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I'm not a big fan of 2W elites in Heresy. It means that the basic infantry stand absolutely no chance in hell of even holding a candle in melee to them. When your chainsword is hitting on 5s, wounding on 4s, bouncing off a 2+ save, and you still need *two* wounds through to actually do anything noteworthy you rapidly approach the statistical envelope where your basic infantry is doing absolutely bugger all.

Same basic story in shooting as well. HH2.0 had a reputation for everyone spamming super OP lascannons, but that's as much to do with the fact that lascannons were pretty much the only guns effective at killing 2+/2W elites.
Your basic bitch boltguns need not even apply.

2W elites really contributed to the general zeitgeist in 30k now where elites do *all* of the fighting and basic bitch troops just try and hide. *Maybe* they try and have a little scrub-fight with some other basic bitches whilst the actual fighters are distracted.




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In terms of initiative... I've always hated it. The idea that one side just sits there staring slackjawed whilst their entire squad is cut down because they're just that fraction of a second slower witted just seemed like absolute nonsense to me.
It also just felt really uninteractive because initiative is basically a faction-stat. Eldar fight before Space Marines who fight before Orks, okay cool.

If I were to design the game initative wouldn't exist, whatever it's trying to represent would be rolled in WS. Which maybe I'd separate out into offensive and defensive stats. I'd probably do the same to shooting/BS. But that's a dramatic project.

If we're talking suggestions for how best to use initiative in a less radical overhaul, I would propose initiative allowing you to swing once per model for every point of initiative difference.
IE if you're +2 initiative on your opponent, each model can swing twice.
Although this might get weird with units of mixed initiative (eg half thunderhammers, half powerswords), but those are pretty rare in 40k so just take the majority and shrug it off I guess.

All remaining attacks are resolved simultaneously


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 AnomanderRake wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
For abstract-height terrain, you can kind of represent the advantage of elevation better with a rule something like the below;

The attacker can ignore terrain smaller than themselves if it is closer to them than the defender. This represents the fact that, when looking down, you can see over stuff closer to you a lot better than you can stuff further away.

A lot of hex and counter historical games can get really detailed. I've even seen some suggest pulling out grid paper to sketch the relative heights and obstructions and draw your angle. But that's a bit much I think.

I'll have to draw out some diagrams and check, but I like the thought. The issue at the moment is that in my original formulation (terrain has to be equal to or higher than both attacker/defender to block LoS) it's too easy for elevated models in the deployment zone to see the whole table, but in the modified formulation (terrain equal to or higher than either attacker or defender blocks LoS) models on a roof can't see infantry past infantry.

Let's try;

DaRules wrote:
Obstructions equal to or greater than the total height of the attacker/defender blocks LoS when it is closer to that unit respectively
*For the purposes of determining the total height of either an obstruction or a unit, use the height value of the unit plus the terrain it is standing upon

Or perhaps another way to write the same thing could be;

DaRules wrote:
Obstructions with a total height equal/greater than the attacker block LoS when closer to the attacker.
Obstructions with a total height equal/greater than the defender block LoS when closer to the attacker.
*For the purposes of determining the total height of either an obstruction or a unit, use the height value of the unit plus the terrain it is standing upon

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Covers this situation well, as both units will be blocked from one another.
I added it to work both ways so that a situation like this still blocks LoS;

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Now in this scenario we've moved the wall closer to the building. It now doesn't block LoS in either direction. To do that it'd need to be twice as high.

Although I do envision the scenario of where you have a wide piece of terrain slap bang in the middle, so although it might be closer to one side it's still within the half range to either side. So perhaps rather than saying "closest to X" you'd have to say "within the first/second half of the distance to the target" or similar.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Maybe a bad example on my part. I guess I'm just picturing scenarios where two dedicated melee units clash, but one unit is sufficiently killy and with sufficiently high initiative to wipe out the other unit unscathed. Something like 10 incubi versus 10 vanguard vets, for instance. The incubi would presumably be higher initiative and would also be good enough at killing marines to have a decent chance of wiping all the vanguard vets out before they rolled a single attack. Incubi are impressive, but it feels wrong for them to get into melee with an elite dedicated melee unit (like vanguard vets) and not take a single casualty in return.

From what I recall, vanguard vets back then uniquely had charge out of deep strike, so they could choose their targets. They should not be allowing the incubi to charge them lightly.

The incubi are also very very fragile to shooting, even in comparison to the VanVets. This is where I'd genuinely say combined arms comes into play. If you are playing a mass melee faction then they have answers to this (such as Orks swamping with bodies, sending in a Deff Dread who Incubi don't like fighting, etc).

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Maybe a bad example on my part. I guess I'm just picturing scenarios where two dedicated melee units clash, but one unit is sufficiently killy and with sufficiently high initiative to wipe out the other unit unscathed. Something like 10 incubi versus 10 vanguard vets, for instance. The incubi would presumably be higher initiative and would also be good enough at killing marines to have a decent chance of wiping all the vanguard vets out before they rolled a single attack. Incubi are impressive, but it feels wrong for them to get into melee with an elite dedicated melee unit (like vanguard vets) and not take a single casualty in return.

From what I recall, vanguard vets back then uniquely had charge out of deep strike, so they could choose their targets. They should not be allowing the incubi to charge them lightly.

The incubi are also very very fragile to shooting, even in comparison to the VanVets. This is where I'd genuinely say combined arms comes into play. If you are playing a mass melee faction then they have answers to this (such as Orks swamping with bodies, sending in a Deff Dread who Incubi don't like fighting, etc).

Respectfully, I tend to see responses along these lines when I bring up this particular concern, and I don't feel that you've really addressed my concern directly.

Yes, vanguard vets will generally be able to maneuver around and have some say in which fights they take. Yes, shooting the incubi is always an option. But those are beside my point.

The thing that bugs me is that when two melee-centric units clash, there's a decent chance that one will come out of that clash unscathed because they got to make 100% of their attacks first and were lethal enough to wipe out (or nearly wipe out) the enemy unit. And that's one of the fundamental problems I have with both the modern and oldschool initiative systems. It feels wrong that incubi and vanguard vets should get within stabbing range and one of those units could (without especially good/bad luck) completely demolish the other while taking little or no damage in return.

It just really breaks my immersion when a hardcore melee unit gets into melee with someone, and then proceeds to do absolutely no damage to them.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
And that's one of the fundamental problems I have with both the modern and oldschool initiative systems. It feels wrong that incubi and vanguard vets should get within stabbing range and one of those units could (without especially good/bad luck) completely demolish the other while taking little or no damage in return.

Years ago (more like a decade ago) I played around with something based on the old 5e Repentia faith power.

Any model killed before it swung was placed on its side and got a single attack at init 0.
Tried a few variants - i.e. first round only, no swings for unwieldy weapons or models killed by instant death, no swings for units that were pinned, gone to ground, or falling back when attacked, no swings if the unit was wiped out to a man before init 0, no freebies against single character attacks, etc.

It seemed to dissuade combat more than anything else though when shooting and gunlines were strong.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
The thing that bugs me is that when two melee-centric units clash, there's a decent chance that one will come out of that clash unscathed because they got to make 100% of their attacks first and were lethal enough to wipe out (or nearly wipe out) the enemy unit. And that's one of the fundamental problems I have with both the modern and oldschool initiative systems. It feels wrong that incubi and vanguard vets should get within stabbing range and one of those units could (without especially good/bad luck) completely demolish the other while taking little or no damage in return.

It just really breaks my immersion when a hardcore melee unit gets into melee with someone, and then proceeds to do absolutely no damage to them.

I'd very much argue this is the tradeoff you get in return for the Vanvets being by far tankier and more mobile. Yes, they will get hammered by Incubi (though I'd stress it's pretty unlikely they'd get wiped before they get to swing, because Vanvets have usually brought storm shields to the party).

But otherwise, how would you expect to get around this? If you use Apocalypse style rules where models only get removed at end of turn, you make every such combat into a mutual wipeout (and brutally nerf squishy melee specialists that completely rely on initiative in order to not trade down into most things they encounter). Anything more nuanced would require Kill Team-like nuance beyond what the 40k battle scale is equipped to deal with.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I'm not a big fan of 2W elites in Heresy. It means that the basic infantry stand absolutely no chance in hell of even holding a candle in melee to them. When your chainsword is hitting on 5s, wounding on 4s, bouncing off a 2+ save, and you still need *two* wounds through to actually do anything noteworthy you rapidly approach the statistical envelope where your basic infantry is doing absolutely bugger all.

Same basic story in shooting as well. HH2.0 had a reputation for everyone spamming super OP lascannons, but that's as much to do with the fact that lascannons were pretty much the only guns effective at killing 2+/2W elites.
Your basic bitch boltguns need not even apply.

2W elites really contributed to the general zeitgeist in 30k now where elites do *all* of the fighting and basic bitch troops just try and hide. *Maybe* they try and have a little scrub-fight with some other basic bitches whilst the actual fighters are distracted...

I'd always thought of the Terminator issue in HH2 as one of pricing more than anything else; I played a lot of TacVet-heavy Deathwing in HH2, and at 18pts/model with 3+ armor the bump to 2W felt a lot fairer than it did on Terminators that stayed at 30pts/model after the wound bump. If the pricing were addressed...I've definitely seen Custodians, 2W Terminators, and the like get dragged down by superior numbers of regular melee infantry, but that's definitely a spot where I need to do more math on the pricing than GW ever does.

The other issue on my mind is that you often end up with an offensive power/defensive power mismatch with veteran units, where you've got something like SM Sternguard loaded with combi-weapons in 7th, or 25pt PAGK in 3rd-4th, or Fire Dragons through most of the history of the game, or things like that, where if you price their offensive output accurately you end up with a unit that's so squishy for its cost compared to anything else in your force that it's only usable as a suicide piece-trade unit that has to be able to make its points back in one turn of shooting or it's not worth using.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
The thing that bugs me is that when two melee-centric units clash, there's a decent chance that one will come out of that clash unscathed because they got to make 100% of their attacks first and were lethal enough to wipe out (or nearly wipe out) the enemy unit. And that's one of the fundamental problems I have with both the modern and oldschool initiative systems. It feels wrong that incubi and vanguard vets should get within stabbing range and one of those units could (without especially good/bad luck) completely demolish the other while taking little or no damage in return.

It just really breaks my immersion when a hardcore melee unit gets into melee with someone, and then proceeds to do absolutely no damage to them.

I'd very much argue this is the tradeoff you get in return for the Vanvets being by far tankier and more mobile. Yes, they will get hammered by Incubi (though I'd stress it's pretty unlikely they'd get wiped before they get to swing, because Vanvets have usually brought storm shields to the party).

But otherwise, how would you expect to get around this? If you use Apocalypse style rules where models only get removed at end of turn, you make every such combat into a mutual wipeout (and brutally nerf squishy melee specialists that completely rely on initiative in order to not trade down into most things they encounter). Anything more nuanced would require Kill Team-like nuance beyond what the 40k battle scale is equipped to deal with.

Yeah. Unfortunately I've yet to come up with a clean way to handle things better short of a compared WS system that just makes glass cannons really hard to hit or something slightly clunky that breaks up each sides attacks into multiple sets of attacks. Neither of which are great solutions. My complaint stands, but I admit I don't have a solution.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I'm not a big fan of 2W elites in Heresy. It means that the basic infantry stand absolutely no chance in hell of even holding a candle in melee to them. When your chainsword is hitting on 5s, wounding on 4s, bouncing off a 2+ save, and you still need *two* wounds through to actually do anything noteworthy you rapidly approach the statistical envelope where your basic infantry is doing absolutely bugger all.

Same basic story in shooting as well. HH2.0 had a reputation for everyone spamming super OP lascannons, but that's as much to do with the fact that lascannons were pretty much the only guns effective at killing 2+/2W elites.
Your basic bitch boltguns need not even apply.

2W elites really contributed to the general zeitgeist in 30k now where elites do *all* of the fighting and basic bitch troops just try and hide. *Maybe* they try and have a little scrub-fight with some other basic bitches whilst the actual fighters are distracted...

I'd always thought of the Terminator issue in HH2 as one of pricing more than anything else; I played a lot of TacVet-heavy Deathwing in HH2, and at 18pts/model with 3+ armor the bump to 2W felt a lot fairer than it did on Terminators that stayed at 30pts/model after the wound bump. If the pricing were addressed...I've definitely seen Custodians, 2W Terminators, and the like get dragged down by superior numbers of regular melee infantry, but that's definitely a spot where I need to do more math on the pricing than GW ever does.

The other issue on my mind is that you often end up with an offensive power/defensive power mismatch with veteran units, where you've got something like SM Sternguard loaded with combi-weapons in 7th, or 25pt PAGK in 3rd-4th, or Fire Dragons through most of the history of the game, or things like that, where if you price their offensive output accurately you end up with a unit that's so squishy for its cost compared to anything else in your force that it's only usable as a suicide piece-trade unit that has to be able to make its points back in one turn of shooting or it's not worth using.

I would generally agree on all counts.
The 2W thing however does change the dynamic in a game that can't just be balanced by points. If you increased the cost of Terminators then yes you now open up the possibility of basic troops/weapons fighting them on more equal footing - but you also now massively increase the value of weapons that kill them so people are just spamming lascannons/thunderhammers even harder than they were before. So you don't actually move the needle that much.
You can argue just bump the cost on thunderhammers to match, and that would work. But you can't really do that with lascannons without also changing the dynamic of anti-tank costs. (Then again, specifically in HH2nd tanks were also kinda sad).

You're absolutely right on the firepower-durability ratio
"Oops all special/heavy weapons" squads have a problem with this (And that's including stuff like thunderhammers somewhat in the category as special melee weapons).
Stuff would work better in gameplay terms if weapons were restricted to like 2-4 weapons per squad and the rest as scrubs.