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Once I get these rules close to finalized, I will revisit the codex updates.

I will also address codices that the original ones did not. (Feedback for that is appreciated as well)

The change to Doom of Malantai is unneeded. Whoever made that change seemed to be forgetting that nothing in the game can get rid of a 10 wound Doom any longer.

Its almost the same as it was before, except now it only happens on the Doom's turn. (where before it happened ever turn for 1 wound)

When I get a chance I'll run the statistics on taking 2 3D6 tests and losing 1 wound per point, or taking 1 test and losing 2 wounds per point.

Does change the fact that's unkillable.

Codex Updates:
http://tinyurl.com/6t7bhy5

• Removed Squad leader references
• Corrected some language issues
• Added Black Templars
• Added Necrons

No preferred enemy in shooting and forced movement for Righteous Zeal? Yeah, no. I can live with no PE (although I don't see the problem with having it, give us SOMETHING nice) but how are Black Templars supposed to hold objectives if they have to run forwards? It also creates massive problems with AAC, NMTO. As it is now, you have a chance to move stuff that doesn't want to charge so you can't charge, or fire a heavy weapon. This has to change if the turn sequence changes, because the only unit in the Codex that is actually good at CC is Assault Terminators. Making the entire army charge headlong into the enemy without a chance to dodge completely screws over the only good Vow in the book.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:No preferred enemy in shooting and forced movement for Righteous Zeal? Yeah, no. I can live with no PE (although I don't see the problem with having it, give us SOMETHING nice) but how are Black Templars supposed to hold objectives if they have to run forwards? It also creates massive problems with AAC, NMTO. As it is now, you have a chance to move stuff that doesn't want to charge so you can't charge, or fire a heavy weapon. This has to change if the turn sequence changes, because the only unit in the Codex that is actually good at CC is Assault Terminators. Making the entire army charge headlong into the enemy without a chance to dodge completely screws over the only good Vow in the book.

1) Its my understanding that Righteous Zeal has always been forced movement. Granted previously you could have gotten lucky and rolled a 1, but making it always 3" allows you to claim objectives in such a way that you should be able to limit the times you get pulled off an objective. I'm willing to hear alternative versions of this rule if you ave any ideas. I did make the Crusaders Seal's additional D3" optional though.

2) No PE in shooting. To allow this I would think you would have to modify the points cost. Everything becoming twin linked makes for a very scary shooting phase!!

3) AAC NMTO: Complete;y agree. Sort of an over sight on my part when just re-writing the rule. Would changing AAC,NMTO to "...Must "Engage"(ie 6") the closest enemy." This would still allow the vast majority of your army to stay put and shoot whoever they want, all while maintaining the "get close enough and i'm bound to punch you in the face"

Tapeworm711 wrote:
2) No PE in shooting. To allow this I would think you would have to modify the points cost. Everything becoming twin linked makes for a very scary shooting phase!!

Preferred Enemy is hits on a 3+ (or sometimes 2+).

DarknessEternal wrote:

Tapeworm711 wrote:
2) No PE in shooting. To allow this I would think you would have to modify the points cost. Everything becoming twin linked makes for a very scary shooting phase!!

Preferred Enemy is hits on a 3+ (or sometimes 2+).

That rule was changed in v0.3 to Re-Roll hits in CC and Shooting. The whole "hits on 3's, unless already hits on 3's so now its 2's seems clunkyy.

With Re-Rolls
BS Total To Hit
2 =0.55
3 =0.75
4 =0.88
5 =0.97

With 3's (and sometimes 2's
BS To-Hit
2 =0.66
3 =0.66
4 =0.83
5 =0.83

Its a negligible change in most cases, and its just simpler.

CC this change is aslighly more significant with the advent of 2's and 6's on the table. But again, all of this is up for debate.

The "hits on at 3+/2+" is typically worse than re-rolls. I figured that was intentional reduction of its potency, especially since it now applied to shooting.

We can go back to that. I would however like to remove the "Not against Vehicle restriction" as that seems needlessly restrictive. (also we have already made them easier to hit, msot things will hit on 3's anyway.

So we like this better:

BS4 firing at a Tank = Hitting on 2's
PE BS4 firing at a Tank = Hitting on 2's

BS3 firing at a Tank = Hitting on 3's
PE BS3 firing at a Tank = Hitting on 2's

BS4 firing at a Jink = Hitting on 4's
PE BS4 firing at a Jink = Hitting on 3's

BS3 firing at a Jink = Hitting on 5's
PE BS3 firing at a Jink = Hitting on 3's

BS2 firing at a Jink = 6's
PE BS2 firint at Jink = 3's

It just seems that the rule that way benefits you MORE the crappier your BS was to begin with, Which seems odd to me.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:No preferred enemy in shooting and forced movement for Righteous Zeal? Yeah, no. I can live with no PE (although I don't see the problem with having it, give us SOMETHING nice) but how are Black Templars supposed to hold objectives if they have to run forwards? It also creates massive problems with AAC, NMTO. As it is now, you have a chance to move stuff that doesn't want to charge so you can't charge, or fire a heavy weapon. This has to change if the turn sequence changes, because the only unit in the Codex that is actually good at CC is Assault Terminators. Making the entire army charge headlong into the enemy without a chance to dodge completely screws over the only good Vow in the book.

The preferred enemy change he proposes for BT doesn't change anything by not allowing it for shooting. My copy of the BT codex (yes, it's real-bought it from GW) says that the preferred enemy only exists in CC now anyway. The exact reading is "In close combat, Black Templars units count as having the Preferred Enemy special rule against the enemy army." So even with 6th edition changes allowing PE for shooting, it won't affect BT at all-seems like the 4th edition codex was made with this eventual change in mind...

So, i've played many games and/or presided over them recently. Here is what I came away with:

Most of the rules as they stand in v0.5 work great. The games go by pretty fast, but not too fast. There are a few issues we have found:

All the games we played were the first standard mission (KP + Siege ground), It seems to me that scoring units getting 3 VP (6VP endgame) is a little steep. If an army gets a foothold early and starts scoring on 3 objectives, it can be almost impossible to come back from that. Granted some of this is army design. A reserve based army is going to feel this much more than a foot IG army. That being said, it is a bit limiting on army design if it makes THAT much of a difference.

Also, the lack of intervening models granting a cover save just feels wrong. I know you can enact "Look out, Sarge!", but it feels more cumbersome than it should.

Directed hits just feel more trouble than they are worth. I realize its not hard to keep track of, but as a solution to the wound allocation problem, I just dont see as very good. These days most characters are packing PW and/or rending weapons, so special models are dying left and right. The whole idea of directed hits is to mitigate the fact that they are probably the last to die in most cases. This almost flips it in reverse.


Solutions?!

• Reduce scoring units to 2 VP (4VP endgame). This is still DOUBLE what normal units receive. I have yet to playtest this, but is planned.
• Remove "Look Out, Sarge!" and replace with intervening models/terrain grant 5+ Cover Saves (4+ out of LOS).
• Change wound allocation. Perhaps as follows:

Allocating Wounds:
Units are divided into different armour save groups. (C/C only saves do not count against shooting attacks)

Units owner, selects an armour group to start and allocates as many wounds to that group as it has models (Multiple-wound models count for as many models as they have wounds remaining).

Once all models in the group have a wound assigned, continue with another group in the same manner until all wounds are allocated. If all models have wounds and there are still more remaining wounds, repeat this process until all wounds have been allocated to a model.

Saving Wounds:
If the total number of wounds assigned to a unit is greater than the number of models (count multiple-wound models for as many as they have wounds remaining), the firing unit can force one model in the unit to suffer a wound.

The models owner then selects one wound(from any wound type he chooses) that was assigned to this models group, and rolls its save separately. That model is removed as a casualty if it fails the save.

This is basically a mash-up of 4th and 6th wound rules. It eliminates the LOS and Range sniping of 4th, but also allows for some level of danger to be applied to special models. With this allocation, we could propose the removal of the directed hits rule altogether. This alone could potentially balance the survivability of special weapons.

It also discourages MSU a little most as that unit is more susceptible to Torrent dur to low model count.

Thoughts?

There are enough restrictions on directed fire in shooting in the original pancake edition that you don't really need to rebalance them, even with snipers.

The intervening unit exception nullfies all directed hits if even one model from a different unit blocks los to a model of the target unit (provided the intervening unit has a base and is not a swarm). This makes it really easy to protect high value models, just put them behind your firing line.

Remember that directed hits only apply to unsaved wounds and you can only choose from the armor group that suffered the wound. This means for the most part that, with the right unit composition and size, only a very high saturation of sniper shots are going to end up on your characters. And if you have that many sniper shots going toward one unit it's probably not going to be standing anyway. It does however make it easy for you to take out special weapons models from large groups first, and it also hurts the MSU strategies (the whole ruleset is basically trying to deter you from that route already).

So basically as far as directed hits applies to snipers in pancake edition, the easy counter is just to give them something else to shoot at. Use intervening units and armor group shennanigans to hide your special weapons guys from snipers. If you can't do that much you deserve to lose them.

We've been over directed hits. Nothing you said was new. Nor is it effective in nullifying the stupid rule that existed.

DarknessEternal wrote:We've been over directed hits. Nothing you said was new. Nor is it effective in nullifying the stupid rule that existed.

Exactly. You have the tools to deal with them, and they've been discussed to death. If you're still whining then it's your own fault not the rule's. Adapt or die I say.

When it comes to evasion how about, instead of dropping it completely, we just say the 7 you subtract your bs from to find the number to beat on the die is your evasion. And you'd apply all modifiers to that.

To put that in rulesspeak. To determine if a shooting attack hits its target, roll a d6. If the result of the die roll is equal to the difference between the target's Evasion and the shooting model's Ballistic Skill (that's EV - BS), the shot hits it's target. A roll of 1 always misses and roll of 6 always hits.

Then all you'd have to do is give flyers +3 to their evasion instead of the unmodified 6.

I played a game with v0.5 in preparation for 6th and I must say I really do enjoy this version far more than 5th. If the official 6th edition does not play very close to this version I will be sticking with this Edition.

Keep up the great work.