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I think all cover should be dense and you are able to "take cover", declared at the beggining of the movement phase and/or when deployed, which would give you a +1 to save like light cover but also reduce your movement by 2" cause you are actually utilizing the cover now and not just strolling through the woods.

The extra save some models get should be applied when they are in it and get their +2 automatically with no penalty to movement to represent their better training to utilize cover beyond the rif raf.

This is because when you are in the woods, in a building, or in a yard with objects like large boxes you could be a harder target to hit because your silhouette gets distorted or lost but that doesnt mean you are propped up on the wall, squatting behind a tree, or kneeling against a box to try and add that extra layer of protection which would slow your movement down to keep.

A similar mechanic was "Go to Ground", it was a reaction to beng shot at and it prevented moving and crippled shooting for your next turn.

The balance mechanic you need to consider is for shooting, not moving - as it is, any gunline unit will be permenantly taking cover, because -2" to movement means nothing to a guy with a heavy weapon in cover.

But if you think about it, people taking cover is not about cowering behind something its about prop yourself against the cover, technically more stable of a firing position, so that your body is "covered" by the extra defenses whatever you are leaning on is granting. In this sense it would be about moving penalties because if you normal move its a representation of move, aim, fire in the standing position notutilizing cover and being propped up against something for the cover aspect.

If one were to declare take cover then they would take extra time to make sure they were using the cover to their advantage while still doing the move, aim, fire which would slow you down slightly.

So it should be movent penalties and not a to hit penalty because a normal move considers your unit to be able to aim effectively at their ballistic skill.

Just like advancing is all out running to get to where you want ergo the -1 to hit with the weapons that were built for shooting from the hip on the move, assault type. But in that case i think while advancing, rapid fire should still be fired but hit on 6s and heavys are just no. But thats a differrent argument.

FunkAztec wrote:
But if you think about it, people taking cover is not about cowering behind something its about prop yourself against the cover, technically more stable of a firing position, so that your body is "covered" by the extra defenses whatever you are leaning on is granting. In this sense it would be about moving penalties because if you normal move its a representation of move, aim, fire in the standing position notutilizing cover and being propped up against something for the cover aspect.

If one were to declare take cover then they would take extra time to make sure they were using the cover to their advantage while still doing the move, aim, fire which would slow you down slightly.

So it should be movent penalties and not a to hit penalty because a normal move considers your unit to be able to aim effectively at their ballistic skill.

Just like advancing is all out running to get to where you want ergo the -1 to hit with the weapons that were built for shooting from the hip on the move, assault type. But in that case i think while advancing, rapid fire should still be fired but hit on 6s and heavys are just no. But thats a differrent argument.

So, a Space Mariner Devastator squad getting +2 to their armor from cover suffer no penalties (since they have enough range to hit whatever they need to) and can therefore take an AP-2 weapon and STILL save on a 2+...

Whereas an Ork Loota squad needs to close within 24" to get anything even approximating a decent output, and even with +2 to their armor and against an AP 0 weapon still eat three times the damage per wound that the MEQ do.

I honestly feel like cover needs to go back to the way it used to be.

a 5+ save you can use instead of your armour save, and which cannot be reduced by AP.

ruins were a 4+

fortifications were a 3+

Makes them better for low armo armies and less needed for high amrour armies, except when the AP is enough to cause them to fall back on cover.

Space Marines should be able to advance through small arms fire without needing to resort to cover, and should reserve cover for surviving more powerful weaponry.

I'm toying around with a whole new set of terrain and cover rules to test out.

I'm putting back in fixed cover saves but also having cover "negate" a certain amount of AP as an option too. "Soft cover" provides a 5+ cover save OR can let you Ignore AP -1 weapons. Hard cover let's you take a 4+ cover save OR negate AP -1 and AP -2 weapons.

In this hybrid approach, cover really helps lightly armored units but also helps heavier armored units when facing lower AP weapons. Results in less lethality across the board.

some bloke wrote:I honestly feel like cover needs to go back to the way it used to be...
Makes them better for low armo armies and less needed for high amrour armies, except when the AP is enough to cause them to fall back on cover.

Space Marines should be able to advance through small arms fire without needing to resort to cover, and should reserve cover for surviving more powerful weaponry.

I don't know. It wasn't the worst thing in the world, but marines basically ignoring terrain never sat right with me. Sure, astartes can shrug off lots of lasgun shots without needing cover to do it, but it's weird that a marine behind a barricade dies to lasguns just as quickly as a marine out in the open. Plus, terrain seems like it should be a big part of the game. Marines largely ignoring terrain (especially when facing other marines) felt like a failure of the system back in the day.

Plus, the all-or-nothing AP system could be really frustrating in general. It stunk that a weapon with good enough AP to completely ignore power armor was no better than a lasgun at penetrating terminator armor.

Mezmorki wrote:I'm toying around with a whole new set of terrain and cover rules to test out.

I'm putting back in fixed cover saves but also having cover "negate" a certain amount of AP as an option too. "Soft cover" provides a 5+ cover save OR can let you Ignore AP -1 weapons. Hard cover let's you take a 4+ cover save OR negate AP -1 and AP -2 weapons.

In this hybrid approach, cover really helps lightly armored units but also helps heavier armored units when facing lower AP weapons. Results in less lethality across the board.

Sounds interesting. Is there any problem with just saying that cover provides a cover save AND negates a certain level of AP? Making it AND rather than OR just spares you from having to declare which benefit you're using even though the answer would generally be obvious.

Some other stray thoughts:
I kind of expected 9th to lean into having most terrain be dense (-1 to hit) rather than offering armor bonuses. It makes sense to me that pretty much all terrain would make it harder to hit the target but that only the sturdy stuff would provide a bonus to saves. So I'm a little surprised that ruins are able to completely BLOS if you stand on the far side of them, but being in the midst of the ruin doesn't incur a to-hit penalty. Then again, making dense terrain too common would mean that everything in the game would default to being at -1 to-hit, which in 9th edition would then mean there's no downside to jogging with heavy weapons, firing at stealthed targets, etc.

Part of me hopes that 10th edition allows to-hit penalties to stack again and also incorporates actions and/or other rules to let you offset some of those penalties by flanking, using flamers to force enemies out of cover, etc. Seems like that sort of thing would be a great way to add value to units that are cheaper but less killy.

Cover is a difficult one because 40k is so broad in scope.

There's a few ways to model cover, all of which have problems.

- 'invulnerable save'? Well now cover is useless for heavy armour, that's a bit weird.
Also a bit weird that a lasgun doesn't really care about cover but a lascannon really does.

- minus to hit? Now Orks are getting ruined and Custodes barely care.

- Bonus to armour save? Now it's amazing for marines and Orks barely care. That's a bit weird.

- Additional save? 40k already rolls far too many dice during attack resolution as it is.

TBH there's no good way to represent cover in game.
I honestly don't think I dislike any of those ideas less than the alternatives. That is to say, they're all equally bad in different ways.

There's always the option of giving a bonus to armor and an invulnerable save, thus giving benefit to both lightly armored and heavily armored units. That would also respect weight of dice being able to overwhelm saves (i.e., the horde army approach).

I think it’s fine honestly if power armor doesn’t get a huge benefit from cover, it I guess doesn’t make whole logical sense but from a gameplay perspective it’s more interesting to me.

I wouldn't say "invulnerable save" cover is uselss to eavy armour - far from it, actually.

A T8 3+ save tank behind cover is hit by a AP-5 weapon, and can take their save (now gone) or a 4++ invulnerable granted by the cover.
A T5 6+ save ork in the same cover, always takes the 4++ because it's better than their saves.
A T4 3+ space marine takes the cover when confronted with AP-2 or better weaponry, but doesn't need it for lasgun fire.

The other options you could do for making cover reduce lethality are:

- Light/medium/heavy cover reduces the weapon strength by 1/2/3, making cover relevant for the weapons normally targting any unit, but irrelevant when a magma-cannon shoots gretchin in cover.
- Cover reduces weapon range - you cannot target a unit more than 6" beyond cover. changes the game somewhat (no longer putting units in cover, instead putting them beyond it), but works for making the board feel bigger again.
- Cover is a normal armour save, EG 3+ for ruins. AP has half the effect on cover because it's so thick.
- Cover gives a cumulative -1 to hit for every 9" of range used when targeting something in cover. Blast weapons and flamer type weapons ignore this.
- Destroyable cover. they are all open-topped immobile transports with wounds, toughness and saves. This soaks up an amount of firepower before they are useless for the rest of the game. They need keywords to house vehicles, etc. The game ceases to be 3-dimensional. This one sucks.

The current to-wound chart makes shuffling strength/toughness a very strange affair, but otherwise I do like it in concept.

Well then how about we change cover to represent the cover getting hit before it hits models by implementing a "save" mechanic after the hit roll. Like woods are 5+ ruins and dense are 4+ and fortifications/parapets are 3+ to show cover taking the hit before it goes to the model.

And keep the indirect nerfs but it decreases the covers "save" mechanic by -1 so the woods 6+ save and 5+ for ruins/dense and 4+ for fortifications/parapets.

And in this sence i would have strength effect this save. S4 is -1 S6 is -2 and S8 is -3.

Doing some math against high volume of shots this doesn't change much of the outcome but against low volume shots this would effect more of the game.

On a side not i also think invul saves should be taken before armor saves to show that the force field is protecting you and that your armor still exists.

some bloke wrote:
The other options you could do for making cover reduce lethality are:

- Light/medium/heavy cover reduces the weapon strength by 1/2/3, making cover relevant for the weapons normally targting any unit, but irrelevant when a magma-cannon shoots gretchin in cover.
- Cover reduces weapon range - you cannot target a unit more than 6" beyond cover. changes the game somewhat (no longer putting units in cover, instead putting them beyond it), but works for making the board feel bigger again.
- Cover is a normal armour save, EG 3+ for ruins. AP has half the effect on cover because it's so thick.
- Cover gives a cumulative -1 to hit for every 9" of range used when targeting something in cover. Blast weapons and flamer type weapons ignore this.
- Destroyable cover. they are all open-topped immobile transports with wounds, toughness and saves. This soaks up an amount of firepower before they are useless for the rest of the game. They need keywords to house vehicles, etc. The game ceases to be 3-dimensional. This one sucks.

Some interesting ideas there. I especially like the idea of bringing range in as a factor. If putting a unit in dense cover meant that they were immune/resistant to attacks from the other side of the table, that would certainly make grabbing cover more interesting and compelling. It's also the sort of thing that would be interesting to "turn off" with spotter units, crossfire mechanics, etc.

FunkAztec wrote:Well then how about we change cover to represent the cover getting hit before it hits models by implementing a "save" mechanic after the hit roll. Like woods are 5+ ruins and dense are 4+ and fortifications/parapets are 3+ to show cover taking the hit before it goes to the model.

And keep the indirect nerfs but it decreases the covers "save" mechanic by -1 so the woods 6+ save and 5+ for ruins/dense and 4+ for fortifications/parapets.

And in this sence i would have strength effect this save. S4 is -1 S6 is -2 and S8 is -3.

Doing some math against high volume of shots this doesn't change much of the outcome but against low volume shots this would effect more of the game.

So reintroduce Cover Saves as AoS Ward Saves? I don't hate it, but I worry about slowing the game down. Making that change in a vacuum, the defender would potentially end up rolling saves, cover saves, and feel no pain against each unsaved wound. There would be a little extra slowdown on top of that to pause and verify weapon strengths to determine what your cover save actually is. It also seems like weapon strength shouldn't factor in when we're talking about dense cover like bushes, fog banks, etc.

On a side not i also think invul saves should be taken before armor saves to show that the force field is protecting you and that your armor still exists.

I mean, I see where you're coming from, but that would be a pretty huge balance change that also changes the role of invulnerable saves. All my aspect warriors who recently got 5+ invul saves would suddenly be stopping 33% of all wounds that get through after taking their armor saves. So combined with a stackable cover save, my warp spiders would ignore 2/3rds of all lasgun wounds thanks to armor, ignore 1/3rd of the unsaved wounds via their 5+ invuln save, and then ignore another 1/2 of those if they're standing on ruins.

(1/3) * (2/3) * (1/2) comes out to 1/9ths if I remember my middleschool math correctly. So killing a warp spiders in cover takes 9 lasgun wounds which takes 18 lasgun hits which takes 36 unbuffed lasgun shots (not factoring in their new auto-hit mechanic). Needing about 18 guardsmen in rapid fire range to kill a single warp spider seems a bit much. The number goes up if I decide to buff my warp spiders with Fortune, Conceal, Protect, stratagems, etc.

From a realism point of view I would like invulns and cover saves to be additional saves, not alternative saves.

However, it's too slow resolution. 40k already commonly has you rolling 6+ handfulls of dice in a typical resolution if you count rerolls and such.
That's already plenty long enough (my preference is 2-3!) without adding another 1-2 (plus inevitable rerolls!) for cover and invulns.

(just posted this in the wrong thread, though they are discussing the same thing)

Would it work to have cover do two things?

Light cover: 5++ from shooting
Medium Cover: 4++ from shooting, +1 to armour saves
Heavy Cover: 3++ from shooting, +2 to armour saves

Alternatively I think modifying the strength would work (cover takes the impact out of the hit, not the AP).

Light cover: -1 to strength of weapons shooting through it (min 1)
Medium cover: -2
Heavy Cover: -3


Making cover more effective against small-arms fire for infantry and more effective against anti-tank for vehicles, without too much crossover.

Lasguns through medium cover is S1, so wounds marines on 6's, tanks on 6's, basically everything on 6's.
Bolters is S2, so same
Plasmaguns are S5, so 3's for marines but down to 4's on Orks.
Lascannon is down to S7 through medium cover so wounds on a 3+ on marines instead of a 2+.

Perhaps combining the two would make even more sense:

Light cover: 6++, -1S
Med cover: 5++, -2S
Heavy cover: 4++, -3S

ruins being medium cover, fortifications being heavy, and forests and such being light.

Gives a place for all those crazily high strength weapons out there, so they can shrug off cover.
Also makes flamers ignoring cover a really useful ability instead of being meh beause most flamers have bad AP.
This makes cover work for anyone, and could really help with the lethality of 9th.

Lasguns through medium cover is S1, so wounds marines on 6's, tanks on 6's, basically everything on 6's.
Bolters is S2, so same
Plasmaguns are S5, so 3's for marines but down to 4's on Orks.
Lascannon is down to S7 through medium cover so wounds on a 3+ on marines instead of a 2+.

Perhaps combining the two would make even more sense:

Light cover: 6++, -1S
Med cover: 5++, -2S
Heavy cover: 4++, -3S

Feels pretty extreme to only let lasguns wound my eldar in ruins on a 6+. Also feels weird to have bolters and lasguns wounding marines in ruins on the same number. Feels a little weird for uncharged plasmaguns to only wound marines in ruins on a 4+ while also giving the marine a 5+ save against the plasma for being in cover.

It's a neat idea, but it might be better suited for the old to-wound chart than the current one.

Here's a passing (probably bad) idea:
What if cover granted better protection from long-ranged attacks? Maybe something like a flat -1 to-wound for attacks firing at more than half the weapon's range? (Because a sniper rifle should probably be less penalized by distance than a boltgun.)

It's a little abstract and gamey, but it means that your units would become more lethal as they close the distance. So units sitting back in relative safety are less killy than units that get close, but the units that get close are (obviously) putting themselves at risk of getting counter-attacked.

Could even do something like some_bloke's suggestion but have the strength penalty get turned off within a certain range. Lasguns hurting eldar on 6+ isn't as punishing when you can counter it by simply moving closer.

The biggest problem I see with tying defensive benefits to range is that some weapons in 40k really shouldn't be encouraged to get closer. A basilisk should, if anything, be less effective at nearby targets; we don't want to incentivize them to drive towards the enemy to ignore some cover benefits.

I would like to revive this thread for a few reasons.

First, I think what the OP was originally talking about was taking cover being more like an action than just a safe zone, like when he said 'prop yourself against the cover, technically more stable of a firing position, so that your body is "covered" by the extra defenses.' As a dedicated bipod machinegunner in most games I like where he's coming from. This makes me think of a HWT or infantry squad entrenching a position, or digging in. This could provide cover but also have the drawback of creating a facing or firing arc for your infantry. The entrenched position can only face one way so if you're flanked you're a sitting duck.

I also want to say that I hate the terrain rules in 8th & 9th, especially 8th where it was practically an afterthought and not even in the core rules. Cover improving your armor save means the actual armor your model wears is enhanced by the object you are taking cover behind. This makes no sense and is backwards logic.
The traditional cover system makes more sense, where you would take the Cover Save over your Armor Save if the cover is sturdier than your armor.
Cover weakening the Strength of the attack makes the most sense IMO, as the covering object might deflect a projectile or diffuse a beam. However I'm afraid there isn't enough strength to work with for cover to subtract 1, 2, and 3 points of Strength.

And as for cover providing -1 to-hit, it's Going to Ground that should do that since you're actively trying to dodge bullets or shrapnel. Since GTG triggers when you're declared a target I think it would work alright... Maybe let it provide -1 to-hit as well as soft cover.

Lastly I'd like to mention that my friends and I play with destructible terrain. You can either target it directly, it has no toughness just the cover save, OR when shooting a unit in cover, all missed shots (except 1's) hit the cover instead. Don't take cover behind explosive barrels!

pick up a copy of the Middle Earth battle game rule book, take the section on "in the way rolls", and use that

for those who don't know, basically roll to hit as if the target was in the open, then for everything between the firing unit and the target you have a test to see if that got in your way. basic stuff gets in the way on a 5+, stuff like other units and more robust stuff a 4+ and fortifications a 3+

if the thing gets in the way, it gets hit - so a unit or building etc eats the shot, stuff like trees etc its basically a miss

do that for everything in the way - so shooting through say a ruin is a 4+ to go through the wall near you, and a further 4+ to go through the furthest wall.

works surprisingly well for showing stuff thats actually in the way, and since you roll to hit first and misses just miss you cannot use it to 'accidentally' hit stuff

also brings a bit of a risk to firing through or past your own models, but say small arms past a tank you may not care about.

flame thrower type weapons then ignore this

and you do not get the benefit in melee

its worth looking up as the system works quite well and the in the way roll value can easily be varied if needed

leopard wrote:
pick up a copy of the Middle Earth battle game rule book, take the section on "in the way rolls", and use that

for those who don't know, basically roll to hit as if the target was in the open, then for everything between the firing unit and the target you have a test to see if that got in your way. basic stuff gets in the way on a 5+, stuff like other units and more robust stuff a 4+ and fortifications a 3+

if the thing gets in the way, it gets hit - so a unit or building etc eats the shot, stuff like trees etc its basically a miss

do that for everything in the way - so shooting through say a ruin is a 4+ to go through the wall near you, and a further 4+ to go through the furthest wall.

works surprisingly well for showing stuff thats actually in the way, and since you roll to hit first and misses just miss you cannot use it to 'accidentally' hit stuff

also brings a bit of a risk to firing through or past your own models, but say small arms past a tank you may not care about.

flame thrower type weapons then ignore this

and you do not get the benefit in melee

its worth looking up as the system works quite well and the in the way roll value can easily be varied if needed

Sounds neat, but it also sounds like a lot of extra rolling that might make shooting a bit too weak on the average game board. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing the Middle Earth game probably features a lot fewer ranged attacks and a bit less terrain than 40k?

You'd do it as an opposing defence test:

Attacker Roll to hit
Target rolls defence test against each success (on 5+ terrain is in the way)
Pick up unsuccessful defence rolls and make armour saves

It's just getting two armour saves. Which in a game that normally only allows 1, is a pretty good defence.


2nd ed allowed you to use every save you had to defend with, which made characters pretty tough despite only having 3 wounds average - lascannons did 3d6 wounds...

 Hellebore wrote:
You'd do it as an opposing defence test:

Attacker Roll to hit
Target rolls defence test against each success (on 5+ terrain is in the way)
Pick up unsuccessful defence rolls and make armour saves

It's just getting two armour saves. Which in a game that normally only allows 1, is a pretty good defence.


2nd ed allowed you to use every save you had to defend with, which made characters pretty tough despite only having 3 wounds average - lascannons did 3d6 wounds...

Wait, is it a 5+ save for at least one intervening obstacle, or a 5+ save for each intervening obstacle? Because getting two or more 5+ saves on top of your normal save is a very different beast from basically ignoring 1/3rd of the enemy' successful to-wound rolls.

On that note, I wonder how the game would look if we brought back cover saves and let units take all their saves again. On one hand, that's a heck of a defense boost. On the other hand, the game is pretty lethal right now. So maybe it would sort of balance out? Probably not.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

leopard wrote:
pick up a copy of the Middle Earth battle game rule book, take the section on "in the way rolls", and use that

for those who don't know, basically roll to hit as if the target was in the open, then for everything between the firing unit and the target you have a test to see if that got in your way. basic stuff gets in the way on a 5+, stuff like other units and more robust stuff a 4+ and fortifications a 3+

if the thing gets in the way, it gets hit - so a unit or building etc eats the shot, stuff like trees etc its basically a miss

do that for everything in the way - so shooting through say a ruin is a 4+ to go through the wall near you, and a further 4+ to go through the furthest wall.

works surprisingly well for showing stuff thats actually in the way, and since you roll to hit first and misses just miss you cannot use it to 'accidentally' hit stuff

also brings a bit of a risk to firing through or past your own models, but say small arms past a tank you may not care about.

flame thrower type weapons then ignore this

and you do not get the benefit in melee

its worth looking up as the system works quite well and the in the way roll value can easily be varied if needed

Sounds neat, but it also sounds like a lot of extra rolling that might make shooting a bit too weak on the average game board. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing the Middle Earth game probably features a lot fewer ranged attacks and a bit less terrain than 40k?

less shooting, hell of a lot more terrain though.

yes its more dice, not really worse than "of course I can re-roll to hit" though, and in the firing players control to a level with the amount of terrain for "can I be bothered?" however with the limitations of a D6 system it works quite well - it also means that low accuracy shooting is still possible without situations where since some always hit on a six terrain etc makes no difference to them

allows different types of terrain to work nicely too in that such blocks the shot, the targets armour doesn't matter, the shot never gets that far, so high armoured stuff and unarmoured get the same benefit from say shooting through a ruin they are nowhere near

would probably be tiresome if you have 60+ dice, with rerolls, and three bits of terrain though

 Wyldhunt wrote:
.
On that note, I wonder how the game would look if we brought back cover saves and let units take all their saves again. On one hand, that's a heck of a defense boost. On the other hand, the game is pretty lethal right now. So maybe it would sort of balance out? Probably not.

As a guard player, I really miss the cover save acting like an invuln as that's what made guardsmen a pain to shift (and at the same time they didn't really have meaningful offensive output, so it worked out). Then again, I'm of the opinion that the current guard codex is great and the rest of the game is out of wack, so maybe I'm just a bit off my rocker in general

I really like the idea of in the way rolls.

It may slow the game down slightly, but I don't find that rolling and picking up dice is particularly time consuming and frankly as a player of table top and board games I (shockingly) like rolling dice.

It seems to have a significant number of advantages in that it doesn't disproportionately affect model's with low Bs, high saves or rely on any other aspect of a model's profile. I also really like that it can result in you hitting your own units. That was one the aspects of AT-43 that I really enjoyed but I think this does it better.

One of the aspects of current 40k that I dislike is that realistically only infantry benefit from cover unless the unit is entirely obscured. How are large models dealt with using the LOTR in the way rolls?

My take is keep light cover as it is, but change dense cover to being a cover save. Morever give infantry benefiting from light cover the option to go to ground and get dense cover.

I feel like cover should both boost your save and give a minimum it can be reduced to.

EG, used to be cover was a 5+ save and ruins were 4+. Making both of these give +1 to armour saves and also stop them from dropping below their old saves would be a huge boon.

Orks in cover would have a 5+ save, and in ruins a 4+, which could not be lowered - making it meaningful to be in cover. Space Marines would have a 2+ save in ruins that goes as low as 4+, and then stops, making it meaningful for them to go in cover.

Right now, orks in cover is meaningless - 5+ save, and oh, -2AP, so no save.

 some bloke wrote:
I feel like cover should both boost your save and give a minimum it can be reduced to.

It's a little clunky as a solution, but I actually like it. Could be simplified in its presentation such that:

Light Cover: Provides +1 to your armor save OR a 5+ "cover save"
Heavy Cover: Provides +1 to your armor save OR a 4+ "cover save"

 Mezmorki wrote:

 some bloke wrote:
I feel like cover should both boost your save and give a minimum it can be reduced to.

It's a little clunky as a solution, but I actually like it. Could be simplified in its presentation such that:

Light Cover: Provides +1 to your armor save OR a 5+ "cover save"
Heavy Cover: Provides +1 to your armor save OR a 4+ "cover save"

As you say, it's just a bit clunky. I feel like it would make rules that interact with cover (chameoline for instance) extra wordy as well.

There aren't nearly as many to-hit penalties floating around these days. What does the game look like if you just let to-hit modifiers stack again?

I still think just allowing cover provide a second save is a simpler solution.

Anyone that fails their cover save gets their armour save.