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Vaktathi wrote:Cover acts very strange, MC's should have to be 25% obscured like tanks.

I vehemently disagree with this.

Monstrous creatures get, IIRC, the move though cover special rule. Why? because they are so massive that they basically just knock trees and cover down while they walk.

No cover for MCs unless almost entirely obscured.


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Martel732 wrote:
You need rerollable saves to survive scatterlasers. Maybe GW noticed this, but only "fixed" it for marines. Idiots. I've had the Eldar force 70 armor saves in a single turn before!

And it screws everyone else over royally.

Nerf high ROF weapons. Abolish rerollable saves from the game.

1) Remove hull points(some above posted ideas sound nice). Make Vehicles great again!
2) For walkers, Make them all MC's with a special ability like"Armored hull, Immune to Poison weapons" or another being "Eternal warrior" to prevent a force weapon from instant killing. If Eldar Avatar of Kaine gets immunity to flamers,ect. this rule is already in play for him, so they can make a rule for walkers similar, and not be completely out of place.
3) Remove pre measuring.
4) remove random charge distance. make it a fixed range of 6 like old editions. Give certain units(jetpack, bikes, furious charge) a plus 3 charge range or something

conker249 wrote:3) Remove pre measuring.

Why?

Imho, that just removes in-game immersion. Why wouldn't one of my space marines know whether or not he is in range to fire?

Perhaps "pre-measure" could be a special rule. BS 3 or lower? No pre-measuring.

BS4 or better? Pre-measure for days!

4) remove random charge distance. make it a fixed range of 6 like old editions. Give certain units(jetpack, bikes, furious charge) a plus 3 charge range or something

Yes. I vehemently agree with this!

Enough with randomness! No more random runs, charges, etc. Give us some fixed numers, GW!

No in game measuring? Because we totally can't measure things with lasers in real life, right?

We could accurately shoot shells from one moving battleship to a moving enemy target in WWII with ANALOG machines. This is why retro-future grim dark just gets stupid quickly. Newsflash: the people who didn't go retro would be in charge, not the Emprah's fanatics.

Martel732 wrote:
No in game measuring? Because we totally can't measure things with lasers in real life, right?

We could accurately shoot shells from one moving battleship to a moving enemy target in WWII with ANALOG machines. This is why retro-future grim dark just gets stupid quickly. Newsflash: the people who didn't go retro would be in charge, not the Emprah's fanatics.

That count be accounted for by equipment upgrades. Ok, Tau, you want to premeasure? Use one of your marker lights.

I kinda liked the no pre measuring rule of previous editions. made you really think whether to move a unit closer to fire, or keep them farther back. would love to see buying a upgrade like an auspex, targeting array, something. maybe if the unit has a character(or the upgrade) the unit can pre measure?

Or just keep pre measuring because rules that repel new players are bad things.

Traditio wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
No in game measuring? Because we totally can't measure things with lasers in real life, right?

We could accurately shoot shells from one moving battleship to a moving enemy target in WWII with ANALOG machines. This is why retro-future grim dark just gets stupid quickly. Newsflash: the people who didn't go retro would be in charge, not the Emprah's fanatics.

That count be accounted for by equipment upgrades. Ok, Tau, you want to premeasure? Use one of your marker lights.

No. No paying for things we could do in Gdamn WWII.

I agree on keeping pre-measuring. Not allowing it was a real barrier to entry for new players, and nearly meaningless to people who have been playing for a while.

Yeah, once you were playing for a while, measure was easy to gauge, pre measuring is fine really and makes sense for the game universe

Riflemen are useless and there does not seem to be any vision on how they should coordinate with other units. Riflemen should be able to flank an enemy unit that is being suppressed and then wipe out the squad after having exposed them to fire.

The point system is completely broken.

If we look back at the roots of the point system as we know it (2nd edition), 10 Tactical Marines without upgrades would cost 300 points while a Land Raider would cost 220 points.

If we keep the current conversion rate, a Land Raider should cost about 105 points. Not saying 2nd edition was balanced, but in the current meta, Land Raiders costing 105 points would actually feel like a useful choice to make.

___

I think that as of yet, the entire rule system is busted due to incremental changes rather than a proper design from the ground up. Making stuff make sense, then individually pricing the units should be the top priority of GW.

The MC vs Vehicles when it comes to cover is a key example. It doesn't make sense, at all. I can't see a Carnifex hiding in the bushes if a Rhino can't do it.

 Grimskul wrote:

I think an easier way is to just make any charges made from a non-assault vehicle to count as disordered. That way Land Raiders and Battlewagons have some measure of reason for their premium price tag by giving the full benefits of assault to their units while less dedicated transports allow you to make that charge but prevent you from steamrolling the unit.

Another broken part is not being able to assault out of reserve like outflanking or other things like infiltrating for units like genestealers that need that charge to actually do something. I would say do the same thing ala transports and make them count as disordered charges if they do so on the turn they arrive.

Regarding hull points, I'm a fan of saying that glancing hits do not remove hull points but instead force you to roll on the damage table with a -3 modifier on the table. This way you actually have to penetrate to do any meaningful damage rather than scatter laser your way through vehicles. Vehicles in general should have a 3+ save IMO, with Skimmers having a 4+ armour save. This is again, to mitigate the low AP but high S spam method of plinking down vehicles, while allowing lascannons and other single shot weapons greater utility.

I'm also not a fan of the dip-your-toe-in cover system for MC, make it so they need 25% coverage like vehicles. Walkers should have the ability to move up to 12" and only be able to snapfire their weapons or go 6" and fire everything at full BS. Give them MTC cover base and Smash and they're on even footing for most MC. MC themselves should have a similar damage table to Walkers, for every wound you have to roll and see what happens.

Just listen to this guy, this is reasonable. Everything else I hear in this thread is wish listing and salty salt.

Core Rule Issues:

Cover saves. The entire mechanic is broken in the sense that, well, it makes no sense. For example, a marine hiding behind in a forest is just as easy to hit/see/wound as one standing in the open.

How I would fix it: remove cover saves entirely. Replace with a to hit modifier. 50% of the model covered or in Trees = -1 BS. Intervening models = -2 BS. Defense Lines = -3 BS. And all these should stack. So attacking a unit that is standing in the trees, behind a defense line and there are intervening models should have a -6 BS.

Tank Shocks The rules here aren't very well explained and honestly don't make the best sense. Further even when you successfully pull off a tank shock the result is ... underwhelming.

How I would fix it: When tank shocking an infantry unit, the infantry units takes an initiative test. If failed, all the models take a hit and have to roll an armor or invul save. If passed, the unit scatters D6" (use the scatter die + 1D6). If the scatter takes any model off the table or into dangerous terrain then those model(s) are removed from play. If the models can't move in that direction (ie: building in the way), they die.

Death or Glory gets changed to a successful initiative test followed by (2 * Strength) + D6 hit. If the model fails the initiative, it takes a hit that ignores armor saves. If the model fails the attack, it takes 2 hits that ignore armor. If successful, the vehicle is immobilized plus loses a hull point.

Skimmers Why don't these have Skyfire?

How I would fix it: give skimmers Skyfire.

Psychic Phase I somewhat understand the reasoning behind rolling all the psychic powers up in a single phase, but I really don't think this is the right path. Further, I really don't understand why one psyker gets to use the power level (psychic dice) from another psyker to cast a power.... Sure, maybe for the Thousand Sons that would be a cool mechanic but for everyone?

How I would fix it: I think most of the powers should be rethought to be something that fits within the other well defined phases. Whether it's deployment, beginning/ending of game turn, shooting, assault, or movement phases. I don't think there ought to be a pool of dice to choose from. Instead you get to select 1 power per psyker. The ML levels determine how easy the psyker can cast. ie: the roll needed to cast is (6 - ML). So a ML 1 psyker casts on a 5+, a ML 2 casts on a 4+, etc. Also, remove the counter dice completely.

Speaking of the Thousand Sons, under this model give the entire army the special rule that psykers can help each other cast powers.


Warlord Traits I think warlord traits are great in the sense that they can provide additional flavor to an army. However the random nature for generic HQs is horrible.

How I would fix it: Reevaluate the warlord trait charts. Make sure that the various traits give enough options to build entirely different armies around them. Then remove the randomness by allowing the player to pick the trait.

clively wrote:

Skimmers Why don't these have Skyfire?

How I would fix it: give skimmers Skyfire.

Why would they inherently have Skyfire? I mean, there's problems with the Skyfire mechanic, but Skimmers aren't necessarily flight capable units with weapons intended to engage aerial targets. Some have been described as being capable of limited flight (e.g. Falcon) but they aren't designed to actually engage anything when doing so, and many others make absolutely no sense as Skyfire capable units (e.g. Hammerheads or Ghost Arks).

Oh, which reminds, even just the scale of 40k is broken. Should flyers even be a part of the core rules? I think not at this scale.

 Vaktathi wrote:

clively wrote:

Skimmers Why don't these have Skyfire?

How I would fix it: give skimmers Skyfire.

Why would they inherently have Skyfire? I mean, there's problems with the Skyfire mechanic, but Skimmers aren't necessarily flight capable units with weapons intended to engage aerial targets. Some have been described as being capable of limited flight (e.g. Falcon) but they aren't designed to actually engage anything when doing so, and many others make absolutely no sense as Skyfire capable units (e.g. Hammerheads or Ghost Arks).

To bring their use more in line with the fiction. DE Raiders and Venoms are commonly described as flying high up in the skies, swooping down to drop off troops or swoop over enemy units.

So Far there has been some very interesting turnout. I will be sure to continually read through this thread as I modify the ruleset for a hopefully more balanced game through the core rulebook. This is a ruleset I will be using to play at home with friends and I will post them on Dakka as well for anyone who wants to try them. Thank you for bringing up things that I had never even thought of.

system is too granular for no real good reason.

Why is there a to-hit and a to-wound roll? Just combine them together. If you want smaller increments of probability, just increase the rolls to 2D6, if you don't want a curve, then 1D10.

Too many tables to refer to, really slows down gameplay. In the end, its all a probability mechanic, and can be simplified again, by either using 2D6 (curve) or 1D10 (linear). For example, to pass a to-hit-and-wound roll, you need to roll a 7+ (on 2D6), modify your roll upwards by your attack strength, and downwards by your opponent's toughness. Viola, no tables.

Too much clunkiness in vehicle rules. Vehicles are weaker than non-vehicles, when the reverse should be true. No idea how to fix this without scrapping everything. I would make some weapons anti-vehicular, and some anti-infantry. Can't fire one at the other.

MCs should be actual MC to be brought down by anti-infantry firepower.

Basically, a lot of redundancies, needless tables and clunky rules. The granularity doesn't even serve any good purpose other than to complicate gameplay.

kburn wrote:

Why is there a to-hit and a to-wound roll? Just combine them together. If you want smaller increments of probability, just increase the rolls to 2D6, if you don't want a curve, then 1D10.

Combining to hit and to wound would see either hordes or big beefy creatures becoming horrifyingly OP.

IGOUGO is not good for a shooting based game at the scale of 40k. If it were a skirmish game where turns were a lot quicker sure, but at its current size 40k needs alternating activations.

Speaking of scale, it needs to ing pick one. Either remove the skirmish rules like look out sir, challenges and removing models from the front, or bite the bullet and reduce game sizes down to 1250 points and make anything larger than a land raider apoc only.

Cover needs a total rework, a space marine in 4+ cover should have increased survivability ovee one in the open even against lasguns. It should be a negative to hit modifier.

Armour saves and AP should get a rework like how it used to be in Fantasy, a lasgun lets you have your full armour save, a bolter lowers your save by 2, so a marine is rolling a 5+, a meltagun removes your save entirely even you're a terminator, but a terminator still gets a 6+ against plasma.

Unbound and the like should be removed, the 5th ed books had some ways to make some great fluffy armies within the FoC, lets go back to that. Hell, give each codex their own FoC, but then enforce them. Unbound is far from the best way to allow fluffy armies.

Psyker phase should not be a thing, scale it back to a shooting phase attack/ability since some armies don't even have psykers.

Prune stat lines. Realistically unless you're a monstrous creature your stats will be between 3 and 6, the 1 ro 10 scale is unnecessary. And do we really need 3 stats about well you hit things in melee in a sifi shooting based game? How often does psychology come up, enough to justify a Ld stat?

I'd remove hp and give a -3 on glancies for vehicle damage. I'd also revert smash back to half a mc's attacks, instead of just 1. This would give glancing the use of stunning tanks, and would stop hp stripping from killing tanks. It would also allow mcs to actually harm vehicles/walkers in cc.

This would fix s6 spam, and would let my poor nids actually stand a chance versus mech lists/walkers. A gigantic monster/robot/whathaveyou should be able to crack open a metal box imo!

Also maybe change fearless to stubborn, I think actually using morale could offer a lot more tactical depth.

The game needs to get more streamlined.
I recognized that a maelstrom game at the 2000 pt level usually takes (much) more than 2.5 hours.

Broken parts of 40k in the very core of the rules:

- random effects to overcome bad design
(eg Warlord Traits and Psionic Powers are chosen random because there were not able to find enough useful and balanced ones)

- unit types instead of movement values in the models profile
(the basic ide was nice, but over time it messed things up and increased the amount of special rules needed instead of makes things easier)

- rules are not meant to the end (is this the right wording?)
(some rules need 2 or more edition until they get to their logic end which ends up with a lot of similar rules with different wording that should have the same result)

- and missing streamlining
(instead of every model in the game having Health Points, we have Wounds and Hull Points which gives a lot of troubles because of the wording of the rules while both are basically the same)

The flyer rules in general seem totally broken to me. They seem to be one-man armies of destruction that almost no-one can touch. For example, many people complain CSM are not competitive, but add a Helldrake and you've got a unit that can toast entire elite squads on its own, turn after turn.

I think vehicles should get wounds and saves. It is more realistic that a Predator tank degrades more due to battle damage than a Carnifex, given that tanks don't regenerate, but it also means you can one-shot an expensive tank and not a monstrous creature.

The amount of cover saves seems a bit daft as well, and there are too many people taking the same fortifications. Why would daemons or tau man imperial guns and carry imperial aegis lines around with them? Can't they build their own stuff? And if the imperium owns a million worlds, that might only be 1% of the total inhabitable planets, so why is all the terrain imperial? Does nobody fight on non-imperial worlds?

 wuestenfux wrote:
The game needs to get more streamlined.
I recognized that a maelstrom game at the 2000 pt level usually takes (much) more than 2.5 hours.

Honestly I think GW and us are just on very different pages when it comes to how long a game should take. They seem to think an evenings worth of gaming is good, I'm of the opinion that no game should go longer than 2 hours. That way you can actually stop by your FLGS for a game and not have to make a whole day of it, but if you want a whole evening of gaming you can just play a couple of games.

I love them game, having just recently started back up the past year, and play a game or 2 a week, that said, some things really need to change to balance it out in the core rules.

1. Vehicles and walkers need more staying power somehow, I love my hellbrutes and Landraiders but when they get glanced to death by basic troops it sucks hard.

2. AP and High Str weapons need to be toned down, back when I used to play, the lascannon was king on the field, and you could only have so many. Lascannons now are pretty worthless when compared to what's out there.

3. Cover needs to be a BS modifier and not what it currently is, this change along with toning down the amount of low ap high Str weapons would be awesome.

4. Consolidate a lot of the special rules. When I first started playing again, just trying to remember anything was a huge hassle. Even with 30+ games under my belt after coming back and playing 1 or 2 a week, I still forget things because there is just too damn much to remember.

5. Alternate activation. My god do we need this, not only for balance, but my buddy plays necrons, and his shooting phase alone can take an hour, while I'm sitting there doing nothing. Maybe have it where each player takes turns activating units one at a time. Keeps both players in the game at all times and opens up a huge amount of tactics.

6. Rules that ignore other rules. I'm so sick of playing against armies that don't worry about morale, while other armies have to constantly fight the morale mechanic. Disregard the fluff to make the game better and more balanced. I mean, space marines and most necrons never worry about morale, pinning, etc. While Orks are heavily punished by morale, which is just plain not fun for the ork player. I understand that marines should be harder to make fall back, but don't make it impossible.

7. Not part of the core rules, but points need to be balanced a hell of a lot better. When I can make a squad of warp talons cost the same amount as a wraith knight, with not even close to the same toughness or kill power, something is wrong.

I see two common theme here. One is the "rules where broken from the outset". The other is "rules that changed are broken". Lot's of people have proposed the old veichle rules (roll on a damadge chart with a -2 modifier) but the current veichle rules actually evolved because people where fed up with those rules. Usually a glance was enough to severly decrease a veichles performance. In fourth a tank with the 5p extra armour upgrade woul suffer "crew shaken" on a 1-4 roll, weapon destroyed on 5 and imobilised on 6. which means a single glancing was enough to turn off a veichles waepons. People where so upset that their 200p-ish tanks wheren't allowed to shot for such a big part of the game that it got fundamentally changed. Same with charge being to short (6 inches) and yet to strong, psychic powers being all but non-exsistent and so on. However through all of this 40k is still spinning.

No, I tend to lean to the former catagory, that "rules where broken from the outset". Take the most basic rule, first I do my turn, then you do your turn. In a 2000p game that will easily give you solid 20minutes of not doing anything except leadership rolls, save rolls and possible close combat rolls. Now that close combat has got so weak it's even rare to see that interaction on both turns. It's so obvious that we usually don't consider it but it really isn't a good design, nor is it "realistic" or makes much sence. I think the core of the game was developed for a diffrent time, a time when board gaming was new and every idea had to break new ground, only relying on board games and DnD rules for research. Now however things are very diffrent. Over the years many diffrent table top game systems has been developed and put on the market. Now is the time for new thinking. As Talizvar put it:

 Talizvar wrote:
Running the risk of being pedantic, it depends on what elements you feel are broken of the game like competitive gameplay vs sandbox style play.

"Broken" for me is simply game balance.
The assumption that points value reflects the relative worth of the models or formation in general.
Augmenting abilities also can be applied across a multitude of models or other formations also skewing balance.

We seem to be committed to formations so I say we double-down on them more.
Not a means of "freebie" stuff but a self contained list (no powers leaking out to affect other formations!) where two formations of a similar points value and type (Assault group, Heavy support, Armor... something around that line) would guarantee a fairly close fight army to army, formation to formation.

Plus the answer to Monstrous Creatures and Armor: take a page from Bolt Action and just extend the "to wound" to higher values.
The stronger weapons have a higher strength so are more capable of damage.

I think Bolt Action rules applied to 40k would be awesome, including their method of unit activation rather than I-go you-go.

Here we have two ideas that would work absoloutely excelent in 40k and have been tried and tested in a diffrent table-top game. The idea of activating units to make a turn flow more naturally and be more engaging for both players and the idea that a high strength weapons could wound more models in a squad depending on it's strength. In axis and allies we have a similiar example where many people praised the idea that the units shooting score was not as important as the opponents squads ability to not get shot.

Power creep is in the very nature of 40k rules and fluff. The game is all about how cool and strong your dudes is, that awesome leader you've spent hours and hours on making awesome has got to live up to his expectations on the board, and thus it it's natural that they should grow stronger and stronger. Put this into context with super heavies MC and boom, you get where we are today. I think we need a clear, big core rule that naturally works against power creep.

So what really is the broken game problem today? Well for me it's that GW has been playing it safe for the last 10 or so years. The rules has been about the same, introducing newer and stronger units while doing little to change the overall smothness, feel and enjoyment of the game. So how to fix it? I propose rigorous play testing of elements already put in use by many other games into 40k. See what works and see what don't. A cutback with big rule overhaul and then the special rules and such will set themselves in without much work. I'd also suggest more restrictions, possibly diffrent levels of game modes. Let's say there's three levels, alpha, beta and omega. In an alpha game (regardless of point values) no special characters, no Super heavies and only a single FOC would be used for instance. Then in a beta game you could losen it a little and allow more FOC and special characters. Finally in Omega it could be no restrictions with infinite FOCs, super heavies and fliers, much like the standard is today. This would make it much easier for begginners to get into the game, tournaments to make a clear comp outline as well as for experienced players to have a clear outline on how much to bring to the table.

Finally I must say that I love 40k but there's so many games that take it's basic mechanics and does much better things with it. I'd love to see gw not necessarily steal those ideas but at least get inspired by them and incorporate them in their system. I truly wish gw would focus on playtesting and listening to the fans. The models are amazing, I'd love it to death it the game was as well.

 Aijec wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
Assault is restricted too much. Being a passenger gets you killed if you step out through the doors. Overwatch is fine, but a couple more special exceptions how flamers get more shots would be nice. Hatch-mounted guns getting overwatch would be good, maybe.

Assault army just won adepticon...

last 3 times an assault army won too.....

both players are very consistently placing with exclusively assaulty armies....

Technically these are assault armies but their real strength is being indestructable via abuse of allies system/LOS sir system/ and multiple psychic powers. Or in the case of necron - abuse of reanimation. Basically - indestructibility wins games...who would have thought?

The relationship between transports and units they carry needs to change.
All current transports gain the assault vehical rule. Whilst current assault vehicles add +3 to your charge distance and allow you to disembark after a flat out move.

but the current veichle rules actually evolved because people where fed up with those rules. Usually a glance was enough to severly decrease a veichles performance. In fourth a tank with the 5p extra armour upgrade woul suffer "crew shaken" on a 1-4 roll, weapon destroyed on 5 and imobilised on 6. which means a single glancing was enough to turn off a veichles waepons.

But with the new rules glancing to death got worse which is the opposite of what the player wanted.

This shows pertfect the whole problem, instead of solving an issue GW makes it much worse with a new Edition.


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The relationship between transports and units they carry needs to change.
All current transports gain the assault vehical rule. Whilst current assault vehicles add +3 to your charge distance and allow you to disembark after a flat out move.

just no, because this is what GW do all the time and it dores not work well.

just adding a new rule to tweak one model type without re-writing anything else broughtbus to the current situation.