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There's only so much you can cram onto a 4 x 6 table, and only so much space to move on the board. As the game scales from 1850 to 2000/3000, the game gives one less maneuvering space, range bands are an afterthought...

Suppose that all ranges in 40k were cut by about 33%. This way, Infantry moves 4", Bikes/Cavalry 8", etc. Bolters fire at 16", and double-tap at 8". Fliers move a minimum of 12", etc. Make Running D3+1, and Assault 2d3+2 to normalize them more (4-8" instead of 2-12")

Unless Flamers had their template size reduced, they would be "relatively" more powerful. Gate would be more powerful (Draigo becomes meaner). However, there exists relatively more room for the game to allow for maneuvering/setup of attack vectors, and pure gunlines are potentially weaker; Interceptor don't have the same degree of area denial when only operating off a 24" bubble rather than a 36" one.

Are there any other observances or points of interest? Would shaving off range help the game overall?

In an edition where fast movement is critical, this change would only hurt infantry even more. Someone takes a foot slogging list vs a castled gunline? You used to have to endure 2 turns of shooting, now you'll never make it before youre blasted off the table.

6" is already too slow, this only makes it worse.

I'm afraid I agree with on this one, MJ. I already find it frustratingly difficult to get infantry units around the table in a timely fashion, and this doesn't help. It also doesn't really hurt the really powerful shooting units like tau missiles, scatterbikes, thunderfires, etc. because such units generally already have enough range to hit you anyway and/or your units will take twice as long to retaliate due to cutting movement rates. It *would* hurt a lot of the less scary choices like boltguns, guardians, Thousand Sons, etc. It might be a good thing to consider for a smaller-scale 40k variant like Kill Teams, Kill Zone, or Zone Mortalis though.

Also, what gunlines are giving you trouble these days? Iget the impression that you're referring to Tau since you mention interceptor, but all the tournament Tau I've seen have been favoring more mobile options like suits and riptides so that they can move forward rather than gunline. No one is especially afraid of IG right now, and cutting ranges would make it even more problematic for them to brig their guns to bare while moving towards objectives. I guess you could count scatterbikes as a sort of mobile gunline, but they aren't really hinderedmuch by this proposal. Thunderfires are a thing, but the scary thing about marines right now is mostly just their ability to throw a bajillion boltermarines at objectives until the game ends.

 Iechine wrote:
In an edition where fast movement is critical, this change would only hurt infantry even more. Someone takes a foot slogging list vs a castled gunline? You used to have to endure 2 turns of shooting, now you'll never make it before youre blasted off the table.

6" is already too slow, this only makes it worse.

You are talking as if he only wants to reduce movement ranges. And even then, bikes, jump/ jet pack units would be proportionally slower as well. Infantry would be arguably the best off because they are already slow, so the faster choices would feel the change more.

But reduced gun ranges? That sounds fantastic to me. Getting used to the new numbers would be tricky and small arms are more difficult to use, but heavy weapons need to take positioning into account now. There is the argument against that with everything relevant being relentless and such, but that is a different discussion. In fact, someone opened that thread last week. On its own, this change would make the board feel a little bigger and make range and positioning feel more relevant. Anything detrimental to the game that would come from this is the result of this interacting with other poorly written concepts.


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 MagicJuggler wrote:
There's only so much you can cram onto a 4 x 6 table, and only so much space to move on the board. As the game scales from 1850 to 2000/3000, the game gives one less maneuvering space, range bands are an afterthought...

Suppose that all ranges in 40k were cut by about 33%. This way, Infantry moves 4", Bikes/Cavalry 8", etc. Bolters fire at 16", and double-tap at 8". Fliers move a minimum of 12", etc. Make Running D3+1, and Assault 2d3+2 to normalize them more (4-8" instead of 2-12")

Unless Flamers had their template size reduced, they would be "relatively" more powerful. Gate would be more powerful (Draigo becomes meaner). However, there exists relatively more room for the game to allow for maneuvering/setup of attack vectors, and pure gunlines are potentially weaker; Interceptor don't have the same degree of area denial when only operating off a 24" bubble rather than a 36" one.

Are there any other observances or points of interest? Would shaving off range help the game overall?

In addition to the things you proposed would happen, fixing run/ charge ranges would be even more important. Just make running and charging an additional move.

Biggest issue I have with this is that 40k gun ranges are already too long. If you move from 6" to 4" move, but they drop from 96 to 64" range, it doesn't really matter.

Coming from warmachine, Malifaux, SAGA and Kings though, I can say that short ranges can have an enormously positive effect on gameplay.

Its a great idea in theory, but can't be implemented quite as easily as you'd like. Put simply, only the biggest IG style arty should shoot more than 24. Some of the most ridiculous movement like Eldar jetbikes should get a speed debuff too - movement stops mattering when its effectively infinite.

Re; templates, they would need to shrink too. I don't think they're necessary at all tbh, could be replaced with "d6+X hits" or something. Adds no meaningful tactics and adds a *lot* of game time due to spacing all your models and gak.

 Dakkamite wrote:
Biggest issue I have with this is that 40k gun ranges are already too long.

Too short, you mean. We're playing a game with 28mm models and 5-10mm weapon ranges.

Put simply, only the biggest IG style arty should shoot more than 24.

So an autocannon (a 20mm-40mm gun fluff-wise) should have a maximum range of about 150 feet? For a gun that fluff-wise should have a maximum effective range of around 1-5 miles? And if you scale everything down proportionally you end up with infantry rifles that can't shoot from end of a tank to the other, AA guns that can't reach the top level of a building, etc.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
Biggest issue I have with this is that 40k gun ranges are already too long.

Too short, you mean. We're playing a game with 28mm models and 5-10mm weapon ranges.

Put simply, only the biggest IG style arty should shoot more than 24.

So an autocannon (a 20mm-40mm gun fluff-wise) should have a maximum range of about 150 feet? For a gun that fluff-wise should have a maximum effective range of around 1-5 miles? And if you scale everything down proportionally you end up with infantry rifles that can't shoot from end of a tank to the other, AA guns that can't reach the top level of a building, etc.

Well, that would be a rules/fluff segragation issue. I'mpersonally leery of the imapct such changes would have (though I'd be willing to try them out), but dakkamite's post makes sense from a mechanical angle. Shortening ranges would probably make people more mindful of their max ranges, and you'd probably spend more game time thinking about such things. Which might be cool for Kill Teams or Zone Mortalis or something. In regular 40k, I feel like it would just make it harder for infantry to bring their weapons to bare (even if they are slowed down propportionately less than other units), and things like IG vehicles would have even more trouble moving up and getting into range.

I would argue that regular templates by themselves aren't gamebreakers. It's only the fringe weapons, like Torrents (and the main perpetrator, the Heldrake, has lost a lot of its potency) and D-Scythes, that actually are scary in their own right.

Pie plates would be scarier by comparison.

Due to the board size, this change would severely hurt anyone who isn't playing Space Marines.

The game is played on a 7 turn clock with objectives. Having short distances means positioning matters a ton more than it does now. Problem with that is Drop Pods and deep strike units don't care about your silly positioning rules.

When a lascannon team depends on blowing up that land raider BEFORE the drop pod shows up to annihilate them, you really don't want its range cut in half. I can already see the game meta... players with beefy tanks hanging out in the back lines or even reserves while waiting for the hordes to overwhelm, surround, outflank, or deep strike to clear out the anti-armor threats; then move up the vehicles to eliminate all of the remaining threats.

Deep Strike was already nerfed with the can't assault the turn it comes out rule. If you pose these changes, we'll need a rule saying they can't shoot either.

Why not keep movement the same, but reduce the shooting ranges?

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
Why not keep movement the same, but reduce the shooting ranges?

Because moving an extra 3" per turn can't compare to the loss of 24" of distance.

 Arkaine wrote:

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
Why not keep movement the same, but reduce the shooting ranges?

Because moving an extra 3" per turn can't compare to the loss of 24" of distance.

By the Ops suggestion it would be 2" actually for standard infantry and 4" for bikes and vehicles actually


You could also make run have a set value of 6, and make charge ranges 6" +d6.

Among other things.

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
Why not keep movement the same, but reduce the shooting ranges?

Because moving an extra 3" per turn can't compare to the loss of 24" of distance.

By the Ops suggestion it would be 2" actually for standard infantry and 4" for bikes and vehicles actually


You could also make run have a set value of 6, and make charge ranges 6" +d6.

Among other things.

I'm a fan of both of those suggestions, though you'd probably want to modify things like the craftworld warhost's benefit accordingly.

At a glance, MJ's proposed cuts to range and movement seem like they wouldn't really change the time an infantry unit trying to move up on a shooty unit would spend in his range of fire. It all seems like it scales down at about the same rate. It's just that that means you'd be spending more time than before not doing anything with a lot of your units. Marines, for instance, wouldn't really close the gap with fire warriors any better. The board would just feel bigger. And I don't really want the board to feel bigger. ^_^; As is, a foot unit that gets blown out of its transport too soon in the game can generally count on babysitting the closest objective for the rest of the game or else not reaching the enemy until the late game. If you're losing out on a few inches every turn thanks to the proposed rules, any hope of hustling up the board to catch up to the battle is pretty much gone.

Range bands being more of a consideration is cool and all, but reducing the mobility of already slow foot units isn't. ^_^; Again though, something like this might be cool in a smaller game (500 points or less; probably mixed with Kill Team or Zone Mortalis) played on a 4x4 board.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Well, that would be a rules/fluff segragation issue.

It is, which is why we have the current ranges instead of realistic ones. But if you make weapon ranges even shorter than they are now you're going to get to a point where the fluff is completely gone from the game and none of the action on the table makes any sense. This is a game-killing problem for a game like 40k, where the only reason to play it is for the fluff.

ahh why are you using a 4x6 table instead of a 6x8 table or a 6x12 table for larger games...(you know just shoving tables together so units fit on it and the max ranges are reached even by AM..) cause if your armies that big 50 bucks to build another table to shove in is no big deal

So how would charging, fleeing, moving through cover work with 4" multiples but a D6?

 Hanskrampf wrote:
So how would charging, fleeing, moving through cover work with 4" multiples but a D6?

Generally I dislike random movement but if you want to keep it random, I would convert D6" to D3+1".

Have you playtested it yet?

Not this one. I am almost ready to playtest Forgehammer (which does 4" move scale, but adds more consolidation of movement rules to boot). Just need to grab an old Nova Mission Pack and do some tweaking.

I agree that 6" is nowadays too much for the game.

But I would still prefer individual (movement) values instead of multiples of X.

the whole D6 range values are there because 6" was too much and there is no possibility to add just 3" more.

So changing the basic movement to 4" but give faster units 1-2" more.

I would actually prefer if only the weapon ranges were to change. It would make the game's movement and assault phase more important without weakening the shooters too much.