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Hi, Rav1rn from the thread new 40K ruleset here.

Icyfireknights and I have reached an impass about which of two new reserves systems to use, and were opening it up to the community to decide.

Noteworthy info:
--Average models like a space marine, ork boy, or eldar guardian have 2 wounds now (dont worry it still works out due to other changes in the system)
--This is only concerning entry onto the table from reserves; deep strikes and outflanks may not necessarily follow these same rules so far as damage is concerned.

Option 1) the player chooses when a unit enters from reserves, with a limit on how many units may enter from reserves each turn (likely 2-3 units per turn). Every model that enters from reserves rolls a D6, and on a roll of 1, takes a hit. The strength of this hit is highest at turn 2, and decreases each turn until turn 5, so a unit may take strength 4 hits in turn 2, but strength 2 hits in turn 4.

Option 2) At the start of the game, each player (assuming they have reserves) rolls a re-rollable D3+1 to determine when their unit arrives (Turn 2 to 4). Note that you do not have to utilise your unit as soon as they arrive, you just want to get the lowest result possible so they're ready asap. This means that there is 5/9 chance that your unit is ready on turn 2, 3/9 chance that your unit is ready on turn 3, and a 1/9 chance that your unit is ready on turn 4. Units incoming from reserves take (D6 - 3) X (10% of the number of models in the unit) number of hits when they enter from reserves.

So why are you fundamentally changing the wounds of normal models for a change in reserve? I don't understand.

The wounds aren't changing in accordance with changes in reserves rules, the wounds were changed to offset other changes made to the system. That info is there to show you that even if you take a wound on the way in from reserves, it doesn't necessarily mean a model will die, even if its just a cheap troops unit.

I don't realy understand what this is supposed to accomplish.

We want to change how reserves work, but we can't come to a consensus on which direction we'd prefer, so we figured we'd open it up and let other people decide between the two.

Option 2 is cool. but i disagree with an extra wound per model.

Rav1rn wrote:
We want to change how reserves work, but we can't come to a consensus on which direction we'd prefer, so we figured we'd open it up and let other people decide between the two.

But why?

I think maybe if I understood the reasoning better, I might be able to respond more appropriately. Is it just because you 'want a change' or is there some compelling reason?

I persoanally would prefer more control over reserves, as having them be as random as they are has never been much fun or made much sense to me. I can't speak for icyfireknights, but i think he wants to prevent people from using reserves to gain advantages without penalty and adhere to realism.

You should explain why the units coming from reserves take wounds in the first place

The realism logic behind them taking damage when coming in from reserves is to show them moving across a larger battlefield to reach the table, and theyre likely to take some fire and damage on their way over. The gameplay logic behind it is to give a penalty to reserves to make sure reserving units to keep them out of harms way isn't as powerful a strategy.

But this gives other unfair advantages, primarily in the arbitrary addition of wounds. For example, with this system, I am massively rewarded for quantity over quality.

A mob of Ork boys is now 60 wounds to deal with, and at their price, the game instantly breaks, as any smart player will be moving nigh-unkillable blobs around the table.

I can't go into all the details in this thread, i know it seems game breaking, but it really isn't due to other changes in the system, our ruleset has gone through a fairly radical overhaul compared to the real ruleset, namely the combination of armor and toughness into one defense value. Things were dying way too fast under our rules, and this was the solution we went with, and its opened up some exciting new possibilities and still equates to kill amounts and ratios similar to normal. If you want all of the information, feel free to read through the new 40K ruleset thread i opened, its quite the read, but thats where the information is.

Rav1rn wrote:
I can't go into all the details in this thread, i know it seems game breaking, but it really isn't due to other changes in the system, our ruleset has gone through a fairly radical overhaul compared to the real ruleset, namely the combination of armor and toughness into one defense value. Things were dying way too fast under our rules, and this was the solution we went with, and its opened up some exciting new possibilities and still equates to kill amounts and ratios similar to normal. If you want all of the information, feel free to read through the new 40K ruleset thread i opened, its quite the read, but thats where the information is.

Okay, look...if your answer to my questions is "I can't go into details" and a seeming unwillingness to explain in plain terms why a change happens, how much of an opinion can I give you? All I can do now is more or less GUESS at this, and is that what you really want?

I can't really try to sum up 15 pages of discussion about rule change in a short and simple way, i dont really want to cover every change like this but ill try to get all the relevant changes down.

--Armor and toughness have been consolidated into one defense value, with AP being dropped as a result
--Value possibilities have been changed from 0-10 to 0-12
--Mobility has been added as a unit stat to determine movement distance, so there are faster and slower units than "standard" at 6"
--WS and BS now have defensive components that you roll off against, so BS rolls off against the targets stealth value, WS rolls off against the targets dexterity value.
--charge and run distances are no longer randomized, and instead are based off of your mobility value.
-- a suppression mechanic has been put in place, such that units taking a certain amount of shooting attacks can be pinned, some weapons have a special rule granting them the ability to make suppression more likely.
-- a universal resolution chart has been established by which all necessary rolls are decided.

Ideas still in development / discussion
-- initiative has been dropped as a stat, but the system replacing it is about 90% finalized
-- an orders system similar to imperial guard has been established to give players more tactical control over the units
-- we're moving away from the current turn system, likely to an alternating phases system, though this isnt finalized
-- ideas about expanding glance effects and crew effects has been introduced and is still very much in development
-- reserves is very much undecided upon
-- increases to wound amounts

And many other ideas im likely forgetting as its very late.

The reason doubling the number of wounds was put into place was that combining armor and toughness into a single stat resulted in units dying far quicker than they should have been, as was expected from such a change, so since we didn't want to go back to having a two stage damage resolution system on infantry, we decided to go this route. There are still bugs and kinks being worked out and decided on, but its lead to some interesting ideas, such as some guns being weaker strength but being able to cause double wounds, having double strength as compared to the targets defense causing double wounds, etc.

Yes we do realize there are many system that have to be changed due to the combination of armor and toughness, such as power weapons, rending, armor penetration, poison, etc, but we've either reached a satisfactory conclusion on these topics, or are still debating them.

But im here asking for help with reserves because we can't reach a consensus on which direction to take the system, so id like to stay focused on that objective rather than getting into all these other details.

The biggest problem I can see is that with the reducing damage for appearing later in the game, those players who like to keep scoring stuff in reserves for ages are hardly affected.

There already is a penalty in 40K for reserving troops: They can't do anything while in reserve. Theoretically, you could get tabled before your reserves came in. Plus with randomness, you have no guarantee of when a unit will actually be able to show up and makes its points back. Older editions had a graduated system (can't remember exact numbers, something like a 4+ on turn 2, 3+ on turn 3, etc.) to determine when reserves came in, you could use something like that if you don't like 6th edition's blanket 3+.