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I don't like the rule where you have to decide between an armor save or a cover save. Why can't we use both if the cover save fails. If I have Space Marines in cover, and lets say half fail a cover save, shouldn't they get their armor save of a 3+ as well? I don't understand why that is the rule. In a sense, my Space Marines will hardly ever see cover since their armor save is usually better.

Also, should they add a rule that effects your ballistic skill when a target is further away? It may be difficult to implement for regular gun units like Space Marine Bolters or Astra Militarum Lascannons. Maybe after a certain distance raise the D6 roll by one. To hit on a 5+ not a 4+ (Space Marine Skill) and then add one + to a maximum of 6+ every 6 inches after maximum range, or something like that. This way troops with good ballistic skill can shoot farther targets. For Space Marines, that is an extra foot, but harder to hit. However, troops with low ballistic skill will not be albe to shoot as far. Would that be fair? Or if that isn't plausible decrease the amount of dice you roll with your scatter at close range. I don't like rolling 2 scatter dice and missing a target 4 inches away with a rocket launcher. Then, at certain distance intervals the farther you target is, add a scatter dice until you reach maximum range.

Would someone be able to explain why this is the rule, as GW did a phenomenal job with the ruling in general. The distance shooting rule is not as important to me, as that is just merely an idea. It may change the gameplay too much. As the cover and armor save one, which I don't like at all, should be changed, for all armored units.

I prefer cover as a fixed -1 bs, with heavy fortifications giving -2 bs, and do away with cover saves altogether.

For range, I'd like +1 bs at under 12" and -1 bs at over 36". It's an easy fix that makes it easy to hit that huge tank with your meltagun and makes a rapid fire volley truly devastating. At long range this makes it harder for a single heavy weapons perch to easily hit anything on the battlefield.

I'd hope for something along the lines of:

Light Cover -1
Heavy Cover -2
Half Range +1
Small Target -1 (ratlings, grots)
Extremely Bulky Target (including vehicles and MC) +1

Currently it is ridiculous that you stand as much chance of hitting a landraider 1 inch away as you do of hitting a grot 48 inches away.

So taking standard guardsmen vs a landraider in the open 12 inches away would be firing at "effective" BS of 5
Standard guardsmen with lascannon vs a grot in trees 48 inches away would be firing at effective BS of 1.

The problem with getting rid of a cover save altogether in exchange for a reduced ballistic skill is that it doesn't carry over well to everything.

Yes, I like the idea that it's harder to hit, especially when you look at jink cover saves. Sure, when I'm just firing lasguns at you in cover it works. But what happens when a leman russ fires at a ruin that guys are hiding in? Is that -2 BS going to do anything to keep a squad of marines from being wiped out? Without cover, what can anyone do against an armored guard army or against heavy riptide use? Cover needs to do something useful against blasts.

Providing a penalty or bonus to hit based on size or range makes perfect sense to me. Hell, at least a few games do something similar. While not a miniatures game, in Pathfinder and D&D, large creatures get penalties to AC, small creatures get bonuses, and you take penalties to your attack roll when shooting ranged weapons, based on the number of range increments. Obviously, different ruleset in WH40k, but the basic principle should still apply. You shouldn't be able to bullseye a womprat, when you can't hit the broad side of a barn, so to speak.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The cover issue is a little trickier. In real world terms, absolutely, you should get the cover save, to see whether the shot even hits you, and then get the armor save to see whether or not the shot hurt you, if it did hit you. But, in an attempt to streamline play, GW has their whole "you only ever get one save" rule. Of course, they already have an exception to the rule in the form of FNP, so I don't see why they can't make an exception for cover. Honestly, I think cover should stay a save, but they should change the rule so that it's basically "one save per category", so to speak, with the categories basically being:

Did it hit you? (cover)
Did it hurt you? (armor, invul)
Do you care? (feel no pain)

AnFéasógMór wrote:
Did it hit you? (cover)
Did it hurt you? (armor, invul)
Do you care? (feel no pain)

If cover and armor stack, why not cover and invuln? In the case of a terminator carrying a storm shield, you need to see first if the shot gets past the shield, then if it gets past the armor.

To be fair, it's probably a good idea that no two saves stack on each other. Units like Tau stealth suits, which can easily get a 2+ cover save, in addition to having a 3+ armor save? Or even bikes for that matter, with a 3+ cover anywhere they go. Things would just get ridiculously difficult to kill using small arms fire. It'd certainly give me a good reason to run a darkshroud....

Stacking cover saves leaves a big problem with the current set up. It could be done, but the current system would need a drastic reworking.

Like a stealth suit in cover for example
62 shots, 41.3 hits, 6.9 get past cover, 4.6 wound, 1.5 failed armor saves, then 1 gets past FNP.
186 bolters to get through minimum sized squad.

Turns the game into an endurance test, to see who gets tired of rolling first.

I did cover as a to-hit modifier, AP as a modifier to armour saves, and stacking armour/Inv for Aegis; I ended up with a too-slow game where nothing ever died. I'm in the process of reworking the numbers but toning down durability to accompany it is definitely in the cards.

The way cover should work is you roll your cover saves after your opponent rolls their hits. This would decide how many 'hits' were actually soldiers as opposed to the terrain. This is to say if the cover system stayed as it is.

Armor should be rolled after wounds are decided.

Invul should be after armor fails.

I have no idea why FNP should exist at this point, so if we were to do where we get all saves, FNP would need to either be reworked or removed.

But that IS a lot of rolling. I wouldn't mind that much rolling if 40K happened to be a SMALLER game, but with as huge as the games can be, rolling that many dice each turn would get tiresome, even for me. And I LOVE rolling dice. Das why I play da Orks!

I'm not sure how I'd feel about negative BS modifiers. As it is, Orks already have a hard time hitting with ANYTHING. If we had negative mods, we'd be Snapfiring ALL the time. And I'm NOT OK with that. All armies would need to be tweaked to reflect this sort of cover system. While a BS modifier would be cleaner and more effective method, I'd never play a game of 40K with my Orks again until they FAQ'd all the stats or point costs for my units. Hell, I'd rather them send me a new codex with all the updates for no charge. But we all know the odds of that happening

Melevolence wrote:
The way cover should work is you roll your cover saves after your opponent rolls their hits. This would decide how many 'hits' were actually soldiers as opposed to the terrain. This is to say if the cover system stayed as it is.

Armor should be rolled after wounds are decided.

Invul should be after armor fails.

I have no idea why FNP should exist at this point, so if we were to do where we get all saves, FNP would need to either be reworked or removed.

But that IS a lot of rolling. I wouldn't mind that much rolling if 40K happened to be a SMALLER game, but with as huge as the games can be, rolling that many dice each turn would get tiresome, even for me. And I LOVE rolling dice. Das why I play da Orks!

I'm not sure how I'd feel about negative BS modifiers. As it is, Orks already have a hard time hitting with ANYTHING. If we had negative mods, we'd be Snapfiring ALL the time. And I'm NOT OK with that. All armies would need to be tweaked to reflect this sort of cover system. While a BS modifier would be cleaner and more effective method, I'd never play a game of 40K with my Orks again until they FAQ'd all the stats or point costs for my units. Hell, I'd rather them send me a new codex with all the updates for no charge. But we all know the odds of that happening

It would make "to hit" a harder proposition, but would allow your weapons to penetrate the enemy armor a la ignore cover, so heavy weapons are actually worth firing at models in cover.

 TheSilo wrote:

Melevolence wrote:
The way cover should work is you roll your cover saves after your opponent rolls their hits. This would decide how many 'hits' were actually soldiers as opposed to the terrain. This is to say if the cover system stayed as it is.

Armor should be rolled after wounds are decided.

Invul should be after armor fails.

I have no idea why FNP should exist at this point, so if we were to do where we get all saves, FNP would need to either be reworked or removed.

But that IS a lot of rolling. I wouldn't mind that much rolling if 40K happened to be a SMALLER game, but with as huge as the games can be, rolling that many dice each turn would get tiresome, even for me. And I LOVE rolling dice. Das why I play da Orks!

I'm not sure how I'd feel about negative BS modifiers. As it is, Orks already have a hard time hitting with ANYTHING. If we had negative mods, we'd be Snapfiring ALL the time. And I'm NOT OK with that. All armies would need to be tweaked to reflect this sort of cover system. While a BS modifier would be cleaner and more effective method, I'd never play a game of 40K with my Orks again until they FAQ'd all the stats or point costs for my units. Hell, I'd rather them send me a new codex with all the updates for no charge. But we all know the odds of that happening

It would make "to hit" a harder proposition, but would allow your weapons to penetrate the enemy armor a la ignore cover, so heavy weapons are actually worth firing at models in cover.

For other armies...not Orks XD Even Lootas would have the roughest of times hitting. Hell, Lootas wouldn't even be able to hit if the negative mod due to distance took effect as well. Yay 0 BS. >,> Nah, I'll stick with the terrible rules instead of the more streamline rules that make my army PURE close combat :p

In my much more detailed D10 version of this game which I'm still working on, I have these changes among others:

Weapons targeting Flyers have their range reduced by 12" to reflect the fact that the Flyers often are much higher into the air than modelled. On the other hand all units can see all the Flyers all the time reflecting the kind of the same thing that the Flyers mostly are high into the air. If there's some special high scenery, players can agree to some exceptions about this.

Cover enhances armour saves (actually the cover enhances armour save modifiers.).

I thought about a +1 to the BS if targeting larger targets, but I'm not sure yet. I'm constantly calculating chances of a kill and comparing them with 7. edition and so far it looks good.

This is not exactly about distances but it's about sizes. Only models of approximately the same size will have a normal close combat. So normal infantry will fight normally against creatures of to Dreadnought, Wraithlord, Greater Daemons which of course will fight normally back. Infantry against a Wraithknight (which will have another type than Monstrous Creature) and Imperial Knights fight differently and these huge walkers will not be able to hurt infantry in close combat (Stomp is gone - not very cinematic and units would be able to dive out of the way as easy as to avoid tanks driving them over). The Dreadnoughts and the like will have a normal fight against the bigger units like the Wraithknight and Imperial Knight.

By the way, it had slipped my attention that immobilised skimmers moving Flat Out no longer crashes in 7. edition - haven't seen that discussed anywhere.

Personally like the Fantasy method more of cover > bs mod
St > Armor mod. remove AP. give special rules for specific equipment like melta gets special bonus against vehicles and stuff.


I guess the Blast template would need a lot more work. (make em work like cannons? )

I agree with the cover, as you should get armor and cover save. The accuracy in terms of distance should be fixed, especially with regards to unit size. I don't like the idea of removing a ballistic skill from units. Just because a target is harder to hit, doesn't mean your skill should suffer. I still like the cover saves, but at least have both. Is there any way GW will ever see this post and agree with the players?

timebandit3077 wrote:
I agree with the cover, as you should get armor and cover save. The accuracy in terms of distance should be fixed, especially with regards to unit size. I don't like the idea of removing a ballistic skill from units. Just because a target is harder to hit, doesn't mean your skill should suffer. I still like the cover saves, but at least have both. Is there any way GW will ever see this post and agree with the players?

Nope. Grandfather clause. (If Terminators can't change in price because that would be too confusing, what hope do we have of an overhaul to fundamental game mechanics?)

 AnomanderRake wrote:

timebandit3077 wrote:
I agree with the cover, as you should get armor and cover save. The accuracy in terms of distance should be fixed, especially with regards to unit size. I don't like the idea of removing a ballistic skill from units. Just because a target is harder to hit, doesn't mean your skill should suffer. I still like the cover saves, but at least have both. Is there any way GW will ever see this post and agree with the players?

Nope. Grandfather clause. (If Terminators can't change in price because that would be too confusing, what hope do we have of an overhaul to fundamental game mechanics?)

It's pretty much always been a mechanic in fantasy, and seemed to work ok for that. But yea, maybe in Zone Mortalis or 30k or some other spinoff, doubtful in 40k.

personally I would love the fantasy armor rules- str 5=-1 armor, so plasma weapons give marines armor saves of 6+ melta or better give none.

 raiden wrote:
personally I would love the fantasy armor rules- str 5=-1 armor, so plasma weapons give marines armor saves of 6+ melta or better give none.

Actually, in Fantasy, S5 means -2 armor. And it's not a great rule from a realistic point of view. S5 usually means someone with S3 wielding a two handed weapon. A two handed mace would be great at dealing with heavy armor, while a two handed sword, for all its size and power, would not. And again, +2S but attacking last is not even how most two handed weapons work in real life (nobody gets a weapon with superior size and range just to be so slow everybody gets to hit you before you can actually swing it, it's beyond stupid).

The current issue with cover is that the current 40k rules apply "cover" to virtually everything. Hiding behind a concrete wall is cover, that's fine. But a jink move? Night fighting? That's not "cover". Making tactical use of terrain could give cover saves, to be rolled before to wound rolls (if the wall fully stops the bullet, it won't have any chance of wounding you, it's that simple). Fighting at night or having the ability to jink should just make you more difficult to hit (night fighting -1, jink -2, whatever).

Heavy weapons (weapons with the Heavy or Ordnance type) could simply get bonuses to reduce or even entirely deny cover saves. I.e. a Demolisher cannon reducing -3 any cover saves, so hiding behind a concrete wall (4+ cover save) would be of no use against it, which is ok, because it's a fething Demolisher cannon.

 Melcavuk wrote:
I'd hope for something along the lines of:

Light Cover -1
Heavy Cover -2
Half Range +1
Small Target -1 (ratlings, grots)
Extremely Bulky Target (including vehicles and MC) +1

Currently it is ridiculous that you stand as much chance of hitting a landraider 1 inch away as you do of hitting a grot 48 inches away.

So taking standard guardsmen vs a landraider in the open 12 inches away would be firing at "effective" BS of 5
Standard guardsmen with lascannon vs a grot in trees 48 inches away would be firing at effective BS of 1.

Yeah, I'd love this.

 Melcavuk wrote:
I'd hope for something along the lines of:

Light Cover -1
Heavy Cover -2
Half Range +1
Small Target -1 (ratlings, grots)
Extremely Bulky Target (including vehicles and MC) +1

Currently it is ridiculous that you stand as much chance of hitting a landraider 1 inch away as you do of hitting a grot 48 inches away.

So taking standard guardsmen vs a landraider in the open 12 inches away would be firing at "effective" BS of 5
Standard guardsmen with lascannon vs a grot in trees 48 inches away would be firing at effective BS of 1.

That's very much like 2nd Ed, but smaller targets were smaller (think nurglings, not grots) and each weapon had different range modifiers. It's very, very similar to how Warpaths run it.

Anyhow.

When 3rd Ed came out I thought that the idea of a cover save (and it not stacking with other saves) was utter rubbish. It's grown on me. Yes, it's utterly unrealistic... but look at the results.
A terminator (2+ save, 5++ invulnerable save) will only benefit from cover if the cover grants a 4+ cover save or better, and they're going up against AP2 weapons. Terminators therefore have little incentive to hug cover.
Result: On the tabletop players will be happy to use them* in the open. They will stride through open ground, through fire and shell, like the gods of war they were meant to be. Terminators do not cower in trenches.
Space marines facing light resistance will do the same, just as the fluff says. They're supposed to be nigh-immortal angels of death when facing rebel PDFs and the like, and should only be taking cover when facing heavy resistance (e.g. heavy tanks with battle cannons, etc). The Emperor's Finest are supposed to spearhead attacks, not cover-camp.
Many weapons will cut through 5+ armour saves like butter. Even light cover is useful for such models.
The ordinary men and women of the PDF or the Imperial Guard should be closer to reality. Sure enough, Imperial Guard in the open on the tabletop will suffer terrible casualties, so will instead take advantage of cover when they can.
The cover save not stacking with the regular save is unrealistic, but the end result is a more realistic light infantry and a more heroic heavy infantry. It's got the feel right.

Urgh. I've just defended GW's rules. Look at what you've made me do, you monsters!

TL;DR: The cover save mechanics disproportionally aid light infantry rather than heavy infantry. I approve of this. It means that light infantry fight like light infantry, while the heavy sci-fi super-soldiers or undead metal skeletons fight like... sci-fi super-soldiers or undead metal skeletons.



*Well, when players do use terminators.