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Apocalypse looks a little bit flaky, and some odd choices seem to have been made between unit choices and power level costs and such. Early to tell yet though and for all I know it could be amazing. But I'd be interested to see if some of the rules made it into 9th Ed 40k. I particularly like the idea of damage all being calculated at the end of the turn, this seems really nice. I also sort of like weapons having specific to-wound rolls vs people or vehicles, but this is debatable.

What would you like to see, if any of it at all?

Too early to tell. rules are a funny thing they need to interact together to form a cohesive whole. sometimes a rule thats good requires additional changes etc. that said, the apoc damage resolution (remove models after the turn) certainly would shake 40k up.

Damage calculation looks good, as does splitting the wound roll for weapons versus vehicles and non-vehicles - that helps define a weapon's role much better than the current rules do. Alternating activation would be a good rule to carry over, but would probably need some adjustments for regular 40k.

I like the idea of implementing d12s. I don't know where, but I recently read a post here on dakka, which said that for such a huge range of creatures and profiles the d6 gives way too few possibilities. I'm not entirely sure how I'd include the d12 (swapping ALL d6 for d12s might be overkill) but I think the statement holds some fundamental truth

From what little I've seen I'd say damage being calculated at the end of the round would be the best and easiest to implement

Having a single roll for all the shots of a unit is something that i always thought about. Makes everything faster.

In general though i have to say that for now i prefer the apoc rules to the 40k rules (and i really like 8th edition). We need to know more.

What I'd like to see for 9th is Fliers, Super-Heavies and Lords of War being restricted to Apocalypse games.

Alternating activation of certain sub-groupings of your army (Detachments, battle groups, whatever) wouldn’t surprise me. Kill Team had some rudimentary version, now Apoc, 40K even has it already in the fight phase. It seems to be a thing on their minds.

Folding Psychic Powers (as well as maybe C’Tan stuff, Orders, etc..) into the Stratagem System as special strats that require a Psyker (C’Tan, Officer, etc..) and scrapping the psychic phase could be something to streamline some of the mini-games in the game.

What I hope we don’t see in 9th is a bunch of X-Wing style order-, status, whatever tokens piled next to every unit.

Alternative activation, differing profiles for weapons depending on targeting veh or infantry and D12s would be some things that I would be open to the inclusion in regular 40k.

 fraser1191 wrote:
From what little I've seen I'd say damage being calculated at the end of the round would be the best and easiest to implement

All The This! /\

Whilst far from an expert, it does seem most of the beardy, dare I say boring, lists out there depend entirely on the Alpha Strike - and shonky ways to achieve that.

If stuff isn't removed until the end of the Game Round, that drastically changes how we play the game. After all? Found a neat combo which will wipe out 30 Ork Boyz, guaranteed? Go for it. They'll still be getting some say in the battle.

Most of it sounds good to me. Fewer dice rolls, alternating activation, unit level combat instead of model level combat, casualties at end of turn.

If they did something like alternating phases with casualties at the end of turn(or phase) I think it would very much represent things happening simultaneously, rather than I go you go.

The game would play far faster if things were treated on the unit level rather than the model level. If I have 10 units so I need to roll 10 dice to determine the results of shooting, or even say 30 dice. it is better than now when i could have 100+ models and roll 300 dice to determine the outcome.

For that to work things would really need to cut down options I guess as having a number of different weapons in one squad would be tricky to deal with.

Breng77 wrote:
Most of it sounds good to me. Fewer dice rolls, alternating activation, unit level combat instead of model level combat, casualties at end of turn.

If they did something like alternating phases with casualties at the end of turn(or phase) I think it would very much represent things happening simultaneously, rather than I go you go.

The game would play far faster if things were treated on the unit level rather than the model level. If I have 10 units so I need to roll 10 dice to determine the results of shooting, or even say 30 dice. it is better than now when i could have 100+ models and roll 300 dice to determine the outcome.

For that to work things would really need to cut down options I guess as having a number of different weapons in one squad would be tricky to deal with.

Apoc can have a surprisingly high amount of weapons in a squad, look at devastator squads. When you have cut down 20 bolters shots to 4 and a single armor save, you can now indulge in adding some more dices to the game.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:
From what little I've seen I'd say damage being calculated at the end of the round would be the best and easiest to implement

All The This! /\

Whilst far from an expert, it does seem most of the beardy, dare I say boring, lists out there depend entirely on the Alpha Strike - and shonky ways to achieve that.

If stuff isn't removed until the end of the Game Round, that drastically changes how we play the game. After all? Found a neat combo which will wipe out 30 Ork Boyz, guaranteed? Go for it. They'll still be getting some say in the battle.

Doesn't this just turn every game into a battle of attrition?

 vipoid wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:
From what little I've seen I'd say damage being calculated at the end of the round would be the best and easiest to implement

All The This! /\

Whilst far from an expert, it does seem most of the beardy, dare I say boring, lists out there depend entirely on the Alpha Strike - and shonky ways to achieve that.

If stuff isn't removed until the end of the Game Round, that drastically changes how we play the game. After all? Found a neat combo which will wipe out 30 Ork Boyz, guaranteed? Go for it. They'll still be getting some say in the battle.

Doesn't this just turn every game into a battle of attrition?

No it makes movement and target priority matter.

Folding Psychic Powers (as well as maybe C’Tan stuff, Orders, etc..) into the Stratagem System as special strats that require a Psyker (C’Tan, Officer, etc..) and scrapping the psychic phase could be something to streamline some of the mini-games in the game.

That's really cool actually, I think requiring a strategos to be nearby the unit when you play other powerful stratagems would be cool too.

Breng77 wrote:

No it makes movement and target priority matter.

You're kidding, right?

Because it actually has the exact opposite effect.

Movement and positioning mean even less because you can be shot (or even charged) and destroyed by the same units you just shot and destroyed.

Same goes for target priority - even if you choose the optimum units to destroy, they still get a free turn to shoot you back anyway.

You might as well be playing Warhammer: The Card Game for all the difference the battlefield will make after this change.

I love the removing casualties at the end of the battleround.

I have always like the idea of alternating activations because it would negate the turn 1 advantage. I would still prefer this where you alternate movement, alternate shooting and charging to represent a fluid battlefield (and you would take casualies as you lose them). But the not removing them until the end of the round is the next best thing imo.

The current 1st turn advantage is still pretty big. sure the oppenent can focus fire say a unit of centurian devistators but this way they would at least get 1 round of shooting before they go down.

in the cas eof 30 ork boys say charging a imperial guard screen it would mroe represent the orks make it, they charge, and as they are mopping up the squad the thing that shot them up finishes them off.

I want to see:

A move to D12 for attacks, wounds and saves. D6's can still be used for other things like shot amount. I want to see charges give you the option of D12, 2D6 or 4D3. I want to see a general rule that allows for number of shots and damage to exchange xD6 for twice as many D3s.

Damage inflicted at the end of the round, but to have the player turn order be ABBA so player 2 doesn't get too much of an advantage from knowing which of their units are dead.

Honestly, from what I'm seeing, Apoc looks like a better 40k than 40k. I'm not sure of specifics but I would certainly like for them to port over rules from Kill Team and/or Apoc for a new edition of 40k.

I like how they're making the "stratagems" into a deck, rather than a hand of cards you always have access to. It creates a shifting, flowing resource, rather than an "always be prepped" deal. You won't always know what or when your opponent might spring a trap because of an Apocalypse card in hand, and I think that'll be really interesting. I think they could do a similar thing for 40k pretty easily, but I'm not sure how well it would be received.

I do not like the idea of porting over D12's. The Apocalypse system here makes it work because of how you can roll the same stat on two kinds of dice, giving you an "easy mode/hard mode" style of dice. A similar thing could easily have been done by having two different saving throws on a D6. Same goes for wounding. It's not wounding on D12's that makes it interesting, it's that you're wounding based on whether the target is an Infantry or a Tank.

I do not like the idea of porting over "end of round damage resolution" as a direct port-over. In Apocalypse it'll work because you only care about number and size of Blast markers. In 40k, wounds can be quite varied in terms of what save they allow, how much damage each attack does, and other special rules that may modify how the damage is carried through. While the idea has some merit, you'd have to rework the game almost from scratch to make this work - a direct port would be functionally impossible.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I want to see:

A move to D12 for attacks, wounds and saves. D6's can still be used for other things like shot amount. I want to see charges give you the option of D12, 2D6 or 4D3. I want to see a general rule that allows for number of shots and damage to exchange xD6 for twice as many D3s.

Damage inflicted at the end of the round, but to have the player turn order be ABBA so player 2 doesn't get too much of an advantage from knowing which of their units are dead.

The BB double turn in the thing I've seen by far the most critiques about from AoS as it's way to swingy for to many strategies.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:
From what little I've seen I'd say damage being calculated at the end of the round would be the best and easiest to implement

All The This! /\

Whilst far from an expert, it does seem most of the beardy, dare I say boring, lists out there depend entirely on the Alpha Strike - and shonky ways to achieve that.

If stuff isn't removed until the end of the Game Round, that drastically changes how we play the game. After all? Found a neat combo which will wipe out 30 Ork Boyz, guaranteed? Go for it. They'll still be getting some say in the battle.

I like the thought of this. I'm sure there are some issues, but it does seem to make melee more threatening.

Ozomoto wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I want to see:

A move to D12 for attacks, wounds and saves. D6's can still be used for other things like shot amount. I want to see charges give you the option of D12, 2D6 or 4D3. I want to see a general rule that allows for number of shots and damage to exchange xD6 for twice as many D3s.

Damage inflicted at the end of the round, but to have the player turn order be ABBA so player 2 doesn't get too much of an advantage from knowing which of their units are dead.

The BB double turn in the thing I've seen by far the most critiques about from AoS as it's way to swingy for to many strategies.

But does AOS combine it with damage at the end of the round too however?

 vipoid wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

No it makes movement and target priority matter.

You're kidding, right?

Because it actually has the exact opposite effect.

Movement and positioning mean even less because you can be shot (or even charged) and destroyed by the same units you just shot and destroyed.

Same goes for target priority - even if you choose the optimum units to destroy, they still get a free turn to shoot you back anyway.

You might as well be playing Warhammer: The Card Game for all the difference the battlefield will make after this change.

A valid point, but does it always apply and is it always bad?

I might shoot Boyz who haven't jumped yet. If they jump and fail the charge then i'm at an advantage next turn.

It's planning for where things might be before they are there that seems to count.

As for trading anti-tank fire it makes units that can move after shooting really valuable, doesn't it? Otherwise a couple tanks trading hits doesn't seem horribly game breaking - the only difference is alpha strike is reduced.

BCB makes a good point about ABBA turn order to prevent a knowledge advantage.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:
From what little I've seen I'd say damage being calculated at the end of the round would be the best and easiest to implement

All The This! /\

Whilst far from an expert, it does seem most of the beardy, dare I say boring, lists out there depend entirely on the Alpha Strike - and shonky ways to achieve that.

If stuff isn't removed until the end of the Game Round, that drastically changes how we play the game. After all? Found a neat combo which will wipe out 30 Ork Boyz, guaranteed? Go for it. They'll still be getting some say in the battle.

I like the thought of this. I'm sure there are some issues, but it does seem to make melee more threatening.

But aren't saving throws also made at the end too so you don't know if you're gonna kill a unit out right and you almost have to overkill units correct?

If that's the case then trying to use that with the ap system could get tricky

The main things I'd like to see translate?

Alternating activations. It's kind of absurd that both Kill Team and Apocalypse manage this, but the mainline game can't. It's clearly the better play style.

More distinctive weapons. Changes to Type, AP, Strength, and Templates have smoothed out a lot of the roles that made individual weapons distinct in practice. Even just the addition of SAP and SAT does a lot to distinguish different weapon roles again.

Simpler Stratagems. I like Stratagems, I think they're an elegant approach to the FOC problem, and I enjoy the narrative impact they have on the game. But they could greatly do with simplification and trimming back, and while I wouldn't want to need a deck of cards for every game, Command Assets are certainly one possible approach.

More relevant Morale. In 8e, Morale is just a damage multiplier with an outsize impact on hordes and a bigger benefit to shooting armies. It either doesn't affect you because you're MSU, doesn't affect you because you're functionally immune, or will utterly wreck your gak and requires constant awareness. This means that armies focused on Morale, like Night Lords, are also screwed. The Apocalypse version isn't perfect, but by god it's better than this.

More formal rules language. 8e tries for "natural language" in its rules, which is easier to read but causes a few problems in the long term; the distinction between "moving" and "moving", for example, or between units set up as reinforcements and units bought with reinforcement points, and so on. Apocalypse is more formal, and ultimately more clear. Just phrasing like "activations" helps tremendously.

More universal special rules. 7e was overloaded with special rules, which made each unit entry look like a Mad Libs datasheet and forced constant cross-referencing. 8e removed all of them... except for flying, and aircraft, and titanic units, and characters, and giant characters, and transports, and deep strikes, and etc. It tried to have its cake and eat it too, by disguising or repeating USRs that ought to just be USRs. Apocalypse looks more balanced in its approach.

Unit conditions. A bunch of roleplaying games have used "conditions" as handy reference points for decades. 40k does too, it just tends to pretend otherwise. There are eight million rules that apply to a unit that "is within 1" of an enemy unit", and tons of rules that reference a unit that "Advanced in the preceding Move phase". There's no reason the rules couldn't just say "a unit within 1" of an enemy unit is Engaged", and give me a flashcard saying what that does, and every subsequent rule references "an Engaged unit". Ditto Advancing, Falling Back, Broken, Charging, Embarked, Hovering, Readied, etc. Apocalypse is already partway there.

 vipoid wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

No it makes movement and target priority matter.

You're kidding, right?

Because it actually has the exact opposite effect.

Movement and positioning mean even less because you can be shot (or even charged) and destroyed by the same units you just shot and destroyed.

Same goes for target priority - even if you choose the optimum units to destroy, they still get a free turn to shoot you back anyway.

You might as well be playing Warhammer: The Card Game for all the difference the battlefield will make after this change.

It is just different, you can no longer rely on moving in and wiping out threats so you will need to use cover and terrain to limit opponents return fire. Staying out of range of multiple units, further away from units that could charge you etc.

Target priority similarly would be different. With units that cannot respond taking priority while denying shots to other units.

In the end it means that the risk of over extended get early is larger because you cannot win turn 1 with no retribution.

The only thing is that it might make going second too strong.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Ozomoto wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I want to see:

A move to D12 for attacks, wounds and saves. D6's can still be used for other things like shot amount. I want to see charges give you the option of D12, 2D6 or 4D3. I want to see a general rule that allows for number of shots and damage to exchange xD6 for twice as many D3s.

Damage inflicted at the end of the round, but to have the player turn order be ABBA so player 2 doesn't get too much of an advantage from knowing which of their units are dead.

The BB double turn in the thing I've seen by far the most critiques about from AoS as it's way to swingy for to many strategies.

But does AOS combine it with damage at the end of the round too however?

ABBA. I'm player B and I deepstrike bloodletters down fight twice blah blah damage is calculated; my bloodletters lost close to nothing because they wiped there targets. I take another turn fight twice with them then they are blown off the table; damage is then calculated. I basically got a free full turn of brawling over ABAB despite casualties at the end. Granted this is a particular case and not all of them end up like it but units that get to abuse such things would become the norm would be my guess.

What I hope is that there never is a ninth. People who want a simple, streamlined, balanced game, go all in Apocalypse. Let it become the tournament version of 40k.

That way, people who who have always seen 40k as more of a setting/ story engine can continue to live in the golden age that is 8th. If we can convince GW to just keep going, maybe we'll have viable Tau soup or Ork soup options.

The last thing I want is for a Sisters army after 15 freakin years of waiting, just to end up with a year to play it before someone hits the reset button and I have to wait until all the space marine dexes are reprinted AGAIN.

As for making everything that feels unique about an army into a strategem, please, NO! If my miracles use the same mechanic as heretics, or aliens or lowly, faithless guard I'm not sure I'll ever be able to forgive GW. And being a witch hunter doesn't really feel the same without a psychic phase. A witch doesn't feel like a witch when it's all just strategems.

If GW can just keep these games distinct, everybody wins. You want simple? You have simple- bless Apocalypse.

You don't? Well then just keep on playin 40k as is and let GW create some new armies. I love having Rogue Trader and Navigator models and actual rules for them; I can't wait to see what they do with Inquisition.

I mean, sure- updating the existing range of models is also important; fixing broken dexes is a great idea too. Kill Team and Blackstone are AMAZING ways to release new content for the existing range.

But none of these things are ever going to happen if they hit the reset button either. We'll just end up buying/ waiting out the space marine dexes AGAIN!

(Sorry to repeat myself, but since GW has done it 8 freakin times and this thread is about what to wish for when they do it AGAIN, you can forgive me for doing it twice)

I am interested in seeing how apoc plays at smaller point levels. Or, if the chits can be aquired, how well it would play alternating at the unit level instead of the detachment.

We might just have a better version of 40k available. And if thats true then good. feth 8th and its bloated mess of errata and faqs.