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Dandelion wrote:
Well, the tau get to fight in the ork’s turn too.

As for the getting shot beforehand, the tau player’s choices also matter. Even with enough terrain, it is pretty easy to maneuver into a firing lane against an enemy that is coming at you. The only time the orks would completely avoid getting shot is with zone mortalis style walls everywhere, which would imply that the tau player intentionally places their troops behind a wall. And that doesn’t make tactical sense from the tau’s standpoint since they want to shoot.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Everybody in melee range fights in every combat phase unless they get killed before they get the chance. Should they survive the charge the Tau will both shoot and fight on the Ork's turn so yeah, there is a discrepency and imbalance - it's not in the charging army's favour.

If you're going to bring up Tau Fighting, should we not mention Ork Shooting? Ork Weapons are Assault, or does that not matter any more?

Simple fact is that Ork Fighting is superior to Tau Fighting, just like Tau Shooting is superior to Ork Shooting. And the discrepancy used to be far more marked.

But terrain is up to the players and what they have available to use as such. It can be as large, small, or interruptive as you the players choose. That part is not on GW's part, but yours.

Still, I have stated that Overwatch is a result of GW's system that they've clung to rather than changing so that Overwatch is not necessary. But so long as the IGOUGO system (or similar) is being used, it's a necessary evil. Could you imagine the imbalance if the Tau got to have two Shooting Phases before the Orks got a chance to Move or choose to Charge?

Realistically it goes like this:
-tau turn: tau shoot at least once
-ork turn: orks move -> probably shoot pistols ->declare charge-> take overwatch->fight->tau fight back
-tau turn: tau fall back -> other units shoot the orks -> orks don’t get to fight in the tau turn

I don’t see the part where the orks actually get to fight twice.

 Charistoph wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
Well, the tau get to fight in the ork’s turn too.

As for the getting shot beforehand, the tau player’s choices also matter. Even with enough terrain, it is pretty easy to maneuver into a firing lane against an enemy that is coming at you. The only time the orks would completely avoid getting shot is with zone mortalis style walls everywhere, which would imply that the tau player intentionally places their troops behind a wall. And that doesn’t make tactical sense from the tau’s standpoint since they want to shoot.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Everybody in melee range fights in every combat phase unless they get killed before they get the chance. Should they survive the charge the Tau will both shoot and fight on the Ork's turn so yeah, there is a discrepency and imbalance - it's not in the charging army's favour.

If you're going to bring up Tau Fighting, should we not mention Ork Shooting? Ork Weapons are Assault, or does that not matter any more?

Simple fact is that Ork Fighting is superior to Tau Fighting, just like Tau Shooting is superior to Ork Shooting. And the discrepancy used to be far more marked.


But terrain is up to the players and what they have available to use as such. It can be as large, small, or interruptive as you the players choose. That part is not on GW's part, but yours.

Still, I have stated that Overwatch is a result of GW's system that they've clung to rather than changing so that Overwatch is not necessary. But so long as the IGOUGO system (or similar) is being used, it's a necessary evil. Could you imagine the imbalance if the Tau got to have two Shooting Phases before the Orks got a chance to Move or choose to Charge?

Pulse Blaster - Assault2 interesting, looks like Tau have them too, means they can advance and shoot with a negative modifier to hit, however, have a special ability that allows them to charge after advancing units can’t charge after advancing so in a lot of cases no - assault weapons don’t help an assault army anywhere near as much as they help a shooting one, if anything they allow shooting armies to run further away from melee armies and still shoot at them.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Pulse Blaster - Assault2 interesting, looks like Tau have them too, means they can advance and shoot with a negative modifier to hit, however, have a special ability that allows them to charge after advancing units can’t charge after advancing so in a lot of cases no - assault weapons don’t help an assault army anywhere near as much as they help a shooting one, if anything they allow shooting armies to run further away from melee armies and still shoot at them.

Not the point. Tau Fighting is less effective, just like Ork Shooting is less effective (unless you get enough Boyz behind it, unlike Tau). But the Orks can still do their Advance and Shoot, helping them get close enough (eventually) to do their normal Move, Shoot, and Charge.

Yeah, Assault has changed, and I didn't remember all the changes right off, but that still doesn't change what Orks do.

Quick suggestions: 1. More suppressor like ability/stratagems 2. The ability prevent falling back on 5s, except vehicles 3. Free strikes on 6s.

I think overwatch is ok, we just lack the tools to counter it effectively.

Since Suppressor squads have come out I have been using 3 squads to counter overwatch, it doesn't always work but it helps. If all the armies suppressors like squad/stratagem it would help getting into cc.

If armies also had access to the ability to lock a model/unit in combat, keep it simple with a 5+ roll to prevent falling back, make exceptions for vehicles and yadayada.

And finally a cc version of overwatch, warmachine called the free strikes. It would be exactly like overwatch, if a unit is falling back, you can hit them on 6s.

The solutions provided don't require different dice, the removal/changing of rules, or a overhaul of the current game.
Of course this is all a moot point because GW isn't reading any of our posts.

Jimbobbyish wrote:
...Since Suppressor squads have come out I have been using 3 squads to counter overwatch, it doesn't always work but it helps. If all the armies suppressors like squad/stratagem it would help getting into cc...

And fixing problematic rules by writing another rule that turns it off instead of fixing the original problem has never led to a death-spiral of bloat ("I now need to write another rule to turn off that Suppressor rule because suddenly Fire Warrior boxes aren't selling at all!" etc.) that required the game being rebooted, no, sir.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Jimbobbyish wrote:
...Since Suppressor squads have come out I have been using 3 squads to counter overwatch, it doesn't always work but it helps. If all the armies suppressors like squad/stratagem it would help getting into cc...

And fixing problematic rules by writing another rule that turns it off instead of fixing the original problem has never led to a death-spiral of bloat ("I now need to write another rule to turn off that Suppressor rule because suddenly Fire Warrior boxes aren't selling at all!" etc.) that required the game being rebooted, no, sir.

That was the mantra of 7th and why it was IMO the worst edition. "Need a rule to counter a rule that bypasses a core rule but the counter can be countered because of these 4 different USR's"

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Jimbobbyish wrote:
...Since Suppressor squads have come out I have been using 3 squads to counter overwatch, it doesn't always work but it helps. If all the armies suppressors like squad/stratagem it would help getting into cc...

And fixing problematic rules by writing another rule that turns it off instead of fixing the original problem has never led to a death-spiral of bloat ("I now need to write another rule to turn off that Suppressor rule because suddenly Fire Warrior boxes aren't selling at all!" etc.) that required the game being rebooted, no, sir.

you shoot the suppressor unit like you would any threat. Suppressors are already in the game? It's would be a matter of copy pasting their rules to other units or a blanket stratagem.

Again I think overwatch is fine, just need better access to suppressors/stratagem.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NurglesR0T wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Jimbobbyish wrote:
...Since Suppressor squads have come out I have been using 3 squads to counter overwatch, it doesn't always work but it helps. If all the armies suppressors like squad/stratagem it would help getting into cc...

And fixing problematic rules by writing another rule that turns it off instead of fixing the original problem has never led to a death-spiral of bloat ("I now need to write another rule to turn off that Suppressor rule because suddenly Fire Warrior boxes aren't selling at all!" etc.) that required the game being rebooted, no, sir.

That was the mantra of 7th and why it was IMO the worst edition. "Need a rule to counter a rule that bypasses a core rule but the counter can be countered because of these 4 different USR's"

lol yeah I get it, I'm new to warhammer 40k this year with 8th edition, but I did but 7th book when it came out and I decided not to buy into the game back then. But overwatch is in the game now and so is the suppressor Squad. I'm saying if we gave them to other armies it would help.

There are a couple of things which I feel ought to be pointed out in this discussion. For one justifying game mechanics thorough it being thematic is a horrible practice, as nearly any rule can be justified that way. Also saying that shooting units need to get turn of shooting before being charged is silly, as they do already get to shoot in their own shooting phase.

However a far better support for overwatch has been that it forces the charging player to make a choice whether they wan't to charge or not, or if they want to multicharge, but this is not a very good argument in the end. That is because the decision to charge with your assault units is made when building your list. No assault unit is going to sit back and just eat a round of shooting, even if they have to endure overwatch to get into melee, as they have to go through overwatch at some point anyways. Also, I find that discrouraging multicharges is a bad idea, as it removes an element of positioning from this game, as bunching up your units in front of a melee unit should be punished by risking getting multicharged.

Finally some people point out that tau have benefitted greatly from overwatch, but this is not true. Tau used to be an interesting mobile and tactical army, but with overwatch they have become blue imperial guard as they can just sit on their asses and overwatch any incoming units.

Alkaline_Hound wrote:
There are a couple of things which I feel ought to be pointed out in this discussion. For one justifying game mechanics thorough it being thematic is a horrible practice,

You're right, instead of anchoring our games in a setting or in reality, we should instead base them on .........................?

Alkaline_Hound wrote:
as nearly any rule can be justified that way.

If you can justify a rule that says "my single character tables your entire army on a 2+ before the first battle round" then that's probably a setting issue, rather than a game issue. If you can't justify this rule (or any old rule I can come up with out of thousands) then this statement is obviously false.

Alkaline_Hound wrote:
Also saying that shooting units need to get turn of shooting before being charged is silly, as they do already get to shoot in their own shooting phase.

.... which they don't get if they don't get a turn of shooting. QED. "Units don't need to get a turn of shooting because they get a turn of shooting" is a useless tautology (and is also false in this case).

Alkaline_Hound wrote:
However a far better support for overwatch has been that it forces the charging player to make a choice whether they wan't to charge or not, or if they want to multicharge, but this is not a very good argument in the end. That is because the decision to charge with your assault units is made when building your list. No assault unit is going to sit back and just eat a round of shooting, even if they have to endure overwatch to get into melee, as they have to go through overwatch at some point anyways.

However, it will make them think before declaring a charge that is likely to fail. Charge me from 12" away? better to not, and eat another turn of shooting, then to try, eat overwatch, likely fail, and eat another turn of shooting anyways.

Alkaline_Hound wrote:
Also, I find that discrouraging multicharges is a bad idea, as it removes an element of positioning from this game, as bunching up your units in front of a melee unit should be punished by risking getting multicharged.

Units that are bunched up like that are at risk of getting multicharged. Overwatch exists precisely to actually give the assaulting player to think about in this situation, instead of just shouting "FULL STEAM AHEAD" and declaring every target forever. In my opinion, requiring positioning (e.g. LOS breaking terrain) to deny overwatch is far more interesting than "FULL STEAM AHEAD" as a slaanesh daemons player.

Alkaline_Hound wrote:
Finally some people point out that tau have benefitted greatly from overwatch, but this is not true. Tau used to be an interesting mobile and tactical army, but with overwatch they have become blue imperial guard as they can just sit on their asses and overwatch any incoming units.

"People with guns sit far away and shoot people with swords" doesn't preclude interesting mobility and tactics. In fact, mobility and tactics have arguably increased since the introduction of the gun. Methinks something unrelated to overwatch might be the real culprit...

How many units can get a first-turn charge? And, as a follow-up to that, are ANY of those units healthy for the game?

Shooting units (outside very short-ranged ones) can be expected to get their shots off turn one. Melee units, outside the stupid fast and/or gimmicky ones, cannot be expected to charge T1.

 JNAProductions wrote:
How many units can get a first-turn charge? And, as a follow-up to that, are ANY of those units healthy for the game?

Shooting units (outside very short-ranged ones) can be expected to get their shots off turn one. Melee units, outside the stupid fast and/or gimmicky ones, cannot be expected to charge T1.

The only first turn charge I consider unhealthy is units who have double moves or units that start outside of their deployment zone. Forcing an opponent to deploy farther away from objectives than they should have to or accept a likely game ending first charge is dumb. Deep strike turn 1 charges are kind of annoying but usually come with at best 50% success rate due to the 9" restriction. Maybe the same restriction should be implemented for all units on turn 1.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
How many units can get a first-turn charge? And, as a follow-up to that, are ANY of those units healthy for the game?

Shooting units (outside very short-ranged ones) can be expected to get their shots off turn one. Melee units, outside the stupid fast and/or gimmicky ones, cannot be expected to charge T1.

The only first turn charge I consider unhealthy is units who have double moves or units that start outside of their deployment zone. Forcing an opponent to deploy farther away from objectives than they should have to or accept a likely game ending first charge is dumb. Deep strike turn 1 charges are kind of annoying but usually come with at best 50% success rate due to the 9" restriction. Maybe the same restriction should be implemented for all units on turn 1.

Something like bringing back Fog of War?
Cover for everything for the first turn would be cool.

Jimbobbyish wrote:
...But overwatch is in the game now...

This is a really terrible argument. If you can only add to the game and can't remove, adjust, or fix anything you get before you're dooming people to have to deal with any mistakes you made for a long time.

It seems like it would be easy to go with 2nd edition overwatch where you give up your shooting so that you can shoot at anyone that tries to charge you in the following player turn.