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In another thread, we've really gone down the rabbit hole on nerfing killiness and/or movement, so I figure I'd start another thread.

The core idea is that one problem with the game is too much killiness, which leads to a consideration of nerfing ranges across the board, which leads to the problem of movements being too high. A nerf thereof would of course change everything and require a ground up rebuild.

This may also incorporate AA.

So I figured I'd start a thread to better discuss this. Note that this thread isn't supposed to be a well-polished read-to-play rule creation. It's designed to spark conversations and considerations.

So, here's a basic huge overhaul (that would clearly need a huge balance pass on every book):

--------------------------
-Each battle round, players alternate unit activations. Each unit may be activated only once per battle round.
-As long as a player has fewer remaining activations in a given turn than their opponent, they may pass (so spamming units doesn't let you move all your big stuff together at the end of the round).
-Upon activating a unit, it may move
--Moving is the base M characteristic
--"Charges" are just movements - note the lack of restriction on moving within 1" of an enemy
--A moving unit may Advance d3". If they do so, they may not take any action other than Fight.
--A unit that starts it's move within 1" of an enemy is considered to Advance, but does not gain d3"
-Next, the unit may manifest a power (if applicable).
-Next, the unit may Shoot (if eligible)
-Finally, the unit may Fight (if eligible)

As for Characters With Less Than Ten Wounds, they may activate with any unit within 3" of them. They can still only activate once. Further, they may not end their movement more than 3" away from the unit they activate with.

Key takeaways:
-Movement is substantially reduced. This makes board position much harder. So units like Assault Marines, Bikers, and Rhinos are a lot more powerful.
-There is no Overwatch, but that's counterbalanced by movement being substantially reduced. You'll still get a chance to shoot, it's just not a reaction to shooting.
-Units that fall back from faster units can be run down by the unit it's running from before it gets to do anything else. But faster units can still get away.

Areas that need modification:
-A lot of changes to Shooting. Assault Weapons would need some rule like the current Pistol rules, for example. And other weapons couldn't shoot the turn they charged.
-A wide rebalance would be necessary

So a charge is just moving within 1" of an enemy?

AUA is a pretty popular thing in a lot of wargames now, it's certainly more realistic in an IGUG system. The big concern about bringing this system to 40k is that it will seriously nerf elite units. In wargames that use AUA, most units are either troops or heavy supports (in a 40k context) so they all have roughly the same durability. Because 40k has so many elite units, which tend to deal more damage but be less durable than normal counterparts, an AUA system will make it very easy for your opponent to pick off your elites before they can do anything, thus making elites useless and removing some of the flavor of 40k. In IGUG, elites at least have a reasonable chance of all getting an attack off.

For example, say I deepstrike 3 DW kill teams via stratagem near the enemy warlord and the two units protecting him (an autarch and some dire avengers). In IGUG: I can activate all three of my kill teams at once, two killing the units protecting the warlord and then the third killing the warlord himself; rightly punishing him for improper screening and making good use of units that cost 1/5th of my army. In AUA: I would activate 1 kill team, killing one unit guarding the warlord; then my opponent would active a nearby heavy support and kill one of my kill teams; I would then active my last living kill team, but alas it is not enough to kill both the warlord and his final bodyguard unit.

If you are willing to completely rebalance elite units, then AUA might work. You would have to make elites as proportionally tough as they are killy, like Custodes. All marines should get +1 wound and all aspect warriors should get +1 save, veteran units should get a FNP on top of their expanded weapon options and additional attacks.

 Eipi10 wrote:
So a charge is just moving within 1" of an enemy?

AUA is a pretty popular thing in a lot of wargames now, it's certainly more realistic in an IGUG system. The big concern about bringing this system to 40k is that it will seriously nerf elite units. In wargames that use AUA, most units are either troops or heavy supports (in a 40k context) so they all have roughly the same durability. Because 40k has so many elite units, which tend to deal more damage but be less durable than normal counterparts, an AUA system will make it very easy for your opponent to pick off your elites before they can do anything, thus making elites useless and removing some of the flavor of 40k. In IGUG, elites at least have a reasonable chance of all getting an attack off.

This was the intention behind the "pass" for the player that currently has fewer activations left. Fewer, more elite units have more options for when and how they act. It may not be enough to balance, but it was a stap at it.

If you are willing to completely rebalance elite units, then AUA might work. You would have to make elites as proportionally tough as they are killy, like Custodes. All marines should get +1 wound and all aspect warriors should get +1 save, veteran units should get a FNP on top of their expanded weapon options and additional attacks.

I like that Guardsmen squads are so much less elite than full Terminator squads. I'd hope any change kept that dynamic. The ideal rulesset should try to leverage Marine's ability to adapt to any activations their opponent makes (interlocking fire, moving in to support other squads, etc). It would also force Aspect Warriors to think three moves ahead or die horrible pointless deaths. Now, how to make that happen is difficult. But I hope the solution isn't to homgenize them (by doing things like bumping Aspect Warriors' durability, or Marines' killiness).

Bharring wrote:
In another thread, we've really gone down the rabbit hole on nerfing killiness and/or movement, so I figure I'd start another thread.

The core idea is that one problem with the game is too much killiness, which leads to a consideration of nerfing ranges across the board, which leads to the problem of movements being too high. A nerf thereof would of course change everything and require a ground up rebuild.

Are we talking about a literal reduction of a weapon range? If so, by how much? Wouldn't any army with sufficiently long-ranged weapons be at a huge advantage after such a change if you're also slowing down units that have to cross the table? For instance, guard artillery, assuming it can still reach across (most of) the table wouldn't really care about their overall reach being reduced if it takes the enemy genestealer horde or bike squad an extra inch to reach them. At which point you're reducing lethality but increasing the gap between shooty and stabby armies. And if guard artillery can't reach across the table, then I feel like we're running into some severe fluff/crunch dissonance.

--A moving unit may Advance d3". If they do so, they may not take any action other than Fight.

I'd rework this bit. d3" isn't really worth rolling for. You may as well make it a flat 2". Although a flat 2" (or even 3") would generally be pretty insignificant. It would be pretty rare for 3 extra inches to be the difference between reaching shooting range or melee . For a unit with an 18" gun and a 6" move, for instance, advancing would only matter if the enemy was exactly 24.1" - 27" away. Any farther, and the advance won't help. Any closer, and you didn't need to advance anyway. I guess you could make it so that assault/rapid fire weapons only get to shoot while within 1" of the enemy if you advanced that turn, but then I feel like you may as well drop the extra movement entirely for simplicity's sake.

Or, and I like this much better, just increase the extra distance granted by an advance to, say, 6". The extra distance would be much more likely to matter, but you're still reducing a given unit's effecting charge range from Movement + 2d6 (average 7) to just Movement + 6. And that' s if the unit can't currently advance and charge (in which case it loses out even more unless you offset the movement nerf somehow.)

All that said, is reducing movement really a desirable thing? I know we have a few outliers that can really book it (anything capable of a turn 1 charge basically), but I'm not sure spending half the game footslogging into rifle range is really desirable. Having units alive longer isn't really more engaging if all they're doing with that life is waddling forward or objective camping. I want my units to do some damage!

I do like the idea of diminishing the game's overall lethality. However, I think diminished lethality needs to be paired with smaller game sizes. Having turn 4 still taking most of an hour to get through because each player still has sixty models on the table would be a bit of a slog.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eipi10 wrote:


For example, say I deepstrike 3 DW kill teams via stratagem near the enemy warlord and the two units protecting him (an autarch and some dire avengers). In IGUG: I can activate all three of my kill teams at once, two killing the units protecting the warlord and then the third killing the warlord himself; rightly punishing him for improper screening and making good use of units that cost 1/5th of my army. In AUA: I would activate 1 kill team, killing one unit guarding the warlord; then my opponent would active a nearby heavy support and kill one of my kill teams; I would then active my last living kill team, but alas it is not enough to kill both the warlord and his final bodyguard unit.

Well, assuming deepstriking happens as part of your movement and not as some sort of pre-activations start-of-round thing, none of your units would be on the table to hit with said heavy support unit until after they'd attacked.
DW team 1 shows up and attacks.
Eldar activation; team 1 maybe dies.
DW team 2 shows up and attacks.
Eldar activation; team 2 maybe dies.
DW team 3 shows up. Those avengers are gone assuming teams 1 and 2 were each able to kill their targets and the eldar player didn't react by repositioning a unit somewhere to screen the autarch.

I think that yes, we do need to reduce movement. When a normal infantry unit can run 12" on a 48" wide table, there is no reason for a transport to be taken. in IG, guardsmen can run faster than their transport if they are shouted at - which is nonsense.

Reducing the range of weapons and the speed of units would bring tactical decisions back to the game. Let's take my usual loadout of flashgits in a trukk. I usually stick them in the middle of my line, and move to the centre of the board - ideally into some cover - and sit there for the rest of the game - I have no need to move, because only the very corners of the board are safe from my fairly average-ranged 24" guns.

now drop it to 18", and suddenly where I put the flashgits matters. a lot.

you only have to look at how much better bolt rifles are than boltguns, with 30" range to play with, to see just how much the range of weapons matters.


My proposal was for:

1: Movement is generally reduced
2: Advance is 1/2 of your movement, rounding up
3: Charge is the same as your movement.

Now, this initially seemed OK, but as I thought about it I realised fast units like bikes would simply dominate. so I am now thinking of simply adding an "Advance" movement stat to the game, which is how fast you can move if you advance.

As such, you simply get to choose between walking and advancing, with different speeds. Jump infantry would have a normal move but a large advance, as they activate their jump packs.

I'd also like to see penalties for moving and shooting anything but assault weapons. people are more accurate shooting if they are standing still than if they are running around.

I feel that this permissive ruleset is too permissive - like a doting parent who lets their child get away with murder, they have spoilt the game. want to move and shoot rapidfire weapons - ok! want to count as stationary even if you do move - ok! want to fire heavy weapons even whilst you're carrying them as a 2-man team - ok, but you're less accurate!

the game needs to start saying no;
You positioned your heavy weapon badly so want to move and fire it? no.
You want to be able to fire your powerful unit twice? no.
You want to use MMM to move your infantry faster than a guy on a motorbike? No.
You want your guns to be in range of everything so you don't have to think about positioning? No.
You want to kill models you can't see because one model is waving his sword in the air? No.
You want your character to stand, alone, in the open, and be untargetable except by snipers because there's a unit hidden in a bunker the other side of the board, who is actually slightly closer than the character? No.
You want your character Dreadnaught to stand behind a unit of infantry and "blend in"? No.

with reference to characters - make them have to stay within 3" of a unit of the same type (Infantry, Bike, Vehicle, etc.) to be untargetable. it's easy, and it makes sense.

I'd love to see weapon types generally reworked to reflect tactical mobility. Stuff like:
-Assault Weapon: No penalty to move & Shoot
-Pistol: Assault weapon, but may also be used within 1" (as now)
-Rapid Fire: Moving and shooting incurs a -1-to-hit
-Heavy: Moving and shooting incurs a -2-to-hit
-Ordinance(/artillery): May not move or shoot

This way, a dug in Guardsman squad is going to have an accuracy advantage in the shootout with the Guardsmen squad that just crossed No Mans Land. There's actual benefit to holding position with most infantry.

This would require massive rebalances (for instance, most Assault:2 weapons would need to go down to Assault:1 if "Rapid Fire" lost the 2-shots-in-half-range rule). But I think, combined with massive movement reductions, this would make the game much more interesting.

As for Advance range? I wanted it to be short, as it adds onto the unit's movement. I'm not sure if it should be a factor of the M stat or not, as you've already benefitted from the M stat. The reason I picked d3 over d6 is that the intention is to make it *harder* to cover ground. Advancing D6 means an Infantry squad could cover 11 inches in one round - when many vehicles only cover 12 at normal speed.

D6 advance is also highly variable, and lots of people hate that. That's part of why Charge became M+D3 instead of 2d6. Most charges are a lot more reliable. Charge distances are much more stable, and distance is a lot more valuable. However, it retains just a touch of random to prevent "footsies" from equal-movement units (you're not indefinitely waiting for the other party to give the charge; at some point, you risk it).

Bharring wrote:
I'd love to see weapon types generally reworked to reflect tactical mobility. Stuff like:
-Assault Weapon: No penalty to move & Shoot
-Pistol: Assault weapon, but may also be used within 1" (as now)
-Rapid Fire: Moving and shooting incurs a -1-to-hit
-Heavy: Moving and shooting incurs a -2-to-hit
-Ordinance(/artillery): May not move or shoot

This way, a dug in Guardsman squad is going to have an accuracy advantage in the shootout with the Guardsmen squad that just crossed No Mans Land. There's actual benefit to holding position with most infantry.

This would require massive rebalances (for instance, most Assault:2 weapons would need to go down to Assault:1 if "Rapid Fire" lost the 2-shots-in-half-range rule). But I think, combined with massive movement reductions, this would make the game much more interesting.

As for Advance range? I wanted it to be short, as it adds onto the unit's movement. I'm not sure if it should be a factor of the M stat or not, as you've already benefitted from the M stat. The reason I picked d3 over d6 is that the intention is to make it *harder* to cover ground. Advancing D6 means an Infantry squad could cover 11 inches in one round - when many vehicles only cover 12 at normal speed.

D6 advance is also highly variable, and lots of people hate that. That's part of why Charge became M+D3 instead of 2d6. Most charges are a lot more reliable. Charge distances are much more stable, and distance is a lot more valuable. However, it retains just a touch of random to prevent "footsies" from equal-movement units (you're not indefinitely waiting for the other party to give the charge; at some point, you risk it).

DISCLAIMER: Everything I say is predicated on donating IGOUGO to a museum of antiquities and switching to Alternating Activation.




You're on the right track.



First, resolving attacks needs a revamp. If we want 40k to posses any tactical depth and variety, without removing swathes of units or entire armies from the game.

Rolling to hit: Compare the Skill value of the attacking unit to the Evasion value of the defending unit to determine the minimum number required to succeed.

Rolling to penetrate armor: Compare the strength of the weapon against the toughness of the opposing unit to determine the minimum number required to succeed.

Damage: for each successful armor penetration caused by a weapon, the defending unit loses wounds equal to that weapon's damage value.

All damage must be assigned to a single model until that model is removed as a casualty.


Rework weapon "types" to special rules.


Heavy: Only hits on 6's after moving

Pistol: Can be fired in close combat

Assault: May be fired after the unit double moves/advances/whatever

Indirect Fire/Ordnance: Attacks with this weapon do not require line of sight.


Bolter 24" RapidFire1 S4 AP0 D1 becomes:

Bolter- 14" S4 D2 S2


I think that is all the game needs. Tweak weapon profiles and resolve all attacks using the same system. What benefit is there to giving units one skill value for shooting, one skill value for melee, and different sections for ranged or melee combat? Before some yells " but TAU don't train for CQC!" please explain to me why trained soldiers would not, at minimum, grab their sidearm when enemies are running at them with swords?



Decoupling the number of shots fired from weapon type creates more variety, and allows for more granular balancing. Assigning a range value for melee attacks simplifies the game by utilizing a single system for attack and damage resolution, gives different melee weapons different strengths and weaknesses, and buffs larger models.

Range: melee requires base-to-base contact, as now.

Chainsword- Range: Melee Strength:User Damage: 1 Shots: 2

Dreadnought Fist- Range: 3" Strength: X2 Damage: 3 Shots: 4


I think advance is best implemented as a simple double move. A unit activates, chooses to move and shoot, remain stationary and shoot, move up to twice its movement value, or charges, moving up to twice its movement value into melee range with the chosen enemy unit. Lower movement values, and better terrain rules- including requiring a % of the battlefield be covered by terrain alleviates potential issues.

Cover is tricky. Ideally, different pieces of terrain would have an appropriate cover value, beginning at 1. When a unit is fired upon, the defending player discards a number of hits equal to the cover value of that unit. This may be difficult for 40k's size and scale. An alternative is doubling the Evasion characteristic of a defending unit that has cover. Imposing negative modifiers to the attacker's to-hit roll is something I find undesirable.

Bharring wrote:

 Eipi10 wrote:

If you are willing to completely rebalance elite units, then AUA might work. You would have to make elites as proportionally tough as they are killy, like Custodes. All marines should get +1 wound and all aspect warriors should get +1 save, veteran units should get a FNP on top of their expanded weapon options and additional attacks.

I like that Guardsmen squads are so much less elite than full Terminator squads. I'd hope any change kept that dynamic. The ideal rulesset should try to leverage Marine's ability to adapt to any activations their opponent makes (interlocking fire, moving in to support other squads, etc). It would also force Aspect Warriors to think three moves ahead or die horrible pointless deaths. Now, how to make that happen is difficult. But I hope the solution isn't to homgenize them (by doing things like bumping Aspect Warriors' durability, or Marines' killiness).

As nice as fancy tactics are, you can't ignore the fundamentals of killiness and durability. Both aspect warriors and marines (non primaris) suffer in those regards. Fancy abilities are worthless if you don't live long enough to use them. At least when I read BL novels, the things marines really leverage is their ability to apply overwhelming strength, toughness, and firepower to a single point, i.e. wherever the marines are. Sure they have special stratagems, insights, and discipline, but so do scions and they don't act like marines. Aspect Warriors are much the same, except instead of being able to take a bunch of hits and keep going, they don't get hit in the first place.

Wyldhunt wrote:Well, assuming deepstriking happens as part of your movement and not as some sort of pre-activations start-of-round thing, none of your units would be on the table to hit with said heavy support unit until after they'd attacked.
DW team 1 shows up and attacks.
Eldar activation; team 1 maybe dies.
DW team 2 shows up and attacks.
Eldar activation; team 2 maybe dies.
DW team 3 shows up. Those avengers are gone assuming teams 1 and 2 were each able to kill their targets and the eldar player didn't react by repositioning a unit somewhere to screen the autarch.

Doesn't the stratagem require you to deploy all units in it at once? These are questions AUA needs to answer.

some bloke wrote:I think that yes, we do need to reduce movement. When a normal infantry unit can run 12" on a 48" wide table, there is no reason for a transport to be taken. in IG, guardsmen can run faster than their transport if they are shouted at - which is nonsense.

Don't blame the entire movement stat for one bad ability. It just needs to be a second advance instead of an additional movement phase.

 Eipi10 wrote:
So a charge is just moving within 1" of an enemy?

AUA is a pretty popular thing in a lot of wargames now, it's certainly more realistic in an IGUG system. The big concern about bringing this system to 40k is that it will seriously nerf elite units. In wargames that use AUA, most units are either troops or heavy supports (in a 40k context) so they all have roughly the same durability. Because 40k has so many elite units, which tend to deal more damage but be less durable than normal counterparts, an AUA system will make it very easy for your opponent to pick off your elites before they can do anything, thus making elites useless and removing some of the flavor of 40k. In IGUG, elites at least have a reasonable chance of all getting an attack off.

For example, say I deepstrike 3 DW kill teams via stratagem near the enemy warlord and the two units protecting him (an autarch and some dire avengers). In IGUG: I can activate all three of my kill teams at once, two killing the units protecting the warlord and then the third killing the warlord himself; rightly punishing him for improper screening and making good use of units that cost 1/5th of my army. In AUA: I would activate 1 kill team, killing one unit guarding the warlord; then my opponent would active a nearby heavy support and kill one of my kill teams; I would then active my last living kill team, but alas it is not enough to kill both the warlord and his final bodyguard unit.

If you are willing to completely rebalance elite units, then AUA might work. You would have to make elites as proportionally tough as they are killy, like Custodes. All marines should get +1 wound and all aspect warriors should get +1 save, veteran units should get a FNP on top of their expanded weapon options and additional attacks.

I think it is less a matter of rebalancing 40k, than it is rewriting it. Elite units can do just fine. They do need boosted durability, but there are other avenues as well. Such as giving them ways to take multiple activations per game round, or special actions.

A proper morale and suppression system would do a lot of work, too. Disrupting the enemy's plan is often just as effective at killing them outright.

Some good thoughts, Blastaar. A few things:

Blastaar wrote:


Rework weapon "types" to special rules.


Heavy: Only hits on 6's after moving

Pistol: Can be fired in close combat

Assault: May be fired after the unit double moves/advances/whatever

Indirect Fire/Ordnance: Attacks with this weapon do not require line of sight.

Aren't weapon types already basically special rules? Not a big fan of hitting on 6's after moving. It sort of works for orks because of volume of fire, but I'd honestly kind of prefer to skip the time and disappointment of fishing for 6s. To me, snapshots were more annoying than valuable.

Bolter 24" RapidFire1 S4 AP0 D1 becomes:

Bolter- 14" S4 D2 S2

Is that Skill 2? Probably needs to be abbreviated Sk or something as we already have an S for strength.

I think that is all the game needs. Tweak weapon profiles and resolve all attacks using the same system. What benefit is there to giving units one skill value for shooting, one skill value for melee, and different sections for ranged or melee combat? Before some yells " but TAU don't train for CQC!" please explain to me why trained soldiers would not, at minimum, grab their sidearm when enemies are running at them with swords?

Well, having different stats for hitting in melee vs hitting at range means that you can have units that are good at one but not the other without having to lean on other variables (like weapon stats) to convey that. An ork boy, for instance, should probably be better at landing hits in melee than at a range. This is fluffy, and the current mechancis do a decent job of conveying that. So you have more design space to work with by keeping BS and WS separate.

It also gives you space to build in weaknesses for units. Looking at orks again, you can make things like lootas and tankbustas relatively cheap despite having pretty solid guns because those guns are only hitting on a 5+. But you wouldn't want to force bustas and lootas to hit on 5+ against most things in melee, right?

Fluff-wise, fire warriors drawing their pistols and using them as part of the fight phase makes sense, though an argument could be made they should be using their WS to hit rather than their BS in that scenario. Making tau less good at punching than at shooting is a desirable thing. We don't want the only difference between tau melee and shooting offense to be the number of strength 5 shots they put out, right? If pistols are usable in melee, then they'd still be useful for those fire warriors even if they're hitting on 5+ instead of 4+.

Decoupling the number of shots fired from weapon type creates more variety, and allows for more granular balancing.

Aren't weapon type and number of shots already decoupled for everything except rapid fire weapons? A gun can be Heavy 1 or Heavy 12, for instance.

Assigning a range value for melee attacks simplifies the game by utilizing a single system for attack and damage resolution, gives different melee weapons different strengths and weaknesses, and buffs larger models.

Range: melee requires base-to-base contact, as now.

Chainsword- Range: Melee Strength:User Damage: 1 Shots: 2

Dreadnought Fist- Range: 3" Strength: X2 Damage: 3 Shots: 4

I'm not necessarily against going the Sigmar route with melee weapons, but tying the number of "shots" to the weapon profile instead of the model's profile means that you either dramatically change the performance of many units or else you have to make a ton of different profiles for the same weapon on different platforms. A captain, a sergeant, and (iirc) an assault marine can all have power swords, for instance. So do you make power swords Shots: 5, 2, or 1? I feel like this is an instance where the current setup might actually be simpler than what you're proposing.

Also, the current "range" of a melee weapon isn't base-to-base (0") at the moment. It's... 2" + the diameter of the base of a model within 1" of the enemy. Making most melee weapons base to base only would make it extremely difficult to leverage a horde unit's weight of number.

I think advance is best implemented as a simple double move. A unit activates, chooses to move and shoot, remain stationary and shoot, move up to twice its movement value, or charges, moving up to twice its movement value into melee range with the chosen enemy unit. Lower movement values, and better terrain rules- including requiring a % of the battlefield be covered by terrain alleviates potential issues.

So 32" automatic charge range for all my shining spears then?
And terminator effective charge range drops by a couple of inches (12" goes down to 10").

I do like the idea of more structured terrain placement guidelines, but phrasing it in terms of % is a little tricky if it's meant to be strictly enforced. It's easy enough to say, "about half the table should be covered in terrain," but it's tougher to say, "65% of the table should be covered in terrain. Start measuring surface area of asymmetrical rock formation bases."

Cover is tricky. Ideally, different pieces of terrain would have an appropriate cover value, beginning at 1. When a unit is fired upon, the defending player discards a number of hits equal to the cover value of that unit. This may be difficult for 40k's size and scale. An alternative is doubling the Evasion characteristic of a defending unit that has cover. Imposing negative modifiers to the attacker's to-hit roll is something I find undesirable.

Not sure discarding hits really works. If you do it on a unit-by-unit basis, then cover that lets you discard 2 hits makes you functionally immune to fire from something like a double bright lance war walker. If you let units discard the first X hits of the phase, then you add a lot of unit-by-unit bookkeeping, and people will just toss their lasgun shots they don't care about into the target and then start shooting the real guns once your cover is expended. So suddenly cover wouldn't help at all against those autocannons and lascannons.

Increasing Evasion is a way to go, but increasing it enough to matter is functionally the same as "imposing negative modifiers to the attacker's to-hit roll." You just have enough granularity to have some terrain impose a -1 penalty while other terrain imposes a -2 and worse terrain doesn't matter enough to actually impose a penalty. Again, not a bad way to go, but you are basically just imposing to-hit penalties.

Personally, I keep wondering about giving terrain both a "hard" and "soft" cover value. Hard cover gives you a bonus to armor saves (basically what we have now), and soft cover imposes to-hit penalties. So some bushes might make you harder to hit but not help your armor, a pile of rocks might do the opposite, and a "smoky ruin" might do both.

Blastaar wrote:
I think it is less a matter of rebalancing 40k, than it is rewriting it. Elite units can do just fine. They do need boosted durability, but there are other avenues as well. Such as giving them ways to take multiple activations per game round, or special actions.

A proper morale and suppression system would do a lot of work, too. Disrupting the enemy's plan is often just as effective at killing them outright.

Suppression is a big thing found in other wargames that is missing from 40k. Unfortunately, adding it in the traditional way would seriously hurt melee armies, and they are already in a rough spot as is. Still, I would like to see it added in 40k. In fact, I might make a thread on it (whoever is reading this can, I'd certainly join). At the risk of a derailment, I think this could even be turned into a way to buff melee armies:

If a unit suffers an unsaved wound during the shooting phase, roll a d6 and add the number of times the unit has been shot at this phase to the result. If the result is equal to the unit's LD, this unit is considered pinned; it must subtract 1 from its movement characteristic in the following movement phase and may reroll the next failed armor save it makes. If the result is greater than the unit's LD, the unit is considered suppressed; this unit suffers a -1 to hit for its shooting attacks in the next shooting phase and must roll a d6 before it fires overwatch in the next charge phase, it can only do so on a roll of 4+. A unit may not be suppressed twice or pinned twice in one phase, but it may be both suppressed and pinned. If a unit has already been suppressed once in a phase, the next time it would become suppressed it becomes pinned instead.

@Eipi10:

That would add a lot of bookkeeping and dice rolling. Plus, it would encourage people to do a ton more splitfiring in an effort to suppress and pin as many units as possible.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Some good thoughts, Blastaar. A few things:

Blastaar wrote:


Rework weapon "types" to special rules.


Heavy: Only hits on 6's after moving

Pistol: Can be fired in close combat

Assault: May be fired after the unit double moves/advances/whatever

Indirect Fire/Ordnance: Attacks with this weapon do not require line of sight.

[/quote

Aren't weapon types already basically special rules? Not a big fan of hitting on 6's after moving. It sort of works for orks because of volume of fire, but I'd honestly kind of prefer to skip the time and disappointment of fishing for 6s. To me, snapshots were more annoying than valuable.

Well, I dislike a flat -1 to hit when moving- I am still open to the idea, but I do not see move or remain stationary as meaningful a choice with -1 to hit. Snap shots certainly got annoying in 7th, mostly because of all the things that caused a unit to snap fire, imo. If a non-relentless model were to snap fire when moving only, and never from any other effect, I think it is less so, and leaves just a smidge of unpredictability.

Bolter 24" RapidFire1 S4 AP0 D1 becomes:

Bolter- 14" S4 D2 S2

Is that Skill 2? Probably needs to be abbreviated Sk or something as we already have an S for strength.

Right you are. I used S for strength as standard.

I think that is all the game needs. Tweak weapon profiles and resolve all attacks using the same system. What benefit is there to giving units one skill value for shooting, one skill value for melee, and different sections for ranged or melee combat? Before some yells " but TAU don't train for CQC!" please explain to me why trained soldiers would not, at minimum, grab their sidearm when enemies are running at them with swords?

Well, having different stats for hitting in melee vs hitting at range means that you can have units that are good at one but not the other without having to lean on other variables (like weapon stats) to convey that. An ork boy, for instance, should probably be better at landing hits in melee than at a range. This is fluffy, and the current mechancis do a decent job of conveying that. So you have more design space to work with by keeping BS and WS separate.

It also gives you space to build in weaknesses for units. Looking at orks again, you can make things like lootas and tankbustas relatively cheap despite having pretty solid guns because those guns are only hitting on a 5+. But you wouldn't want to force bustas and lootas to hit on 5+ against most things in melee, right?

Fluff-wise, fire warriors drawing their pistols and using them as part of the fight phase makes sense, though an argument could be made they should be using their WS to hit rather than their BS in that scenario. Making tau less good at punching than at shooting is a desirable thing. We don't want the only difference between tau melee and shooting offense to be the number of strength 5 shots they put out, right? If pistols are usable in melee, then they'd still be useful for those fire warriors even if they're hitting on 5+ instead of 4+.

Gah! I forgot about Orks! I was too busy referencing the rulebooks that inspire me! Yes, BS and WS would need to stay. I still like the idea of pistols fired in close combat though. It never made sense to me that Tau would pull out their knives or swords in melee, when they don't train for it to begin with.

My preference would be to remove phases entirely, and simply give each unit an activation, during which it can do various things. Locked in combat is something that can be removed then. With enough terrain with better rules, as well as each player activating 2-3 units before passing to their opponent, melee should be just fine. Although, melee units may need other tools, like causing extra suppression to units they have charged that can help them.

I very much want each unit to have different strengths and weakness. This is something that I think 40k is sorely lacking.

Decoupling the number of shots fired from weapon type creates more variety, and allows for more granular balancing.

Aren't weapon type and number of shots already decoupled for everything except rapid fire weapons? A gun can be Heavy 1 or Heavy 12, for instance.

Yes, I suppose I found a verbose way to say "remove rapid fire."

Assigning a range value for melee attacks simplifies the game by utilizing a single system for attack and damage resolution, gives different melee weapons different strengths and weaknesses, and buffs larger models.

Range: melee requires base-to-base contact, as now.

Chainsword- Range: Melee Strength:User Damage: 1 Shots: 2

Dreadnought Fist- Range: 3" Strength: X2 Damage: 3 Shots: 4

I'm not necessarily against going the Sigmar route with melee weapons, but tying the number of "shots" to the weapon profile instead of the model's profile means that you either dramatically change the performance of many units or else you have to make a ton of different profiles for the same weapon on different platforms. A captain, a sergeant, and (iirc) an assault marine can all have power swords, for instance. So do you make power swords Shots: 5, 2, or 1? I feel like this is an instance where the current setup might actually be simpler than what you're proposing.

Also, the current "range" of a melee weapon isn't base-to-base (0") at the moment. It's... 2" + the diameter of the base of a model within 1" of the enemy. Making most melee weapons base to base only would make it extremely difficult to leverage a horde unit's weight of number.

Okay. I couldn't remember since 8th edition isn't my thing. Really, whatever range is best for gameplay for Range:melee is what matters. Since we do need to keep WS, I think attacks need to be kept as well. I had forgotten that the system I was inspired by uses a formula with multiple values from the stat line to determine melee attacks. Some melee weapons would then add or subtract shots.

Some units, like dreadnoughts, carnifexes etc, could reallybenefit from having a bit more reach.

I think advance is best implemented as a simple double move. A unit activates, chooses to move and shoot, remain stationary and shoot, move up to twice its movement value, or charges, moving up to twice its movement value into melee range with the chosen enemy unit. Lower movement values, and better terrain rules- including requiring a % of the battlefield be covered by terrain alleviates potential issues.

So 32" automatic charge range for all my shining spears then?
And terminator effective charge range drops by a couple of inches (12" goes down to 10").

If those Spears can see that unit from 32" away, they deserve to get stuck in. Movement values would have to be reevaluated, but I haven't found a strong reason for randomizing charges or run/advance when there are other ways to add unpredictability that don't detract from player choice.

I do like the idea of more structured terrain placement guidelines, but phrasing it in terms of % is a little tricky if it's meant to be strictly enforced. It's easy enough to say, "about half the table should be covered in terrain," but it's tougher to say, "65% of the table should be covered in terrain. Start measuring surface area of asymmetrical rock formation bases."

Something like "approximately 60% of the table must be covered by terrain" could work just fine. Making terrain coverage a requirement, rather than a suggestion, creates something more solid that the rest of the rules can be designed around.

Cover is tricky. Ideally, different pieces of terrain would have an appropriate cover value, beginning at 1. When a unit is fired upon, the defending player discards a number of hits equal to the cover value of that unit. This may be difficult for 40k's size and scale. An alternative is doubling the Evasion characteristic of a defending unit that has cover. Imposing negative modifiers to the attacker's to-hit roll is something I find undesirable.

Not sure discarding hits really works. If you do it on a unit-by-unit basis, then cover that lets you discard 2 hits makes you functionally immune to fire from something like a double bright lance war walker. If you let units discard the first X hits of the phase, then you add a lot of unit-by-unit bookkeeping, and people will just toss their lasgun shots they don't care about into the target and then start shooting the real guns once your cover is expended. So suddenly cover wouldn't help at all against those autocannons and lascannons.

Increasing Evasion is a way to go, but increasing it enough to matter is functionally the same as "imposing negative modifiers to the attacker's to-hit roll." You just have enough granularity to have some terrain impose a -1 penalty while other terrain imposes a -2 and worse terrain doesn't matter enough to actually impose a penalty. Again, not a bad way to go, but you are basically just imposing to-hit penalties.

Personally, I keep wondering about giving terrain both a "hard" and "soft" cover value. Hard cover gives you a bonus to armor saves (basically what we have now), and soft cover imposes to-hit penalties. So some bushes might make you harder to hit but not help your armor, a pile of rocks might do the opposite, and a "smoky ruin" might do both.

"Hard" and "soft" cover, for me, are more binary than I would like. I find granularity more engaging. I would think granular systems would be easier to balance, as well.

I don't really think the discard model works for 40k, but I wanted to throw it out there anyway. Increased evasion from cover is and isn't imposition of negative modifiers. For each individual instance of unit A shooting unit B in cover, yes. But, it impacts player's decisions by making them calculate the chances of hitting the enemy unit in cover, with the different units at the attacker's disposal, which would, assuming they had different BS values,, like tac marines vs. termies, each need a different minimum number to hit. Does the attacker fire with the termies, for better accuracy? Or do they use that tac squad, freeing the termies up for other threats?

I like evasion a lot, because it can do so much work, and help certain units or armies that, thematically, should be more fragile, without making them typical glass cannons. Give land speeders or Eldar generally higher evasion, but lower toughness. Difficult to hit, but easily damaged when hit.

Or, say a unit double moves/advances through open ground- it gains an evasion boost, to represent that it is still moving, racing to cover.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eipi10 wrote:

Blastaar wrote:
I think it is less a matter of rebalancing 40k, than it is rewriting it. Elite units can do just fine. They do need boosted durability, but there are other avenues as well. Such as giving them ways to take multiple activations per game round, or special actions.

A proper morale and suppression system would do a lot of work, too. Disrupting the enemy's plan is often just as effective at killing them outright.

Suppression is a big thing found in other wargames that is missing from 40k. Unfortunately, adding it in the traditional way would seriously hurt melee armies, and they are already in a rough spot as is. Still, I would like to see it added in 40k. In fact, I might make a thread on it (whoever is reading this can, I'd certainly join). At the risk of a derailment, I think this could even be turned into a way to buff melee armies:

If a unit suffers an unsaved wound during the shooting phase, roll a d6 and add the number of times the unit has been shot at this phase to the result. If the result is equal to the unit's LD, this unit is considered pinned; it must subtract 1 from its movement characteristic in the following movement phase and may reroll the next failed armor save it makes. If the result is greater than the unit's LD, the unit is considered suppressed; this unit suffers a -1 to hit for its shooting attacks in the next shooting phase and must roll a d6 before it fires overwatch in the next charge phase, it can only do so on a roll of 4+. A unit may not be suppressed twice or pinned twice in one phase, but it may be both suppressed and pinned. If a unit has already been suppressed once in a phase, the next time it would become suppressed it becomes pinned instead.

That's an idea. What I had in mind requires units to take a morale check when chosen to activate- if they pass, continue as normal. If it fails, it suffers a negative effect, depending on its level of suppression. Things like "digging in" and then shoot, but no movement. Yes, suppression is a thing that would need to be tracked for every unit every turn, but imo worth it for added depth. Then you can have sniper rifles, sonic weapons, def rolla attacks, all kinds of appropriate weapons and abilities, adding suppression to the target, making it more likely that unit will be unable to behave exactly as its controller wishes.

Then you can have weapons or abilities that become more or less effective, or gain special effects, in relation to the suppression level.

Like Khorne Berzerkers gaining extra attacks against suppressed units.

Wyldhunt wrote:That would add a lot of bookkeeping and dice rolling. Plus, it would encourage people to do a ton more splitfiring in an effort to suppress and pin as many units as possible.

Blastaar wrote:
That's an idea. What I had in mind requires units to take a morale check when chosen to activate- if they pass, continue as normal. If it fails, it suffers a negative effect, depending on its level of suppression. Things like "digging in" and then shoot, but no movement. Yes, suppression is a thing that would need to be tracked for every unit every turn, but imo worth it for added depth. Then you can have sniper rifles, sonic weapons, def rolla attacks, all kinds of appropriate weapons and abilities, adding suppression to the target, making it more likely that unit will be unable to behave exactly as its controller wishes.

Then you can have weapons or abilities that become more or less effective, or gain special effects, in relation to the suppression level.

Like Khorne Berzerkers gaining extra attacks against suppressed units.

You are right, maybe make a unit only able to suppress another unit if it concentrates all its fire on one unit, so it doesn't split fire. As is, this would still reward clever split firing, but that's still a lot to remember. To make suppression more of a factor again, a player would have to make a suppression roll for a unit that has a wound allocated to it, whether or not the wound is later saved.

So how much bookkeeping is too much? Should you just count the number of suppression tests the unit has taken for the suppression rule? That would reward massed fire and is a more memorable event than simply getting shot at. What about adding the number of unsaved wounds the unit suffered from that attack? No memory is required there.

Taking a test to be unsuppressed is the way it works in most games with suppression. That would work if guardsmen were the only unit, frail humans who are scared by default. But in 40k, where most units are practically fearless, I think unsuppressed should be the default state.

But do you think the effects of suppression and pinning are good? I tried to distinguish the two. Pinning is simply where is unit hunkers down when under an attack, but suppression carries serious negative effects. The overwatch roll is what I am especially worried about? Is -1 to hit enough or should suppression prevent overwatch entirely? Units that can avoid overwatch are greatly valued right now, and this would devalue that ability. Even with a saving reroll, I can think of many times when a -1 to movement would be worse than a -1 to hit, and suppression needs to be worse than pinning in most cases. If overwatch denial were a constant, then it wouldn't take much for overwatch to be a thing of the past. Using unsaved wounds for suppression tests, guaranteed overwatch denial would mean 5 intercessors could prevent fire warrior overwatch 50% of the time. If the number of suppression tests was used as the addition factor instead, it would take two intercessor squads to achieve the same result, at that point the fire warriors are almost dead.

 Eipi10 wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:That would add a lot of bookkeeping and dice rolling. Plus, it would encourage people to do a ton more splitfiring in an effort to suppress and pin as many units as possible.

Blastaar wrote:
That's an idea. What I had in mind requires units to take a morale check when chosen to activate- if they pass, continue as normal. If it fails, it suffers a negative effect, depending on its level of suppression. Things like "digging in" and then shoot, but no movement. Yes, suppression is a thing that would need to be tracked for every unit every turn, but imo worth it for added depth. Then you can have sniper rifles, sonic weapons, def rolla attacks, all kinds of appropriate weapons and abilities, adding suppression to the target, making it more likely that unit will be unable to behave exactly as its controller wishes.

Then you can have weapons or abilities that become more or less effective, or gain special effects, in relation to the suppression level.

Like Khorne Berzerkers gaining extra attacks against suppressed units.

You are right, maybe make a unit only able to suppress another unit if it concentrates all its fire on one unit, so it doesn't split fire. As is, this would still reward clever split firing, but that's still a lot to remember. To make suppression more of a factor again, a player would have to make a suppression roll for a unit that has a wound allocated to it, whether or not the wound is later saved.

So how much bookkeeping is too much? Should you just count the number of suppression tests the unit has taken for the suppression rule? That would reward massed fire and is a more memorable event than simply getting shot at. What about adding the number of unsaved wounds the unit suffered from that attack? No memory is required there.

I think this is a question best answered by playtesting- but I lean towards units accruing suppression tokens from being fired upon, if the attacker uses weapons with a special rule that adds suppression tokens, gaining tokens through use of one's own abilities etc....... with units losing a variable amount when they activate, and/or through other means. Tokens can be seen as "fiddly," but it's better to have the visual reminder on the table than not. It is really a matter of tradeoffs.

Taking a test to be unsuppressed is the way it works in most games with suppression. That would work if guardsmen were the only unit, frail humans who are scared by default. But in 40k, where most units are practically fearless, I think unsuppressed should be the default state.

Right. This is why I favor the system from Maelstrom's Edge, or some version of it. Naming it "suppression" instead of "morale" makes it clear that the mechanic represents more than the units' emotional state, so even marines and necrons are affected. Some units can still be fearless, but no more ATSKNF.

Units "shake off" d3 tokens when they activate, lose one token for each command point allotted to the unit, and "dig in" to lose some more, and so on. Failing morale tests can force the unit to remain stationary but shoot normally, remain stationary and snapfire, (I suppose there is another application of the rule after all) or retreat. What MEDGe would call dig-in, pinned, and retreat. The neat thing is how the system affects unit behavior, not just the chances of succeeding at something.

But do you think the effects of suppression and pinning are good? I tried to distinguish the two. Pinning is simply where is unit hunkers down when under an attack, but suppression carries serious negative effects. The overwatch roll is what I am especially worried about? Is -1 to hit enough or should suppression prevent overwatch entirely? Units that can avoid overwatch are greatly valued right now, and this would devalue that ability. Even with a saving reroll, I can think of many times when a -1 to movement would be worse than a -1 to hit, and suppression needs to be worse than pinning in most cases. If overwatch denial were a constant, then it wouldn't take much for overwatch to be a thing of the past. Using unsaved wounds for suppression tests, guaranteed overwatch denial would mean 5 intercessors could prevent fire warrior overwatch 50% of the time. If the number of suppression tests was used as the addition factor instead, it would take two intercessor squads to achieve the same result, at that point the fire warriors are almost dead.

I think they are both good. I think pinning is a useful as a consequence of being suppressed.

So here's the unsuppressed as default state rules. I supposed there could be layers of suppression, at layer one you overwatch if you pass a 4+ roll and at layer two you can't overwatch all, but I think that is too much bookkeeping. A 1CP stratagem can be added that lets a unit shoot overwatch if it is suppressed. But should you start taking suppression tests at a d6 or a 1+d6? What is good considering normal moral values and how often suppression should come into play?

If a unit is shot at by all the models in an opposing unit during the shooting phase, roll a d6 and add the number of times the unit has been shot at in such a manner this phase to the result. If the result is equal to the unit's LD, this unit is considered pinned; it must subtract 1 from its movement characteristic in the following movement phase and may reroll the next failed armor save it makes. If the result is greater than the unit's LD, the unit is considered suppressed; this unit suffers a -1 to hit for its shooting attacks in the next shooting phase and may not fire overwatch in the next charge phase. A unit may not be suppressed twice or pinned twice in one phase, but it may be both suppressed and pinned. If a unit has already been suppressed once in a phase, the next time it would become suppressed it becomes pinned instead.

So for the token system, do you taken suppression tests during the moral phase (I assume this is still separate from morale)? Do you have to pass a morale test (with tokens instead of casualties) to activate, you don't activate if you roll higher than your LD? And if it takes place during the morale phase, is a unit automatically suppressed for the remainder of the phase (until morale), suffering any penalties along the way with no option to test out of them? Otherwise it seems like this is just some variations of my rules, but suppression can continue over after a phase ends.

I think this sounds significantly overcomplicated.

I agree with Suppression being a better mechanic than models vanishing, but I feel that lingering tokens, whole units shooting, etc just seems too much to track. Plus, you'll have units of 1 dishing ou tloads of suppression each tim they fire. 2 units of 5 marines should not suppress any more than 1 unit of 10.

I would have the following, to keep it simple & Similar:

A unit takes a morale test, the same as now (casualties + D6 vs ld). if the roll is higher than their leadership, then the unit is suppressed. A suppressed unit cannot receive orders, use stratagems, advance, or use any auras (unless the aura specifies otherwise).

Suppressive weapons - If a unit is hit by a suppressive weapon, it suffers -1Ld until the end of the turn.


Although, now I am considering the way in which Close Combat will affect this...

Perhaps suppression needs to be applied at the end of the shooting phase? thus suppressive fire can prevent overwatch?

EG suppressive weapon could drop a units Ld to 0 (lots of suppressive weapons firing at once) and guarantee the unit will become suppressed. They wouldn't even have to wound anyone. as suppressive fire should be.

 Eipi10 wrote:
So here's the unsuppressed as default state rules. I supposed there could be layers of suppression, at layer one you overwatch if you pass a 4+ roll and at layer two you can't overwatch all, but I think that is too much bookkeeping. A 1CP stratagem can be added that lets a unit shoot overwatch if it is suppressed. But should you start taking suppression tests at a d6 or a 1+d6? What is good considering normal moral values and how often suppression should come into play?

I would like to see every non-fearless unit take a morale check when the controlling player activates it.

If a unit is shot at by all the models in an opposing unit during the shooting phase, roll a d6 and add the number of times the unit has been shot at in such a manner this phase to the result. If the result is equal to the unit's LD, this unit is considered pinned; it must subtract 1 from its movement characteristic in the following movement phase and may reroll the next failed armor save it makes. If the result is greater than the unit's LD, the unit is considered suppressed; this unit suffers a -1 to hit for its shooting attacks in the next shooting phase and may not fire overwatch in the next charge phase. A unit may not be suppressed twice or pinned twice in one phase, but it may be both suppressed and pinned. If a unit has already been suppressed once in a phase, the next time it would become suppressed it becomes pinned instead.

So for the token system, do you taken suppression tests during the moral phase (I assume this is still separate from morale)? Do you have to pass a morale test (with tokens instead of casualties) to activate, you don't activate if you roll higher than your LD? And if it takes place during the morale phase, is a unit automatically suppressed for the remainder of the phase (until morale), suffering any penalties along the way with no option to test out of them? Otherwise it seems like this is just some variations of my rules, but suppression can continue over after a phase ends.

Neither. All of my rules ideas are predicated on the removal of IGOUGO and phases. A morale test would be resolved just like anything else- I may or may not have mentioned my preference for a system of comparing an attacker value to a defender value to determine the minimum number needed to succeed, a lot like the old to-wound chart. This would work the same for morale- compare the unit's leadership to the number of suppression tokens to ascertain what number you need to roll to pass, then roll the die. Player 1 goes to make one of their let's say, 2 activations, before passing to their opponent- they choose a unit, and before declaring that unit's action, take an activation (morale) check to see if that unit fully complies with orders.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 some bloke wrote:
I think this sounds significantly overcomplicated.

I agree with Suppression being a better mechanic than models vanishing, but I feel that lingering tokens, whole units shooting, etc just seems too much to track. Plus, you'll have units of 1 dishing ou tloads of suppression each tim they fire. 2 units of 5 marines should not suppress any more than 1 unit of 10.

I would have the following, to keep it simple & Similar:

A unit takes a morale test, the same as now (casualties + D6 vs ld). if the roll is higher than their leadership, then the unit is suppressed. A suppressed unit cannot receive orders, use stratagems, advance, or use any auras (unless the aura specifies otherwise).

Suppressive weapons - If a unit is hit by a suppressive weapon, it suffers -1Ld until the end of the turn.


Although, now I am considering the way in which Close Combat will affect this...

Perhaps suppression needs to be applied at the end of the shooting phase? thus suppressive fire can prevent overwatch?

EG suppressive weapon could drop a units Ld to 0 (lots of suppressive weapons firing at once) and guarantee the unit will become suppressed. They wouldn't even have to wound anyone. as suppressive fire should be.

"Overly complicated" is doing more than necessary to achieve a goal. So this depends on what the desired play experience is. What I propose is more complex than any rules 40k has had, but creates richer gameplay than a "let's get a result and move on" mindset. Especially when the mechanic, suppression, is used in more places in the rules than a mere morale check. It also creates a more dynamic flow of "battle."

Command points could become a per-turn resource- each game turn, both players generate an amount of CP equal to X plus the total [Command] value of their units on the battlefield. Instead of stratagems, CP is allocated by models with the [Command] special rule to other units. For each CP assigned, that unit loses a suppression token. CP could also be used to activate a unit's special abilities- like the Epirian's bot protocols, with effects like a unit gaining an extra inch of movement for each CP allocated and so on.

The greatest flaw in GW's rules-writing is they do not consider the system as a whole when writing rules. They view each piece as a separate entity, leaving us with stagnant gameplay. And a host of balance issues, both external and internal.

Assuming that lethality is decreased significantly, ovewatch can be triggered by a unit being charged. If the unit passes a morale check, they fire at full BS. If they fail, they hit on 6's (another application-I may have been wrong about the usefulness of snapfire- the rule only needs to be used judiciously). In 40k, melee combat is common, so why wouldn't troops shoot the dudes running towards their bullets? With overwatch re-envisioned this way, suppression becomes impactful yet again.

Blastaar wrote:
Neither. All of my rules ideas are predicated on the removal of IGOUGO and phases. A morale test would be resolved just like anything else- I may or may not have mentioned my preference for a system of comparing an attacker value to a defender value to determine the minimum number needed to succeed, a lot like the old to-wound chart. This would work the same for morale- compare the unit's leadership to the number of suppression tokens to ascertain what number you need to roll to pass, then roll the die. Player 1 goes to make one of their let's say, 2 activations, before passing to their opponent- they choose a unit, and before declaring that unit's action, take an activation (morale) check to see if that unit fully complies with orders.

"Overly complicated" is doing more than necessary to achieve a goal. So this depends on what the desired play experience is. What I propose is more complex than any rules 40k has had, but creates richer gameplay than a "let's get a result and move on" mindset. Especially when the mechanic, suppression, is used in more places in the rules than a mere morale check. It also creates a more dynamic flow of "battle."

Command points could become a per-turn resource- each game turn, both players generate an amount of CP equal to X plus the total [Command] value of their units on the battlefield. Instead of stratagems, CP is allocated by models with the [Command] special rule to other units. For each CP assigned, that unit loses a suppression token. CP could also be used to activate a unit's special abilities- like the Epirian's bot protocols, with effects like a unit gaining an extra inch of movement for each CP allocated and so on.

The greatest flaw in GW's rules-writing is they do not consider the system as a whole when writing rules. They view each piece as a separate entity, leaving us with stagnant gameplay. And a host of balance issues, both external and internal.

Assuming that lethality is decreased significantly, ovewatch can be triggered by a unit being charged. If the unit passes a morale check, they fire at full BS. If they fail, they hit on 6's (another application-I may have been wrong about the usefulness of snapfire- the rule only needs to be used judiciously). In 40k, melee combat is common, so why wouldn't troops shoot the dudes running towards their bullets? With overwatch re-envisioned this way, suppression becomes impactful yet again.

I see, 40k is designed like a lot of grand strategy games, where vaguely connected yet mostly independent plates must be kept spinning. It's not a bad system, but not nearly as immersive as it could be. I think AUA would go a long way to improving that, so long as little sacrificed along the way. IGUG lets a lot of flavorful bloat get added on, while AUA, for all it's streamlining, does have rules that are more nuanced and difficult to understand.
I think I would need to see a more formal description of your rules before I can critique them further.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 some bloke wrote:
I think this sounds significantly overcomplicated.

I agree with Suppression being a better mechanic than models vanishing, but I feel that lingering tokens, whole units shooting, etc just seems too much to track. Plus, you'll have units of 1 dishing ou tloads of suppression each tim they fire. 2 units of 5 marines should not suppress any more than 1 unit of 10.

I would have the following, to keep it simple & Similar:

A unit takes a morale test, the same as now (casualties + D6 vs ld). if the roll is higher than their leadership, then the unit is suppressed. A suppressed unit cannot receive orders, use stratagems, advance, or use any auras (unless the aura specifies otherwise).

Suppressive weapons - If a unit is hit by a suppressive weapon, it suffers -1Ld until the end of the turn.


Although, now I am considering the way in which Close Combat will affect this...

Perhaps suppression needs to be applied at the end of the shooting phase? thus suppressive fire can prevent overwatch?

EG suppressive weapon could drop a units Ld to 0 (lots of suppressive weapons firing at once) and guarantee the unit will become suppressed. They wouldn't even have to wound anyone. as suppressive fire should be.

There are two separate rule systems we are comparing, one is integrating suppression into IGUG, and the other is designing it for AUA. The quoted text is the only IGUG rule, it's designed to expand upon leadership and not replace morale. A roll is taken after a unit is shot at with a full unit (I know 1x10 should be just as good as 2x5, but such is the advantage of MSU. It's unavoidable unless the unit mechanic is replaced entirely. Perhaps double/triple size units get +1/+2 to suppression). I don't really want to mess with stratagems and advancing since not being able to use stratagems on a unit is often worse than most any other effect while not being able to advance is often completely meaningless. Unlike morale, suppression is designed to represent the volume of fire a unit is under, not necessarily the casualties it suffers as a result. My inspiration for this rule is from one of the deathwatch books, where a killteam is under fire from genestealer cultists and, though unharmed, is occasionally forced back through sheer volume of fire.

 Eipi10 wrote:

Blastaar wrote:
Neither. All of my rules ideas are predicated on the removal of IGOUGO and phases. A morale test would be resolved just like anything else- I may or may not have mentioned my preference for a system of comparing an attacker value to a defender value to determine the minimum number needed to succeed, a lot like the old to-wound chart. This would work the same for morale- compare the unit's leadership to the number of suppression tokens to ascertain what number you need to roll to pass, then roll the die. Player 1 goes to make one of their let's say, 2 activations, before passing to their opponent- they choose a unit, and before declaring that unit's action, take an activation (morale) check to see if that unit fully complies with orders.

"Overly complicated" is doing more than necessary to achieve a goal. So this depends on what the desired play experience is. What I propose is more complex than any rules 40k has had, but creates richer gameplay than a "let's get a result and move on" mindset. Especially when the mechanic, suppression, is used in more places in the rules than a mere morale check. It also creates a more dynamic flow of "battle."

Command points could become a per-turn resource- each game turn, both players generate an amount of CP equal to X plus the total [Command] value of their units on the battlefield. Instead of stratagems, CP is allocated by models with the [Command] special rule to other units. For each CP assigned, that unit loses a suppression token. CP could also be used to activate a unit's special abilities- like the Epirian's bot protocols, with effects like a unit gaining an extra inch of movement for each CP allocated and so on.

The greatest flaw in GW's rules-writing is they do not consider the system as a whole when writing rules. They view each piece as a separate entity, leaving us with stagnant gameplay. And a host of balance issues, both external and internal.

Assuming that lethality is decreased significantly, ovewatch can be triggered by a unit being charged. If the unit passes a morale check, they fire at full BS. If they fail, they hit on 6's (another application-I may have been wrong about the usefulness of snapfire- the rule only needs to be used judiciously). In 40k, melee combat is common, so why wouldn't troops shoot the dudes running towards their bullets? With overwatch re-envisioned this way, suppression becomes impactful yet again.

I see, 40k is designed like a lot of grand strategy games, where vaguely connected yet mostly independent plates must be kept spinning. It's not a bad system, but not nearly as immersive as it could be. I think AUA would go a long way to improving that, so long as little sacrificed along the way. IGUG lets a lot of flavorful bloat get added on, while AUA, for all it's streamlining, does have rules that are more nuanced and difficult to understand.
I think I would need to see a more formal description of your rules before I can critique them further.

Writing a ruleset for the 40k I would like to play is on the to-do list.

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 some bloke wrote:
I think this sounds significantly overcomplicated.

I agree with Suppression being a better mechanic than models vanishing, but I feel that lingering tokens, whole units shooting, etc just seems too much to track. Plus, you'll have units of 1 dishing ou tloads of suppression each tim they fire. 2 units of 5 marines should not suppress any more than 1 unit of 10.

I would have the following, to keep it simple & Similar:

A unit takes a morale test, the same as now (casualties + D6 vs ld). if the roll is higher than their leadership, then the unit is suppressed. A suppressed unit cannot receive orders, use stratagems, advance, or use any auras (unless the aura specifies otherwise).

Suppressive weapons - If a unit is hit by a suppressive weapon, it suffers -1Ld until the end of the turn.


Although, now I am considering the way in which Close Combat will affect this...

Perhaps suppression needs to be applied at the end of the shooting phase? thus suppressive fire can prevent overwatch?

EG suppressive weapon could drop a units Ld to 0 (lots of suppressive weapons firing at once) and guarantee the unit will become suppressed. They wouldn't even have to wound anyone. as suppressive fire should be.

There are two separate rule systems we are comparing, one is integrating suppression into IGUG, and the other is designing it for AUA. The quoted text is the only IGUG rule, it's designed to expand upon leadership and not replace morale. A roll is taken after a unit is shot at with a full unit (I know 1x10 should be just as good as 2x5, but such is the advantage of MSU. It's unavoidable unless the unit mechanic is replaced entirely. Perhaps double/triple size units get +1/+2 to suppression). I don't really want to mess with stratagems and advancing since not being able to use stratagems on a unit is often worse than most any other effect while not being able to advance is often completely meaningless. Unlike morale, suppression is designed to represent the volume of fire a unit is under, not necessarily the casualties it suffers as a result. My inspiration for this rule is from one of the deathwatch books, where a killteam is under fire from genestealer cultists and, though unharmed, is occasionally forced back through sheer volume of fire.

Blastaar wrote:

Marine shouldn't be suppressing the enemy disproportionately. The basic idea is a unit gets 1 token when declared the target of a shooting attack. Some weapons could have [Suppress X], X would most likely be 1 in most cases. With AA, a unit could potentially choose to fire to suppress the enemy, forfeiting damage, but adding more tokens instead. Etc, etc.
Tokens really aren't that difficult to track, so long as the rules are written clearly and concisely enough that the moments when the amount of tokens increases or decreases is easy to get used to by playing.

With an IGOUGO system, what you have looks about right Eipi10.

The bonuses to suppression are for squad size with marines as the example. I should also add that characters with less than 10 wounds can never suppress the enemy.

Suppressive fire is too much of a complication, though. I would be reluctant to use tokens since they are serious immersion breakers (as much as immersion can be had in a tabletop game). I understand the inclusion if you are building it as a core part of the game instead of an outer feature. Maybe tokens could be part of an urban combat type expansion. I think it would be worthwhile to integrate a simpler tokenless system into an AUA rule set. It would mean suppression wouldn't carry over from turn to turn, but that's not a big problem in a game that's only 6 turns long.

One thought (expanding on my thoughts on combining morale and suppression to streamline the whole thing) would be to give rapidfire weapons the option to be suppressive.

to recap - morale checks as now, but if you fail you are suppressed, rather than running away, and cannot advance, use stratagems, use auras, etc., and some weapons are suppressive, meaning if you are hit by a suppressive weapon you take -1Ld, making it much more likely that you are suppressed.

Rapidfire weapons would typically be Rapidfire 1, and can double their shots, gain "suppressive" and only hit on 6's instead to lay down covering fire.

The mechanic of reducing Ld for each hit is better to scale than each whole unit firing, and you could put a cap of, say, 3 suppression tokens per unit to prevent it becoming overpowered.

Then either if a unit wishes to activate (AA) or at the start of your turn (IGOUGO) units roll a D6, add casualties and suppression tokens, and if it exceeds their Ld then they are suppressed (no strats, orders, auras, etc). Auto-pass morale stratagem can be derestricted to allow its use multiple times per turn, if people have CP to blow and lots of suppressed units which want to use auras and stratagems. Maybe make it cost 1 extra CP each time it's used.

This also allows for a result where units like Gretchin (Ld 4) can be suppressed without even being shot at, which makes sense for the most cowardly unit in the game.

I like having both models fleeing and suppression being a thing.

 Eipi10 wrote:
I like having both models fleeing and suppression being a thing.

hmmm... perhaps have 2 levels of suppression - suppressed and broken.

A suppressed squad cannot perform overwatch, use stratagems, use auras, or advance

A Broken squad is Suppressed, but also may not end its move closer to the enemy than it started, cannot charge, and suffers -1 to hit (shooting & assault).

Suppression should be moderately common, but not a given. Breaking a squad would require high casualties.

Perhaps have it thus:

A unit takes a suppression token for each hit from a suppressive weapon. At the end of the turn (timing can be adjusted for AA etc but I'm working with what we have already) units must make morale checks.

Each unit rolls a D6 and subtracts it from their morale.

If the result is below the combined number of casualties taken this turn and suppression tokens on the unit, then the unit is suppressed.
If the result is below the number of casualties taken this turn, then the unit is also broken.


Example:

A unit of 10 space marines (Ld 8) is shot at this turn and takes 7 suppression tokens and 3 casualties. They roll a 3 on the D6 for a total of 5. This is less than 10 (7+3) so the unit is suppressed, but is more than the number of casualties (3) so the unit is not broken.

A unit of grots (ld 4) is shot and takes 1 suppression token. They roll a 6 for a total of -2 (oh, they are cowardly!), meaning that not only are they suppressed, but also broken.


I think the most important part of this is the ability to recover - if you have a turn of not being shot, you can recover your morale and no longer be suppressed or broken. Much better than the current vanishing model syndrome that we're suffering.

So broken is just the normal morale phase, but with more penalties instead of models fleeing. Gimping movement and an overall reduction in damage output is often worse than simply losing a model or two. For a 10 man guard squad or some cultists, a 33% damage output reduction is worse than losing a quarter of their models. It might be ok if you want units to be more durable overall, but I don't think that's a thing 40k needs. Some units do *cough* tactical marines *cough* but most don't. Starting out with two big armies and then watching them get widdled away to a single terminator charging a wounded sorcerer is one of the most memorable things about 40k. Even if that weren't a problem, I like the idea that models will run away when they see their buddies die. Cowering in fear even more is something the normal suppression mechanic should take care of, it why I like to distinguish between being suppressed and being pinned.



I think the only difference between our suppression models is that the penalties for being suppressed are different. You also have some carryover in your system, which I don't like for bookkeeping reasons.

I think if you want to represent the movement and accuracy penalty for suppression, it is better to simply give minuses to hit and move. A unit can still receive orders when under fire and can still try to advance, it's just that their baseline combat effectiveness is reduced. I went with a -1 to hit and move instead of preventing auras and advance moves.

We both agree on overwatch, but I think you should still be able to charge when under fire. Not for any immersion reason, but because melee focused armies would have a really hard time getting into combat. After all, part of the reason for the suppression system is to give more units a way to deny overwatch, thus buffing melee units.

 Eipi10 wrote:
So broken is just the normal morale phase, but with more penalties instead of models fleeing. Gimping movement and an overall reduction in damage output is often worse than simply losing a model or two. For a 10 man guard squad or some cultists, a 33% damage output reduction is worse than losing a quarter of their models. It might be ok if you want units to be more durable overall, but I don't think that's a thing 40k needs. Some units do *cough* tactical marines *cough* but most don't. Starting out with two big armies and then watching them get widdled away to a single terminator charging a wounded sorcerer is one of the most memorable things about 40k. Even if that weren't a problem, I like the idea that models will run away when they see their buddies die. Cowering in fear even more is something the normal suppression mechanic should take care of, it why I like to distinguish between being suppressed and being pinned.

I see your point, but to me it makes more sense for the unit to refuse to move closer and become a bit of a shambles than for several guys to run off screaming whilst the rest of the guys (who, by happenstance, have the decent guns and abilities, funny that...) continue to operate as a perfectly functional unit.

I imagine a unit breaking being more of them curling up in a ball and refusing to do anything, rather than just saying "nope" and logging out, vanishing into thin air. a unit of guardsmen holding back and firing their lascannon become no less effective until the lascannon dies.

I think the only difference between our suppression models is that the penalties for being suppressed are different. You also have some carryover in your system, which I don't like for bookkeeping reasons.

I think if you want to represent the movement and accuracy penalty for suppression, it is better to simply give minuses to hit and move. A unit can still receive orders when under fire and can still try to advance, it's just that their baseline combat effectiveness is reduced. I went with a -1 to hit and move instead of preventing auras and advance moves.

I have voiced it on other threads, I feel that -1 to hit is too strong. The "to hit" scale is of only 5 options, 2+ to 6+. if you get 2 effects causing -1 to hit, it's game changing for anyone not BS3+ or better. Restricting what they can do (no strats, no advance, no overwatch) is more representative of a unit who's primary concern is keeping their heads down! also -1 to movement has little effect on jump & biker units.

I would like even more to say "may not leave cover, if out of cover must end move closer to cover and, if possible, end their move in cover. suppressed units in cover get +1 to cover saves if they do not move". but that's much more complex and the terrain placement & types of terrain will affect it too much.

We both agree on overwatch, but I think you should still be able to charge when under fire. Not for any immersion reason, but because melee focused armies would have a really hard time getting into combat. After all, part of the reason for the suppression system is to give more units a way to deny overwatch, thus buffing melee units.

I feel that if you can readily knock out overwatch then you also need a way to counter this. I would like t osee some sort of universal "strength in numbers" rule, perhaps where units of 10 or more halve the casualties taken for morale purposes.

An alternative, and more extreme rewrite, would be to give all units degrading statlines, but which are based on the squad morale rather than the models wounds. it would mean a lot of referencing, though.


I do feel like we can reach a common ground on this. What is it you dislike about the suppression & broken mechanic I suggested (the effects of each state aside)?

We both want suppression as a way to add a missing part of combat to 40k. I also want suppression to rebalance shooting and melee armies, while you want it to change how morale works.

I think morale should be something that affects individual soldiers, not full units. You can think of it as soldiers in a unit refusing to continue to fight, curling up in a ball. It makes sense that those with more willpower will be entrusted with heavy weapons and leadership roles. I would still like a regoup mechanic, but it would be too hard to implement.

For suppression, even including it will give shooting armies a buff, but I want to make so the effects will hurt them harder than melee armies. This is why I don't think they should get a counter to overwatch denial and get a -1 to hit. This is also why I want the -1 to move, it won't affect the (typically melee-oriented) jump pack troops, but will hurt the (typically slow-moving) shooting troops. Having a save reroll will encourage players to place units that will come under fire in cover. A flat -1 to hit is a powerful debuff, armies that have access to it do very well, I want to give it all armies as an equalizer.

As far as your rules go, I think units should still respond to orders while under fire, they are just not as good at carrying them out. Of course, they are not as good at doing anything, hence reduced base stats. And from a more meta perspective, there are ways to build around your penalties, don't use CP, auras, or advancing in the first place.

I have had some more thoughts on this, particularly in regard to the role melee has in this. Namely that it makes sense for a unit to be suppressed by shooting, but to flee from combat.

I would think that it wouldn't slow the game down too much to have 2 morale stages, being suppression and morale, after the shooting phase and after the fight phase.

Suppression would be purely inflicted by shooting, and would do the effects we've been discussing, with an added aspect which Wyldhunt brought up in another thread - labelling some abilities "Command Abilities", and disallowing specifically these. reroll auras, most orders (get back in the fight will remove suppression and not be a command ability), and a lot of stratagems will be disallowed when a unit is suppressed. It would simplify the ruling a lot - overwatch could be labelled as a Command Ability as well. I'm happy with -1 to hit for suppressed units as well, it makes sense that they will get less effective.

Suppression taking place after shooting makes it more useful for stopping overwatch as well, as it will be just before charging. Otherwise you would suppress a unit at the end of your turn, and then they would recover in theirs, and the lack of overwatch would never affect the game.

Morale would be down to picking the wrong fight - compare casualties taken in combat and the loser rolls D6 + the difference and compares to morale. If the unit fails, they must fall back as if it were the movement phase. this stops it being a guarantee to tie things up with CC. multi-wound models are generally scarier and have the advantage that they lose less models, so will be more likely to win combat. This might need some tweaks to make it work but is largely the same as the old rules.

Again, messing with command abilities is too complicated. It's one thing to apply buffs and debuffs to a unit, but it's another thing to apply debuffs to those buffs.

In my rule set, suppression takes place as part of the shooting phase. After the controlling player rollings for saving throws, he then rolls for the suppression on that unit.

I don't think units should so much retreat from combat like in 7th, but rather be forced to fall back in their movement phase. Perhaps if a unit fails a morale test while in melee (has any number of models flee), it must make a fall back move in its next movement phase. If you think this is too harsh, then there can be a retreat test where the number of models who fell + d6 is compared to the lowest LD in the unit. If the result is greater, then the unit must retreat.

This won't be a concern for shooting armies, as they are less dependant on the tight phalanxes of melee combat. Nor will the source of casualties matter, the shock of enemy fire and fists blur into one in the thick of combat. If the unit cannot fallback for whatever reason, then any model that can must still end the phase more than 1" away from enemy models, but the unit does not count as having falled back. There is no restriction of what direction the model moves or how far it goes, the simple act of falling back confers enough game states to make a difference.

If a unit fails a retreat test during it's own turn, then instead of falling back regardless (and getting an extra move phase, this is designed to reduce overall movement in 40k), the unit can only pile in and consolidate 1" during the next fight phase. In other words, if an enemy charged you and beat you, then you retreat. If you charge and lose, then you cannot advance/press the attack. The way these rules are structures will tend to benefit melee armies since they suffer less if they fail combat on a turn they charged. After all, forcing units to retreat from combat will always tend to hurt those units that want to be in combat.

I don't see any reason why this should be the case:

multi-wound models are generally scarier and have the advantage that they lose less models, so will be more likely to win combat.

If we did suppression, I'd imagine the ideal picture being like this:

-Dev Squad suppresses Dire Avenger squad
-Dire Avengers don't do much damage to Tac Squad
-Tac Squad charges into Dire Avengers

But also the reverse:
-Guardian Heavy Weapons Platform suppresses Tac Marines (With great luck, Marines are hardest to suppress!)
-Tacs don't do much damage to Fire Dragons
-Fire Dragons light up Tacs