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 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Why does Overwatch need to always be able to hit? having the choice between making a longer, riskier charge to avoid certain weapon, vs taking more damage for better chances to get stuck in is a nice bit of tactical choice that this game is sorely lacking in.

Deep striking asaulters will be charging from 10" away without giving you any opportunity to shoot at them. This is the perfect chance for flamers to do something useful except they don't get to fire overwatch in this circumstance.

So your solution is to pidgin hole them into a particular tactic against a different tactic so that fit the meta and only really useful for certain armies, rather than giving it something so it an stand on it's own and be useful by everyone who has access to it.

A simple fix for flamers is to implement a bit of common sense ... the unit charging doesn’t suddenly spring in from 9 inches into your units face ... they run screaming at you.... (Provided they aren't warp spiders …)
So flamers should always get the opportunity to overwatch, even hand flamers are going to be in range before people are in combat , Personally i also struggle with the " no you cant see me when I declare the charge rule too its daft again you didnt teleport from cover to my face you ran over the open ground to get here."

Melta guns as an actual weapon are fine stats wise but the fact that it’s a 1 shot weapon in a world of –‘1 , 2s and even -3 to hit so unless you normally hit on 2’s they feel unreliable and the plasma gun does that same job from longer range Job and statistically better when overcharged in rapid fire range . To help with this I would maybe like to see the range increased to 14 inches and perhaps shave a couple of points from both the Guardsman and marine prices for the weapons.

Plasma , “The elephant in the room " Its the default choice because this weapon is just “ better than all the others at every role “ Its versatile and scary , Overcharged it typically does 3 damage when you factor in re-rolls within rapid fire to a t7 vehicle where as a melta averages 3 ’ and with the abundance of re-rolls make the downside of overcharging pretty much moot , I would move explodes to on wound rolls of 1 meaning that your gun doesn’t get worse because your shooting at fliers but plasma is a scary weapon and there needs to be risk reward to using it. You may not reroll wound rolls with this weapon for any reason you failed to wound “ fine “ its because the plasma gun chuffed out a dud you rolled a 1 well it leaked all over you . That will makes you think twice before you fill up all your characters with them.

For Grav guns add an extra shot but keep them at strength 5 with re-roll to wound against vehicles, lightning claw style, So they are still wounding most T7 stuff on a 5 but aren't murdering infantry quite so badly.

Allow flamers to be used in combat.

'This weapon always hits. Models equipped with this weapon can trade in all of its attacks and make a single attack using this weapons profile at the beginning of the fight phase if there are enemy models within 1" of this model."

 skchsan wrote:
Allow flamers to be used in combat.

'This weapon always hits. Models equipped with this weapon can trade in all of its attacks and make a single attack using this weapons profile at the beginning of the fight phase if there are enemy models within 1" of this model."

Dm: "the fighter grapples you. What do you do?"
Skchsan: "i light him on fire. "

Anyways, flamer might as well get a range buff since first turn ss is gone.

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Allow flamers to be used in combat.

'This weapon always hits. Models equipped with this weapon can trade in all of its attacks and make a single attack using this weapons profile at the beginning of the fight phase if there are enemy models within 1" of this model."

Dm: "the fighter grapples you. What do you do?"
Skchsan: "i light him on fire. "

Anyways, flamer might as well get a range buff since first turn ss is gone.

I've always imagined the beginning of the fight phase to be just before the moment when two opponents come in contact with each other.

If it suits you better, you can make it so that a flamer attack is made at the end of charge phase against all units that have charged, but that would be a ridiculously long rule to write in each weapon entry in each datasheet.

Another interesting idea is to make a "wall of death" stratagem:

Wall of Death
Wielders of flamer-type weapons can raise a barrier of flame to deter their enemies from encroaching too near. Even the bravest of the warriors will think twice before attempting to cross the fiery barrier.
Use this stratagem when an enemy unit makes a successful charge roll against one of your units equipped with a flamer weapon. You may force your opponent to reroll one or all of the dices used to determine the charge. For the purpose of this stratagem, a flamer weapon is any weapon profile whose name includes the word 'flmaer' (e.g. flamer, heavy flamer, hand flamer, etc.)

 MagicJuggler wrote:
From the 40k Rules Blooper Reel:

Anti-Air Flamethrowers: Flamethrowers in 8th edition no longer use an AoE "teardrop" template, but instead inflict a random number of automatic hits on a unit. For example, a Hellhound's Inferno Cannon inflicts D6 automatic hits. Due to these changes, regular flamers are less important as a crowd control weapon, and more as an anti-hitmod (and anti-aircraft) weapon; this is especially true of weapons that have a multi-damage value like the aforementioned Inferno Cannon. Where it gets silly though is how Flamers interact with "ambush/deepstrike" abilities. See, regular flamers have an effective range of 8 inches, but most "strike from Reserve" powers require you to set up more than 9 inches away. This means that flamers are useless when you appear from Reserves, but it also means they're useless for defending against units Charging from Reserves, since the flamers are out of range and thus unable to actually lay down a Wall of Death like in 6th-7th Edition, or interrupt movement like in 2nd Edition.

I don't get why they ever removed the rule where aircraft that were in flight mode counted as being 12" further away than it is to represent the vertical distance.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Why does Overwatch need to always be able to hit? having the choice between making a longer, riskier charge to avoid certain weapon, vs taking more damage for better chances to get stuck in is a nice bit of tactical choice that this game is sorely lacking in.

Erm… in what reality does it make any sense that a person being further away should make it harder for you to draw your weapon and fire on them? There are other short ranged weapons, such as inferno pistols, that also suffer from the same issue, so it makes no sense IMO to just fix flamers only when it's Overwatch itself that's broken.

As I said before; the issue for close combat units isn't really Overwatch, but Fall Back, which is why I briefly mentioned fixes to that as well having to go hand-in-hand, as fixing Overwatch will only penalise already struggling close combat units even further. There should be no need to risk your charge in the hopes of not being shot, when simply being in combat at all should prevent being shot in later rounds, it's Fall Back that breaks that.

 skchsan wrote:

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Allow flamers to be used in combat.

'This weapon always hits. Models equipped with this weapon can trade in all of its attacks and make a single attack using this weapons profile at the beginning of the fight phase if there are enemy models within 1" of this model."

Dm: "the fighter grapples you. What do you do?"
Skchsan: "i light him on fire. "

Anyways, flamer might as well get a range buff since first turn ss is gone.

I've always imagined the beginning of the fight phase to be just before the moment when two opponents come in contact with each other.

If it suits you better, you can make it so that a flamer attack is made at the end of charge phase against all units that have charged, but that would be a ridiculously long rule to write in each weapon entry in each datasheet.

Another interesting idea is to make a "wall of death" stratagem:

Wall of Death
Wielders of flamer-type weapons can raise a barrier of flame to deter their enemies from encroaching too near. Even the bravest of the warriors will think twice before attempting to cross the fiery barrier.
Use this stratagem when an enemy unit makes a successful charge roll against one of your units equipped with a flamer weapon. You may force your opponent to reroll one or all of the dices used to determine the charge. For the purpose of this stratagem, a flamer weapon is any weapon profile whose name includes the word 'flmaer' (e.g. flamer, heavy flamer, hand flamer, etc.)

So can Pink Horrors use this Stratagem with their Coruscating Flames, while Grey Knights are out of luck with their Incinerators?

I like the ideas of the edited OP. I would be happy with that, although i would suggest the D3 damage roll for melta also apply to strength. So a roll of 2 would give +2 str and +2 dmg.

I would also add grav to the OP. I'm not sure where i'd go with it, but i'm not sure i'd take it with the new changes. S5 bonuses if it is heavily armour saved? I'd still be picking between melta and plasma at that point.

Grav isn't in the OP precisely because I have no idea where to take it. What should it be doing that others don't?

I kinda like the whole deadlier-to-heavier-things but GW removed that rule (wound-on-SV) for streamlining. Adding it back in seems meh to me. It does have the "do more wounds to anything with a 3+", but is that enough to differentiate?

The only thing I can think of is 'Heavy 3 range 24', and make it the "Here's the rifle you use in protracted warfare" (because it kinda looks like a rifle), but that's just a complete redesign, outside the scope of what I"m looking to do, and might be a trash idea.

In theory, it could be the more mobile PG - in that, you use it if you want to shoot 'n scoot. But PG does that well enough as is. With Assault, sure you could advance, but then you're only firing the one weapon, and at a -1. And that's not really an SM thing.

Some "You can't move as much" debuff would be cool, or some other way to express Grav being what it is. But anything I can think of is too clunky (although "Cannot Advance" or "-2 to M" would be really cool).

I don't think anyone knows where Grav really belongs.

Even GW introduced it as super-Plas that did what Plas did but better, with theoretical weaknesses overshadowed by ways to ignore or mitigate them. I think even they have realized they don't have a strong niche for it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:


For the second Flamer rule (Overwatch), after thinking it through, I'm not seeing why this shouldn't be the rule instead:

-Overwatch: While resolving Overwatch, all weapons are treated as being within 2" of their targets.

This would allow Flamers and Inferno/Fusion pistols and other such short-range weapons to not have a breakpoint where the charger benefits from being *further* away. Yes, being further away can be a tactical decision, but it's the kind of crunchy, counter-intuitive, counter-immersive metagaming that we don't want.

I realize this can be a buff to Rapid Fire weapons and Grenades (Melta Bombs not completely worthless?), but minor. It feels very appropriate, and I haven't identified a particularly nasty result of it. Although things like Scytheguard and certain Land Raider configurations are scary to charge, 9" charging them wasn't really an answer.

Grav is the odd one out, isn't it? anti-horde, anti-heavy armour, anti-tank. and then grav. I've given it a bit of thought, and it's a tough one. What about, while keeping it about the same as it is now, it causes a movement penalty, either in normal movement and/or charges? Not sure what to trigger it on, either causing damage or else just hitting, maybe based on armour value. Like a reverse armour save, where if they 'pass' their save they get the movement penalty, and if they fail it they may move normally.

About the overwatch ammendment. Yeah, it does seem logical that since the chargers are charging, they're moving closer and have to get into range at some point. The question is: would the defenders wait till the last second to fire their guns for maximum effect, or would they shoot as soon as the chargers got into range?

How about melta has double strength at half range. Making it strength 16 in short range. This makes it more reliable to woubd tough stuff up close than plasma. And we would also not add another reroll mechanic to the game

I get pissed when my d-scythe wraithguard get charged by a unit 9” away and then they get screwed. It’s such a stupid way around getting overwatched. 225 point unit cannot even overwatch. slowed

 Torga_DW wrote:
Grav is the odd one out, isn't it? anti-horde, anti-heavy armour, anti-tank. and then grav. I've given it a bit of thought, and it's a tough one. What about, while keeping it about the same as it is now, it causes a movement penalty, either in normal movement and/or charges? Not sure what to trigger it on, either causing damage or else just hitting, maybe based on armour value. Like a reverse armour save, where if they 'pass' their save they get the movement penalty, and if they fail it they may move normally.

The problem with a movement penalty is that it's something to keep track of, which I'm not sure any other weapons have (not common ones anyway); if GW wanted to go that route then they would surely have given something like it to webbers in the genestealer cult list, since entangling enemies is pretty much the entire point of those weapons.

When grav first came out I had hoped for more of a build-up type mechanic, where it couldn't outright threaten vehicles, but could with massed or sustained fire, but I'm not sure if that would fit the style now either, as again it'd mean keeping track.

One possible interesting alternative for grav could be to have it roll to wound against a target's armour save, and ignore armour completely; this would be balanced by still being relatively few shots and only damage 1, but could mean several grav weapons together could do significant chip damage to a vehicle, and even if grav's Strength were only 4 you'd be wounding marines on 3's and terminators on 2's, though the latter still gets their 5++. Not sure what the right number of shots would be, maybe Assault 2 S4 at 18" for grav-gun, Heavy 4 S5 at 24" for grav-cannon?

 Torga_DW wrote:
About the overwatch ammendment. Yeah, it does seem logical that since the chargers are charging, they're moving closer and have to get into range at some point. The question is: would the defenders wait till the last second to fire their guns for maximum effect, or would they shoot as soon as the chargers got into range?

In the past the logic of Overwatch has always been that you only hit on 6's because you're firing off quick shots before readying melee weapons, so I think it should be earliest opportunity; no half range bonuses unless the enemy was already in half range when they charged. It also keeps things simple, as it's just weapon max range or enemy charge range, whichever is shorter.

I always took it as spray and pray, keep your finger on the trigger and hope.

There are some weapons where you'd fire the first chance you get, then wouldn't have time to reload before they got to you (Missile Launchers of most varieties), so you'd be firing at further range. However, most weapons - Bolters, Lasguns, etc - don't just fire once, at least in theory. Why would the user shoot when the opponent is 12" away, but then not also shoot at 2" away? You could say there isn't time since they fired at 12" away, but if that were true, there wouldn't be time to fire if charged from 10" away at all.

Only rolling dice once (twice for RF) is an abstraction. Where the charging unit is when it gets hit is also an abstraction (weapons fire have varying travel times, and some shots actually travel slower than some units).

A "charging" unit mid-charge is neither where it started, nor already at the charged unit. In an ideal simulation, Overwatch would be resolved simultaneously with travel. It's done beforehand for crunch reasons.

Because of all that, I think it's more accurate to think of Overwatch as shooting a unit just before they hit in CC instead of before moving, yet easier to apply mechanically before. So a rule to make the firer behave as if it were point-blank wouldn't be inappropriate, IMO.