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Made in gb
Fresh-Faced New User




Given the recent (and quite successful) addressing of turn 1 deepstrike armies with the beta rule turn one has become less of a game breaking turn. However against static gunline armies such as IG or Tau it's still not uncommon to lose a major portion of units on turn one, even if you set up in cover. Especially since you havent had an opportunity to pop smoke or similar things.

To address this i have a couple of ideas.
The most drastic would be a blanket -1 to hit at shooting on turn 1, this should allow both teams to get a full compliment of shots off turn one as things like wiping out vehicles becomes a lot less likely, which helps in gunline vs gunline battles. It also means that taking on a gunline as a melee based army becomes easier to manage as you have a turn of 'softened' fire while you close in. The main problem with this is it means extremely mobile armies like drukhari become much stronger as they can already quickly close the gap so it might mean they reach the gunline having taken virtually no damage.

Slightly softer options would include counting all models as moving on turn one as they 'set up on the battlefield' meaning the -1 only applies to heavy weapons and not to heavier vehicles, or allowing a 'pre-turn 1' where both sides can do preliminary defensive abilities. Then make a list of popping smoke, defensive physic powers, and such that can be done in this pre-turn
   
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Fort Hood (Tx)

The -1 to hit turn one is easy to negate by a few armies. Theres alot of things in 40k that grant a +1 to hit.

Give us reserves back, that way you can keep your heavy hitting off the board turn 1


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Gathering the Informations.

 kinratha wrote:
The -1 to hit turn one is easy to negate by a few armies. Theres alot of things in 40k that grant a +1 to hit.

Which doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot when you're talking about being BS 4+ for those two armies.

That's the thing people seem to forget. Guard and Tau aren't BS3+ on their 'heavy hitters'. They're BS4+. Tau have Markerlights to negate this but Guard don't really have anything to do the same.


Give us reserves back, that way you can keep your heavy hitting off the board turn 1

Deploying better and not playing on bare boards helps too.

A blanket 'minus 1 to hit' for shooting on turn 1 is just silly. Why don't we have a -1 to hit for CC every turn you charge?
   
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 Kanluwen wrote:


A blanket 'minus 1 to hit' for shooting on turn 1 is just silly. Why don't we have a -1 to hit for CC every turn you charge?


because generally you dont have a bunch of strength 8 and 9 weapons charging your tanks from across the board of turn one
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




GW already gave you the answer to this in CA 2017 it's called progressive scoring. It prevents an army just death balling in the corner.
But if you have massed S8+9 from across the board thats a pretty sub optimal Tau list.
Competitive Tau aren't taking 1 shot weapons at BS4+ base at the price they pay.

But seriously better terrain and adopting ITC no shooting through the ground floor of ruins does limit gunlines alpha.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Progressive scoring would be an ideal counter to many of the games problems if they removed the "tabling == automatic defeat" bit.

which also allows heroic last stands etc that while you die to the last $whatever, you held for long enough that the overall battle is won as a result.

Would also like to see the return of shooting into terrain, shooting out of terrain but not shooting through terrain so it becomes a lot easier to hide key units out of sight initially.

more open reserve rules would also be nice to have
   
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Gargantuan Gargant





New Bedford, MA USA

If you are losing a majority of your army turn 1 to shooting there is not enough Line of Sight blocking terrain on the board.


   
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 adamsouza wrote:
If you are losing a majority of your army turn 1 to shooting there is not enough Line of Sight blocking terrain on the board.



This.

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United Kingdom

BrianDavion wrote:
 adamsouza wrote:
If you are losing a majority of your army turn 1 to shooting there is not enough Line of Sight blocking terrain on the board.



This.


I think the problem people often have with this is that everyone plays with ruins as terrain, which all have a million gothic windows or arches etc which, by the standard rules, provide LoS. As long as you can see the tip of an antenna poking out, you can see the model so you can shoot it.

I had a good experience when an opponent and I agreed on what I believe were ITC rules that said the ground floor of ruins block LoS, regardless of windows.

GW needs to release more terrain that's both thematic and useful for LoS blocking.

   
Made in us
Gargantuan Gargant





New Bedford, MA USA

I have two tables worth of ruins I made back during 6th and 7th editions that suffer from this exact condition. I am currently building new ruins that are windowless and tall enough to hide an imperial knight.

   
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Locked in the Tower of Amareo




Even with ITC rules, gunlines are devastating turn 1.
   
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Norn Queen






It's almost like IGOUGO is simply not possible to balance for tabletop miniature gaming or something.
   
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Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high

Bring back randomly rolled night fighting turn 1.
Can't target units outside 36 inches. Units 18-36 inches away fire at a -1.

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BrianDavion wrote:
 adamsouza wrote:
If you are losing a majority of your army turn 1 to shooting there is not enough Line of Sight blocking terrain on the board.



This.

Nah - not really. If you can hide your whole army turn 1 - you are playing with TOO MUCH terrain. If you can't hide your whole army - Their whole army can shoot it. All LOS blocking does is protect the things you don't want to die first. BUT you still are playing catchup and still will probably lose.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 iGuy91 wrote:
Bring back randomly rolled night fighting turn 1.
Can't target units outside 36 inches. Units 18-36 inches away fire at a -1.

Not necessary. Gotta realize rules like this just make it harder for mid range armies to fight long range ones. Close combat only armies can hit turn 1 with the right combos too. There is no issue really with shooting vs CC. The issue really is just 1 army gets to go before the other one. So these games really just end up being like 2000 points vs 1600 or less points.

I think in the competitive sense we should a lot more situations where your whole army does not start on the board. Like an encounter battle.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/09/17 14:03:11


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Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Night-fighting was a bit of a difficult one - whilst it did help slow armies get to the enemy a bit more intact, it also punished people who needed the help - when I played trukk-rush, night fighting instantly gave me the advantage turn 1, as all I did as move, then flat-out. I'd say I won more night-fights than I lost as Orks.

I like the idea that whoever goes "Second" actually gets one turn, first, in which they cannot move, shoot or assault, and may only buff their units, pop smoke etc. it's not like, if you're relying on your psychic ability to keep you alive, you'll wait for the first gun to fire before you start using it.

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Gargantuan Gargant





New Bedford, MA USA

If there are 2 LOS blocking terrain pieces in each deployment zone and midfield, and they are staggered, it should only be possible for a fraction of each army to have LOS at anything in the opposing deployment zone.

   
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 adamsouza wrote:
If there are 2 LOS blocking terrain pieces in each deployment zone and midfield, and they are staggered, it should only be possible for a fraction of each army to have LOS at anything in the opposing deployment zone.


That's a big if. Some battles are fought on plains, too.
   
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Gargantuan Gargant





New Bedford, MA USA

If you are playing on plains then you are handing a gun line army a massive advantage.

   
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 adamsouza wrote:
If you are playing on plains then you are handing a gun line army a massive advantage.


I get that, but relying on terrain to make things fair is at least partly a fallacy.
   
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Gargantuan Gargant





New Bedford, MA USA

If you run across an open field while people are shooting at you, you are going to get shot.

This is accurately depicted in Warhammer 40K.

It's a much simpler solution to add some LOS blocking terrain to the table than rebalance melee and shooting effectiveness to account for poor strategy.

   
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So board set up is strategy now?
   
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Martel732 wrote:
So board set up is strategy now?
Welcome to 1987? Board Set up has ALWAYS been part of strategy.
   
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Dallas area, TX

I think what Martel is alluding to is that you don't always have a say in how the board is set up (like in a tournament) and therefore it cannot be relied on for strategy, only adapted to (which also may no be possible)
Some organized events specifically arrange at least 1 table with a big open area, while at the same time over crowd 1-2 table with lots of LOS blocking terrain.

This makes sense over just having all table about the same, as the "same" set up may present an advantage to a particular list. By having tables that are variety and rotating players to never be on the same table (if possible) you mitigate a single player having a their ideal setup for every round.

So what to you do when you get placed on a table with a big open plain with virtually no LOS blocking terrain and face off against a gunline?

-

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/09/18 17:49:17


   
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NYC

It's fair to cover exactly 25% of the board with cover.

You can do this by filling up one quarter of the table with terrian pieces to see/agree on the volume of cover.

Then place the terrain piece by piece. And roll of to choose a side.
   
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 BaconCatBug wrote:
Martel732 wrote:
So board set up is strategy now?
Welcome to 1987? Board Set up has ALWAYS been part of strategy.


It really shouldn't be. Setting up a board to favor your army is tfg behavior.

And yes, I'm referring to 3rd party boards.
   
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Gargantuan Gargant





New Bedford, MA USA

 Galef wrote:

So what to you do when you get placed on a table with a big open plain with virtually no LOS blocking terrain and face off against a gunline?
-


Play the objectives, take lots of casualties, an complain that the event organizer is out of touch with 8E meta.

The game does not need a special rule that handicaps turn 1 shooting or protects people from ranged attacks while out in the open.

What the game needs for a balanced and fair shake for a multitude of army builds is a little thought going into setting up the terrain.


   
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Shooting has been the meta since at least 5th.

I do think this game needs alternating unit activation pretty badly. I'd rather play slower, more meaningful matchups.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/09/18 18:50:25


 
   
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Martel732 wrote:
Shooting has been the meta since at least 5th.

I do think this game needs alternating unit activation pretty badly. I'd rather play slower, more meaningful matchups.
People keep lauding "Alternating Action" as if it would fix all the problems. Alternating Action has problems just as bad as IGOUGO, just different ones.
   
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I've been playing a ton with -1 to hit on the first turn, not the first battle round just first turn. It makes games far more interesting and it's a neat way to tune down going first if you're not playing a mission that has huge going second incentives. I'm happy for you if you haven't noticed the effect of going first, because usually, I find that it's huge. This is how it is in every UGOIGO game, just look at TCGs, the only TCG I can think of with a going second advantage is Shadowverse, that would be like giving the going second player 3 CP at the start of the game.

Last edition we played objectives 11-36 being captured at the end of the battle round instead at the end of your turn, this also worked. End of battle objectives also help nerf the effect of going first, you're not punishing gunlines but going second against an alpha-strike list isn't really any more fun than facing a gunline.
   
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United Kingdom

Personally I think a player 1 moves, player 2 moves, 1 shoot, 2 shoot, 1 combat, 2 combat, etc, etc format would resolve this somewhat, but that's a whole revamping of the entire game system rather than a quick fix.
   
 
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