday

Lanrak: No worries, I don't know that I made myself too clear.

The distinction between suppressing and causing casualties is an interesting one. I do think one combined score for Toughness and Armor would work well. When you get into stuff like Necrons and Gun Drones the distinction starts to fall apart even from a fluff standpoint.

I would like to see anti-tank weapons made less effective against infantry as well. The inability to suppress infantry would make sense, since they lack the high rate of fire.

Hi again .
Sorry about the slow responce , (I was on holiday.)
I dont belive it need lots of seperate systems or very complex systems to represent weapon and armour interaction in a mixed unit game.There are lots of alternatives.
As proportional results are prefered , and as Nurglitch pointed out armour abilities are constant , it just the abilities of the weapon that determine the amount of damage inflicted.
And not all weapons need to penetrate the armour to inflict damage to the target behind.
HESH rounds NEVER penetrate the outer skin of the armoured vehicle,(But the shock wave of the impact causes massive amounts of concussion and spalling.With very messy results.... )

Having a range of values to represent armour and resilliance to dammage of all units seems like a reasonable basis.An 'AR' value.
(This is a logical abstraction for game play reasons.Most simple simulation compare opposing values to determine results.Most people do not want to work out projectile tragetory and determine hit location and effect for every shot... )

These values can be deducted from the str of hit .(Representing the armour disipating the energy of the hit.)
Eg AR 3 takes a Str 5 hit modified to str 2( 5-3 =2) for rolling to wound .
AR 13 vehicle taking a str 18 hit modified to str 5 (18-13=5)for rolling to wound.

Or be used to increace the probability of the target surviving the hits.(Adding to the attacking weapons to damage roll requirment .)
EG if a bolt gun causes a wound on a 4+, firning on an unarmoured target.
Then a target with an AR of 2 takes a wound on a 6+.)

If you want balance between close combat assault and shooting attacks.You can curcumvent the effects of lethal ranged weapons , (as 40k does),or make range weapons more tacticaly focused.
I keep thinking of the WWII '4 Fs' squad tactics.

Find them.(Locate enemies using scouting actions and comms .)
Fix them.(Use supressive fire to pin enemy in position)
Flank them.(While the enemy is pined in place , a flanking unit moves around ready to assault.)
Finish them.(When the flanking unit close assaults the enemy unit to wipe it out,)

If there is a real world counterpart that is used as a reference point during development ,it stops the rule set filling up with anomalies that reduce intuitivness.IMO.
And the more I look at 40k the more it has in common with WWII in terms of units types and unit interactions.
And if supression is built in to the basic weapon -armour interaction , its much easier than trying to retro -fit it into game mechanics that are totaly casualty driven.

Im off to get some more sleep now.(I hate working shifts ....)

TTFN
Lanrak.

Pretty much the whole to-hit, to-wound, and AP system is bad sometimes.

A cadian imperial guardsmen is the pinnacle of military training, they are trained from birth to use the lasgun and to kill heretics. Their entire lives are dedicated to fighting, particularly shooting.
They only hit a target a yard away 50% of the time (or 66% of the time if they're exceptionally good) I was better than that the first time I went shooting, and I was a 13 year old girl.

A space marine, with decades of training and experience under his belt, wearing a suit of holy terminator armor given only to the best and brightest of the fittest and finest, only htis targets 66% of the time.

Furthermore the imperial lasgun, commonly called a "flashlight" because of how ineffective it is, is identical to the bolter when facing T6 enemies. Wounds on 6, and they get their save.

Maybe, just maybe, the to-hit and to-wound numbers of Warhammer 40k are deliberately calibrated low so that there's something besides 2+ to roll.

The fact that S4 weapons stuff as Heavy Stubbers, .50 caliber machine guns, only wound tough humans (T3) 66% of the time is an artifact of the system, when in real life being hit by such rounds is usually followed by instant death and dismemberment. So the fact that S4 v T3 = 4/6 to wound per die has little to do with .50 vs human target = dismemberment, except that it represents that interaction for the purposes of the game.

Something to remember about representation is that no representation is the same as what it represents, and often abstracts away details in the interests of salience. If you want cinematic realism in 40k, you can simply allot a number of natural 6s to one player, and have the other roll as normal for the antagonist force. If you want gritty realism, go with Squad Leader. If you want heroic realism, then allowing Space Marines to miss occasionally goes a long way to selling a roughly equal amount of plastic to represent both armies.

Basically, complaining about the discontinuities between gritty realism, as much as one's own experiences on the range can count as gritty realism on the level of an actual battlefield perhaps low on ammunition, fatigued, faintly shell-shocked, and running on two hours sleep, and heroic realism is like complaining Arnold Schwarzenegger's inhuman accuracy, ability to avoid reloading, and ability to handle recoil is unrealistic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kragura:

I've already proposed a simple hybrid system.

Nurglitch's Proposed AP/AM Saving Throws

1. If AP>Sv+1 then Sv
2. If AP=Sv+1 then re-roll successful Sv
3. If AP<Sv+1 then no Sv

Suppose you had a unit of 6 Sv3+ models wounded by 4 AP5 shots, 6 AP4 shots, and 2 AP3 shots. The unit would automatically lose one model to the AP3 shots, and take two batches of saves. The first batch of saves would be 4 at 3+, and the second would be 6 at 3+ with successes re-rolled.

I think its fine the way it is. You cant say your kevlar vest is going to reduce the damage from a mortar (or Tau battlesuit armor from an armor peircing round). A Bolter is a semi-auto machine gun. Orks have flimsy peices of metal as armor. I think a machine gun is fairly capeable of peircing through an 1/8'' of a peice of metal.
If a space marine gets pumped full of liquid metal (i.e. melta) i dont think his armor would help him. This is just like how you cant take saves against stone throwers in fantasy.


Changing the system would make each armies weapons almost identical, since they would be relying on str alone.

Also changing it to fantasy style would make the whole system tilt. Str 7+ is hard to come by in fantasy, wehre as the average 10k army has a couple if not a bunch of str 8+ meltas, railguns, fire prism cannons, lascannons (which would all get 5-7 armor reduction, gee thats AP 2-AP0), On the other end, all of the low str weapons (str 4), that are commonplace, would be come less effective. The fantasy system is designed for str 6 and 7 to cripple armor. In 40k you really need str 8+.

The warhammer system allows for 0+, -1+, -2+ etc saves.

You should be getting coversaves a lot of the time anyway.

WD40: just for clarifacation, a semi-auto is not a machinegun
edit: and a S4 weapon would negate a 6+ save in fantasy (-1 mod), just like S8 would a 3+ (he'd need a -2+ at least) but I understand what you mean.

To keep things simple, keeping things the way they are seems nice, but I like the AP=Sv -1 modifier, gives my guardsmen a chance, but it makes 2+ saves even more powerful. Plasma loses it's niche as a termie killer.

The problem with applying a modifier directly to the saving throw is that it denies Sv6+ entirely. The problem of Sv2+ models, specifically Terminators, was solved in the last edition with the addition of Iv5+.

It's better to go with a re-roll, as that shifts the entire spectrum of saving throws into a pleasant curve. Models with a Sv5+ still get a save against AP6 weapons, while models with a Sv2+ still get a very good save. By keeping the rules as they stand, and inserting a re-roll for AP = Sv+1 means that AP = Sv+1 weapons are more effective at defeating armour than AP = Sv+2 and up weapons without any calculations that require more than the natural results of the dice.

Illeix wrote:WD40: just for clarifacation, a semi-auto is not a machinegun
edit: and a S4 weapon would negate a 6+ save in fantasy (-1 mod), just like S8 would a 3+ (he'd need a -2+ at least) but I understand what you mean.

To keep things simple, keeping things the way they are seems nice, but I like the AP=Sv -1 modifier, gives my guardsmen a chance, but it makes 2+ saves even more powerful. Plasma loses it's niche as a termie killer.

Oh shoot. Sorry i meant Submachine gun. =(

Agreed, keep it as is!

don't get rid of AP I like my Meltas

Hi all.
Alifax1.
What makes you think that the methods used in other games systyems dont give as much variety and diversity as found in 40k , but with less rules ?

Currently in 40k you use armour saves, invunerable saves ,armour value , toughness, (structure points for FW.)
And AP and Str not to mention quite a few speical rules.

Dont you find this to be a bit over complicated compared to singular AR value for ALL units , and ALL weapons get a 'to supress /to damage 'values , with how dice 'score' dependant on weapon type?(Pick highest roll, add highest rolls of X number of dice, add highest and lowest roll etc.)

As 40k uses D6s in a totaly deterministic way , it puts massive limitations on the game mechanics used, so several have to be cobbled together add hoc to cover everything.

Nurglitch.
If you are going to use limited modifiers, why not give modifiers for particular weapon types?
EG
'Special anti infantry weapons' -1 save.
'Heavy anti infantry weapons' -2 save.

As Anti vehicle weapons get a + D6 to strenght value(or +2D6 or D6x2), having a similar bonus to some special and heavy anti- infantry weapons might stop players using anti tank weapons vs MEQ infantry!

Just a thought.

(But I would rather write a new rule set from scratch,as it would be quicker than trying to make the current 40k rules more intuitive-proportional .)

TTFN
Lanrak.

Lanrak:

I'm not proposing limited modifiers. I'm proposing a re-roll on the contingency of Sv+1 = AP. I'm suggesting this because:

1. Legacy reasons: I want to keep backward compatibility with the existing 40k rules. Re-rolling is an established Warhammer 40k mechanic, so it coheres with existing rules, and doesn't introduce anything new that players don't know (or don't want to know...) how to handle.

2. Balance reasons: Models will have the likelihood of saving against certain weapons shifted on a curve, so that all saving throws remain better than the next step up along the set of saving throw values: Sv3+ re-rolled on success is better than Sv4+, and Sv2+ vs AP3 will remain better than Sv3+ vs AP4.

3. Simplicity or Parsimony: All that my proposal requires is the insertion of an extra condition on the AP vs Sv rules (If AP = Sv+1, then re-roll successful saves).

I think you're better off writing a set of rules from scratch, to be honest. It's good exercise and provides insight into why 40k is the way it is.

Hi Nurglitch.
Sorry I need more sleep!(Damn shifts again!)
I see now what you proposed and why.
And for a simple addition to ease the efficiency curve a bit, it certainly makes sense.
Its just the over complicated and disjointed way the armour-weapon interaction is handeled in 40k that irks me some what.

I already know why 40k is the way it is.

But I will endevour to write an alternative rule set eventualy!
(If I can stay awake long enough ! )

TTFN
Lanrak.

I keep seeing over and over that the current AP system is "flawed." Ive been playing 40K for a little over 2 years and just started Fantasy but i cant find any rearon that AP is ill-effective. So what a term gets the save from a Krak Missile as a lasgun shot. The general working of it works in over 90% of situations. Terms and other 2+ things need either 2 AP weapons, or enough shots to make them roll a few 1s on saves. This whole system is balanced by the fact you only get 1 save. All the armies have ways to punch out low AP, though some easier said than done. It makes armies think about the weapons you want to have out on the feild and not just toss around High S. And as to the few complaints saying that too many weapons have special rule...DIVERSITY!. There is a reason that the Imperium and Eldar have vastly different weapons and the Nids far from either of them, and that answer is again Diversity. If every weapon his the same effect on armor based off S then where would much of this flavor come in.
AP is not broken, perfect? no, but ti works well for the system its in.

I agree AP sucks. Makes the game too simple when everything gets APd. Also has less focus on guns like bolters, which in turn means less focus on troops for a lot of armies and more on elite units.

Night Lords wrote:I agree AP sucks. Makes the game too simple

I dont understand. You want the game to be complicated?

Hi Kragura.
I think Night Lords was trying to point out the AP system is simple but covers very little.
Where as a slightly more complex system would cover everything more intuitivley.

If you count up ALL the pages of rules in 40k that cover armour weapon interactions , armour saves , invunerable saves, armour values , toughness and the universal special rules and special rules ....

You get more pages than CBT has for its ENTIRE starter rule set!(This 'just' includes titians ,vehicles, terminators, and standard infantry 'type' unit interactions... )

So having slightly more complex rules that are inclusive (apply to everything in the game ), rather than exclusive rules (why this model is slightly different, so the rules highlight this for marketing reasons.)
Means MORE game play and fewer rules to learn.

Most gamers prefer this....AFAIK.

If a rule set was written for 40k based on game play and used 'inclusive' mechanics and rules, we could have the same level of game play with far FEWER rules.
Or far MORE game play with the same number of rules.

I hope this helps clarify things.

TTFN Lanrak.

Lanrak:

What I've found is that the opposite is true, at least where Warhammer 40k fans are at issue. They prefer the Warhammer approach of giving each and every unit its own 'characterful' special rules, even if those special rules just rename one or more of the so-called 'universal special rules'.

I think it's a testament to Jervis Johnson's insight that he went with a set of universal special rules which can be renamed for flavour, rather than going with the 2nd edition approach of an individual rule for every units, and the 3rd edition approach of one-size fits all.

Moreover, I think that, if you compare the development of editions 3 through 5, that the game system is being gradually expanded so that there is a single set of rules that can be applied in whole or in part to different kinds of game elements.

Take Fleet, for example. Once Fleet allowed a unit to move 1D6" in the Shooting phase instead of shooting, and now all models can move 1D6" in the Shooting phase, and models with Fleet get the bonus of being able to assault after running.

It seems to me that the concept of a list of universal special rules acts as a shortlist of candidates for inclusion in the main rules of the next edition. Rules like Hit and Run, Counter-Charge, Fearless, Preferred Enemy, and so on are being integrated into the main rules, so rather than being clunky exceptions like 3rd/4th Fleet, they are extensions of existing rules like 5th Fleet.

The reason for this gradual change is simple: Warhammer gamers are very conservative. The last attempt at radical change (3rd edition), was not well-received, so 4th and 5th editions have gone for gradual change, which has the commercial benefit of being able to sell a new game every few years, as well as allowing fans to adapt at their own pace.

Eventually, I think, we're going to see a disappearance of AP style rules, where it's all or nothing regardless of the characteristics of the interacting models, and see more interactions on the SvT, Characteristic Test, or Twin-Linked models; a threshold established by the comparison of two numbers, or a D6 comparison to a threshold set by a characteristic, or a value shifted via re-rolls, respectively. These are characteristic Warhammer 40k rules mechanics.

Hi Nurglitch.
Just to point out alot of WH/40k fans are not 'gamers' , but collectors who want to enact the fantastic background of thier collections.

And after the total FUBAR of 3rd ed, which was rightly reviled as abomination, GW are still using this as the basis for playing games of 40k!

'Gosh this is utter tripe we wrote, but its our jobs on the line, so pretend its ok and we just keep on peddaling it with slight changes here and there!'

I understand that the GW game devs just follow corperate marketing directives, and do the best they can with the constraints placed upon them.
(Anyone putting gamers and game play over customer wallet rape, tend to leave GW . )

The point stands that the game play of current 40k could be covered with far fewer more intuitive rules.

This might not let GW 'Konstantly Kon Kash from Kiddies,' (4t Ks) as baltently as the current rule set, but I never said a rule set based on maximising game play would.

Happy gaming.
Lanrak.

Sure, but you realize that trying to convert people to playing with their 40k toys in any but the officially approved way is tilting at windmills, right?

3rd edition was a bit of a disaster, but not because of the rules. After all, they did a very effective job of dealing with the mess of 2nd edition. I stayed away from 40k for the entirety of 2nd edition - I bought some codex documents, but I didn't waste my time playing - and started in 3rd edition precisely because of the changes that GW had made to the game. It was the line of 3rd edition army books that eventually drove me away.

The problem, as I have pointed out, is with the natural conservatism of GW fans (who are your target audience and not gamers in general). The Hobby is full of people are fine with the concepts and mechanics of 3rd edition, fine-tuned for our enjoyment as 5th edition. Those who aren't, well, it's not like the Hobby is the only hobby out there. They're fine with them, for the most part, because GW has not made such a radical deviation from the original concepts and mechanics. The fact that this model of gradual change works well from a business perspective is just icing on the cake, as it means GW will survive and continue to supply Hobby supplies like models.

The fact is that whatever you feel is intuitive is whatever you're used to, so trying to declare that some game mechanic is more intuitive than another is a waste of time. Indeed, trying to push your own intuitions, intuitions that are not based on the Warhammer 40k aesthetic, over the established ones, will simply irritate your fellow gamers. There's only one group of people that determine what the Warhammer 40k rules are, and they work in Nottingham.

Maybe it's your thing, but you're better off either designing your own game, making your own line of miniatures, and moving off in your own direction rather than trying to change Warhammer 40k into something you want, because people come to the game and stay with the game because it has something they want.

I've already tried. It failed, I learned, I moved on and came back to playing Warhammer 40k with a new appreciation for the product and the people that make it.

Realism goes out the window the moment...

1) my robo-daemon attacks your soul-infused mechanized coffin.

2) 3/4 of the known universe are ruled by a faltering government, led by a dead guy/guy in a coma.

3) the symbol on a guy's shirt determines how bullets affect him.

This is fun. Anyone have more to add?

Yeah, I'll add you're completely and utterly wrong. WRONG WRONG WRONG!

Now, seriously, realism doesn't go out the window where fantasy is concerned. Dream Pod 9 has three levels of realism according to which you can play their Jovian Chronicles (paging Balance: fact-check in aisle 3!), something like gritty realism, which involves figuring out actual vectors and whatnot in a space environment, cinematic realism, which involves Star Wars style movement, and heroic realism which allows the introduction of heroic actions.

The fascinating thing about realism is that there's so many sorts of realism. Let's take Underworld: Evolution as a fantasy movie that could have been greatly improved by the careful application of realism. If you haven't seen it, it involves Vampires and Werewolves. So realism is out the door, right? Well, no. If anything fantasy movies need more realism - more realistic special effects for instance - to help people suspend their disbelief and emotionally connect to otherwise alien characters in an otherwise alien world. There's a scene where a flying bat-like vampire, with wings and such, flies alongside a fast-moving truck without so much as an air current or a flap of its wings. With all the ridiculousness of crappy dialogue, absurd situations, and the other half-assed attempts at trying to naturalize the super-natural (ultra-violet bullets? please...), that really stuck out as the least realistic part of the movie, which was a pity because the costumes really did a nice job of making it look like there were real live vampires and werewolves running around.

I guess what criteria does something have to meet to be deemed worthy of "throwing out?" Unnatural/supernatural diseases are ok, but momentary lapses in physics aren't? You, sir, are a hypocrite! I daresay a pigs hindquarters share more in common with your view than a reasonable man's!