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I mentioned this in the news and rumours thread, but that thread is moving so quickly I thought I’d post it here.

What’s everyone’s thoughts on the new rule for heavy weapon infantry? Seems a pretty major change that will change the way a lot of units function.

8th edition heavy weapons are -1 to hit if the MODEL moves. 9th edition heavy weapons get -1 to hit if the UNIT moves (only for infantry).

Personally I think that’s a big change. What do you all think?

Seems odd and unnecessary.

It's cleaner and a minor nerf.

I’m thinking it might be an indication of other changes in 9th, with a focus more on units rather than models. If one model in a unit moves, the whole unit counts as moving. Not sure what other implications this could have, but it’s making me think about it.

I think its the design team changing the RAW to match their RAI.
Seems like they were caught out a lot in 8th with what the wrote not actually doing what they ment.

That's definitely a poor change.

Cant see it making much difference although really need the exact rules for the +/- 1 rule otherwise moving heavy weapons will have no difference at -1 targets w

 Elbows wrote:
That's definitely a poor change.

Why do you say that?

It's just lazy. Trying too hard to streamline something that doesn't need streamlining. If a heavy weapon doesn't move...it shouldn't be penalized, full stop. Counterpoint; why do you think it's a good idea?

 Elbows wrote:
It's just lazy. Trying too hard to streamline something that doesn't need streamlining. If a heavy weapon doesn't move...it shouldn't be penalized, full stop. Counterpoint; why do you think it's a good idea?

It helps avoid silly congalines where the heavy weapon guy stands still and everyone else moves forward to grab an objective or something.

I don't really have a horse in the race, I just thought your response seemed pretty harsh.

What's wrong with being harsh? If anything, in this kind of situation, a conga-line is actually a logical thing. It would represent a heavy weapon providing covering fire while someone does sneak out and grab the objective - assuming we ignore the silliness of walking around a table to stand on a token as a "wargame objective".

Note: this is only necessitated because of squad coherency which is a necessary evil. Back in 2nd edition Imperial Guard squads could detach their heavy weapon for precisely this reason; providing covering fire while the squad maneuvers, etc. 40K isn't much of a wargame, but rules changes like this are making it even less so.

I like it, as it’s a limitation on how effective shooting is which I think was out of hand in 8th. I don’t think by itself it’ll have a huge impact though. It used to be the standard that a unit counted as moving or not for firing heavy weapons. I wonder what other old rules might have returned. Models didn’t always have the ability to shoot all their weapons (other than pistols/grenades), and units didn’t get to split their fire in the past. It’s possible something like this or variations on them could be returning too.

 Elbows wrote:
What's wrong with being harsh? If anything, in this kind of situation, a conga-line is actually a logical thing. It would represent a heavy weapon providing covering fire while someone does sneak out and grab the objective - assuming we ignore the silliness of walking around a table to stand on a token as a "wargame objective".

Feels like an overreaction to a rather minor nerf.

Shooting has been incredibly dominant through most of 8th, and this a pretty minor nerf on the face of things.

 Sasori wrote:
Shooting has been incredibly dominant through most of 8th, and this a pretty minor nerf on the face of things.

Exactly.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
What's wrong with being harsh? If anything, in this kind of situation, a conga-line is actually a logical thing. It would represent a heavy weapon providing covering fire while someone does sneak out and grab the objective - assuming we ignore the silliness of walking around a table to stand on a token as a "wargame objective".

Feels like an overreaction to a rather minor nerf.

How is it an overreaction? People asked what we think of it...and I think it's crap and lazy.

I have to admit we played like this all edition I thought they had already changed it from 7th Edition. But then again the -1 was usually not bad enough to make you stand still if you had to reach something important.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
Shooting has been incredibly dominant through most of 8th, and this a pretty minor nerf on the face of things.

Exactly.

So, maybe nerf the real actual problems? (constant flood of re-rolls and cheap and abused stratagems, etc.)

 Elbows wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
Shooting has been incredibly dominant through most of 8th, and this a pretty minor nerf on the face of things.

Exactly.

So, maybe nerf the real actual problems? (constant flood of re-rolls and cheap and abused stratagems, etc.)

Makes me wonder if anything will happen to auras and rerolls.

This rule change is more about it being a buff to vehicles than a minor nerf to infantry. Daemon engines move and shoot (and the disco is happy to buff). The calculus for some flyers changes. Vindicators grinding up at the front of the battle.

 Elbows wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
Shooting has been incredibly dominant through most of 8th, and this a pretty minor nerf on the face of things.

Exactly.

So, maybe nerf the real actual problems? (constant flood of re-rolls and cheap and abused stratagems, etc.)

The full ruleset isn't even out yet, maybe they are addressing those problems.

I've got dozens of heavy weapon marines. This is fine in my book. A vehicle mounted autocannon should have an advantage over a dude slinging one.

Aash wrote:
I mentioned this in the news and rumours thread, but that thread is moving so quickly I thought I’d post it here.

What’s everyone’s thoughts on the new rule for heavy weapon infantry? Seems a pretty major change that will change the way a lot of units function.

8th edition heavy weapons are -1 to hit if the MODEL moves. 9th edition heavy weapons get -1 to hit if the UNIT moves (only for infantry).

Personally I think that’s a big change. What do you all think?

Eh, makes sense. Keeps it short and simple. Is easy for newbies to wrap their head around. Yeah it takes away some of the neat tricks to move the rest of the unit around it but I don't really mind that much.

I liked the change to make it only if that figure moved, but its not a major issue.

It bugs me a little, but I’m not going to loose any sleep over it.

Back in prior editions, if Joe with the flamer got antsy and took a step towards the enemy, Bob with the ML didn’t get to shoot at all. Maybe his bolt pistol. So eating a -1 is not the end of the world.

But back then, Tac squads paid less for their heavies, knowing that they were not going to get as much done as their brothers in the Dev squads. With a flat rate on gear these days, you are going to end up in situations where you pay the same price, but get a lot less use out of it.

I know I probably shouldn’t be worried about how efficient full 10 man tac squads are. Have they ever been a good use of points? But anything that makes one of the most iconic units less likely to hit the table is bad, IMHO. The mechanics should try to incentivate the players into fielding fluffy units. This change does not.

It should make the game a little simpler. Easy binary check. Did any part of the unit move? Whole thing counts as moving. Don’t need to worry about how many guys had to shuffle to get to cover, and how many started there.

I’d say it reduces tactical options, on how to place, move, and shoot your units. But it just shifts them.

And at the end of the day, it’s only a -1. Which depending on how things work out and who you are shooting at, might not mater at all. If they don’t indeed stack, my UM tacs falling out of combat at taking a -1 anyway, so they guy with the HB can just let it rip as well as his brothers with bolters.

But the guy with the flamer needs to calm down, or he’s going to eat a misfired krack missile to the back of the head.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

Aash wrote:
I mentioned this in the news and rumours thread, but that thread is moving so quickly I thought I’d post it here.

What’s everyone’s thoughts on the new rule for heavy weapon infantry? Seems a pretty major change that will change the way a lot of units function.

8th edition heavy weapons are -1 to hit if the MODEL moves. 9th edition heavy weapons get -1 to hit if the UNIT moves (only for infantry).

Personally I think that’s a big change. What do you all think?

Eh, makes sense. Keeps it short and simple. Is easy for newbies to wrap their head around. Yeah it takes away some of the neat tricks to move the rest of the unit around it but I don't really mind that much.

Eh I was a noob in 2nd Ed, it wasn't hard to detach your heavy weapon team to provide covering fire while your Infantry got stuck in. It also allowed you to effectively split your fire. The grunts can hose down the enemy foot soldiers while the HW targets their armour.

Ice_can wrote:
I think its the design team changing the RAW to match their RAI.
Seems like they were caught out a lot in 8th with what the wrote not actually doing what they ment.

Except before they made point in saying how moving is less of a hindrance thus giving ability to move around. Now backtracking on that.

Well not surprising. GW loves to go back and forth. If they always had to go to new never before they would run out of new ways with inevitable new editions resulting in shut down of 40k


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 JNAProductions wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
It's just lazy. Trying too hard to streamline something that doesn't need streamlining. If a heavy weapon doesn't move...it shouldn't be penalized, full stop. Counterpoint; why do you think it's a good idea?

It helps avoid silly congalines where the heavy weapon guy stands still and everyone else moves forward to grab an objective or something.

I don't really have a horse in the race, I just thought your response seemed pretty harsh.

Ah yes let's penalize for actually doing things sensibly. Heavy support guy standing still and giving support while rest move is actually what happens in reality...

I do not hink it is a nerf at all in any shape or form.. I think this is a massive boost to vast majority of units.

A some infantry units that specialise in heavy weaponry (e.g. havocs) already have a rule that ignores their move penalty, ot there are strats to get around this..

You can finally move your vehicle, monsters, bikes etc and not have to worry about penalty. This is great for units that are supoposed to use their mobility as a wow factor. Things like landspeeders, vypers, skimmers. Currently all suffered from not being ale to fully use their manoeuvrability,

Personally from a logic perspective I think walkers and monsters should still suffer the penalty but any platform as big as a tank should not.

I think this is done as a knee jerk over-correction for whatever the terrain restrictions are going to be meaning the terrain change will be near worthless but we certainly dont know enough and its juts a gut feeling on my part. Certainly not loosing sleep over it.

As it is, for my army this is great news. Maybe I'll finally be able to take some scatter lazors on my units I have not used at all since I started playing again.

Do they leave people out in the open because they can't bear to be more than a dozen feet from each other?

tneva82 wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
I think its the design team changing the RAW to match their RAI.
Seems like they were caught out a lot in 8th with what the wrote not actually doing what they ment.

Except before they made point in saying how moving is less of a hindrance thus giving ability to move around. Now backtracking on that.

Well not surprising. GW loves to go back and forth. If they always had to go to new never before they would run out of new ways with inevitable new editions resulting in shut down of 40k...

Sort of? Everything that isn't Infantry is going to get to be a lot more mobile; the Heavy weapon penalty and the fact that all your tanks just got shut out of the game if one grot got close enough to tag them were large contributors to the stationary castle gunlines of 8e, I think some mixed-weapon infantry units will be less mobile but armies in general will be more mobile.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
I think its the design team changing the RAW to match their RAI.
Seems like they were caught out a lot in 8th with what the wrote not actually doing what they ment.

Except before they made point in saying how moving is less of a hindrance thus giving ability to move around. Now backtracking on that.

Well not surprising. GW loves to go back and forth. If they always had to go to new never before they would run out of new ways with inevitable new editions resulting in shut down of 40k...

Sort of? Everything that isn't Infantry is going to get to be a lot more mobile; the Heavy weapon penalty and the fact that all your tanks just got shut out of the game if one grot got close enough to tag them were large contributors to the stationary castle gunlines of 8e, I think some mixed-weapon infantry units will be less mobile but armies in general will be more mobile.

Indeed. Al thats left though is congalining for aruras but its a step in the right direction. It never made sense to me that my grav tank had to sit still or suffer a BS penalty.. Its a damn grav tank.

Light infantry will still be needed in order to form a battalion, score objectives (after all your big toys will be out front and centre engaging. You don't want them "taking an action" to hold an objective if a chaff infantry can do it.
Also you will still want the chaff to absorb smite trains and make characters un-targetable. After all if all of your vehicles can manoeuvre and draw a bead on your warlolrd he really needs to have something to make him un-targetable.

I think he difference is now we are not forced to take like 6 units of troops and can get away with 3 or 1.