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I don't like the way cover works in 8th and that is like anything else, an opinion. Some like the current cover rulings, many not so much. I noticed that complaining that something isn't working for you is a very weak argument, however, especially to people like GW's rules writers, especially without even ideas to improve the fault. Worse so, we learned that if you tell them it sucks and just leave it at that, their solution may end up worse than what you originally had, ergo, I decided that if you want to change it then you need to give them ideas. If you have any idea on how to improve the current rules, I think they should be discussed in the community and then forwarded to GW. That is why I made this thread; it's supposed to be a living edition with feedback from us! Let's give them CONSTRUCTIVE feedback and improve it.

GW don't care. The living edition thing will turn out to be a bare faced lie.

Genuinely curious: what exactly don't you like about it?

My only problem is the weirdness where non-infantry have to be both in and obscured by terrain to get the cover bonus. But if they're almost completely obscured but not also in terrain, then they get nothing.

It would make more sense to say that any unit gets the cover bonus if all models are 50% obscured. Infantry could also get the cover bonus if all models are on terrain, not necessarily obscured.

Caring or not, they are listening to their fan base. At the end of 7th, they gave chaos space marine players what they were calling for. When they wrote the new edition, they just gave us what they thought we wanted, because they knew that where 7th was, it was not what we wanted. I think they deserve an honest chance; it's not like you have anything to lose. At the very least, they have done SOMETHING with what we give them.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
GW don't care. The living edition thing will turn out to be a bare faced lie.

Either discuss the actual topic or go away.

I don't like the way cover works in 8th and that is like anything else, an opinion.

I don't like it a ton either, but i'm still on the fence on whether it needs to be this way to keep things from tilting sideways. There is a ton of shooting out there and if it was easier for really tough things (tanks) to get a 2+ or for hordes to get cover it would make them the go to units (despite what people say about conscripts currently).

The player community is great at finding things that don't work, but awful at giving solutions. It is easy to point things you don't like, and just because of numbers, players are likely to find mistakes, but when it comes to finding solutions, you can't listen to hundreds or thousands of opinions, wich are mostly worthless. So the only thing you can do as a player is point out what you thing is wrong and wait.

Also stating that GW does not respond, at this point, is utterly ridiculous. It would take months of feedback for it to have any relevance at all, and then some time to find a solution and apply it. Unless something is absurdly broken, it is totally unrealistic to expect any significant rules change before a year at least.

The fact is noone has played the game enough to be able to assert that some rule is good or not (blatant erratas and mistake aside).

I don't understand why cover is such a weird topic for GW, other systems have no problem handling it well.

Concealment..if >50% of model is obscured, -1 to hit.
Hard cover. Concealed models in or behind hard cover add +1 to their armour save.
Area terrain; Infantry models fully within area terrain are concealed.

Then just make a table with the most common terrain elements and give it keywords. For example...Ruins <Area terrain><hard cover>. Woods<Area terrain> etc

Done (obviously it would be more fleshed out but could still fit onto 1-2 pgs max)

 bullyboy wrote:
I don't understand why cover is such a weird topic for GW, other systems have no problem handling it well.

Concealment..if >50% of model is obscured, -1 to hit.
Hard cover. Concealed models in or behind hard cover add +1 to their armour save.
Area terrain; Infantry models fully within area terrain are concealed.

Then just make a table with the most common terrain elements and give it keywords. For example...Ruins <Area terrain><hard cover>. Woods<Area terrain> etc

Done (obviously it would be more fleshed out but could still fit onto 1-2 pgs max)

I think GW wanted to get rid of every potential argument between players. People used to argue about number of hits and scatter direction on blasts and templates. Checking if a unit had cover was also many times up to discussion.
Now the rule is simple (being on the base of the terrain is not really up for debate).

While I personally don't like the cover system much either, I think it's also the sign that 40K has clearly moved to a "big scale" game. Partial and full covers are great for small skirmish games, but get a bit tedious on a larger scale.
Typical 40K games involve way more models than they did 20 years ago, and you also now have a plethora of other games if you want to play skirmish stuff. So I think in the end it's not too bad.

I'd add a rule that if a model has the "this can fire at something it can't see" then it should suffer a -1 ballistic skill penalty when firing at something that isn't in line of sight.

Unless GW wants 6 models shoulder to shoulder in the corner of the map behind a wall shooting everywhere.

fresus wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
I don't understand why cover is such a weird topic for GW, other systems have no problem handling it well.

Concealment..if >50% of model is obscured, -1 to hit.
Hard cover. Concealed models in or behind hard cover add +1 to their armour save.
Area terrain; Infantry models fully within area terrain are concealed.

Then just make a table with the most common terrain elements and give it keywords. For example...Ruins <Area terrain><hard cover>. Woods<Area terrain> etc

Done (obviously it would be more fleshed out but could still fit onto 1-2 pgs max)

I think GW wanted to get rid of every potential argument between players. People used to argue about number of hits and scatter direction on blasts and templates. Checking if a unit had cover was also many times up to discussion.
Now the rule is simple (being on the base of the terrain is not really up for debate).

While I personally don't like the cover system much either, I think it's also the sign that 40K has clearly moved to a "big scale" game. Partial and full covers are great for small skirmish games, but get a bit tedious on a larger scale.
Typical 40K games involve way more models than they did 20 years ago, and you also now have a plethora of other games if you want to play skirmish stuff. So I think in the end it's not too bad.

This. It has led in my games to alot less rules arguments then previous editions. The game runs faster and smoother. May not like the new system entirely, but I think it was a good trade off.

My only issue with the cover rules in the game come in to play when vehicles and the like are involved.

I've got my Baneblade parked inside of an L-shaped ruin building. It's 50% covered, but it's not wholly "within" the terrain, since most building ruins don't actually have a base on them, and the last half inch of the model isn't 'covered' by the wall.

It needs more clarity when it comes to vehicles and "being in cover" when the terrain feature doesn't have a clearly defined base. In the above situation, does the Baneblade get cover? It has fulfilled obscured requirement (which can be a point of arguement, "i say its covered 50%" "No, its very clearly only 49% covered" gak), but it's a little bit 'outside' of the ruin because of how large the model is.

As mentioned, other games handle cover and whatnot well. In Warmachine/Hordes, if the targeted model's base is within 1" of a piece of Cover of Concealment, and the model that's targeting them has to draw line of sight through the cover, they gain a +4 or +2 defense depending on the feature. Clear rules for when a vehicle is considered to be "in" cover are needed, then it can be determined whether they'er properly concealed by the ruin or whatever terrain.

Example of baseless terrain

 Marmatag wrote:
I'd add a rule that if a model has the "this can fire at something it can't see" then it should suffer a -1 ballistic skill penalty when firing at something that isn't in line of sight.

Unless GW wants 6 models shoulder to shoulder in the corner of the map behind a wall shooting everywhere.

Just because I don't know for sure, aren't most these models rocking a terrible BS anyway?

I always base all my terrain features, about 1" max from the feature is how far the base extend. I come from a school of toughts that promote basing all your terrains and making some of it "removable" to give more access.

Cover save mod is "ok"; it does fasten the game to a pace where i can play 2k pts in 2h, not counting board setup and army creation. This is priceless.

In a perfect world, yeah. I would like to have every piece of terrain on a base as you described. But the FLGS I'm currently going to has most of it's building ruins unbased, and I'm not in a position to buy and store my own terrain. Clarity for unbased terrain would be helpful. I don't expect in most situations however, to get a cover save on a Baneblade.

It's not terribly relevant since we have a host of house rules going on behind the scenes but here are some examples of a few things I've changed at home:

Terrain has several keywords that describe how it functions:

Soft Cover: -1 to Hit if within the terrain or being fired at through the terrain.

Hard Cover: -1 To Hit and +1 to the units armor save if within the terrain or being fired at through the terrain.

Difficult: Subtract 2" from a units move if moving through the terrain.

Dense: Units may not trace LoS through this terrain unless one or both units are within.

Exposed: Units claim no benefit from going to cover/down in this terrain.

There's a bit more, but essentially I ripped off the terrain rules from bolt action. I like it a lot and it gets people using terrain. An example would be your typical woods - Soft Cover, Dense. A crumbling ruin - hard cover, difficult. Buildings we use an occupy mechanic as opposed to treating it like regular terrain, similar to how the datasheets treat some of the official GW buildings/bunkers.

Split Fire: Units may split their fire between a maximum of two targets when they shoot. Not a big deal, but it cuts down on the time it can take to figure out shooting.

Vehicles: vehicles may only fire half (rounded up) of their sponson weapons at any one target. A simple way to abstract vehicle firing/facing.

Modifiers affect the target number and not the dice rol, and are figured in before any dice are rolledl. A -1 To Hit on a BS 3+ model just means your BS is now 4+, but a dice roll of 1 is still a 1, a 4 is still a 4, etc... 1s always miss and 6s always hit, regardless of modifiers.

Anyway, it all comes down to what you're looking for. I have no expectation of GW making the kind of wargame I really want, so I'll change it if I can to suit my tastes. When I show up at the club I just use the regular rules.

 Thadin wrote:
My only issue with the cover rules in the game come in to play when vehicles and the like are involved.

I've got my Baneblade parked inside of an L-shaped ruin building. It's 50% covered, but it's not wholly "within" the terrain, since most building ruins don't actually have a base on them, and the last half inch of the model isn't 'covered' by the wall.

It needs more clarity when it comes to vehicles and "being in cover" when the terrain feature doesn't have a clearly defined base. In the above situation, does the Baneblade get cover? It has fulfilled obscured requirement (which can be a point of arguement, "i say its covered 50%" "No, its very clearly only 49% covered" gak), but it's a little bit 'outside' of the ruin because of how large the model is.

As mentioned, other games handle cover and whatnot well. In Warmachine/Hordes, if the targeted model's base is within 1" of a piece of Cover of Concealment, and the model that's targeting them has to draw line of sight through the cover, they gain a +4 or +2 defense depending on the feature. Clear rules for when a vehicle is considered to be "in" cover are needed, then it can be determined whether they'er properly concealed by the ruin or whatever terrain.

Example of baseless terrain

Spoiler:

Little bit outside, ruleswise, doesn't matter. You could touch the terrain base with one tiny bit of one track, and you are now in the terrain (a unit has to be fully within the terrain by having every model in it, but for each model to count as being in the terrain all they have to do is stand even partially on it.) However, ruleswise, you can't be in a piece of baseless terrain while on the first floor.

The cover rules are terrible. The idea of making it faster is there and I appreciate that, but they failed spectacularly at it.

I would make it simplier: if you can draw a line from all models in a unit to the target unit without crossing terrain features - it is not covered. If at least one shooting model can only draw a straight line to the target over terrain - it is covered.

This would resolve issues of 49-50% covered or issues when leman russ is standing in the ruin, covered with wall only from one side but claiming cover from shots in 360 degree arc.

It would also make fences and low hills much more usefull.

Yeah, there's lots of ways to do it, Im sure. In my case we don't use TLoS anyway, we always trace LoS from base to base. Most of my terrain is 2d at home (with 3d terrain placed on top so it looks cool), so its rather abstract but I think still represents what is happening more satisfactorily and completely ignores all the fiddling with obscurement percentages and such. Just not worth the pain.

I have trees that I put on the terrain piece but they can be moved around if need be, for example.

Fan67 wrote:
I would make it simplier: if you can draw a line from all models in a unit to the target unit without crossing terrain features - it is not covered. If at least one shooting model can only draw a straight line to the target over terrain - it is covered.

This would resolve issues of 49-50% covered or issues when leman russ is standing in the ruin, covered with wall only from one side but claiming cover from shots in 360 degree arc.

It would also make fences and low hills much more usefull.

This would also give you cover basically anywhere. In Malifaux they have almost exactly what you mentioned, but adding that you have to stand within 1" of a piece of terrain to get cover. SO within 1" and drawing a line from model to model goes through it is cover. Otherwise not. I would love that in 40k.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
GW don't care. The living edition thing will turn out to be a bare faced lie.

Yeah, the odds that a GW rules writer will take criticism and actually improve themselves with it is extremely low. There's just too much money (in GW's mind) in screwing us over to not re-introduce codex creep and bollocks up any revision of the core rules.

That said, I would like cover to just be as follows:

Is it 50% obscured? Yes = Cover
Is it infantry on area terrain or in a ruin? Yes = Cover
Is the unit standing behind an item of fortification (such as an ADL)? Yes = Double Cover

If you answered no to all of the above, no cover.

 Purifier wrote:

This would also give you cover basically anywhere. In Malifaux they have almost exactly what you mentioned, but adding that you have to stand within 1" of a piece of terrain to get cover. SO within 1" and drawing a line from model to model goes through it is cover. Otherwise not. I would love that in 40k.

Yeah, i'd love that. GW can't accept 40k mostly played semi-competitively and requires defined ruleset without vague quarelsome estimations.

BTW 4ed handled that relatively better, when the game was sort-of-2d. Every terrain and unit had defined height 1,2 or 3, and terrain with height 1 gave cover to height 1 infantry, but didn't protect height 3 DP.

Pistols should be classified under Assault weapons rules. They are the epitome of rapid move n' shoot with aim penalty.

honestly infantry SHOULD be the only things obtaining cover. Tanks only use of cover is to be out of site anyways.

I watched and interview with a pershing tank commander from WW2 - he was fighting a tiger tank. They had a whole battle blind firing at each other through buildings. The commander said the buildings did very little to their penetration - just made them harder to hit. He took the tiger out shooting through 2 concrete walls. Tanks getting bonus to a cover save from anti tank weapons for being partially obscured is pretty asinine. Tanks should get no cover saves IMO.

hachieman2000 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
I'd add a rule that if a model has the "this can fire at something it can't see" then it should suffer a -1 ballistic skill penalty when firing at something that isn't in line of sight.

Unless GW wants 6 models shoulder to shoulder in the corner of the map behind a wall shooting everywhere.

Just because I don't know for sure, aren't most these models rocking a terrible BS anyway?

Nope, 6 manticores will throw out 6D6 shots hitting on 4s even if you're invisible to them, and for a minor points addon they'll all reroll 1s. And they wound almost anything on 3s, with heavy -AP and do d3 damage. So yeah, for under 800 points you'll vaporize things that you can't see with ease.

 Marmatag wrote:
Nope, 6 manticores will throw out 6D6 shots hitting on 4s even if you're invisible to them, and for a minor points addon they'll all reroll 1s. And they wound almost anything on 3s, with heavy -AP and do d3 damage. So yeah, for under 800 points you'll vaporize things that you can't see with ease.

You mean I spent nearly half of my army points on a unit specifically designed to vaporize things from afar, and it does that?

Well I do declare.

 Xenomancers wrote:
honestly infantry SHOULD be the only things obtaining cover. Tanks only use of cover is to be out of site anyways.

I watched and interview with a pershing tank commander from WW2 - he was fighting a tiger tank. They had a whole battle blind firing at each other through buildings. The commander said the buildings did very little to their penetration - just made them harder to hit. He took the tiger out shooting through 2 concrete walls. Tanks getting bonus to a cover save from anti tank weapons for being partially obscured is pretty asinine. Tanks should get no cover saves IMO.

If cover saves were a BS modifier, it would make perfect sense.

If there's a rule I wanted to improve then it would be the current blast rules.

Make it roll 1 dice to hit, if you succeed the roll then roll 2d6 for how many in the squad got caught in the blast and make a rule that the result can never exceed the amount of units in the squad. That way we can be way more with how many d6's that can potentially hit a squad but at the same time make sure that an anti crowd tank isn't 1 shotting tanks/monsters.

In my opinion that's the perfect way to represent the old system with scatter dice & template, using only d6. The current system is simply bafflingly stupid and makes no sense from neither a fluff perspective nor game mechanics.

hachieman2000 wrote:

This. It has led in my games to alot less rules arguments then previous editions. The game runs faster and smoother. May not like the new system entirely, but I think it was a good trade off.

I'd like to see if there's a correlation between people who don't like the streamlining of the new edition, and people who used to argue for inches and hits with templates in older editions.

IMO, the simplification make the game so much faster, if you don't like how a game turned out you can just set up and play a second (or even third game) in the same time frame it used to take to play a single game in 5th or 6th.

It makes it un-necessary to argue for inches and hits, and much easier to simply go "I'll take that into account next time" and just get on with it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Selym wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
GW don't care. The living edition thing will turn out to be a bare faced lie.

Yeah, the odds that a GW rules writer will take criticism and actually improve themselves with it is extremely low. There's just too much money (in GW's mind) in screwing us over to not re-introduce codex creep and bollocks up any revision of the core rules.

You seem to be very unhappy with this game. Have you tried other games? Maybe you'd like them more?

Honestly, I don't view codex creep as "screwing us over". The only time it's not appreciated is when they skip or overlook someone. It's only when they don't put as much effort into an army as they do into marines that I get annoyed at them. In fact, it's going to have to get a whole lot worse if GW wants to stay in business when 3D printing puts their model-business out of business, which will happen eventually.

Not today.

Probably not tomorrow, or next week, or next year.

But it will eventually happen. And when it does, Citadel will go out of business overnight.

 Thadin wrote:
In a perfect world, yeah. I would like to have every piece of terrain on a base as you described. But the FLGS I'm currently going to has most of it's building ruins unbased, and I'm not in a position to buy and store my own terrain. Clarity for unbased terrain would be helpful. I don't expect in most situations however, to get a cover save on a Baneblade.

I suggest that you look at the rules for woods in the BRB. It says that if the woods are unbased, you should agree before the game the area it covers (for example, the area withing two inches of any trees counts as the base of the woods.) You could easily apply similar logic to any unbased terrain feature.

cover should go back to being a to hit modifier.

So hard cover is -2 and soft cover is -1 to hit. Each model needs 50% obscurment from the shooting model.

Simple

(oh they did this in 2nd ed and it works smoothly) Most heavy rounds will blow thru a tree trunk no issue so woods should not add to cover but to the likelihood of you able to target your opponent.

Perhaps and Aegis Line would be -1 to hit and +1 cover, but really -2 to hit is a stiff penalty.