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So I think the 2 types of Shuriken Catapults is way whacky. Why not make all Shuriken Catapults the same.

Make them 18" Rapid Fire 1 So Guardians can get 2 shots at only 9" but still the flexibility to get 1 shot at 18"

Dire Avengers can have an ability that makes Shuriken Catapults in their hands Assault 2. So the gun is the same, longer barrel or not. Just the user is better versed in the weapon than others.

Terrain should do more.

I understand if your in a pile of rock terrain you can jump up and down behind the actual rocks. If you are on the field on the far side of the rocks, they enemy may have a hard time seeing you but you don't actually have any rocks to jump behind to benefit your saving throw.

So since we are revivint 2nd ed stuff in 8th. Lets time warp when cover ONLY was a modifier to hit rolls (3rd ed added cover as a saving throw).

So if that hill, ruin, woods or whatever blocks 50% of your model the enemy gets a -1 to hit. AND if you are actually in that terrain feature your guys can duck behind it and get the benefit to the save.

So when the next guy says he don't understand the FAQ or main rules that say a vehicle must be in terrain AND get 50% los blocking to benefit from the terrain, IT will be much simpler for that guy to understand since Obscurement would already be a part of the mindset about being in terrain vs being behind it.

Please add your terrain ideas to the thread I just started asking for community input on this problem. I posted in general discussion but should have posted it here...

I see what you're going for with the shuriken catapult, but I'm not sure I'm on board. Yes, it helps guardians offensively, but it also...

*Makes dire avengers more redundant with guardians.
*Makes the guardians worse at overwatch in that an enemy charging from 9.1" away (like any deepstriking assault unit) will now be far enough away to halve the number of overwatch shots the guardians get.
*Does similarly minor-but-odd things to the shuriken catapults on vehicles and bikes.
*Makes the catapult an even worse choice for an autarch than it already is unless you somehow confer the avengers' special rule to him as well.

If I understand your terrain proposal correctly, you're basically suggesting having both a to-hit penalty and an armor save boost, right? I can get behind that. I actually kind of like the idea of USRs for terrain that you can slap on terrain as appropriate. A twisted copse, for instance, might not help out your armor save (bushes don't do much against bolter rounds), but it could make it harder for the enemy to target you in the first place. So give it the "Obscuring(-1)" rule that imposes a -1 penalty to to-hit rolls instead of the "Fortifying(+1) " rule that grants a +1 to armor saves.

yeah the current terrain LOS and modifiers are horse crap.

Terrain / including the angle you shoot at things in terrain/cover should determine the "to hit" modifier.

I think infantry should get a blanket -1 to hit in light terrain, and a -2 to hit in heavy terrain/cover. So infantry becomes extremely difficult to shoot at, which is realistic because when you cant see infantry then you cant really take a good shot at them. I spoke with a friend who was in desert storm and fought in baghdad against the iraqi republican guard, and he told me that in combat you might see the bad guys for the first second or two, but thats it. Everyone runs for cover and keeps their head down. Everyone finds cover, ANY cover, even squeezing themselves into a tight little package behind their own rifle. if thats all they have.

So right now in 40K you see light infantry as being practically useless unless youre spamming tiny units just to get a heavy weapon or a special weapon, or unless youre a horde army and you need 20+ or 30+ models to swarm the enemy with trash infantry and drown them in your own units blood. You rarely see a line of tactical marines with bolters, or a line of guardians, or whatever - because the elite options and fast attack and all that are vastly superior for survivability and speed and power.

So if terrain/cover rules were better, you would see something more like this...

Light infantry models would get a -2 to hit from enemy shooting at them when in cover.
Heavy infantry models (terminators, wraithguard, crisis suits, and other powered armor) get -1 to hit against all enemy fire.

These bonuses only work against incoming fire coming in from a front 90 degree arc.
Enemy units that have flanked the infantry that are in cover, and have gotten beyond that 90 degree arc, ignore all cover saves.

This would emphasize getting your units to flank the opponent / makes infantry much more survivable and therefore more useful, and leave us with more balanced forces on the board. Its not that these cover hit modifiers would make infantry impossible to kill, it would just make them very tough to kill FROM THE FRONT. Meaning you would see much more rapidly moving forces attempting to outflank one another. Too many games are very static, predictable, and boring. Combat should be about fire and maneuver and position/power.

some good suggestions

the subtractions for the to hit will not slow the game down.

In 2nd edition it became very intuitive and takes a second or so to figure out.

Very much worth adding some dimensional variances

What would also be very easy to do as a house rule - simply assign wounds to the terrain. So if youre hiding in some trees, you have say 10 wounds worth of cover buffer to shoot through. Because you can destroy trees or buildings by shooting at them. So trees would be T5 W(X) And then Buildings would be T6-10 Depending on an agreed toughness - bunkers would be 10 maybe. Or regular city ruins would be T6. Then assign wounds.

So if someone is hiding in concrete ruins, the concrete ruins could absorb a lot of light weapon fire, from bolters and lasguns. But then if you shot at it with weapons that do multiple damage or have a high strength and multiple shots, you could totally destroy the cover and begin to ignore the cover benefits offered to the infantry hiding there.

another way to make infantry more useful and cover more interesting.

warpedpig wrote:
What would also be very easy to do as a house rule - simply assign wounds to the terrain. So if youre hiding in some trees, you have say 10 wounds worth of cover buffer to shoot through. Because you can destroy trees or buildings by shooting at them. So trees would be T5 W(X) And then Buildings would be T6-10 Depending on an agreed toughness - bunkers would be 10 maybe. Or regular city ruins would be T6. Then assign wounds.

So if someone is hiding in concrete ruins, the concrete ruins could absorb a lot of light weapon fire, from bolters and lasguns. But then if you shot at it with weapons that do multiple damage or have a high strength and multiple shots, you could totally destroy the cover and begin to ignore the cover benefits offered to the infantry hiding there.

another way to make infantry more useful and cover more interesting.

I like this a lot. The only odd thing is that some terrain (buildings that aren't necessarily "building") should probably leave ruins after you break them, but not everyone has the perfect replacement model for this sort of thing. I guess you could just put a "ruined" token on such terrain?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

warpedpig wrote:
yeah the current terrain LOS and modifiers are horse crap.

Terrain / including the angle you shoot at things in terrain/cover should determine the "to hit" modifier.

I think infantry should get a blanket -1 to hit in light terrain, and a -2 to hit in heavy terrain/cover. So infantry becomes extremely difficult to shoot at, which is realistic because when you cant see infantry then you cant really take a good shot at them. I spoke with a friend who was in desert storm and fought in baghdad against the iraqi republican guard, and he told me that in combat you might see the bad guys for the first second or two, but thats it. Everyone runs for cover and keeps their head down. Everyone finds cover, ANY cover, even squeezing themselves into a tight little package behind their own rifle. if thats all they have.

So right now in 40K you see light infantry as being practically useless unless youre spamming tiny units just to get a heavy weapon or a special weapon, or unless youre a horde army and you need 20+ or 30+ models to swarm the enemy with trash infantry and drown them in your own units blood. You rarely see a line of tactical marines with bolters, or a line of guardians, or whatever - because the elite options and fast attack and all that are vastly superior for survivability and speed and power.

So if terrain/cover rules were better, you would see something more like this...

Light infantry models would get a -2 to hit from enemy shooting at them when in cover.
Heavy infantry models (terminators, wraithguard, crisis suits, and other powered armor) get -1 to hit against all enemy fire.

These bonuses only work against incoming fire coming in from a front 90 degree arc.
Enemy units that have flanked the infantry that are in cover, and have gotten beyond that 90 degree arc, ignore all cover saves.

This would emphasize getting your units to flank the opponent / makes infantry much more survivable and therefore more useful, and leave us with more balanced forces on the board. Its not that these cover hit modifiers would make infantry impossible to kill, it would just make them very tough to kill FROM THE FRONT. Meaning you would see much more rapidly moving forces attempting to outflank one another. Too many games are very static, predictable, and boring. Combat should be about fire and maneuver and position/power.

I'm not as big a fan of most of this. At least, not in 40k. All these rules do a degree of detail ("simulationism") to the game, but they also slow the game down quite a bit and don't necessarily work very well in a d6-based system. You know how a lot of people are praising 8th edition for playing faster and getting rid of unnecessary, fiddly rules? This is kind of the opposite of that. ^_^;

Consider, for instance, that a -2 modifier to-hit means that almost all imperial guard units now only hit on a 6+, and even space marines will only hit with every third shot. So assuming you're a shooty, BS4+ army (guard/Tau), you now basically need twice as many points worth of stuff to break even with the damage you're doing now. Personally, I wouldn't even bother trying to run a shooty army if I knew all my guns would only be hitting on a 5+. And then figuring out where the "front" of a model is... What happens if I have a model facing every direction? Do I now have to slow down my movement phase to make sure that I don't accidentally rotate the facing of all my infantry a couple degrees away from the biggest threat?

All these suggestions seem like they would work pretty well in a different game system. Something like Infinity (which does have firing arcs and more detailed cover rules) probably handles this level of detail better thanks to the fact that you're entire Infinity force might easily contain fewer models than a single squad of space marines.

The 8th edition cover rules could stand to be improved, but adding lots of minutia isn't the way that I'd personally like to see it go. I just want a way to benefit from being obscured by the towering wall of a ruined building standing between my opponent and myself without having to actually stand on the ruins.

The point is to make infantry more useful and survivable. And to encourage flanking the enemy and negating those cover saves. And to add more tactics and movements to an otherwise somewhat repetitive dull game where everyone just lines up and shoots back and forth. So boring. You have no reward for flanking or encircling the enemy.

Simply put, shuriken catapults should have never been completely obliterated via 3rd edition.

Why give a Toughness 3 model w/ a poor armour save a 12" weapon, requiring them to get obscenely close to an enemy?

In 2nd ed. a guardian started with a lasgun (normal lasgun, just like IG). The shuriken catapult was an upgrade and nasty.

Range 24", Strength 4, -2 Save modifier, Sustained Fire (up to 3 shots)

It was better than even a storm bolter. Admittedly it was a bit expensive. It was a good base for doling out lots of firepower. It also meant, just like the lasgun, you didn't need to get suicidally close to do anything. A guardian unit should not be just a bunch of meat bags surrounding a grav platform.

To add to that they need to get rid of the stupid blade storm or whatever nonsense. It's a good example of bloat which is completely unnecessary with the new rules. Regardless of the range, a Shuriken Catapult should just be -1 save modifier, a Shuriken Cannon the same (maaaybe -2). The changed save modifier on a '6' is clunky and a waste of time.

Dire Avengers should be better than guardians but that shouldn't be differentiated by simple wargear - Guardians should never have become WS/BS 3+. That's a stupid change the fluff and completely questions the existence of Aspect Warriors outside of wargear and armour (that's probably a discussion for another thread)

So guardians should be 4+ was and bs. And shuriken catapults should be 24" assault 2. Ap-1?

Eh, it's impossible to institute something like that now because GW has been on the "new" shuriken idea for way too long. Fluff-wise it doesn't add up at all, but that's never stopped GW before.

Guardians have become a complete mess which never needed to happen.

They should just make it a 24" gun with S4 ap-1 and rapid fire. Then give dire avengers a special bonus like "shuriken Storm" or "expert shuriken slinger" where they can roll an extra dice when shooting. So they get 2 or 3 shots. Or give dire avengers a rapid fire 2 version. So they get 4 shots when at 12"

Or make ALL shuriken catapults 18" rapid fire 1 weapon.

And Dire Avengers are so good at using the weapon that in their hands they have the ability to make it an Assault 2 weapon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Guardians don't have to get into suicide range to fire and its only 3 inches lost to keep your 2 shots each at 9" for bikes and vehicles etc.

Yes a highly trained shooter is very much capable of putting out double the aimed fire of a novice shooter. A weekend warrior like a guardian is not going ro utilize the weapon as fast or effectively as an aspect warrior. So doubling the effectiveness of a shuriken catapult for a dire avengers is no stretch.

A real world example is placing ten novice shooters at 50 yards from a navy seal. No exaggeration to say the navy seal has a fair chance of shooting them all dead before he goes down. Because he has trained 100x more than them.

I'd like to see the return of competent Guardians (which may seem odd since I'd also like to see them at BS/WS 4+ again). Give them a leader or allow them special weapons like back in the day (not just Storm Guardians). They just scream "we're one huge heavy weapons team" and that's kinda sad. I still take Guardian squads but they sure are useless most of the time.

warpedpig wrote:
The point is to make infantry more useful and survivable. And to encourage flanking the enemy and negating those cover saves. And to add more tactics and movements to an otherwise somewhat repetitive dull game where everyone just lines up and shoots back and forth. So boring. You have no reward for flanking or encircling the enemy.

Flanking/encirclement can be awesome concepts/mechanics in a game. I'm just not sure I want to calculate facing arcs for all of the models in a squad and then recalculate my to-hit formula every time I shoot. :( Would a targeted unit be considered "flanked" if I had a single guy towards the center of the squad facing in the direction of the attacker, for instance? Or does the entire squad have to be facing you to not be "flanked"? What happens if I put my squad in a circle formation with everyone looking outwards or towards the center? Is there a penalty for that? What if part of your squad is within the "facing arc" of the squad you're shooting at, but the other half is not? What about that last scenario, but the models that aren't facing you are out of line of sight?

I'm definitely open to flanking/vision arcs as a possible mechanic, but I wouldn't want the game to slow down or become overly complicated to facilitate such a thing. But hey, I'd give a fair shake to a set of "facing" rules that don't bog down the game or make the game significantly more difficult to teach. No pressure, but would you care to take a stab at writing some up?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Elbows wrote:
Simply put, shuriken catapults should have never been completely obliterated via 3rd edition.

Why give a Toughness 3 model w/ a poor armour save a 12" weapon, requiring them to get obscenely close to an enemy?

In 2nd ed. a guardian started with a lasgun (normal lasgun, just like IG). The shuriken catapult was an upgrade and nasty.

Range 24", Strength 4, -2 Save modifier, Sustained Fire (up to 3 shots)

It was better than even a storm bolter. Admittedly it was a bit expensive. It was a good base for doling out lots of firepower. It also meant, just like the lasgun, you didn't need to get suicidally close to do anything. A guardian unit should not be just a bunch of meat bags surrounding a grav platform.

To add to that they need to get rid of the stupid blade storm or whatever nonsense. It's a good example of bloat which is completely unnecessary with the new rules. Regardless of the range, a Shuriken Catapult should just be -1 save modifier, a Shuriken Cannon the same (maaaybe -2). The changed save modifier on a '6' is clunky and a waste of time.

Dire Avengers should be better than guardians but that shouldn't be differentiated by simple wargear - Guardians should never have become WS/BS 3+. That's a stupid change the fluff and completely questions the existence of Aspect Warriors outside of wargear and armour (that's probably a discussion for another thread)

I kind of like the idea of having rapidfire lasblasters and shuriken catapults both as options for guardians. The former would make more sense on a squad that wants to keep its distance. The latter (what we currently have) can actually work well if you're putting your poets/artisans in a wave serpent. Especially if someone bothers to toss around Guide/Doom. I'm not married to Bladestorm as a rule, but I do like the idea of bladestorming catapults serving as the shorter-ranged, more lethal alternative to a longer-ranged, weaker lasblaster.

I totally agree about WS/BS though. It felt weird when guardians got it, and it makes aspect warriors less "special." WS/BS4+ guardians and vehicles with vehicles having an "eagle warrior" upgrade option to improve their stats, says I.