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.

No need to add those via Chapter approved, just start using Battlezones. (pg 252-253)

'Battlezone: Night Fight' is a combination of Night Fighting rules mixed in with 7th edition mysterious objectives.

 Galef wrote:
It shouldn't be a choice between a Turn 1 Alpha strike or a Turn 3 Beta Strike. There needs to be something in between.

There is something in between. A unit that stays in reserve until the third turn (or later) is a unit that is spending half the game off the table, despite costing full points. If your opponent delivers their reserves on turn 2 (or just deploys everything at the beginning of the game) they can potentially end the game and leave your delayed reserves too late to matter. The reaction advantage of deploying second matters, but so does having 2000 points fighting against 1000 points. So yeah, certain units will want to wait as long as possible, but that's typically going to be limited to specific counter units that are dedicated to killing a single target and don't need to be on the table until it's time to do that job.

And really, this should be pretty obvious. Despite the turn 3 beta strike working just fine in RAW 8th from a rules point of view most people drop their units as early as possible. Removing first-turn reserves mitigates the alpha strike, but doesn't remove the strategic pressure that drives it.

^ Peregrine gets it.

 Nym wrote:
Rule n°1 : Awaiting Orders

Yes, yes, yes and... Yes. People who say it wouldn't change anything have basically no clue about how this game works.

It would give us a Movement phase before the Deepstrikers come down, thus allowing the second player to move his units in such a way as to deny potential targets.
Right now only a few armies can do that (IG with Scout sentinels for example).

Yea we do know how it works. You should be doing that at deployment. Not your first move.

I'm not entirely opposed to the rule, either.

Risk-free guaranteed turn 1 no-scatter deep strike doesn't do anything to enhance the tactical depth of the game. Lets be honest, it doesn't take much thought to drop a unit full of special weapons at optimal range at a target of your choosing when and where you want without any risk.

Maybe if we still had scatter and meaningful mishaps and terrain rules, but as is the only benefit is to speed up the game, which doesn't mean much for the actual game experience (particularly when the extra few minutes saved aren't an issue for 99.9% of games).

I think this is designed as intended.

Two contention points existed:
1) tournament time - not enough time to play out full sized games. Lots of complaints about this to shrink the game to fit into tournament time.

2) shrinking the game down means less models being bought.

Solution: make the game still use a lot of models, but write the rules so that models are removed by the handful and quickly so the game has a fast resolution so that tournament time can be adhered to WITH big armies.

Result: alpha strike dominance and turn 1 or 2 tablings written as designed.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Galef wrote:
It shouldn't be a choice between a Turn 1 Alpha strike or a Turn 3 Beta Strike. There needs to be something in between.

There is something in between. A unit that stays in reserve until the third turn (or later) is a unit that is spending half the game off the table, despite costing full points. If your opponent delivers their reserves on turn 2 (or just deploys everything at the beginning of the game) they can potentially end the game and leave your delayed reserves too late to matter. The reaction advantage of deploying second matters, but so does having 2000 points fighting against 1000 points. So yeah, certain units will want to wait as long as possible, but that's typically going to be limited to specific counter units that are dedicated to killing a single target and don't need to be on the table until it's time to do that job.

And really, this should be pretty obvious. Despite the turn 3 beta strike working just fine in RAW 8th from a rules point of view most people drop their units as early as possible. Removing first-turn reserves mitigates the alpha strike, but doesn't remove the strategic pressure that drives it.

Yeah, no thanks. I played the Necron Flyer list in 5th. It was THE turn 2/3 strike army as far as I am concerned. All you had to do was hide a 1-2 models in LOS blocking terrain and wait until all the Flyers came in and dropped their units
It also meant that if you went first against a similar list, you were almost guaranteed to lose. No fun, which is why I stopped playing it and was glad it stopped being viable.

-

 Galef wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Galef wrote:
It shouldn't be a choice between a Turn 1 Alpha strike or a Turn 3 Beta Strike. There needs to be something in between.

There is something in between. A unit that stays in reserve until the third turn (or later) is a unit that is spending half the game off the table, despite costing full points. If your opponent delivers their reserves on turn 2 (or just deploys everything at the beginning of the game) they can potentially end the game and leave your delayed reserves too late to matter. The reaction advantage of deploying second matters, but so does having 2000 points fighting against 1000 points. So yeah, certain units will want to wait as long as possible, but that's typically going to be limited to specific counter units that are dedicated to killing a single target and don't need to be on the table until it's time to do that job.

And really, this should be pretty obvious. Despite the turn 3 beta strike working just fine in RAW 8th from a rules point of view most people drop their units as early as possible. Removing first-turn reserves mitigates the alpha strike, but doesn't remove the strategic pressure that drives it.

Yeah, no thanks. I played the Necron Flyer list in 5th. It was THE turn 2/3 strike army as far as I am concerned. All you had to do was hide a 1-2 models in LOS blocking terrain and wait until all the Flyers came in and dropped their units
It also meant that if you went first against a similar list, you were almost guaranteed to lose. No fun, which is why I stopped playing it and was glad it stopped being viable.

-

If only there were units who could hit enemies without requiring LOS.

1) I don't mind this but I'm not sure it will accomplish much either.

In terms of reducing Alpha Strikes, would it be better to limit the number or percentage of reserves that can enter the battlefield each turn (as opposed to 0% on turn 1, 100% on turn 2)?

For example:
Turn 1: No units may arrive from reserve.
Turn 2: Up to 2 units may arrive from reserve.
Turn 3: Up to 4 units may arrive from reserve.
Turn 4: Any remaining units must arrive from reserve.

Or:
Turn 1: No more than 25% of reserved units (rounding up) may arrive.
Turn 2: No more than 25% of reserved units (rounding up) may arrive.
Turn 3: No more than 50% of reserved units (rounding up) may arrive.
Turn 4: Any remaining units must arrive from reserve.
(Percentage is based on the number of units that started in reserve - not the number currently in reserve.)

I'm just trying to think of something that would make players spread out their units over a few turns.


2) I don't see the point of this rule at all.


3) Personally, I'd much rather see a limit to what characters can hide behind. Something like:

"When attempting to shoot a character, you may ignore any units with a toughness value that is more than 1pt lower than the character.

For example, if you are attempting to shoot at a T6 character, you may ignore any units with a Toughness value of 4 or less that are closer to the firing model(s)."

Basically, the units shielding a character would have to be of at least comparable size to that character.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Galef wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Galef wrote:
It shouldn't be a choice between a Turn 1 Alpha strike or a Turn 3 Beta Strike. There needs to be something in between.

There is something in between. A unit that stays in reserve until the third turn (or later) is a unit that is spending half the game off the table, despite costing full points. If your opponent delivers their reserves on turn 2 (or just deploys everything at the beginning of the game) they can potentially end the game and leave your delayed reserves too late to matter. The reaction advantage of deploying second matters, but so does having 2000 points fighting against 1000 points. So yeah, certain units will want to wait as long as possible, but that's typically going to be limited to specific counter units that are dedicated to killing a single target and don't need to be on the table until it's time to do that job.

And really, this should be pretty obvious. Despite the turn 3 beta strike working just fine in RAW 8th from a rules point of view most people drop their units as early as possible. Removing first-turn reserves mitigates the alpha strike, but doesn't remove the strategic pressure that drives it.

Yeah, no thanks. I played the Necron Flyer list in 5th. It was THE turn 2/3 strike army as far as I am concerned. All you had to do was hide a 1-2 models in LOS blocking terrain and wait until all the Flyers came in and dropped their units
It also meant that if you went first against a similar list, you were almost guaranteed to lose. No fun, which is why I stopped playing it and was glad it stopped being viable.

-

If only there were units who could hit enemies without requiring LOS.

Do you realise nearly all of those options are Imperial, do you?

 Galas wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Galef wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Galef wrote:
It shouldn't be a choice between a Turn 1 Alpha strike or a Turn 3 Beta Strike. There needs to be something in between.

There is something in between. A unit that stays in reserve until the third turn (or later) is a unit that is spending half the game off the table, despite costing full points. If your opponent delivers their reserves on turn 2 (or just deploys everything at the beginning of the game) they can potentially end the game and leave your delayed reserves too late to matter. The reaction advantage of deploying second matters, but so does having 2000 points fighting against 1000 points. So yeah, certain units will want to wait as long as possible, but that's typically going to be limited to specific counter units that are dedicated to killing a single target and don't need to be on the table until it's time to do that job.

And really, this should be pretty obvious. Despite the turn 3 beta strike working just fine in RAW 8th from a rules point of view most people drop their units as early as possible. Removing first-turn reserves mitigates the alpha strike, but doesn't remove the strategic pressure that drives it.

Yeah, no thanks. I played the Necron Flyer list in 5th. It was THE turn 2/3 strike army as far as I am concerned. All you had to do was hide a 1-2 models in LOS blocking terrain and wait until all the Flyers came in and dropped their units
It also meant that if you went first against a similar list, you were almost guaranteed to lose. No fun, which is why I stopped playing it and was glad it stopped being viable.

-

If only there were units who could hit enemies without requiring LOS.

Do you realise nearly all of those options are Imperial, do you?

I also realize that half the factions (or more? Not sure at last count) are Imperial. So... yes, I realize that.

There are still options for other factions; only one I couldn't think of is poor Orks.

EDIT: Besides, it doesn't really matter which factions have access to what - the point is that having 50% of your army on to fight 100% of your opponent's army isn't a winning strategy (as Peregrine points out) and so the inherent risk of keeping 50% of your army in reserve till Turn 3 exists.

Daedalus81 wrote:
[You should be doing that at deployment. Not your first move.

How do you do that against Obliterators that shoot at 24" ? Or even against Inceptors who shoot at 18" (12"+9" = 21". Anything with a base bigger than 2" is a valid target, even if you hug the table edge).

Moving on first turn allows you to push Deepstrikers back a full 6"-12" at worst. That's huge.

tneva82 wrote:

pismakron wrote:
And then there is the issue of shooting. An artillery gun-line derives an enormous benefit from getting the alpha-strike. I don't think there any easy fixes to that.

Better terrain & scenario rules with good hefty amount of characters rather than turkey shoot shooting galleries would go long way.

If you play on wide open terrain where it's easy to draw long lines of LOS no surprise those weapons get a boost. You don't try to bring in short ranged guns IRL into desert warfare much either.

And scenarios that encourage tabling as primary mean of killing increases issue more. Have scenarios where static gunline can table enemy and still lose and they are forced to invest in something other than just more guns.

The more terrain you have, the better Guard artillery is.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

pismakron wrote:
And then there is the issue of shooting. An artillery gun-line derives an enormous benefit from getting the alpha-strike. I don't think there any easy fixes to that.

Better terrain & scenario rules with good hefty amount of characters rather than turkey shoot shooting galleries would go long way.

If you play on wide open terrain where it's easy to draw long lines of LOS no surprise those weapons get a boost. You don't try to bring in short ranged guns IRL into desert warfare much either.

And scenarios that encourage tabling as primary mean of killing increases issue more. Have scenarios where static gunline can table enemy and still lose and they are forced to invest in something other than just more guns.

The more terrain you have, the better Guard artillery is.

But also the better MEQs stack up against GEQs.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

pismakron wrote:
And then there is the issue of shooting. An artillery gun-line derives an enormous benefit from getting the alpha-strike. I don't think there any easy fixes to that.

Better terrain & scenario rules with good hefty amount of characters rather than turkey shoot shooting galleries would go long way.

If you play on wide open terrain where it's easy to draw long lines of LOS no surprise those weapons get a boost. You don't try to bring in short ranged guns IRL into desert warfare much either.

And scenarios that encourage tabling as primary mean of killing increases issue more. Have scenarios where static gunline can table enemy and still lose and they are forced to invest in something other than just more guns.

The more terrain you have, the better Guard artillery is.

Therein lies one of the compounding problems, ITC has gone absolutely nuts with LOS blocking terrain. I can't really blame them because alpha strikes would be much worse without those additional rules, but it makes certain setups a lot more powerful than they ought to be. It screws up the risk vs reward when you can have screened units out of LOS (so effectively unkillable) who are able to function at a high level of effectiveness. Since you can't fix the requirement for that much LOS blocking terrain, you're left with nerfing the artillery to oblivion, or introducing another problem like army wide first turn charges.I'm not envious of the GW guys whose job it is to try to balance that cluster feth.

 Grimgold wrote:
Therein lies one of the compounding problems, ITC has gone absolutely nuts with LOS blocking terrain. I can't really blame them because alpha strikes would be much worse without those additional rules, but it makes certain setups a lot more powerful than they ought to be. It screws up the risk vs reward when you can have screened units out of LOS (so effectively unkillable) who are able to function at a high level of effectiveness. Since you can't fix the requirement for that much LOS blocking terrain, you're left with nerfing the artillery to oblivion, or introducing another problem like army wide first turn charges.I'm not envious of the GW guys whose job it is to try to balance that cluster feth.

I think a big issue is that iG artillery doesn't suffer any penalty if it can't see what it's shooting at. Previously, shots were much more likely to scatter if you shot at something you couldn't see. Now though, there's literally no advantage to being able to see your target.

My suggestion would be one of the following:
-1 to hit if you can't see your target.
- Reroll to-hit rolls of 6 if you can't see your target.

Basically, artillery hiding out of LoS should not be able to land shots with the same accuracy as if they were exposing themselves to their target.


If you think these are too harsh, then I'll suggest a second rule: Spotters:

'When shooting at a unit out of sight of this model, you may ignore the penalty to hit if there is a friendly Infantry unit with a Vox Caster within 18 of the target that has LoS to the target."

(Obviously you could mess around with the requirements, but you get the basic idea.)

At the very least, this would encourage infantry to be used for more than just bubble-wrapping artillery.

I really like the idea that a natural 6 to hit always hits. The need has begun more apparent recently, with the proliferation of so many -1 modifiers available now, that some armies like Eldar can field armies that can't be hit by the likes of Orcs. And in most situations it isn't a buff to BS 3+/4+ armies.

1. I don't want my games lasting longer, I don't see the point in being forced to hold reserves. Going second is viable, you get the last turn before the game ends (Think last minute objective holding/scoring/denying), you also get to set up great counter attacks.

I wish going second were viable, and that last minute objective scoring were a thing. But in all my games of 8th edition, I have yet to see anyone choose to go second, and I have yet to play a game that went 5+ turns and still had a meaningful contest to control an objective. Do you choose to go second in a competitive setting? I doubt it. I've lost half my army before taking a turn more times than I'd like - never going to voluntarily go second.

 vipoid wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
Therein lies one of the compounding problems, ITC has gone absolutely nuts with LOS blocking terrain. I can't really blame them because alpha strikes would be much worse without those additional rules, but it makes certain setups a lot more powerful than they ought to be. It screws up the risk vs reward when you can have screened units out of LOS (so effectively unkillable) who are able to function at a high level of effectiveness. Since you can't fix the requirement for that much LOS blocking terrain, you're left with nerfing the artillery to oblivion, or introducing another problem like army wide first turn charges.I'm not envious of the GW guys whose job it is to try to balance that cluster feth.

I think a big issue is that iG artillery doesn't suffer any penalty if it can't see what it's shooting at. Previously, shots were much more likely to scatter if you shot at something you couldn't see. Now though, there's literally no advantage to being able to see your target.

My suggestion would be one of the following:
-1 to hit if you can't see your target.
- Reroll to-hit rolls of 6 if you can't see your target.

Basically, artillery hiding out of LoS should not be able to land shots with the same accuracy as if they were exposing themselves to their target.


If you think these are too harsh, then I'll suggest a second rule: Spotters:

'When shooting at a unit out of sight of this model, you may ignore the penalty to hit if there is a friendly Infantry unit with a Vox Caster within 18 of the target that has LoS to the target."

(Obviously you could mess around with the requirements, but you get the basic idea.)

At the very least, this would encourage infantry to be used for more than just bubble-wrapping artillery.

-1 to hit seems thematic, and inline with balancing risk vs reward. The problem with suggestions like this is of course in the details, the guards usual BS of 4+, now hitting on 5+ means about a third less damage. Then we take someone like raven guard/alpha legion who would be more than 12" away most of the time, and now it's almost a 70% reduction in damage dealt. Since those units will only ever be deployed out of LoS (since if LOS is required to be effective there are better units) it basically means just decreasing their effectiveness by a third. You could achieve the same end goal by just increasing their cost by 33% and not adding another rule to the game. Honestly though I think it's the wrong approach trying to nerf their offense, because it's not their offense that's the problem, it's the fact they are nearly unkillable.

My bad idea is to modify the ITC rule regarding first floors of buildings blocking LoS, make it so it doesn't block LoS to vehicles. That reduces the number of places where you can hide artillery but doesn't directly alter the points balance. You can still have an effective artillery battery ducked out of LoS, but it can't be your entire army.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

pismakron wrote:
And then there is the issue of shooting. An artillery gun-line derives an enormous benefit from getting the alpha-strike. I don't think there any easy fixes to that.

Better terrain & scenario rules with good hefty amount of characters rather than turkey shoot shooting galleries would go long way.

If you play on wide open terrain where it's easy to draw long lines of LOS no surprise those weapons get a boost. You don't try to bring in short ranged guns IRL into desert warfare much either.

And scenarios that encourage tabling as primary mean of killing increases issue more. Have scenarios where static gunline can table enemy and still lose and they are forced to invest in something other than just more guns.

The more terrain you have, the better Guard artillery is.

But also the better MEQs stack up against GEQs.

Not really. Not in practice.

I think with the vast amounts of -1 to hit out there stacking another -1 for out of LOS would really cripple armies that rely on it (this being said as someone who hates LOS firing units)

Maybe a -1 to wound or even a +1 to saves made against such weaponry?

Out of LOS against a -1 army means you are hitting on 6s with a lot of weaponry and I don't think the point is to make the weapons useless.

A -1 to wound seems like it would be a good but not crazy nerf while the +1 to save seems like it would have less impact but would still be some sort of negative.

Just make LoS-ignoring units cost more. Done.

Martel732 wrote:
Just make LoS-ignoring units cost more. Done.

A lot more

 Peregrine wrote:

 Galef wrote:
The difference was that you had to roll to get them in. They might come in before you want them or not come in when you need them. It was a risk
What you are suggesting would mean that the player you goes 2nd has a huge advantage because he can wait until turn 3, after all his opponent's units are on the board to drop the rest of his stuff

As opposed to the current situation, where the player who goes first has a huge advantage because they can remove half their opponent's army with a turn-1 alpha strike?

as easier fix would be for the weapons fire to occur at "the same time" so while turn order happens, everyone gets ti fire their stuff before it's removed.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Galef wrote:
The difference was that you had to roll to get them in. They might come in before you want them or not come in when you need them. It was a risk
What you are suggesting would mean that the player you goes 2nd has a huge advantage because he can wait until turn 3, after all his opponent's units are on the board to drop the rest of his stuff

As opposed to the current situation, where the player who goes first has a huge advantage because they can remove half their opponent's army with a turn-1 alpha strike?

as easier fix would be for the weapons fire to occur at "the same time" so while turn order happens, everyone gets ti fire their stuff before it's removed.

I don't really see that viable for a few reasons. Not everyone is an shooty army. What happens with turn 1 assault armies? I charge in and get several kills. Do you still fight on your turn for the models that were killed? Can you shoot even in CC since you play simultaneously? Do my models that charged and were killed in overwatch at the top of turn 1 remain on the board until after your turn? If you get shot and "killed" top of turn 1, can you still move up and charge? There's just too many janky rules breaking scenarios.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Galef wrote:
The difference was that you had to roll to get them in. They might come in before you want them or not come in when you need them. It was a risk
What you are suggesting would mean that the player you goes 2nd has a huge advantage because he can wait until turn 3, after all his opponent's units are on the board to drop the rest of his stuff

As opposed to the current situation, where the player who goes first has a huge advantage because they can remove half their opponent's army with a turn-1 alpha strike?

as easier fix would be for the weapons fire to occur at "the same time" so while turn order happens, everyone gets ti fire their stuff before it's removed.

No, the easiest fix would be to play on a table with the appropriate amount of terrain with a fair mix of LOS blocking terrain. So many youtube battle reports you see them play with a couple small pieces scattered - of course these sort of terrain setups will favour shooting heavy armies quite convincingly.

Tower wrote:

3. Fixing the character targeting rules. Characters off by themselves in the middle of the battlefield should not be protected because some other unit is closer, but in the opposite direction. The current character targeting rules are far more open to abuse than the niche cases where people could "snipe" by restricting visability on a shooting model. For example, the current rules enable character-only armies, where difficult to target models (Culexus Assassin) or impossible to hit characters (for example, most Alaitoc Eldar models, or an Alaitoc Autarch with Shimmerplume of Achillrial) lead the way, making the remainder of the army literally impossible to shoot at or damage. These types of armies just shouldn't be possible under a reasonable rule set.

When I first read the character targeting rules in the rule book and how it was worded my first thought was of a scenario was of a space marine, mankinds greatest warriors, that had a giant ork warboss to one side and a single grot to the other but slightly closer, being told that he had one chance to kill the warboss to save countless people and not being able to tell which is which.