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In the game designer forum, 40k charges were brought up as a game mechanic which doesn't have any real risk. Aside from an occasional burst of overwatch, charges are generally a no-brainer - if you're within 12" with a chargey unit, might as well try the charge!

My thought is to give charges a bit more real risk. And to that end, I suggest making them auto-succeed.

The premise:

Move within 9" of an opponent (12" auto-charge is OTT and would only be used for super-fast movement).

Declare a charge, perform overwatch, and then roll your 2D6. (or maybe it should be D6+movement, but then fast stuff always succeeds - though maybe it should?)

If you are a BIKER or can FLY then add 1 to your roll.

If your roll equals or exceeds the distance needed, then you make the charge successfully.

If you roll lower than needed, you still move, but your unit cannot be selected to fight until after all opponents have fought, Only models in base contact can attack, you cannot pile-in, and you receive no "if you charge" benefits.

Thus you can always "make the charge", but might do so in a feeble effort which results in you getting pummeled in the face whilst you're trying to get your footing.

The goal is to make charging less auto-attempt, and add some critical thinking back into a game which seems insistent that anyone can do anything and everything without having to choose!

If you're adding +1 to the roll for Keywords, don't forget CAVALRY.

And I feel like it's a little excessively punitive. I'd make it Fight Last and you don't gain charge bonuses, but otherwise normal.

I would ALSO still let you attempt 12" charges-I'd be fine if this rule only applied to charges made within 9", but sometimes a longshot charge is needed.

Failing a charge isn't its own risk?

My idea would be:

1) Models move the distance rolled even if they fail the charge.
2) Any models that failed a charge count as having advanced for their next turn as they regroup.

The first change is arguably a buff to charging units, but the downside is serious enough that you wouldn't want to roll a charge just because you can.

 LunarSol wrote:
Failing a charge isn't its own risk?

Not really - most players will attempt a 12" charge if there's one going for a close combat unit, just on the off-chance of rolling high enough.

I think the 2d6 risk reward is already enough, and is well balanced enough to work nearly all the time.
If you really need a unit in combat, well you're banking on that 2d6. If you could have a unit in combat just because it's in 12? Evidently you don't need that charge to go off ( and if you do [b]need[b/] that charge, and you need to roll a double 6 to make it, your plan is not a very good one.)

Polarising it one way or the other in terms of autopass/punishment for failing would ultimately break the system as it would promote the edge cases that can bypass these things.
I think charging is fine. Leave it at 2d6- just enough randomness vs reliability after all CP/ special rule things for me.

 some bloke wrote:
In the game designer forum, 40k charges were brought up as a game mechanic which doesn't have any real risk. Aside from an occasional burst of overwatch, charges are generally a no-brainer - if you're within 12" with a chargey unit, might as well try the charge!

My thought is to give charges a bit more real risk. And to that end, I suggest making them auto-succeed.

The premise:

Move within 9" of an opponent (12" auto-charge is OTT and would only be used for super-fast movement).

Declare a charge, perform overwatch, and then roll your 2D6. (or maybe it should be D6+movement, but then fast stuff always succeeds - though maybe it should?)

If you are a BIKER or can FLY then add 1 to your roll.

If your roll equals or exceeds the distance needed, then you make the charge successfully.

If you roll lower than needed, you still move, but your unit cannot be selected to fight until after all opponents have fought, Only models in base contact can attack, you cannot pile-in, and you receive no "if you charge" benefits.

Thus you can always "make the charge", but might do so in a feeble effort which results in you getting pummeled in the face whilst you're trying to get your footing.

The goal is to make charging less auto-attempt, and add some critical thinking back into a game which seems insistent that anyone can do anything and everything without having to choose!

I like this proposal, but not for the intended reasons. I don't really feel that there needs to be more of a downside to attempting charges. I do feel that rolling a 4 when you need a 5" charge is frustrating and will likely result in the unit that failed to charge getting obliterated on the next turn. That's a feelbad moment. You went to all the trouble to get into charge range. You even got close enough to only need to roll a 5. And then bad luck decided to punish you anyway.

Making charges autopass but potentially letting the enemy swing first gets rid of the feelsbad experience of failing a charge but still makes the charge roll matter. Your opponent will get a chance to smack you around a little before you tear into them. Against a unit that's actually good in melee, you might even lose the charging unit, but it's still probably worth it to attempt the charge.

My main concern is that this might be too good in matchups between deepstriking melee armies and shooty armies. Blood Angels or GSC versus Tau seems like it would quickly become an uninteresting matchup if you could guarantee you would make all your charges. Even if you're just shredding screening kroot and drones, I feel like you'd basically auto-win at that point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
If you're adding +1 to the roll for Keywords, don't forget CAVALRY.

And I feel like it's a little excessively punitive. I'd make it Fight Last and you don't gain charge bonuses, but otherwise normal.

I would ALSO still let you attempt 12" charges-I'd be fine if this rule only applied to charges made within 9", but sometimes a longshot charge is needed.

I agree with most of this. I'm not sure I'd let players try 12" charges purely because it creates a dangling either/or situation. Either you use rule set A (auto charge) OR you use rule set B (possible charge failure) depending on how far away you are. But maybe units should use the current failable charge rules when coming out of deepstrike to avoid the bad matchups I mentioned above?

Considering my experiences of Warmachine Mk.3 and Kings of War (both of which allow pre-measuring and have fixed movement) I honestly don't see why "failing a charge" needs to be a thing. I get that reliable charges out of Deep Strike are a problem, but plenty of armies can get 3d6 with rerolls out of Deep Strike, which is close to guaranteed already. Random charge moves feel like morale in 7e; it's a random mechanic that could theoretically punish someone but in the real world there's such a large pile of ways to mitigate or just ignore it that it doesn't really matter.

LunarSol wrote:Failing a charge isn't its own risk?

McMagnus Mindbullets wrote:I think the 2d6 risk reward is already enough, and is well balanced enough to work nearly all the time.

I think there are two separate issues being conflated here, and OP made a mistake in using the word 'risk' to describe the issue.

Yes, there is an inherent risk in that you may fail the charge- but there's still no meaningful choice, since you wind up right where you started. Originally Overwatch provided a deterrent, since attempting unlikely charges meant you ate more shooting, but that mechanic had lots of issues of its own and so was heavily toned down.

OP is suggesting a new mechanic that gives a melee unit a reason to choose not to charge, which would help bring that risk-assessment element back.

Personally- in a game where a deep striking unit can deploy with perfect precision exactly 9.1" away from the enemy and then fire every single gun with a 10" range with full effectiveness, I don't think melee needs to have such a high risk of outright failing to get into combat and penalty for failure on top of that. It's not like there's any penalty for choosing to shoot at the enemy and missing.

In a game where there are melee only units, and the only way to get into melee for those units is to charge, the notion is foolish.

A person may as well propose a rule to add a downside for shooting. That, after all, is pretty much an automatic choice as well with no current downside.

The more I think about this, the more I like it.

First, it offsets some of the weirdness with Deepstriking. By default, a ranged/melee mixed focus unit is more likely to actually be useful than a dedicated melee unit, since they will get to shoot before attempting to charge. If a melee-only unit deep-strikes and fails the charge, they sit there looking doofy only to get wiped out by enemy shooting next turn. It feels bad and is anti-climactic. At least when a charge fails with this rule something actively happens as a response - it's the "fail forward" pillar of RPG design repurposed for wargames, and that's fantastic.

With this rule, even a failed charge will still potentially tie up an enemy unit, should the charging unit be able to survive the fight phase. This, however, is not guaranteed...

See, the downsides to this are still considerable enough to have an effect on gameplay. Being forced to Fight Last is extremely potent - enough so that failing a charge is really, really not something you want to have happen. It means that units Charging from further away or from Deep Strike will want to be more selective about their targets, choosing weaker enemy units that won't be able to punch as hard, while units Charging from closer range will be able to go for bigger targets with more confidence.

What this rule can potentially do is not only provide more-meaningful choice as to whether or not to charge in the first place, but make the consequences of charging more dynamic and make the choice of charge target more consequential, as well. It adds minimal mechanical complexity to the game while potentially adding a tonne more depth, and that tickles the game dev in me.

To help armies with a heavier focus on shooting, you might want to change it up a bit - remove the penalties for failing the charge besides "fights last" and "doesn't count as charging", but allow the target unit to Fire Overwatch for free.