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Lanrak wrote:HI all.
I may have lost where we are, and what Skinnattittar was proposing.
Is the proposed 'Rapid fire' weapon options to have 3 fire modes.
Heavy 1 max range,(bolters 24")
Heavy 2 , half range ,(bolters 12")
Assault 1, half range ,(bolters 12")
Is this right ?
TTFN
Lanrak.

Essentially, yes.

My reasoning is generally just because it makes sense, adds more tactics/counter assault, and is fun (in my opinion at least). The only reasons I have seen against it have been "because I don't want it that way" or "just give them pistols." One of those is stupid, the other impractical and will cause other complications. That's just my opinion though.

sounds sound.
SM, humanites greatest defenders, should be able to shoot and assault.
That's all the do in the books

I played 3rd ed.

Armies were divided into two groups

1. Set up and shoot

2. set up, race across the board and get into assault.


That was it, every game was a line up and race across the board affair. Shooting armies never moved, ever and it made more sense for marines to assault than shoot (assault was 3 attacks, 1 attack standard, 1 charge attack and 1 shot. Shotting was 1 and maybe even 2 attacks in a really rare situation where the enemy actually moved to within 12" of you but couldn't assault)

Switching the actual 2 shot rapid fire from heavy to being on the move meant that suddenly shooting armies could maneouver and be agressive. Marines could roll up or drop down and double-tap their bolters rather than being played as either a static force or a pure assault force.

The change in rapid fire rules opened up the game and led directly to the present situation in 5th wherein mobile firepower is a massive advantage.

To distinguish rapid fire from assault it was decided that having double tapped rapid fring units could not charge. This forced a tactical decision for most units in the game, shoot twice or try and assault. Obviously what you want to do depends on your army. Tau and Crons want to doubletap, marines probably want to assault.

If the designers want marines to also be able to loose a shot then they would give them pistols.

Oh wait, they did.


A return to the 3rd ed rapid fire rules would wreck the game. They are terrible, terrible rules.

bravelybravesirrobin wrote:I played 3rd ed.
Armies were divided into two groups
1. Set up and shoot
2. set up, race across the board and get into assault.

And 9/10 of the time that is still the way many people play 40k. Mostly because non-assault based armies are highly tuned to be unable to assault at all, which is rather boring and pathetic, really.

bravelybravesirrobin wrote:If the designers want marines to also be able to loose a shot then they would give them pistols.
A return to the 3rd ed rapid fire rules would wreck the game. They are terrible, terrible rules.

Then you should know that 3rd Edition Rapid Fire was not what made 3rd Edition unpleasant, but just about everything else. Using "if the game designers...." excuse doesn't work. They are not gods and constantly make mistakes (and by constantly, I mean always). Be it as small as poor rules grammar or as big a deal as Deff Rollas. Even if they were gods, most gods are jerks and make constant mistakes too, just look at Zeus, he could NOT stop sleeping with people who weren't his wife! And he was king of the gods!

I am not disallowing mobile shooting, and I do not think this will hurt shooting armies in the way you are suggesting. Moving then single tapping your weapon gives you fewer shots in the long run, yes, but it denies your opponent important assault attacks from charging and slows assault armies down by holding them back longer, by denying their assault move. It also increases the likely hood that the shooting player will have better control over the other aspects of the assault, such as leadership availability. It increases the chance that the assault will end in your opponent's turn, rather than during your next assault phase, giving your opponent the Assault Shield Clause.

My constant objective is to balance shooting armies with assault armies. The current problem with achieving that is tournaments. In a casual game, its not hard to tailor a shooting army to your opponent's assault army, but making a list of the shooting armies that will work in tournaments is damn near impossible (how many IG or Tau players have you heard of winning GTs in the last ten years?)!

Skinnattittar wrote:

bravelybravesirrobin wrote:I played 3rd ed.
Armies were divided into two groups
1. Set up and shoot
2. set up, race across the board and get into assault.

And 9/10 of the time that is still the way many people play 40k. Mostly because non-assault based armies are highly tuned to be unable to assault at all, which is rather boring and pathetic, really.

I completely disagree here.

In 3rd for many armies your shooty option was Sit and Fire Hell. Deploy and then roll dice. Guard, vanilla marines and some chaos builds (Iron Warriors) had no option to play other than this. The only shooty armies with any kind of mobility were Eldar, Tau (due to short range on crisis suits but the fire warriors were essentially a static firebase) and necrons (using the phalanx strategy of alternating static firebases)

In 5th many of the best shooting armies have a degree of dimensionality and movement to them unheard of in third. Guard are a top tier army (and won Ardboyz admittedly with quite a static list) and make frequent use of mobile shooting elements in the valkyrie/vendetta, mechvets, hellhound variants, etc.

Orks, Sisters, Marines, Chaos, Tau, Necrons, Eldar, Dark Eldar and Guard all make use of mobile shooting elements far more frequently than they did in 3rd ed. Basic troops form a core part of this strategy for many armies (Guard and Sisters in particular).


For me my main argument is that you'd be disallowing the use of shooting based troops in an agressive manner.

With the present rapid fire rules it is possible to advance troops to a position and then rapid fire with them. This allows a troop unit built around their rapid fire gun to be used actively. There are tons of examples of this kind of action in the modern game, fish of fury, Sisters or Grey Hunters rushing up in rhinos deploying and double tapping into an army, drop podding and rapid firing with a unit like Grey Hunters or Sternguard, etc.

All of this is gone.

Instead these troops all revert to a more passive role. To use Sisters effectively now they have to be standing completely still. Whereas before you could sweep in and lay down the hurt now you have to hope that enemy elects to move into rapid fire range of your girls. And good luck positioning units so multiple squads can focus fire on one enemy under your proposed system, that's how Tau firewarriors accomplish anything but now you'd have to hope your enemy is stupid enough to try and move into a killzone you set up rather than using your own troops actively.

Said troops switch from active to passive, they just become sit and shoot firebases again.

You say you are not disallowing mobility but the fact is you are. 1 shot doesn't cut it even if the charge is allowed afterwards. Not for Tau, or Sisters or Necrons.

Ah..but for marines or guard it would be great! Consider this.

12" guard can rapid fire for 2 str 3 bs 3 shots or shoot then charge for a bs 3 str 3 and 3 bs 3 str 3 attacks. In most circumstances the guard would be better off charging since they would reduce enemy attacks and increase their own.

Marines are the same at 12" they can have 2 bs4 str 4 shots or they can have 1 bs 4 str 4 shot and 2 ws4 str 4 attacks and deny the enemy attacks. Why even bother bolters anymore?

Congratulations, rather than making assault weaker you just made it a better choice for guard and marines.

But lets look at Tau, they could trade 2 str 5 shots for 1 shot and 2 str 3 ws 2 attacks. They'll always go for the extra shot so all they've gained from your proposal is to switch from an active unit to a reactive one that is more difficult to use. Ditto Sisters, ditto Necrons.

The 3rd ed rapid fire rules make marines and guard better in assault and everyone else worse over all. They encourage troop units to be used as static firebases since they prevent anything except an assault unit from being used agressively. This leads to a dichotomy where shooty aries never move and assault is clearly superior.

Crap rules and whilst not the only problem with 3rd (assaulting from transports was a problem) it was one of the worst rules and one of the best changes in 4th ed.

Tbh i like the current rapid fire rules if rapid fire guns could shoot once and assualt it woul really ruin the specialness of a pistol. I believe that this is the reason pistols cannot shoot twice if standing still now as it kinda made rapid fire not as good... Also i play csm so rapid fire shooting once then assualting is called my pistol/ccw that i get in addition to my bolter