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 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
It is irrelevant what percentage of the original is affected,

How can you possibly say that with a straight face?

At this point, I can only assume you are trolling.

I too miss the old cover to hit modifiers, being a vet of 2nd who returned in 5th.

The current system also favours high volume low ap weaponry.

For instance, I lost the majority of a th/ss TAS to massed devourer fire the other week, not through the sheer power of the weapon, but to the sheer number of dice I had to roll. Because there is nothing to make yourself harder to hit, other than getting out of los, which wasn't an option, there is nothing you can do defensively to mitigate this, cover is literally useless.

Now one could argue that th/ss squads don't need the help, but I would like more options to try and reduce the amount of incoming fire on my units. Imho it would make cover more tactically interesting.

 kwah wrote:
but if the bs is lowered wouldn't that make orkis the best shooters because you cant get below bs 1 and for the most part there bs2.

They were BS3 in 2nd Edition, anyway. In a game version that brings back the To-Hit Modifiers can easily change them back to BS3. /shrug

This isn't some ridiculously difficult solution to the problem that some people make it out to be anyway. Though, regardless, again, it's affecting everyone evenly, regardless of their BS. Approximately 17%, lol. technically you could get a -2 for really good cover. In that case, the Orks get an advantage because 17% is the minimum possible chance to hit.

madtankbloke wrote:


2nd ed 40k was a skirmish game trying to be an army game.

2nd ed was a skirmish game that many people (including GW) tried to play as an "mass battle" game.
As a set of skirmish rules, it was adequate. As mass battle system, it has proven sadly lacking over the years. It was not designed as such and all the constant "refinements" tweaks and changes have made it into more of a sow's ear than a silk purse.

I had this conversation before, and there's some logic to the cover save system instead of lowered BS.

Guns are generally direct fire weapons, when shots go in a straight line. Bows / spears / javelins / etc rarely have this power, it's a lot more effective to have arrows drop down onto targets in real life. Any time you shoot a bow, the trajectory is going to dip a little bit in flight after it hits it's apogee.

Thus, it takes more skill to hit something with a bow, and there are wide variances between people's skills with such a weapon. A gun, OTOH, is going to have enough force behind it's projectile to travel straight at something, only intervening objects are going to slow it down (as opposed to gravity).

The differences make sense for this reason. Another way to look at it is that someone in cover is hiding behind something that intervenes in the flight path of a shot. An arrow is not going to penetrate objects as often as a round from a stubber or a bolt gun, but either of these weapons is likely to penetrate a wall / sandbag / outcrop, at least some of the time. Or blow enough stuff off the obstacle to create other ways to wound a target. This is not really a matter of skill so much as the force behind the projectile.

techsoldaten wrote:
I had this conversation before, and there's some logic to the cover save system instead of lowered BS.

Guns are generally direct fire weapons, when shots go in a straight line. Bows / spears / javelins / etc rarely have this power, it's a lot more effective to have arrows drop down onto targets in real life. Any time you shoot a bow, the trajectory is going to dip a little bit in flight after it hits it's apogee.

Thus, it takes more skill to hit something with a bow, and there are wide variances between people's skills with such a weapon. A gun, OTOH, is going to have enough force behind it's projectile to travel straight at something, only intervening objects are going to slow it down (as opposed to gravity).

The differences make sense for this reason. Another way to look at it is that someone in cover is hiding behind something that intervenes in the flight path of a shot. An arrow is not going to penetrate objects as often as a round from a stubber or a bolt gun, but either of these weapons is likely to penetrate a wall / sandbag / outcrop, at least some of the time. Or blow enough stuff off the obstacle to create other ways to wound a target. This is not really a matter of skill so much as the force behind the projectile.

Bullets and other projectiles are subject to the same forces as arrows ie curved trajectory, cross wind etc, it's just they only become apparent over longer distances due to the greater forces involved. We can't reliably establish at what ranges the models really are in relation to each other down to the abstraction of the rules.

However your point probably holds true for energy based weapons where they don't fire anything solid.

They got rid of that rule in 3rd, & I'm glad. 2nd ed also had a -1 modifier for long range, combined they made shooting mostly ineffective. The -1 mod for the majority of small arms also made a mockery of a 3+ saves, cutting your save ratio from 66% to 50%. So a avalanche of small arms fire was still enough to bring down the toughest units 2nd ed or 6th. I think 2nd was the rules set where termies made ther save on 2d6 wasn't it?

For me the giant leap from 2nd to 3rd was awesome. It really streamlined the rules & allowed for the game to expand to real battles. 6th is part of the crawl back toward skirmish rules on a bigger (read as untenable) scale. A ever expanding set of special rules, the return of grenades as missle weapons(wtf?) & character challenges are leading us back toward a game of tiresome minutia.

 RedAngel wrote:
They got rid of that rule in 3rd, & I'm glad. 2nd ed also had a -1 modifier for long range, combined they made shooting mostly ineffective. The -1 mod for the majority of small arms also made a mockery of a 3+ saves, cutting your save ratio from 66% to 50%. So a avalanche of small arms fire was still enough to bring down the toughest units 2nd ed or 6th. I think 2nd was the rules set where termies made ther save on 2d6 wasn't it?

For me the giant leap from 2nd to 3rd was awesome. It really streamlined the rules & allowed for the game to expand to real battles. 6th is part of the crawl back toward skirmish rules on a bigger (read as untenable) scale. A ever expanding set of special rules, the return of grenades as missle weapons(wtf?) & character challenges are leading us back toward a game of tiresome minutia.

>Shooting was ineffective
>Mass small arms shooting brought down tough units

Pick one.

2nd ed was a skirmish game that many people (including GW) tried to play as an "mass battle" game.

I've always said that was the main problem with 2nd ed. 40k. It worked well and had a lot of detail and "flavor". It only fell apart when people "over-scaled" it" That is to say when they tried to push the system past what the level of detail and game mechanics would handle. 2nd ed. worked fine for up to about 1500-200 points per side. The problems that you have all heard about came in when people dropped stupidly high amounts like 5000 points on the table. That's when the game system got over-stressed and ground to a halt. To be fair, "over-scaling" is not just a 40k thing. It's a common problem in wargaming. I've seen similar issues when some game group tried to put a division of tanks on the table using a one model represents one vehicle set of micro-armour rules or when someone tried to refight Waterloo (a battle that involved almost 200k troops) using a Napoleonic game set that used battalions (a unit of about 600-800 men) as it's basic manuver element.

2nd ed. needed a little tweeking, but GW, in their typical style, over-reacted and produced a new much cruder and more bland edition that had lost much of it's detail and flavor. It took two editions and ten years for them to fix the mess they had made of the game. Anyway, 2nd was a good system and far from being the ponderous broken afair that some (mostly kids who have never even seen a 2nd edition codex, let alone play a game of that edition repeating things they have heard) claim.

As to the cover and save modifier thing , I'm still of the opinion that the WFB/pre-3rd edition 40k way of handling it was better and could work again. It's not going to happen of course. I suspect more than any other reason this is due to GW's marketing 40k at the kiddie demographic and thus wanting to remove even simple math from the game as well as their (in my opinion) misguided effort to seperate 40k totally from WFB.

TR

 Trench-Raider wrote:

2nd ed was a skirmish game that many people (including GW) tried to play as an "mass battle" game.

I've always said that was the main problem with 2nd ed. 40k. It worked well and had a lot of detail and "flavor". It only fell apart when people "over-scaled" it" That is to say when they tried to push the system past what the level of detail and game mechanics would handle. 2nd ed. worked fine for up to about 1500-200 points per side. The problems that you have all heard about came in when people dropped stupidly high amounts like 5000 points on the table. That's when the game system got over-stressed and ground to a halt. To be fair, "over-scaling" is not just a 40k thing. It's a common problem in wargaming. I've seen similar issues when some game group tried to put a division of tanks on the table using a one model represents one vehicle set of micro-armour rules or when someone tried to refight Waterloo (a battle that involved almost 200k troops) using a Napoleonic game set that used battalions (a unit of about 600-800 men) as it's basic manuver element.

2nd ed. needed a little tweeking, but GW, in their typical style, over-reacted and produced a new much cruder and more bland edition that had lost much of it's detail and flavor. It took two editions and ten years for them to fix the mess they had made of the game. Anyway, 2nd was a good system and far from being the ponderous broken afair that some (mostly kids who have never even seen a 2nd edition codex, let alone play a game of that edition repeating things they have heard) claim.

As to the cover and save modifier thing , I'm still of the opinion that the WFB/pre-3rd edition 40k way of handling it was better and could work again. It's not going to happen of course. I suspect more than any other reason this is due to GW's marketing 40k at the kiddie demographic and thus wanting to remove even simple math from the game as well as their (in my opinion) misguided effort to seperate 40k totally from WFB.

TR

I completely agree with this. We still play a modified version of 2nd and love it. Exalted.

Now some detailed replies to a post above:

2nd ed also had a -1 modifier for long range, combined they made shooting mostly ineffective

But you're leaving out the fact that most shooting at close ranges had a POSITIVE modifier. So yes, while shooting at the extreme ranges was not as effective, shooting at close range was deadly.

I think 2nd was the rules set where termies made ther save on 2d6 wasn't it?

Yes. Without going and digging out my 2nd edition rules, terminators rolled a three or four plus save on 2d6. This made them very effective against all but the heaviest weapons. (ie lascannons, multi-meltas, powerfists, etc) It was a mechanic that worked and added no real complexity to the game.

For me the giant leap from 2nd to 3rd was awesome. It really streamlined the rules & allowed for the game to expand to real battles. 6th is part of the crawl back toward skirmish rules on a bigger (read as untenable) scale. A ever expanding set of special rules, the return of grenades as missle weapons(wtf?) & character challenges are leading us back toward a game of tiresome minutia.

Umm, grenades ARE missle weapons..albiet short ranged missle weapons.
Personally I think the game has moved in the right direction in this last edition and that the change from 2nd to 3rd edition was a huge drop in quality.. 6th is far and away my favorite of the post 2nd edition systems. Others milage may vary of course. Perhaps 40k as it exists under new system is not for you. have you looked into epic? It might fit your needs better giving games that involve "real batles" and featuring mechanics that are streamlined lacking in "minutia:.

I also have to laugh and roll my eyes when someone makes the claim that ANY edition of 40k is "complex". Go play a session of "Empire", "Challnger" or "Seekrieg" for a proper sense of perspective.

TR

2nd doesn't have a universal -1 of long range fire. Some weapons have a -1 at long range in their profile, but they are mostly pistols and awkward weapons (grenade launchers conversion beamers etc.)

It did have negative modifiers for firing at fast moving targets.

 Eldarain wrote:
2nd doesn't have a universal -1 of long range fire. Some weapons have a -1 at long range in their profile, but they are mostly pistols and awkward weapons (grenade launchers conversion beamers etc.)

It did have negative modifiers for firing at fast moving targets.

Most of which was things that moved 12", like jump packs.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
2nd doesn't have a universal -1 of long range fire. Some weapons have a -1 at long range in their profile, but they are mostly pistols and awkward weapons (grenade launchers conversion beamers etc.)

It did have negative modifiers for firing at fast moving targets.

Most of which was things that moved 12", like jump packs.

It's a -2 for shooting at things that moved 20" or more. The limitations on vehicle maneuverability made their use more interesting as well. They used a similar system to the current flyers rules for numbers of turns allowed based on how fast they were moving.

Just knocking down the saves would fix saves for me. Turn 4+ into 5+, and then no more cheap guardsmen being ridiculously tough in cover.

 Vladsimpaler wrote:

 RedAngel wrote:
They got rid of that rule in 3rd, & I'm glad. 2nd ed also had a -1 modifier for long range, combined they made shooting mostly ineffective. The -1 mod for the majority of small arms also made a mockery of a 3+ saves, cutting your save ratio from 66% to 50%. So a avalanche of small arms fire was still enough to bring down the toughest units 2nd ed or 6th. I think 2nd was the rules set where termies made ther save on 2d6 wasn't it?

For me the giant leap from 2nd to 3rd was awesome. It really streamlined the rules & allowed for the game to expand to real battles. 6th is part of the crawl back toward skirmish rules on a bigger (read as untenable) scale. A ever expanding set of special rules, the return of grenades as missle weapons(wtf?) & character challenges are leading us back toward a game of tiresome minutia.

>Shooting was ineffective
>Mass small arms shooting brought down tough units

Pick one.

I don't think he'll be able to.

Shooting was king in 2nd Edition. If he says it was ineffective, he never played it.

 azreal13 wrote:

Bullets and other projectiles are subject to the same forces as arrows ie curved trajectory, cross wind etc, it's just they only become apparent over longer distances due to the greater forces involved. We can't reliably establish at what ranges the models really are in relation to each other down to the abstraction of the rules.

However your point probably holds true for energy based weapons where they don't fire anything solid.

Well, the amount of force behind a solid projectile has a lot to do with when it will begin it's ascent / descent. For practical purposes, it's probably safe to assume most of the weapons in the 41st millennia will have an effective burst range superior to the length / width of a board. Unless the IG start getting options for blunderbusses and flintlocks, that is.