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One of the most common complaints I see on the forums is the heavy/assault d3/d6. This is not really a new concept to us, but since it replaced blasts/templates it is far more wide-spread. The main issue with this is that many of those former blast weapons were crucial in mitigation of poor BS. A degraded ork vehicle with a heavy d6 gun just has d6 chances to fail(or d6 complete failures if it moved).

So how could we fix this?

One option would be to just house-rule blasts and templates back into the game. But you might as well just go back to earlier editions with that.

Another option is to just make the guns Heavy/Assault 1 and add an ability that turns each successful hit into d3/d6 hits(based on old blast size). This doesn't quite fix the BS issue for many armies but it does better represent what blast was.

I find systems wherein direct-hit damage and blast damage are resolved differently (a la WHFB's blasts that hit the model under the center hole at one Strength and everyone else at half the Strength, or Warmachine's blasts with one Power on a direct hit and half Power for blast damage) feel better than 40k's uniform blast damage since they allow blast weapons to threaten both hard targets and soft targets more fairly, whereas in 40k a blast weapon has to have not enough shots to threaten small targets or it's too powerful against hard targets/not enough power to threaten hard targets so it can have enough shots to threaten small targets.

I'd much rather see more blast weapons look like the Contemptor's conversion beamer where it gets one shot at some high S/AP/D, and if that shot kills a model it does a random number of extra hits to the squad at a lower S/AP/D. It might also separate out high-explosive weapons from anti-tank weapons more effectively rather than making the high-rate-of-fire/intermediate-power weapons your most efficient choice against just about anything the way the current system does.

Here was my idea:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/755924.page#9999150

I'm still a fan of just having blast/template weapons roll extra to-hit rolls against units with lots of models. Examples:

Flamer: 1d6 hits + 2 hits for every 5 models (rounding up)
Torrent Flamer: 2d6 hits + 2 hits for every 5 models (rounding up)
Small blast: 1dx shots +1 shot for every 5 models (rounding up)
Large blast: 1dx shots +2 shots for every 5 models in the unit ( rounding up).

The result is that you'll land more hits the larger the enemy unit is without having (much) impact on your performance against small units. So a vanquisher will still only be so effective against a single model target like a rhino or carnifex, but it will more reliably take out a handful of models in a blob of ork boyz. This also results in anti-horde weapons that can genuinely be more effective against light infantry swarms than against smaller, more expensive units if my unchecked guesstimations are correct.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again:

Blast (X): this weapon hits automatically. Each hit becomes X hits, up to the number of models in the target unit.

You'll always hit at least something, but it's up to the dice how many models you hit and you can never hit a single model more than once with an explosion. You're either in the blast or you aren't. So a plasma cannon, for example, would become Heavy 1 with the Blast (D3) rule. You roll a D3 once, generate that many hits (up to the number of models in the unit). Or you could have a weapon that is Heavy 2 with Blast (D6). In this case you'd roll two separate D6s, each limited to the number of models in the unit, and total up the hits.

 Peregrine wrote:
I've said it before, but I'll say it again:

Blast (X): this weapon hits automatically. Each hit becomes X hits, up to the number of models in the target unit.

You'll always hit at least something, but it's up to the dice how many models you hit and you can never hit a single model more than once with an explosion. You're either in the blast or you aren't. So a plasma cannon, for example, would become Heavy 1 with the Blast (D3) rule. You roll a D3 once, generate that many hits (up to the number of models in the unit). Or you could have a weapon that is Heavy 2 with Blast (D6). In this case you'd roll two separate D6s, each limited to the number of models in the unit, and total up the hits.

Always hitting something feels odd to me though. Historically, blasts were often less accurate than non-blasts when fired at small, spread-out squads. Fluff-wise, it seems weird that a demolisher cannon lobbing a single shell into the air is one of the most reliably ways in the galaxy to hit a speeding flyer. Mechanically, it puts an assumption of minimum number of hits/to-hit penalty countering onto a bunch of weapons that previously didn't have it. Thus why I personally prefer my own suggestion. Mathematically, you're more likely to hit more often against larger units, but the potential to completely miss still exists.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Historically, blasts were often less accurate than non-blasts when fired at small, spread-out squads.

They really weren't. Small, spread out squads were usually more likely to receive at least one hit because the larger footprint of the unit made scattering completely off much harder. Spacing them out did help mitigate the number of hits you'd take, but with maximum coherency distance being 2" and the smallest template being 3" across there was no way for it to land in the middle and hit nothing. That's how the random shot count works, you might roll a 1 (the template scatters badly) or you might roll a 6 (direct hit). It's also worth noting that BS modifiers do not work on the blast roll, so you can never improve your accuracy with them. You're stuck with whatever the D3/D6 roll gives you, even if you can stack up modifiers to the point that a fixed-RoF weapon is hitting on every shot.

Fluff-wise, it seems weird that a demolisher cannon lobbing a single shell into the air is one of the most reliably ways in the galaxy to hit a speeding flyer.

This is best fixed by going back to the old rule that blast/template weapons can't attack flyers. Hitting flyers is way too easy in 8th anyway.

Mechanically, it puts an assumption of minimum number of hits/to-hit penalty countering onto a bunch of weapons that previously didn't have it.

Well yes, that's the entire point. Mechanically it's representing a large area effect weapon that is always going to hit at least one model because even the worst marksman can't possibly miss entirely with an explosion that big.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm still a fan of just having blast/template weapons roll extra to-hit rolls against units with lots of models. Examples:

Flamer: 1d6 hits + 2 hits for every 5 models (rounding up)
Torrent Flamer: 2d6 hits + 2 hits for every 5 models (rounding up)
Small blast: 1dx shots +1 shot for every 5 models (rounding up)
Large blast: 1dx shots +2 shots for every 5 models in the unit ( rounding up).

The result is that you'll land more hits the larger the enemy unit is without having (much) impact on your performance against small units. So a vanquisher will still only be so effective against a single model target like a rhino or carnifex, but it will more reliably take out a handful of models in a blob of ork boyz. This also results in anti-horde weapons that can genuinely be more effective against light infantry swarms than against smaller, more expensive units if my unchecked guesstimations are correct.

Not sure I'd go with a flat increase per number of models, rather just add more dice based on model count; so the minimum number of hits goes up, but the average goes up a bit slower.
Like: Blast DX/Y
So Blast D3/5 would give you D3 hits for every up to 5 models in the unit, so a 10 man unit gets 2D3, an 11 man unit gets 3D3.
Blast D6/10, or 2D3/5 and so on would give a much larger number of variants for all the blast weapons that are available. Set the maximum number of hits to the minimum roll - not based on the unit size, so some weapons with multiple dice for damage can hit single model units a bit harder. (taking an earthshaker round to the chest is probably going to hurt a bit more than just being in a unit when one lands nearby!)

 Kcalehc wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm still a fan of just having blast/template weapons roll extra to-hit rolls against units with lots of models. Examples:

Flamer: 1d6 hits + 2 hits for every 5 models (rounding up)
Torrent Flamer: 2d6 hits + 2 hits for every 5 models (rounding up)
Small blast: 1dx shots +1 shot for every 5 models (rounding up)
Large blast: 1dx shots +2 shots for every 5 models in the unit ( rounding up).

The result is that you'll land more hits the larger the enemy unit is without having (much) impact on your performance against small units. So a vanquisher will still only be so effective against a single model target like a rhino or carnifex, but it will more reliably take out a handful of models in a blob of ork boyz. This also results in anti-horde weapons that can genuinely be more effective against light infantry swarms than against smaller, more expensive units if my unchecked guesstimations are correct.

Not sure I'd go with a flat increase per number of models, rather just add more dice based on model count; so the minimum number of hits goes up, but the average goes up a bit slower.
Like: Blast DX/Y
So Blast D3/5 would give you D3 hits for every up to 5 models in the unit, so a 10 man unit gets 2D3, an 11 man unit gets 3D3.
Blast D6/10, or 2D3/5 and so on would give a much larger number of variants for all the blast weapons that are available. Set the maximum number of hits to the minimum roll - not based on the unit size, so some weapons with multiple dice for damage can hit single model units a bit harder. (taking an earthshaker round to the chest is probably going to hurt a bit more than just being in a unit when one lands nearby!)

That assumes that the earthshaker round can be placed accurately enough to hit that solo charictor. It most likely will miss but still catch them in the blast radius. Quite frankly placing artillery rounds accurately enough to hit a moving target like a human is crazy unrealistic.

Don't forget a Baneblade is a single model too... Capping the hits to model count significantly nerfs those current weapons that are decent against vehicles too. Trying to make them make sense against multi model units and not render them essentially useless against single targets that they are quite good at hurting as well. Some abstraction is required.

Not sure a Flamer should get more than one hit on such a model. I'd think weapons designed to penetrate and deal with a singe model are better vs a Baneblade than weapons designed to hit every target in an area.

 Kcalehc wrote:
Don't forget a Baneblade is a single model too... Capping the hits to model count significantly nerfs those current weapons that are decent against vehicles too. Trying to make them make sense against multi model units and not render them essentially useless against single targets that they are quite good at hurting as well. Some abstraction is required.

Except HE shells shouldn't be good against hard armour.
I'll take people actually needing to specialise a bit more over leaving a Battle cannon as the best Anti tank weapon the imperium of man has.

 Peregrine wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
Historically, blasts were often less accurate than non-blasts when fired at small, spread-out squads.

They really weren't. Small, spread out squads were usually more likely to receive at least one hit because the larger footprint of the unit made scattering completely off much harder. Spacing them out did help mitigate the number of hits you'd take, but with maximum coherency distance being 2" and the smallest template being 3" across there was no way for it to land in the middle and hit nothing. That's how the random shot count works, you might roll a 1 (the template scatters badly) or you might roll a 6 (direct hit). It's also worth noting that BS modifiers do not work on the blast roll, so you can never improve your accuracy with them. You're stuck with whatever the D3/D6 roll gives you, even if you can stack up modifiers to the point that a fixed-RoF weapon is hitting on every shot.

We're both sort of right. Spreading out more did mean you were more likely to take at least one hit, but in my experience units worried about blasts generally spread out into single file lines. So if you have your unit in an EAST/WEST line, a blast that scatters east or west is basically guarantee to hit someone, but a blast that north/south will almost always miss if it scatters at all, and a blast going northeast/southwest would be somewhere in between. Mostly I was thinking of the fact that you had a 1/3rd chance of rolling a bull's eye, so you'd scatter more often than not, and scattering averaged a 3" or 4" scatter depending on BS4 or BS 3.

My main point here, I guess, was that blasts have not traditionally been autohit weapons unless you're aiming at extremely large targets like land raiders, super heavies, etc. Some blast weapons even had rules to make them especially inaccurate.

Fluff-wise, it seems weird that a demolisher cannon lobbing a single shell into the air is one of the most reliably ways in the galaxy to hit a speeding flyer.

This is best fixed by going back to the old rule that blast/template weapons can't attack flyers. Hitting flyers is way too easy in 8th anyway.

That wouldn't be an awful way to go. I kind of have mixed feelings about template weapons and flyers. If the plane is flying slowly enough for me to only take a -1 to hit it and low enough for a winged tyranid to swoop up and bite it right after fighting some ground-based infantry, then I feel like the flyer is probably slow and low enough for me to spray at with a garden hose full of electroshock grubs or napalm or whatever. But that's more an issue of flyers not really being a reasonable "scale" for 40k. In my head canon, all flyers basically start behaving like Banshees from the Halo games once they enter the battlefield.

Mechanically, it puts an assumption of minimum number of hits/to-hit penalty countering onto a bunch of weapons that previously didn't have it.

Well yes, that's the entire point. Mechanically it's representing a large area effect weapon that is always going to hit at least one model because even the worst marksman can't possibly miss entirely with an explosion that big.

I've been using traditional scatter, with the difference of not being able to exceed half the distance between the firer and the target.

Wyld,
Technically, yes, there are situations where a Flamer might do more damage to a single target than a group of targets. Conversely, firing a Boltgun or Heavy Bolter into a 10-man unit is going to score more hits on average than firing it at a single individual. The difference in both cases is small enough to not heavily impact the game.

A Flamer being waved in a 120 degree arch is still shooting flames out in a wall. Whether it's a single guy charging through or 20 guys charging through that wall of flame, each guy gets hurt as much.

You could say you're focusing the *flamer* on a single guy/vehicle. So you might be burning maybe twice as hot. Maybe doing 2 hits instead of one. But 3.5 hits on average? The nossel isn't even on target 3.5x as long. Further, each additional unit of time (second, half-second, whatever) you spend with the flamer on target after hitting would have diminishing returns, not increasing returns. So 1 hit instead of d6 hits is *much* more accurate for the flamer.

Next, consider all the other blast/etc weapons. Is that Plasma Grenade being focused on a single model? No - it would hit the single model at most once. Frag Missile? Plasma Cannon? These have random shots to show an effective area. They aren't focused or shaped to hit a single target worse than a group of guys.

Bharring wrote:
Wyld,

You could say you're focusing the *flamer* on a single guy/vehicle. So you might be burning maybe twice as hot. Maybe doing 2 hits instead of one. But 3.5 hits on average? The nossel isn't even on target 3.5x as long. Further, each additional unit of time (second, half-second, whatever) you spend with the flamer on target after hitting would have diminishing returns, not increasing returns. So 1 hit instead of d6 hits is *much* more accurate for the flamer.

Having never personally utilized a flamethrower, acid spewer, or demonic bile gland myself, I can't really attest to the return on investment for prolonged dousing of enemies with deadly substances. Video game logic tells me the TF2 pyro does more damage if he constantly sprays the enemy with fire, but duo-chromatic mercenaries may not be a realistic measure for this sort of thing. I wouldn't mind capping hits based on models in the target unit, but I don't really mind things as they are either.

Next, consider all the other blast/etc weapons. Is that Plasma Grenade being focused on a single model? No - it would hit the single model at most once. Frag Missile? Plasma Cannon? These have random shots to show an effective area. They aren't focused or shaped to hit a single target worse than a group of guys.

This is a convincing point though. You maybe try to argue that a single-model squad encourages the firer to target the single model more effectively thus hopefully putting the blast more center-of-mass and doing more damage, but that feels like a stretch and contrary to the relatively inaccurate nature of blast weapons. That said, I do feel that having a weapon fire multiple shots at a single-model target can mathematically still feel like a decent representation of the power of that weapon. A battle cannon that hits multiple times, in my head canon (cannon canon), isn't necessarily literally firing more shots. We're just using the number of hits as an abstract way of determining how close the shell came to hitting an especially juicy target. Similarly, a frag grenade that scores 6 hits against 3 models is, to my mind, just representing that the grenade landed in a really good spot and is thus more likely to hurt the enemies near it.

So to play daemon's advocate, it's not that the grenade is somehow focusing all its explodyness onto a single enemy model. It's that the grenade just happened to land really close to that one guy. Possibly as the result of the grenadier only having to toss the grenade into the path of a single guy instead of lobbing it more abstractly between a formation of dudes.

Dandelion wrote:
Here was my idea:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/755924.page#9999150

I'll just retype the gist of the idea since I don't think anyone bothered to read it

Instead of having a variable number of attacks, blast weapons will instead inflict a variable number "hits" after a single hit roll.
Examples ( I will be using Guard stuff since I'm most familiar with them):

Grenade Launcher (frag): Assault 1 / S3 / 24" / AP - / D1 / Notes: A successful hit roll applies 3+D3 hits to the targeted unit. A failed hit roll, other than a roll of 1, applies D3 hits. This weapon cannot apply more hits than there are models in the enemy unit.

The grenade actually goes from 1.75 hits currently to 3.16 hits on average.
----
Now as for flamers, I would much prefer them to simply be devastating against units in cover, such as auto 6 hits at said units and ignore cover bonus. And if terrain to-hit modifiers become a thing, flamers suddenly become a very useful weapon for flushing out targets.

Ice_can wrote:

 Kcalehc wrote:
Don't forget a Baneblade is a single model too... Capping the hits to model count significantly nerfs those current weapons that are decent against vehicles too. Trying to make them make sense against multi model units and not render them essentially useless against single targets that they are quite good at hurting as well. Some abstraction is required.

Except HE shells shouldn't be good against hard armour.
I'll take people actually needing to specialise a bit more over leaving a Battle cannon as the best Anti tank weapon the imperium of man has.

HESH shells are actually quite good against hard armor, and moderately good against infantry targets.

Wyldhunt wrote:

Spoiler:

 Kcalehc wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm still a fan of just having blast/template weapons roll extra to-hit rolls against units with lots of models. Examples:

Flamer: 1d6 hits + 2 hits for every 5 models (rounding up)
Torrent Flamer: 2d6 hits + 2 hits for every 5 models (rounding up)
Small blast: 1dx shots +1 shot for every 5 models (rounding up)
Large blast: 1dx shots +2 shots for every 5 models in the unit ( rounding up).

The result is that you'll land more hits the larger the enemy unit is without having (much) impact on your performance against small units. So a vanquisher will still only be so effective against a single model target like a rhino or carnifex, but it will more reliably take out a handful of models in a blob of ork boyz. This also results in anti-horde weapons that can genuinely be more effective against light infantry swarms than against smaller, more expensive units if my unchecked guesstimations are correct.

Not sure I'd go with a flat increase per number of models, rather just add more dice based on model count; so the minimum number of hits goes up, but the average goes up a bit slower.
Like: Blast DX/Y
So Blast D3/5 would give you D3 hits for every up to 5 models in the unit, so a 10 man unit gets 2D3, an 11 man unit gets 3D3.
Blast D6/10, or 2D3/5 and so on would give a much larger number of variants for all the blast weapons that are available. Set the maximum number of hits to the minimum roll - not based on the unit size, so some weapons with multiple dice for damage can hit single model units a bit harder. (taking an earthshaker round to the chest is probably going to hurt a bit more than just being in a unit when one lands nearby!)

As mentioned above, I personally don't like the idea of most blasts being auto-hit weapons. So giving a weapon 1d3 auto hits per 5 models means you'll have a minimum of 2 hits a max of 6 hits, and an average of 4 hits against a 10 man target. A 1d3 +1/5 shot weapon would have a minimum of 0 hits, a maximum of 5 hits, and an average of 2 hits on a BS4+ model. You're not auto-hitting units with a -3 penalty to being hit, and you're still rewarded for having a good BS.

I'm mostly averse to auto-hitting blasts because some blasts are quite potent. I don't love the idea of a vindicator automatically landing hits against venoms, etc. Personal opinions on the matter obviously vary, and I'm open to being convinced that auto-hitting blasts would be a good idea. Perhaps a compromise of giving some blast weapons a rule that ignores to-hit penalties would work. Especially if combined with a rule preventing blasts from targeting flyers. So a vindicator can still miss its shot, but it's still a good choice for targeting those pesky Alaitoc rangers hiding out in the trees.

Ah, I actually meant 'shots' not hits! So still rolling to hit and all that jazz.

 Kcalehc wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Kcalehc wrote:
Don't forget a Baneblade is a single model too... Capping the hits to model count significantly nerfs those current weapons that are decent against vehicles too. Trying to make them make sense against multi model units and not render them essentially useless against single targets that they are quite good at hurting as well. Some abstraction is required.

Except HE shells shouldn't be good against hard armour.
I'll take people actually needing to specialise a bit more over leaving a Battle cannon as the best Anti tank weapon the imperium of man has.

HESH shells are actually quite good against hard armor, and moderately good against infantry targets.

Wyldhunt wrote:

Spoiler:

 Kcalehc wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm still a fan of just having blast/template weapons roll extra to-hit rolls against units with lots of models. Examples:

Flamer: 1d6 hits + 2 hits for every 5 models (rounding up)
Torrent Flamer: 2d6 hits + 2 hits for every 5 models (rounding up)
Small blast: 1dx shots +1 shot for every 5 models (rounding up)
Large blast: 1dx shots +2 shots for every 5 models in the unit ( rounding up).

The result is that you'll land more hits the larger the enemy unit is without having (much) impact on your performance against small units. So a vanquisher will still only be so effective against a single model target like a rhino or carnifex, but it will more reliably take out a handful of models in a blob of ork boyz. This also results in anti-horde weapons that can genuinely be more effective against light infantry swarms than against smaller, more expensive units if my unchecked guesstimations are correct.

Not sure I'd go with a flat increase per number of models, rather just add more dice based on model count; so the minimum number of hits goes up, but the average goes up a bit slower.
Like: Blast DX/Y
So Blast D3/5 would give you D3 hits for every up to 5 models in the unit, so a 10 man unit gets 2D3, an 11 man unit gets 3D3.
Blast D6/10, or 2D3/5 and so on would give a much larger number of variants for all the blast weapons that are available. Set the maximum number of hits to the minimum roll - not based on the unit size, so some weapons with multiple dice for damage can hit single model units a bit harder. (taking an earthshaker round to the chest is probably going to hurt a bit more than just being in a unit when one lands nearby!)

As mentioned above, I personally don't like the idea of most blasts being auto-hit weapons. So giving a weapon 1d3 auto hits per 5 models means you'll have a minimum of 2 hits a max of 6 hits, and an average of 4 hits against a 10 man target. A 1d3 +1/5 shot weapon would have a minimum of 0 hits, a maximum of 5 hits, and an average of 2 hits on a BS4+ model. You're not auto-hitting units with a -3 penalty to being hit, and you're still rewarded for having a good BS.

I'm mostly averse to auto-hitting blasts because some blasts are quite potent. I don't love the idea of a vindicator automatically landing hits against venoms, etc. Personal opinions on the matter obviously vary, and I'm open to being convinced that auto-hitting blasts would be a good idea. Perhaps a compromise of giving some blast weapons a rule that ignores to-hit penalties would work. Especially if combined with a rule preventing blasts from targeting flyers. So a vindicator can still miss its shot, but it's still a good choice for targeting those pesky Alaitoc rangers hiding out in the trees.

Ah, I actually meant 'shots' not hits! So still rolling to hit and all that jazz.

Long-delayed response, but yes. I'd be fine with that. Flat bonus shots versus random bonus shots is just a matter of fine-tuning exactly how you want the math to come out. I'd be fine with this.