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I hate this rule. I seriously do.
It messes up so many multiwound units that don't even get a discount for being T8 or T3. More importantly, it seriously f**ks with independent characters without eternal warrior. Everyone I know is afraid to take any IC without a stormshield or some kind of uber protection. Otherwise, they're basically throwing a 100pts+ free killpoint at the opponent.

Before I go into detail about removing ID, I want you to keep in mind this change to compensate.
Wounds will be allocated based on armor save instead of model equipment. Instant death wounds remove entire models first (prior to all other allocation) as it does now.
So an allocation similar to what we have now except you will have to allocate wounds per armor save so a MANz squad, for example, won't benefit from current 5th wound shenanigans. A squad of nobs can mess around but only in 3 groups (as opposed to one group per model). Yes, people will attempt to abuse wound allocation on multiwound models regardless of how you do it.

So, removing double str ID will cause several things I believe:
Increase the value of force weapons and specific instant death weapons - Think about it, if there's only one way to cause instant death now, you may actually have to devote a unit to ID instead of just taking vindicators, battle cannons, ect and pray for the best. A librarian's melee attack will suddenly be a lot more valuable as will bone swords and ect.

Significantly more use of independent characters - No longer fearing hidden powerfists, Heroes can do what they were meant to do: be heroes. No longer will it be "Storm shield/eternal warrior or GTFO" for independent characters. A a single sergeant with a powerfist will no longer be able to act as a deterrent for a hero to assault the squad in a very 40k manner.

W3 vs W2 now a dramatic difference - No longer able to take away all wounds via conventional weapons, there is a clear difference between W3 models and W2. In actual gameplay, it will mean another round of assault against overwhelming odds, more allocation from shooting, ect ect.

Warriors Ogryns and all T1-T5 units buffed - Honestly I don't see this as a bad thing. I'd love to see more ogryns and warriors on the field. T5 units like the ogryns are only slightly buffed but can you imagine how awesome warriors would become? People would actually field them! Do nobz, infamous for wound allocation, benefit? Of course, but on the other hand, while they're stronger vs battle cannons and the like, they're no longer able to do wound shenanigans against most vanilla weapons like a heavy bolter, for instance.

So, those are the benefits that come to mind. Thoughts?

Counter proposal: remove eternal warrior. Discourage hero-hammer and encourage squad tactics. More units on the table, more tactics, more rock-paper-scissor-wraithlord kind of play.

Hidden power fists could be countered by allowing more units to be retinue. Simply have several codexes have an Elite unit each where the retinue rule says "we're retinue for any character which joins us".

The value of Force Weapons wouldn't increase, by the way, it's the value of Power Fists that'd decrease.

In all honesty, it would make little sense to remove the double toughness ID. If I wound a space marine with my railgun, there isn't going to be a space marine there anymore, regardless of how many wounds he has.

Since when would a direct hit from a solid shot railgun go from being deadly to pretty much anything, to being able to puncture vehicles with ease but only being a minor inconvenience to multi-wound models? I just blasted a hole through that Land Raider, but i've only managed to chip the power armour on that commander?

For the hidden powerfist, it's quite hard to fix it. The easiest way I can think of is randomising hits between a unit and the commander. The attacker rolls to hit, successful hits are then rolled, with 1-5 striking the unit, and rolls of 6 striking the commander, or with smaller units of 5, 1-4 hits the units, and 5-6 hits the commander.

It would add a small amount of complexity to the game, but it's only minor, and would make it a lot harder to snipe commanders with powerfists, but at the same time, a unit with lots of attacks would still be able to kill him through sheer weight of attacks, which makes sense. 10 Guardsmen + A Commissar would be able to protect the commissar from a few enemy troops, but not a horde of Gaunts.

the EW is to stop draigowing or Loganwing lists,centered around a single powerful modal,from dying in a round of shooting like railduns and demolishers,which is deeply demoralising to lose a Draigo or Logan equivilent.i think weapons or attacks that have a rule inflicting instant death should still affect them.How is calgar or Lysander immune to phase swords and Bonesabres,or psychicly charged weapon that destroy you utterly.

so EW should be

Modals with this rule are immuner to instant death because of wounds caused by a weapon with S= to the targets T or higher.Weapons that inflict instant death via a special rule,like force weapons,still inflict instant death on EWs

Why not keep it that AP1 and Lance weapons also include the ID rule? That way railguns and melta weapons still will pop/microwave said marine, but the more-believeable big units surviving a tank shell blast is still intact (Keep in mind the wound allocation and S of the weapon still means if a battle cannon tags 6 Nid Warriors or 3 Crisis Suits, it'll wound 5/6 of them and still ignore their save, dropping 1.6 Nids and 1 Suit). Plus, this won't neuter the big not-ID-anymore weapons since they'll still smear regular 1W squads easily and put the hurt on the multiwound squads (That 1 battle cannon onto the Nids does the same as 30 bolter shots, if my mathhammer is right)
This could also encourage use of different LR variants for IG, instead of spamming LRBT or the one other variant people use (The name escapes me, but I've seen people use the vanilla version or one other variant, and ignore the rest).

EDIT: And I agree, the EW rule by deadshot sounds much better than immune to all ID weapons. If they keep EW as is, it's definately undercosted.

Well I think ID by double S makes quite much sense. If you get vapourized or blown apart or something then you are gone, regardles of how "heroy" you are.
Please stop trying to take out logical pieces of the game for the sake of tactical poibilities because IF YOU KEEP ABSTRACTNG AND CHANGING THE RULES FROM "LOGICAL" TO "TACTICAL", THEN YOU WILL ONE DAY END UP WITH SOMETHING SIMILAR TO CHESS!!!

And many people do not want this. You have to stick to rules that make sense if you think about how they represent a piece of real-life!

Deadshot wrote:the EW is to stop draigowing or Loganwing lists,centered around a single powerful modal,from dying in a round of shooting like railduns and demolishers,which is deeply demoralising to lose a Draigo or Logan equivilent.i think weapons or attacks that have a rule inflicting instant death should still affect them.How is calgar or Lysander immune to phase swords and Bonesabres,or psychicly charged weapon that destroy you utterly.

so EW should be

Modals with this rule are immuner to instant death because of wounds caused by a weapon with S= to the targets T or higher.Weapons that inflict instant death via a special rule,like force weapons,still inflict instant death on EWs

No, EW was introduced to simulate a certain type of immortal Eldar HQ choice being immortal. You know, as in "unkillable". Not unbeatable, but literally you aren't able to kill them. Draigo and Logan are mortals, so it makes no sense for them to have EW. When they are hit by a railgun, they don't collect their astral bodies together again and find a new combat suit to inhabit. They die in a cloud of metal, flesh, and feces never to rise again.

Problem is that EW has been spread around so liberally to make badass mortals more badass, with perfect disregard for what it does to the game. Ever played 5th edition Warhammer Fantasy? 6th edition really saved that game, 5th edition was all about who made the best Lord (Tomb Kings won every time) unless you were Dwarf in which case it was a matter of shooting the most Organ Guns.

It's only deeply demoralizing losing Logan early because of his ungodly stats protected by EW, since that character has to have an ungodly amount of points spent into him. In the end, you use him recklessly because there is so much less risk of him dying.

What? Why would this rule change be a good addition?

I agree with the others, remove EW from 90% of the models that have it.

I have no problem running ICs without EW or a SS. You just need to be careful with them and make sure they don't stand next to the guy with a powerfist. It's called tactics.

MrMerlin wrote:If you get vapourized or blown apart or something then you are gone, regardles of how "heroy" you are.
Please stop trying to take out logical pieces of the game...*snip*

Mahtamori wrote:Draigo and Logan are mortals, so it makes no sense for them to have EW. When they are hit by a railgun, they don't collect their astral bodies together again and find a new combat suit to inhabit. They die in a cloud of metal, flesh, and feces never to rise again.

40K logical? Lol! (*Insert appropriate meme/trollface here*)

@MrMerlin: While I would normally agree that logics>tactics, the problem with 40K's ID is that it nerfs certain units in ways that are not compensated by their point costs or abilities. The two main army books (imo) that suffer from ID are Tau and Nids. Both have old-ish codexes, and both have multiwound T4 model squads (IG has Ogryns, but they aren't as essential to an IG army as Warriors and Crisis Suits).

This wasn't an issue in older editions/codexes when there wasn't so much mech spam that every army is loaded to the gills with meltas/missiles/lascannons, but now that they are, those units become a liability (Which sucks majorly for Tau. Ask a Tau player how well they'd do without suits, and without spamming kroot ). A list designed for a blind-matchup will likely contain a great deal of said heavy weapons, and this automatically puts them at an advantadge against the armies that rely on T4 multiwound squads.

The problem is GW is reeeally inconsistent in their levels of realism. Genestealers can't use Assault Grenade equivalents, despite being evolved entirely around stealthy attacks? A Railgun will turn a 10-foot alien monstrosity or mechanical armored walker into a dustcloud, but merely breaks the leg or gives a gash to a tough-yet-human Draigo?

I'm not saying everything in 40K should be 100% tactically based, but arguing that this rule should be kept not because it balances the game properly (it doesn't), but rather because it's "realistic," is a bit absurd given the setting.

I do reasonably well without any kroot, but without suits... I just can't imagine it.

ID blasts can easily be sorted by pinching 'Look Out, Sir!' from WHFB and changing it so that the commander is pushed clear of the blast by a squad-mate. If the squad numbers, say, 5 models (not including attached characters)or more (or, since 40k has smaller unit sizes than fantasy, perhaps 3 or more?) then on a 2+ (or other roll, 2+ is simply pinched from the WHFB rule) the commander is pushed clear of the blast.

It'd remove the need for EW everywhere you look, as would some form of combat randomisation to negate the power of hidden powerfists vs ICs, whilst still allowing for things like the Vindicare to do their job.

ID from regular shots would still be a pain against multi-wound models (Long Fang unit with 5x MLs vs Crisis Suit unit = dead suits), but maybe have a function for Instant Death on the wound roll, such as a 5 or 6 to wound instantly killing the model to represent a fatal hit.

Trying to balance ID against multi-wound units is a tough task though, as to give the unit survivability, you have to cut back somewhat on the realism.

EDIT: You could instead have weapons that would now cause instant death instead cause D3 wounds, so a T4 multi-wound model strukc by a S8 hit would be hit, wounded, and if they failed their save (assuming they get one) then they suffer D3 wounds instead of just 1. It allows for some degree of resillience, but crisis suits and the likes would still die outright 2/3 times.

Hm. That WOULD dramatically increase the power of my nobs.

darkPrince010, I think you'll find that my post (ignoring the hate I spew on special characters in general) is focused less on "realism" than on the fact that super-models (not the front-page ones), and by extension EW, is bad for the gameplay.

Avatar 720, I think you'll find that 40K has no need for "Look out, sir!" since wound allocation is done entirely by the victim's owner. If the character isn't inside a unit it isn't protected, if it is inside a unit you get to allocate wounds elsewhere. The only "problem" is when someone brings a Lightning Klaw inside a huge mob and decides to direct all those attacks on the SC. Or some equivalent.

Melissia wrote:Hm. That WOULD dramatically increase the power of my nobs.

That it would. In fact, this little change would likely mean that the only army anyone ever played would be a Nob spam list.

Mahtamori wrote:Avatar 720, I think you'll find that 40K has no need for "Look out, sir!" since wound allocation is done entirely by the victim's owner.

Except when a whole squad is covered by a blast template or take enough hits for each member to be allocated one each; the former occurrence is why I stated that it only be for blast templates, because the ones capable of IDing things are usually large blasts and it's well within their capacity to cover whole squads, especially squads of costly multi-wound models.

Avatar 720 wrote:You could instead have weapons that would now cause instant death instead cause D3 wounds, so a T4 multi-wound model strukc by a S8 hit would be hit, wounded, and if they failed their save (assuming they get one) then they suffer D3 wounds instead of just 1. It allows for some degree of resillience, but crisis suits and the likes would still die outright 2/3 times.

This. This is an awesome idea. It'd be fast, still make ID powerful, and allow for future independent models (MCs, ICs that can't join squads, etc) to be multiwound T4 or 5 without having to worry as much about ID (So lower T could mean more wounds, like an 8W T4 or 10W T3 or something, to represent an easily-wounded yet long-lasting monster). Plus, you'd kill just as much as before if not even more (2 hits on a crisis suit squad, previously only 2 dead suits max, could now possibly even be 3 if you roll high, and now high S low AP cause more wounds to be saved), so it likely wouldn't be as big of a nerf as removing it entirely.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Mahtamori: I agree that Special Character/EW spam is all too prevalent, but seeing how long it takes GW to errata/FAQ/release codexes, a change to the BRB would probably resolve such an issue much faster.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Grakmar: I do agree in that multiwound spam might be an issue, but the nice thing about more wounds vs better wounds is that it becomes much harder to avoid putting wounds on important models in the unit. You'll kill less models overall, but wound more of the models in a unit, including valuable seargants and powerfist-type models.
This becomes less effective for large units with each unit equipped differently, but the chance to do up to 3 wounds instead of 1 will help balance that out (True, vs a 4 nob squad with different equipment, 6 non-ID unsaved wounds instead of 3 ID wounds would kill 2 nobs and wound the others instead of killing 3 nobs, but 9 unsaved non-ID wounds would kill all 4, including the probable guy with a powerklaw). The only model I can see this being an issue for is Nids, since the 3W T4 4+ Sv warrior might become a smidge OP, but this is balanced by the fact that only 1 model in the unit can take a heavy-weapon-equivalent, so it becomes much harder to play wound allocation tricks.

The amusing thing about this is that it means that human characters can survive a battle cannon shot to the face...

Perhaps it didn't hit him the face, he just was just caught in part of the explosion. It's no more bizzare than rolling a 1 to wound a grot with a railgun, though.

So? Even if you roll a 6 to wound and hit the fether with a railgun or lascannon two times, and he fails his invul save twice... he's still no only alive, but so alive that he's still fighting.

Removing instant death from high strength weapons doesn't really make any sense.

Wait, I thought you meant the D3 wounds part, not the general dropping of double strength ID (which I agree doesn't make any sense).

The issue the OP has addressed is the unfortunate side effect of the mechanised 5th edition. The OPs definitely on the right track with his solution by starting out with fixing wound allocation shenanigans. The only issue with the OP’s proposal is that might have the unintentional side affect of making death stars too powerful, specifically Space Wolves and Grey Knights. Considering out prevalent 3++ saves are nowadays, it would further encourage hero hammer and MSU armies.

6th edition apparently re-clarifies internal warrior/instant death by introducing different tiers of eternal warrior/instant death and I think this system could have some merit. Perhaps establish a lesser tier of eternal warrior (which is applied to all ICs) where double toughness ID causes D3 wounds instead. Characters that already have the eternal warrior in their profile (like Abaddon/Draigo) would still use the classic rule and thus only experience 1 wound for ID (to emphasis their enhanced reliance).

While we’re on the subject, I’d personally like to see unclassified “remove from play” instant death also looked at considering how prevalent it is in 5th edition (specially in Matt Ward codices). For those unaware, I’m referring to attacks that remove from models from the table via side stepping the eternal warrior rule by not mentioning the instant death rule (therefore the attack does not count as instant death and thus eternal warrior does not protect). Using the tier system, perhaps allocate these attacks a mid ranged tier in that low to mid range characters are removed from play but upper level characters (such as Abaddon/Draigo) are not.

candy.man wrote:While we’re on the subject, I’d personally like to see unclassified “remove from play” instant death also looked at considering how prevalent it is in 5th edition (specially in Matt Ward codices). For those unaware, I’m referring to attacks that remove from models from the table via side stepping the eternal warrior rule by not mentioning the instant death rule (therefore the attack does not count as instant death and thus eternal warrior does not protect). Using the tier system, perhaps allocate these attacks a mid ranged tier in that low to mid range characters are removed from play but upper level characters (such as Abaddon/Draigo) are not.

these type of ID is also the case for Nid boneswords,positive,i use nids,and c'tan,IIRC

mmmmh... ID is a good rule... I think the only real issue here is the uselessness of cc characters that do not have EW or insane toughness (I'm looking at you Wolf Lord with thunderwolf!!)... The hidden fist or PK is in my opinion a problem... The solution IMHO is LET THE ICs CHOOSE THEIR TARGETS! Your Captain should be able to attack that nasty PK Nob before the hulkin' green guy reduce him to minced meat!
It's more balanced and more realistic ( ...mmmh... I'll ignore that giant ork with the terrifying claw... let's attack these boys... Hopefully 6th ed will introduce this...

the problem is that you assuming very things static and still.in reality those guys would be runniog madly towards you.that might throw off you aim a little

Double toughness ID is a good thing.
So is EW.

Heres an arguement for each:
I quite often play vs nids (inc the Doom of feth-my-ork-army-over).
Rokkit-gibbing at BS2 is a godsend (and a miracle if it works!)
Really the only problem is having ICs singled out in melee. Which, sadly, is more or less logical.

EW means that models can be immune to instant death without having a toughness over 5. Eg, I'm still human, so I take wounds as easily as any other, but I'm tougher than being 1 shotted (note that this could be through their increased experience helping them to duck away from that rocket blast etc, fluff as needed).

And finally, anyone who actually argued that the existing rules regarding ID are logical is insane.
Heres an actual conversation I had with GW staff while I was learning to play.
GW guy: Instant death is like getting hit by a freight train. Some things are just too powerful to survive.
Me: But if you make your armor save the train bounces off you into the bushes.....

I know this isn't much of an arguement from fact, but parts of the fluff support characters having immunity to ALL types of ID rather than just some, as Deadshot proposed earlier. The battle between Calgar and the Avatar of Khaine for the Battle of the Sepulchre. Khaine's sword just wreaks termie armor, but Calgar stops it anyways. Why not have it work against bone-swords?

That aside, I think something along the lines of what has been mentioned earlier would work. The ID could be changed so that either it is ID or not. I.E. Meltagun hits a terminator. Either it won't cause ID, and he gets the 3++ from SS, or it causes ID; no SS will save him. Eternal Warriors get exceptions, of course - come up with some fluff to support it as I just did.

I also like the IC CC target allocation. Being a leader, the IC would recognize the threat of the PF / TH / whatever. He should be allowed to go at it. Or at least command his squad to, if he can't reach.

As for the "remove from table" attacks, I think it's a loophole that is being exploited to the extreme. A simple FAQ fixes this.

the problem is that you assuming very things static and still.in reality those guys would be runniog madly towards you.that might throw off you aim a little

do not think so... The ICs are heroes after all... they are used to be leaders for their comrad and to perform epic deeds on the battlefield... I think it's pretty reasonable to say that even in the chaos of battle they should be able to notice that nasty guy who seems to be the enemy squad leader...

About removing ID... this is crazyness... if the problem are the underperforming ICs I'd use the abovementioned solution.... but if you remove ID you will face something like:
-Thunderwol cavalry not afraid of demolishers or Broadsides or CC with dreddys... an improvement to an already terrifying unit...
- UBER NOBZ!!! WHo cares the wound shenanigans... now Battlecannons do not scare us anymore... Bwahahahah... really.... I play orks and I know that the only weakness of NOBZ is their vulnerability to Battlecannons and other nasty stuff like that...
-THE UNSTOPPABLE PALADINS!! ALL PEEL BEFORE MY MIGHT!!!! The ONLY thing that pallies are scared of are str8+ weapons... without ID pallies are ... simply unstoppable... take draigo and two ten men units.... camp on the objectives and mow the enemy with psycannons while he desperately try to kill at least one of your Terminator monsters...

Hi all.
ID and EW are poorly aplied patches to cover up the gap left by removing a simple game mechanic.
Where weapons can cause multiple wounds on the target model.

In fact that is the case with most of the 40k rules.
Remove a simple game mechanic-resolution method, and replace it with abstract special rules that do not allow proportional results.

Lanrak's right of course, but given the base system as it is now, my preferred solution would be removing Eternal Warrior, but treat each side as one combined unit for wound allocation purposes in close combat, so that independent characters aren't easily singled out for power fist or force weapon attacks as soon as they get into melee.

Jack

If you want to fix Hidden Power Fists in units, why not just go back to being able to direct attacks onto any model you are in base to base with during the assault phase?

That's how it worked in editions past, and because of it you only rarely saw power fists, as people simply attacked them before they could swing.

If you just wanna be able to protect ICs more, then make it a special rule or ICs and MCs only.

I personally don't see anything wrong with a combat veteran commander of several centuries bawling into a squad, seeing a dude winding up his swing with a power fist... and deciding that cutting him apart before he connects would be a good idea. Personally I think the idea of random troopers flinging themselves in the way of their sergeant to allow him to get his attacks in is pretty silly.

Well you have to think fluffy.Astorath ther Grim is more importent than a Assault Squad Sg.So the Sg is going to tackle the Archon to save the Axe dude(WD374 Battle Report)