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It just makes sense considering that it launches its payload in an arc, like a mortar. This change would also give a specific niche to a weapon that is currently a jack of all trades, master of none, by making it the only man-portable "special weapon" (no longer an official category, I know, but still reflected in unit options) that has indirect fire.

That should come with a (small) points increase… oh wait, GW doesn’t do that anymore.

I think that change is small and fine.

Seems like a good change. Probably not hugely impactful, but it could add up fast if you're fielding a lot of infantry squads. Being able to split fire a bunch indirect frags to clear out those last few gaunts or fire warriors hiding on an objective.

Personally, I feel like they simply should have 1d6+1 attacks or 2d3.

On the other hand, GW should rerwork how "Area" ability works. It makes no sense a apocalyptic weapon like baneblade variants only adds 1 attack when shooting a 5 model unit but a 5 unit bargaunts shooting small areas all add 1 attack.

Maybe we can bring back templates. I still use them in Adeptus Titanicus games.

GLs should have small blast templates and indirect as you lob those bad boys over walls.

Guillérmidas wrote:Personally, I feel like they simply should have 1d6+1 attacks or 2d3.

Would that really make the difference between them being "bad" and "good" though?

On the other hand, GW should rerwork how "Area" ability works. It makes no sense a apocalyptic weapon like baneblade variants only adds 1 attack when shooting a 5 model unit but a 5 unit bargaunts shooting small areas all add 1 attack.

I feel like Blast should have been Blast(X) where X is the number of bonus shots you get per 5 models. So basically what we have now but more flexible so that some weapons can be especially good at scaling up their offense versus hordes.

Lathe Biosas wrote:Maybe we can bring back templates. I still use them in Adeptus Titanicus games.

GLs should have small blast templates and indirect as you lob those bad boys over walls.

Nah. Templates were cute but bad. They led to disagreements, and even setting that aside, they punished players for not wasting time agonizing over hyper-careful model spacing.

We still use templates in Adeptus Titanicus. I don't see the problems (I hear about online) in any if the games that I play.

I'm not very familiar with Titanicus, but aren't you generally only dealing with like, half a dozen models per player in a given game?

The biggest issue with templates was that you had to agonize over model spacing, keeping things as far apart as the rules allowed, or else you were essentially handing your opponent extra hits. A small blast template into a clumped up unit could land something like 7 hits with a bit of luck. Against a spread out unit, it was getting more like 1 or 2. So if you were playing orks or 'nids with dozens or even 100+ models... You can see how that could be tedious.

And that's without getting into the issues of, "Is this template over 7 models or only 4? Hard to say. The perspective from this side of the table is very different from that side, and not being able to roll that scatter die right on top of the template means that we probably moved the template a few centimeters incorrectly anyway."

The biggest issue with templates is game scope.

Templates make sense in a squad scale game with a dozen models. It doesn't make sense in a company scale game with a hundred models.

Then again, half the problems with 40k is that it still is mostly a platoon scale ruleset that has been stretched an absurd amount.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
The biggest issue with templates was that you had to agonize over model spacing, keeping things as far apart as the rules allowed, or else you were essentially handing your opponent extra hits. A small blast template into a clumped up unit could land something like 7 hits with a bit of luck. Against a spread out unit, it was getting more like 1 or 2. So if you were playing orks or 'nids with dozens or even 100+ models... You can see how that could be tedious.

I constantly played Orks into Guard in 5e and this was a nightmare. I spent at least an extra 30 minutes every game just spacing apart my models and couldn't play otherwise. A single Chimera could wipe out half a squad in one shot with its Heavy Flamer if they weren't spaced out.