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Working on my 40k skirmish project, I thought about one interesting thing...

Use BS penalty instead of cover saves. So, if the model is 25% obscured, any model that shoots it suffers -1 to their BS. If 50% obscured, then -2.

And make several types of cover - light cover, medium cover and reliable cover. So, wooden wall may stop the bullet, but will barely save agains lascannon hit, right?

If the roll is enough to hit even with a penalty (space marine with BS4 shoots a guardsman 25% obscured by light cover and rolls 4), target is hit as normal.
If the roll isn't enough to hit with penalty, but would hit if there wasn't penalty (same space marine shoots same guardsman and rolls 3), target is hit, but gain a toughness bonus depending of the cover type (+1 for the light cover, +2 for the medium and +3 for the reliable).

What do ya think, folks?

Nice idea, i think i'll try it if I can find someone willing. Straight up -1 to balistic skill per point of cover save would work too.

How do you handle barrages and blasts?

I really like the BS modifier mechanic but I think the cover type and toughness bonus is an added layer of complexity that isn't needed, and is straying back into the Cover Save territory.

I like your idea of different types of cover.

High grasses and bushes should be a reduced BS modifier. Fortified structures / ruins also should increase your armor rating but AP should outright ignore it. Jinx saves should be a reduced BS modifier also - it should require the model move at is maximum speed in order to use it though (good luck dodging shots while your standing still right?).

So what does this accomplish?

the 25% cover rule can be a pain in the butt.

just make all terrain type area terrain or BTB

cover of light medium or heavy
standardize all modifiers and make sure they dont over stack
give bonus to hit mods to vehicles MC and anything big to counteract some cover saves.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
So what does this accomplish?

Make shooting less strong because shooting is the devil, apparently.

Xenomancers wrote:I like your idea of different types of cover.

High grasses and bushes should be a reduced BS modifier. Fortified structures / ruins also should increase your armor rating but AP should outright ignore it. Jinx saves should be a reduced BS modifier also - it should require the model move at is maximum speed in order to use it though (good luck dodging shots while your standing still right?).

Yup. Jink, smoke and stuff like that should only reduce BS.
Don't really know about Jink - all bikes and jetbikes are banned in Strike Force Extremis, anyway.

Desubot wrote:the 25% cover rule can be a pain in the butt.

just make all terrain type area terrain or BTB

Oh, cool idea I think.

malamis wrote:Nice idea, i think i'll try it if I can find someone willing. Straight up -1 to balistic skill per point of cover save would work too.

-1 per point of cover save is a bit too much. -4 penalty for standing in a ruin? Please, no.

malamis wrote:How do you handle barrages and blasts?

Blasts autohit anything under a marker, so cover would only provide tougness bonus, I think. Will think in this direction.

As an IG player, I do not like this. I am sure plenty of shooty ork armies wouldn't like this either. I think the nature of cover saves is fine, but needs to be modified to make more sense.
Group of guardians suffering only 1 wound from a baneblade cannon because they were hiding in a bombed out building? Yeah, okay...that makes sense.
As is, there should be no cover save vs a direct hit 5'' blast or larger.
If it scatters, save should be directional (ie, is there anything STOPPING the blast?)...though realistic, is quite a bit OP, so maybe a -1 modifier for cover for every 4 in of template and another -1 if direct hit? (This would be based on overall template size, not amount of template covering models.)
Though, if you REALLY wanted to rework cover, make it a re-roll for "minimal" successful hits. Obviously, this changes with BS.
For blasts, if direct hit, re-roll scatter but with 1D6 instead.. Hmm not real sure though.

BS modifiers need to go hand in hand with armor save modifiers, or you get units that just cannot be killed and makes it unreasonably difficult for mid-low BS armies to kill anything with shooting. 40k used to use BS modifiers for cover, but also had armor save modifiers (so...you might only hit on a 5 or 6 with that Autocannon, but that 3+ save got modified to a 6+), and the current cover & AP system arose when they moved away from modifiers.

Hi OP. I have wracked my brains about this in the process of writing up my own system. My findings are there's no ready fix to the poor way cover is handled in 40k (as so much of the balance of the game, including unit value are dependant upon the "choose cover, force field or armour mechanic). That's not to say it can't or shouldn't be done, just that it totally skews the value of units -heavy infantry become so much better if they benefit from cover as much as lightly armoured troops. Be prepared to have to adjust a lot of points values.

The BS modifiers are indeed the best way to go about it. -1 and -2 BS, like you suggested, are good figures. It's also worth considering giving things like stealth, fast moving, jink etc a BS to hit penalty too, instead of an armour save. Then you have to balance all this with positive modifers, to keep shooting effective e.g. +1 for short range, +1 for large target.

I would love it if it was a straight up BS penalty (which makes sense, since cover make things harder TO HIT) But then again I also miss WHFB and its more complex system.

However I do add the caveat that a natural 6 is always a hit, regardless of modifiers. This is so it wouldn't completely crap up low BS armies, but anything other than the greatest marksman would have to realistically work for those hits.

Also, I would like to see a return of the whole "Target priority" mechanic over the whole "grant a 4+ cover because of obscured" thing. This would make getting cover saves from your own army a lot harder while also making Leadership a bit more relevant.

The real issue with the 40k cover system is that it does not differenciate between cover and concealment.
A wall provides cover.
A bush provides concealment.
I much prefer simple, less bloated rules, so if I were writing the rules, I would keep cover as is BUT I would just say cover can never be improved beyond a 4+. If cover IS improved beyond that (stealth, shrouded, etc). Re-roll failed saves of 1.

I kept cover saves the same, but made stealth and shrouded cause penalties to hit instead.

It gives the same benefit mathematically to light armor units, but actually helps those with good saves that are supposed to be sneaky.

In my experience, even sensible ideas that would be an improvement, simply fail to work how they should in the current 40k rules.

Not because they are bad ideas, or they are not an actual improvement.
Its just the current 40k rules are such a horrible holistic mess , they seem to prevent any form of intuitive improvements working how they should ,when they are applied one at a time.

The only way to 'fix' 40k IMO, it to revise the entire system , a complete and total re-write, addressing all the core issues first.
(Define the intended game play, define player interaction, then define how units interact.)

FlyingCamel wrote:
The real issue with the 40k cover system is that it does not differenciate between cover and concealment.
A wall provides cover.
A bush provides concealment.

Agreed. And it doesn't make distinctions between types of attacks which should negate certain cover or other invul saves either.
e.g.camo, shrouded etc should be effective against small arms, but not blast weapons. If a 120mm battle cannon shell lands beside someone, being invisible isn't going to helo them one bit.

Agreed. I also hate that invisible units cannot be targeted by blast weapons due to snapshots rule. If I am a gunner, and I see a group of my buddies mysteriously get torn to pieces by a force I cannot see, I am saturating that area.

A penalty to BS for cover. ... you mean like it used to be back when the game wasn't "streamlined"?
Back when units actually used to have a move characteristic?
Good idea.
I miss those details.

As though Ork shooting wasn't bad enough a blade of grass reducing them to BS1 would make a final nail on that coffin.

I'm currently working on a way to streamline 40k myself. And I'm wracking my brains trying to figure out what to do with regards to cover, and I think that a penalty to BS is a good idea. The alternative, increased armor saves, doesn't seem right to me.

Especially because, in my system, Flame Templates are gone and instead, former template weapons simply shoot a set number of shots at a very short range and automatically hit their target. Other ignores cover rules simply ignore the To Hit penalties for cover.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
As though Ork shooting wasn't bad enough a blade of grass reducing them to BS1 would make a final nail on that coffin.

But when 5 blades of grass reduce a Marine to shooting BS 1?

This only works with a D10 system or something else more granular. I lived this in 2nd ed, and it made hormagaunts god-mode for 8 pts a model.

There are other options to 40k 2nd eds 'modifiers for everything', or the 'special rules for everything' of 40k 3rd to 7th ed you know..

The problem was 3rd ed 40k simplified the rules too much, to the point where the complexity of the game play the players wanted had to be added back in with special rules.Making the rules more complicated in the long run.

Where as actually streamlining the rules would use the systems that are already in place to better effect.So more of the game play is covered by the core rules.

I think the better way to do it would be cover saves forcing a re-roll of successful rolls to hit of the number. So a model that rolls a 6 hitting a unit in 6+ cover rerolls that 6, for example.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think the better way to do it would be cover saves forcing a re-roll of successful rolls to hit of the number. So a model that rolls a 6 hitting a unit in 6+ cover rerolls that 6, for example.

I think streamlining is the reverse of what 40k needs. It needs more granularity, not less.

In our old american and english civil war system (aka musket and shot) we used the idea of handheld weapons having a reduced range. The idea was if you're behind a wall, the enemy would have to get closer to accurately take shots.

After that each hit would have to roll whether or not it hit the cover or not. In effect a cover save, but with reduced range. Cannons, simply had the similar cover save, while mortars had slightly reduced range but ignored the cover save.

Move the game to D10s and all of these ideas start working.

Or just use D6 in a more intelligent way, and focus on game play, and those ideas still work.

Lanrak wrote:
Or just use D6 in a more intelligent way, and focus on game play, and those ideas still work.

I'm not sure about that. There's no reason to stay on the D6 anyway.

@Martel732
Most 40k players like rolling handfuls of D6. D6 'roll and read' faster than D10.
The scale and detail of the 40k minatures means players want to roll a dice per minature per resolution.(Hence the need to roll handfuls of dice. )

Players are ok with abstracting the resolution in games with smaller minatures where infantry is 'blob squads on a base.' .(EG 6mm to 15mm.)

But when some players spend hours carefully crafting and painting each model in a unit, you can bet they want each model in the unit to be represented with a dice roll.

Why the current 40k rules have got in to such a mess, is down to GW sales department trying to simplify the core rules to appeal to younger players.
But in doing so GW abstracted the interaction as well as abstracting the resolution.

Where as good rules simplify the resolution but keep the interaction 'true to the real world reference.'