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Amishprn86 wrote: 5th dangerous terrain rules. A roll of 1 kills a X wound model when going over a fence. I;d seen 200pt models die b.c they tripped and rolled their ankle.
Or 5th hitting skimmers vehicles in melee, always a 6 to hit if i remember correctly.
In one of my first games in fifth, we had a little cobblestone wall and my opponent rolled 3 leman russ tanks over it, immobilizing all three.
Later in the battle, my opponent landed 5 stormtroopers via deep strike, then scattered a basilisk shot onto them and blew them all up.
Ironically, that kind of madcap chaos was why I decided I liked 40k in the first place. I know the old "Vehicles have no hit points but just random bad stuff happens to them and they can be completely crippled without being destroyed" rules were broken, because there was always a 1/6 chance of just "whoops, instantly dead." but they were kind of fun.
Talinsin wrote: 7th Ed.
Invisibility makes attacks hit the target on a 6, but if the attack would ordinarily auto-hit, it cannot hit an invisible target. This means flamers and blasts (the logical choices) cannot hit invisible targets.
One side effect is some screwy stuff in melee. Two squads beating on an invisible tank in melee. First squad damages and immobilizes the tank. Now the tank is invulnerable and the second squad cannot hurt it, as melee attacks auto-hit an immobile vehicle but invisibility makes that impossible.
Need to block off an objective vs melee army? Drop a drop pod on it then cast invisibility. Now it cannot be removed.
Ahhh, you are missing a key distinction! Auto-hitting attacks couldn't *TARGET* invisible enemies! They could HIT invisible enemies, but only if they were standing close enough to a non-invisible target and you targeted those guys.
the "Good old days" editions had some truly hilarious rules if applied to today's standards. Let's look at everyone's favorite sacred cow, 2nd edition.
You are allowed to Run (Doubling your move, not getting to shoot) only if no enemy models are within 8". However, you may Charge (Doubling your move, not getting to shoot) at any time. Charging rule specifies that you must "engage the closest model" but it is never actually defined what "engage" means.
Think the Line of Sight rule definition in 8th is bad? Well 2nd edition has you covered: It has no definition. "Models must be able to draw Line of Sight to their targets." That's it, baby.
Blast weapons must be positioned such that most of the models hit are from the target unit. That means if the unit you want to target is nearby a more numerous unit, it might be illegal to shoot a blast or template weapon targeting that unit.
or how about "Large Targets"? Firing at a large target grants +1 to hit. What is a large target, 2nd edition Warhammer 40,000? Well it's a target larger than an elephant. That is literally the rule.
Or how about "It's gonna blow!"? Models in base to base contact with a vehicle that gets hit by a weapon that "Causes it to blow up" get a free move. I'm sure "blow up" has some clearly defined definition somewhere in the rules. Nope! There are unique, narratively described results for all catastrophic vehicle damage, vehicles can go flying, explode, flip over, lash out in their death throes, etc, etc. Is any effect that could cause damage to nearby models "blowing up?" is it only when it describes some kind of explosion?
In order to fight a model in close combat, you must be in base-to-base contact. However, there is a bonus of +1 if your model is standing on higher ground than their opponent. How can bases be in contact while one model is one higher ground? Who knows.
"Fumbles" are defined in the close combat table as a -1 modifier to your combat result. In the text of the rule, however, it says each Fumble grants your opponent +1.
Models attacking vehicles "Must obviously be in base-to-base contact as normal." Therefore vehicles without bases in 2nd edition are immune to all melee combat.
When you charge a vehicle, you can use a gun your model is equipped with rather than a melee weapon (as long as it's not a Move Or Fire or Sustained Fire weapon) and you still get to add the physical strength of the model holding the gun. Also, you score a number of hits with that gun equal to the attacks stat of the model. It also says "The attacker must specify the location struck - with certain logical restrictions!"
the_scotsman wrote: the "Good old days" editions had some truly hilarious rules if applied to today's standards. Let's look at everyone's favorite sacred cow, 2nd edition.
You are allowed to Run (Doubling your move, not getting to shoot) only if no enemy models are within 8". However, you may Charge (Doubling your move, not getting to shoot) at any time. Charging rule specifies that you must "engage the closest model" but it is never actually defined what "engage" means.
Think the Line of Sight rule definition in 8th is bad? Well 2nd edition has you covered: It has no definition. "Models must be able to draw Line of Sight to their targets." That's it, baby.
Blast weapons must be positioned such that most of the models hit are from the target unit. That means if the unit you want to target is nearby a more numerous unit, it might be illegal to shoot a blast or template weapon targeting that unit.
or how about "Large Targets"? Firing at a large target grants +1 to hit. What is a large target, 2nd edition Warhammer 40,000? Well it's a target larger than an elephant. That is literally the rule.
Or how about "It's gonna blow!"? Models in base to base contact with a vehicle that gets hit by a weapon that "Causes it to blow up" get a free move. I'm sure "blow up" has some clearly defined definition somewhere in the rules. Nope! There are unique, narratively described results for all catastrophic vehicle damage, vehicles can go flying, explode, flip over, lash out in their death throes, etc, etc. Is any effect that could cause damage to nearby models "blowing up?" is it only when it describes some kind of explosion?
In order to fight a model in close combat, you must be in base-to-base contact. However, there is a bonus of +1 if your model is standing on higher ground than their opponent. How can bases be in contact while one model is one higher ground? Who knows.
"Fumbles" are defined in the close combat table as a -1 modifier to your combat result. In the text of the rule, however, it says each Fumble grants your opponent +1.
Models attacking vehicles "Must obviously be in base-to-base contact as normal." Therefore vehicles without bases in 2nd edition are immune to all melee combat.
When you charge a vehicle, you can use a gun your model is equipped with rather than a melee weapon (as long as it's not a Move Or Fire or Sustained Fire weapon) and you still get to add the physical strength of the model holding the gun. Also, you score a number of hits with that gun equal to the attacks stat of the model. It also says "The attacker must specify the location struck - with certain logical restrictions!"
Oh nostalgia how you have lied to me.
Sometimes I just like to imagine how hardcore RAW-types would react to half of the beardy wargames I end up playing when I go to conventions with my dad. I've played historical games where units move 12" per turn and bows have 2" of range because "any real damage is impossible at ranges higher than 10 meters and this is a 1/64 scale game so..." or games where you have to roll to see enemy tanks through the "fog of war" so your anti-tank gunners can fail to spot a panzer positioned 1" away from their faces. There was one WW1 game where the author tried to represent those crazy stories of a single soldier going nuts and murdering a whole trench full of guys by allowing you to activate a fixed number of times per turn but placing no limit on the number of times you could activate one model. When the GM said that my opponent and I just looked across from each other and mutually understood that this entire game would be the two of us selecting our favorite looking miniature and having him sprint around like the protagonist in an FPS game splattering a dozen enemies every turn and moving a total of 75" on a 4'x6' table.
Wayniac wrote: Yet for all the weird rules of the past, I don't recall ever having a LOS discussion or feeling it was unfair in 2nd. Maybe because without the rules being so wide, people just applied common sense.
I'm sorry, but in the english language there is only one definition for the term "Elephant" and my small plastic carnifex is clearly NOT larger than a 20-foot tall multi-ton pachyderm, and unless you can source somewhere in the RULES that it says we should imagine some kind of scaled-down "Model elephant" we play the game as WRITTEN, not your CAAC rules as intended bs interpretation!
Wayniac wrote: Yet for all the weird rules of the past, I don't recall ever having a LOS discussion or feeling it was unfair in 2nd. Maybe because without the rules being so wide, people just applied common sense.
I'm sorry, but in the english language there is only one definition for the term "Elephant" and my small plastic carnifex is clearly NOT larger than a 20-foot tall multi-ton pachyderm, and unless you can source somewhere in the RULES that it says we should imagine some kind of scaled-down "Model elephant" we play the game as WRITTEN, not your CAAC rules as intended bs interpretation!
African Bush Elephants top out at 11' at the shoulder.
I'm gonna quote the incredibly sarcastic and amazing FAQ from the 2nd edition rulebook here:
"I got it wrong - sometimes I wonder how I sleep at night!"
Oh, here's another fun rule from the FAQ:
"Q: Some models are allowed to dodge shooting and hand-to-hand attacks on an unmodified die roll. Can you dodge a psychic attack?
A: This really depends on the kind of attack, so it needs a bit of common sense and interpretation. Basically, is the psychic attack is something which affects the target's mind or body, you can't dodge it. If the psychic attack blasts the target with a burst of physical energy, then the model can try to dodge it like any kind of attack."
Wasn't the most imbalanced thing in the world but GOD was it a feelsbad moment when someone lobbed a random krak missile at your super pumped up space marine chapter master and he just went "Kersplat."
the_scotsman wrote: Wasn't the most imbalanced thing in the world but GOD was it a feelsbad moment when someone lobbed a random krak missile at your super pumped up space marine chapter master and he just went "Kersplat."
Certainly helped cut down on the herohammer though.
I mean kinda. It really just meant they were deployed in super mega doomblobs and they were just as undefeatable.
And it replaced D6 (or D8, D10, D20 whatever) damage in the first place, ala 2nd edition. Where pretty much any model other than characters could only target either the closest infantry target or the closest vehicle/monster target.
ThatMG wrote: About Instant Death was that it effected things it shouldn't
Tyranid Warriors
Zoanthropes.
+others.
Really it's a bad rule.
It really wasn't. It was a great leveller that is somewhat missing from the modern game. Have a SM character rampaging through your ranks? One well placed krak missile later and he's toast. Now, there were units that got caught in the crossfire (both of the above you mentioned we immune to it when in Synapse range so are categorically bad examples), but on the whole it was good. Did you ever experience the alpha strike of the infiltrating, daemonic speed CSM 3.5 dex Lord which could charge you turn 1 and there was literally nothing you could do about it? You would yearn for instant death with that thing going through your lines, luckily it existed back then.
Yeah, until you had a T6 or greater character, which most of the problematic ones were, and then you didn't get any help from instant death and you had to kill them with a bajillion lascannon shots that did 1 damage...
ID like Strength D and the "Superheavy" designation was one of the stupidest mechanics of older editions because it created extreme power differentials between units that juuuuust barely got over that bar.
Kind of like what is IMO the worst mechanic of 8th: Character rule, where an extremely flimsy unit becoming a character gains a HUGE amount of durability and an extremely sturdy unit losing character designation by having exactly 10 wounds loses a HUGE amount of durability...to the point where 9 to 10 wounds makes you vastly less durable.
A T4 hq was much, MUCH, MUUUUUUUCH easier to kill than a T5 or T6 HQ for no real properly explored reason. This meant that certain fairly arbitrary character units, like say Nurgle Bike HQs, got to be 10x-20x more durable statistically than other units that pay similar points into different kinds of durability like a Storm Shield Terminator Captain.
The superheavy/strength D designation was similar. I think it was Wraithknights and Gorkanauts which were the best examples of this. A gorkanaut was something like 260-270 points, and WKs were I believe 295-ish at their hayday, and the WK was the smallest thing in the game to have Super-Heavy status and the Strength D melee weapon, while gorkas just missed out on that, being regular vehicles with a S10, good AP weapon.
It took something like 3 Gorkanauts to down a sword WK in melee, and the WK would mulch a gorkanaut per turn extremely reliably. Because if you got juuuuuust over this line, you earned a bunch of super-powerful special rules including 4+D3 chances to insta-gib any non superheavy opponent by rolling a 6.
CHARACTER keyword gamesmanship is the same way. I would much prefer a system like this (I know, clunky and not perfect but you get the idea):
"Look Out, Sir!: When your opponent wishes to target one of your CHARACTER keyword units while that CHARACTER unit is not the closest model, you may attempt to intercept that attack with a friendly model within 6". Roll 2D6. If you roll above the Wounds stat of your character, the selected friendly unit is the target of the attack instead."
Automatically Appended Next Post:
flandarz wrote: I figured it was replaced by that ability that deals MWs (on a 2+
3+, etc) if you didn't slay a model with your weapon. Or just MWs in general.
Well that was kind of the answer to super reliable invuln saves. but the extreme durability of T6+ characters and MCs was resolved by bringing back a Damage stat for weapons.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/16 18:40:55
And it replaced D6 (or D8, D10, D20 whatever) damage in the first place, ala 2nd edition. Where pretty much any model other than characters could only target either the closest infantry target or the closest vehicle/monster target.
Although there was a workaround for that, if you got the right mission card... You were allowed to ignore other targets in favour of a mission objective. Played a game with a mate of mine back when the original Abaddon model was first released. It was the first time he had put Abaddon on the table... I had The Assassin mission card (kill the enemy commander). Turn one, Lascannon to Abaddon's head, failed saves, rolled stupid high damage. Very expensive Cult Terminator bodyguard are left standing around the body of their (now former) boss saying 'Uh... what just happened?'
We wound up having a do-over after that game, to give Abby a chance to actually do something.
For the most part, though, the targeting rules did mean that characters could be somewhat protected from one-shotting them. Although everyone tended to run their characters with Displacer Fields or Power Fields just in case. And from 3rd onwards, Instant Death meant that invulnerable saves continued to be seen as a requirement for Independent Characters. From a practical point of view, it makes sense that characters (and vehicles) can be taken out by a single lucky shot... but from a gameplay point of view, it was always a little disappointing to lose your big bad before they had a chance to do anything. The rate of casualty removal in general is one of the things I became increasingly unhappy with over the years...
I mean, this is the big feels-bad with 2nd edition in general. Yeah, it was cool that every vehicle had its own super indepth damage table, but for every game where crazy zany stuff happened like guns blowing off, the vehicle moving out of control, etc, there was a game where the vehicle just bit the dust turn 1 to a random shot.
Lascannon penned, rolled a 6 on the table, your land raider explodes killing everyone instantly and taking out a chunk of your troops too, just like that.
skchsan wrote: Units previously furnished with AV values should have had some sort of AP modifier stat instead of inflating Wound value the way they did.
We could call it save mod mod!
And then, when weapons like melta guns feel too weak, we can have some kind of ability on them to ignore SMM - maybe some kind of "Save mod mod mod".
The possibilities of what can be done with a single d6 roll are LITERALLY LIMITLESS!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/17 15:49:44
Bharring wrote: I loved the "golden beebee" feel. Always brought a handful of Lascannons (or similar) - on the average shot, it won't 1-round a LR. But a couple in the backfield on scoring units means my opponent needs to consider the possibility...
Felt more engaging than "Fire all a dozen Lascannon (equivelents) into a Leman Russ - I might bracket it this turn!".
Are you...are you complaining that 8th edition is NOT DEADLY ENOUGH?
On average a dozen lascannons deal 16 wounds to a leman russ.
