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Hi all.
As I think the current cover save in 40k, is an over abstract way to deal with cover.

Cover SHOULD affect the chance to see/hit the target.
It SHOULD NOT replace the physical protection of the target.

My alternative.
For shooting..

6+ cover saves makes the attaker re-roll 6s to hit.
5+ cover saves makes the attacker re-roll 5s and 6s to hit.
4+ cover save makes the attacker re-roll 4s,5s, and 6s to hit.

Roll to wound and save as normal.

This makes units in cover harder to hit , (but not impossible to hit or harder to wound.)

And the better the cover, the higher the chance the attacker will miss the target.

This is just a new idea up for discussion.

What do you folks think?


TTFN.
Lanrak.

So my BS 2 Whiteshields get better at hitting you if you're in 4+ cover?

M.

EDIT: Re-read it, it's much clearer now. Not sure what I think, but since we get both cover/armor saves in this edition it doesn't seem like it's needed.

Problem is, it disproportionally affects non-MEQ armies with lower BS (Tau excepted).

I think cover is fine as it is, it's 40k, and if cover was made any stronger than it is now, Assault armies would be so overpowered, and shooting armies would be made useless.

Lanrak wrote:What do you folks think?

Interesting idea, a pretty cool piece of lateral thinking. I couldn’t really get my head around how the maths worked out so I wrote it all out, plotting a table with the current resolution method and another with your method. It wasn’t clear from your example if armour was going to change or not so I just ignored it, and the to wound roll hasn’t changed so I didn’t factor it in. Basically I just looked at the odds of different BS shooters hitting and then beating different levels of cover.

This table shows BS 5 to 1 across the columns, and cover saves from 6+ to 3+ down the rows.


Old Sys BS
Cover
6 69% 56% 42% 28% 14%
5 56% 44% 33% 22% 11%
4 42% 33% 25% 17% 8%
3 28% 22% 17% 11% 6%


New Sys
Cover
6 81% 61% 42% 22% 3%
5 78% 56% 33% 11% 3%
4 75% 50% 25% 11% 3%
3 72% 44% 25% 11% 3%



The results are interesting, and your system shows some improvements but also a few problems.

Probably the biggest feature is the way high BS characters don’t have their hit rolls dropped by the cover saves. There’s no accounting in the current system for a highly skilled shooters being better able to avoid the target’s cover. That is to say while a marine may ‘hit’ twice as often as an ork, both will see half their ‘hits’ crash into the 4+ cover in front of the target.

Your system actually allows for that, quite neatly, because the all the rolls that force a cover save are rerolled at the shooter’s skill. So the BS 5 shooter isn’t particularly affected by cover, because he’ll likely hit with his reroll anyway, while the Guardsmen will likely fail his reroll much more often. The result is higher BS being less affected by cover, and that seems pretty cool

But there’s a big problem at the other end of the BS chart. Thing is, orks are only hitting on 5s or more, and under your system they have to reroll every hit dice if the cover is 5 or better. What’s odd, though, is that they end up with the same probability to hit whether the cover is 5+, 4+ or 3+. Effectively cover doesn’t matter against orks, if it’s there it’s crippling whether it’s a forest or a bunker.

In between there’s some interesting results – BS 3 shooters are unaffected by the two system, having the same chance to hit at each cover level… until you get to 3+ cover saves when the above mentioned problem rears it’s ugly head.

HI folks.
Thanks for the feed back.
Sebster, Thanks for the in depth annalasis.(I didnt get time to investigate fully before posting up the basic idea, and you saved me a bit of work.)

As the new system is trying to effect the chance to hit, allowing high BS units to be more effective on targets behind cover , and low BS troops being less effective.
It worked out quite well!

I was thinking that low BS units like Orks were more llikely to assault targets in cover than rely on thier lack luster shooting.(Its more orky ! )

As the low end of the cover (4+ and 3+ ) seem to cause the problems.

How do you feel about re classifying cover to go with the new system?

Light cover.
This type of cover just obscures the target unit from view.
Things like smoke, wire entaglements, fences,hedges , long grass,crops, interveening units, etc.
(I include interveening units in this catagory as an abstraction , unless we want to complicate shooting by working out if misses effect the interveening unit(s).)

6+ cover save , if the unit is up to 50% obscured from the attackers view.

5+ cover save, if the unit is over 50% obscured from the attackers view.

6+ Cover save makes the attacker re-roll any 6s to hit.
5+ Cover save makes the attacker re roll any 5s and 6s to hit .


Heavy Cover.
This type of cover obscures the target unit from view, and is substatial enough to provide a degree of physical protection.
Things like buildings , rubble, fortifications etc.

In addition to making the attacker re roll to hit as for light cover,Heavy cover MAY improves the physical protection of the unit.

The unit in heavy cover MAY use the heavy covers protection instead of thier normal armour save.

4+ save for improvised hard cover.(Rubble, buildings , heavy walls etc.)

3+ save for purpouse built fortifications.
The unit in heavy cover MAY use a 3+ armour save

The cover type and protection levcel should be agreed before the game starts.If the level of obscurment is in debatable count it as less than 50%.

This is a sort of hybrid between the current system and my new system.

I am just proposing some ideas for concideration, all comments and constructive critisism is welcome.

TTFN

This seems like a great system, but a tad elegant for something as relatively simple as 40k. I like it and I would use it as a house rule if other players also liked it.

M.

Again, all this does is make Space Marines even harder to kill while making Orks even easier to kill.

Cover is fine as it is.

I'm a fan of getting cover AND armor saves. But that's just me. MEQ becomes harder to kill in cover; gotta blast them out of there.

M.

I'd personally like to see a system where cover affected your chance to hit, but as Gwar! stated it does benefit MEQ distinctly more than GEQ - and under the current rules MEQ are already favoured. (Or should I write, smaller, more competent, units are favoured).

On the other hand, providing better survivability in general for infantry is preferable since Mech is so very common at the moment. But, that's just one item on the list.

Cover currently is pretty dynamic, but in practice it usually boils down to: light (seldom used 6+/5+), standard (really common 4+), and heavy (less common 3+ fortifications or snipers in cover). Could simplify the system a bit:
Light cover (high grass and similar open area terrain, stealth units in the open) gives -1 to hit penalty
Medium cover (sandbags, forest and similar thick area terrain, stealth units in light cover, speeding skimmers) gives -2 to hit penalty
Heavy cover (fortifications, and stealth units in medium cover) gives -3 to hit penalty
Modifiers would never reduce the chance to hit to worse than 6+ (lucky shots). Template weapons ignore cover, still, while blast weapons would have increased scatter if targeting a unit in cover.

I'm not too pushed about it, though, since I really don't think MEQ or MECH need any more help.

Hows this then:

If your armour save is Worse than the cover you are in (nor equal to, but worse, eg 5+ Armour in 4+ cover benefits, but 4+ armour in 4+ cover doesn't), it lets you re-roll failed cover saves, but as though it were your armour save, regardless of AP.

So a Guardsman is in 4+ cover, and hit by a Bolter, rolls a 2, rerolls but needs a 5+ to pass it.

Since it's a re-roll, it won't stack with other effects that re-roll saves (so for example Fortune and Guardians in 4+ cover get 4+/4+, not 4+/4+/5+), but benefits GEQ and not marines (and shafts Tau, which is just an added bonus IMO).

I still don't see the point of complicating the system and bending the rules for other armies.

The overall opinion afterall is that cover is fine as it is.

My view is if cover were to be changed at all it would be to add negative modifiers to hit like fantasy. Stealth would boost this. Did have a laugh and try this once but it didn't work too well as we'd change a lot of rules.

If you're interested …
+1 to hit if you stand still (or are using an assault weapon)
+1 to if your target hasn't moved
-2 if the target has turboboosted
-1 to hit if the target is in soft cover (most of the model/s is/are showing)
-2 to hit if the target is in hard cover (you can only see a little bit of them)
-1 to hit if the target has Stealth
+1 to hit if its at point blank range (6" or less)
-1 to hit if its at max range (weapon range-6 or more)
+1 if you are shooting with targetors (yep made these rules a while back ... only think orks still have these)
… You could only really use these rules in small games, 500pts or less, or it would take an age… I really should dig up the old rules and rewrite them.

I still don't know why you don't get cover and armor saves. It would make cover useful always.

Now in FAD cover determines how a firing unit hits, if you'd like to see how another system does it.

Every unit rolls 2d6, picks the highest and adds bonuses for high ROF weapons, support guns, numbers of guys etc. Then that Fire Effect Score is divided by the level of cover the opponent's unit is in. 3 is the wide open spaces, 4 is concealment and 5 is bullet stopping cover. So if you roll 4 and 3, you take the 4, add your bonuses (say +4 total) and divide it by the cover (say cover level 4). 4 + 4 = 8; 8/4 = 2. You score two hits. Pretty simple.

After that you determine how hard you hit the opponent (d6 + weapon strength bonus, usually 1 or 2), and they oppose with an armor roll (d6 + or - some number).

M.

In my view the main argument against saves is that they force players to roll more dice, wasting time which could be spent on playing the game.

In many situations, the attacker might have to roll 20 or more dice, check them, reroll misses if he has any twin-linked weapons, check them, roll all the hits for wounding, check them, then the defender has to roll all the wounds for saves, and check them. What a palaver!

In many other games the same result can be got by rolling one or two dice.

To be fair to your idea, it broadens the range of results between high and low BS models, which emphasises differences between shooting and assault. This is arguably good, though it would require the game to be rebalanced by some points cost adjustments.

I think the - to hit is great, or like the ward save in fb,you can roll it after failing save. In the current rules meq armies almost never benefit from cover, which is unnatural.

Lumppu wrote:I think the - to hit is great, or like the ward save in fb,you can roll it after failing save. In the current rules meq armies almost never benefit from cover, which is unnatural.

Lolwhut?

My Spess Puppies Benefit Tremendously from cover.

Meq are no good against Battlecannons!

Which aren't what you're usually getting shot at by.

M.

Infantryman wrote:Which aren't what you're usually getting shot at by.

M.

Tell that to the guard player.

The fact is, Cover works as it is. Unless you want to go back and re-do all the codexes so the points are fair, you cannot change how it works, so stop thinking about it.

Lanrak wrote:HI folks.
Thanks for the feed back.
Sebster, Thanks for the in depth annalasis.(I didnt get time to investigate fully before posting up the basic idea, and you saved me a bit of work.)

As the new system is trying to effect the chance to hit, allowing high BS units to be more effective on targets behind cover , and low BS troops being less effective.
It worked out quite well!

I was thinking that low BS units like Orks were more llikely to assault targets in cover than rely on thier lack luster shooting.(Its more orky ! )

As the low end of the cover (4+ and 3+ ) seem to cause the problems.

How do you feel about re classifying cover to go with the new system?

I think the rule would almost certainly have to go with a new cover save system.

I like your suggested changes. I'd probably get rid of the 6+/5+ reroll difference, and just have light cover, and say that all rolls of 5+ against a target in light cover need to be rerolled.

I really like the idea behind heavy cover granting a 3+ armour save. I'd think about this save being reduced but not removed by AP3 or better weapons, maybe then you'd get a 5+?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gwar! wrote:Again, all this does is make Space Marines even harder to kill while making Orks even easier to kill.

Desiging a ruleset to maintain balance between pre-existing armies and their current rules and points values is doing it wrong. It's a part of the reason 40K has become the weird thing it is right now.

Get the ruleset right, then assess what armies might need to be adjusted to get thing even.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Infantryman wrote:I still don't know why you don't get cover and armor saves. It would make cover useful always.

It was a deliberate design decision made when they reformed the system for 3rd ed. In 2nd the heroic marines that were supposed to advance rapidly across the board to close in and destroy the enemy... ummm... didn't. They hide behind cover and sniped like everyone else did - because with the mass of armour mods out there you really needed that -2 hard cover mod to stay alive.

Come 3rd ed and they really wanted to encourage the strongest armies to man up and move across the open field they were supposed to. So they made the cover largely irrelevant to marines. It's an idea that's worked alright, MEQ really does play significantly differently to GEQ.

sebster wrote:Get the ruleset right, then assess what armies might need to be adjusted to get thing even.

So your idea of balancing is "Lets let marines be unkillable, not do anything for 5 years, then maybe change things."

Classy.

As it stands, ANYTHING that boosts cover for everyone (including to hit mods and letting people take armour and cover) doesn't change anything. All it means is that GEQ become harder to kill, and MEQ harder to kill, with absolutely no difference in relative killability. In fact, the "2 saves" idea makes MEQ harder to kill and leaves GEQ just as easy to kill, since GEQ don't get armour saves against 90% of shooting ANYWAY!

Oddly enough, the current system makes GEQ harder to kill while leaving MEQ alone. Funny that. It's almost like they thought about these things!

the problem as I see it, is that this unfairly targets the highest gradient.

I mean, sure, if someone has BS1, then it's both the highest and lowest, but the way I see it, in this game, a 6 is better then a 2. [save for leadership tests.] so why should my 'just scraping the barrel' roll of 3 be any more likely to hit then my 'basically owned his face' roll of six [thats intentionally irritating.]

I understand the attempt, but it's rather confusing.

Personally, I like the way fantasy has it, where cover gives -1 to your BS [oh, how I wished we had more modifiers...]
and better cover gives a higher chance of missing.

it makes sense that it'd effect the highest, then again, because it means it can work fast.

good work.

Modifier system is probably the best middle ground. It doesn't give a blanket fire loss regardless of BS, allowing higher BS guys to display skill in "getting around cover".

M.

Gwar! wrote:So your idea of balancing is "Lets let marines be unkillable, not do anything for 5 years, then maybe change things."

Classy.

No... what? Why are you talking about five years, or marines being unkillable or anything like that? Why are you making things up?

I'm guessing the five years things would be referring GW's cycle, but why would we be limited to GW's release schedule when talking about our own rules ideas?

Instead, when talking about core rules we actually have the freedom to consider the best possible ruleset, with the understanding that any advantages might be given to individual armies can be adjusted for afterwards through points or other rules. These are houserules, we can do what we want.

Oddly enough, the current system makes GEQ harder to kill while leaving MEQ alone. Funny that. It's almost like they thought about these things!

As I pointed out earlier, it was a deliberate design decision made to make heavily armoured troops play very differently to lightly armoured troops, so that marines and the like could feel free to move around in the open more than lightly armoured troops.

The trick is to retain that element while removing the weaknesses of the current system, such as inaccurate massed fire being exactly proportionaly affected by cover as accurate fire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Captain Solon wrote:the problem as I see it, is that this unfairly targets the highest gradient.

I mean, sure, if someone has BS1, then it's both the highest and lowest, but the way I see it, in this game, a 6 is better then a 2. [save for leadership tests.] so why should my 'just scraping the barrel' roll of 3 be any more likely to hit then my 'basically owned his face' roll of six [thats intentionally irritating.]

I understand the attempt, but it's rather confusing.

That's a fair point, and 40K is designed with the idea that high numbers are best, and most intuitive to players. This is why there's the oddness where you have that little table to convert from BS to target number... BS4 always hits on a 3+ so why not simply have the stat be 3, so people know that's the number to roll equal to or over? Because GW wants high stats to be good, and they want people rolling high numbers. Which is fair enough from a playing POV - we all like rolling 6s and probably wouldn't want 6s to be worse than 4s...

Might actually be a nail in the coffin of this idea, to be honest.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Infantryman wrote:Modifier system is probably the best middle ground. It doesn't give a blanket fire loss regardless of BS, allowing higher BS guys to display skill in "getting around cover".

M.

Probably, yeah. The modifiers were taken out because they slowed 2nd ed play down a lot. But the problem wasn't modifiers, it was the sheer number of them, in a system with a whole lot of other rules. Limiting the total mods to no more to just a few and I don't think they'd slow play down.

Really, if it was just range, cover and target's speed I think it could be part of a fast play system.

sebster wrote:That's a fair point, and 40K is designed with the idea that high numbers are best, and most intuitive to players. This is why there's the oddness where you have that little table to convert from BS to target number... BS4 always hits on a 3+ so why not simply have the stat be 3, so people know that's the number to roll equal to or over?

Because that's not how they set things up back in 1988 when they made rogue trader, and they don't want to revamp the entire stats system into something completely incompatible with the old one.

BearersOfSalvation wrote:

sebster wrote:That's a fair point, and 40K is designed with the idea that high numbers are best, and most intuitive to players. This is why there's the oddness where you have that little table to convert from BS to target number... BS4 always hits on a 3+ so why not simply have the stat be 3, so people know that's the number to roll equal to or over?

Because that's not how they set things up back in 1988 when they made rogue trader, and they don't want to revamp the entire stats system into something completely incompatible with the old one.

You mean like the way 3rd ed did exactly that?

To be honest though, if I were to build 40k from the ground up today, I would make it D20 based (or at least D10), and use the D20 System of "D20+Mod to beat Target Score".

I would use two dice, maybe 2D12. Get a nice bell curve going on.

The current cover system buffs poor armour units. The system proposed by the OP makes cover equally good regardless of armour.

There would need to be something to balance this out. More low AP weapons or some other mechanic change.

HI folks.
If you just use direct comparison of oposing stats,( deduct one from the other,) to give the dice score required to determine sucess.
The dice doesnt limit the number of results as it does when its used in a deterministic way.

Eg D10 = 10 results, D12 =12 results, D20 = 20 results.

Characteristics of ;-
1 to 10 gives 19 posible results.
1 to 20 gives 38 posible results.
1 to 100 gives 198 posible results.


Eg a weapon does 7 damage , vs a target with armour value 4.

7 -4 = 3 , the defender needs to roll 3 or over to save the weapon hit.
(The armour value becomes the modifier,there is no need for artificual sets of modifiers.)


As the current game development of 40k seems to shy away from modifiers on some areas, yet use them in others.(Due to some utterly bizar and and abstract directives?)

I thought resurecting the minus modifiers to hit would NOT be well recieved .( eg people some poeple would say just go and play 2nd ed if you like modifers...)

So following the reasoning that ONLY changes revolving about rolling dice were allowed to the 40k rule set, I thought about trying to get some better definition and variety to the cover used in 40k.

Thats why I thought a 'graduated re roll' method would be a good way to introduce graduation of effect , without resorting to modifiers.(And make better BS more effective vs cover ...)

Thanks for the feed back so far.

Its a pity we cant use the Blood Bowl game mechanics to get a tacticaly rich but intuitive and elegant rule set for 40k....

BearersOfSalvation wrote:Because that's not how they set things up back in 1988 when they made rogue trader, and they don't want to revamp the entire stats system into something completely incompatible with the old one.

Umm, what? They set it up back then because of the design goal of having "higher stat = better stat" and "higher dice roll = better dice roll". That's been a design goal throughout the history of the game. The hypothetical need to revamp has nothing to do with anything, because they've never changed that element of the system - the little table switching from BS to to hit roll has always been there.

Scott-S6 wrote:I would use two dice, maybe 2D12. Get a nice bell curve going on.

Any mechanism requiring two dice means you have to roll each result separately. Consider rolling for five space marine bolters by rolling five dice all at once, compared to rolling two D12 for each marine. Then consider an army built around 3 blocks of 30 orks.

The advantages of a bell curve can be nice, but a properly built wargame operating on the scale of 40K can achieve the same results with sufficiently large dice pools.

This is why the only combined dice rolls are for morale checks.

The way to use two dice for unit fire would be some sort of firepower chart, whereby you roll to hit and compare the result to the chart and that tells you how many hits the whole unit's fire generated.

Not that I am in favor of that per se but you can easily abstract an entire unit's total fire to a single roll.

Jack