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As has been suggested a lot, and yet I hope this is subtly different from others. I thought of it while I was trying not to focus in a psyc tute.

Illum Rounds
Basilisk or Griffon alternate round (+15 points?)
At the start of the shooting phase, elect if you are going to fire a regular or illum round. If you choose illum, nominate a place on the board within the Basilisk's usual range and place a marker. No need to roll for Night Fighting. That marker then scatters 2D6" no matter what, using the arrow on the hit roll for direction. Any units within 18" of this marker are no longer protected by nightfighting (so if you have men within those 12", then the enemy can target them too). If the round is fired by a unit in a squadron, then the rest of the squadron still fires as if it is night fighting (they are firing simultaneously).

Basilisk's are expensive and the opportunity cost of this is high, so that's ok.

Regular mortars are free in units you are compelled to take; 5 points to ignore night fighting for an army is not acceptable.

DarknessEternal wrote:
Regular mortars are free in units you are compelled to take; 5 points to ignore night fighting for an army is not acceptable.

Considering most people think of mortars as useless (which they kind of are, being lasguns with a small template and pinning) I think 10 points in non-HWS is a fair price to pay for ignoring night fighting rules. Especially considering that you won't be doing anything else with the gun that turn.

I don't use mortars, so it was harder for me to guess the price for it. We'll go with 10 then? The whole HWS would have to fire that way, meaning 10 should be ok for them too...right?

How about the mechanic itself?

motyak wrote:
How about the mechanic itself?

It's bad. It removed night fighting from an entire army without any rolls involved. Not even spot lights are that good.

I could up the scatter, 2D6 and it always scatters in the direction of the arrow, even on a hit? That makes it harder to place the bubble. Or I could cut it from 24 to 18 inches for the basilisk. Or both

You could try not creating a "my army totally ignores night fighting" rule.

I'll drop it from mortars then. But its not a 'my army totally ignores night fighting' rule. Its 'I can't use my reasonably pricey arty unit to kill anything this turn, and as a trade off I can shoot at a part of the enemy army without night fighting'

I think you are overreacting

motyak wrote:I'll drop it from mortars then. But its not a 'my army totally ignores night fighting' rule. Its 'I can't use my reasonably pricey arty unit to kill anything this turn, and as a trade off I can shoot at a part of the enemy army without night fighting'

I think you are overreacting

The problem is that its a fairly wide radius. 18" bubbles go along way if you use a lot of them. And due to the sheer amount of artillery that IG could field (and by extension the Illum rounds), I would dare say its possible to completely rob night fighting with these rules.
I would shorten it to 6" and have it that it you do have to roll for night fighting if using direct fire. It seems a bit odd, but its necessary for balance.

Or you could have it as a one-per-army sort of thing, like what the tau currently have with their prototype weapons.

Well there is no real benefit to using direct fire, since it always scatters without BS correction.

And if they field that sheer extent of arty, then they won't have too much else left points wise, or if they only field 3, then they either use up all their HS options, or they are firing at the same target.

I will edit it so that its 12" and any units in the same squadron cannot benefit from it (because they all fire at once, meaning no using one basilisk to light up an area for the other 2 in the unit). Good compromise?

A basilisk with the upgrade and enclosed crew compartment will cost 155 points, meaning that is 155 points to deny night fighting in a smallish area, 155 points which is not doing any direct damage at all...thats not too cheap.

Hmmm seems better. What about gryphons? Do they get to have it?

I dunno, I guess that'd be ok since they are HS too. I dropped it from mortar squads to avoid the ability to saturate the field in illum flares. Yeah sure, why not

You could have it in the mortars as well... however if they were on mortars i'd say... 1 flare per platoon... large blast scatters full 2d6" (as your vehicle mechanic works).. any unit with multiple models under template are seen as is (normal day fighting cover saves apply) and may be fired at as normal.