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it's pancake because the original pdf file had a password. And that password was....


PANCAKE

fus roh dah

Mafty wrote:sorry I havent been able to read all 100+ pages, but what armies do you guys think stand to get better and worse?

It's more about the meta-game than anything else. I'd argue it delivers more in the way of internal balance - the various power builds take a hit while the less played lists get better.

Obviously that means that some armies are perceived as getting nerfed, due to the way the are predominantly played (IG mechvet spam for example).

ThatEdGuy wrote:The one move per round will also make horde armies a little more reasonable in tournament settings.

Also I missed this, but why the name pancake edition? Because it is all exciting at first, but by the end we are sick of it?

Pancakes are used instead of miniatuers....

alarmingrick wrote:

ThatEdGuy wrote:The one move per round will also make horde armies a little more reasonable in tournament settings.

Also I missed this, but why the name pancake edition? Because it is all exciting at first, but by the end we are sick of it?

Pancakes are used instead of miniatuers....

And you use hills of shaved butter and syrup pools as terrain.

I'd play a breakfast-based wargame.

ph34r wrote:I'd play a breakfast-based wargame.

All your bacon are belong to us......

Got to play with the leaked rules last night. First off, we finished two 1850pt games in under 3 hours with frequent references to the rulebook. Games go by really quickly primarily due to the amount of carnage taking place on the battlefield. I'm sure there's plenty of things we messed up, but overall it was really fun.

Mech Guard vs Blood Angels

Command HQ in Chimera
4x Meltavets in Chimera
1 Platoon HQ and 2 infantry squads on foot
2x Vendetta
2x Executioners
3x Hydras (squadroned)

Mephiston
10x Thunder Hammer Terminators w/ Priest
2x Dreadnoughts w/ Assault Cannon
2x 10 man Assault Squads w/ Priests, Meltaguns and Fist
2x Typhoons w/ Multimelta
2x 5 man Devastators w/ Missiles

Guard won first turn w/ Blood Angels getting Night Fight, and Tank Hunting Devastators. Vendetta scouted 12" forward, searchlighted the Devastators, and the Executioners vaporized one unit. We were operating under the assumption that since the blast rules do not say you can overlap templates (unlike 5th ed), I could not stack multiple hits. In practice, what happens is that the Executioner tends to hit every single model in a squad, but cannot really get more then the number of models in the squad, unlike 5th ed. It's more consistent damage since blast weapons rarely miss completely, but you can't put 30 odd wounds on a single squad anymore.

Other highlights on the first turn is having a Vendetta go supersonic, come in on the Blood Angel table edge and take out a Dreadnought from the rear. Mephiston then cast Wings (becoming Jump Infantry), charged the Vendetta, exploded it, which then took out a Terminator from shrapnel.

Side Note: Explosions are scary! Since they can (and do!) cause critical hits on vehicles, blowing up the center vehicle in a vehicle wall has a chance of chain reacting explosions down the line. Likely? No, but it is something to look out for.

Assault squads deep struck in close to the Guard line, triggering volleys of defensive first. First, although the Executioner may look scary as all else in this situation, blast weapons do not place templates in Defensive fire and units only get a single shooting action. So the Executioner fires 3 shots from the turret plasma cannon, but rolls to hit on BS. Mounted MechVet fire was a lot more effective, but enough Blood Angels survived to Engage, take out both foot infantry squads, then meltagun some Chimeras.

On the Guard turn, the Executioners tore the walking Terminators to shreds. Even spread out at max coherency, the multiple plasma cannons just walked blasts across the Terminator formation. MechVet Chimeras remained stationary and used triple meltas out the hatch to eliminate the Assault squads, with Hydras picking off the stragglers.

Note: Hydra squadrons are really powerful now. Being able to move and fire both autocannons due to Multitracking (2) means they no longer have to be stationary gun platforms (not that they were bad at that either). Targeters (hostiles count as stationary) means they hit on 3s and reroll due to twinlinking. Throw in ignoring most damage results on a 3 due to squadron discipline and they are very tough. Of course, in this game a single Typhoon shook one with a missile and I failed the squadron roll, resulting in all 3 being shaken. Then again, since they still have a single shooting action, they were able to blow the Typhoon away with 6 autocannon shots.

Game was pretty much over then as the Blood Angels really didn't have anything left. Mephiston jumped forward, killed a Chimera and then perished to multiple meltaguns to the face.

Random thoughts: Chimeras being to drive 6" forward and shoot both guns is pretty good. 3" extra range on Flamers is neat. There's a careful balance between driving forward and shooting a single meltagun out the hatch and staying still to unload with all three. Getting out of your ride to score points is scary as things deep strike/outflank and eat your squad out of nowhere. Marines hitting on 5s in close combat for moving tanks is good. Holy carp, Executioners are deadly against large squads. They're somewhat less deadly against small squads and against Mephiston, I ended up shooting the heavy bolter as I can only put one plasma cannon template over him. Tanks taking Shaken results doesn't really seem to matter too much as they can still fire a single weapon. Tanks taking Stunned results is bad bad bad. Extra Armour is looking really good right now.

More to follow with another game and more thoughts.

spmusubi wrote:*snip*

This is an example of the issues being discussed here.

Just going to throw this out there. I have manipulated the PDF to the point where it is fully editable. Just seeing if there is any interest in "Fixing" the PDF (because even those of us that love it, know there are a few things that are wrong / inconsistent)

I'm willing to put the time in to edit the document in such a away that we have a community version of this to play with.

This may all be a waste of time as 6th is here soon........but what if we dont like 6th, and these are better?


Any takers?

(or am I the only crazy one?)

Tapeworm711 wrote:Just going to throw this out there. I have manipulated the PDF to the point where it is fully editable. Just seeing if there is any interest in "Fixing" the PDF (because even those of us that love it, know there are a few things that are wrong / inconsistent)

I'm willing to put the time in to edit the document in such a away that we have a community version of this to play with.

This may all be a waste of time as 6th is here soon........but what if we dont like 6th, and these are better?


Any takers?

(or am I the only crazy one?)

if its fun, play it.

Round two, Mech Guard vs Deathwing

Command HQ in Chimera
4x Meltavets in Chimera
1 Platoon HQ and 2 infantry squads on foot
2x Vendetta
2x Executioners
3x Hydras (squadroned)

Belial
4x Terminator squads (including command one)
3x Typhoon w/ Multimelta
1x Godhammer Landraider
1x Crusader Landraider

Dark Angels win the bidding war and start first. Guard has All Units count as moving first turn, Tank Hunting Hydras (!!!) and a single reroll.

Land Raiders drive up on a side, collecting all sorts of damage results from the Hydras and Mechvets, but surviving to get to target. Having Mechvets jump out of their ride, meltagun the target, then jump back in is fairly silly, but it ended up getting them killed as the Terminators dismounted, charged the tank and destroyed it, THEN assaulted the Veteran squad through Charge by Chance. Since there's no need to assault straight in anymore, the Terminators easily zipped around to the rear of the Chimera to block the hatch and get into close combat w/ the infantry. This also saves them a turn of getting shot up as they're locked in close combat. The other Terminator squads used similar tactics and even in cases where the Chimera wasn't destroyed, if it was Stunned or Immobilized, the troops onboard couldn't get out OR shoot from the hatch.

What I should have done is use other vehicles to Ram the blocking Terminators out of the way, so the Vets could disembark and do their thing. We also had a Land Raider Ram a Chimera, but generally the vehicle on vehicle violence doesn't look all too impressive due to all the negative modifiers. It'd probably be more effective crushing non-tank vehicles.

The Executioners whittled the Deathwing squads down to single members, but once they're down to 1 or 2, you only get a single plasma cannon round on target, so they really became ineffective after burning down most of the squad. This was similar to the first game, and I think it's an interesting balancing mechanic. Also, you really can't get hits on other squads unless they're really close as you have to put subsequent blast templates covering the original squad as much as possible.

Pretty much the Deathwing Terminators just fought on the objectives, using Engage, Charge by Chance and Consolidate to wreck Chimeras, lock into infantry squads and then consolidate away in my turn. Very very effective tactic especially as they were gaining objective points at the same time. Also worth noticing that close combat troops can't explode tanks due to the -1 modifier, so there's no danger of having your own guys cut down by flying wreckage.

Although my infantry pretty much got wrecked, they didn't give up any victory points, as Terminators can't sweep and the survivors just ran off the board. We also noticed that after the initial fallback move, troops don't have to move towards their board edge and can in fact run in the completely opposite direction. As long as they stay out of 12" of an enemy, they can keep shooting the entire time too!

Vendettas that take a single Weapon Destroyed result become a one-gun platform, as they only have Multitracking(1) and once that's gone, they can't use Gunship to multiply their MT value.

Tanks are obnoxiously hard to kill now. They get loads of damage results piled onto them, but they just keep on ticking. Your basic tank takes 3 Weapon Destroyed results just to stop it from firing. We both had vehicles driving around with multiple damage dice on them, but rarely did anything ever die in a single volley. That -1 on the damage chart for being a tank really makes them tough. Of course, the guys inside aren't doing anything much, and not being able to score from inside a ride is huge. I really like being forced to make a choice on embarked/disembarked here. I think that the first Weapon Destroyed stripping the Multitracking rule altogether instead of reducing it by one is a bit better though (maybe). It also might work better if you could Hull Breach on the same volley, instead of needing a second series of results to get anything out of it.

i ended up losing the game 80-54, primarily because my infantry couldn't stand out in the open without getting hammered and his could. Charge by Chance against forcibly disembarked troops was huge also and really opens up a lot of possibilities for in-close assault troops. Driving in a solid vehicle wall is a way to mitigate getting your troops assaulted, but it opens you up to multi-assault and explosion chains. Choices, choices.

Will have some more games next week, so hopefully I can put some more thoughts down later. Real, fake or alpha-version, I really like the way this ruleset plays so far. Course, I also like 5th and 4th ed, so maybe I'm just easy to please.

Tapeworm711 wrote:Just going to throw this out there. I have manipulated the PDF to the point where it is fully editable. Just seeing if there is any interest in "Fixing" the PDF (because even those of us that love it, know there are a few things that are wrong / inconsistent)

I'm willing to put the time in to edit the document in such a away that we have a community version of this to play with.

This may all be a waste of time as 6th is here soon........but what if we dont like 6th, and these are better?


Any takers?

(or am I the only crazy one?)

I am in the camp of lets tweak these rules a little.

By making it editable do you mean that we would be able to take chunks of correlating text and putting it next to each other so there's minimal "turn to page xx" that would be excellent!
:mode on:
I however don't see a reason to make a "community tweak" of these beta rules. I understand the urge and want to do so for house rules and the like but keep in mind the leaked rules aren't written in stone by any means.
If "we" don't like the 6th ed. rules (or any for that matter) we have ALWAYS had the choice to play how we want, making house rules that would suit our gaming group's ideas of how 40k rules should be.
We also have the proposed rules section here (and on other sites, I'm certain) if we have ideas that we feel the community would benefit from.
I think that such proposals are best suited to when the new rulebook actually arrives. But as I stated earlier we have the option to use whatever rules our groups feel give the best wargaming experience to everyone in the group.
:mode off:

I like to browse the proposed rules sections to see what fellow members have to add to the game. If those of you who feel they want to tweak the 6th ed. rules I would love to see a thread of it in the proposed rules section.

So far what I have done is edit all the obvious errors (2+ Power Armour and the terrible math examples) Fixed some of the shading in the boxes and hyperlinked the entire document. So anywhere you see "See page XXX" you can click on it and it takes you to that page.



EDIT: But yes, I can move anything anywhere if need be. I can even add in the missing pictures if so desired.

Hyperlinking the document is exactly the fix I was hoping for.
I wouldn't worry about adding the pictures as they would serve to bulk up the file size and all many of us want is the rules. The pictures that GW will use are ones we've probably seen before so that may not be the best use of your abilities and free time.

Temujin wrote:I figured that the change to move-assault-shoot was so that all movement could be taken care of with a single move in the movement phase. Not being able to soften up with shooting before an assault is disconcerting, but it feels worth it to simplify movement and speed things up. I hope it stays. Horde assault armies having to make 3 moves a turn is tedious.

Note that while the new BoW rumour says that the turn order remains the same, nothing is said the about the movement. They could keep the one move mechanic while just resolving shooting before assaults. What I mean is that you still move at combat, engage or flat out and if you move the into btb then the assaulting unit does not get to shoot nor can the unit assaulted be targeted for shooting attacks.


(Not a shot at anyone) But I find it kinda funny that people aren't applying the same attitude towards these rumours that they do in the rules debate forum

focusedfire wrote:Note that while the new BoW rumour says that the turn order remains the same, nothing is said the about the movement. They could keep the one move mechanic while just resolving shooting before assaults. What I mean is that you still move at combat, engage or flat out and if you move the into btb then the assaulting unit does not get to shoot nor can the unit assaulted be targeted for shooting attacks.

This is true, and would in fact make choosing between assaulting and shooting even more nail-biting. As to whether which is a better mechanic I don't know.

Dribble Joy wrote:

focusedfire wrote:Note that while the new BoW rumour says that the turn order remains the same, nothing is said the about the movement. They could keep the one move mechanic while just resolving shooting before assaults. What I mean is that you still move at combat, engage or flat out and if you move the into btb then the assaulting unit does not get to shoot nor can the unit assaulted be targeted for shooting attacks.

This is true, and would in fact make choosing between assaulting and shooting even more nail-biting. As to whether which is a better mechanic I don't know.

I think I would prefer shooting after assault. It makes high output generalist units like terminators much more capable of functioning in their given role and it prevents the issue of the opponant drawing models from the front and thus preventing assaults. I hate that. I've hated that since I started playing this game. It's an awful and exploitative mechanic.

ShumaGorath wrote:I think I would prefer shooting after assault. It makes high output generalist units like terminators much more capable of functioning in their given role and it prevents the issue of the opponant drawing models from the front and thus preventing assaults. I hate that. I've hated that since I started playing this game. It's an awful and exploitative mechanic.

Assault > Shoot is more beneficial to shooting armies and Shoot > Assault is more beneficial to CC armies. <note: this is generalist because some hybrids favor one or the other>

A>S allows 1 more CC resolution before shooting so you have a better chance of getting to shoot at the units that assaulted you.

Anyone notice that since the 4th day of pancake heretic we haven't heard a peep about the next codex to be released.

Don't know if it is by design but this "leak" has been a very effective smoke screen for other things in the developmental pipeline. If GW ever needed something to stall their expectant consumer base with, this rumour would have been ideal.

Really I'm not trying to go all conspiracy theory here, but it does feel like GW has something that they don't want anyone focusing on. Speculation-(Maybe they are doing something with the LotR/Hobbit this month that they can't let anyone get wind of)

Anybody who plays Warhammer Fantasy knows that the shooting and magic phases happen before the assault, but the movement phase is where all charges are declared. The tactical decision of deciding whether or not to charge into a particular squad but being unable to fire into it with ranged weaponry is quite a tasty one indeed.

I can totally see 6th Ed Warhammer 40K going this route - using movement values associated in Pancake Edition to declare runs/charge moves/combat moves in the movement phase, then shooting at anything not locked in combat, then finally resolving the assaults triggered in the previous movement phase.

tetrisphreak wrote:Anybody who plays Warhammer Fantasy knows that the shooting and magic phases happen before the assault, but the movement phase is where all charges are declared. The tactical decision of deciding whether or not to charge into a particular squad but being unable to fire into it with ranged weaponry is quite a tasty one indeed.

I can totally see 6th Ed Warhammer 40K going this route - using movement values associated in Pancake Edition to declare runs/charge moves/combat moves in the movement phase, then shooting at anything not locked in combat, then finally resolving the assaults triggered in the previous movement phase.

I would expect that the two game systems would start to gravitate toward each other until eventually both Fantasy and 40k have the same rules system, such as with Warmachine/Hordes. If for no other reason than to increase sales, as a player that already understands how to play a game is far more likely to start an army for it. That is, more 40k players might be inclined to start playing Fantasy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also:

ThatEdGuy wrote:The one move per round will also make horde armies a little more reasonable in tournament settings.

Also I missed this, but why the name pancake edition? Because it is all exciting at first, but by the end we are sick of it?

Who gets sick of pancakes? Do you? Are you some sort of pancake-hater? If so, then we are not friends, sir.

If the BoW rumours are true and shooting is back before the assault (boooo!) maybe the Engage move will allow you to fire your weapons even if your engaged in CC.

Just a thought really.

focusedfire wrote:Anyone notice that since the 4th day of pancake heretic we haven't heard a peep about the next codex to be released.

Don't know if it is by design but this "leak" has been a very effective smoke screen for other things in the developmental pipeline. If GW ever needed something to stall their expectant consumer base with, this rumour would have been ideal.

Really I'm not trying to go all conspiracy theory here, but it does feel like GW has something that they don't want anyone focusing on. Speculation-(Maybe they are doing something with the LotR/Hobbit this month that they can't let anyone get wind of)

interesting but not the vibe I get from all this...

1) dude gets an invite to GW's "Make 6th Edition Party"
2) dude spends alot of time and effort putting together a playable new 40k rulebook.
3) GW likes the "go nuts" approach that they wanted everyone invited to take.
4) GW leeches 50% of this dudes ideas and ditches the rest.
5) dude is taken back, as he thinks (as do some of us here on dakka) that it's a great quasi-finished product. a few tweeks here and there, kinda salt to taste thinking and boom! big winner.
6) GW tells him that no, it's not a winner take all party but thanks for the ideas.
7) dude realizes that GW won't claim it, doesn't really REALLY care if some of the info gets out on the web, and abandons the project.
8) a couple months down the road, he's contacted by GW as they are finalizing their own version of 6th about some of his rules. dude brings out the info again and might let a friend in on it. fearing little as GW as moved in a totally different path with only minimal ammounts of his work...you get the leak.
9) now the dude might have made a friend in GW so he's not claiming it, knowing others had copies, and it can't be traced to him, and doesn't want to burn a bridge as a game designer only has so big of an audience to pitch ideas to.
10) hence, no one claims, the leak gets out, the dude gets a moderate amount of vindication by people liking his handiwork, and might privately use these endorcements to promote his future pitches to GW or whomever else is interested.

that's what I think is most likely.

Regarding the phases. Think they should keep it like it is in the pancake edition with a twist of fantasy.

All the movement, charges etc in the movementphase. Then shooting, thougth assaultweapons and pistols may be used before the closecombat begins when they charge.
Relentless makes heavy and rapid fire in to assault weapons when charging.

Normal shooting after that, but no charge and then shoot afterwards.

Then closecombat.

This way assaultarmies get their shoot-n-assault but they cant use the benefit to use other supportunits (devastators etc) to weaken a unit before another unit assaults it.

My two cents.

ShumaGorath wrote:

I think I would prefer shooting after assault. It makes high output generalist units like terminators much more capable of functioning in their given role and it prevents the issue of the opponant drawing models from the front and thus preventing assaults. I hate that. I've hated that since I started playing this game. It's an awful and exploitative mechanic.

And close combat armies taking casualties from the back to maintain their distance isn't? Since it would make more sense that the from line of models would BE SHOT FIRST as apposed to all the guys behind them.

Dantalian wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

I think I would prefer shooting after assault. It makes high output generalist units like terminators much more capable of functioning in their given role and it prevents the issue of the opponant drawing models from the front and thus preventing assaults. I hate that. I've hated that since I started playing this game. It's an awful and exploitative mechanic.

And close combat armies taking casualties from the back to maintain their distance isn't? Since it would make more sense that the from line of models would BE SHOT FIRST as apposed to all the guys behind them.

So now that two guys died i suddenly can't fight their squad? Because I can't teleport an arbitrary 20 feet because the next closest guy is 22 feet I have to stand there and wait my turn while they fire machine guns into my face? This is all abstraction. None of it makes a tonne of sense. How about we got with the thing that at it's face isn't awful and stupid. No one likes having models taken from the front ranks just to deny an assault. It makes shooting before assault questionable which it should never be. It breaks immersion because it makes the game more about being careful about mechanics rather than logical situations.

It's always been a bad mechanic it always will. Taking models in assault from the back isn't exactly comparable. At least then you can thematically say that the press of combat is just moving people forward and that the ones that died were up there in the first place. There's no excuse for missing an unmeasured assault because you accidentally let your idiot trooper fire his pistol.

ShumaGorath wrote:

So now that two guys died i suddenly can't fight their squad? Because I can't teleport an arbitrary 20 feet because the next closest guy is 22 feet I have to stand there and wait my turn while they fire machine guns into my face? This is all abstraction. None of it makes a tonne of sense. How about we got with the thing that at it's face isn't awful and stupid. No one likes having models taken from the front ranks just to deny an assault. It makes shooting before assault questionable which it should never be. It breaks immersion because it makes the game more about being careful about mechanics rather than logical situations.

It's always been a bad mechanic it always will. Taking models in assault from the back isn't exactly comparable. At least then you can thematically say that the press of combat is just moving people forward and that the ones that died were up there in the first place. There's no excuse for missing an unmeasured assault because you accidentally let your idiot trooper fire his pistol.

Uhhh, I would imagine that if my gun line of men were being shot at and taking casualties, they would be dying from front to back. It would make no sense for an immobile squad to take casualties in the back of their ranks. Thus taking models from the front would be more "immersive."

But they aren't really there is the problem. Its an abstraction. The models are glorified wound counters and footprint markers.

You can justify whatever model dieing anyway you choose, whether that be shot first or from ricochet. The point is none of that matters as long is it doesn't interfere with the games mechanics.

Taking losses being a benefit and/or shooting more to kill less are abhorrently idiotic things that occur in 5th every game.

And the squads aren't really Stationary unless they've not moved the previous turn. Even then, you'd have the squad holding a position by having new troops move to the front of the position in order to prepare for the assault or shoot back, as opposed to staying further back, which is retreating.