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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut







Call me cynical but people still congaline despite the absense of blasts, for maximal DS denial, optimal unit buff placement, or simlly to string out for multiple objectives.

If anything killed small blasts, it was GW's gradual size creep and base creep, compounded with scatter dice and reroll scatters. Take a unit of 2 Wyverns or (using Forgeworld) a unit of Securitarii Peltasts and watch your opponent hate you. Now, if you were to redo blasts so you roll to-hit each model underneath (instead of scatter), and remove the need to center over a model, you eliminate one of the largest points of argument (arguing angle of scatter), minimize the benefit of maximal spacing (except for reasons independent of AOEs), and let aoes still be aoes (meaning stuff like Tank Shock/Deep Strike/no-consolidate melee withdrawal would still have been relevant).

Considering aoes were removed from whfb, a game that didn't even deal with "spacing issues" (either "Rank and File" or spaced .5" apart if Skirmishers), my hypothesis is GW got rid of them due to not being a repeat sale.
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




I think the prevalence of randomness in 40k in general is GW's lazy attempt at balancing the game. They are either unwilling to do the hard work of creating balance, or have no idea how, so rely on dice rolls to do their work for them. That and they think more dice rolling= more fun.

In 7th your commander's abilities changed every game, and your psykers forgot their powers after every battle; in 8th that was moved to weapons, so now that marine in the turret of your predator is erratic and doesn't know how to operate his weapon correctly.
   
Made in pl
Fixture of Dakka




Maybe it was something simpler, like GW noticed that making templates costs them too much money and earns them too little, and they weren't willing to see different companies make stuff for their games, so they cut it. It may have never even existed as a concious design choice.

If you have to kill, then kill in the best manner. If you slaughter, then slaughter in the best manner. Let one of you sharpen his knife so his animal feels no pain. 
   
Made in us
Willing Inquisitorial Excruciator




Karol wrote:
Maybe it was something simpler, like GW noticed that making templates costs them too much money and earns them too little, and they weren't willing to see different companies make stuff for their games, so they cut it. It may have never even existed as a concious design choice.


I bet it's for two reasons.

1. Time saving, no one has to figure out how to place templates and where they scatter, etc.
2. You also don't have to spend time moving your squads so that everything is perfectly placed to minimize damage from template weapons.
   
Made in fr
Longtime Dakkanaut






Ice_can wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:

While I agree that more weapons should scale with their target like Demolisher Cannon does (more shots if 5+ models in target unit), I don't see how your flamer argument makes sense. The flamethrower spreads some fire around because of how it's wielded, not because of how it works. If you want to focus on some thing, like a monster or a character, and bathe it in flames until it stops moving instead of showering those flames around over as many targets as possible, it absolutely makes sense that it takes more hits from that. Things don't suddenly become resistant to heat and walk through the rest of the raging firestorm around them when they get a bit singed.

The old rules with only single hits and and damage with fiddly plastic bits were vastly inferior as a core engine for a game like this and I for one am glad they are gone. That does not mean the current values for weapons are necessarily correct, for an example flamers could do with a significant price reduction to reflect their restricted usefulness.


Because roasting something to death makes sence if it has exposed flesh or a requirement to breath. Most of the 40k universe especially dreadnaughts, terminators, powerarmour, Tau suits vehicals are full inclosed pressurised environmental suits, if they can protect their use from solar radiation, thermal sheer and vacuum some fire really shouldn't effect them.


Most things in the game have parts to be exposed or breathing apparatuses that absolutely will get destroyed by being bathed in napalm, or whatever we want to use as an analogy for promethium. The thing with clingy, flaming liquids is that they are pretty darn effective in finding their way to all the places you'd not want them to. Let's not pretend flame throwers in grimdark scifi future just spew flaming gasses to singe the target's surface and not, say, coat them in burning acid glob of viral doom that might as well eat through steel. The point is that most battlegrade envirosuits wouldn't deal too well with prolonged direct exposure to heat like that when sealants begin to burn, outer parts like pipes catch flames and what not. Well placed fire bombs, or simply getting fire EVERYWHERE, are very effective against vehicles too, so why not a more fragile battlesuit?

The main point here is that I find it ludicrous that you couldn't concentrate all fire on something to kill it, as next to nothing you'd meet on a battlefield likes such temperatures. This is especially true when we consider the abstract nature of 40k as a game.

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Made in us
Stoic Grail Knight






Yendor

As someone who has played a bit of Bolt Action, Flamethrowers are a super weapon in that game.

In Bolt Action, Flamethrowers do d6 hits (similar there), but they wound most things in the game on a 3, and can penatrate all but the heaviest tanks. They also deal d3+1 pins (which is a lot), and any unit that gets hit must take a moral check. They are reigned in a bit by only having 6 inch range, but they are death incarnate for basically anything they close in on and pass their 3+ to hit.

Flamethrowers probably aren't the same death machines in 40K that they are to generally lightly armored WW2 soldiers and vehicles, however I think the moral elements of flamethrowers would be a good addition to 40k. I think any unit that takes a hit from a Flamethrower should suffer -3 leadership for the rest of the player turn. This would give effect to the terror of being wreathed in flames, and makes even elite troops more likely to fail moral at the end of turn (but not guaranteed).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/06/25 15:01:16


Xom finds this thread hilarious!

My 5th Edition Eldar Tactica (not updated for 6th, historical purposes only) Walking the Path of the Eldar 
   
Made in us
Screaming Shining Spear





USA

We are trying to playtest a simpler 2nd edition ruleset with lots of 3rd and 8th touches.

My idea for templates work like this.

The premise of getting rid of templates is a solid one to speed up game play and model placement/movement.

The randomness has been complained about from all corners from aesthetics to poor BS armies hating it.

So KEEP the templates. But make it like this.

All Blast Templates have a Center. A center over a model = 1 hit. Then add 1 more hit to the unit for each 1". So a 1" =2 hits, 1.5" =3 hits, 2" =3 hits and 3" = 4 hits. No more and no less but only 1 hit per location/ infantry model. ofc there is still deviation and scatter on a miss. If you manage to catch any model (s) then that unit (s) is still hit, but if nothing is under the center then there will be 1 less 'hit'
So bunching up your units and quick movement in groups wont be penalized very often. And it allows for models not under the template to still take damage if part of the unit.

Since I am using 2nd ed Datafaxes and locations the 1.5 vs 2" does come into play for targeting location. Not sure how to translate it to 8th ed.

We are planning to do 3 hits on a unit with a flamer and 5 hits with a heavy flamer. (this is if you can just hit 1 model) ofc there are no rolls for partials....we just assume if the unit is hit then that is the number of hits. If the template misses and scatters it may hit that unit or another and do 1 less damage.....so BS poor armies can still load up on templates.

 koooaei wrote:
We are rolling so many dice to have less time to realise that there is not much else to the game other than rolling so many dice.
 
   
Made in gb
Norn Queen






No, removing Scatter was good and done for a good reason.

Ideally, you'd want to make old blast weapons D4+2, but that won't ever happen, so instead make them all 2D3 instead. GW could even release a special D9 barrel dice to make it easier.

Flamer style weapons should be 2D3 as well.
   
 
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