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I guess my main dislike is the squadron rules. The wound thing sux but I don't mind it s'much. We will see what 6th has to offer in about 7 months. Maybe good, maybe not but hopefully will fix alota probs.

Panzerboy26 wrote:
I don't think swinging the game in favor of death-star hyper-elite units is any better than swinging it in favor of spam. The remedy for your chaos being able to take on Venom Spam is, sadly, a better chaos book. It's the oldest book in 40k now, and it sorely needs to be re-written. I promise the 3rd ed Chaos book would have little problem taking down venom spam.

Except Black Templars, Eldar and Tau are all older than the current Chaos Codex.

Billagio wrote:The only thing I dislike is wound allocation.

Which is far, far better than 4th, when the Sarge and melta gun never, ever died, unless you got lucky with Torrent.

Billagio wrote:Edit: also go back to victory points instead of kill points

No. Just No. As long as we have Objective missions there has to be SOME reason NOT to take 6 troops choices all the time, every time. Razor / Venom spam has a 2/3rd advantage in missions, at least give Elite armies SOME hope, yes?

VPs encouraged MSU in 4th, objectives does this even more.

To those complaining that one guy being seen can cause the whole squad to take casualties - you do realise thats actually quite realistic, yes? You dont see one guy and only try to kill him - you work out that there is a good chance that tehre are more people you cant quite see, so you shoot your guns at the wall that doesnt really provide that much protection....

nosferatu1001 wrote:

Billagio wrote:

Billagio wrote:Edit: also go back to victory points instead of kill points

No. Just No. As long as we have Objective missions there has to be SOME reason NOT to take 6 troops choices all the time, every time. Razor / Venom spam has a 2/3rd advantage in missions, at least give Elite armies SOME hope, yes?

VPs encouraged MSU in 4th, objectives does this even more.

I think having both VP and KP as standard rollable missions could help this a bit.

There are a lot of problems with 5th.

TLOS is a terrible game mechanic, although the problem isn't necessarily the rules, it's the over-reliance on them by players (and tournament organizers). Just like people over-emphasized area terrain in 4th, people over-emphasize TLOS rules in 5th. Both create problems.

Wound Allocation is better than 4th ed's "torrent" rules, but it still has it's potential for abuse. The main problem, I think, is that all wounds from all types of firearms are allocated together - allowing you to put 3 meltagun hits on Marine #1 and 2 lasgun hits on Marine #2, vastly increasing #2's survivability.

Cover rules suffer first from the ubiquitousness of 4+ saves and second from the "I can see 1 guy, I can shoot them all" rule. The first is, like LOS rules, a problem of player interpretation. There's no reason why a wheat field should give a 4+ cover (surely 5+ at best) when a wall gives the same.

4th ed.'s distinction between visible and unseen models was superior, IMO, to the current rules for partially-visible units.

5th ed's combined vehicle damage table is an improvement over previous editions, but it brings with it other problems that people have detailed above, particularly the transition to parking-lot battles.

Ultimately, I think the problems with 5th are not so much in the rules but in how the rules have been used for tournament play, which become the standard. The scenarios in the book aren't the only ones you can use, but they're the most widely used in tournaments and become the default. 4+ cover saves and TLOS aren't the only rules for cover and LOS, but have become standardized.

Another problem with 5th is the 5th ed. codices. They have not been consistently written, suffer from clear power creep and army favoritism, and in general have reduced the balance that was (at least somewhat) present in 4th.

Mannahnin wrote:The main complaint I ever see about 5th is how the wound allocation rules work, and how they produce unrealistic and dumb outcomes. Like if I have a squad of three marines all with different equipment, and you're shooting at them with a squad if IG armed with 3 meltaguns and a bunch of lasguns, you're better off NOT shooting the lasguns. Because if you do, and inflict any wounds with them, I can use those to help me dump off multiple melta wounds onto a single model.

Yeah, this is kinda dumb, but fifth edition in general is rather nice.

biccat wrote:TLOS is a terrible game mechanic, although the problem isn't necessarily the rules, it's the over-reliance on them by players (and tournament organizers). Just like people over-emphasized area terrain in 4th, people over-emphasize TLOS rules in 5th. Both create problems.

Cover rules suffer first from the ubiquitousness of 4+ saves and second from the "I can see 1 guy, I can shoot them all" rule. The first is, like LOS rules, a problem of player interpretation. There's no reason why a wheat field should give a 4+ cover (surely 5+ at best) when a wall gives the same.

These are both player's interpretations of the rule set and not the actual ruleset. The cover rules actually give wheat fields less cover than a 4+. In fact, they give it a 5+.

4th ed.'s distinction between visible and unseen models was superior, IMO, to the current rules for partially-visible units.

Another problem with 5th is the 5th ed. codices. They have not been consistently written, suffer from clear power creep and army favoritism, and in general have reduced the balance that was (at least somewhat) present in 4th.

Ahh, how memory twists things. 40k has never been balanced and codexes have rarely been consistent. To say that 5th edition codexes are suddenly changing the playing field is a little crazy. Each edition has had the OTT army that managed to be ahead of everyone else based on some part of the rules or their codex. That's just the way of it.

Intersting that nobody has really talked about the generality of assault v shooting. It is sort of covered by the business about sweeping advances.

I have not played for years and I am struck by how much more effective a strong assault unit is compared to a strong firing unit. The ability to destroy any number of enemy models via a sweeping advance means that a decent assault unit can obliterate enemy units in terrifying short order. So in theory one hero (say a marine captain) can single-handedly slaughter 30 nid gaunts, 20 Eldar guardians, firewarriors, etc, etc in seconds with hand to hand weapons. They cannot escape. Surely a test per model would be much more logical than the current one roll and they are all dead.

So one powerful character can kill 30 gaunts, say, in one go but a 10 man marine squad firing ultra-high tech bolters at the same unit is highly unlikely to kill them all. Which is more realisitic, storm of deadly bolt shells ripping apart weakling lightly armoured enemies or single person armed with a hand weapon manages to kill the entire lot in micro-seconds in hand-to-hand?

So the way I see it 5th ed promotes low tech smacking things with swords rather than the profusion of high-tech shooting weapons. Personally if I was in power armour I'd rather get clouted with a sword than shot with a melta gun!

All game sof 40k seem to be about getting to physical grips with the enemy. Most opponents (except Tau!) close quickly and try to engage in assaults. There are profuse numbers of assault-only units. This seems odd that there are loads of guys armed with swords on battlefields swarming with massive, utterly deadly guns.

nosferatu1001 wrote:

No. Just No. As long as we have Objective missions there has to be SOME reason NOT to take 6 troops choices all the time, every time. Razor / Venom spam has a 2/3rd advantage in missions, at least give Elite armies SOME hope, yes?

One will notice that many of these min/max MSU armies *ARE* elite armies, they often have very low model counts, just higher unit counts. In Capture and Control missions, unit count really won't make a huge difference. Likewise in 3 objective Seize Ground missions. If you have even a halfway decent unit count (double digits) and 3-4 troops units, 4 objectives shouldn't be an issue either at most tournament points levels (1750-2000). It's really only 5 objective sieze ground missions where it becomes an issue. KP's aren't needed to be a crutch for Nob Biker and Draigowing armies.

As is, KP are an awful mechanic, they are at best a hamfisted crutch (if they were actually intended for balance reasons at all as opposed to easier victory calculation), and at worst simple laziness on the part of the game designers holding rather low opinions of players intelligence.


Any mechanic where a squad of grots, a landed drop pod, or a single sentinel is worth as much towards victory as the destruction of a Land Raider, a squadron of Leman Russ tanks, or the death of Abaddon the Despoiler is poor game design, especially for a mission where it's stated intent in the rulebook is all about inflicting more damage to the enemy force than one takes in return, and one can in fact lose *hard* with a relatively intact force and a nearly wiped out opponent.

Isengard wrote:So one powerful character can kill 30 gaunts, say, in one go but a 10 man marine squad firing ultra-high tech bolters at the same unit is highly unlikely to kill them all. Which is more realisitic, storm of deadly bolt shells ripping apart weakling lightly armoured enemies or single person armed with a hand weapon manages to kill the entire lot in micro-seconds in hand-to-hand?

Hmm. Let's look at this. Who's a beat-stick character? Okay, 30 Gaunts.

Draigo, 6 Attacks on the charge. Hits on 3's, 4 hits. Wounds on 2's. 10/3 wound. 3 1/3 dead gaunts. Swings back. 26 Attacks. Hit on 4's. 13 hits. Wound on 6's. 13/3 wounds. 13/18 failed saves, so basically unlikely. 3 more dead gaunts to No Retreat probably. Ooh, 6 whole gaunts.

10 Marines. Double tap. 20 shots. 40/3 hit. 80/9 wound. 8.88 dead gaunts. 4.44 if in cover.

Neither is about to kill a whole squad of gaunts.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Heck, Abaddon. 7.5 Attacks on the charge. 5 Hit. 4 1/6 dead. So 8 1/3 after no retreat.

pretre wrote:

Isengard wrote:So one powerful character can kill 30 gaunts, say, in one go but a 10 man marine squad firing ultra-high tech bolters at the same unit is highly unlikely to kill them all. Which is more realisitic, storm of deadly bolt shells ripping apart weakling lightly armoured enemies or single person armed with a hand weapon manages to kill the entire lot in micro-seconds in hand-to-hand?

Hmm. Let's look at this. Who's a beat-stick character? Okay, 30 Gaunts.

Draigo, 6 Attacks on the charge. Hits on 3's, 4 hits. Wounds on 2's. 10/3 wound. 3 1/3 dead gaunts. Swings back. 26 Attacks. Hit on 4's. 13 hits. Wound on 6's. 13/3 wounds. 13/18 failed saves, so basically unlikely. 3 more dead gaunts to No Retreat probably. Ooh, 6 whole gaunts.

That assumes they're within Synapse, and thus, the presence of another unit in the equation.

pretre wrote:

Isengard wrote:So one powerful character can kill 30 gaunts, say, in one go but a 10 man marine squad firing ultra-high tech bolters at the same unit is highly unlikely to kill them all. Which is more realisitic, storm of deadly bolt shells ripping apart weakling lightly armoured enemies or single person armed with a hand weapon manages to kill the entire lot in micro-seconds in hand-to-hand?

Hmm. Let's look at this. Who's a beat-stick character? Okay, 30 Gaunts.

Draigo, 6 Attacks on the charge. Hits on 3's, 4 hits. Wounds on 2's. 10/3 wound. 3 1/3 dead gaunts. Swings back. 26 Attacks. Hit on 4's. 13 hits. Wound on 6's. 13/3 wounds. 13/18 failed saves, so basically unlikely. 3 more dead gaunts to No Retreat probably. Ooh, 6 whole gaunts.

Except gaunts aren't fearless, so rather than 3 no-retreat wounds, they take a Ld test at -3, and with a base Ld of 6, they're probably running. And while Draigo is wearing termie armour and can't chase them, dante, or any number of others, could, with a +3 on the initiative roll-off (I6 to I4, and winning on ties). So, yes, a single powerful character can kill 30 gaunts in one go.

30 Gaunts - 150

Draigo - 275

I think we can safely assume that anything worth almost twice as much as something else will be better than it.

Heck, give me a 270 point tac squad and I'll make that gaunt squad disappear.

And a Prime would be 80 points and hold Draigo or Abaddon there for 3-4 phases.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Redbeard wrote:Except gaunts aren't fearless, so rather than 3 no-retreat wounds, they take a Ld test at -3, and with a base Ld of 6, they're probably running. And while Draigo is wearing termie armour and can't chase them, dante, or any number of others, could, with a +3 on the initiative roll-off (I6 to I4, and winning on ties). So, yes, a single powerful character can kill 30 gaunts in one go.

How often do your gaunts chill outside of synapse?

I think it's mostly about the terrain rules. They made it harder to get cover (now a little shrub gives a 5+, as opposed to probably giving nothing in 4th) back then.

I never knew 4th, so I have no idea how much better it was though.

pretre wrote:
How often do your gaunts chill outside of synapse?

If the synapse creatures are killed or they're sitting on a far objective or something. It happens.

pretre wrote:

biccat wrote:Another problem with 5th is the 5th ed. codices. They have not been consistently written, suffer from clear power creep and army favoritism, and in general have reduced the balance that was (at least somewhat) present in 4th.

Ahh, how memory twists things. 40k has never been balanced and codexes have rarely been consistent. To say that 5th edition codexes are suddenly changing the playing field is a little crazy. Each edition has had the OTT army that managed to be ahead of everyone else based on some part of the rules or their codex. That's just the way of it.

No, I very much recall getting stomped by 1st turn assaulting Blood Angels in 3rd. And I recall the invincible Eldar skimmers in 4th. And I faced more than a few basilisk + DP + 10 CSM after the 3.5 codex.

However, these armies were thematic and nowhere near the unbalanced mess that 5th has become. 3rd & 4th had their problems (ignoring 2nd since it was a decidedly different game), but were certainly more balanced than 5th.

biccat wrote:However, these armies were thematic and nowhere near the unbalanced mess that 5th has become. 3rd & 4th had their problems (ignoring 2nd since it was a decidedly different game), but were certainly more balanced than 5th.

Oh come on. Rhino rush 1st turn charge with sweeping advance or consolidation into the next squad was more balanced and 'thematic'? Obliteration of entire squads with ordnance weapons or entanglement was more balanced and thematic? How are the army lists less thematic than previous editions?

I just don't buy it.

Vaktathi - sorry, MSU are elite? What?

Razorback spam armies are not elite armies. 6 x 5 marines in razorbacks is not elite. 6 x warrior squads with 3xtrueborn squads in 9 venoms is NOT "elite"

As for the "balance" in 4th? Complete crap. Eldar broke the damn game, after chaos annoyed everything, and 3rd ed rhino rush? Sorry, what "balance" are you talking about? 40k doesnt DO balance!

Also, given assault is supposedly so more powerful than shooting, why are the top armies pure shooty, in essence? GK spam psyback, BA plasback, SW plasback, venomspam. Entire armies who tend to avoid assault as long as possible. The assault rules are one of the best bits of 5th - finally combats dont last 7 phases, until one side finally fails a Ld8 test (outnumbered 2:1, below 50%)

nosferatu1001 wrote:Also, given assault is supposedly so more powerful than shooting, why are the top armies pure shooty, in essence? GK spam psyback, BA plasback, SW plasback, venomspam. Entire armies who tend to avoid assault as long as possible. The assault rules are one of the best bits of 5th - finally combats dont last 7 phases, until one side finally fails a Ld8 test (outnumbered 2:1, below 50%)

This and this. God I hated how assault used to be a grindfest.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Vaktathi - sorry, MSU are elite? What?

Razorback spam armies are not elite armies. 6 x 5 marines in razorbacks is not elite. 6 x warrior squads with 3xtrueborn squads in 9 venoms is NOT "elite"

What do you consider "elite"? Low-model count high impact armies or just high points costs units? Playing a 1750-2000pt game with only 40somethign models as many MSU MEQ armies do is something that most people wouldn't generally consider them to be horde armies.

Panzerboy26 wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:
I agree with most of your post, but I've got to reply to the three points above.

- Kill Points are something I hated at first. Your example shows they can be utterly ridiculous. However, they are the single penalizing factor for MSU spam armies. My fairly standard Chaos Marine army only stands a ghost of a chance against a venom/trueborn spam DE army, but with Kill Points I at least have the possibility of doing okay.

- Reserves keep the game steady and mobile. An all-reserves army is annoying to fight, I agree, but outflanking units add a lot to the game.

- Random game length isn't a bad thing. First of all, it mitigates the last-turn skimmer jump. You know, the classic Eldar maneuver where they have all their falcons, jetbikes, or what have you move flat out/turbo boost/whatever onto every objective. It prevents this kind of late game dickery. Also, it means you'll take some risks. If it's the bottom of turn 6, and your guardsmen are holding an objective, do you risk running out to blow up that land raider and save it, or do you just hunker down and hope the game ends at the end of this turn? It's less predictable and more dynamic.

I don't think swinging the game in favor of death-star hyper-elite units is any better than swinging it in favor of spam. The remedy for your chaos being able to take on Venom Spam is, sadly, a better chaos book. It's the oldest book in 40k now, and it sorely needs to be re-written. I promise the 3rd ed Chaos book would have little problem taking down venom spam.

I have no problem with things outflanking, as that requires units to have special rules in order to do it. You can't simply decide to outflank your entire army on a whim (well, most can't). You can, however, decide to start with nothing deployed, and just roll on the table. This means that turn 1, nothing happens. Not really. The other players moves around a bit, and waits for the other player to show up. Combined with Random Game length, it means that a game can 'start' on turn 2, and end on turn 5. It's a wet dream for point-denial players.

I bolded the part where you confused Chaos and Tau.

I italicized the part where the guy who does that deserves the kroot konga line.

KplKeegan wrote:

DoctorZombie wrote: On BoLS the other day, one of the articles I read that people complain about 5th edition. I came in on 5th, and i find the game system to be easy to learn, and I think the rules are pretty good.
What are the "complaints" about 5th ed.? I've never really seen this.

It's all a matter of perspective. Different people, different complaints.

The only things I'm not estatic about is the survivability of Deep Striking Units via Mishap. A one-third chance that the unit gets killed on mishap is way too shallow and doesn't involve that much risk anymore.

Secondly is the lack of an Auspex USR to detect Outflanking or Deep Striking Units. Again, there's too much cushioning for Reserved units.

I'm actually on the opposite side of the fence about this. I find it absolutely ridiculous that, in the year 40,000, the teleportation capabilities of every race, including the two most advanced militaries (Eldar and Necrons) are such that they have a chance of simply dying. Teleportation is one of those things that you don't mess with unless you have it down pat, although it sort of fits with the general recklessness of the many species in the galaxy. Dropping in via Jump Pack/Drop Pod is a bit more risky due to variances in wind speed, possible mishaps with landings, etc.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Panzerboy26 wrote:
I don't think swinging the game in favor of death-star hyper-elite units is any better than swinging it in favor of spam. The remedy for your chaos being able to take on Venom Spam is, sadly, a better chaos book. It's the oldest book in 40k now, and it sorely needs to be re-written. I promise the 3rd ed Chaos book would have little problem taking down venom spam.

Except Black Templars, Eldar and Tau are all older than the current Chaos Codex.

Apologies, I meant weakest. Those other books have plenty of options for handling venom spam, and even the 5th ed meta in general.

Panzerboy26 wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Panzerboy26 wrote:
I don't think swinging the game in favor of death-star hyper-elite units is any better than swinging it in favor of spam. The remedy for your chaos being able to take on Venom Spam is, sadly, a better chaos book. It's the oldest book in 40k now, and it sorely needs to be re-written. I promise the 3rd ed Chaos book would have little problem taking down venom spam.

Except Black Templars, Eldar and Tau are all older than the current Chaos Codex.

Apologies, I meant weakest. Those other books have plenty of options for handling venom spam, and even the 5th ed meta in general.

Well I wouldn't say plenty of options, tau have two: Railguns, Crisis suits.

im2randomghgh wrote:

Panzerboy26 wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Panzerboy26 wrote:
I don't think swinging the game in favor of death-star hyper-elite units is any better than swinging it in favor of spam. The remedy for your chaos being able to take on Venom Spam is, sadly, a better chaos book. It's the oldest book in 40k now, and it sorely needs to be re-written. I promise the 3rd ed Chaos book would have little problem taking down venom spam.

Except Black Templars, Eldar and Tau are all older than the current Chaos Codex.

Apologies, I meant weakest. Those other books have plenty of options for handling venom spam, and even the 5th ed meta in general.

Well I wouldn't say plenty of options, tau have two: Railguns, Crisis suits.

And that's more than the Chaos book has? Once they are de-meched and Ravagers have popped all of the oblits, it's pretty much over.

Tau have shield-drones and disruption pods to keep them in the fight long enough to knock a fair number of venoms out of the sky.

nosferatu1001 wrote:No. Just No. As long as we have Objective missions there has to be SOME reason NOT to take 6 troops choices all the time, every time. Razor / Venom spam has a 2/3rd advantage in missions, at least give Elite armies SOME hope, yes?

Go back to the old way where anybody can capture objectives. I mean, it's pretty silly that the game needs even more artificial reasons to make people take troop choices, while simultaneously promoting the use of special characters and vehicles. If they want people to take Troops, go back to requiring a certain percentage of points, or re-do the FOC to be more layered, and force more troops.

In all honesty, 5th Edition of 40k at my gaming club was pretty much fine for most of its run. Sure, Tau had a slightly harder time but, generally speaking we could pretty much self regulate it. Mech Spam simply just didn't happen for whatever reason. I guess you could say we played it the way the writers envisioned. In a gaming club, with a bar downstairs with a bunch of mates.

That changed recently though, and I'm going to have to point the finger at Grey Knights and to a lesser extent Space Wolves.

The Space Wolves started it off really, I think it was due to the counter attack combined with Furious Charge (? - The one that was FAQed one way, then reversed), and possibly a little bit of the long fangs. Plus the 'better but cheaper' tactical squads. That started turning opinions sour.

Then grey knights hit and self regulation just failed entirely. Everything from psychotroke grenades to initiative 6 power weapons to purifiers to psyrifle dreads just cause people to abandon the game entirely and flock to other systems.

I just dunno what's going to fix it, to be honest.

Panzerboy26 wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:

Panzerboy26 wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Panzerboy26 wrote:
I don't think swinging the game in favor of death-star hyper-elite units is any better than swinging it in favor of spam. The remedy for your chaos being able to take on Venom Spam is, sadly, a better chaos book. It's the oldest book in 40k now, and it sorely needs to be re-written. I promise the 3rd ed Chaos book would have little problem taking down venom spam.

Except Black Templars, Eldar and Tau are all older than the current Chaos Codex.

Apologies, I meant weakest. Those other books have plenty of options for handling venom spam, and even the 5th ed meta in general.

Well I wouldn't say plenty of options, tau have two: Railguns, Crisis suits.

And that's more than the Chaos book has? Once they are de-meched and Ravagers have popped all of the oblits, it's pretty much over.

Tau have shield-drones and disruption pods to keep them in the fight long enough to knock a fair number of venoms out of the sky.

Id say any gun str 4 or higher is an "option", venoms arent exactly flying landraiders.

My main issue is with vehicles.

When shooting at them, your hit-rate is determined entirely by how good of a shot you are, and not modified by how fast the vehicle moved.
In close combat, your hit-rate is determined entirely by how fast the vehicle moved, and not modified by how good of a fighter your are.


Both TLOS and Wound Allocation are fine by me. Especially Wound Allocation is IMO preferred to the Torrent of Fire rule, and certainly to the old "My heavy/special/sergeant are never ever hit".

Steelmage99 wrote:
Both TLOS and Wound Allocation are fine by me. Especially Wound Allocation is IMO preferred to the Torrent of Fire rule, and certainly to the old "My heavy/special/sergeant are never ever hit".

Except when it's then used to keep them alive where under the old system they'd be dead, resulting from instances where wounds of different AP are applied and the situation develops where more shooting actually results in fewer casualties.