Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Youn wrote:
Your missing one very important rule in that Battleshock rule.

Your General of your army has an ability called Inspiring Presence. During the Hero phase they may choose one unit in their army that is immune to battleshock that turn.

That allows the general to choose the unit that looks like it might take heavy casualties and say, they will be immune this turn.

Many armies have a general with a specific ability that can be used instead that makes all units within (I think it's 24", usually) immune to Battleshock. Forces you to cluster a bit more but you can just up and ignore the whole Battleshock mechanic.

A preview, perhaps, of what form Space Marines' immune-to-morale thing might look like in 8e?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Youn wrote:
Your missing one very important rule in that Battleshock rule.

Your General of your army has an ability called Inspiring Presence. During the Hero phase they may choose one unit in their army that is immune to battleshock that turn.

That allows the general to choose the unit that looks like it might take heavy casualties and say, they will be immune this turn.

Many armies have a general with a specific ability that can be used instead that makes all units within (I think it's 24", usually) immune to Battleshock. Forces you to cluster a bit more but you can just up and ignore the whole Battleshock mechanic.

A preview, perhaps, of what form Space Marines' immune-to-morale thing might look like in 8e?

I think that ATSNK will be like order's alleigance ability: you can re-roll the battleshock test. Maybe even give banners rules like ignore battleshock loses if you roll a one. That way, they aren't inmune to morale damage, but it's still harder to make them lose bodies.

I hope they give commissars a rule that goes something like. "If the unit containing a commissar fails a battleshock test in melee, that unit will never lose more than 1 model as a result of the test." he shoots the 1 guy, the rest keep fighting.

In AoS Chaos daemons and "super" mortals all have a 10, so usually you do not even roll for it on those units.

7 is essentially high end after that, and remember that the player whose turn it is swings first in CC, so you can dictate where the blood starts flowing first. IE: Do not let your unit that you are concerned about hit last.

I see a ton of conjecture in here about AoS.
AoS close combat is a million times better than 40k at the moment. It swings based on your positioning, tactics, and unit selection/activation during the phase. Not only that, it's FASTER as well.

The main thing I don't like about Battleshock is it's boring. You lose some models, so how does morale affect the unit? You lose some more models!

Is that really the best thing they can come up with?

Also I'm not a fan of mechanics that just = more models being removed, it'd be nice to see units actually hanging around for longer.

This is highly disappointing if true.

One of my biggest complaints about 40k was the lack of a real morale system. A sci fi wargame with loads of ranged weaponry (even one as fantasy oriented as 40k) desperately needs a suppression mechanic of some kind in addition to breaking the enemy, and it needs to do this in a less lethal manner.

Based on experience with other systems, games are more interesting and feel more realistic when your shooting can keep the enemy's head down instead of just reducing their number. Suppressing or breaking your enemy means you can maneuver and take ground in safety, and it also means your enemy can rally and counterattack with their closer-to-full-strength unit. It's a more interesting way of interacting on the battlefield, and it often means the decisive blow comes later in the game.

Instead, 40k only had break tests. Many units were virtually immune to the effects of break tests. Breaking a unit via shooting meant you probably already killed a decent number of them, and breaking in close combat often meant getting wiped out. The only meaningful way to interact in 40k was killing - suppressing fire was a nonexistent concept.

If true, this system just codifies that even further. Morale is triggered by killing models and the effect is to literally kill more models. Your models will stand there and roll dice in the direction of the enemy until they are removed.

Why bother trying to recreate any of the broad strokes of war when you can oversimplify it all to a model removing exercise?

I wish they would add something like Pinning in Bolt Action, basically you can suppress a unit by shooting at it, even if you don't kill any, to reduce their effectiveness. But I doubt that.

I am not a huge fan of Battleshock in AOS, but it works there. I'm not sure how well it would translate to 40k.

at least my fearless terminators will be worth something. Which makes me wonder though now, if we dont have a template, then there is nothing to scatter, which means, i wonder if there is even going to be a scatter die, so will deep strike even scatter anymore?

 Grey Templar wrote:
I hope this doesn't come over. Seems like it will be too easy to simply wipe units out after having killed only 2-3 of them.

You're thinking of the old rule. The new rule is the exact opposite.

Space Marines Morale is 7. Assuming you have 10 models and lose 3, even if you roll a 6 you've only lost a total of 5 models.

Under the old rules, if you were close to the board edge and lost 3 models, you'd roll against leadership 8(9 with a sgt) and if you failed, you could run off the board and lose everyone. That's 10 models lost under the old rules and 5 under the new.

The odds of rolling above a leadership of 9(Assuming sgt is still alive) is 1/36+2/36+3/36, or 6/36, simplified to 1/6.

So you had a 1/6 chance of losing everyone if they were close to the board edge compared to 1/6 chance of losing 2 guys under the new rules.

So, yeah. You're thinking of the old rules.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
at least my fearless terminators will be worth something. Which makes me wonder though now, if we dont have a template, then there is nothing to scatter, which means, i wonder if there is even going to be a scatter die, so will deep strike even scatter anymore?

I belive it was confirmed (maybe on Pete Foley's twitter?) that scatter dice were away.

Maybe deepstrike doesn't scatter but must be at least 9" from enemy? Speculating here, but AoS allows charging after DS. A 9" minimum distance makes it a risky manuver though.... assuming charge distances must still be rolled for.... which is a big assumption.

 Rippy wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:

dosiere wrote:
Would be cool if they had a system where you could either lose ground to an enemy or lose models. Seems fluffy and would add a layer of player interaction besides dice rolling lacking in games like AoS. Choosing to hold to an objective despite taking extra losses or giving ground to save your troops for a counterattack seems like it should be a thing.

I like this, I like this a lot!

Same actually!

@dosiere, can you please email GW? I know it is probably too late for changes, but that is a great idea!!

Ha, maybe! I don't know how it would work with their rules, but the idea actually came from my 9 year old son while playing a home brewed 40k rule set we've dubbed Bolter Action based on the bolt action rules. In that system you have pin markers so what we did was allow a unit that failed a morale check to retreat 1d6 inches plus the amount they failed their check by and take a pin marker instead of being destroyed/taking extra hits. While working out a combat he said"hey, can I just run away?" And I said you know, why not, and it works great. It creates a rolling battlefield where units are being pushed by assaults and counterattacked in turn depending on how the order dice come out.

The pinning system is key in my mind though. In this case it represents the unit being slightly disorganized/demoralized after being forced back and it makes sense. In 40k I guess you could force a unit to go to ground? Not sure.

People getting worried that they'll lose entire units after losing a single model have nothing to worry about.

In the current AoS system, a Ld8 Space Marine Sergeant's unit wouldn't start taking battleshock losses until they lost 3 models in a single turn. And even then, they'd only lose a single marine on a roll of a 6. Additionally, Space Marines would likely get the Sigmarine equivalent of ATSKNF, which lets them reroll battleshock tests. A unit of 5 marines could pretty much ignore battleshock entirely, and even a unit of 10 doesn't have much to fear, since the odds of major losses only become significant when you start losing more than half your squad in a single turn (at which point, you have far bigger things to worry about than battleshock).

I play MSU Mortal Nurgle in AoS, and I've never lost a single model to battleshock. It can hurt armies that rely on bigger units of weaker models, but even those have methods of mitigating battleshock, as well as a wealth of bodies to lose in the first place.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
The main thing I don't like about Battleshock is it's boring. You lose some models, so how does morale affect the unit? You lose some more models!

Is that really the best thing they can come up with?

Also I'm not a fan of mechanics that just = more models being removed, it'd be nice to see units actually hanging around for longer.

More or less how I feel about it. I can see the arguments to be made in it's favour over the old system, I didn't like losing a whole unit to a couple of casualties either - but I definitely think more could have been done here. I'm not arguing for a pure battle simulation or anything, I'd prefer effective mechanics over gamefeels, but this mechanic feels like them phoning in what could have been a really interesting part of the game.

Not to mention that many ways of mitigating Battleshock are dependent on the proximity of characters, which can't hide in units like now. So strategically defending/taking out leader units to crack an army adds a layer of strategy.

 Formerly Wu wrote:
Not to mention that many ways of mitigating Battleshock are dependent on the proximity of characters, which can't hide in units like now. So strategically defending/taking out leader units to crack an army adds a layer of strategy.

Can you explain this more? Is there no equivalent of independent characters joining units in AoS?

 Lobukia wrote:
Can you explain this more? Is there no equivalent of independent characters joining units in AoS?

Exactly that. Characters are just single-model units. If they're meant to have a support role, they'll have either auras or active abilities to accomplish their effects.

As a result, they also tend to have a minimum of 5 wounds, on top of any other defensive abilities.

 Formerly Wu wrote:

Exactly that. Characters are just single-model units. If they're meant to have a support role, they'll have either auras or active abilities to accomplish their effects.

As a result, they also tend to have a minimum of 5 wounds, on top of any other defensive abilities.

Very interesting, if this comes to 8E, going to take some time to get used to... but that's wargaming, adapt or burn out/die

 Lobukia wrote:


"Morale

Its no longer all or nothing, and it affects everyone. We’re thinking of replacing break tests with a simple mechanic. Roll a D6, add that to the number of models your unit has lost this turn, subtract your Leadership and take that many additional casualties."

If it's gonna be like this, Single-model-units are gonna be fearless. And a unit of Hormagants would pretty much die if they lose in combat. But i am assuming Tyranids will get some sort of Synaps moral bonus. I really don’t want to see my Tyranid Warriors dying from being afraid of dying.

The thing about characters being single units is you can target them. They can be singled out for shooting, which means that razorback with twin-linked lascannon is deadly to your librarian/chaplain/captain.

I bet heroes will have some kind of damage mitigation mechanic or very strong defenses, on average, balanced out by sources of 1-damage, "no saves of any kind allowed" damage. That is, if they don't retain the current independent character paradigm.

Youn wrote:
The thing about characters being single units is you can target them. They can be singled out for shooting, which means that razorback with twin-linked lascannon is deadly to your librarian/chaplain/captain.

I'm guessing intervening units will provide cover and that we'll see many former ICs become unit upgrades

 alanmckenzie wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
at least my fearless terminators will be worth something. Which makes me wonder though now, if we dont have a template, then there is nothing to scatter, which means, i wonder if there is even going to be a scatter die, so will deep strike even scatter anymore?

I belive it was confirmed (maybe on Pete Foley's twitter?) that scatter dice were away.

Maybe deepstrike doesn't scatter but must be at least 9" from enemy? Speculating here, but AoS allows charging after DS. A 9" minimum distance makes it a risky manuver though.... assuming charge distances must still be rolled for.... which is a big assumption.

seems an odd move to do away with the scatter dice completely as they just started selling them separately. sure it was like a buck or less but why even put it in game store inventories to be invalidated months later. doesn't seem very "the new GW" also if deep striking units do not scatter or carry any risk this will be 40k deep strike addition.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 alanmckenzie wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
at least my fearless terminators will be worth something. Which makes me wonder though now, if we dont have a template, then there is nothing to scatter, which means, i wonder if there is even going to be a scatter die, so will deep strike even scatter anymore?

I belive it was confirmed (maybe on Pete Foley's twitter?) that scatter dice were away.

Maybe deepstrike doesn't scatter but must be at least 9" from enemy? Speculating here, but AoS allows charging after DS. A 9" minimum distance makes it a risky manuver though.... assuming charge distances must still be rolled for.... which is a big assumption.

seems an odd move to do away with the scatter dice completely as they just started selling them separately. sure it was like a buck or less but why even put it in game store inventories to be invalidated months later. doesn't seem very "the new GW" also if deep striking units do not scatter or carry any risk this will be 40k deep strike addition.

They confirmed on the Twitter feed that scatter dice are gone. There was some implication that there would be risks associated with deep strike but nothing definitive.

Arguably, you could say they put them on sale for just that reason: clearing stock knowing they'll become obsolete soon...