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TedNugent wrote:
I should hope they're not modern day Kevlar, because Kevlar can't stop anything more powerful than a pistol round. e.g. it is defeated by the standard issue small arm of every single army and paramilitary group the world over.

Eh good point. I kind of just used it as an example. Not really thinking my example through completely.

Luke_Prowler wrote:
Disregarding the "ORCS IN SPAAAAAAAAAACE" silliness of the setting for a second, Realisim should never be a higher priority over balance and game mechanics. The rules are ABSTRACT, meaning that they're not to be taken at face value. Does it make sense? no, but it doesn't have to so long as it works. And besides, you're asking for realism in a game with, say it with me, ORKS! IN! SPAAAAAAAAACE!

And on your fourth point, if people want to make their army unique, then it should be because they want to, not because of the bonuses.

Hence why I was saying Im not sure how things would balance. However would you honoslty refuse to accept a change to the "Gets Hot" rule if it was perfectly balance AND made sense from a realistic standpoint.

As I said, I cant speak for balance sense I havnt played enough games but I could give my opinion on other things.


I was refering more to the fact that if you play a Cadian player, he is going to feel exactly no different then a Catachan player even though the soldiers are very different soldiers. In the last codex for the IG there were special doctrines that went along with the guys that werent game changers but they did add a little flavoring to the armies that doesnt currently exist right now.

Again if one could make these changes so armies would feel unqiue (Catachan armies would feel different then Cadian who are different from Krieg) and still perfectly balanced would you reject it?



My whole things is just changes I would have liked to seen so they rules make more sense now these changes will improve the game drastically or anything.

^ I agree with my fellow Guardsman on this one. I play Catachans , and it's heresy to even suggest that the fighting styles of philosophies of the Cadians and Catachans are remotely the same. I have the 3rd edition Catachan dex which I love with all my heart. Little things like WS4, and the ability to have some units ambush made the playing style of the Catachans fluffy but effective.

SoliderSnake wrote:
as for multiple pens, that would NOT be difficult to manage. If say a Vendetta pens a rhino with 2 shots, both rolls of the dice on the chart would be at +1. Nothing hard about that. It keeps the appropriate randomness while rewarding the success of multiple penetrating hits.

Oh, I thought you meant over the course of the game! Yeah, that makes a lot more sense.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

TheLionOfTheForest wrote:If you could reboot the 40k RULES, what would you change?

Reboot 2nd edition rules set.

Overwatch! (I hear its coming back, yay!)
HeroHammer, yes, my space marine termie captain just killed half your army
Stacked saves, armor and invuln both get a shot, makes more sense right, before the point of impact do you get to decide which you are gonna use ? so unrealistic
Modifiable armor saves (termies roll a modifiable 3+ on 2 d6 and could also use a storm shield save if the armor failed.... shrug off any lascannon hits lately ?)
DISPLACER FIELDS (3+ invulnerable save that moves you a D6 + Scatter, better hope you scatter out of the blast radius)
The Foot of Gork and Mork
Wargear Cards & Vehical wargear cards (remember the vet. scout srg with vortex grenade trick.... bye bye titan!) ablative armor for vehicals (ignore first vehical penetration)
PSYCHIC PHASES - sometimes an hour long, warp cards, amazing powers, game changing moments
Games took 4-6 hours of epicness... not this speed gaming version of today
2000 pts of troops was not that many troops and not as hard on the wallet.
Vehical cards, rolling location of hit, rolling pen... getting a more interesting result
Modifiable to hit dice, you think gretchen are gonna hit anything in cover ?! no way!
Ork weapons tendency to kill its own crew, becoming an ineffectual piece of terrain. Squig catapault anyone ?
I dont recall combi weapons being a one time use deal either.
Sword weapons parried, power weapons conferred strength, power sowrds str 6, power axe str 7, power fist str 8 with no effect on initiative.

With so many more options available to every army really meant there were a lot of wild cards floating around

That being said... the current edition is at least fun to play, especially compared to the previous one. I look forward to the new rules coming out soon.

2nd edition anyone ?

~Lion~

Almost forgot, rolling crazy dice for vehical pen, 6 + D4 + 2 D6 etc. different for every gun, but really made the lascannon a tankbuster

You know, 2nd ed rules already exist.
They're in the 2nd ed rulebook.

Also, hell no to herohammer. We already have enough problems with mephiston and paladins.

No, I guess I wouldn't reject it if it was balanced and realistic

As an Ork player, I don't have the same problem. If I want to play Evil Sunz, I take a lot of trucks and buggies and other fast things. Bad moon, I take Flash gitz and Meganobs, and load up on special weapons. Snakebites, good old fasion greeentide with some big gunz and grot screen. Blood axe, kommandoes and stormboyz. An army is only as different as a player makes it

Just minor changes. Such as:

Ork toughness to 4. Currently at 3, realy, just as tough as a guardsman.

guard veterans: WS bumped up one. Years of surviving wars and battle and they are no better at hand to hand than the newest scrub to put on a uniform.

Space Marines: Where to start, there is enough absurd stats and options with these guys.

Crons: go back to the old fluff and get rid of some of the newer named characters.

Grey Knights/SOB: I like the older "huner" codexes.

Other races, not so sure, but, those are the changes I would make.

martin74 wrote:Just minor changes. Such as:

Ork toughness to 4. Currently at 3, realy, just as tough as a guardsman.

guard veterans: WS bumped up one. Years of surviving wars and battle and they are no better at hand to hand than the newest scrub to put on a uniform.

Space Marines: Where to start, there is enough absurd stats and options with these guys.

Crons: go back to the old fluff and get rid of some of the newer named characters.

Grey Knights/SOB: I like the older "huner" codexes.

Other races, not so sure, but, those are the changes I would make.

No, ork toughness is at 4

Everything else is fine.

I would also do something to Heavy Bolters to make them more attractive to take as an anti-infantry weapon. I would probably make them Heavy 3 with rending, kind of like a poor man's assault cannon.

Simple:



When a vehicle explodes, models embarked inside at the time suffer a Str 4, AP 2 wound.

Melta would gain "Gets Hot"

You can fire into CC, but missing means you hit your own models.




That's really all I would change.

My contribution:

1- Instant Death meaning additional wounds instead of just offing any non-EW. Change the name to Grievous Injury or something. Kharn the Betrayer and other legendary warriors should not fear generic Sergeant Powerfist more than they fear Vulkan He'Stan or the Avatar of flipping Khaine!

2- Most non-transport Vehicles should be able to fire an additional weapon, but it should be at half-BS if they moved. POTMS should let vehicles do so without the BS halving.

3- Jump infantry, flying Monstrous Creatures no longer check for dangerous terrain when landing or leaving terrain.

4- Meltaguns and plasma guns switch point cost.

5- Extra Armor on vehicles becomes a single re-roll on the damage charge per game.

6- All walkers gain Move Through Cover. Ironclads ignore terrain.

7- All poisoned weapons get a regular S value used when the target's S would allow for a better number to be made in order to wound.

8- Heavy Bolters become Assault2/Heavy4. Heavy weapons can be fired on the move...at BS 1.

azazel the cat wrote:Simple:

When a vehicle explodes, models embarked inside at the time suffer a Str 4, AP 2 wound.
Melta would gain "Gets Hot"
You can fire into CC, but missing means you hit your own models.
That's really all I would change.

I would say less for open topped vehciles, really I think just allowing no saves is best. I think FNP should work...

Gets hot. I like it! Otherwise I would say make meltas only useable on vehciles.

Firing into CC, ehh I dont really like it all swirling melee and all. if at all I would say randomize hits 4+ their models, 1-3 your models. Keeps twinlinked models from being combat snipers.

Exergy wrote:Firing into CC, ehh I dont really like it all swirling melee and all. if at all I would say randomize hits 4+ their models, 1-3 your models. Keeps twinlinked models from being combat snipers.

Actually the 3 player FFA from the BRB has that rule. It's terrible.
I had a situation two weeks ago where a vindicator shot at a unit of recruits and a unit of guardsmen in close combat with a Warboss on a bike and two biker nobz. The vindicator hit 12 recruits (the blast wasn't anywhere near my bikers) and my warboss+nobz took 6 S10 AP2 wounds, while the 30+ imperials around those three orks also took 6 wounds total. Shooting into melee should be balanced around the number of models involved, anything else makes tarpitting too powerful.

There are only a few minor changes that I would make.

1) A 2D6 vehicle damage table- I'm working on one right now that I use with my brother in friendly games but it still needs some work.

2) The AP of a weapon affects cover saves (oh, your scrapped together wall just deflected my railgun shot ? that makes sense)

3) Long/medium/short distance BS modifiers come back- I also use this with my brother in friendly games, it is balanced and makes things much less frustrating. (what's that? my dreadnought with a multi-melta just missed your tank that's less than 3 inches away ? nuhuh)

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

squidhills wrote:I would make tanks suck less.

Right now, we are using the 3rd edition rules for vehicles, with ramming added in. Basically, if it isn't a Lehman Russ or Land Raider, it's not worth the points to field it. I can understand wanting tanks to be less powerful than they would be in real life (they would dominate the game otherwise) but I think GW has gone too far in the other direction. The only tanks that can move 6" and fire more than one gun that isn't pintle mounted are the Russ and the Raider. All those guns on a Predator, and you can't fire more than one if you move 7"?

Seriously?

Let's re-instate the 4th edition vehicle rules (but keep ramming). If it's less than strength 7, and/or isn't ordnance, you can shoot that beyotch, as long as you didn't move 12". Just because GW wants to sell more infantry models doesn't mean that all tanks should suck harder than a Slaaneshi prostitute.

Also, I like re-working the WS to-hit tables to make the different numbers actually mean something. I want WS 4 vs WS 5 to mean more than "I'm hitting on a 4+"...

Not sure if serious...or just hasn't read the rule book.

I AM serious, and I HAVE read the rule book, but upon looking at my post, I realize I may not have been very clear in what I was saying. I know you can move up to 12" and fire ONE weapon (of any strength) on a vehicle, I was referring to the 4th edition rule that said you could move up to 6" and fire one "main weapon" (str > 8 ) and as many "secondary weapons" (str < 7... or was it 6 ) as you wanted, as well as any pintle mounted weapons (which were vehicle upgrades).

Now you can move 6" and fire ONE weapon (any str) and any weapons of Str 4 you have (which are all pintle mounted weapons) which is exactly the way tanks functioned in 3rd edition. Sponsons on a tank now encourage tanks to be played like bunkers, rather than ... well, tanks. Back in 4th edition, tanks moved around the battlefield. Nowadays, if that tank has sponsons, it isn't going to move very far from where its owner places it during set up.

THAT was what I was complaining about. Apart from the Russ and the Land Raider, no other tank can move and fire more than one gun (at least, not a gun worth firing) @ 6" of movement. I find that offensive on a religious level.

The problem with that idea is that the tanks will have to made less fragile. The reason why their firepower is limited is because if they were both resilient and lethal, then they would become ridiculously effective. And we already have a problem with vehicle heavy lists.

1: Less dependance on transports.

2: Less dependance in general to just copy and paste a single unit into all your FOC slots.
Eg: Blood Angels Troops:
5 Assault Marines, Meltagun, Las/Plas Razorback
It's annoying when a single unit just taken en mass is the main way to win, there should be more emphasis placed on using other units as well as these.

3: More flavour to Perils of the Warp, rather than just an automatic would. Something like the Miscast table from WHFB would be good.

4: Go back to the 3 different Vehicle Damage Tables, instead of this nonsense with one and just using modifiers.

5: I would also like to see GW become more stringient with their rules, instead of this current attitude they appear to have "Although we like to say we put effort into our rules, they're far from perfect but we'll let you to fill in the holes"

Valkyrie wrote:2: Less dependance in general to just copy and paste a single unit into all your FOC slots.

An interesting idea, the question is : how ?

I would have fixed the 2nd edition rules instead of coming out with an entirely new ruleset. I would probably keep the FOC because it's interesting, however I would make it so that it would scale with games as opposed to being incredibly inflexible.

I would also have made it so that the psychic rules are like the Warhammer fantasy battle rules instead of watering psychic powers to taking a psychic test.

tl;dr: fixed and balanced 2nd edition rules with a FOC and psychic powers using the WHF magic template=best way to play 40k

Vladsimpaler wrote:I would have fixed the 2nd edition rules instead of coming out with an entirely new ruleset. I would probably keep the FOC because it's interesting, however I would make it so that it would scale with games as opposed to being incredibly inflexible.

I would also have made it so that the psychic rules are like the Warhammer fantasy battle rules instead of watering psychic powers to taking a psychic test.

tl;dr: fixed and balanced 2nd edition rules with a FOC and psychic powers using the WHF magic template=best way to play 40k

Yes! The FOC needs to be modified so it can work better with larger games. Granted, there are the detachment rules, but sadly these are not enough.

I also agree that the psipower rules need to be toned down abit. At the moment, it requires hardly anything to activate them. They need to be riskier, or every army should have countermeasures.

Though maybe not the WHFB magic system. It needs to be something distinct.

Hyd wrote:

Valkyrie wrote:2: Less dependance in general to just copy and paste a single unit into all your FOC slots.

An interesting idea, the question is : how ?

Probably by having better specialised units and worse jack of all trade units. Most of the netlist "All comers" armies I've seen usually have one type of unit pulling double or even triple duty and doing it as well as a more expensive specialised unit.

Luke_Prowler wrote:

Hyd wrote:

Valkyrie wrote:2: Less dependance in general to just copy and paste a single unit into all your FOC slots.

An interesting idea, the question is : how ?

Probably by having better specialised units and worse jack of all trade units. Most of the netlist "All comers" armies I've seen usually have one type of unit pulling double or even triple duty and doing it as well as a more expensive specialised unit.

Like in the necron codex?

Hyd wrote:

Valkyrie wrote:2: Less dependance in general to just copy and paste a single unit into all your FOC slots.

An interesting idea, the question is : how ?

Look at Warmachine. The best lists are the ones that are full of specialization roles.

The best way to do this with 40k would be to make sure that every unit had unique abilities (and not just USRs). That way it would punish players that spammed a single unit, because they would be very situational.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Luke_Prowler wrote:Probably by having better specialised units and worse jack of all trade units. Most of the netlist "All comers" armies I've seen usually have one type of unit pulling double or even triple duty and doing it as well as a more expensive specialised unit.

Like in the necron codex?

I haven't really studied the necron codex, so I don't really know what you're refering too. An example I'd use would be like the leman russ vs a vanquisher LR, or purifiers vs purgation squad.

Didn't expect to actually spark reactions, but so far I fully agree !
My idea is that more synergy would be welcome as well, like Tau markerlights or (IIRC) WFB's Skinks and Kroxigors, to encourage combinations.
(I know little about Warmachine, would Menoth's buffing units be an example ?)

Menoth would be the poster-boys for Warmachine's synergy, however every army needs to utilize internal diversity.

One of the elements that Warmachine incorporates is resource management- each turn you have a finite number of resources, so the way the army behaves must be more dynamic than 40k's static build-your-army-then-watch-it-play mechanic. Another is the negation of abilities. In Warmachine, models are at a distinct disadvantage when they are "knocked down" as they can almost be auto-hit. So, high-powered but inaccurate ranged attacks mesh very well with that combo. But you cannot rely on it because of the prevalence of models that cannot be "knocked down", or grant that same ability to other units. Similarly, ranged weaponry cannot hit units with the "stealth" ability unless they are right up close, thus negating the ranged advantage. However, there are units that can overcome the "Stealth" rule. Some units gain strength from killing units and collecting soul tokens; whereas many units prevent soul tokens from being collected.

Compare this to 40k's system of seeing who can bring the biggest stick for the cheapest price, and then repeating as often as can be afforded during list construction.

Valkyrie wrote:1: Less dependence on transports.

2: Less dependence in general to just copy and paste a single unit into all your FOC slots

+1 to this suggestion.

I’ve been recently thinking a lot about mechanics and the impact of transports and I’ve come to the conclusion that the current 40k ruleset doesn’t really work with large amounts of transports/armour. Reason being is because most squads can only bring a single anti tank weapon and it usually requires some lucky rolling to defeat a tank with said weapon (especially in 5th).

When you bring a list where everything is mechanised (such as razorback spam), unless you’re opponent brings a specialised list, it is going to be a one sided battle. This in turn, shoe horns the meta game into a very small handful of build arch types. The game just wasn’t designed for APC/AV spam otherwise the wargear rules would be completely different.

Personally I’d like to overhaul the current AV system completely as the system is too restrictive (as well as punishes players who don’t pack melta into every unit). Ideally I’d like something similar to the damage box system from warmachine (as well as replacing the F/S/R AV stat with a T stat instead).

I'd toss out igougo, it's tactically limiting and is even with saving throws, it's not terribly interactive. Instead, I'd move to alternating unit activiation.

Then I'd reintroduce overwatch. 40k is a rather silly place to begin with, but it's reculous to me that a unit can charge across open ground toward an enemy or between two buildings in front of an enemy and that enemy won't have a chance to take a shot.

Throwing Grenades.

FOC changed to a percentage instead of slots(ie:50% troops; 30% elites, FA, & HS; 20% HQ)

Shots against units with an intervening unit providing cover have a chance at hitting the interveneing unit.

Monstrous creatures gaining EW and 5++ save due to the shear size of the Monster.

Super heavys and FW allowed in normal games. Think WHFB 2500 points bring what you can fit.

Vehicle explosions more deadly.

Gets Hot! removed.

Wargear back instead of the short menu we get nowadays.

Defensive fire please.

Power weapons getting + to strength to represent the power of the weapon being able to do more damage.

infantry assulting using side armor vs. vehicles to represent vulnerability as well as the strength of vehicles.

1kp = per 100 points killed. So if you killed 900 points you get 9 KP. Reflects the thing about if you kill all their piddly crap but couldn't kill their death star it would show.

Alternating unit activation. Makes the game more tactical and strategic. Try it sometime it turns the game on it's ear.

Abolish cover saves and institute cover modifiers. soft cover = -1, hard cover= -2.

Remove DT from Tanks, and skimmers. makes no sense.

Remove Rapid fire, instead move to model like psy cannon. 2 shots assault stationary, 1 shot moving.

So, fluff talk and tiny rules aside, apart from cleaning up a few obviously stupid rules (like wound allocation - the SMF of 5th ed), I think the game is basically well designed. There are a few things I'd probably change, though:

- everything would cost more in points. Especially for horde armies, the current points cost system is insufficiently high in resolution. For example, a guardsman costs 5 points. How much do you make an ork boy cost? By power level, they're somewhere between 6 and 7 points base, but you can't charge 6.8 points per model, it has to be either 6 or 7. Which it is will make a HUGE difference for a horde army. If they just took existing points costs and multiplied everything by 10, you would have the resolution able to more finely balance things.

- You would roll more dice. Having so much depending on the result of a single D6 makes talking about expected values (and thus making rules based on them) rather silly. Were I to revamp 40k, I would make a LOT more things rely on a 2D6 (or more), so that you would actually have somewhat predictable values. That you can have your plans ruined by just a few 1's on your part, or just a few 6's in a row seems like a bad move for a game that purports to be a strategy game. Likewise, I think there should be a lot more chances to make things be rerollable.

Basically, taking the game and move it more within its standard deviations would allow for more player skill without even needing to change much of the game's fundamentals.

- psychic powers would be fixed. Nuff said.

Having an option that some armies are practically invincible against while others are completely vulnerable to / have virtually no access to makes no sense at all. Either roll psychic powers into shooting (make them normal weapons), or make it its own phase (like in WHFB), or do SOMETHING to fix it.

- mission objectives would be cleaned up. Currently, there is a lame attempt and making certain types of armies more or less risky, that, in the end, just makes them more or less viable. This is especially true at tournaments where they use the missions in the book as a loose template for how they determine who wins their games. The mission set needs to be made much larger and more comprehensive, so that players need to make serious sacrifices to run an army in one way or another. This would also be required to end some of the rock-paper-scissorsness of the game that people so easily complain about.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Vladsimpaler wrote:I would have fixed the 2nd edition rules instead of coming out with an entirely new ruleset. I would probably keep the FOC because it's interesting, however I would make it so that it would scale with games as opposed to being incredibly inflexible.

I would also have made it so that the psychic rules are like the Warhammer fantasy battle rules instead of watering psychic powers to taking a psychic test.

tl;dr: fixed and balanced 2nd edition rules with a FOC and psychic powers using the WHF magic template=best way to play 40k

Yes! The FOC needs to be modified so it can work better with larger games. Granted, there are the detachment rules, but sadly these are not enough.

I also agree that the psipower rules need to be toned down abit. At the moment, it requires hardly anything to activate them. They need to be riskier, or every army should have countermeasures.

Though maybe not the WHFB magic system. It needs to be something distinct.

Fair enough about needing to be distinct, that was something I was thinking as I was actually typing the post yet neglected to actually include.
Granted I don't have any ideas of what we would do to replace it, though all I know is that it should be more like the WHFB system where there are levels of Psykers and where there is more design space.

As it is, the current 40k psionics have really crowded design space and don't have much more room for development. WHFB magic, on the other hand, can have tons of different spells that have tons of different effects and range in power. There is also countermagic, which should be available to every army no matter what.