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I do not advocate for the removal of the cover save system. I believe it is necessary to allow armies that do not make use of heavy armour (Emphasis on Dark Eldar, Tyranids, Orks and Eldar) to get saves vs the majority of weapons. Reducing BS will simply not be as effective, or will be to effective, at making units such as Rangers to Shrouded Gaunt hordes hard to kill. Hitting elite stealth troopers on a minus 2 isn't enough, as they usually have such a bad save it will be negated. While a -2 to hit against a Shrouded Carnifex would be to powerful.

What i had in mind is the use of to hit modifiers in conjunction with the current cover save system. Admittedly it would be complicating the game, but as a Fantasy player i can say i do not spend a great amount of time considering to hit modifiers. Check Range- Within half?- Either -1 or not. This would give a significant nerf to long ranged ignore cover weaponry, which in my opinion are all to prevalent, because even if your Wyvern ignores cover, if you are shooting at max range you will still be less accurate.

Admittedly having multiple saves does make a lot more sense, and it would massively aid currently flagging units such as Terminators, but i think that multiple saves would slow the game down much more then a few simple to-hit modifiers ever would. The prime example people like to make is the Stormshield Terminator with FnP in ruins making a 2+/3++/4+++/5++++. That is a lot of dice in a game already over flowing with weapons that fire to many bullets at to high strength and to low AP.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
I do not advocate for the removal of the cover save system. I believe it is necessary to allow armies that do not make use of heavy armour (Emphasis on Dark Eldar, Tyranids, Orks and Eldar) to get saves vs the majority of weapons. Reducing BS will simply not be as effective, or will be to effective, at making units such as Rangers to Shrouded Gaunt hordes hard to kill. Hitting elite stealth troopers on a minus 2 isn't enough, as they usually have such a bad save it will be negated. While a -2 to hit against a Shrouded Carnifex would be to powerful.

You could also overcome that by giving those low-armour-elite-stealth-dudes a larger "to hit" modifier.

But yeah, I wouldn't mind stacking saves also. If you're limiting yourself to a D6, stacking saves to allow super tough or hard to hit troops a better chance than just 1/6 against small arms. That's half the problem with Terminators, they aren't hard to kill with AP2 but nor are they hard to kill with small arms fire.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
I do not advocate for the removal of the cover save system. I believe it is necessary to allow armies that do not make use of heavy armour (Emphasis on Dark Eldar, Tyranids, Orks and Eldar) to get saves vs the majority of weapons. Reducing BS will simply not be as effective, or will be to effective, at making units such as Rangers to Shrouded Gaunt hordes hard to kill. Hitting elite stealth troopers on a minus 2 isn't enough, as they usually have such a bad save it will be negated. While a -2 to hit against a Shrouded Carnifex would be to powerful.

What i had in mind is the use of to hit modifiers in conjunction with the current cover save system. Admittedly it would be complicating the game, but as a Fantasy player i can say i do not spend a great amount of time considering to hit modifiers. Check Range- Within half?- Either -1 or not. This would give a significant nerf to long ranged ignore cover weaponry, which in my opinion are all to prevalent, because even if your Wyvern ignores cover, if you are shooting at max range you will still be less accurate.

Admittedly having multiple saves does make a lot more sense, and it would massively aid currently flagging units such as Terminators, but i think that multiple saves would slow the game down much more then a few simple to-hit modifiers ever would. The prime example people like to make is the Stormshield Terminator with FnP in ruins making a 2+/3++/4+++/5++++. That is a lot of dice in a game already over flowing with weapons that fire to many bullets at to high strength and to low AP.

A -2 is better than most cover saves in the game:

BS3 shooters will hit 1/3rd as often against them, and the target will still get their armor save if it's available, making it always better than a 3+ cover save
BS4 shooters will hit 1/2 as often, plus armor saves, making that cover modifier always better than a 4+ save

Cover should be useful, but trees should not magically stop plasma guns. My camo veterans should be hard to hit, but they shouldn't be able to magically shrug off tank shells. This would have the added benefit of making blast weapons much more useful in the game, making them more viable anti-cover weapons the way they're actually used in the real world.

Having played a significant amount of 2nd edition in my day, I can honestly say I'd rather do without To Hit modifiers for cover. While the current cover system isn't perfect (it should be treated like a reverse FNP, you get the cover save first, then your base armour save), I'll take it over adding another 3 hours to the game arguing over what modifiers to apply and what models are 50% in cover ("No way, that Ork Boy is only 48% covered!!").

 TheSilo wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
I do not advocate for the removal of the cover save system. I believe it is necessary to allow armies that do not make use of heavy armour (Emphasis on Dark Eldar, Tyranids, Orks and Eldar) to get saves vs the majority of weapons. Reducing BS will simply not be as effective, or will be to effective, at making units such as Rangers to Shrouded Gaunt hordes hard to kill. Hitting elite stealth troopers on a minus 2 isn't enough, as they usually have such a bad save it will be negated. While a -2 to hit against a Shrouded Carnifex would be to powerful.

What i had in mind is the use of to hit modifiers in conjunction with the current cover save system. Admittedly it would be complicating the game, but as a Fantasy player i can say i do not spend a great amount of time considering to hit modifiers. Check Range- Within half?- Either -1 or not. This would give a significant nerf to long ranged ignore cover weaponry, which in my opinion are all to prevalent, because even if your Wyvern ignores cover, if you are shooting at max range you will still be less accurate.

Admittedly having multiple saves does make a lot more sense, and it would massively aid currently flagging units such as Terminators, but i think that multiple saves would slow the game down much more then a few simple to-hit modifiers ever would. The prime example people like to make is the Stormshield Terminator with FnP in ruins making a 2+/3++/4+++/5++++. That is a lot of dice in a game already over flowing with weapons that fire to many bullets at to high strength and to low AP.

A -2 is better than most cover saves in the game:

BS3 shooters will hit 1/3rd as often against them, and the target will still get their armor save if it's available, making it always better than a 3+ cover save
BS4 shooters will hit 1/2 as often, plus armor saves, making that cover modifier always better than a 4+ save

Cover should be useful, but trees should not magically stop plasma guns. My camo veterans should be hard to hit, but they shouldn't be able to magically shrug off tank shells. This would have the added benefit of making blast weapons much more useful in the game, making them more viable anti-cover weapons the way they're actually used in the real world.

That's only sort of true though, isn't it? -2 BS is better when you're being shot at by things like lasguns, but most weapons in the game ignore the poor armor saves that most stealth specialists have. Mandrakes don't have any armor to speak of at all. I haven't crunched the numbers, but it seems to me that cover-based to-hit modifiers are more of a lateral shift for most "stealthy" units while being an improvement for heavily armored units.

As for things like venomthropes that hand out shrouded, I imagine if such changes were implemented, venomthrope clouds would change to something like, "Units within 6" always count as being in heavy cover," as opposed to letting the effects stack with terrain.

Now that said, the OP's main intention seems to be to help even up the odds of a dedicated assault army against a gunline army. For that, I think a less messy way of doing things that doesn't have undesired side-effects for the rest of the game would be to simply remove some of the limitations on assault introduced by 6th edition. Let outflankers assault the turn they arrive. Let units assault after disembarking a vehicle that didn't move before they got out. Have the rare unit that can attempt a charge after deepstriking (possibly restricting their charge range to d6" or something). All these options can be countered, but it makes the gunliner a bit more wary. Your opponent is outflanking? Better hug center and utilize terrain then. He parked right next you so that he can assault you next turn? That means his vehicle is in prime position to be glanced to death, assaulted with grenades, etc, and emergency disembarking is rewarding! Opponent wants to assault you after deepstrikindg with his storm boyz? Let him try. They're a risky, unreliable unit that stands a good chance of mishapping if he wants to land them within assault range of you.

One of the things I actually miss from 5th edition (it was a good edition, but I was burning out on it) was the fact that I could pretty easily build a list that would close the gap against shooty armies. Genestealers and mandrakes become worrisome units when they can assault your flanks as soon as they arrive, and letting marines assault out of rhinos (especially fast rhinos) makes it pretty easy to get an early-game assault off, even if it does mean your rhino will probably be roasted as a result.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Now that said, the OP's main intention seems to be to help even up the odds of a dedicated assault army against a gunline army. For that, I think a less messy way of doing things that doesn't have undesired side-effects for the rest of the game would be to simply remove some of the limitations on assault introduced by 6th edition. Let outflankers assault the turn they arrive. Let units assault after disembarking a vehicle that didn't move before they got out. Have the rare unit that can attempt a charge after deepstriking (possibly restricting their charge range to d6" or something). All these options can be countered, but it makes the gunliner a bit more wary. Your opponent is outflanking? Better hug center and utilize terrain then. He parked right next you so that he can assault you next turn? That means his vehicle is in prime position to be glanced to death, assaulted with grenades, etc, and emergency disembarking is rewarding! Opponent wants to assault you after deepstrikindg with his storm boyz? Let him try. They're a risky, unreliable unit that stands a good chance of mishapping if he wants to land them within assault range of you.

One of the things I actually miss from 5th edition (it was a good edition, but I was burning out on it) was the fact that I could pretty easily build a list that would close the gap against shooty armies. Genestealers and mandrakes become worrisome units when they can assault your flanks as soon as they arrive, and letting marines assault out of rhinos (especially fast rhinos) makes it pretty easy to get an early-game assault off, even if it does mean your rhino will probably be roasted as a result.

While I certainly feel that assault focused armies could use a small helping hand in the current edition, I think the free-for-all approach from 3rd-5th swung the pendulum too far in advantage of the assault army. I didn't play 5th, but I did play 3rd and 4th, and my Orks were damn near unstoppable when it came up against gun-happy armies like Tau, IG, and Necrons. Fast assault units were just stupid powerful in those editions, and being able to assault out of reserves/flanking or deepstrike is probably just too powerful for a blanket rule.

I personally think the balance between shooting and assault is closer to even than people realize, probably more so than it has ever been. Its just that for 3 editions, assault was so overwhelmingly powerful, being the primary focus of the game, and then 6th came along and smacked it upside the head right hard. I think the pendulum is still lobsided just a bit in shooting's favor, but it wouldn't take much to balance it out completely, such as only allowing OW against units that the charged unit shot at during their turn, or making assault ranges D6+6.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
Having played a significant amount of 2nd edition in my day, I can honestly say I'd rather do without To Hit modifiers for cover. While the current cover system isn't perfect (it should be treated like a reverse FNP, you get the cover save first, then your base armour save), I'll take it over adding another 3 hours to the game arguing over what modifiers to apply and what models are 50% in cover ("No way, that Ork Boy is only 48% covered!!").

I played through it too and the only thing that made it take longer in our games was the fact the each individual weapon had different range modifiers. Arguing about cover needs be no differen for modifiers than it is for cover saves, except now we're rolling far less dice, which saves time.

One of the most time consuming things about 40k in this edition is all the extraneous rolls. Roll for run distance, roll for charge distance, roll cover saves, roll for nightfighting, roll for mysterious objectives, roll to see if the game ends, roll this then that, then THAT. Ugh.

To hit modifiers, when implemented intelligently are far faster than cover saves and gives more granularity at the same time.

I'd do:

-1 for soft cover OR -2 for hard cover (never both)
-2 for snap shots
+1 for under half range (cannot be combined with rapid fire: one or the other)

I'd also institute 6's always hit and 1's always fail.

Running should just be +3" in the movement phase (get it all done at once instead of moving everything twice).
Moving through cover would reduce movement by 2 inches.

I'd get rid of overwatch completely. It's freakin' ridiculous and time consuming and more often than not does little to nothing (or on a lucky roll does WAY more than intended).

Combine that with save modifiers (about 1 less than all the save mods in 2nd edition, so that basic weapons don't reduce armor) and owner removes casulties and you've got yourself a game!

Get rid of D6's and then you'd have a game.

6s and 1s already is a thing for shooting i though

Running being half movement would be interesting.
with fleet or MtC giving you full distance (since eldar already do that now)
I think we can combine the lot. as well get rid of Dangerous terrain. since tripping over a rock is lethal :/ just make specific terrain like mine fields resolve damage instead of roll 1s to die.

As for Flat out type things, i dunno i feel its a little excessive when jet bikes can go on the otherside of the table in 1 turn. should just get a normal movement. in a straight line. no turns or pivots.

As for Overwatch. i feel you shouldn't be able to use it unless you did not run or shoot in the previous turn. less tests that way.

 Desubot wrote:
6s and 1s already is a thing for shooting i though

Running being half movement would be interesting.
with fleet or MtC giving you full distance (since eldar already do that now)
I think we can combine the lot. as well get rid of Dangerous terrain. since tripping over a rock is lethal :/ just make specific terrain like mine fields resolve damage instead of roll 1s to die.

As for Flat out type things, i dunno i feel its a little excessive when jet bikes can go on the otherside of the table in 1 turn. should just get a normal movement. in a straight line. no turns or pivots.

As for Overwatch. i feel you shouldn't be able to use it unless you did not run or shoot in the previous turn. less tests that way.

Nice way to work overwatch in. I like it alot

As for 6's, it's only a thing now because we have no modifiers. I we brought modifiers back, I prefer 6's always hit to the: if a score higher than 6 is required, re-roll on this chart for any 6's of past editions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Get rid of D6's and then you'd have a game.

I LIKE d6's. Love 'em really. The only dice you can realistically use by the double-handful and I like rolling lots of dice. I think it's utility outweighs it's lack of options.

to-hit modifiers without armor save modifiers is a non-starter. It becomes far too easy to have units become absurdly resistance to, if not outright effectively immune to, too many different kinds of firepower otherwise, particularly with the limited range available on a D6 where the smallest modifier is huge.

There's a reason GW dumped to-hot modifiers when they dumped ASM"s in favor of the AP system.

Armor save modifiers are a non-starter because there will be Eldar psychic powers that take away to-hit modifiers and then the marines get wiped up even FASTER. Been there, done that. Also, don't forget that technological armies also had targeters that gave +1 to hit in 2nd.

Martel732 wrote:
Armor save modifiers are a non-starter because there will be Eldar psychic powers that take away to-hit modifiers and then the marines get wiped up even FASTER. Been there, done that. Also, don't forget that technological armies also had targeters that gave +1 to hit in 2nd.

Only on Heavy weapons and you payed out the nose for those. Lascannon was like 60 points (on a 30 point marine, so closer to 30 points in today's point system). I think a +1 at half range would balance out those typesof heavy weapons.

Martel732 wrote:
Armor save modifiers are a non-starter because there will be Eldar psychic powers that take away to-hit modifiers and then the marines get wiped up even FASTER. Been there, done that.

And Space Marines don't have access to things like Divination themselves? And ASM's wouldn't apply just as much to things like Dark Reapers, Dire Avengers, Striking Scorpions, etc?

Lets not turn this into another "woe is Space Marines" thread, There are ways to do ASM's without everything being a -4 ASM and ways to do modifiers without having mechanics that eliminate them from everything all the time. IF we're having a problem with one army, then the issue to look at is that one army.

Ultimately however, they go hand in hand, if you're going to bring one back, you really need to bring the other back.

Also, don't forget that technological armies also had targeters that gave +1 to hit in 2nd.

Wasn't that only on certain units like Terminators? I don't believe I remember units like Tactical Marines or Dire Avengers having those?

To hit modifiers really slowed down 2nd ed play, as every weapon had it's own long range and short range modifiers, plus extra for cover. More realistic? Yes. A huge amount to commit to memory and endless double checking of tables? Also yes. The modifiers in fantasy now are miniscule compared to what 40k would need to be worthwhile. I personally would rather have the speed than the realism, although in 1k games it could make things interesting.

Fun fact - Dire Avengers have them on every model, as a separate and obvious piece.

It just doesn't have any rules.

 JamesY wrote:
To hit modifiers really slowed down 2nd ed play, as every weapon had it's own long range and short range modifiers, plus extra for cover. More realistic? Yes. A huge amount to commit to memory and endless double checking of tables? Also yes. The modifiers in fantasy now are miniscule compared to what 40k would need to be worthwhile. I personally would rather have the speed than the realism, although in 1k games it could make things interesting.

What some of us are saying is that the problem was not "to-hit" modifiers, it was the overly complex implementation. If you narrow to-hit modiiers down to a few (like in my post above) it will actually save time.

"I think it's utility outweighs it's lack of options."

Get rid of D6's and go to D10s or D20s and then to hit modifiers become a thing. Trying to force them back into a D6 game is a no-go in my book. ROF already dominates enough.


"The only dice you can realistically use by the double-handful and I like rolling lots of dice"

I've played a game where I had to roll many D20s. It works fine.

Yeah, I used to be more in favor of to-hit modifiers and the like, but more and more I've come to the conclusion that tthe D6 range is a bit limited for its utility.

I'm still of the opinion that if you bring back modifiers we need ASM's as well, but yeah, D10/12/20 would really be more idea, if we're going to leave it at D6's, the current system probably works better.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah, I used to be more in favor of to-hit modifiers and the like, but more and more I've come to the conclusion that tthe D6 range is a bit limited for its utility.

I'm still of the opinion that if you bring back modifiers we need ASM's as well, but yeah, D10/12/20 would really be more idea, if we're going to leave it at D6's, the current system probably works better.

I totally agree that with to hit mods, you need ASMs, but with a D6, the granularity on both is just punishing to the extreme.

Martel732 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah, I used to be more in favor of to-hit modifiers and the like, but more and more I've come to the conclusion that tthe D6 range is a bit limited for its utility.

I'm still of the opinion that if you bring back modifiers we need ASM's as well, but yeah, D10/12/20 would really be more idea, if we're going to leave it at D6's, the current system probably works better.

I totally agree that with to hit mods, you need ASMs, but with a D6, the granularity on both is just punishing to the extreme.

Yeah, on a D6 level, while potentially wokrable, I do think the current system works better. For a D6 system, you'd have to keep most things at just a +-1, with very few higher modifiers, and while I think it could function, I just don't see a good functionality reason to doing so for so little variability. The 2E modifiers were far too wde-ranging and certain models had far too many workarounds (oh look that BS6 Ork Warboss doesn't care about your cover...)

Martel732 wrote:
"I think it's utility outweighs it's lack of options."

Get rid of D6's and go to D10s or D20s and then to hit modifiers become a thing. Trying to force them back into a D6 game is a no-go in my book. ROF already dominates enough.


"The only dice you can realistically use by the double-handful and I like rolling lots of dice"

I've played a game where I had to roll many D20s. It works fine.

As an Ork player, I can safely say my hobby is expensive enough without the need to buy the amount of D20's I'd need to conduct any attacks my army make. :p Not to mention my small and less than manly hands could not hold that many D20's even if I COULD afford the dice.

... use a rolling cup and dice-tray, ffs.

D10 dice are not that expensive though. You can easily grab 10 of them (brand new) for about 3€ in places like eBay.

If GW were actually run by an intelligent management board, they would get rid of the D6 system and switch to D10. Not only provides more options, everything is way easier to calculate for both game designers and players (since the game works on multiples of 10 percentages).

Actually, nowadays I'm trying to build a Fantasy mod based on D10, and as I see it, it's vastly superior to D6.

D6 is fine for large-scale games in scales like 15mm, where units and regiments are truly treated as such by the rules. For large skirmish games like 40k where modifiers should actually matter, D10 is the way to go.

 Psienesis wrote:
... use a rolling cup and dice-tray, ffs.

No please. Seriously. Not to even mention how annoying it is to carry anything outside of D6 dice. D6 fit nicely in small carry boxes. Easy to store and carry. D20s? Not so much. Larger, bulkier, louder and in general a large inconvenience.

IMHO, 20's work better for Pen and Paper games, or for skirmish sized games where you only have a dozen models or so. I know 40k sometimes tries to pretend it's a skirmish game, but it's not. And having larger, bulkier dice on an already crowded table, or roll in a dice tray that isn't designed for D20's is more expense and hassle.

Melevolence wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
... use a rolling cup and dice-tray, ffs.

No please. Seriously. Not to even mention how annoying it is to carry anything outside of D6 dice. D6 fit nicely in small carry boxes. Easy to store and carry. D20s? Not so much. Larger, bulkier, louder and in general a large inconvenience.

IMHO, 20's work better for Pen and Paper games, or for skirmish sized games where you only have a dozen models or so. I know 40k sometimes tries to pretend it's a skirmish game, but it's not. And having larger, bulkier dice on an already crowded table, or roll in a dice tray that isn't designed for D20's is more expense and hassle.

If you had not provided this argument in this thread, I would have never believed that someone would put forth this argument. Even still D20's and D10's are far superior for the game itself and that's ultimately what I care about. Not carrying convenience.

Maybe it's just me, but I find rolling D6 to be faster than rolling dice with more sides, so I'm 50/50 about swapping to D12/20 as I think I'd rather roll a D6 twice than a D20 once.

 docdoom77 wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
To hit modifiers really slowed down 2nd ed play, as every weapon had it's own long range and short range modifiers, plus extra for cover. More realistic? Yes. A huge amount to commit to memory and endless double checking of tables? Also yes. The modifiers in fantasy now are miniscule compared to what 40k would need to be worthwhile. I personally would rather have the speed than the realism, although in 1k games it could make things interesting.

What some of us are saying is that the problem was not "to-hit" modifiers, it was the overly complex implementation. If you narrow to-hit modiiers down to a few (like in my post above) it will actually save time.

Yeah I get what you are saying, but the simplicity works in fantasy because of the limited number of ballistic options. The huge range of very different weapons in 40k would be poorly represented by a too simplistic table, as others have said a sniper rifle is more likely to hit at long range, a smg more likely to hit at short range than a single shot weapon etc. I have long said however that the move to pure d6 would hold the game back, and would welcome a d10 based version. I think that is the reason for the rise in d weapons, the warlord titan will only see the rise of av15 and possibly higher in the near future, and the d6 based mechanics can't handle it. D weapons are an easy fix, if a little uninspired, on that problem.

Edit btw I am not defending the current state of the rules on this, it annoys the hell out of me when it turns out I have actually hit a wall, even though I have hit and wounded already. Just saying that modifiers for a gun based game need to be in depth to properly reflect the different weapons available in 40k, and that, done probably (as was up until 3rd) it does slow things down.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
Having played a significant amount of 2nd edition in my day, I can honestly say I'd rather do without To Hit modifiers for cover. While the current cover system isn't perfect (it should be treated like a reverse FNP, you get the cover save first, then your base armour save), I'll take it over adding another 3 hours to the game arguing over what modifiers to apply and what models are 50% in cover ("No way, that Ork Boy is only 48% covered!!").

The much bigger problem is even hard cover quickly became meaningless in 2nd edition, since profiles improved and targeters were commonplace.

LeperColony wrote:

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
Having played a significant amount of 2nd edition in my day, I can honestly say I'd rather do without To Hit modifiers for cover. While the current cover system isn't perfect (it should be treated like a reverse FNP, you get the cover save first, then your base armour save), I'll take it over adding another 3 hours to the game arguing over what modifiers to apply and what models are 50% in cover ("No way, that Ork Boy is only 48% covered!!").

The much bigger problem is even hard cover quickly became meaningless in 2nd edition, since profiles improved and targeters were commonplace.

The "is this model in 50% cover" isn't a problem with modifiers, it's a problem with defining cover and could potentially exist regardless of whether you use a cover save system or a to hit modifier system.

While I prefer the idea of a modifier system, there would have to be some rebalancing (it would affect some armies more than others at this point).