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Made in us
Deathwing Terminator with Assault Cannon






Inspired by another thread by BCB.

Outside of broken rules, what are/were some of the best rules you enjoyed over the years?

One of mine is characters that unlocked some FOC into troops choice. It made for a really cool, fluffy lists that helped mitigate the headache of always having to have at least 2 worthless troops.
   
Made in us
Powerful Phoenix Lord





Any Ork rules from 2nd edition.

When the game was much smaller, the flavor was far stronger. Flavor was set aside in favor of more models = more sales = more money.
   
Made in ca
Discriminating Deathmark Assassin





Stasis

3rd edition Necrons Codex.

213PL 60PL 12PL 9-17PL
(she/her) 
   
Made in gb
Walking Dead Wraithlord






The typhon heavy siege tank from FW.

Its a tank that can gobble up enemy models in CC and recover wounds!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/11 21:49:20


https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/772746.page#10378083 - My progress/failblog painting blog thingy

Eldar- 4436 pts


AngryAngel80 wrote:
I don't know, when I see awesome rules, I'm like " Baby, your rules looking so fine. Maybe I gotta add you to my first strike battalion eh ? "


 Eonfuzz wrote:


I would much rather everyone have a half ass than no ass.


"A warrior does not seek fame and honour. They come to him as he humbly follows his path"  
   
Made in us
Monster-Slaying Daemonhunter





Tank Squadrons. Now I can have ALL THE TANKS!

That said, it's probably an obsolete rule given that I probably wouldn't be able to go over Ro3 on any given type of tank nowadays and I can take a detachment of just heavy supports to make sure I have slots for all the tanks I want. It was mostly relevant back when you only had 3 Heavy Support slots, so that I could have more than 3 vehicles collectively.



Also, Beast Hunter Shells. F*** You, Riptides.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/09/11 21:52:30


Guardsmen, hear me! Cadia may lie in ruin, but her proud people do not! For each brother and sister who gave their lives to Him as martyrs, we will reap a vengeance fiftyfold! Cadia may be no more, but will never be forgotten; our foes shall tremble in fear at the name, for their doom shall come from the barrels of Cadian guns, fired by Cadian hands! Forward, for vengeance and retribution, in His name and the names of our fallen comrades! 
   
Made in gb
Stalwart Tribune





The rules & customisability of CSM 3.5 codex.

Praise the Omnissiah

About 4k of .

Imperial Knights (Valiant, Warden & Armigers)

Some Misc. Imperium units etc. Assassins...

About 2k of  
   
Made in ca
Commander of the Mysterious 2nd Legion





I like the new sucessor chapter tactics rules in the new Space Marine codex, one of the nicest little ideas I've seen from 40k in ages

Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two 
   
Made in us
Archmagos Veneratus Extremis




On the Internet

I like the new Marine rules a lot, but that seems a little too easy. Shield of Faith was probably my favorite for a long time just because it meant my Exorcists could potentially stick around in the game longer.

I enjoyed playing with the old Rage mechanic, but that was more because it was hilarious to funnel my Repentia into the enemy with some careful positioning and watching them paste whatever they hit.

Core mechanic wise I miss the old "wrecked = leave it dead on the table, explodes replace it with a crater" mechanic we had for vehicles.
   
Made in us
Committed Chaos Cult Marine





I think it is often over looked, but I do like that movement doesn't affect attacking (some weapons not withstanding) as well as standing still does not inherently giving a bonus. A lot of miniatures games before I started playing 40k would often give aim bonuses or require an action that could otherwise be used to attack. These often led to more static games. With 40k, movement is often given for free at least trying to encourage maneuver even if the rest of the rules don't.

Honorable mention, to previous editions giving space marines few reasons to seek cover. As player that has their models hug terrain as a SOP, it was refreshing to say, "Screw it! Charge across open ground!"
   
Made in us
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought




San Jose, CA

The best rule is the MOST IMPORTANT ONE!
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





Changing from guessing ranges to pre-measuring. First step towards no longer having to worry about something so petty!

 Galef wrote:
If you refuse to use rock, you will never beat scissors.
 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




It might not be the best rule but the one I miss the most is AV facings and vehicle firing arcs. One thing that has really been lost this edition is position or placement meaning anything.
   
Made in gb
Long-Range Land Speeder Pilot




UK

Any of the more flavourful 2nd ed rules - having the high ground in hand to hand combat or anything fear/terror related.
   
Made in us
Archmagos Veneratus Extremis




On the Internet

HoundsofDemos wrote:
It might not be the best rule but the one I miss the most is AV facings and vehicle firing arcs. One thing that has really been lost this edition is position or placement meaning anything.

I don't miss it because it meant that positioning only mattered when it came to vehicles. And that's not even getting into the AV facing arguments whenever the vehicle wasn't a square.

The game either needs to go all in on positioning mattering or leave it off the table completely.
   
Made in ca
Commander of the Mysterious 2nd Legion





Racerguy180 wrote:
The best rule is the MOST IMPORTANT ONE!


you mean Rule Zero?

Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two 
   
Made in au
[MOD]
Making Stuff






Under the couch

As with my worst rule, I have to go back to 2nd edition, where it's a toss-up between Ork Battlewagons being able to carry as many models as you could physically pile on top (with the caveat that any model that fell off when you moved the wagon took a wound!) or the original Necron Scarab rules, which allowed them to nibble away vehicle armour or alternatively explode on command...

 
   
Made in us
Rogue Daemonhunter fueled by Chaos






Toledo, OH


IG orders are a great mix of fluff and crunch to give characters with victim stats a great use.

Grinding advance makes leman russes into semi mobile heavy tanks.

Eldar advancing and shooting really makes them fleet of foot again.

I always liked how Synapse worked in prior editions.

 Blndmage wrote:
3rd edition Necrons Codex.


The playability of a lot of those rules was... frustrating. Every game I played against that codex was a chore, usually feeling like I wasn’t getting anywhere until they phased out. Not the biggest fan.

Still, the greatest name for a rule came from that book, as C’tan were “Immune to Natural Law.”

Second best rule name was for Alaitoc pathfinders: Worldweary. It just made them fearless, but it conjures these hard bitten ancient elves, separated from their home, smoking unfiltered cigarettes and shrugging off the deaths of comrades or the horrors of the universe. That’s how you do grimdark proper.
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut





My favorite rules were those of battlefleet gothic, specifically the Eldar fleet.

Andy chambers said to Jervis "make them annoyingly gittish" and he did that magnificently.

Move, shoot move, 2+ save against direct fire/ordnance, column shift against battery fire etc.

They were actually presented as fast, accurate and hard to hit.

I DONT like the current Eldar 40k rules -shooting after running is not how you show fast hit and run, it's something you only need when your units have short ranged guns and literally have to run closer to shoot you...

He
I liked the speed hit modifiers in 2nd ed.

If a unit moved 10" or more, you were at -1 to hit them.

And lo and behold, Eldar and nids were scary because they all had a move stat of 5"minimum, making their run and charge values 10".

Speed actually was protection

   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka




NE Ohio, USA

 ClockworkZion wrote:
HoundsofDemos wrote:
It might not be the best rule but the one I miss the most is AV facings and vehicle firing arcs. One thing that has really been lost this edition is position or placement meaning anything.

I don't miss it because it meant that positioning only mattered when it came to vehicles. And that's not even getting into the AV facing arguments whenever the vehicle wasn't a square.

The game either needs to go all in on positioning mattering or leave it off the table completely.


It SHOULD be important how you position your vehicle. A vindicators cannon only points one direction (forward).....

You want a dirt simple way to handle AV facings, whatever the shape of your vehicle? Here use this:
Front = X
Side/Rear = Y
Top = Z (if exists, should only apply against shots being fired indirectly (mortars & such))

front
------------------------------------
side/rear (vehicle)

See that dotted line? Its traced across the front edge of whatever the vehicle is.
Shots coming from in front of the line hit the front AV.
Shots coming from anywhere else hit the side/rear value.
In the cases where you find a squads fire coming from both sides of the line you should roll separately for specific weapons/groups as needed.

Small children can tell the difference between front/side with this system. 99% of the time it works at a glance.
So you'd think adults armed with tape measures & navigating the CP system should be able to handle it.....

If you have arguments & debates with this system either you're a moron, you're arguing against one, or both.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Elbows wrote:
Any Ork rules from 2nd edition.


Ah, you beat me to it.

Sadly a lot of players today would never be able to handle the randomized Orkyness that used to define Oks.
I mean look at them. They can't handle vehicle fire arcs anymore. Just imagine if their units would randomly blow up/attack one another/etc. And they'd never be able to account for a units value via mathhammer.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/09/12 01:11:26


 
   
Made in nz
Longtime Dakkanaut





Auckland, NZ

 Polonius wrote:

I always liked how Synapse worked in prior editions.


Oof, strongly disagree there.

8th edition synapse may be a bit boring and simple. There's certainly much more that could be done with it. But at least tyranids are no longer completely fethed over by their own army rules.

Every other army had their own unique rules that let them do good and interesting things. (barring necrons phase out of course)
Nids just had a set of tables featuring creative ways of screwing themselves over if they ever found themselves out of synapse. Killing each other, running away, cowering in a hole, etc.

If they had a strong benefit to offset this then Maybe that would have been fine, but instead they just got fearless. Which was useless on the monsters, and could be actively harmful on the gaunts (the 5th edition No Retreat rules in particular were dreadful, and in many cases worse than having to take a sweeping advance check). Practically everything else in the game had innate fearless (or better) anyway.

Sorry, as a long time tyranid player, that touched a nerve

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/12 01:29:47


 
   
Made in ca
Junior Officer with Laspistol





London, Ontario

So the “front” of a Necron croissant is the front two points of the croissant? That’s a tricky definition of front.

Putting vehicles on rectangular bases? That’s an easy solution.

My favourite rules would be orders for Guardsmen. To be honest, a simple +1 to hit “order” would have been very simple, but GW made each order situational instead. The point is, I liked having the leaders create buffs for their followers. That made me happy.
   
Made in us
Monster-Slaying Daemonhunter





ccs wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
HoundsofDemos wrote:
It might not be the best rule but the one I miss the most is AV facings and vehicle firing arcs. One thing that has really been lost this edition is position or placement meaning anything.

I don't miss it because it meant that positioning only mattered when it came to vehicles. And that's not even getting into the AV facing arguments whenever the vehicle wasn't a square.

The game either needs to go all in on positioning mattering or leave it off the table completely.


It SHOULD be important how you position your vehicle. A vindicators cannon only points one direction (forward).....

You want a dirt simple way to handle AV facings, whatever the shape of your vehicle? Here use this:
Front = X
Side/Rear = Y
Top = Z (if exists, should only apply against shots being fired indirectly (mortars & such))

front
------------------------------------
side/rear (vehicle)

See that dotted line? Its traced across the front edge of whatever the vehicle is.
Shots coming from in front of the line hit the front AV.
Shots coming from anywhere else hit the side/rear value.
In the cases where you find a squads fire coming from both sides of the line you should roll separately for specific weapons/groups as needed.

Small children can tell the difference between front/side with this system. 99% of the time it works at a glance.
So you'd think adults armed with tape measures & navigating the CP system should be able to handle it.....

If you have arguments & debates with this system either you're a moron, you're arguing against one, or both.



Flames of War uses that system and it works fine, though the tanks are universally rectangular because real tanks are largely universally rectangular.

That said, there are vehicle and vehicle-esque units that you'll definitely have a hard time defining a clear line to be the front of in 40k. The triarch stalker comes to mind as not having a well defined front, and the Ravager IIRC has two pointy bits somewhere on its hull that were added because the arcs were too ambiguous on the original model.

And then there's units that should also count as vehicles then, since there's no real adequate explanation for why you can flank a Dreadnought but can't flank a Carnifex; or a Knight is a vehicle but Riptide is a monstrous creature, and there's really no easy place to draw a front line across a Riptide or Carnifex. Even Knights had a considerable amount of ambiguity in where the arcs were; we traditionally used the frontmost point of the shoulder pads which is still considerably behind the actual forward-most point of the model.



Anyway, position means a lot in this game anyway for infantry and for tanks. I don't think it lost much of anything except in simultaionism.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/09/12 02:10:49


Guardsmen, hear me! Cadia may lie in ruin, but her proud people do not! For each brother and sister who gave their lives to Him as martyrs, we will reap a vengeance fiftyfold! Cadia may be no more, but will never be forgotten; our foes shall tremble in fear at the name, for their doom shall come from the barrels of Cadian guns, fired by Cadian hands! Forward, for vengeance and retribution, in His name and the names of our fallen comrades! 
   
Made in us
Archmagos Veneratus Extremis




On the Internet

ccs wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
HoundsofDemos wrote:
It might not be the best rule but the one I miss the most is AV facings and vehicle firing arcs. One thing that has really been lost this edition is position or placement meaning anything.

I don't miss it because it meant that positioning only mattered when it came to vehicles. And that's not even getting into the AV facing arguments whenever the vehicle wasn't a square.

The game either needs to go all in on positioning mattering or leave it off the table completely.


It SHOULD be important how you position your vehicle. A vindicators cannon only points one direction (forward).....

You want a dirt simple way to handle AV facings, whatever the shape of your vehicle? Here use this:
Front = X
Side/Rear = Y
Top = Z (if exists, should only apply against shots being fired indirectly (mortars & such))

front
------------------------------------
side/rear (vehicle)

See that dotted line? Its traced across the front edge of whatever the vehicle is.
Shots coming from in front of the line hit the front AV.
Shots coming from anywhere else hit the side/rear value.
In the cases where you find a squads fire coming from both sides of the line you should roll separately for specific weapons/groups as needed.

Small children can tell the difference between front/side with this system. 99% of the time it works at a glance.
So you'd think adults armed with tape measures & navigating the CP system should be able to handle it.....

If you have arguments & debates with this system either you're a moron, you're arguing against one, or both.

The way it worked was by drawing an X through the vehicle to divide it into Arcs. Works fine for squares, but on other tanks it became an argument.

And like I said, either everything should have to deal with facings or nothing because the vehicle only method made little sense as it was.
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut





Check out epic Armageddon for some really good positioning rules, which includes infantry and crossfire

   
Made in us
Archmagos Veneratus Extremis




On the Internet

So I actually need to change my vote: my favorite rule was the 4th ed Endless Swarm. Yeah, you had to pay more to use it, but I liked that rule more than it was actually worth.
   
Made in us
Imperial Guard Landspeeder Pilot




On moon miranda.

ccs wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
HoundsofDemos wrote:
It might not be the best rule but the one I miss the most is AV facings and vehicle firing arcs. One thing that has really been lost this edition is position or placement meaning anything.

I don't miss it because it meant that positioning only mattered when it came to vehicles. And that's not even getting into the AV facing arguments whenever the vehicle wasn't a square.

The game either needs to go all in on positioning mattering or leave it off the table completely.


It SHOULD be important how you position your vehicle. A vindicators cannon only points one direction (forward).....

Here's the issue, when there's potentially a dozen, or two dozen, of these things on the table, add in issues with TLOS and hull shapes, and the fact that literally no other unit type in the game had to deal with facings or arcs (not monsters, not immobile artillery, not heavy weapons units, not giant mecha or monstrous power armor suits, etc), and it became a major issue to balance around and was tactically awkward for the scale the game plays at and with the arc/AV system GW employed.

When an Exocrine, multimelta toting 2-person Attack Bike, Virbrocannon, IG heavy weapons team or Mek Gun didn't have to care about arcs or facings, it's kinda silly to insist on a Vindicator caring.

Dealing with determining AV on something like a dynamically posed Knight on a round oval base isn't fun.

IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.

New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights!
The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.  
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





It was actually a terrible rule, but I liked how the rules for disembarkment points in 3rd or 4th interacted with Orks being allowed to scratch-built vehicles led to it being possible to deliver ork boys into melee turn 1 by building battlewagons like castles with 20" drawbridge doors that actually opened. It was my favorite example to use as proof that GW either had zero clue what they were doing or genuinely didn't give a flying ___ about game balance.

   
Made in us
Powerful Phoenix Lord





That's the issue with going back to any rules you enjoyed in previous editions - you remember the pieces you want to remember. Vehicles facings were cool, but from a game-design standpoint very problematic and put Vehicles in a poor place since they were the only ones who suffered from them.

Same thing goes for templates. Neat idea, but watching someone space out every one of their 120 Ork boys so they were precisely 1.98" apart to minimize templates was...obnoxious. It's about the same silliness as auras and buffs.

Vehicles facings were cool, but seeing tanks back up to the edge of the board (where the battlefield magically ends), or watching two tanks shimmy down the board sideways with their butts to each other, etc....was equally dumb. Every rule that GW has ever written has been abused.

It's why 40K barely registers as a real wargame (and never has in its history). It's a vague abstract tale of heroes, little more. The closest it ever came was 2nd edition, an edition with so many rules that 90% of players missed a lot of them while playing. It worked because you were expected to spend 3-5 hours playing, and model counts were lower.

That was the last edition where infantry facing mattered, you could actually hide (and had to be detected with wargear or Initiative value), you could move crew around inside of vehicles or disembark them and fight on foot (fear my five guardsmen with las pistols!), you reduced penetration over distance, etc. It was a wildly different and complex game.

Vehicles had turning arcs and speed bands, etc. Just a different time. I still play and enjoy 2nd but that stuff just doesn't fit in the modern version of 40K. It's....Epic on a 6x4 table now.
   
Made in au
Dakka Veteran




Australia

I really miss having to remove casualties from the front of squads, that put some genuine tactics in where do ya place yer gits.

   
Made in de
Fresh-Faced New User




I really like the basic concept behind the rules for movement.
The ability to move my units across the battlefield makes the game far more dynamic than they were without it.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/12 05:55:54


 
   
 
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