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Make artillery artillery again. No more rolling to hit with penalties, find another way to represent indirect fire, if that’s the return of templates and scatter die, awesome, if another system has a better way of doing it cool.

Any roll that’s successful on a 2+ can’t be rerolled/nat 1s cannot be rerolled.i can’t be the only one who thinks it feels like a total gak show when you character or unit survives something like a demon prince in melee because they rolled one or two 1s, and then they spend a CP to reroll, and now your character/unit is wiped out.

Two of my bigggest gripes.

A 2+ with no rerolls is worse than a 3+ with full rerolls.

 JNAProductions wrote:
A 2+ with no rerolls is worse than a 3+ with full rerolls.

If you say so, but that just tells me having rerolls so easily available is stupid, and should be extremely rare. Like faction leader level characters should be the only way to get them, or command rerolls should be minimum 2CP

Why?
By that logic, Torrent is the most OP rule in the game. And I doubt you’d find many people agree with that statement. It’s strong, but not ridiculous or anything.

Edit: +1 to-hit on BS 4+ is the same relative increase as full rerolls on a 3+.

Edit II: If you were advocating for GW to have more restraint with rerolls and offensive buffs, I’d agree.
But that’s a content issue-not a core rule issue.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Why?
By that logic, Torrent is the most OP rule in the game. And I doubt you’d find many people agree with that statement. It’s strong, but not ridiculous or anything.

Edit: +1 to-hit on BS 4+ is the same relative increase as full rerolls on a 3+.

Edit II: If you were advocating for GW to have more restraint with rerolls and offensive buffs, I’d agree.
But that’s a content issue-not a core rule issue.

torrent weapons are typically S3-4 AP0 D1 with d6 attacks so you can roll a 1 for number of attacks. Remind me again what the stats on a blood thirster’s melee weapons looks again.

You’re trying to compare apples and oranges. Things that hit on 2+ are typically multiple attacks, S5 or higher minimum AP-1 and D2 or more.

It’s a massive difference between the typical profile of a torrent weapon and the weapons that hit on a 2+


Edit
I definitely think there’s plenty of room to argue flamestorm cannons and the like are a bit OP.

Would you rather be hit with a weapon that hits on a 6, wounds on a 6, at AP0 D1 with full rerolls on everything?
Or a weapon that cannot reroll at all, but hits on a 2+, wounds on a 2+, at AP-4 Dd6+6?

It’s not the core rules that are an issue. It’s specific Codecs that you can argue have an issue.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Would you rather be hit with a weapon that hits on a 6, wounds on a 6, at AP0 D1 with full rerolls on everything?
Or a weapon that cannot reroll at all, but hits on a 2+, wounds on a 2+, at AP-4 Dd6+6?

It’s not the core rules that are an issue. It’s specific Codecs that you can argue have an issue.

The core rules enable those codexes.

Orks have horrible BS, but get a decent number of shots, and have rerolls available, their shooting is horrendous regardless of rerolls.

If rerolls are going to be easily available, then there needs to be a limit on how low a roll can be to succeed AND get rerolls, or rerolls simply need to be made much more rare.

Also, while not necessarily core rules, the fact that every faction has a leader/HQ that allows a reroll to hit or wound just with different names for the ability, makes it more than an individual codex issue

johnpjones1775 wrote:
Make artillery artillery again. No more rolling to hit with penalties, find another way to represent indirect fire, if that’s the return of templates and scatter die, awesome, if another system has a better way of doing it cool.

I'm open to it, but I don't hate their current approach. Scatter dice/templates had plenty of problems and feel like they'd be a step backwards or a side-grade at best. Do you have any suggestions?

Any roll that’s successful on a 2+ can’t be rerolled/nat 1s cannot be rerolled.i can’t be the only one who thinks it feels like a total gak show when you character or unit survives something like a demon prince in melee because they rolled one or two 1s, and then they spend a CP to reroll, and now your character/unit is wiped out.

Feels like you might have some fresh wounds here. If your opponent had to spend a precious CP to kill a single extra model, you should probably count that as a net positive more often than not. If you're banking on a 1/6th chance of missing to keep your units alive, you're already in a bad situation. Making a sweeping change like banning/limiting rerolls just to reduce a 1/36 miss chance to a 1/6 miss chance on an expensive melee unit feels like the kind of knee-jerk reaction that would cause more problems than it solves.

That said, I'm usually leery of kill-more-better rules and would be okay with 11th edition shifting away from them in favor of mobility rules or kill-more-better rules that are dependent on positioning or some sort of drawback.

Other things I'd like out of 11th:
* If you're more than 5" off the table, treat ruins as though they're not obscuring. Gives units a reason to expose themselves by being stuck on high terrain, and helps with the really limited sightlines there tend to be a lot of in 10th.

* Go back to 9th edition Fly movement. Not sure why they felt the change was necessary in the first place, but it has my banshees functionally moving faster than my shining spears, and that feels weird.

* Not sure if this counts as "core" exactly, but I'd like to call it quits on CP and stratagems. Give us expanded non-CP-dependent detachment rules and/or AoS-esque command abilities.

warhammer will always be a game of luck, and there will always be ways of mitigating bad luck. because of that, and because of the nature of luck, blowouts and feel-bad moments will always exist, regardless of edition. this edition, it might be rerolls, but in another edition, it will be something else. obviously, it's good to try and avoid these, but they're inevitable in a luck-based game, so designing around totally avoiding them won't lead to good places. especially since, in this instance, it feels very much like this was less of a design thesis and more of a vent regarding a particular game or games which went poorly

Detachments and units frequently come.with their own objectives

When you're assigning saves to your models' you can assign them to any nearby model with similar toughness, even from a different unit. This way you can protect your tank busta mobs with regular boy mobs. There's no special look out sir! for characters, everyone has this.

However most units can get some precision shots by passing a Ld check

Crossfire is the primary way to get AP. Very few weapons have AP values at all.

Every army has a special character like Commander Chenkov who has powerful rules but it clearly sucks to be under his command. Craftworld eldar have a character who whips them into such a state that they're almost dark eldar. Marines have a captain who's so puritanical that he justifies all the loyalist vs loyalist games.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
Make artillery artillery again. No more rolling to hit with penalties, find another way to represent indirect fire, if that’s the return of templates and scatter die, awesome, if another system has a better way of doing it cool.

I'm open to it, but I don't hate their current approach. Scatter dice/templates had plenty of problems and feel like they'd be a step backwards or a side-grade at best. Do you have any suggestions?

Any roll that’s successful on a 2+ can’t be rerolled/nat 1s cannot be rerolled.i can’t be the only one who thinks it feels like a total gak show when you character or unit survives something like a demon prince in melee because they rolled one or two 1s, and then they spend a CP to reroll, and now your character/unit is wiped out.

Feels like you might have some fresh wounds here. If your opponent had to spend a precious CP to kill a single extra model, you should probably count that as a net positive more often than not. If you're banking on a 1/6th chance of missing to keep your units alive, you're already in a bad situation. Making a sweeping change like banning/limiting rerolls just to reduce a 1/36 miss chance to a 1/6 miss chance on an expensive melee unit feels like the kind of knee-jerk reaction that would cause more problems than it solves.

That said, I'm usually leery of kill-more-better rules and would be okay with 11th edition shifting away from them in favor of mobility rules or kill-more-better rules that are dependent on positioning or some sort of drawback.

Other things I'd like out of 11th:
* If you're more than 5" off the table, treat ruins as though they're not obscuring. Gives units a reason to expose themselves by being stuck on high terrain, and helps with the really limited sightlines there tend to be a lot of in 10th.

* Go back to 9th edition Fly movement. Not sure why they felt the change was necessary in the first place, but it has my banshees functionally moving faster than my shining spears, and that feels weird.

* Not sure if this counts as "core" exactly, but I'd like to call it quits on CP and stratagems. Give us expanded non-CP-dependent detachment rules and/or AoS-esque command abilities.

1. I think the modern competitive obsession for GW now has largely ruined the game. So yeah for competition/tournament it would be worse, but for casual games against people who aren’t sweaty try hards scatter die and templates are just fine.

2. No, not fresh wounds. gak has been happening since I came back in 8th. Especially since 8th and 9th a lot of characters had auras which were typically reroll auras, so no CP were necessary. I’m not going to go through every HQ option, but I’m sure there’s still plenty of reroll abilities for characters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 pelicaniforce wrote:
Detachments and units frequently come.with their own objectives

When you're assigning saves to your models' you can assign them to any nearby model with similar toughness, even from a different unit. This way you can protect your tank busta mobs with regular boy mobs. There's no special look out sir! for characters, everyone has this.

However most units can get some precision shots by passing a Ld check

Crossfire is the primary way to get AP. Very few weapons have AP values at all.

Every army has a special character like Commander Chenkov who has powerful rules but it clearly sucks to be under his command. Craftworld eldar have a character who whips them into such a state that they're almost dark eldar. Marines have a captain who's so puritanical that he justifies all the loyalist vs loyalist games.

Plenty of weapons still have AP, and honestly AP shouldn’t be super common imho. I think a standard suppression mechanic would be great, and cross fire could be one way of doing that. Suppression should force a leadership test, if failed -1 to hit, and halve movement. If passed just -1 to hit.

My suggestion for template weapons:
Divide them into "Explosive" (e.g. Plasma cannon) and "Barrage" (e.g. Battle cannon).

- A successful hit with an explosive weapon hits up to 4 models in the target unit.
- A successful hit with a barrage weapon hits up to 6 models in the target unit.
- Every model can only be hit once per attack.
- If the initial hit roll is not successful, the weapon may re-roll it once. If a hit is scored now, explosive weapons hit up to 2 models, while barrage hit up to 3 models.
- If needed, introduce more variants and adjust the models hit by +-2 for each step.

johnpjones1775 wrote:

1. I think the modern competitive obsession for GW now has largely ruined the game. So yeah for competition/tournament it would be worse, but for casual games against people who aren’t sweaty try hards scatter die and templates are just fine.

In that case, can you articulate why you feel scatter dice and templates are better than the current approach? Even in friendly environments, the ambiguity of templates + scatter dice could be a little feels bad over time. I.e. it sometimes felt like the more accomodating player was letting himself be screwed over because it wasn't worth quibbling over a few extra hits. In contrast, the current system doesn't have any of that ambiguity while still modeling concepts like being able to fire without line of sight, firing more accurately when you do have line of sight, and getting more hits more reliably when firing into a target rich environment (blast rule into large units). So as I mentioned previously, going back to scatter dice and templates feel like a sidegrade or downgrade to me. I'm open to having my mind changed though.

2. No, not fresh wounds. gak has been happening since I came back in 8th. Especially since 8th and 9th a lot of characters had auras which were typically reroll auras, so no CP were necessary. I’m not going to go through every HQ option, but I’m sure there’s still plenty of reroll abilities for characters.

Okay. If you genuinely believe that rerolls in general need to be more limited, can you articulate why you think that? As JNA was pointing out, mathematically a reroll might not be as good as just a baseline good stat. The example you gave in the opening post wasn't of a large unit with lots of attacks picking up lots of extra hits/wounds; it was of an expensive model with a high chance of hitting to begin with hitting a couple extra times. Which, combined with how you described things, makes it seem like you're more worried about rerolling dice as a "feelsbad" mechanic rather than as a mathematic/gameplay issue. Would you say that's correct? Not trying to put words in your mouth; just trying to pin down what you perceive the actual issue to be.

If you simply want a cap on how often a unit hits, then presumably you'd also want units with WS/BS 2+ or BS3+ with the Heavy rule to also stop being a thing.

 pelicaniforce wrote:
Detachments and units frequently come.with their own objectives

When you're assigning saves to your models' you can assign them to any nearby model with similar toughness, even from a different unit. This way you can protect your tank busta mobs with regular boy mobs. There's no special look out sir! for characters, everyone has this.

However most units can get some precision shots by passing a Ld check

Interesting concept. I imagine the easier way to implement this would be with a Size stat rather than by comparing Toughness. Not sure about letting units ignore the restriction with an Ld check. It makes sense narratively, but mechanically it means units would be ignoring this rule more often than not. If a unit of, say, lascannon devastators fail their Ld check while trying to shoot a squad of Nurglings (lots of wounds; decent tool for the job), what happens? Are they forced to shoot the nearest low-toughness unit instead even if that unit is a really bad target for them? For instance, shooting at W1 Sv5++ daemonettes instead of W4 Sv6++ nurglings? Can they opt to shoot at a different target entirely so long as it's the closest target of a given Toughness/Size stat?

Seems like it strongly favors horde armies and skew lists (no shooting my killy tanks until you've killed my cheap screening tanks), but it could be an interesting direction to explore.

Crossfire is the primary way to get AP. Very few weapons have AP values at all.

I like the idea of a Crossfire mechanic. Making AP extremely rare outside of crossfire seems like a bad call though. A plasma gun shouldn't stop being good at melting through armor just because your friends aren't shooting the enemy from another direction. Meltaguns shouldn't stop melting armor just because you're the only one on the firing range. Plus you'd be opening up a huge can of balance worms with all the weapons whose roles are defined by having a bit more AP than another option with more shots or range or whatever.

I think a standard suppression mechanic would be great, and cross fire could be one way of doing that. Suppression should force a leadership test, if failed -1 to hit, and halve movement. If passed just -1 to hit.

Ehhh. I like the idea of a suppression mechanic, but it would probably look closer to 10th edition morale (turning off the ability to benefit from buffs such as strats) rather what you've described. -1 to-hit impacts various armies very unequally, and halving movement even moreso. A marine won't like the 25% reduction in his number of hits, but he'll still be fine. An ork player will suffer a 50% reduction in hits. The marine player won't like being slowed down, but he has lots of shooting units that will let him continue to function. A khorne or melee ork player's units stand to be kept out of the game for an extra turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

a_typical_hero wrote:
My suggestion for template weapons:
Divide them into "Explosive" (e.g. Plasma cannon) and "Barrage" (e.g. Battle cannon).

- A successful hit with an explosive weapon hits up to 4 models in the target unit.
- A successful hit with a barrage weapon hits up to 6 models in the target unit.
- Every model can only be hit once per attack.
- If the initial hit roll is not successful, the weapon may re-roll it once. If a hit is scored now, explosive weapons hit up to 2 models, while barrage hit up to 3 models.
- If needed, introduce more variants and adjust the models hit by +-2 for each step.

Had to chew this one over. I think the basic concept you're going for (weapon with a higher potential number of hits against squads than units with one or two models) is a decent one. However, it seems like this would run into some weirdness that I don't think you wanted. For instance, setting the number of hits to 4 models for Explosive does some weird stuff. It means you'd only be hitting a rhino once per plasma cannon, but it also means that the plasma cannon is reliably hitting 4 out of 5 guys in a 5-man squad. But then, that plasma cannon goes from hitting 80% of a squad to only 40% of a squad when you point it at a 10-man unit. Which seems like the opposite of what you're going for?

Like, the idea you seem to be going for is that a target rich environment (big squad) will result in more hits from your blast weapons while shooting at a small/single-model squad will result in fewer hits. But instead you're making it so that the weapon just gets a bunch of bonus hits against 4 or 6 man squads, and then doesn't scale up at all against larger squads. If you are going for more hits vs larger squads, then the current blast rules probably model that better. Although you could do Blast(X) where you get a variable number of bonus attacks based on the squad size rather than a flat +1 per 5 like we have now.

Also, I see what you're going for with the reroll, but it might make your proposed rule a little clunky.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Had to chew this one over. I think the basic concept you're going for (weapon with a higher potential number of hits against squads than units with one or two models) is a decent one. However, it seems like this would run into some weirdness that I don't think you wanted. For instance, setting the number of hits to 4 models for Explosive does some weird stuff. It means you'd only be hitting a rhino once per plasma cannon, but it also means that the plasma cannon is reliably hitting 4 out of 5 guys in a 5-man squad. But then, that plasma cannon goes from hitting 80% of a squad to only 40% of a squad when you point it at a 10-man unit. Which seems like the opposite of what you're going for?

Like, the idea you seem to be going for is that a target rich environment (big squad) will result in more hits from your blast weapons while shooting at a small/single-model squad will result in fewer hits. But instead you're making it so that the weapon just gets a bunch of bonus hits against 4 or 6 man squads, and then doesn't scale up at all against larger squads. If you are going for more hits vs larger squads, then the current blast rules probably model that better. Although you could do Blast(X) where you get a variable number of bonus attacks based on the squad size rather than a flat +1 per 5 like we have now.

Also, I see what you're going for with the reroll, but it might make your proposed rule a little clunky.

The mechanic tries to translate the scattering templates into one/two dice rolls. A hit is a hit. You place the template exactly where you wanted to, but the size of the template (and your explosion) is limited and independent from the amount of models in the target unit.
If you miss the first time but hit the second one, it scattered but got reduced by your BS enough to still hit something.
If you miss twice, it scattered too far away.

a_typical_hero wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Had to chew this one over. I think the basic concept you're going for (weapon with a higher potential number of hits against squads than units with one or two models) is a decent one. However, it seems like this would run into some weirdness that I don't think you wanted. For instance, setting the number of hits to 4 models for Explosive does some weird stuff. It means you'd only be hitting a rhino once per plasma cannon, but it also means that the plasma cannon is reliably hitting 4 out of 5 guys in a 5-man squad. But then, that plasma cannon goes from hitting 80% of a squad to only 40% of a squad when you point it at a 10-man unit. Which seems like the opposite of what you're going for?

Like, the idea you seem to be going for is that a target rich environment (big squad) will result in more hits from your blast weapons while shooting at a small/single-model squad will result in fewer hits. But instead you're making it so that the weapon just gets a bunch of bonus hits against 4 or 6 man squads, and then doesn't scale up at all against larger squads. If you are going for more hits vs larger squads, then the current blast rules probably model that better. Although you could do Blast(X) where you get a variable number of bonus attacks based on the squad size rather than a flat +1 per 5 like we have now.

Also, I see what you're going for with the reroll, but it might make your proposed rule a little clunky.

The mechanic tries to translate the scattering templates into one/two dice rolls. A hit is a hit. You place the template exactly where you wanted to, but the size of the template (and your explosion) is limited and independent from the amount of models in the target unit.
If you miss the first time but hit the second one, it scattered but got reduced by your BS enough to still hit something.
If you miss twice, it scattered too far away.

Sounds like you're trying to abstract an abstraction and running into some weirdness as a result. The effect of using scatter dice and templates was that you were more likely to hit at least one model in a larger unit because the footprint was larger and also that you had the potential to hit a bunch of models if they clumped up. (How dare your opponent pile in his ork boys and hormagaunts after charging?) Similarly, vehicles tended to be a bit easier to hit because they had a large contiguous footprint. Smaller squads containing only a few models tended to be harder to hit, especially if you arranged them in a line, because it was easy to scatter away from the line.

If you wanted to try and emulate that, you'd probably do something like what we have now where the maximum and average number of hits is increased for larger squads. Or do what stuff like the Barbed Strangler did in 8th(?) where you improved your BS against sufficiently large squads (higher average; same max). Maybe count vehicle units as containing a number of models equal to their starting Wounds to reflect the bigger footprint.

Your proposal sort of does... not the opposite, but not the same thing. Small squads under your proposal are taking attacks on most or all of their members whenever there's a hit. Meanwhile vehicles only ever take a single hit at a time (but aren't particularly easy to hit in the first place i.e. no nod to their footprint), and large squads are neither easier to hit than small squads nor take more attacks per hit than a small squad.

When designing Blast rules, we have to first identify what the end result we're looking for is. What is the reason for having a blast rule in the first place? What are we trying to represent, and how does it make for a better game than simply giving a weapon extra attacks. Currently, "Blast" is the "anti-horde" rule. It makes weapons more effective against squads containing large numbers of models. Is it the best way to do this? Probably not. But it does work. Getting d6+4 shots instead of just d6 has been enough to make me shoot blast missiles instead of single-shot missiles into hordes, and my necron warriors certainly notice when barbgaunts are getting +4 shots per body into them.

What is it that you want Blast to do?

 Wyldhunt wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:

1. I think the modern competitive obsession for GW now has largely ruined the game. So yeah for competition/tournament it would be worse, but for casual games against people who aren’t sweaty try hards scatter die and templates are just fine.

In that case, can you articulate why you feel scatter dice and templates are better than the current approach? Even in friendly environments, the ambiguity of templates + scatter dice could be a little feels bad over time. I.e. it sometimes felt like the more accomodating player was letting himself be screwed over because it wasn't worth quibbling over a few extra hits. In contrast, the current system doesn't have any of that ambiguity while still modeling concepts like being able to fire without line of sight, firing more accurately when you do have line of sight, and getting more hits more reliably when firing into a target rich environment (blast rule into large units). So as I mentioned previously, going back to scatter dice and templates feel like a sidegrade or downgrade to me. I'm open to having my mind changed though.

2. No, not fresh wounds. gak has been happening since I came back in 8th. Especially since 8th and 9th a lot of characters had auras which were typically reroll auras, so no CP were necessary. I’m not going to go through every HQ option, but I’m sure there’s still plenty of reroll abilities for characters.

Okay. If you genuinely believe that rerolls in general need to be more limited, can you articulate why you think that? As JNA was pointing out, mathematically a reroll might not be as good as just a baseline good stat. The example you gave in the opening post wasn't of a large unit with lots of attacks picking up lots of extra hits/wounds; it was of an expensive model with a high chance of hitting to begin with hitting a couple extra times. Which, combined with how you described things, makes it seem like you're more worried about rerolling dice as a "feelsbad" mechanic rather than as a mathematic/gameplay issue. Would you say that's correct? Not trying to put words in your mouth; just trying to pin down what you perceive the actual issue to be.

If you simply want a cap on how often a unit hits, then presumably you'd also want units with WS/BS 2+ or BS3+ with the Heavy rule to also stop being a thing.

 pelicaniforce wrote:
Detachments and units frequently come.with their own objectives

When you're assigning saves to your models' you can assign them to any nearby model with similar toughness, even from a different unit. This way you can protect your tank busta mobs with regular boy mobs. There's no special look out sir! for characters, everyone has this.

However most units can get some precision shots by passing a Ld check

Interesting concept. I imagine the easier way to implement this would be with a Size stat rather than by comparing Toughness. Not sure about letting units ignore the restriction with an Ld check. It makes sense narratively, but mechanically it means units would be ignoring this rule more often than not. If a unit of, say, lascannon devastators fail their Ld check while trying to shoot a squad of Nurglings (lots of wounds; decent tool for the job), what happens? Are they forced to shoot the nearest low-toughness unit instead even if that unit is a really bad target for them? For instance, shooting at W1 Sv5++ daemonettes instead of W4 Sv6++ nurglings? Can they opt to shoot at a different target entirely so long as it's the closest target of a given Toughness/Size stat?

Seems like it strongly favors horde armies and skew lists (no shooting my killy tanks until you've killed my cheap screening tanks), but it could be an interesting direction to explore.

Crossfire is the primary way to get AP. Very few weapons have AP values at all.

I like the idea of a Crossfire mechanic. Making AP extremely rare outside of crossfire seems like a bad call though. A plasma gun shouldn't stop being good at melting through armor just because your friends aren't shooting the enemy from another direction. Meltaguns shouldn't stop melting armor just because you're the only one on the firing range. Plus you'd be opening up a huge can of balance worms with all the weapons whose roles are defined by having a bit more AP than another option with more shots or range or whatever.

I think a standard suppression mechanic would be great, and cross fire could be one way of doing that. Suppression should force a leadership test, if failed -1 to hit, and halve movement. If passed just -1 to hit.

Ehhh. I like the idea of a suppression mechanic, but it would probably look closer to 10th edition morale (turning off the ability to benefit from buffs such as strats) rather what you've described. -1 to-hit impacts various armies very unequally, and halving movement even moreso. A marine won't like the 25% reduction in his number of hits, but he'll still be fine. An ork player will suffer a 50% reduction in hits. The marine player won't like being slowed down, but he has lots of shooting units that will let him continue to function. A khorne or melee ork player's units stand to be kept out of the game for an extra turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

a_typical_hero wrote:
My suggestion for template weapons:
Divide them into "Explosive" (e.g. Plasma cannon) and "Barrage" (e.g. Battle cannon).

- A successful hit with an explosive weapon hits up to 4 models in the target unit.
- A successful hit with a barrage weapon hits up to 6 models in the target unit.
- Every model can only be hit once per attack.
- If the initial hit roll is not successful, the weapon may re-roll it once. If a hit is scored now, explosive weapons hit up to 2 models, while barrage hit up to 3 models.
- If needed, introduce more variants and adjust the models hit by +-2 for each step.

Had to chew this one over. I think the basic concept you're going for (weapon with a higher potential number of hits against squads than units with one or two models) is a decent one. However, it seems like this would run into some weirdness that I don't think you wanted. For instance, setting the number of hits to 4 models for Explosive does some weird stuff. It means you'd only be hitting a rhino once per plasma cannon, but it also means that the plasma cannon is reliably hitting 4 out of 5 guys in a 5-man squad. But then, that plasma cannon goes from hitting 80% of a squad to only 40% of a squad when you point it at a 10-man unit. Which seems like the opposite of what you're going for?

Like, the idea you seem to be going for is that a target rich environment (big squad) will result in more hits from your blast weapons while shooting at a small/single-model squad will result in fewer hits. But instead you're making it so that the weapon just gets a bunch of bonus hits against 4 or 6 man squads, and then doesn't scale up at all against larger squads. If you are going for more hits vs larger squads, then the current blast rules probably model that better. Although you could do Blast(X) where you get a variable number of bonus attacks based on the squad size rather than a flat +1 per 5 like we have now.

Also, I see what you're going for with the reroll, but it might make your proposed rule a little clunky.

Scatter die and template literally replicate how artillery works.
The way artillery works now is the same as any other weapon, oh but stupid penalties, and abilities to counter those penalties, but wait! A new rule to add to those penalties, but do the counters apply to the new rule? Who fething knows? Because it’s a fething stupid core mechanic!

Scatter and templates don’t lead to feel bad moments any more than rolling a miss or failing to wound or a save.
You know how the die works, you know how the template works, you make or decisions accordingly and hope for the best same as all other rolls.

Blast weapons have the following rules:
-Add one to the Attacks characteristic for every five models in the targeted unit, rounding down
-Cannot be used against any unit that's in Engagement range of a model from your army.
That's not really complicated.

Indirect Fire, meanwhile, has the following rules:
-Can target units outside of Line Of Sight
-Suffers a -1 hit penalty
-Targeted units have the Benefit Of Cover against these attacks
-Natural 1-3 rolls always fail
It's a little more, but not that complicated.

johnpjones1775 wrote:


Scatter die and template literally replicate how artillery works.
The way artillery works now is the same as any other weapon, oh but stupid penalties, and abilities to counter those penalties, but wait! A new rule to add to those penalties, but do the counters apply to the new rule? Who fething knows? Because it’s a fething stupid core mechanic!

You're clearly very in your feels right now, but let's try to translate this into constructive terminology.

The current rules allow artillery to fire at targets outside of line of sight as a way to represent arced projectiles. The penalties I believe you're referring to make such weapons less likely to hit when they can't draw line of sight to a target. This is fluffed as requiring a more difficult, hastily-calculated shot based on available information rather than simply tossing ammunition downrange at a visible target. In terms of game mechanics this creates an incentive for the artillery's controlling player to consider exposing them to return fire rather than keeping them tucked away behind ruins all game.

Can you explain in clear terms what part of that you dislike or want to improve? Maybe you feel like it's unfluffy for mortars and artillery pieces to have more trouble firing high-arced shots than relatively direct shots?

You also seem to be frustrated by a lack of clarity with the current rules. If that's the case, then wouldn't it make more sense to fix that by clarifying the existing rules rather than writing new ones and hoping they happen to be more clearly written?

Scatter and templates don’t lead to feel bad moments any more than rolling a miss or failing to wound or a save.
You know how the die works, you know how the template works, you make or decisions accordingly and hope for the best same as all other rolls.

Respectfully, it sounds like you might not be aware of some of the commonly encountered issues with scatter dice/templates. Because of literal physical perspective, it can be difficult to tell exactly how many models are actually under a blast template. Especially if the players are standing on different sides of the table. Double especially if the template is in the middle of the table making it difficult to learn forward far enough to get a truly top-down view. Player A might think 5 models are under the template while player B might think only 3 are.

Additionally, the way to actually resolve scatter dice is a bit subjective. In that you roll the die as close as possible to the place the blast is being positioned and then try to follow the arrow. But the die will never physically be on the model itself, so unless you're meticulously picking up the rolled scatter die, carefully move it directly over the target location, and then measuring from there, it's extremely easy for two players to think the arrow is pointing a significant number degrees further in one direction than the other.

Now in friendly games, you generally just let it slide when your opponent asserts a result that isn't in your favor. After all, he's probably a good guy just trying to have an honest game. But from your perspective, you're losing one or two extra bodies over and over again, and it can get frustrating after a while. In a competitive setting, obviously people want to be more meticulous about the exact number of models hit, and that means not letting it slide. You have to find ways to resolve the exact angle the template should be moving, then probably physically move around the table to stick your heads in the same spot as you each count the number of models hit to reach consensus.

Basically, the outcome of a scatter die roll is a lot more subjective (or at least harder to pin down the result objectively) than just determining whether someone rolled a 3 or a 4 on a d6. And of course, this is all without getting into the way templates punish people for playing melee armies and hordes or for not wanting to spend a bunch of extra time spacing dozens of models exactly 2" apart to minimize the impact of an incoming pie plate.

It bothers me that the exciting things that could come from a failed 2+ roll have been sanded over by the ability to execute a re-roll whenever you want. Sure, there's a resource cost, but it's so... bland. Oh wow I just barely managed to knock the last wound off that big scary character- oh no never mind he just re-rolled it. Fine.

Artillery's also been weird ever since the organizational structure of your opponent's army made a major impact on its effectiveness. Why does bunching up three squads of 10 Boyz into as tight a blob as you can get make them more resilient to artillery than a single squad of 30 spread out across the terrain? Dunno. Reasons. I don't miss templates but there are other ways to handle this.

OP's not expressing their concerns in the most productive way but there's legitimate frustration there.

To be honest, I think indirect fire is a bit oppressive when it's good (see: Guard players building towards FW carriages), but I'm not sure making it always hit on 4+ is the solution.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
What is it that you want Blast to do?

A single, powerful shot that might injure more than that one dude the shell actually hit.

Giving a Battle cannon a random amount of shots feels wrong from an immersive POV, as multiple hit dice was traditionally reserved for weapons with a higher amount of shots/bullets before GW removed templates.

Adding a roll in front of the actual attack sequence (for how many hits you are allowed to roll) is another thing I'm not fond of.

a_typical_hero wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
What is it that you want Blast to do?

A single, powerful shot that might injure more than that one dude the shell actually hit.

Giving a Battle cannon a random amount of shots feels wrong from an immersive POV, as multiple hit dice was traditionally reserved for weapons with a higher amount of shots/bullets before GW removed templates.

Adding a roll in front of the actual attack sequence (for how many hits you are allowed to roll) is another thing I'm not fond of.

You've never seen a template scatter in such a way that only one model gets hit?

In the current rules, your average battle cannon gets D6+3 shots, and that's before accounting for the Blast rule. So you're looking at a bare minimum of four shots - your average (depending on choice of target) will be closer to 8.

a_typical_hero wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
What is it that you want Blast to do?

A single, powerful shot that might injure more than that one dude the shell actually hit.

Giving a Battle cannon a random amount of shots feels wrong from an immersive POV, as multiple hit dice was traditionally reserved for weapons with a higher amount of shots/bullets before GW removed templates.

Adding a roll in front of the actual attack sequence (for how many hits you are allowed to roll) is another thing I'm not fond of.

I’m with you on this. I’d maybe just do Blast(X), instead of blast and barrage, where X is the max number of hits allocated. This is to give more options when making blast profiles, but that’s just me being nit picky.

- Bring back points upgrades.
- More "fun" missions, not just "hold one, hold two, hold more". Even missions that are a bit one-sided would work if they're thematic.
- Bring back scatter mechanics, not necessarily for blast markers, but would open up possibilities for more fun rules such as when vehicles explode.
- Better LoS rules, not "I can see the tip of your banner, ergo the whole squad can be wiped out".

Overall I just want to actually enjoy playing thematic, more casual games. I'm so sick of "your mission is to hold this objective on this perfectly flat, perfectly symmetrical city consisting of L-shaped ruins".

Here's another vote for point granularity. Is it really that hard to multiply number of models by a point value? Also, running a squad with all bolters (for reasons) should cost less than one totally kitted out with upgrades.

 Valkyrie wrote:


Overall I just want to actually enjoy playing thematic, more casual games. I'm so sick of "your mission is to hold this objective on this perfectly flat, perfectly symmetrical city consisting of L-shaped ruins".

That's a you problem.....
Because outside tourney play nothings requiring you to play that way.

ccs wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:


Overall I just want to actually enjoy playing thematic, more casual games. I'm so sick of "your mission is to hold this objective on this perfectly flat, perfectly symmetrical city consisting of L-shaped ruins".

That's a you problem.....
Because outside tourney play nothings requiring you to play that way.

The mission variety isn't the best.
Uniform terrain isn't mandated, though.

Edit: Also, maybe not a Core Rule thing, but something to address Shadow Of Chaos and similar abilities that rely on having objective markers, in missions without objective markers.
The current ruling of "You don't get anything," is kinda annoying.

I'm sure that was a factor in making Greater Daemons loci for Shadows of Chaos.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
I'm sure that was a factor in making Greater Daemons loci for Shadows of Chaos.

That's fair, but what about the Power Grid detachment for Necrons? (I think that's the one.)

That the boxed set includes 2-4 sheets of pre-punch-cut cardboard, to make terrain out of. And the standard rules were "you must have two other pieces of terrain, other than ruins, on the battlefield", and the cardboard set provided these (as well as 6 basic corner ruins).
So, like a complete game, all with 1-2 starter boxes, or 1 new-leviathan box.

It would only take 4-pages of your model sales pamphlet in the box, that people can can cut out, to make more of. Cut them out, glue them on your own damned carboard... And it would get people into that side of the hobby from day 1 (so sell heaps more paints and miniatures). Some people like the model making, model painting, and diorama side of the hobby, just as much as they actually like playing a silly slow game of "roll-too-many-dice-soldiers". I'm somewhere in the middle of those extremes.

White Dwarf used to include the occasional cardboard inlay, for crying out loud....

And having more than "everything is a ruin", can add more versatility to unit types in tactical play, or strategic list making. Or even mission objectives. It's not a "I want these components for free" wishlisting, it would actually make them take a look at terrain and movement rules, so that they're better. 3 small/medium corner ruins, 3 barricades/walls, maybe a 2d difficult terrain swamp/ crater, and a statue (chuck a mini from the set on top a cardboard diaz), is pretty easy to fit into a even a starter set sized box as die-punched cardboard. Double side print them, so no matter what faction you play in the box, it's relevant. And would make the game better, if the terrain rules were better. And it's really cheap for GW to do.

Sitting in a crater? Sure, have cover. Sitting in a swamp? Maybe -1BS to the enemy, instead. Barricades? Sure, cover, but no charge bonuses or something. Statue? Bonus! Not too far off 10th's rules, but having terrain baked into the core boxes would make for a better game.

World championship stuff going "everything is a ruin", has warped the game significantly, and is a bad ruleset to follow.