Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

These are supposed to be power-neutral ways to replace abilities of various units to speed up the game. What rules do you feel like slows down your games and how would you fix them?

Core Rules - large amounts of D3 damage vs multi-wound units
Replacement: If a unit causes 4+ unsaved wounds with a damage characteristic of D3 the damage characteristic is changed to 2.
*Edit: D3 damage weapons should just be Damage 2 if the unit has a high possibility of causing 4+ wounds, so Basilisks, Destroyers, but not force swords. I don't like the D3 magically all turning into 2s when you roll 4+ dice.

Widespread - FNP
Replacement: I think this has to be replaced on an individual basis, but the core idea of having a chance of ignoring every single wound is a waste of time.

Widespread - Re-roll auras or faction abilities.
Replacement - targeted or shorter ranged +1 abilities.

Death Guard - Disgustingly Resilient: 5+ FNP
Replacement: VEHICLES and MONSTERS (except CHARACTERS) with this ability start the game with 50% more wounds (rounding down). Other models gain +1 T instead.

Adeptus Mechanicus - radium carbine and pistol: Each time you make a wound roll of 6+ for this weapon, that hit inflicts 2 damage instead of 1
Replacement: Increase the damage of this weapon to 2 against units containing 1 model.

 vict0988 wrote:

Adeptus Mechanicus - radium carbine and pistol: Each time you make a wound roll of 6+ for this weapon, that hit inflicts 2 damage instead of 1
Replacement: Increase the damage of this weapon to 2 against units containing 1 model.

While I don't disagree with some of what you're saying, this doesn't fit.

10 Skitarii Vanguard shooting at Terminators, pre-change:
30 shots, 20 hits, 6.6 wounds (3.3 D1, 3.3 D2), 1.1 unsaved, 0.8 dead Terminators

10 Skitarii Vanguard shooting at Terminators, post-change:
30 shots, 20 hits, 6.6 wounds, 1.1 unsaved, 0.55 dead Terminators

10 Skitarii Vanguard shooting at a single Terminator, pre-change:
30 shots, 20 hits, 6.6 wounds (3.3 D1, 3.3 D2), 1.1 unsaved, 0.8 dead Terminators

10 Skitarii Vanguard shooting at a single Terminator, post-change:
30 shots, 20 hits, 6.6 wounds, 1.1 unsaved, 1.1 dead Terminators

You get a +25% boost just for shooting at a lone model.

RevlidRas wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Adeptus Mechanicus - radium carbine and pistol: Each time you make a wound roll of 6+ for this weapon, that hit inflicts 2 damage instead of 1
Replacement: Increase the damage of this weapon to 2 against units containing 1 model.

While I don't disagree with some of what you're saying, this doesn't fit.

10 Skitarii Vanguard shooting at Terminators, pre-change:
30 shots, 20 hits, 6.6 wounds (3.3 D1, 3.3 D2), 1.1 unsaved, 0.8 dead Terminators

10 Skitarii Vanguard shooting at Terminators, post-change:
30 shots, 20 hits, 6.6 wounds, 1.1 unsaved, 0.55 dead Terminators

10 Skitarii Vanguard shooting at a single Terminator, pre-change:
30 shots, 20 hits, 6.6 wounds (3.3 D1, 3.3 D2), 1.1 unsaved, 0.8 dead Terminators

10 Skitarii Vanguard shooting at a single Terminator, post-change:
30 shots, 20 hits, 6.6 wounds, 1.1 unsaved, 1.1 dead Terminators

You get a +25% boost just for shooting at a lone model.

What do you mean it doesn't fit? It's better in some cases, worse in others. Do you feel it becomes too much better or too much worse? It's meant to be as power neutral as possible, doesn't mean it won't be better in some cases and worse in others. You're also not factoring in the fact that the damage 2 wound might come after the damage 1 wound pre-change, making the math a whole lot more complicated and the pre-change versions slightly worse.

 vict0988 wrote:

RevlidRas wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Adeptus Mechanicus - radium carbine and pistol: Each time you make a wound roll of 6+ for this weapon, that hit inflicts 2 damage instead of 1
Replacement: Increase the damage of this weapon to 2 against units containing 1 model.

While I don't disagree with some of what you're saying, this doesn't fit.

10 Skitarii Vanguard shooting at Terminators, pre-change:
30 shots, 20 hits, 6.6 wounds (3.3 D1, 3.3 D2), 1.1 unsaved, 0.8 dead Terminators

10 Skitarii Vanguard shooting at Terminators, post-change:
30 shots, 20 hits, 6.6 wounds, 1.1 unsaved, 0.55 dead Terminators

10 Skitarii Vanguard shooting at a single Terminator, pre-change:
30 shots, 20 hits, 6.6 wounds (3.3 D1, 3.3 D2), 1.1 unsaved, 0.8 dead Terminators

10 Skitarii Vanguard shooting at a single Terminator, post-change:
30 shots, 20 hits, 6.6 wounds, 1.1 unsaved, 1.1 dead Terminators

You get a +25% boost just for shooting at a lone model.

What do you mean it doesn't fit? It's better in some cases, worse in others. Do you feel it becomes too much better or too much worse? It's meant to be as power neutral as possible, doesn't mean it won't be better in some cases and worse in others. You're also not factoring in the fact that the damage 2 wound might come after the damage 1 wound pre-change, making the math a whole lot more complicated and the pre-change versions slightly worse.

It would slow the game down more.

Dice rolling shouldn't be a huge time sink for the game as it is. It's the thinking that makes it as long as it is.

 vict0988 wrote:
These are supposed to be power-neutral ways to replace abilities of various units to speed up the game. What rules do you feel like slows down your games and how would you fix them?

Core Rules - large amounts of D3 damage vs multi-wound units
Replacement: If a unit causes 4+ unsaved wounds with a damage characteristic of D3 the damage characteristic is changed to 2.

Lowering the max (though unlikely) damage of 4 d3 damage wounds from 12 to 8 kind of stinks for the player using those weapons. Part of the appeal of those weapons is that lucky rolls can give you a damage spike that opens up other guns in your army to shoot at other targets. I'd rather see d3 damage change to a flat 2 so that you could price and plan around those weapons accordingly.

Widespread - FNP
Replacement: I think this has to be replaced on an individual basis, but the core idea of having a chance of ignoring every single wound is a waste of time.

...

Death Guard - Disgustingly Resilient: 5+ FNP
Replacement: VEHICLES and MONSTERS (except CHARACTERS) with this ability start the game with 50% more wounds (rounding down). Other models gain +1 T instead.

Eh. I'm all for finding a way to speed up FNP rolls, but I'm not sure this is the way to do it. I forget whether this change would bring plague marines to T5 or T6, but either way it means that either a lasgun or a bolter is unaffected by DR at that point. And while +1T feels like it would be roughly on part with 5+ FNP, I'm not sure what kind of benefit you'd use to replace 6+ FNP on a squishy little gribbly. What do you give dark eldar, for instance, or that hive fleet adaptation that gives swarms of bugs 6+ FNP?

Widespread - Re-roll auras or faction abilities.
Replacement - targeted or shorter ranged +1 abilities.

Totally agree.

Adeptus Mechanicus - radium carbine and pistol: Each time you make a wound roll of 6+ for this weapon, that hit inflicts 2 damage instead of 1
Replacement: Increase the damage of this weapon to 2 against units containing 1 model.

This one just feels wonky. It goes from being really useful against multi-model squads to only mattering against the very last guy? Personally, I'm not sure the rule as-is actually slows the game down all that much. You have to roll two pools of saves, but the same could be said of a marine squad that rolls its plasma gun shots at the same time as its bolter shots.


A few of my own:

* Archon Shadow Fields - You have to roll this 2+ invul one at a time because it goes away after the first failure.
Replacement: Make it a 3+ invul that never goes away (so a storm shield), and consider making a strat that lets you power it up for a turn (possibly at the cost of going away the following turn?)

* Make all d3 damage weapons d2. There's not enough of a swing in the damage to warrant the extra dice rolling.

* Overwatch can go away for any units/factions that don't have some kind of bonus to it. So the Tau Sept and Dire Avengers can keep it as a special rule, but we probably don't need to waste time fishing for 6s with every unit that gets charged.

* Replace most of the CP recycling strats with a small amount of automatic CP at the start of each of the player's turns. Stronger recycling abilities might generate 2 CP instead of 1.

* Tau markerlights. Bring back a rule stating that you can shoot all of them (regardless of what squads they're in/models they're on) at the start of your shooting phase, and don't have them benefit each other. That way, you can get them out of the way early on rather than rolling them one at a time to see if you get to reroll a 1 on the following shot.

* I feel like you can probably just make advance rolls a flat number rather than rolling for it each time. Moving an automatic 4 extra inches is pretty decent. Rolling a 1 feels bad anyway.

I think weapons that currently roll for number of shots should be changed. Especially with ones that have d3 shots it's just a waste of time. Give them 2 shots and be done with it. For weapons that currently roll a d6 for shots, I'd be tempted to try and tie the number of shots to squad size. e.g. 1 shot plus an additional 1 for every 3 models in the target unit (up to a maximum of 5 shots, say).

I also think that a lot of effects that currently activate only on 6s need to go away. I agree with the suggestion that Overwatch shouldn't be a standard thing because it mostly just functions as a time-wasting mechanic. But also stuff like FNP 6+. Either give it a meaningful value (5+ or better) or don't make us waste time rolling it.

I don't mind effects that only activate on a 6+ on to-hit rolls or to-wound rolls because those have to be rolled anyway. I just don't want to have to roll a ton of extra dice that literally do nothing 5 times out of 6.

Wyldhunt wrote:

* Archon Shadow Fields - You have to roll this 2+ invul one at a time because it goes away after the first failure.
Replacement: Make it a 3+ invul that never goes away (so a storm shield), and consider making a strat that lets you power it up for a turn (possibly at the cost of going away the following turn?)

Personally, I think the Shadowfield should be a 4++ or 5++ save but confer a -1 penalty to hit. I think this would be more thematic than a bog standard 3++.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
These are supposed to be power-neutral ways to replace abilities of various units to speed up the game. What rules do you feel like slows down your games and how would you fix them?

Core Rules - large amounts of D3 damage vs multi-wound units
Replacement: If a unit causes 4+ unsaved wounds with a damage characteristic of D3 the damage characteristic is changed to 2.

Lowering the max (though unlikely) damage of 4 d3 damage wounds from 12 to 8 kind of stinks for the player using those weapons. Part of the appeal of those weapons is that lucky rolls can give you a damage spike that opens up other guns in your army to shoot at other targets. I'd rather see d3 damage change to a flat 2 so that you could price and plan around those weapons accordingly.

Widespread - FNP
Replacement: I think this has to be replaced on an individual basis, but the core idea of having a chance of ignoring every single wound is a waste of time.

...

Death Guard - Disgustingly Resilient: 5+ FNP
Replacement: VEHICLES and MONSTERS (except CHARACTERS) with this ability start the game with 50% more wounds (rounding down). Other models gain +1 T instead.

Eh. I'm all for finding a way to speed up FNP rolls, but I'm not sure this is the way to do it. I forget whether this change would bring plague marines to T5 or T6, but either way it means that either a lasgun or a bolter is unaffected by DR at that point. And while +1T feels like it would be roughly on part with 5+ FNP, I'm not sure what kind of benefit you'd use to replace 6+ FNP on a squishy little gribbly. What do you give dark eldar, for instance, or that hive fleet adaptation that gives swarms of bugs 6+ FNP?

They are T5 5+ FNP compared to the normal CSM that is T4 7+ FNP. So they are 50% tougher vs S 3 and 125% tougher vs S4. My suggested change would make them T6 7+ FNP, 100% tougher vs S3 50% tougher vs S4. My suggested change would also make them more vulnerable to poison and less vulnerable to multi-damage weapons. Ideally I think they should be T4 2W.

I have considered +1 to saving throws against D1 weapons as an alternate replacement for Disgustingly Resilient. For Drukhari and Hormagaunts it would also be fair replacement for 6+ FNP I believe because their throws are mostly 5+. +1 T or W would match in some cases and some of these abilities might need nerfs or buffs. Catalyst (5+++ power) could become a healing power instead.

Adeptus Mechanicus - radium carbine and pistol: Each time you make a wound roll of 6+ for this weapon, that hit inflicts 2 damage instead of 1
Replacement: Increase the damage of this weapon to 2 against units containing 1 model.

This one just feels wonky. It goes from being really useful against multi-model squads to only mattering against the very last guy? Personally, I'm not sure the rule as-is actually slows the game down all that much. You have to roll two pools of saves, but the same could be said of a marine squad that rolls its plasma gun shots at the same time as its bolter shots.

Saving throws are done one at a time, if your opponent wants to do all the 1s and then all the 2s then that's their choice, but if they want to do the 1 damage wounds one at a time until a guy is down to 1 wound and then start to take the 2 damage wounds one at a time until the guy is dead to nullify the extra damage then that's okay as well. The way to get around this is to roll wound rolls one at a time and make your opponent immediately make saves, so now you have to make 14 wound rolls one at a time, any time you make a succesful wound your opponent has to make a save.

* Archon Shadow Fields - You have to roll this 2+ invul one at a time because it goes away after the first failure.
Replacement: Make it a 3+ invul that never goes away (so a storm shield), and consider making a strat that lets you power it up for a turn (possibly at the cost of going away the following turn?)

* Make all d3 damage weapons d2. There's not enough of a swing in the damage to warrant the extra dice rolling.

* Overwatch can go away for any units/factions that don't have some kind of bonus to it. So the Tau Sept and Dire Avengers can keep it as a special rule, but we probably don't need to waste time fishing for 6s with every unit that gets charged.

* Replace most of the CP recycling strats with a small amount of automatic CP at the start of each of the player's turns. Stronger recycling abilities might generate 2 CP instead of 1.

* Tau markerlights. Bring back a rule stating that you can shoot all of them (regardless of what squads they're in/models they're on) at the start of your shooting phase, and don't have them benefit each other. That way, you can get them out of the way early on rather than rolling them one at a time to see if you get to reroll a 1 on the following shot.

* I feel like you can probably just make advance rolls a flat number rather than rolling for it each time. Moving an automatic 4 extra inches is pretty decent. Rolling a 1 feels bad anyway.

The Overwatch thing requires a lot of changes IMO. For Tau markerlights I think letting them re-roll 1s would be easier to implement and doesn't really hurt the opponent at all.

 vict0988 wrote:

They are T5 5+ FNP compared to the normal CSM that is T4 7+ FNP. So they are 50% tougher vs S 3 and 125% tougher vs S4. My suggested change would make them T6 7+ FNP, 100% tougher vs S3 50% tougher vs S4. My suggested change would also make them more vulnerable to poison and less vulnerable to multi-damage weapons. Ideally I think they should be T4 2W.

Fair enough. My only objection there was if some common-strength weapons (3 or 4) were unaffected while others weren't.

I have considered +1 to saving throws against D1 weapons as an alternate replacement for Disgustingly Resilient. For Drukhari and Hormagaunts it would also be fair replacement for 6+ FNP I believe because their throws are mostly 5+.

Eh. Only kind of. Kabal infantry are mostly 5+ armor saves. Wyches have 6+ armor but also a 6+ invul against shooting and a 4+ invul in melee (3+ if you take the right chapter tactic). The most popular coven gives all of its non-vehicle models a 4+ invul at all times. Incubi and talos have a 3+ armor. A few things have 4+ armor. So if you go the +1 save route, a lot of stuff becomes extremely durable (talos with 2+/3++ and wyches with either a 3++ or a 2++). Unless you rule that the +1 save doesn't apply to invuls, in which case half the things with 6+FNP don't really benefit.

+1 T or W would match in some cases

I could see it, but like, T4 (or even 5) wyches or 2 wound kabalite warriors feels a bit odd . And both of those buffs are probably a lot more valuable than 6+FNP.

and some of these abilities might need nerfs or buffs. Catalyst (5+++ power) could become a healing power instead.

Sure. Makes sense.

The Overwatch thing requires a lot of changes IMO.

Would it? Would it not just be a matter of reprinting the overwatch rules from the BRB as part of Tau Sept/Mordian Regiment/Dire Avengers' Defensive Tactics rules? Presumably you'd ditch a lot of the powers and relics that interact with overwatch at that point, but that's fine in my book. No one needs a relic that cancels Night Fighting these days, right?

For Tau markerlights I think letting them re-roll 1s would be easier to implement and doesn't really hurt the opponent at all.

I could see that, though it would be a significant buff for markerlights. My tau opponents usually have less than 10 markerlights in their armies these days. It's not uncommon for them to get most of the way through those one-at-a-time markerlights without landing their first hit. Especially if they're in overwatch or going after something with a to-hit penalty. Letting them reroll 1s on the last 3 markerlights is significantly different from letting them reroll 1s on all 10.

Wyldhunt wrote:

The Overwatch thing requires a lot of changes IMO.

Would it? Would it not just be a matter of reprinting the overwatch rules from the BRB as part of Tau Sept/Mordian Regiment/Dire Avengers' Defensive Tactics rules? Presumably you'd ditch a lot of the powers and relics that interact with overwatch at that point, but that's fine in my book. No one needs a relic that cancels Night Fighting these days, right?

It's a large number of changes you would have to make all at once and it slightly changes the balance of a dozen different things, not something you can implement as a quick house rule, which I forgot to mention was the intention of these rules. Because otherwise I'd advocate for GW to make Plague Marines 2W T4 instead of 1W T6.

I have considered +1 to saving throws against D1 weapons as an alternate replacement for Disgustingly Resilient. For Drukhari and Hormagaunts it would also be fair replacement for 6+ FNP I believe because their throws are mostly 5+.

Eh. Only kind of. Kabal infantry are mostly 5+ armor saves. Wyches have 6+ armor but also a 6+ invul against shooting and a 4+ invul in melee (3+ if you take the right chapter tactic). The most popular coven gives all of its non-vehicle models a 4+ invul at all times. Incubi and talos have a 3+ armor. A few things have 4+ armor. So if you go the +1 save route, a lot of stuff becomes extremely durable (talos with 2+/3++ and wyches with either a 3++ or a 2++). Unless you rule that the +1 save doesn't apply to invuls, in which case half the things with 6+FNP don't really benefit.

A max of 4+ invuln would be okay I believe, as far as Talos goes it would be denied by multi-damage weapons. You could also have +1 T against 1 damage weapons.

+1 T or W would match in some cases

I could see it, but like, T4 (or even 5) wyches or 2 wound kabalite warriors feels a bit odd . And both of those buffs are probably a lot more valuable than 6+FNP.

I'm not sure there is anything wrong with +1 T, we could move into the whole discussion of what is toughness and in the current game it is durability vs non-poisonous weapons which is kind of a weird stat to have in the first place.

For Tau markerlights I think letting them re-roll 1s would be easier to implement and doesn't really hurt the opponent at all.

I could see that, though it would be a significant buff for markerlights. My tau opponents usually have less than 10 markerlights in their armies these days. It's not uncommon for them to get most of the way through those one-at-a-time markerlights without landing their first hit. Especially if they're in overwatch or going after something with a to-hit penalty. Letting them reroll 1s on the last 3 markerlights is significantly different from letting them reroll 1s on all 10.

Use a dice app if you need to throw more than ~20 dice to resolve an attack from any given unit. Spending ~45 minutes resolving double taps from 3 Aggressor squads sucks and is unnecessary. Yes I know throwing dice is more satisfying than using a dice app but people should really get with the times in a game environment where you sometimes have to resolve >100 dice throws for a single unit (Boyz, double tapping Aggressors, Endless Cacopohny Chaincannon Havocs etc.).

 vict0988 wrote:
These are supposed to be power-neutral ways to replace abilities of various units to speed up the game. What rules do you feel like slows down your games and how would you fix them?

Core Rules - large amounts of D3 damage vs multi-wound units
Replacement: If a unit causes 4+ unsaved wounds with a damage characteristic of D3 the damage characteristic is changed to 2.

Widespread - FNP
Replacement: I think this has to be replaced on an individual basis, but the core idea of having a chance of ignoring every single wound is a waste of time.

Widespread - Re-roll auras or faction abilities.
Replacement - targeted or shorter ranged +1 abilities.

Death Guard - Disgustingly Resilient: 5+ FNP
Replacement: VEHICLES and MONSTERS (except CHARACTERS) with this ability start the game with 50% more wounds (rounding down). Other models gain +1 T instead.

Adeptus Mechanicus - radium carbine and pistol: Each time you make a wound roll of 6+ for this weapon, that hit inflicts 2 damage instead of 1
Replacement: Increase the damage of this weapon to 2 against units containing 1 model.

For a moment I thought you were advocating that say you had a 30 man squad of Conscripts with FRFSRF at Rapid Fire range, resulting in a typical 120 dice, that you would eliminate the rolling on a 5+ hit and simply take 2/3 of the rolls as misses (40 hit, 80 miss).

For Terminators with 10 Storm Bolters at Rapid Fire range, that could be 20 shots, with 18 accounted for (12 hits, 6 misses), then simply roll the remaining 2 shots.

I can see the appeal, but I really like emptying my trollface mug full of dice repeatedly and counting the successes. It's a Guard thing...

Slayer6 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
These are supposed to be power-neutral ways to replace abilities of various units to speed up the game. What rules do you feel like slows down your games and how would you fix them?

Core Rules - large amounts of D3 damage vs multi-wound units
Replacement: If a unit causes 4+ unsaved wounds with a damage characteristic of D3 the damage characteristic is changed to 2.

Widespread - FNP
Replacement: I think this has to be replaced on an individual basis, but the core idea of having a chance of ignoring every single wound is a waste of time.

Widespread - Re-roll auras or faction abilities.
Replacement - targeted or shorter ranged +1 abilities.

Death Guard - Disgustingly Resilient: 5+ FNP
Replacement: VEHICLES and MONSTERS (except CHARACTERS) with this ability start the game with 50% more wounds (rounding down). Other models gain +1 T instead.

Adeptus Mechanicus - radium carbine and pistol: Each time you make a wound roll of 6+ for this weapon, that hit inflicts 2 damage instead of 1
Replacement: Increase the damage of this weapon to 2 against units containing 1 model.

For a moment I thought you were advocating that say you had a 30 man squad of Conscripts with FRFSRF at Rapid Fire range, resulting in a typical 120 dice, that you would eliminate the rolling on a 5+ hit and simply take 2/3 of the rolls as misses (40 hit, 80 miss).

For Terminators with 10 Storm Bolters at Rapid Fire range, that could be 20 shots, with 18 accounted for (12 hits, 6 misses), then simply roll the remaining 2 shots.

I can see the appeal, but I really like emptying my trollface mug full of dice repeatedly and counting the successes. It's a Guard thing...

I usually use a dice-app, it's not a huge problem for me to roll a lot of dice. For me it's having 5+ separate rolls needed to resolve an attack that is tiresome, rolling dice should never be tiresome, it should be fun, I too find it appealling to roll lots of dice, but rolling medium-sized stacks with re-rolls everywhere? Not for me. I do think Guard orders need to be reworked or the basic Guardsman needs to be weaker to show how they fall apart without leadership but can be pretty good with Leadership, they should not be pretty good at base and then superhuman when given orders.

I do think as many dice rolls as possible should be stripped out.

For example - Imperial Guard medic - 4+ chance ability works. Just increase his cost and make his ability automatic.

Shadowsword 3D3 heavy. Would the world end if he became Heavy 6?

Buffs for cheap stuff - make stuff like re-roll 1's +1's instead.

Dice multiplying effects - just boost the hits. So First Rank Second Rank fire for example, just say each model with the appropriate weapon automatically hits twice at under half range and skip to the wounding part.

It has got to the point where I couldn't actually finish a game in the time the club has if I went all infantry or similar with my guard.

Rules bloat and rules fragmentation are exclusively what slow the game down as well as kill its enjoyment and appeal.

There are SOoo many rules now... printed over dozens of publications, some of which you can't even get anymore.

Applying a rule, any rule, and its outcome takes an amount time. This may be microseconds or it may be several seconds for any single rule, but the more rules, rules interactions, resolution, etc. the more time it will ultimately take; slowing everything down.

Seconds add up to minutes... Minutes add up to hours.

I agree with a lot of what people have said so far.
1. The abundance of re-rolls slows things down quite a bit especially when rolling a large amount of dice. However, I think there's more to the issue; that being all of the aura abilities. There's a lot of time invested in moving and measuring to ensure units are able to take advantage of all of the available auras.
2. Having to apply multiple modifiers to a dice role slows the process down just a bit, not much, but it forces the players to stop and reflect for a moment how many modifiers (i.e. rules) they need to apply to the roll. The aura problem plays into this as well.
3. The abundance of FnP and how it interacts with multi-wound models + multi-damage weapons and especially random damage weapons is IMO the worst offender. (These rules interactions right here can take minutes to resolve on just a single unit.)
4. Stratagems! I loved this mechanic in the beginning, but now absolutely hate it. There is a plethora of reasons why stratagems are problematic and detrimental to the game, but that's another discussion. Overall they slow the game down, a lot. Beyond the time invented in CP record keeping, players continually pause the game to consider what stratagem they may want to use.
5. SM Chaplain Litanies; while I like them, they make Chaplains fun again, this has effectively become a whole new phase of the game.
6. Units that have an absurd amount of weapons and/or attacks. The greatest offender being the SM Repulsor. Take a moment to think about how long it take to resolve all of the attacks from this unit. How about Primaris Aggressors + bonus rules + stratagems? Even with the most experienced player rolling the dice, it's several minutes.

The list goes on...

The abundance of FnP and how it interacts with multi-wound models + multi-damage weapons and especially random damage weapons is IMO the worst offender. (These rules interactions right here can take minutes to resolve on just a single unit.)

Use ROYGBIV color coded dice to encode sequence into the rolls. It helps. A lot.

Are these abilities really so game-breaking and slow that they need to change? I've never had any of these have such an impact that I've thought "they need to go".

 Valkyrie wrote:
Are these abilities really so game-breaking and slow that they need to change? I've never had any of these have such an impact that I've thought "they need to go".

They're not game breaking and they don't need to be thrown out. They just slow down game play when they're used prolifically or under certain conditions.

Stratagems can feth off though. Some stratagems are game breaking and the CP system to use them inhibits army construction as players are motivated to build around the high CP detachments to get as many CP's as they can.

 oni wrote:
Stratagems can feth off though. Some stratagems are game breaking and the CP system to use them inhibits army construction as players are motivated to build around the high CP detachments to get as many CP's as they can.

Building around them isn't really any different than being forced to take troops as in earlier editions or getting free always-on effects as was the case with formations that featured heavily in 7th. I love Stratagems and am not letting go of them just because GW seems determined to see how broken they can make the basic idea of "you get a resource that you determine how you use instead of a set benefit for including certain types of units in your army".

 vict0988 wrote:

 oni wrote:
Stratagems can feth off though. Some stratagems are game breaking and the CP system to use them inhibits army construction as players are motivated to build around the high CP detachments to get as many CP's as they can.

Building around them isn't really any different than being forced to take troops as in earlier editions or getting free always-on effects as was the case with formations that featured heavily in 7th. I love Stratagems and am not letting go of them just because GW seems determined to see how broken they can make the basic idea of "you get a resource that you determine how you use instead of a set benefit for including certain types of units in your army".

The way the stratagems and command points system works is flawed. I'm sure there's a way it can be fixed, but as it is right now, it's bad for the game. They add to rules bloat, they slow the game down, it's one more aspect to balance and FAQ, some armies are constructed to repeatedly abuse one or two OP stratagems... Bottom line is, the con's far outweigh the pro's when it comes to stratagems.

I really think games need to be smaller points wise. The average tournament it is what 1850-2000. Drop it down to 1000 points. Certain units really shine in lower points games. I'd love to take orks just once to a tournament but I don't want to rush my turns.

Limit every stratagem to one use a battle. All of them even cp re-roll.

 Elfric wrote:
I really think games need to be smaller points wise. The average tournament it is what 1850-2000. Drop it down to 1000 points. Certain units really shine in lower points games. I'd love to take orks just once to a tournament but I don't want to rush my turns.

Limit every stratagem to one use a battle. All of them even cp re-roll.

My weekly league plays at 1500 points. We don't ban superheavies, but most people don't field them without asking their opponent in advance. It works out pretty well for us. Enough points to field a list with a theme or mechanical gimmick. Few enough points that you're likely to have weaknesses that can be exploited (which is fun).

I'd worry about going as low as 1,000 points. At a certain point, it becomes too easy to overwhelm your foe with cheap troops or other skew lists.

As for making strats once per game, I'd worry about the increased bookkeeping and punishing factions like harlequins that might depend on certain strats to stay alive.

 Elfric wrote:
I really think games need to be smaller points wise. The average tournament it is what 1850-2000. Drop it down to 1000 points. Certain units really shine in lower points games. I'd love to take orks just once to a tournament but I don't want to rush my turns.

Limit every stratagem to one use a battle. All of them even cp re-roll.

I disagree, but I think a more elegant ruleset would benefit everyone, you can waste 5 minutes resolving one unit of Destroyers shooting at a unit of 10 5+++ Intercessors whether you are playing 1000 or 2000.

Another idea for speeding up the game: what if, instead of shooting model by model, you instead just picked a single model in each unit and measured range and LoS from that one model?

We basically already do this when shooting *at* units, as you can kill an entire unit even though only a single model is exposed, so this would just be abstracting to the same degree when shooting *with* units.

 vipoid wrote:
Another idea for speeding up the game: what if, instead of shooting model by model, you instead just picked a single model in each unit and measured range and LoS from that one model?

We basically already do this when shooting *at* units, as you can kill an entire unit even though only a single model is exposed, so this would just be abstracting to the same degree when shooting *with* units.

No, because if you have one model that can see out then you can shoot at 4 units with your rule, but I can only shoot one unit back at you if you remove that first model, it works in Apoc because you don't remove models immediately.

 vict0988 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Another idea for speeding up the game: what if, instead of shooting model by model, you instead just picked a single model in each unit and measured range and LoS from that one model?

We basically already do this when shooting *at* units, as you can kill an entire unit even though only a single model is exposed, so this would just be abstracting to the same degree when shooting *with* units.

No, because if you have one model that can see out then you can shoot at 4 units with your rule, but I can only shoot one unit back at you if you remove that first model, it works in Apoc because you don't remove models immediately.

Hmm, okay. Fair point.

I played a triple Repulsor Imperial Fists list with a Chapter Master with the Storm of Fire WL trait and a Lieutenant against Iron Hands recently... The amount of rolls required to resolve a shooting phase was insane.

Let's start with the Captain's Rites of Battle ability "Add 1 to Hit rolls for friendly <CHAPTER> models within 6" of any models with this ability if they have the INFANTRY, BIKE or DREADNOUGHT keyword."

Now a change for the Chapter Master Stratagem "Use this Stratagem before the battle if your army does not include a CHAPTER MASTER model. Select one ADEPTUS ASTARTES CAPTAIN model from your army that is not a named character. Replace that model’s CAPTAIN keyword with CHAPTER MASTER and replace its Rites of Battle ability with: ‘Chapter Master: Add 1 to Hit rolls for friendly <CHAPTER> models within 6" of any models with this ability.’"

Lieutenant can spread the Captain buff or double up with their Tactical Precision ability. "Add 1 to hit rolls for Friendly <CHAPTER> models within 6" of a model with this ability and 24" of a model with the Rites of Battle ability if they have the INFANTRY, BIKE or DREADNOUGHT keyword."

Now the Storm of Fire Warlord Trait has to be changed as well so that it can be solved without rolling more dice. "Nominate a <CHAPTER> unit within 6" of your Warlord at the start of each Shooting phase, until the end of the phase you can re-roll hit rolls of 1 for the nominated unit. If the unit has the Troops battlefield role you may instead re-roll all hit rolls for the nominated unit."

In regards to the repulsor specifcially, you could probably argue that some of those guns should just be condensed down into a single profile. Sure, it's modeled as X of one thing and Y of another, but you could probably streamline that by just treating all of its collective small arms as a single profile. Call it a, "small arms array" or something.

Previous suggestion I made: "Stuff like the Repulsor Executioner is also badly designed, who cares if the ironhail heavy stubber is S4 or 5? Make it S5 so you can resolve it along with the gatling cannon and heavy bolters. How about the icarus ironhail gun? Another profile that has to be done seperately because it has an average of 3 hits vs non-FLY units and 5 hits vs FLY units unlike the regular ironhail stubber that does 4 hits vs both. How about making the the icarus stubber shoot 4 shots vs non-FLY and 8 shots vs FLY? The numbers are slightly different (2,67 and 5,33 hits instead of 3 and 5), but you get to resolve the damn weapons at the same time."

Alternatively, Ironhail heavy stubbers could be RF3 AP-0 so it's an up-gunned storm bolter and can be resolved alongside that.

Best-case scenario the Icarus rocket pod gets changed into a heavy bolter that shoots twice when fired at a unit with FLY. Why is this thing 6 pts? I'd still take it every time if it was 10 and if I was playing IF I might pay 20 for it.

I also forgot to mention a fix for IH 6+ FNP which was a significant part of why the game was a pain to resolve. "Add 1 to this model's Sv characteristic against Melee attacks with a Damage characteristic of 1." The Apothecary WL trait should also be changed to heal every unit within 6" at the end of your Movement phase instead of the 6+ FNP.

I also recently had the privilege of giving someone the "it's not a failed hit roll, it just fails to hit" talk with modifiers and re-rolling failed hit rolls, what an absolutely silly rule, why can't GW just Errata all re-roll abilities and fix balance issues as they come up? It's not like the Chapter Master Stratagem was nerfed, its cost was lowered after being one of the few good SM Stratagems and then getting more powerful modern re-roll wording. Why do Necron Destroyers need to re-roll their failed successful hit rolls? It's a waste of time.

I also really tried my best not to bog the game down with the triple Repulsors by declaring similar shooting attacks into the same target and trying to resolve them as fast as possible, so I declared both twin-Icarus Ironhail heavy stubber and regular heavy stubber into the same target, roll to hit for the first one, re-roll hit rolls, remove failed, roll for heavy stubber, re-roll hit rolls, remove failed, roll them all together to wound. Once I went over to Tactical Doctrine I could do my stubber weapons and S4 RF/Assault weapons all together after rolling the hit rolls for the Icarus stubber first. Why does it have to be so hard?

Wyldhunt wrote:
In regards to the repulsor specifcially, you could probably argue that some of those guns should just be condensed down into a single profile. Sure, it's modeled as X of one thing and Y of another, but you could probably streamline that by just treating all of its collective small arms as a single profile. Call it a, "small arms array" or something.

This would probably be the overall best approach to speeding up the game, IMO. The Repulsor Executioner is merely the most ridiculous example but I think this could be applied to a lot of different units. I think every time I've played against an Executioner we've either needed some kind of notebook to write down what it's targeting every phase, or we've simply forgotten by the time we get to weapon number 5. Especially given all the guns that are variations on S4 0AP there's really no need to have every single one fired separately other than GW's dated and demonstrably inelegant insistence that every single weapon needs to be accounted for separately.

TO take this further, look at the number of attack dice a unit of Ork Boyz rolls both in shooting and close combat. I think once you're rolling over a certain number of dice you should just stop adding more dice and make the shooting itself better in some way. Orks actually provide a good model for this because they start at such a low BS. So instead of firing 2 shots per Shoota, plus 3 more for each 'Eavy Shoota plus maybe a kombi-something on the Nob you could base Ork shooting stats on the size of the unit, tracking the models left much like you track wounds left for vehicles and monsters. So a full unit would maybe only roll 20 dice but they'd have a higher strength and maybe AP on those shots, which then reduces down until you get to 10 or less models and then you just follow the normal rules. You could still have the unit fire heavy or kombi-weapons separately If you wanted. You could do the same for units in close combat. Obviously the specifics would need to be tweaked, but I wouldn't even be averse to having this system provide a maximum cap on the damage a unit can do (so having 30 Orks doesn't actually make any difference compared to 20 Orks, but does give you extra bodies to absorb damage before your effectiveness starts to drop off). This way you cap the maximum number of dice you're ever rolling for a unit.

I agree that auras are another thing that probably need to just get removed. Targeted buffs such as the way Necron Overlords work, are fine because a single unit getting a single modifier is not really slowing the game down and getting +1 to a roll is much quicker than re-rolling loads of dice. It's interesting to note that before 8th edition mass re-rolls were almost unheard of and nobody really had a problem with that - if an attack missed it missed and you moved on. Now it seems like if you don't have re-rolls you're not worth using. The other problem with auras is how utterly mindless they are. 6" is a long way on the tabletop and requires no real thought to utilise.

FNP is something I think you may just need to remove for single-wound models, or maybe have a blanket rule that says if a unit takes more than double its remaining wounds from an attack it can't take a FNP save. Having to resolve 3 6+ FNPs for each Death Company marine wounded by a Predator Autocannon is just stupid, for example. While I'm at it, I'd probably just remove all 6+ FNP rolls anyway. They don't really add anything to the game and don't seem to be added to the cost of any models that have them so just get rid of them. Rules like ignoring -1AP are better if you want to represent survivability because they don't add extra dice rolls.

I think that's probably the approach you want to take as much as possible, actually. Any time there's an extra dice roll (including re-roll or extra hits/shots on 6s etc) on top of the normal hit/wound/save/damage sequence I'd ask if it can be adequately represented by a stat modifier somewhere.

Slipspace wrote:

FNP is something I think you may just need to remove for single-wound models, or maybe have a blanket rule that says if a unit takes more than double its remaining wounds from an attack it can't take a FNP save. Having to resolve 3 6+ FNPs for each Death Company marine wounded by a Predator Autocannon is just stupid, for example. While I'm at it, I'd probably just remove all 6+ FNP rolls anyway. They don't really add anything to the game and don't seem to be added to the cost of any models that have them so just get rid of them. Rules like ignoring -1AP are better if you want to represent survivability because they don't add extra dice rolls.

To be honest, I think the real issue is with the abundance of 6+ FNP.

Rolling additional dice to save some wounds is fine. Rolling a lot of extra dice when 5/6 of them are doing bugger-all is just bad design.